1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:02,600 The Matrix. I'm Jonathan and I'm left of center. 2 00:00:03,440 --> 00:00:06,560 And I'm rich and I tend to lean a little bit more to the right. 3 00:00:06,640 --> 00:00:08,400 But the bottom line is, is together, 4 00:00:08,400 --> 00:00:11,720 we try to look for the balance of what it means to be human in today's world. 5 00:00:15,240 --> 00:00:17,640 All right. Welcome to living in the matrix. I'm Jonathan. 6 00:00:17,640 --> 00:00:19,480 This is my cohost rich say hello, rich. 7 00:00:20,200 --> 00:00:21,560 Hey everybody. Great to be back. 8 00:00:21,560 --> 00:00:24,240 And I hope everybody's had a great week and looking forward to the weekend. 9 00:00:24,840 --> 00:00:27,760 Yeah, absolutely. I love that we record these on Fridays. Um, 10 00:00:27,760 --> 00:00:30,960 cause we're always going into something positive and I love the weekends. 11 00:00:31,640 --> 00:00:34,480 Uh, today we have a really interesting guest. Uh, 12 00:00:34,480 --> 00:00:39,480 his name is Wayne boat, right? And Wayne has this unique story that, 13 00:00:40,440 --> 00:00:45,160 um, of someone who had sort of a, 14 00:00:45,160 --> 00:00:50,160 a really interesting arc from having a lot of opportunity and then having a 15 00:00:50,760 --> 00:00:54,520 fall from grace and then making his way back through that journey. 16 00:00:54,520 --> 00:00:59,520 And now speaking to people who've entered that life and I'll let him unpack 17 00:01:00,160 --> 00:01:01,760 it, but I'll give you this. Um, 18 00:01:02,600 --> 00:01:07,600 Wayne pled guilty to gross vehicular manslaughter while driving under the 19 00:01:07,920 --> 00:01:08,520 influence, 20 00:01:08,520 --> 00:01:13,520 operating a motor vehicle with a blood alcohol level in excess of 0.08 and one 21 00:01:14,640 --> 00:01:18,280 enhancement for inflicting great bodily injury on another person. 22 00:01:18,280 --> 00:01:20,720 So that's the context. Uh, Wayne, 23 00:01:20,720 --> 00:01:24,720 it is a pleasure to have you cause I know this is going to be an awesome hour. 24 00:01:24,720 --> 00:01:28,720 Thank you. Appreciate it. Jonathan rich. Nice to be with you guys. 25 00:01:29,720 --> 00:01:34,720 Um, yeah, that, that, that was, uh, the official crime. 26 00:01:35,720 --> 00:01:40,720 Um, I, um, I, I do call it a, my fall. 27 00:01:41,720 --> 00:01:45,720 You know, it's interesting to use that term that that is the way I perceive it. 28 00:01:45,720 --> 00:01:46,720 Um, 29 00:01:46,720 --> 00:01:51,720 but I think as I've gone on my journey of introspection and development since 30 00:01:52,720 --> 00:01:53,720 that time, 31 00:01:53,720 --> 00:01:58,720 I like to characterize the orientation I have toward those experiences as, 32 00:02:01,720 --> 00:02:04,720 um, saying life, 33 00:02:05,720 --> 00:02:09,720 life doesn't happen to you. Life happens for you. 34 00:02:09,720 --> 00:02:14,720 There's something that I needed to learn and a terrible unimaginable price was 35 00:02:16,720 --> 00:02:21,720 paid by others involuntarily so I could learn that thing, 36 00:02:23,720 --> 00:02:26,720 but I had to learn it. Um, 37 00:02:26,720 --> 00:02:30,720 I can't predict why I survived and my victim didn't. 38 00:02:31,720 --> 00:02:33,720 Um, I try not to use names, but trust me, 39 00:02:33,720 --> 00:02:38,720 I consider my victims sacrifice and her families, uh, 40 00:02:39,720 --> 00:02:43,720 um, as, as part of that orientation I now have. 41 00:02:44,720 --> 00:02:46,720 Um, I, 42 00:02:46,720 --> 00:02:50,720 I think that's an important differentiation. 43 00:02:50,720 --> 00:02:55,720 Too many people in our modern society seem to have embraced the cloak of 44 00:02:55,720 --> 00:03:00,720 victimhood to justify just about everything that happens in their life. 45 00:03:00,720 --> 00:03:03,720 Um, I, 46 00:03:04,720 --> 00:03:05,720 uh, 47 00:03:05,720 --> 00:03:08,720 I don't consider myself, um, 48 00:03:08,720 --> 00:03:12,720 to be victimized by the criminal justice system. For example, 49 00:03:12,720 --> 00:03:13,720 I, 50 00:03:13,720 --> 00:03:15,720 I consult with a lot of guys who are getting ready to go in. 51 00:03:15,720 --> 00:03:18,720 I was on the phone with a guy last week, um, 52 00:03:18,720 --> 00:03:22,720 committed basically the same crime I did, but he did it in San Francisco. 53 00:03:22,720 --> 00:03:25,720 He's not even going to go to prison. Um, 54 00:03:25,720 --> 00:03:27,720 uh, 55 00:03:27,720 --> 00:03:32,720 I committed my crime on the five freeway in a rural County where I was some 56 00:03:32,720 --> 00:03:37,720 rich San Francisco lawyer traveling through town and so drunk that I was going 57 00:03:37,720 --> 00:03:40,720 the wrong way on a freeway and I had a head on collision. 58 00:03:40,720 --> 00:03:42,720 They threw the book at me. Um, 59 00:03:42,720 --> 00:03:45,720 I was convicted of what's called the midterm, which is seven years, 60 00:03:45,720 --> 00:03:48,720 eight months for my crime. Um, 61 00:03:48,720 --> 00:03:50,720 so I asked them, I said, well, who gets the low term? 62 00:03:50,720 --> 00:03:54,720 And they literally told me that only police officers get the low term. 63 00:03:54,720 --> 00:03:57,720 The best I could hope for was the midterm. And I was, 64 00:03:57,720 --> 00:04:00,720 I gotta be honest, I didn't make a big deal of it. I, 65 00:04:00,720 --> 00:04:02,720 I committed the crime. I deserve to be, 66 00:04:02,720 --> 00:04:07,720 the state had an obligation to enforce the law and, 67 00:04:07,720 --> 00:04:09,720 and I wanted to facilitate that. 68 00:04:09,720 --> 00:04:12,720 I took what's called a plea bargain in the process. 69 00:04:12,720 --> 00:04:15,720 So I wasn't going to waste the court's time of going to trial on all that. 70 00:04:15,720 --> 00:04:16,720 Um, 71 00:04:16,720 --> 00:04:20,720 I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, 72 00:04:20,720 --> 00:04:23,720 I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, 73 00:04:23,720 --> 00:04:28,720 I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, 74 00:04:28,720 --> 00:04:31,720 I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, 75 00:04:31,720 --> 00:04:34,720 I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was a model citizen. 76 00:04:34,720 --> 00:04:36,720 Father of two Sunday school teacher, 77 00:04:36,720 --> 00:04:37,720 gainfully employed. 78 00:04:37,720 --> 00:04:40,720 I still got the midterm for my crime. 79 00:04:40,720 --> 00:04:42,720 Um, 80 00:04:42,720 --> 00:04:45,720 That's part of how the criminal justice system works every, 81 00:04:45,720 --> 00:04:47,720 every county gets to set its own standards. 82 00:04:47,720 --> 00:04:50,560 I think we've seen a lot of that as we've seen the protests, 83 00:04:50,560 --> 00:04:52,880 whether it's BLM or what's going on in these college 84 00:04:52,880 --> 00:04:55,400 campuses these days. 85 00:04:55,400 --> 00:04:59,840 It's very idiosyncratic on how different places enforce 86 00:04:59,840 --> 00:05:01,200 the law. 87 00:05:01,200 --> 00:05:04,280 Wayne, Gorvodal once bemoaned the fact 88 00:05:04,280 --> 00:05:09,680 that 90% of these criminal cases, there are plea bargains. 89 00:05:09,680 --> 00:05:10,760 Is he incorrect in that? 90 00:05:10,760 --> 00:05:11,720 What percentage? 91 00:05:11,720 --> 00:05:13,920 Your lawyer, what percentage of these types of cases 92 00:05:13,920 --> 00:05:17,040 are plea bargains versus full litigation? 93 00:05:17,040 --> 00:05:18,000 Yes, he's incorrect. 94 00:05:18,000 --> 00:05:23,080 The percentage is actually higher, closer to 97% to 98%. 95 00:05:23,080 --> 00:05:25,160 All cases are settled in plea bargain. 96 00:05:25,160 --> 00:05:27,880 It's not like on TV. 97 00:05:27,880 --> 00:05:32,240 In fact, when you talk about the matrix, 98 00:05:32,240 --> 00:05:34,960 we don't realize how our perceptions of the world 99 00:05:34,960 --> 00:05:40,680 are shaped by the stories we hear and the stories we live. 100 00:05:40,680 --> 00:05:44,080 I think it's somewhere like six or seven of the top TV 101 00:05:44,080 --> 00:05:47,400 shows in America right now are criminal justice 102 00:05:47,400 --> 00:05:50,520 procedural related, whether they're court cases 103 00:05:50,520 --> 00:05:57,600 or who did it or scientifically related. 104 00:05:57,600 --> 00:05:59,440 And so we've been brainwashed into thinking 105 00:05:59,440 --> 00:06:00,960 that they always make good decisions 106 00:06:00,960 --> 00:06:02,120 and everybody goes to court. 107 00:06:02,120 --> 00:06:03,680 That's not what happened. 108 00:06:03,680 --> 00:06:06,520 And it's part of the journey I've been on 109 00:06:06,520 --> 00:06:13,680 is to learn public safety is number one. 110 00:06:13,680 --> 00:06:16,880 And we should do whatever we can as a society 111 00:06:16,880 --> 00:06:23,720 to seek public safety. 112 00:06:23,720 --> 00:06:25,760 The question is, does our current criminal justice 113 00:06:25,760 --> 00:06:26,960 system do that? 114 00:06:26,960 --> 00:06:31,200 And evidenced by the fact that well over 90% of all cases 115 00:06:31,200 --> 00:06:35,240 are decided by plea bargain, it should make you question 116 00:06:35,240 --> 00:06:38,240 whether we're doing that because the facts are never heard. 117 00:06:38,240 --> 00:06:38,840 Correct. 118 00:06:38,840 --> 00:06:42,400 There's never a jury that considers it. 119 00:06:42,400 --> 00:06:45,520 That's a systemic issue that we've got 120 00:06:45,520 --> 00:06:47,360 and one that people don't know because they've 121 00:06:47,360 --> 00:06:49,200 been brainwashed by TV into thinking 122 00:06:49,200 --> 00:06:50,320 that everybody goes to court. 123 00:06:53,680 --> 00:06:55,240 Well, it's like Indiana Jones, right? 124 00:06:55,240 --> 00:06:56,600 He's talking at the beginning of his class 125 00:06:56,600 --> 00:06:58,120 and he goes, X marks the spot, right? 126 00:06:58,120 --> 00:07:01,880 Archaeology is a hell of a lot more than just two minutes 127 00:07:01,880 --> 00:07:03,760 of digging up some golden chalice, right? 128 00:07:03,760 --> 00:07:05,600 It's literally painstaking. 129 00:07:05,600 --> 00:07:08,240 It's a lot of work and hardcore stuff. 130 00:07:08,240 --> 00:07:10,320 So this is the undergirding of life, right? 131 00:07:10,320 --> 00:07:13,160 You look at the success and you look at what you've gone 132 00:07:13,160 --> 00:07:19,080 through and it just takes real depth, real experience. 133 00:07:19,080 --> 00:07:21,640 But Michel Foucault wrote a book called, I think, 134 00:07:21,640 --> 00:07:23,800 Discipline and Punish or Punish and Discipline. 