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So they found a way of making it more palatable.

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And then topical CBD, obviously for aches and pains on the outside.

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by going to rescue1cbd.com.

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And you can listen to my conversation with John on episode 1011 of the Behind the Shield

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podcast.

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Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast.

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As always, my name is James Gearing and this week it is my absolute honor to welcome on

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the show board member of the Shine a Light Foundation, Robert Banghart.

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Now as you will hear, Robert has an incredibly powerful story from his early life, his journey

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into the world of addiction, how that led him into homelessness, the countless people

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who are homeless and live underneath the city of Las Vegas in their tunnel system, how he

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survived his own attempted murder, his recovery, the encapsulating community that Shine a Light

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Foundation creates for an addict to get themself back off the streets and onto their feet and

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so much more.

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Now before we get to this incredible conversation, as I say every week, please just take a moment,

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go to whichever app you listen to this on, subscribe to the show, leave feedback and

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leave a rating.

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Every single five star rating truly does elevate this podcast, therefore making it easier for

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others to find.

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And this is a free library of over 1,000 episodes now, so all I ask in return is that you help

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share these incredible men and women stories so I can get them to every single person on

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planet earth who needs to hear them.

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So with that being said, I introduce to you Robert Banghart.

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Enjoy.

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Well Robert, I want to start by saying two things.

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Firstly, thank you to our mutual friend, Johan Hari, for even me learning who you are.

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And secondly, I want to welcome you onto the Behind the Shield podcast today.

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He's a great advocate for us.

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He's been a supporter and a longtime friend and mentor for many years and thank you for

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having me.

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So where on planet earth are we finding you today?

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Right now I am at the Shine a Light Foundation offices in Las Vegas.

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Brilliant.

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Well, I would have to start at the very beginning of your kind of life's journey.

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So tell me where you were born and tell me a little bit about your family dynamic, what

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your parents did, how many siblings?

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Oh, OK.

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I was born in New Jersey.

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I was born in a really small town in northwest New Jersey called Morristown.

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Small town, rural, you know, I mean, I think back east the town's rural is very different

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than what rural means than in other parts of the country.

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A lot of towns close by and I was only 45 minutes from New York City, but I was also

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45 minutes from like Poconos, Deep Woods, National Parks.

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So it was a really beautiful place to live.

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You know, I had a I had a lot of good opportunities if I had wanted to.

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You know, my family dynamic is that there was a kind of a double edged sword.

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Right.

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There was a lot of alcoholism in my family.

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But you know, my mom, my first memory growing up was of my dad beating my mom and leaving

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and he disappeared.

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I never saw him ever again.

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So I you know, my my version, my story is that I believe I was born alcoholic, that

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I was always restless, irritable and discontent.

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I was always uncomfortable and I was always very much an actor.

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You know, if you hear my mom say it, that I was I was a happy kid.

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And I think in moments I was I had a you know, a decent upbringing.

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But you know, I was kind of gravitated towards the chaos.

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Right.

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I think that that was kind of my first drug of choice.

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If that makes any sense, Loma for drugs and alcohol, he was acting out because I was always

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uncomfortable.

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You know, some of my my earliest feelings were of disconnection and not feeling a part

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of and, you know, the self love and all that stuff.

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And some of that stuff, I don't know, you know, maybe that was just part of being a

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kid.

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I just don't think that to the extreme that I took it that it was, you know, and my mom

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remarried shortly after and not shortly after in my mind shortly after I was young.

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But she married a man that I call my dad that raised me as his son that, you know, was,

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you know, that figure in my life and still is to this day.

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And, you know, he he he inherited me, you know, and I was a chaotic little kid that

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was resentful that, you know, throw things in his face.

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And, you know, I use that analogy, the double double edged sword, because he was learning

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how to be a dad.

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Right.

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And it's easy for me to say that now.

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But at the time, I didn't understand any of that.

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You know, I thought he was too harsh.