135 00:07:23,800 --> 00:07:25,920 He's a French philosopher and he was talking 136 00:07:25,920 --> 00:07:28,240 about how the type of things that we have today, 137 00:07:28,240 --> 00:07:34,680 the modern day prison and in some cases, the sanitarium, 138 00:07:34,680 --> 00:07:37,880 this is actually much more terrible and dehumanizing 139 00:07:37,880 --> 00:07:41,320 than getting just ripped to pieces by attempting 140 00:07:41,320 --> 00:07:44,080 to kill a king in the ancient, in the Middle Ages, right? 141 00:07:44,080 --> 00:07:47,920 The idea of this systemic, it's dehumanizing, right? 142 00:07:47,920 --> 00:07:50,680 So I mean, that's what people don't realize is 143 00:07:50,680 --> 00:07:55,160 that how insidious it is, right? 144 00:07:55,160 --> 00:07:56,120 Yes. 145 00:07:56,120 --> 00:07:57,160 And I didn't realize it. 146 00:07:57,160 --> 00:07:58,960 I didn't know anybody who had gone to prison 147 00:07:58,960 --> 00:08:00,080 before I committed my crime. 148 00:08:00,080 --> 00:08:04,520 And I would assume virtually everybody in my social or business 149 00:08:04,520 --> 00:08:08,320 circle as well didn't know anybody who had committed 150 00:08:08,320 --> 00:08:10,000 a crime or gone to prison. 151 00:08:10,000 --> 00:08:16,120 I think what people don't realize or don't focus on, 152 00:08:16,120 --> 00:08:22,920 separating you from society is the punishment. 153 00:08:22,920 --> 00:08:28,960 Now, to heap on top of that, the institutionalization process 154 00:08:28,960 --> 00:08:32,880 that currently exists is like kicking somebody 155 00:08:32,880 --> 00:08:34,680 when they're down. 156 00:08:34,680 --> 00:08:38,800 This is not to say we should decriminalize everything 157 00:08:38,800 --> 00:08:39,920 and let everybody go free. 158 00:08:39,920 --> 00:08:41,120 I live in San Francisco. 159 00:08:41,120 --> 00:08:43,920 It's insane in San Francisco now. 160 00:08:43,920 --> 00:08:47,680 Shoplifting, breaking into cars to steal stuff, 161 00:08:47,680 --> 00:08:49,680 it's insane because they don't enforce the laws. 162 00:08:49,680 --> 00:08:51,840 I'm not saying don't enforce the law. 163 00:08:51,840 --> 00:08:53,960 But the punishment is supposed to be 164 00:08:53,960 --> 00:08:57,520 removing you from society when in reality, that's 165 00:08:57,520 --> 00:09:01,320 just the first step of the punishment that you experience. 166 00:09:01,320 --> 00:09:03,480 And our criminal justice system. 167 00:09:03,480 --> 00:09:06,680 And unfortunately, I'm going to get into a little more details 168 00:09:06,680 --> 00:09:07,240 for you guys. 169 00:09:07,240 --> 00:09:10,440 We actually have three separate criminal justice systems. 170 00:09:10,440 --> 00:09:12,760 You have the local jail system. 171 00:09:12,760 --> 00:09:15,000 So that could be a county or city jail. 172 00:09:15,000 --> 00:09:17,560 Then you have a state criminal system. 173 00:09:17,560 --> 00:09:19,920 And then you have a federal criminal system. 174 00:09:19,920 --> 00:09:22,520 They're all independent of each other. 175 00:09:22,520 --> 00:09:24,120 They all operate with different rules, 176 00:09:24,120 --> 00:09:26,520 all have different ways of doing things. 177 00:09:26,520 --> 00:09:29,440 And so it's difficult to try to generalize. 178 00:09:29,440 --> 00:09:32,120 But I think it'd be fair to say that all three 179 00:09:32,120 --> 00:09:37,840 of those systems have a systemic fault in that the punishment is 180 00:09:37,840 --> 00:09:40,520 supposed to be removing you from society. 181 00:09:40,520 --> 00:09:43,760 But the real punishment is what they subject you to inside 182 00:09:43,760 --> 00:09:47,080 or what they allow you to be subjected to when 183 00:09:47,080 --> 00:09:48,080 you're inside. 184 00:09:48,080 --> 00:09:50,160 Prison is kind of like the savanna. 185 00:09:50,160 --> 00:09:52,880 Everybody's either predator or prey. 186 00:09:52,880 --> 00:09:55,560 And you better hope you're not prey 187 00:09:55,560 --> 00:10:00,720 or you're going to have a really painful experience. 188 00:10:00,720 --> 00:10:04,680 And that reality shouldn't be there, but it is. 189 00:10:04,680 --> 00:10:07,320 Did you go to San Quentin? 190 00:10:07,320 --> 00:10:13,800 Yeah, so I was in San Quentin virtually the whole time 191 00:10:13,800 --> 00:10:14,880 I was there. 192 00:10:14,880 --> 00:10:20,160 And it's one of the most famous prisons in the United States. 193 00:10:20,160 --> 00:10:23,480 And with good reason, the death row inmates of California 194 00:10:23,480 --> 00:10:24,760 are held at San Quentin. 195 00:10:24,760 --> 00:10:28,280 Even though we don't execute anybody anymore. 196 00:10:28,280 --> 00:10:34,880 But also the prison is full of a lot of murderers. 197 00:10:34,880 --> 00:10:38,680 But ones that have been inside so long that they had, 198 00:10:38,680 --> 00:10:41,360 there's a point system based on the length 199 00:10:41,360 --> 00:10:45,320 of the type of conviction and the length of your conviction. 200 00:10:45,320 --> 00:10:47,000 So for example, I took a life. 201 00:10:47,000 --> 00:10:48,520 So I was called a hard 19. 202 00:10:48,520 --> 00:10:51,320 So the minimum number of points I could have was 19. 203 00:10:51,320 --> 00:10:53,520 But other guys can be as high as 40. 204 00:10:53,520 --> 00:10:56,960 And if you're 40, you're at a level four prison. 205 00:10:56,960 --> 00:11:00,200 And then as you decrease, you go to a level three. 206 00:11:00,200 --> 00:11:01,440 And then you go to a level two. 207 00:11:01,440 --> 00:11:04,680 So my prison was at a level two, not because of the crime 208 00:11:04,680 --> 00:11:07,240 these guys had committed, but because they had basically 209 00:11:07,240 --> 00:11:09,480 behaved themselves while in prison enough 210 00:11:09,480 --> 00:11:11,080 that their points would go down. 211 00:11:11,080 --> 00:11:12,620 If you commit another crime in prison, 212 00:11:12,620 --> 00:11:14,520 your points go back up, for example. 213 00:11:14,520 --> 00:11:17,800 So that's the way the system worked. 214 00:11:17,800 --> 00:11:21,160 And I heard many more of their stories 215 00:11:21,160 --> 00:11:26,040 than you might think for two reasons. 216 00:11:26,040 --> 00:11:28,600 First of all, San Quentin is kind 217 00:11:28,600 --> 00:11:31,480 of like the Silicon Valley of criminal justice 218 00:11:31,480 --> 00:11:33,800 reform in California. 219 00:11:33,800 --> 00:11:37,080 It has a myriad of different nonprofit groups 220 00:11:37,080 --> 00:11:41,480 and activist community that come in and try 221 00:11:41,480 --> 00:11:46,360 to prepare these guys for coming back to society 222 00:11:46,360 --> 00:11:48,280 to deal with many of the problems and issues 223 00:11:48,280 --> 00:11:49,480 that they've got. 224 00:11:49,480 --> 00:11:54,480 And when I say it, I am confident that San Quentin 225 00:11:54,480 --> 00:11:58,200 has more of these, let's call them self-help groups 226 00:11:58,200 --> 00:12:01,560 or realization groups than the other 30 prisons 227 00:12:01,560 --> 00:12:04,680 in the California system combined. 228 00:12:04,680 --> 00:12:06,920 So many so that Governor Newsom recently 229 00:12:06,920 --> 00:12:12,160 decided to recast San Quentin as a rehabilitation center 230 00:12:12,160 --> 00:12:15,840 rather than just a level two prison. 231 00:12:15,840 --> 00:12:17,320 So they're going to try to spread 232 00:12:17,320 --> 00:12:19,200 a lot of these concepts to other prisons 233 00:12:19,200 --> 00:12:22,080 if they can find a way to scale it. 234 00:12:22,080 --> 00:12:23,600 But yeah, a lot of hardcore guys. 235 00:12:23,600 --> 00:12:25,560 And I got to know them because I participated 236 00:12:25,560 --> 00:12:30,320 in a lot of these groups, Nonviolent Communications, 237 00:12:30,320 --> 00:12:33,640 Victim Offender Dialogue, AA. 238 00:12:33,640 --> 00:12:36,520 I mean, you can imagine, Restorative Justice. 239 00:12:36,520 --> 00:12:39,600 I participated in these groups as a participant. 240 00:12:39,600 --> 00:12:41,840 But even though I never disclosed 241 00:12:41,840 --> 00:12:44,360 I was an attorney when I was in San Quentin, 242 00:12:44,360 --> 00:12:49,160 I just said I was a business guy from the startup community. 243 00:12:49,160 --> 00:12:51,800 My talent was recognized and they asked 244 00:12:51,800 --> 00:12:54,640 me to be the managing editor of the San Quentin News, which 245 00:12:54,640 --> 00:12:58,040 is a prison run newspaper run by the incarcerated 246 00:12:58,040 --> 00:13:00,080 for their community. 247 00:13:00,080 --> 00:13:02,680 It publishes 40 to 60 articles a month 248 00:13:02,680 --> 00:13:07,640 about criminal justice in California and beyond 249 00:13:07,640 --> 00:13:11,160 and what restorative justice principles are possible 250 00:13:11,160 --> 00:13:13,880 and what people are trying to do with their lives in prison. 251 00:13:13,880 --> 00:13:16,840 So as the managing editor, I got to help direct a lot 252 00:13:16,840 --> 00:13:18,520 of the reporting that we did. 253 00:13:18,520 --> 00:13:20,960 So I found out about a lot more of these groups 254 00:13:20,960 --> 00:13:23,960 and about the work that they're doing. 255 00:13:23,960 --> 00:13:30,080 So yeah, I went to San Quentin and I count myself lucky 256 00:13:30,080 --> 00:13:32,000 to have gone to San Quentin. 257 00:13:32,000 --> 00:13:35,000 I didn't go to San Quentin for those reasons, however. 258 00:13:35,000 --> 00:13:39,320 I went to San Quentin because my children were five and seven 259 00:13:39,320 --> 00:13:41,280 when I committed my crime. 260 00:13:41,280 --> 00:13:43,640 And they were six and eight when I turned myself 261 00:13:43,640 --> 00:13:46,960 in to go serve my sentence. 262 00:13:46,960 --> 00:13:51,200 And I wanted to be at the prison that was closest to my children 263 00:13:51,200 --> 00:13:55,440 because their mother and my wife had committed to bringing them 264 00:13:55,440 --> 00:13:56,400 to visit me. 265 00:13:56,400 --> 00:14:01,200 And I knew that was essential for their mental health 266 00:14:01,200 --> 00:14:04,080 to see their dad, to spend time with their dad, 267 00:14:04,080 --> 00:14:05,880 to know their dad was OK. 268 00:14:05,880 --> 00:14:08,320 And all that stuff they hear on TV and everything else 269 00:14:08,320 --> 00:14:10,320 wasn't happening to him. 270 00:14:10,320 --> 00:14:14,800 And even though, so when you characterize what to do, 271 00:14:14,800 --> 00:14:16,840 the fall is what it was for the outsiders. 272 00:14:16,840 --> 00:14:20,480 The way I look at it is I burned down my psychic delusion 273 00:14:20,480 --> 00:14:23,920 house with my crime. 274 00:14:23,920 --> 00:14:25,600 That psychic delusion house was made up 275 00:14:25,600 --> 00:14:28,960 of the cultural standards, the religion, the education, 276 00:14:28,960 --> 00:14:30,400 my personal experience. 277 00:14:30,400 --> 00:14:33,000 All of those things built this psychic delusion 278 00:14:33,000 --> 00:14:35,120 house I was living in. 279 00:14:35,120 --> 00:14:38,040 And I burned it down with two things, basically, 280 00:14:38,040 --> 00:14:44,680 with my crime and then with the mother of my two children 281 00:14:44,680 --> 00:14:46,960 less than six months into my sentence telling me 282 00:14:46,960 --> 00:14:47,800 she wanted a divorce. 283 00:14:50,480 --> 00:14:53,880 That burned down what was left of my psychic delusion 284 00:14:53,880 --> 00:14:59,360 house after realizing I had taken a life with the, 285 00:14:59,360 --> 00:15:03,360 the way I like to characterize it, there's a selfishness. 286 00:15:03,360 --> 00:15:06,640 There's an arrogance that comes with basically any crime. 287 00:15:06,640 --> 00:15:10,160 And that's just as true with alcohol and drunk driving 288 00:15:10,160 --> 00:15:11,200 as anything else. 289 00:15:11,200 --> 00:15:14,440 The way I see it now through my journey 290 00:15:14,440 --> 00:15:16,720 as I've learned about myself through introspection 291 00:15:16,720 --> 00:15:19,480 and these groups that I go to and the service 292 00:15:19,480 --> 00:15:26,400 that I've done since then is that I had developed 293 00:15:26,400 --> 00:15:31,600 a defense mechanism to protect my psyche, let's call it. 294 00:15:31,600 --> 00:15:35,160 And that defense mechanism engendered a sense of pride. 295 00:15:35,160 --> 00:15:37,640 And that sense of pride, when I couldn't 296 00:15:37,640 --> 00:15:43,520 solve all my problems with the way I had taught myself to live, 297 00:15:43,520 --> 00:15:45,120 the coping mechanism I sought out 298 00:15:45,120 --> 00:15:48,280 was alcohol to deal with the pressures I was facing 299 00:15:48,280 --> 00:15:51,800 and the challenges I was facing because I couldn't face them. 300 00:15:51,800 --> 00:15:55,040 But the pride was so strong, I couldn't ask for help. 301 00:15:55,040 --> 00:15:57,240 I couldn't even ask my wife for help. 302 00:15:57,240 --> 00:15:58,760 I could ask the bottle for help. 303 00:15:58,760 --> 00:16:01,400 That was the coping mechanism that I developed. 304 00:16:01,400 --> 00:16:04,240 And I was so proudful that I couldn't ask for help 305 00:16:04,240 --> 00:16:07,880 that I thought I could drive while I was drunk. 306 00:16:09,280 --> 00:16:11,920 There's no rational part of that. 307 00:16:11,920 --> 00:16:13,520 But that's what I told myself. 308 00:16:13,520 --> 00:16:14,520 That was the story. 309 00:16:14,520 --> 00:16:18,880 Those were the givens that I was operating under. 310 00:16:18,880 --> 00:16:21,400 And the result in the loss of a life. 311 00:16:21,400 --> 00:16:25,160 I mean, I took this woman's life with my crime. 312 00:16:25,160 --> 00:16:31,080 Wayne, I want to slow things down at that moment. 313 00:16:31,080 --> 00:16:38,040 Can you give us a walkthrough of the 24 hours 314 00:16:38,040 --> 00:16:42,360 from the first drink to her death? 315 00:16:42,360 --> 00:16:45,080 Even into, maybe sitting in the holding cell. 316 00:16:45,080 --> 00:16:46,200 What was that like? 317 00:16:46,200 --> 00:16:48,240 What was that moment like? 318 00:16:53,520 --> 00:16:55,920 I'm happy to do it because you've asked. 319 00:16:55,920 --> 00:17:01,760 I'm afraid if I do it, it might be perceived as an excuse 320 00:17:01,760 --> 00:17:03,800 or a justification. 321 00:17:03,800 --> 00:17:08,440 So I'm telling you that now in case we need to cut this out. 322 00:17:08,440 --> 00:17:09,520 No, just say. 323 00:17:12,080 --> 00:17:13,560 Wayne, let me say this. 324 00:17:13,560 --> 00:17:15,280 You come across as very believable 325 00:17:15,280 --> 00:17:16,520 because you're very humble. 326 00:17:16,520 --> 00:17:18,720 So I wouldn't worry too much about that. 327 00:17:18,720 --> 00:17:19,520 I got that. 328 00:17:19,520 --> 00:17:20,520 I'm not going to lie. 329 00:17:20,520 --> 00:17:21,520 I'm not going to lie. 330 00:17:21,520 --> 00:17:22,520 I'm not going to lie. 331 00:17:22,520 --> 00:17:23,520 I'm not going to lie. 332 00:17:23,520 --> 00:17:24,520 I'm not going to lie. 333 00:17:24,520 --> 00:17:26,080 I'm not going to lie about that. 334 00:17:26,080 --> 00:17:29,200 I got the same feeling. 335 00:17:29,200 --> 00:17:30,400 Thank you. 336 00:17:30,400 --> 00:17:32,520 We know you're here for good reasons. 337 00:17:32,520 --> 00:17:34,920 Thank you. 338 00:17:34,920 --> 00:17:37,200 Regardless of what happened in those 24 hours, 339 00:17:37,200 --> 00:17:43,600 the reality is I think addiction is misdefined. 340 00:17:43,600 --> 00:17:46,760 Alcoholism is probably the largest addiction, 341 00:17:46,760 --> 00:17:51,400 the most common addiction, is misdefined. 342 00:17:51,400 --> 00:17:56,160 Addiction is a coping mechanism. 343 00:17:56,160 --> 00:17:59,200 It makes part of you feel safe. 344 00:17:59,200 --> 00:18:02,800 It makes part of you feel good, whatever that addiction is. 345 00:18:02,800 --> 00:18:03,720 And it could be sex. 346 00:18:03,720 --> 00:18:06,120 It could be gambling. 347 00:18:06,120 --> 00:18:07,880 It could be working and earning a lot of money. 348 00:18:07,880 --> 00:18:11,560 And in my case, it was alcohol. 349 00:18:11,560 --> 00:18:15,160 And that coping mechanism unfortunately 350 00:18:15,160 --> 00:18:17,640 becomes the focus when we should be focusing 351 00:18:17,640 --> 00:18:22,560 on the underlying issue that drove you to choose that 352 00:18:22,560 --> 00:18:24,440 as your coping mechanism. 353 00:18:24,440 --> 00:18:27,280 So all this talk of it's a disease 354 00:18:27,280 --> 00:18:30,320 or these other things, I don't think 355 00:18:30,320 --> 00:18:34,720 that hits in the center of what the real issue is. 356 00:18:34,720 --> 00:18:36,920 But if you can characterize it as a coping mechanism, 357 00:18:36,920 --> 00:18:40,840 then you have a chance to actually deal with the whole 358 00:18:40,840 --> 00:18:41,960 problem. 359 00:18:41,960 --> 00:18:45,480 Neuroscience is validating that it is a disease, 360 00:18:45,480 --> 00:18:48,200 but it's not something we can't recover from. 361 00:18:48,200 --> 00:18:52,760 It is neurological, but it still is a disease. 362 00:18:52,760 --> 00:18:54,280 I just want to clarify that. 363 00:18:54,280 --> 00:18:56,200 It doesn't start there. 364 00:18:56,200 --> 00:18:57,600 It doesn't stay. 365 00:18:57,600 --> 00:18:58,080 Yeah. 366 00:18:58,080 --> 00:19:00,400 Well, so what they're discovering now, 367 00:19:00,400 --> 00:19:02,800 I'm reading a book on emotions, and she's breaking down 368 00:19:02,800 --> 00:19:06,320 how we construct thoughts, feelings, and emotions. 369 00:19:06,320 --> 00:19:09,840 And it's all constructed 100%. 370 00:19:09,840 --> 00:19:13,880 So it is our responsibility to be responsible for whatever 371 00:19:13,880 --> 00:19:15,080 we do. 372 00:19:15,080 --> 00:19:21,080 Because we construct the emotion that drives the whole process. 373 00:19:21,080 --> 00:19:24,640 But it's OK to still call it a disease, 374 00:19:24,640 --> 00:19:26,880 because that's what it does to the body. 375 00:19:26,880 --> 00:19:30,560 That's because it's a stress that creates inflammation that 376 00:19:30,560 --> 00:19:31,960 causes disease. 377 00:19:31,960 --> 00:19:35,240 And it becomes chronic, because you don't know how to face it. 378 00:19:35,240 --> 00:19:37,080 The delusion is addictive. 379 00:19:37,080 --> 00:19:38,680 You need it, right? 380 00:19:38,680 --> 00:19:39,920 Yeah, absolutely. 381 00:19:39,920 --> 00:19:42,600 But that isn't where it starts, and that isn't how you solve it. 382 00:19:42,600 --> 00:19:44,520 I think just focus. 383 00:19:44,520 --> 00:19:48,120 So I danced to the 12-step for a while. 384 00:19:48,120 --> 00:19:50,080 I did AA for a while. 385 00:19:50,080 --> 00:19:53,400 And I think it's a great group that's helped a lot of people. 386 00:19:53,400 --> 00:19:56,120 And I cheer them on. 387 00:19:56,120 --> 00:19:59,040 It wasn't for me, because I believe 388 00:19:59,040 --> 00:20:06,280 its eternal focus on alcohol and alcoholism isn't healthy. 389 00:20:06,280 --> 00:20:08,280 At least it wasn't healthy for me. 390 00:20:08,280 --> 00:20:09,200 Oh, I agree with that. 391 00:20:09,200 --> 00:20:10,280 You're always the alcoholic. 392 00:20:10,280 --> 00:20:13,000 25 years later, you haven't had a drink. 393 00:20:13,000 --> 00:20:14,480 You still call yourself an alcoholic. 394 00:20:14,480 --> 00:20:18,000 I think that's a terrible framework. 395 00:20:18,000 --> 00:20:19,080 It works for people. 396 00:20:19,080 --> 00:20:21,280 And so I'm not going to tell them not to do it. 397 00:20:21,280 --> 00:20:22,640 It didn't work for me. 398 00:20:22,640 --> 00:20:24,040 We agree. 399 00:20:24,040 --> 00:20:25,800 And this goes back to that concept 400 00:20:25,800 --> 00:20:28,800 of a coping mechanism versus the underlying problem. 401 00:20:28,800 --> 00:20:32,600 So I'm going to tell you about the last 24 hours, 402 00:20:32,600 --> 00:20:36,360 but I got to set it up, so forgive me. 403 00:20:36,360 --> 00:20:39,000 So I was raised by a single mother 404 00:20:39,000 --> 00:20:44,160 in rent control housing, on food stamps, government assistance 405 00:20:44,160 --> 00:20:44,880 all the way. 406 00:20:44,880 --> 00:20:47,120 Shared a bedroom with my special needs brother. 407 00:20:51,600 --> 00:20:54,400 And as a defense mechanism, told myself 408 00:20:54,400 --> 00:20:55,920 I had to be better, faster, stronger, 409 00:20:55,920 --> 00:20:58,400 or I was going to end up like them. 410 00:20:58,400 --> 00:21:01,240 And that defense mechanism worked really well for me. 411 00:21:01,240 --> 00:21:04,560 I got a job at 15 and 1.5, not 16, 412 00:21:04,560 --> 00:21:06,360 when you're legally able to. 413 00:21:06,360 --> 00:21:09,280 I worked all through high school, at least 20 hours a week. 414 00:21:09,280 --> 00:21:10,920 My senior year of high school, I was only 415 00:21:10,920 --> 00:21:12,320 going to class two periods. 416 00:21:12,320 --> 00:21:15,960 And I was doing work study the rest of the day. 417 00:21:15,960 --> 00:21:17,680 Better, faster, stronger worked for me. 418 00:21:17,680 --> 00:21:21,120 Bought my family's first car, bought my family's first TV. 419 00:21:21,120 --> 00:21:22,960 Literally my family's first TV. 420 00:21:22,960 --> 00:21:24,560 We didn't have a TV when I was a kid. 421 00:21:28,960 --> 00:21:32,560 But the danger of having this defense mechanism of better, 422 00:21:32,560 --> 00:21:37,240 faster, stronger is it engenders a sense of pride. 