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I thought he was this.

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And, you know, they they had he would work overnight and my mom would work during the

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day and they provided a home and meals and safety.

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Right.

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Like we weren't rich, especially in the beginning.

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But I mean, like I had all the opportunity in the world to live a successful life, you

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know, if I wasn't an alcoholic addict.

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But but I am.

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And, you know, I gravitated towards bad behavior pretty young.

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And, you know, I was acting out.

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I was very, very like I used to I used the visual example of a round peg in a square

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hole.

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That's the story of my life.

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I never really felt connected to anything.

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And even at a very young age, I had like really like twisted thoughts, you know what I mean?

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Like thinking of like wanting it to end and suicide and different things.

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Never never a plan, nothing like that.

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But just, you know, it was very hot and cold.

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It was I was was not somebody that was very balanced.

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And, you know, that would be the story of my life.

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It's interesting.

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A lot of people who were either fostered or adopted or, you know, the the parent or both

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parents, you know, were we lost them to the overdose or they were incarcerated or they

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just simply left that when people are older and they kind of look back and unpack it with

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a mature lens, there seems to be a reoccurring theme that that child at that moment thought

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that they just weren't you know, why was I not good enough for my dad to stay?

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Why was I not good enough for, you know, whatever relative to not dive into a bottle?

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When you look back now, do you think that was one of the root causes of the way you

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were feeling?

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It definitely played a part.

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You know, it definitely played a part.

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I I just had this thought.

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I mean, it's probably the first time I've thought about it since I got sober.

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It was, you know, very early on when my mom was, you know, trying to figure this out,

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single mom, two kids like she has some family support.

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But like, I'm sure it was hard.

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I can only imagine I was too young to really, really understand it.

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But, you know, I had a babysitter that used to lock us in the basement all day long and

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then let us out a half hour before my mom came home, you know, and that's not my mom's

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fault.

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My mom is struggling, doing her best to keep us together and safe.

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And she did an amazing job.

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You know what I mean?

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But there was so there was things that happened 100 percent right.

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Like traumas and different experiences.

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But I just don't believe that that's why I'm alcoholic.

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Right.

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Like it wasn't beneficial.

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It didn't help.

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But I think that, you know, I am because I am.

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I think once you once you unpack your life and really get into recovery and start doing

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the work and look back with it, like you said, a clear lens and an empathetic lens, you start

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to understand that like, yes, some bad things happen to me, but bad things happen to people

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all the time.

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You know?

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It's not an excuse to burn your life down.

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Right.

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And for me, it was if I'm an addict, I have it.

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It's the disease of no choice.

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So like I didn't I didn't ever make a choice to burn my life down.

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Right.

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Like it was the disease of no choice.

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I was powerless over it.

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So you know, I I look back at my mom and my my you know, my dad, my my the one the man

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that raised me and I have nothing but love and respect for everything they tried to do

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in the midst of my my chaotic mind.

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You know, like they did a lot.

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And you know, my mom went through a lot before, you know, so and I didn't I didn't help the

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situation, but I have a lot of respect for what they they persevered through because

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they in spite of me, tried to give me a really beautiful life.

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And you know, and to this day, are my biggest supporters.

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I think there's a term that I've used a lot recently.

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Reasons not excuses.

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If you know, if you play the victim, you're like, well, this happened to me and this is

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why I'm like this, then, you know, I disagree with that philosophy.

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But if you also don't look around and go, but this did happen to me and it did have

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an impact, then I think it kind of gets in the way of healing, too.

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So you've got to you've got to give yourself some grace and acknowledge the things that

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did happen.

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Like I was in a house fire when I was four and my parents got divorced.

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There were some things, you know, but they didn't leave me down a dark path because I

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was so fortunate for all the good things.

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It's just like you're saying, but, you know, if if as a firefighter, you know, for example,

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I'm like, oh, you know, what's wrong with me?