423 00:21:37,240 --> 00:21:39,480 I had a sense of pride. 424 00:21:39,480 --> 00:21:45,960 And that pride suited me really well until it didn't. 425 00:21:45,960 --> 00:21:50,040 And when it couldn't address the challenges I was facing, 426 00:21:50,040 --> 00:21:54,560 I turned to alcohol to reduce my anxiety, 427 00:21:54,560 --> 00:21:59,840 to reduce the pain that I was experiencing. 428 00:21:59,840 --> 00:22:01,720 Is alcohol a solution? 429 00:22:01,720 --> 00:22:05,160 Never, but it is a coping mechanism. 430 00:22:05,160 --> 00:22:07,480 And it's one that I used more and more. 431 00:22:07,480 --> 00:22:11,600 So in my case, I was a functional alcoholic at the time. 432 00:22:11,600 --> 00:22:12,800 Let's say it that way. 433 00:22:12,800 --> 00:22:15,920 Had a job, Sunday school teacher, church, all this stuff. 434 00:22:15,920 --> 00:22:19,080 But I was drinking daily by that time. 435 00:22:19,080 --> 00:22:22,360 And what pushed me over the edge to my crime 436 00:22:22,360 --> 00:22:24,360 was about six months before my crime, 437 00:22:24,360 --> 00:22:26,000 my mother had a severe fall. 438 00:22:26,000 --> 00:22:29,720 She fell down a flight of stairs, two flights of stairs, 439 00:22:29,720 --> 00:22:30,720 broke her hip. 440 00:22:30,720 --> 00:22:33,320 And so she was in a hospice process. 441 00:22:33,320 --> 00:22:36,080 So every three weeks, I was driving from San Francisco 442 00:22:36,080 --> 00:22:40,360 to LA, which is a long ass drive if you've got any idea 443 00:22:40,360 --> 00:22:46,480 how big California is, and trying to deal with the challenges 444 00:22:46,480 --> 00:22:47,360 my mom was facing. 445 00:22:47,360 --> 00:22:49,800 But my sense of pride meant I couldn't ask anybody for help, 446 00:22:49,800 --> 00:22:51,600 not even my wife for help. 447 00:22:51,600 --> 00:22:52,960 I had to deal with this problem. 448 00:22:52,960 --> 00:22:55,640 They were my mother and my brother. 449 00:22:55,640 --> 00:22:57,880 And in the day before my crime, I 450 00:22:57,880 --> 00:22:59,760 had finally got my mother and brother 451 00:22:59,760 --> 00:23:01,520 admitted to an assisted living facility 452 00:23:01,520 --> 00:23:04,160 that would take both of them, which was a big challenge, 453 00:23:04,160 --> 00:23:07,000 because my brother wasn't old enough to go into one, 454 00:23:07,000 --> 00:23:08,840 and deal with my mother's health issues 455 00:23:08,840 --> 00:23:11,120 and her being on hospice. 456 00:23:11,120 --> 00:23:13,680 And on the day of the crime, I got 457 00:23:13,680 --> 00:23:15,080 them admitted to this facility. 458 00:23:15,080 --> 00:23:18,920 And then I gave myself the task of cleaning up 459 00:23:18,920 --> 00:23:23,520 their apartment that needed to be rented out to somebody else 460 00:23:23,520 --> 00:23:24,880 because they were gone. 461 00:23:24,880 --> 00:23:26,760 But my mother and brother were hoarders, 462 00:23:26,760 --> 00:23:28,080 if you know what I mean. 463 00:23:28,080 --> 00:23:32,560 I mean, there were 10 years of TV guides, for heaven's sakes. 464 00:23:32,560 --> 00:23:33,880 And there was cockroaches. 465 00:23:33,880 --> 00:23:36,200 And there was all kinds of stuff. 466 00:23:36,200 --> 00:23:39,280 And I thought it was smart to drink Red Bull Vodka's 467 00:23:39,280 --> 00:23:42,960 while I was cleaning out their apartment. 468 00:23:42,960 --> 00:23:44,720 That's how far gone I was. 469 00:23:44,720 --> 00:23:46,760 I thought that was a smart move. 470 00:23:46,760 --> 00:23:48,640 But I didn't stop drinking after I cleaned out 471 00:23:48,640 --> 00:23:49,120 their apartment. 472 00:23:49,120 --> 00:23:55,400 I kept drinking even when I was driving back to San Francisco. 473 00:23:55,400 --> 00:23:59,880 That's how arrogant I was that I thought 474 00:23:59,880 --> 00:24:04,880 I could drink and drive intoxicated 475 00:24:04,880 --> 00:24:06,080 to the level I was. 476 00:24:08,680 --> 00:24:10,600 Now, I don't remember the crime itself. 477 00:24:10,600 --> 00:24:11,920 I do remember driving. 478 00:24:11,920 --> 00:24:13,400 I remember stopping at a rest area, 479 00:24:13,400 --> 00:24:16,720 going to the bathroom, refilling my drink 480 00:24:16,720 --> 00:24:18,200 before I got on the road. 481 00:24:18,200 --> 00:24:19,720 But I don't know how much longer I 482 00:24:19,720 --> 00:24:21,920 was on the road before I committed my crime. 483 00:24:21,920 --> 00:24:25,680 But I was so far gone that I was going the wrong way on the 5 484 00:24:25,680 --> 00:24:26,160 3 way. 485 00:24:26,160 --> 00:24:29,080 And I had a head-on collision. 486 00:24:29,080 --> 00:24:30,160 And that's how bad I was going. 487 00:24:30,160 --> 00:24:31,880 And you had to go across the grass, right? 488 00:24:31,880 --> 00:24:34,360 Were you in between, let's say, Bakersfield and San Francisco? 489 00:24:34,360 --> 00:24:35,600 Because there's this. 490 00:24:35,600 --> 00:24:37,600 I don't know if I went across the grass 491 00:24:37,600 --> 00:24:40,600 or if I just went on the wrong way on the on-ramp. 492 00:24:40,600 --> 00:24:44,360 I don't have a recollection of that. 493 00:24:44,360 --> 00:24:48,760 I woke up in the hospital with two highway patrol officers 494 00:24:48,760 --> 00:24:51,080 telling me that I had taken a life and committed a crime. 495 00:24:51,080 --> 00:24:52,680 What's the last thing you remember? 496 00:24:52,680 --> 00:24:56,640 I think choosing music for the drive. 497 00:24:56,640 --> 00:24:58,480 Like at the beginning of the drive? 498 00:24:58,480 --> 00:24:59,000 So was it? 499 00:24:59,000 --> 00:24:59,480 No. 500 00:24:59,480 --> 00:25:02,080 Because that's something that you experience in the drive. 501 00:25:02,080 --> 00:25:02,880 Somewhere on the drive. 502 00:25:02,880 --> 00:25:03,400 Yeah. 503 00:25:09,240 --> 00:25:18,040 We all know, I assume, what it's like to get behind the wheel 504 00:25:18,040 --> 00:25:19,080 when you're driving. 505 00:25:19,080 --> 00:25:22,920 I assume what it's like to get behind the wheel when 506 00:25:22,920 --> 00:25:25,800 you probably shouldn't. 507 00:25:25,800 --> 00:25:29,440 At least a lot of people tell me they do. 508 00:25:29,440 --> 00:25:35,720 I know I had driven before that after drinking. 509 00:25:35,720 --> 00:25:36,920 Never got in an accident. 510 00:25:36,920 --> 00:25:38,000 Never hit another car. 511 00:25:38,000 --> 00:25:39,840 Never got a ticket. 512 00:25:39,840 --> 00:25:43,760 That doesn't mean it couldn't have happened before then. 513 00:25:43,760 --> 00:25:46,400 But on the day, you said 24 hours before. 514 00:25:46,400 --> 00:25:48,840 I'm telling you what happened that day. 515 00:25:48,840 --> 00:25:54,640 I was under, see, what I realized on my journey, 516 00:25:54,640 --> 00:25:57,080 let's call it a self-discovery, the introspection and work 517 00:25:57,080 --> 00:26:03,960 I did after I went to prison was that in order to survive, 518 00:26:03,960 --> 00:26:06,320 I taught myself that I had to shut off 519 00:26:06,320 --> 00:26:09,480 part of my emotional self. 520 00:26:09,480 --> 00:26:10,520 I couldn't be vulnerable. 521 00:26:10,520 --> 00:26:11,600 I couldn't make mistakes. 522 00:26:11,600 --> 00:26:12,200 I couldn't do these things. 523 00:26:12,200 --> 00:26:13,960 I'd be better, faster, stronger. 524 00:26:13,960 --> 00:26:18,280 The consequence of that was in generating a sense of pride. 525 00:26:18,280 --> 00:26:22,000 But at its core, I would contend that both my coping 526 00:26:22,000 --> 00:26:26,120 mechanism of alcoholism that resulted in the crime 527 00:26:26,120 --> 00:26:33,120 and the crime itself were driven by that arrogance 528 00:26:33,120 --> 00:26:37,480 that I had developed, that I could drive even 529 00:26:37,480 --> 00:26:39,640 though I was drinking. 530 00:26:39,640 --> 00:26:43,000 And the fact that I didn't realize how bad off I was 531 00:26:43,000 --> 00:26:46,600 emotionally because of what I had dealt with with my mother 532 00:26:46,600 --> 00:26:48,640 and my brother. 533 00:26:48,640 --> 00:26:49,840 I couldn't face that. 534 00:26:49,840 --> 00:26:52,760 That wasn't something that I'd admit to myself. 535 00:26:52,760 --> 00:26:56,040 I was one of those guys who never cried. 536 00:26:56,040 --> 00:26:58,840 I was tough and stoic, and I could deal with it. 537 00:26:58,840 --> 00:27:00,000 And I was wrong. 538 00:27:00,000 --> 00:27:02,040 I couldn't deal with it. 539 00:27:02,040 --> 00:27:04,000 I was using alcohol as a coping mechanism. 540 00:27:04,000 --> 00:27:05,920 If that isn't enough evidence I couldn't deal with it, 541 00:27:05,920 --> 00:27:06,880 I don't know what is. 542 00:27:11,280 --> 00:27:16,320 So you woke up when? 543 00:27:16,320 --> 00:27:18,000 In the hospital. 544 00:27:18,000 --> 00:27:20,120 And apparently I got medevaced to the hospital. 545 00:27:20,120 --> 00:27:23,360 I don't have any recollection of any of that. 546 00:27:23,360 --> 00:27:26,000 When did you first hear about what happened? 547 00:27:29,360 --> 00:27:33,280 When the highway patrol officers were there to interview me 548 00:27:33,280 --> 00:27:35,120 when I regained consciousness. 549 00:27:35,120 --> 00:27:39,680 I don't know, maybe eight hours after the crime. 550 00:27:39,680 --> 00:27:41,400 I'm not sure the exact time. 551 00:27:41,400 --> 00:27:44,080 And did they tell you about her death at that point? 552 00:27:44,080 --> 00:27:45,840 Yes. 553 00:27:45,840 --> 00:27:50,640 And so my obvious question is, what are you feeling 554 00:27:50,640 --> 00:27:51,760 at that moment? 555 00:27:51,760 --> 00:27:53,560 What was that experience like? 556 00:27:53,560 --> 00:27:57,000 Because I think that is something I've contemplated. 557 00:27:57,000 --> 00:27:59,000 What would happen if I were to kill somebody? 558 00:27:59,000 --> 00:28:01,920 Because that's sort of the first story 559 00:28:01,920 --> 00:28:05,880 and after the Garden of Eden is Cain killing Abel. 560 00:28:05,880 --> 00:28:08,520 The idea of killing someone is a unique experience 561 00:28:08,520 --> 00:28:11,600 that you can speak to. 562 00:28:11,600 --> 00:28:13,720 How did you feel? 563 00:28:13,720 --> 00:28:16,520 I cried then, I'll tell you that much. 564 00:28:20,440 --> 00:28:23,080 And there's no judgment to that. 565 00:28:23,080 --> 00:28:28,800 Rather than focus on that feeling, 566 00:28:28,800 --> 00:28:41,720 I would contend that taking a life is an immense power. 567 00:28:41,720 --> 00:28:45,080 It's power incarnate. 568 00:28:45,080 --> 00:28:48,640 It's tearing somebody out of their family, 569 00:28:48,640 --> 00:28:50,920 out of their own existence. 570 00:28:50,920 --> 00:28:53,000 The reason why I ask for the feeling 571 00:28:53,000 --> 00:28:56,520 is because that's what people can reverberate in 572 00:28:56,520 --> 00:28:57,360 and understand. 573 00:28:57,360 --> 00:29:00,240 I think part of this is there's an opportunity for people 574 00:29:00,240 --> 00:29:02,440 to empathize with you here. 575 00:29:02,440 --> 00:29:04,560 And you have a unique experience in life 576 00:29:04,560 --> 00:29:06,200 that very few people get, but you're 577 00:29:06,200 --> 00:29:08,600 taking a very positive approach. 578 00:29:08,600 --> 00:29:13,280 How do you help them resonate with what it feels like to? 579 00:29:13,280 --> 00:29:16,240 Because you're trying to create a narrative about, 580 00:29:16,240 --> 00:29:19,560 hey, this isn't a good path, but if they feel it, 581 00:29:19,560 --> 00:29:22,880 it creates a tangible understanding to the learning 582 00:29:22,880 --> 00:29:25,880 that you've given it. 583 00:29:25,880 --> 00:29:26,400 Yeah. 584 00:29:28,960 --> 00:29:32,000 But Jonathan, it's also not the end of the world. 585 00:29:32,000 --> 00:29:35,120 It's not the end of the world. 586 00:29:35,120 --> 00:29:38,480 I see the purpose, but what I like to say 587 00:29:38,480 --> 00:29:41,440 is I don't like to do crime porn or prison porn. 588 00:29:41,440 --> 00:29:45,520 And I'm afraid that's for me that one. 589 00:29:45,520 --> 00:29:50,280 Yeah, for me, maybe it's my stoic upbringing, 590 00:29:50,280 --> 00:29:52,960 but talking too much about that emotional part. 591 00:29:52,960 --> 00:29:55,280 And again, I fell. 592 00:29:55,280 --> 00:29:57,080 I burned down my psychic delusion house. 593 00:29:57,080 --> 00:29:58,720 That's the way I try to characterize it 594 00:29:58,720 --> 00:30:00,600 so I can deal with it. 595 00:30:00,600 --> 00:30:02,480 Explaining the angst and the emotion 596 00:30:02,480 --> 00:30:06,400 that I felt in greater detail, I consider a form of crime porn, 597 00:30:06,400 --> 00:30:08,760 and I don't like to do it. 598 00:30:08,760 --> 00:30:10,800 Fair enough. 599 00:30:10,800 --> 00:30:12,640 Yeah, and the other part about that, Jonathan, 600 00:30:12,640 --> 00:30:15,120 that I would say is that if you're actually 601 00:30:15,120 --> 00:30:19,560 in the passion of killing somebody based on trying 602 00:30:19,560 --> 00:30:21,480 to save your family, or if you've actually 603 00:30:21,480 --> 00:30:23,360 got to premeditate it, I'm going to take this person out 604 00:30:23,360 --> 00:30:25,440 because I hate them, and then you've got that. 605 00:30:25,440 --> 00:30:26,880 You've taken them out of existence. 606 00:30:26,880 --> 00:30:30,880 That's a different kind of taking away and killing 607 00:30:30,880 --> 00:30:32,480 somebody than even paying for the able. 608 00:30:32,480 --> 00:30:34,640 No, I think let me get a different perspective here. 609 00:30:34,640 --> 00:30:37,440 I'm not talking about an external emotion. 610 00:30:37,440 --> 00:30:41,920 What did you think about yourself in that process? 611 00:30:41,920 --> 00:30:44,360 Because that's the internal struggle. 612 00:30:44,360 --> 00:30:47,200 That I was the worst. 613 00:30:47,200 --> 00:30:51,960 I couldn't believe what reality was telling me. 614 00:30:51,960 --> 00:30:55,760 Yeah, because you didn't choose to do this. 615 00:30:55,760 --> 00:31:00,840 Your body chose it by drinking, but it's life hitching that. 616 00:31:00,840 --> 00:31:02,960 And then you're having to deal with the falling 617 00:31:02,960 --> 00:31:06,120 that you didn't really choose to participate in 618 00:31:06,120 --> 00:31:07,960 from an aggressive standpoint. 619 00:31:07,960 --> 00:31:10,320 There was no malice here. 620 00:31:10,320 --> 00:31:13,120 But you did an irresponsible move, 621 00:31:13,120 --> 00:31:16,720 and that's kind of the conflict I think most people really. 622 00:31:16,720 --> 00:31:21,400 A criminal irresponsibility, not just irresponsible. 623 00:31:21,400 --> 00:31:22,600 I'm open to that. 624 00:31:22,600 --> 00:31:25,880 Yeah, that's how it feels, and that's 625 00:31:25,880 --> 00:31:27,960 what I'm trying to draw out here. 626 00:31:27,960 --> 00:31:33,080 Are you guys familiar with Jonathan? 627 00:31:33,080 --> 00:31:38,880 He's making a lot of NYU professor and psychologist 628 00:31:38,880 --> 00:31:41,800 who's written a bunch of books. 629 00:31:41,800 --> 00:31:43,760 He's very famous right now because he's 630 00:31:43,760 --> 00:31:47,240 talking about the mental health challenges caused 631 00:31:47,240 --> 00:31:49,360 by digital media recently. 632 00:31:49,360 --> 00:31:50,600 You've heard of him? 633 00:31:50,600 --> 00:31:55,040 I love a concept he came up with in one of his older books 634 00:31:55,040 --> 00:31:56,920 where he was looking at parables and trying 635 00:31:56,920 --> 00:31:58,920 to figure out how they relate to the modern world. 636 00:31:58,920 --> 00:32:03,200 And he called it the elephant and the rider, 637 00:32:03,200 --> 00:32:10,000 and that our existence was, in essence, that visual. 638 00:32:10,000 --> 00:32:14,240 The elephant is your brain, body, existence. 639 00:32:14,240 --> 00:32:16,800 And the rider is the emergent consciousness 640 00:32:16,800 --> 00:32:19,840 that sits on top of that, that comes out 641 00:32:19,840 --> 00:32:23,240 from the development of our frontal cortex 642 00:32:23,240 --> 00:32:24,040 and everything else. 643 00:32:24,040 --> 00:32:25,960 That's the rider. 644 00:32:25,960 --> 00:32:28,600 And I think, well, too often in life, 645 00:32:28,600 --> 00:32:32,440 we think the rider controls the elephant. 646 00:32:32,440 --> 00:32:34,880 And we rationalize our actions by saying 647 00:32:34,880 --> 00:32:36,440 we chose it as the rider. 648 00:32:36,440 --> 00:32:39,440 But the reality is the elephant, more often than not, 649 00:32:39,440 --> 00:32:40,640 does what it wants to do. 650 00:32:40,640 --> 00:32:51,040 So in my case, my elephant, driven by my addiction, 651 00:32:51,040 --> 00:32:52,800 wanted to keep drinking. 652 00:32:52,800 --> 00:32:54,880 But my rider told myself that I had 653 00:32:54,880 --> 00:32:58,960 to get back to San Francisco because I had stuff to do. 654 00:32:58,960 --> 00:33:01,720 And the elephant convinced that rider 655 00:33:01,720 --> 00:33:04,960 that I could drive safely. 656 00:33:04,960 --> 00:33:07,480 Or another way of characterizing it 657 00:33:07,480 --> 00:33:09,440 is different facets of ourselves. 658 00:33:09,440 --> 00:33:13,560 Part of me was hurting so much because of what I was dealing 659 00:33:13,560 --> 00:33:17,800 with with my family that I selfishly thought 660 00:33:17,800 --> 00:33:21,320 that what I wanted to do was more important. 661 00:33:21,320 --> 00:33:23,400 And I was so prideful that I couldn't call a friend 662 00:33:23,400 --> 00:33:25,160 and say, hey, could you drive me back 663 00:33:25,160 --> 00:33:26,600 or could you get me on an airplane 664 00:33:26,600 --> 00:33:29,080 because I'm too drunk to drive? 665 00:33:29,080 --> 00:33:30,200 I was so proudful. 666 00:33:30,200 --> 00:33:32,840 I developed that sense of pride over so much time 667 00:33:32,840 --> 00:33:35,840 that I didn't even think to ask for help. 668 00:33:35,840 --> 00:33:37,000 I had to find a way to do it. 669 00:33:37,000 --> 00:33:39,760 I was going to do it. 670 00:33:39,760 --> 00:33:43,240 So that's what was going through my mind before the crime. 671 00:33:43,240 --> 00:33:46,520 After the crime is when you realize that that persona 672 00:33:46,520 --> 00:33:50,320 you've developed, that house that you live in, is bullshit. 673 00:33:50,320 --> 00:33:51,800 It doesn't satisfy what you need. 674 00:33:51,800 --> 00:33:53,520 I burned it down. 675 00:33:53,520 --> 00:33:54,760 And that's what it felt like. 676 00:33:54,760 --> 00:33:57,840 It felt like I was inside a house burning down. 677 00:33:57,840 --> 00:34:00,960 All of the things you could imagine from that 678 00:34:00,960 --> 00:34:04,040 was what your psyche goes through when you realize 679 00:34:04,040 --> 00:34:06,120 you are the evil one. 680 00:34:06,120 --> 00:34:07,760 You are the bad person. 681 00:34:07,760 --> 00:34:10,280 You're the black hat, not the white hat. 682 00:34:10,280 --> 00:34:11,920 That's not an easy thing to face. 683 00:34:11,920 --> 00:34:13,640 It's not an easy thing to hear. 684 00:34:13,640 --> 00:34:15,960 And most of us try to find a way around. 685 00:34:15,960 --> 00:34:18,000 We rationalize that in some way. 686 00:34:18,000 --> 00:34:20,600 I'm not going to blame my addiction for causing it. 687 00:34:20,600 --> 00:34:25,640 I drove and I committed the crime. 688 00:34:25,640 --> 00:34:30,240 And that's why I get fearful when people talk about alcoholism 689 00:34:30,240 --> 00:34:33,080 as a disease, because I think it's 690 00:34:33,080 --> 00:34:38,800 used to justify something that can't be justified. 691 00:34:38,800 --> 00:34:42,320 I can't justify what I did. 692 00:34:42,320 --> 00:34:44,000 And I'm not going to try. 693 00:34:44,000 --> 00:34:50,440 But the power it represents, the power of taking a life, 694 00:34:50,440 --> 00:34:54,400 that gave me the power to want to find out 695 00:34:54,400 --> 00:34:57,000 how I could be that person, why I did that, 696 00:34:57,000 --> 00:34:59,080 and what I had to do to make sure that would never 697 00:34:59,080 --> 00:34:59,720 happen again. 698 00:35:02,760 --> 00:35:04,600 Because that was my goal. 699 00:35:04,600 --> 00:35:08,800 I had to make sure that I wouldn't do that again 700 00:35:08,800 --> 00:35:14,400 for two reasons, not just for my victim, to be honest, 701 00:35:14,400 --> 00:35:19,440 even though that recognizing that responsibility gave me 702 00:35:19,440 --> 00:35:22,880 the energy to actually do the work, 703 00:35:22,880 --> 00:35:27,240 to explore my psyche and my beliefs and my memories 704 00:35:27,240 --> 00:35:30,040 and figure out how I could be that person. 705 00:35:30,040 --> 00:35:33,440 But I also had two young kids. 706 00:35:33,440 --> 00:35:36,880 And I had to be a role model for them. 707 00:35:36,880 --> 00:35:40,000 What do you do when you do something horrific? 708 00:35:40,000 --> 00:35:45,680 How do you serve sentence as society demands, honorably, 709 00:35:45,680 --> 00:35:48,480 and to the best of your ability, and learn 710 00:35:48,480 --> 00:35:49,880 from your mistakes? 711 00:35:49,880 --> 00:35:53,320 That was just as important to me on my journey 712 00:35:53,320 --> 00:35:55,480 and why I took a bunch of these self-help groups 713 00:35:55,480 --> 00:35:57,200 and why I read all the books that I read 714 00:35:57,200 --> 00:36:01,600 and did all the work that I did when I was in San Quentin. 