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And then, oh, it must have been that fire that you were on.

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And I'm not acknowledging the first, you know, 26 years of my life when I wasn't a firefighter,

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then I'm missing part of the healing.

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So I think this is the thing I hear a lot of people say, you know, my parents did the

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best with what they had.

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And I agree with that 100 percent.

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It's not about blame, but it's also kind of understanding that certain things like the

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babysitter event and you're watching your your mom being beaten and your dad walking

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out.

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Those things still had an impact on a small child.

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Yeah, 100 percent.

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And like I use the I'm really big on perspective, right?

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It's something that I have to practice because addiction is mental health.

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Right.

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It is.

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And I have to practice certain tools every day and I'm not perfect at it by any means.

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But I think about like certain things.

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Like I heard a story one time about a gentleman in India.

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He had been born.

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He was living on the streets his entire life.

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He was a young kid selling like rice kernels to survive and feed his family.

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And he went on to be one of the wealthiest people in India.

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You know, I think about that stuff to think that like what happened to me is not an excuse

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to not succeed or be happy.

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Right.

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It did happen to me.

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I own it.

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I can heal from it.

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I can walk through it.

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But it's not going to I'm not going to allow it to to reoccurringly happen to me again.

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Right.

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In smaller increments and paper cuts and hold me back from a beautiful life.

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And you know, and both sides of it is that, you know, my parents were amazing.

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They did an amazing job with what they had and they provided, you know, so there's no

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nothing that I did had anything to do with, you know, my parents.

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Yeah.

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What about sports and exercise?

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What were you playing and doing when you were in the school age?

234
00:13:19,840 --> 00:13:25,120
Oh, I think I, you know, a little bit of soccer, a little bit of football.

235
00:13:25,120 --> 00:13:27,040
I tried those things.

236
00:13:27,040 --> 00:13:32,840
I just I would always become very uncomfortable and I would either, you know, quit or not

237
00:13:32,840 --> 00:13:33,840
believe in myself.

238
00:13:33,840 --> 00:13:34,840
You know what I mean?

239
00:13:34,840 --> 00:13:36,840
There's a lot of self doubt and fear.

240
00:13:36,840 --> 00:13:42,960
And, you know, I I remember I was 14 years old and somebody knocked on our front door

241
00:13:42,960 --> 00:13:48,560
and this man, I never met him before, but something about him I could I could I saw

242
00:13:48,560 --> 00:13:52,720
something in him that reminded me of me kind of like ended up being an uncle that I had

243
00:13:52,720 --> 00:13:54,120
never met before in my entire life.

244
00:13:54,120 --> 00:13:59,080
And he told me that my dad had overdosed and died.

245
00:13:59,080 --> 00:14:03,200
So you know, and then shortly after that, my grandfather, who was like the only man

246
00:14:03,200 --> 00:14:08,800
in my life up to that point that I would really give respect to, he passed away very shortly

247
00:14:08,800 --> 00:14:09,800
after that.

248
00:14:09,800 --> 00:14:13,320
And, you know, so again, there was things that happened, right.

249
00:14:13,320 --> 00:14:18,360
And for me, it wasn't now in retrospect, looking back, those weren't things that made

250
00:14:18,360 --> 00:14:19,360
me the way I am.

251
00:14:19,360 --> 00:14:24,000
Those were things that I used as an excuse to continue to do the things that I was doing,

252
00:14:24,000 --> 00:14:25,000
right.

253
00:14:25,000 --> 00:14:28,520
Because I didn't I was just so uncomfortable, so uncomfortable.

254
00:14:28,520 --> 00:14:32,760
And, you know, again, in retrospect, looking back now, having some knowledge of recovery

255
00:14:32,760 --> 00:14:37,640
and, you know, the natures of what it is that I have, I understand that I was restful,

256
00:14:37,640 --> 00:14:39,840
irritable, discontent, and I was seeking relief.