715 00:36:01,600 --> 00:36:04,040 Because I had to learn how I could be that person 716 00:36:04,040 --> 00:36:06,840 and what I had to do to make sure I wouldn't continue 717 00:36:06,840 --> 00:36:09,360 to be that person in the future, that I 718 00:36:09,360 --> 00:36:11,160 wouldn't commit this crime again. 719 00:36:11,160 --> 00:36:13,080 I've been home for five years, for example. 720 00:36:13,080 --> 00:36:15,440 I take my sobriety very seriously. 721 00:36:15,440 --> 00:36:18,320 I've worked at a fine dining restaurant. 722 00:36:18,320 --> 00:36:19,680 I've worked at a catering company. 723 00:36:19,680 --> 00:36:23,480 I have access to alcohol on a daily basis for free 724 00:36:23,480 --> 00:36:25,600 if I wanted it. 725 00:36:25,600 --> 00:36:30,400 And I haven't had a problem with alcohol since that time. 726 00:36:30,400 --> 00:36:34,200 I don't need it as a coping mechanism anymore. 727 00:36:34,200 --> 00:36:36,840 The way I characterize it, I dismantled the trigger 728 00:36:36,840 --> 00:36:39,840 is the way I tell myself. 729 00:36:39,840 --> 00:36:43,160 Matthew Perry, who recently died of an overdose, 730 00:36:43,160 --> 00:36:44,840 he probably spent millions of dollars 731 00:36:44,840 --> 00:36:48,000 trying to dismantle his trigger. 732 00:36:48,000 --> 00:36:51,240 But the coping part of it, he wanted so bad, 733 00:36:51,240 --> 00:36:53,160 he found a way around that. 734 00:36:53,160 --> 00:36:55,040 And he got back to it. 735 00:36:55,040 --> 00:36:57,760 And he used so much of whatever his drug of choice 736 00:36:57,760 --> 00:37:00,120 was that he took his own life. 737 00:37:00,120 --> 00:37:01,320 He overdosed on it. 738 00:37:01,320 --> 00:37:03,480 And I think a lot of people focus on that. 739 00:37:03,480 --> 00:37:06,000 They focus on building a wall around the trigger 740 00:37:06,000 --> 00:37:08,400 when we're all smart enough to find a way around that, 741 00:37:08,400 --> 00:37:09,120 usually. 742 00:37:09,120 --> 00:37:10,560 You've got to dismantle the trigger. 743 00:37:10,560 --> 00:37:12,720 You've got to find out what you're trying to cope for. 744 00:37:12,720 --> 00:37:15,680 Or you're going to come back to that same challenge again 745 00:37:15,680 --> 00:37:17,560 and have to face it again. 746 00:37:17,560 --> 00:37:21,120 And I don't feel I'm at risk of that anymore. 747 00:37:21,120 --> 00:37:24,600 He was doing it to be external, too. 748 00:37:24,600 --> 00:37:25,640 What is the motivation? 749 00:37:25,640 --> 00:37:27,760 Was the motivation to get past your true self 750 00:37:27,760 --> 00:37:29,400 and to break what's really broken? 751 00:37:29,400 --> 00:37:31,280 No, it's to actually put on that brave face 752 00:37:31,280 --> 00:37:33,680 and actually be a functioning member of Hollywood again. 753 00:37:33,680 --> 00:37:36,880 And because it was externally dictated, 754 00:37:36,880 --> 00:37:39,440 he never really got to the root cause of it. 755 00:37:39,440 --> 00:37:41,480 And it took, obviously, Robert Downey Jr. with help 756 00:37:41,480 --> 00:37:44,440 from Mel Gibson to say, been there, done that. 757 00:37:44,440 --> 00:37:47,320 Let's go into the deeper, darker parts of this 758 00:37:47,320 --> 00:37:48,880 and let's see how we come out of that. 759 00:37:48,880 --> 00:37:51,280 My first question is, what was prison like? 760 00:37:51,280 --> 00:37:52,920 Because that's a big part of your story. 761 00:37:52,920 --> 00:37:53,960 We don't have to stay there. 762 00:37:53,960 --> 00:37:54,840 But what was it like? 763 00:37:54,840 --> 00:37:57,840 Because it seems a big part of what you 764 00:37:57,840 --> 00:38:00,240 want to help bring awareness to. 765 00:38:06,840 --> 00:38:11,680 Everything you see about prison, the violence, the crime, 766 00:38:11,680 --> 00:38:15,880 the interactions between the custody and the incarcerated, 767 00:38:15,880 --> 00:38:16,960 all that stuff. 768 00:38:16,960 --> 00:38:23,200 It's all true, but it's not all condensed into one day 769 00:38:23,200 --> 00:38:25,600 or one TV show. 770 00:38:25,600 --> 00:38:31,600 So were other inmates murdered while I was in San Quentin? 771 00:38:31,600 --> 00:38:32,600 Yes. 772 00:38:32,600 --> 00:38:34,720 Did other inmates die of overdoses 773 00:38:34,720 --> 00:38:37,240 because somebody had smuggled drugs into them? 774 00:38:37,240 --> 00:38:37,760 Yes. 775 00:38:37,760 --> 00:38:44,240 Was there sexual abuse by inmates on other inmates? 776 00:38:44,240 --> 00:38:45,240 Yes. 777 00:38:45,240 --> 00:38:48,400 I wrote a piece on suicide because this little effeminate 778 00:38:48,400 --> 00:38:50,520 guy was getting raped regularly in prison. 779 00:38:50,520 --> 00:38:52,720 So yeah, that happens. 780 00:38:52,720 --> 00:38:58,520 But it doesn't happen nearly as often as people think it does. 781 00:38:58,520 --> 00:39:00,240 So prison is an awful place that I 782 00:39:00,240 --> 00:39:05,560 hope nobody has to experience in its current form. 783 00:39:05,560 --> 00:39:07,960 I think many people need to be taken off 784 00:39:07,960 --> 00:39:10,120 the streets for public safety. 785 00:39:10,120 --> 00:39:11,840 I just don't know if prison is the right way 786 00:39:11,840 --> 00:39:15,840 to do that in the way it's currently constituted. 787 00:39:15,840 --> 00:39:17,960 There's a real adversarial relationship 788 00:39:17,960 --> 00:39:19,080 that goes on there. 789 00:39:19,080 --> 00:39:23,800 A lot of guys are stuck in that street mindset. 790 00:39:23,800 --> 00:39:25,040 That's who they are. 791 00:39:25,040 --> 00:39:26,400 They don't want to change. 792 00:39:26,400 --> 00:39:27,520 They still want to hustle. 793 00:39:27,520 --> 00:39:30,560 They still want to use violence to solve problems and all 794 00:39:30,560 --> 00:39:32,360 the stuff that they've got issues with. 795 00:39:32,360 --> 00:39:34,320 And if they do, they're going to be 796 00:39:34,320 --> 00:39:37,720 in a lot of trouble, and if they can't get beyond that, 797 00:39:37,720 --> 00:39:40,680 maybe the best thing for them is to be removed 798 00:39:40,680 --> 00:39:43,720 from society in some form. 799 00:39:43,720 --> 00:39:45,200 It might not be the prison system 800 00:39:45,200 --> 00:39:47,440 is the best way to do that. 801 00:39:47,440 --> 00:39:49,280 Tell us about some of the things that you did, 802 00:39:49,280 --> 00:39:50,240 the support groups. 803 00:39:50,240 --> 00:39:53,280 And the rate of recidivism is terrible, right? 804 00:39:53,280 --> 00:39:56,560 You're obviously an anomaly in terms of I 805 00:39:56,560 --> 00:39:58,840 don't anticipate you being incarcerated anytime soon, 806 00:39:58,840 --> 00:40:01,120 if ever again. 807 00:40:01,120 --> 00:40:02,440 Neither do I, by the way. 808 00:40:02,440 --> 00:40:02,960 Neither do I. 809 00:40:02,960 --> 00:40:03,960 I'm confident. 810 00:40:03,960 --> 00:40:10,400 So first of all, I've heard of Transcendental Meditation, 811 00:40:10,400 --> 00:40:11,760 where people are getting together. 812 00:40:11,760 --> 00:40:15,160 You're talking gang members who would kill each other 813 00:40:15,160 --> 00:40:17,240 on the streets who are meditating together, right? 814 00:40:17,240 --> 00:40:18,600 I've heard great stories like that. 815 00:40:18,600 --> 00:40:20,040 I'm sure you've got other stories. 816 00:40:20,040 --> 00:40:24,480 And do you have any hope for a change in a mindfulness 817 00:40:24,480 --> 00:40:27,440 or a consciousness that could help 818 00:40:27,440 --> 00:40:30,560 the situation moving forward? 819 00:40:30,560 --> 00:40:32,200 You hit upon something that's great. 820 00:40:32,200 --> 00:40:33,040 I didn't mention that. 821 00:40:33,040 --> 00:40:41,800 Yeah, I took yoga from a process of mental health benefits, 822 00:40:41,800 --> 00:40:44,560 not just physical activity. 823 00:40:44,560 --> 00:40:46,040 That was the purpose of it. 824 00:40:48,840 --> 00:40:52,480 I think the best way to characterize this, 825 00:40:52,480 --> 00:40:56,320 if I were to recommend a book for people to read, 826 00:40:56,320 --> 00:40:58,040 if you want to read a book about addiction, 827 00:40:58,040 --> 00:41:00,680 it will be Gabor Mate's writings. 828 00:41:00,680 --> 00:41:04,440 He's a Canadian doctor, very famous. 829 00:41:04,440 --> 00:41:06,240 M-A-T-E is his last name. 830 00:41:06,240 --> 00:41:10,320 But Gabor Mate's got some great stuff on what addiction is 831 00:41:10,320 --> 00:41:13,120 and what it isn't and how to deal with it. 832 00:41:13,120 --> 00:41:16,160 But if you want to understand the underlying process that 833 00:41:16,160 --> 00:41:19,520 drove the maladaption for these guys to commit the crimes they 834 00:41:19,520 --> 00:41:23,760 committed, you need to read Alice Miller. 835 00:41:23,760 --> 00:41:26,360 She's written a number of books. 836 00:41:26,360 --> 00:41:28,120 Probably the most famous one is called 837 00:41:28,120 --> 00:41:31,920 The Drama of the Gifted Child. 838 00:41:31,920 --> 00:41:33,000 She wrote it in German. 839 00:41:33,000 --> 00:41:35,720 So gifted doesn't mean what it means in English. 840 00:41:35,720 --> 00:41:38,640 So she's not talking about a kid with 140 IQ. 841 00:41:38,640 --> 00:41:40,560 She's talking about all children. 842 00:41:40,560 --> 00:41:44,160 But the drama of the child is an important understanding 843 00:41:44,160 --> 00:41:47,000 of why many of these guys shut off 844 00:41:47,000 --> 00:41:49,440 part of their emotional self. 845 00:41:49,440 --> 00:41:51,960 I mean, how else could you explain the crimes 846 00:41:51,960 --> 00:41:56,320 that they did if they had any ounce of empathy, 847 00:41:56,320 --> 00:41:59,680 which we are all born with? 848 00:41:59,680 --> 00:42:00,880 We all are born with it. 849 00:42:00,880 --> 00:42:04,760 They had shut that part of themselves off. 850 00:42:04,760 --> 00:42:07,640 And I would contend they did it as a defense mechanism based 851 00:42:07,640 --> 00:42:09,880 on their experiences. 852 00:42:09,880 --> 00:42:11,960 That's not to justify what they did. 853 00:42:11,960 --> 00:42:14,200 But if you want them to be cured of that, 854 00:42:14,200 --> 00:42:15,840 you've got to go back to the beginning 855 00:42:15,840 --> 00:42:18,200 to find out what caused them to shut off 856 00:42:18,200 --> 00:42:21,440 their emotional self to convince them they need to open back up 857 00:42:21,440 --> 00:42:24,000 to that emotional self, which in essence 858 00:42:24,000 --> 00:42:28,320 is what much of this work, this internal work, 859 00:42:28,320 --> 00:42:31,040 is about, where you can meditate, 860 00:42:31,040 --> 00:42:33,080 when you can do introspection. 861 00:42:33,080 --> 00:42:35,880 And that introspection can be religious based. 862 00:42:35,880 --> 00:42:37,560 It could be prayer. 863 00:42:37,560 --> 00:42:39,240 It could be yoga. 864 00:42:39,240 --> 00:42:41,240 It could be meditation. 865 00:42:41,240 --> 00:42:42,840 There's a myriad of different ways 866 00:42:42,840 --> 00:42:46,480 you can pass that can take you to introspection. 867 00:42:46,480 --> 00:42:48,560 But you need to do that if you want 868 00:42:48,560 --> 00:42:51,920 to find out why you're doing the things you are. 869 00:42:51,920 --> 00:42:55,560 And a lot of these guys don't want to. 870 00:42:55,560 --> 00:43:00,160 That would be admitting, think of how hard. 871 00:43:00,160 --> 00:43:05,040 I had a bunch of reasons to give up my pride before my crime, 872 00:43:05,040 --> 00:43:08,200 but I didn't take them. 873 00:43:08,200 --> 00:43:14,760 The price that had to be paid by others for me 874 00:43:14,760 --> 00:43:22,480 to be open to learning that is unimaginable, unexcusable. 875 00:43:22,480 --> 00:43:25,280 I mean, in some cultures, it's a life for a life. 876 00:43:25,280 --> 00:43:27,640 Yeah, I got sentenced to seven years, eight months. 877 00:43:27,640 --> 00:43:29,680 And because I was a model inmate, 878 00:43:29,680 --> 00:43:31,280 I only served six years, three months. 879 00:43:31,280 --> 00:43:33,320 But so what? 880 00:43:33,320 --> 00:43:36,920 A lot of people think that's not enough time in prison, 881 00:43:36,920 --> 00:43:39,520 because prison's punishment, right? 882 00:43:39,520 --> 00:43:41,320 Removing you from society. 883 00:43:41,320 --> 00:43:43,760 But I had to learn how I could be that person. 884 00:43:43,760 --> 00:43:47,360 And so introspection was an integral part. 885 00:43:47,360 --> 00:43:49,480 So Alice Miller, Gabor Amate are great. 886 00:43:49,480 --> 00:43:51,960 The conceptual frame that I think people 887 00:43:51,960 --> 00:43:54,640 could benefit the most from is to learn what's 888 00:43:54,640 --> 00:43:58,080 called nonviolent communications. 889 00:43:58,080 --> 00:44:00,960 And nonviolent communications, at its core, 890 00:44:00,960 --> 00:44:03,160 is for you to accept responsibility 891 00:44:03,160 --> 00:44:07,040 for your emotional reaction. 892 00:44:07,040 --> 00:44:10,480 And let me give you an example of that. 893 00:44:10,480 --> 00:44:13,400 You know, Jonathan, I could have made you angry 894 00:44:13,400 --> 00:44:16,640 by telling you that I didn't want to talk about what 895 00:44:16,640 --> 00:44:18,360 I call crime porn, right? 896 00:44:18,360 --> 00:44:22,240 That could have been a natural response for you. 897 00:44:22,240 --> 00:44:23,320 And of course not. 898 00:44:23,320 --> 00:44:24,320 But I understand. 899 00:44:24,320 --> 00:44:26,560 Because you're an adult. But it could have, right? 900 00:44:26,560 --> 00:44:28,240 But in reality, there's nothing I 901 00:44:28,240 --> 00:44:31,640 can do that can make you angry. 902 00:44:31,640 --> 00:44:33,840 You let yourself be angry. 903 00:44:33,840 --> 00:44:35,840 I let myself be angry. 904 00:44:35,840 --> 00:44:37,720 Somebody else may have done something, 905 00:44:37,720 --> 00:44:42,560 but it's my response that I have to be responsible for. 906 00:44:42,560 --> 00:44:47,000 And so nonviolent communications helps you learn that process. 907 00:44:47,000 --> 00:44:53,120 And it's wonderful at helping you 908 00:44:53,120 --> 00:44:59,080 develop the vocabulary to explain your emotional self, 909 00:44:59,080 --> 00:45:02,040 either to yourself or to others. 910 00:45:02,040 --> 00:45:07,800 When I was in prison, I think the greatest gift 911 00:45:07,800 --> 00:45:11,040 I got while I was in prison wasn't necessarily 912 00:45:11,040 --> 00:45:13,880 all the work I did or the groups I participated in. 913 00:45:13,880 --> 00:45:17,800 It was a gift from my ex-wife. 914 00:45:17,800 --> 00:45:21,760 You know, even though we were divorced a few months 915 00:45:21,760 --> 00:45:24,040 into my sentence, she honored her commitment 916 00:45:24,040 --> 00:45:29,080 and brought my children to visit me throughout my incarceration. 917 00:45:29,080 --> 00:45:30,160 She honored that. 918 00:45:30,160 --> 00:45:35,360 And that was essential for me, for my well-being, 919 00:45:35,360 --> 00:45:36,240 for my mental health. 920 00:45:36,240 --> 00:45:39,200 But I think it also was important for the kids 921 00:45:39,200 --> 00:45:39,800 to have that. 922 00:45:39,800 --> 00:45:40,880 And she honored that commitment. 923 00:45:40,880 --> 00:45:44,400 And I will always be grateful to her for that. 924 00:45:44,400 --> 00:45:45,600 I'll still call her ex. 925 00:45:45,600 --> 00:45:46,520 Don't get me wrong. 926 00:45:46,520 --> 00:45:50,920 But I'll always be grateful for her bringing my children 927 00:45:50,920 --> 00:45:52,640 to visit me. 928 00:45:52,640 --> 00:45:54,000 But there was an 18-month stretch 929 00:45:54,000 --> 00:45:57,240 where my son wouldn't come. 930 00:45:57,240 --> 00:46:00,800 And he had transferred to a different school. 931 00:46:00,800 --> 00:46:07,480 And his classmates found out his dad was a felon and in prison. 932 00:46:07,480 --> 00:46:09,880 And they made fun of him. 933 00:46:09,880 --> 00:46:13,280 And they belittled him. 934 00:46:13,280 --> 00:46:18,720 And how would a young boy of 10 or 11 935 00:46:18,720 --> 00:46:20,680 understand those emotions? 936 00:46:20,680 --> 00:46:23,040 Well, he thought he was angry. 937 00:46:23,040 --> 00:46:24,440 That's the way he characterized it. 938 00:46:24,440 --> 00:46:26,160 That's kind of a generic term. 939 00:46:26,160 --> 00:46:28,120 And Nonviolent Communications teaches you 940 00:46:28,120 --> 00:46:30,760 how to use words like shame. 941 00:46:30,760 --> 00:46:32,280 He felt ashamed. 942 00:46:32,280 --> 00:46:37,960 Or I felt guilty for what I did, not hurt for what I did. 943 00:46:37,960 --> 00:46:40,240 It uses a lot of great vocabulary. 944 00:46:40,240 --> 00:46:44,720 So I would recommend anybody look up Nonviolent Communications 945 00:46:44,720 --> 00:46:48,640 and find a way to practice a better understanding 946 00:46:48,640 --> 00:46:51,400 of your emotional self, which is very difficult to do if you 947 00:46:51,400 --> 00:46:53,600 don't do the introspection, which can be driven 948 00:46:53,600 --> 00:46:55,360 by mindfulness training. 949 00:46:55,360 --> 00:46:57,000 The best mindfulness training I found 950 00:46:57,000 --> 00:47:01,800 is an app by Sam Harris called Waking Up. 951 00:47:01,800 --> 00:47:03,440 Waking Up is a great app. 952 00:47:03,440 --> 00:47:05,840 It does a lot of good work. 953 00:47:05,840 --> 00:47:07,080 It's non-denominational. 954 00:47:07,080 --> 00:47:09,680 He's not trying to convince you to become a Buddhist 955 00:47:09,680 --> 00:47:11,760 or any religious connotation. 956 00:47:11,760 --> 00:47:16,160 But he's trying to help you do this work of introspection 957 00:47:16,160 --> 00:47:20,080 and self-awareness in a very healthy way. 958 00:47:20,080 --> 00:47:23,400 And by the way, for your guys, if you can't afford the app, 959 00:47:23,400 --> 00:47:25,160 it is a for money app. 960 00:47:25,160 --> 00:47:25,920 It doesn't matter. 961 00:47:25,920 --> 00:47:28,080 Sam Harris is committed to anybody 962 00:47:28,080 --> 00:47:30,480 who asks to have the app for free. 963 00:47:30,480 --> 00:47:32,120 He will give it to them. 964 00:47:32,120 --> 00:47:37,560 So you have no excuse to not try to go down this road 965 00:47:37,560 --> 00:47:40,920 of self-discovery and introspection. 966 00:47:40,920 --> 00:47:42,920 And there's a great tool for people. 967 00:47:42,920 --> 00:47:44,460 Waking Up is the name of the app, 968 00:47:44,460 --> 00:47:46,000 and I'd recommend it to anybody. 969 00:47:46,000 --> 00:47:48,320 I find it a very effective tool. 970 00:47:48,320 --> 00:47:50,120 Well, you know what's interesting about that is, 971 00:47:50,120 --> 00:47:52,800 obviously, he's one of the four horsemen of the atheist 972 00:47:52,800 --> 00:47:53,640 apocalypse, right? 973 00:47:53,640 --> 00:47:56,280 So we both came from an evangelical background. 974 00:47:56,280 --> 00:47:59,360 You've got Daniel Dennett, the philosopher, Sam Harris. 975 00:47:59,360 --> 00:48:00,240 Sure. 976 00:48:00,240 --> 00:48:01,200 Hitchens and Dawkins. 977 00:48:01,200 --> 00:48:03,120 But one of the things that we're starting to realize, 978 00:48:03,120 --> 00:48:04,960 and I think this is going to be something that, 979 00:48:04,960 --> 00:48:07,960 as our consciousness evolves, God willing, 980 00:48:07,960 --> 00:48:10,160 we'll actually see that it actually doesn't matter 981 00:48:10,160 --> 00:48:14,160 if it's prayer or if it's secular meditation, 982 00:48:14,160 --> 00:48:16,120 because they're all tapping into the same thing. 983 00:48:16,120 --> 00:48:18,880 That unified field, that underlying part 984 00:48:18,880 --> 00:48:22,080 of our consciousness, that is the self, the Atman, 985 00:48:22,080 --> 00:48:23,800 that you would find in the Bhagavad Gita, right? 986 00:48:23,800 --> 00:48:25,120 These things are all coming together. 987 00:48:25,120 --> 00:48:27,000 This shit's been going on for millennia, 988 00:48:27,000 --> 00:48:28,800 and we're just trying to put a new word on it. 989 00:48:28,800 --> 00:48:30,960 And that would be, this is the hope. 990 00:48:30,960 --> 00:48:33,480 Jonathan and I have is if we lead with love, 991 00:48:33,480 --> 00:48:36,160 if we're trying to reduce the dichotomy 992 00:48:36,160 --> 00:48:38,240 and get behind the root causes of these things, 993 00:48:38,240 --> 00:48:39,840 just think the idea of drinking. 994 00:48:40,760 --> 00:48:44,240 It's so much deeper than the addiction to alcohol 995 00:48:44,240 --> 00:48:45,080 or the taste. 996 00:48:45,080 --> 00:48:46,360 There's so much more going on. 997 00:48:46,360 --> 00:48:48,680 And so when you drive deeper, 998 00:48:48,680 --> 00:48:53,040 this is where an atheist and a believer can get together 999 00:48:53,040 --> 00:48:54,680 because they're still tapping into the same thing. 1000 00:48:54,680 --> 00:48:55,960 One just calls it something else 1001 00:48:55,960 --> 00:48:56,920 and they're getting power from it. 1002 00:48:56,920 --> 00:48:58,320 This person's getting power from it too, 1003 00:48:58,320 --> 00:49:00,960 because it is that amazing part of ourself 1004 00:49:00,960 --> 00:49:03,600 where we're tapping into the collective, right? 1005 00:49:03,600 --> 00:49:05,520 This is where things can really happen. 1006 00:49:05,520 --> 00:49:07,240 That's what we're hoping for. 1007 00:49:07,240 --> 00:49:09,960 And I really commend you guys for that. 1008 00:49:09,960 --> 00:49:11,560 I do a weekly Bible study. 1009 00:49:11,560 --> 00:49:14,320 I'm a member, still a member of my Presbyterian church 1010 00:49:14,320 --> 00:49:16,600 that I was before I went to prison. 1011 00:49:16,600 --> 00:49:19,160 They've welcomed me back into their community 1012 00:49:19,160 --> 00:49:20,800 as a full member. 1013 00:49:22,400 --> 00:49:24,600 And so we do a weekly men's Bible study 1014 00:49:24,600 --> 00:49:27,400 because I've also found that when you talk about formats, 1015 00:49:27,400 --> 00:49:32,200 I find a small group format is the most effective tool 1016 00:49:32,200 --> 00:49:34,280 to get people to actually grow and learn. 1017 00:49:34,280 --> 00:49:37,240 I also do a business men's group called New Canaan Society, 1018 00:49:37,240 --> 00:49:40,680 which is faith-focused, but business-related. 1019 00:49:40,680 --> 00:49:42,160 I love New Canaan Society. 1020 00:49:42,160 --> 00:49:43,560 We have what's called an energy group. 1021 00:49:43,560 --> 00:49:46,400 We have a small group of us that meet every two weeks 1022 00:49:46,400 --> 00:49:49,440 and have a chance to be vulnerable, to be open, 1023 00:49:49,440 --> 00:49:52,960 to ask questions and to hear stories. 1024 00:49:54,160 --> 00:49:57,320 And I find that all of us have blind spots. 1025 00:49:57,320 --> 00:50:00,640 The way I like to characterize a blind spot 1026 00:50:00,640 --> 00:50:03,920 is I gotta go to the left, 1027 00:50:03,920 --> 00:50:06,840 but I'm so afraid of left-hand turns 1028 00:50:06,840 --> 00:50:08,400 that I make three right-hand turns 1029 00:50:08,400 --> 00:50:11,480 to get going the way I wanna go, right? 1030 00:50:11,480 --> 00:50:13,720 But it gets to such a common state, 1031 00:50:13,720 --> 00:50:17,840 you don't even recognize it's possible to turn left. 1032 00:50:17,840 --> 00:50:20,200 You think it's only possible to turn right. 1033 00:50:20,200 --> 00:50:22,200 It's inefficient, it's ineffective. 1034 00:50:22,200 --> 00:50:25,400 We've all got blind spots like that. 1035 00:50:25,400 --> 00:50:27,760 And the advantage of the small group format 1036 00:50:27,760 --> 00:50:29,000 is you can see other people, 1037 00:50:29,000 --> 00:50:30,240 nobody can see their own blind spot, 1038 00:50:30,240 --> 00:50:32,040 but other people can always see yours. 1039 00:50:32,040 --> 00:50:34,000 They can't really tell you about it, to be honest. 1040 00:50:34,000 --> 00:50:36,000 It doesn't work to point out somebody's blind spot. 1041 00:50:36,000 --> 00:50:37,480 They gotta figure it out on their own. 1042 00:50:37,480 --> 00:50:38,800 But I find the small group format 1043 00:50:38,800 --> 00:50:42,160 is the best way to find out your own blind spots, 1044 00:50:42,160 --> 00:50:43,720 because as you recognize them 1045 00:50:43,720 --> 00:50:45,080 and the other members of the group, 1046 00:50:45,080 --> 00:50:46,120 you'll start asking yourself, 1047 00:50:46,120 --> 00:50:47,200 well, I wonder where mine are. 1048 00:50:47,200 --> 00:50:50,320 But they've already told you in different ways, 1049 00:50:50,320 --> 00:50:51,160 and you'll figure it out. 1050 00:50:51,160 --> 00:50:53,160 Oh yeah, that is a blind spot of mine. 1051 00:50:53,160 --> 00:50:54,080 So I'll give you an example 1052 00:50:54,080 --> 00:50:56,200 of how that manifests itself across life. 1053 00:50:56,200 --> 00:50:58,760 I was raised by a single mother and a grandmother. 1054 00:51:00,120 --> 00:51:01,200 Men were bad. 1055 00:51:02,080 --> 00:51:04,600 They abandon you, they beat you, they become alcoholics. 1056 00:51:04,600 --> 00:51:06,200 They're just bad. 1057 00:51:06,200 --> 00:51:07,920 I could never have a mentor. 1058 00:51:07,920 --> 00:51:09,560 I was a lawyer by profession. 1059 00:51:09,560 --> 00:51:13,120 I could never have an older lawyer as a mentor in my career 1060 00:51:13,120 --> 00:51:14,680 because I didn't trust men. 1061 00:51:14,680 --> 00:51:17,000 I didn't realize I didn't trust men, 1062 00:51:17,000 --> 00:51:18,320 but introspection, looking back, 1063 00:51:18,320 --> 00:51:21,320 I never had a mentor throughout my life. 1064 00:51:21,320 --> 00:51:23,160 And I found out why. 1065 00:51:23,160 --> 00:51:24,880 It doesn't mean I can have a mentor now. 1066 00:51:24,880 --> 00:51:26,360 I'm not that great at it. 1067 00:51:26,360 --> 00:51:28,760 At least I accept authors and other people 1068 00:51:28,760 --> 00:51:31,240 where I can learn from deep people. 1069 00:51:31,240 --> 00:51:34,800 But I've never developed a trust for older men. 1070 00:51:36,080 --> 00:51:39,200 And I know that's the source of it, right? 1071 00:51:39,200 --> 00:51:41,960 I'm not trying to blame my mother and grandmother. 1072 00:51:41,960 --> 00:51:43,520 They had their own life experience. 1073 00:51:43,520 --> 00:51:45,880 But I was raised in that environment so young 1074 00:51:45,880 --> 00:51:48,560 that I didn't realize I had this blind spot. 1075 00:51:48,560 --> 00:51:50,760 That's an example of one of my blind spots. 1076 00:51:50,760 --> 00:51:53,360 I would contend my daughter has a similar version 1077 00:51:53,360 --> 00:51:54,680 of that right now. 1078 00:51:54,680 --> 00:51:56,480 She doesn't like, she doesn't, 1079 00:51:56,480 --> 00:51:58,640 whenever she has a problem, it's with a male coach 1080 00:51:58,640 --> 00:52:01,480 or a male teacher or a male classmate. 1081 00:52:01,480 --> 00:52:04,040 And her developmental level, 1082 00:52:04,040 --> 00:52:05,600 when she was five when I committed my crime 1083 00:52:05,600 --> 00:52:06,640 and six when I went to prison, 1084 00:52:06,640 --> 00:52:08,520 I know our time's almost up, 1085 00:52:08,520 --> 00:52:11,240 her developmental state was you can't trust men 1086 00:52:11,240 --> 00:52:13,120 because they abandoned you. 1087 00:52:13,120 --> 00:52:17,320 That's her developmental level of understanding. 1088 00:52:17,320 --> 00:52:18,960 I abandoned her. 1089 00:52:18,960 --> 00:52:21,040 And she doesn't wanna get abandoned again. 1090 00:52:21,040 --> 00:52:23,400 So she doesn't wanna open herself up. 1091 00:52:23,400 --> 00:52:26,400 And I'm working really hard to develop, regain her trust 1092 00:52:26,400 --> 00:52:30,720 and to help her realize that she can trust me. 1093 00:52:30,720 --> 00:52:32,760 And hopefully that'll help her realize she can trust 1094 00:52:32,760 --> 00:52:35,040 her coaches and her teachers and her male classmates 1095 00:52:35,040 --> 00:52:36,360 more than she does. 1096 00:52:36,360 --> 00:52:38,600 Because I think she's got a blind spot about it. 1097 00:52:39,600 --> 00:52:40,440 Yeah. 1098 00:52:40,440 --> 00:52:41,960 Wayne, it's been a pleasure having you. 1099 00:52:41,960 --> 00:52:45,080 I really appreciate you coming on the show. 1100 00:52:45,080 --> 00:52:46,440 Rich, any final words? 1101 00:52:46,440 --> 00:52:49,360 No, I wanted to ask and maybe it's not gonna, 1102 00:52:49,360 --> 00:52:51,120 we could have another episode of this, 1103 00:52:51,120 --> 00:52:53,560 but did you ever have a chance to either hope 1104 00:52:53,560 --> 00:52:57,720 or reconcile with the family of the victim? 1105 00:53:00,720 --> 00:53:02,120 Yes and no. 1106 00:53:02,120 --> 00:53:05,520 In California, you're not allowed to have direct communication. 1107 00:53:05,520 --> 00:53:06,840 Yeah. 1108 00:53:06,840 --> 00:53:10,200 So I wasn't allowed to communicate with the family. 1109 00:53:10,200 --> 00:53:11,800 I participated in a group called 1110 00:53:11,800 --> 00:53:13,960 Victim Offender Education Group, 1111 00:53:13,960 --> 00:53:15,440 which is a victim offender group 1112 00:53:15,440 --> 00:53:16,920 which is a victim offender dialogue, 1113 00:53:16,920 --> 00:53:18,880 18 month course, small group, 1114 00:53:18,880 --> 00:53:23,120 a lot of work to find out the consequences of your crime, 1115 00:53:23,120 --> 00:53:25,440 not just to your victim, but to their family, 1116 00:53:25,440 --> 00:53:29,280 to the community and learn how you could be the person 1117 00:53:29,280 --> 00:53:32,200 that could commit that crime and understanding yourself 1118 00:53:32,200 --> 00:53:34,680 as well and your childhood and the experiences 1119 00:53:34,680 --> 00:53:37,400 that led you there that culminated in a victim panel. 1120 00:53:37,400 --> 00:53:41,720 So I got to sit down with a group of victims 1121 00:53:41,720 --> 00:53:45,160 who had lost somebody to a crime similar to mine. 1122 00:53:45,160 --> 00:53:48,080 In my case, there was a woman who had lost her son 1123 00:53:48,080 --> 00:53:50,280 on his wedding night to a gang line shooting. 1124 00:53:51,160 --> 00:53:55,160 There was a mother and daughter that had lost their father 1125 00:53:55,160 --> 00:53:58,360 and husband to a drunk driver. 1126 00:53:58,360 --> 00:54:01,800 So yes, in that sense, I was able to sit down 1127 00:54:01,800 --> 00:54:06,800 and sit with them and help them hopefully, 1128 00:54:07,320 --> 00:54:10,840 as I wish for everybody to move beyond victimhood 1129 00:54:10,840 --> 00:54:13,120 and become a survivor. 1130 00:54:13,120 --> 00:54:15,480 Because I think that should be a goal. 1131 00:54:15,480 --> 00:54:17,400 It's not to say the wound doesn't there, 1132 00:54:17,400 --> 00:54:19,880 but to have it scar over, not be an open wound 1133 00:54:19,880 --> 00:54:23,440 that is constantly irritated and always at risk, 1134 00:54:23,440 --> 00:54:25,440 which is what I think victimhood gives you. 1135 00:54:25,440 --> 00:54:26,520 The goal is to have it scar over. 1136 00:54:26,520 --> 00:54:28,040 You should be proud of your scars. 1137 00:54:28,040 --> 00:54:31,000 After all, life happens for you, not to you. 1138 00:54:31,000 --> 00:54:33,280 There was something that you needed to learn. 1139 00:54:33,280 --> 00:54:34,880 Figure out what it is. 1140 00:54:34,880 --> 00:54:36,520 Yeah. 1141 00:54:36,520 --> 00:54:39,640 Yeah, Wayne, I really appreciate you sharing your story. 1142 00:54:39,640 --> 00:54:42,120 To all of our listeners, this has been another episode 1143 00:54:42,120 --> 00:54:43,040 of Living in the Matrix. 1144 00:54:43,040 --> 00:54:44,200 We love having you. 1145 00:54:44,200 --> 00:54:46,520 Please comment, review, and rate the show. 1146 00:54:46,520 --> 00:54:47,840 We'd love to get feedback. 1147 00:54:47,840 --> 00:54:51,520 And if you have a guest, please invite them, introduce us. 1148 00:54:51,520 --> 00:54:53,560 To all of our friends and family, much love. 1149 00:54:53,560 --> 00:54:54,760 We'll see you next week. 1150 00:54:54,760 --> 00:55:13,260 Thank you.