257
00:14:39,840 --> 00:14:40,840
Right.

258
00:14:40,840 --> 00:14:45,640
And at first it was behaviors and acting out and how I treated people and all that.

259
00:14:45,640 --> 00:14:51,240
And then, you know, then later on it would become more obviously.

260
00:14:51,240 --> 00:14:57,080
Before the man you call father came into your life, when you look back, even though you

261
00:14:57,080 --> 00:15:03,040
had the undying love of your mother, was there an element of feeling unsafe in that volatile

262
00:15:03,040 --> 00:15:07,480
relationship with, you know, your original father, for lack of a better word?

263
00:15:07,480 --> 00:15:08,480
I was so young.

264
00:15:08,480 --> 00:15:12,440
You know, I read a book that said, what happened to you?

265
00:15:12,440 --> 00:15:13,440
Right.

266
00:15:13,440 --> 00:15:16,760
And I read a book on trauma and it talks about and the body keeps a score.

267
00:15:16,760 --> 00:15:17,760
Another great book, right.

268
00:15:17,760 --> 00:15:22,720
It talks about these traumas that happened to us in our infantile times before we have

269
00:15:22,720 --> 00:15:28,680
a consciousness that our body carries, but that we may not remember.

270
00:15:28,680 --> 00:15:35,240
And that's probably relatable to me that there's I'm sure there's something right that I'm

271
00:15:35,240 --> 00:15:39,840
I don't know how I'm going to be able to unpack right that I have, you know, looked at and

272
00:15:39,840 --> 00:15:45,600
thought about and prayed about and done a lot of writing on and, you know, but I don't

273
00:15:45,600 --> 00:15:46,600
know.

274
00:15:46,600 --> 00:15:47,600
You know what I mean?

275
00:15:47,600 --> 00:15:51,880
I just keep if I keep practicing this, I feel like I have gotten freedom from a lot of that

276
00:15:51,880 --> 00:15:53,120
stuff for the most part.

277
00:15:53,120 --> 00:15:57,080
And then, you know, when it pops up, I got to get back into it.

278
00:15:57,080 --> 00:16:01,440
What it reminds me, I mean, firstly, again, that that kind of fear, I was a very anxious

279
00:16:01,440 --> 00:16:02,440
child.

280
00:16:02,440 --> 00:16:05,880
You know, I was a very meek little boy and I look back and again, the fire and some other

281
00:16:05,880 --> 00:16:09,000
things, you know, I'm sure we're part of that.

282
00:16:09,000 --> 00:16:12,080
Then you look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

283
00:16:12,080 --> 00:16:15,640
Safety is the first thing you have before food and water and everything.

284
00:16:15,640 --> 00:16:19,800
If someone's trying to kill you and we'll get to your personal experience of that, you

285
00:16:19,800 --> 00:16:22,600
know, then you're not thinking about food or hunger.

286
00:16:22,600 --> 00:16:26,920
You know, you're thinking about I need to get away from this thing where it's interesting

287
00:16:26,920 --> 00:16:30,760
because you said, you know, you never felt settled.

288
00:16:30,760 --> 00:16:37,160
I had a conversation with someone a while ago and they'd written a book called Oh, goodness,

289
00:16:37,160 --> 00:16:39,640
what was it called now?

290
00:16:39,640 --> 00:16:40,640
I forget the title.

291
00:16:40,640 --> 00:16:41,640
It was about anxiety.

292
00:16:41,640 --> 00:16:43,480
It'll come back to me in a minute.

293
00:16:43,480 --> 00:16:47,320
But it was the introvert said, excuse me.

294
00:16:47,320 --> 00:16:48,960
So that's what it was called.

295
00:16:48,960 --> 00:16:55,720
And the definition of an introvert was you can be around people, but it's where do you

296
00:16:55,720 --> 00:16:56,720
get your power?

297
00:16:56,720 --> 00:16:58,560
Where do you recharge?

298
00:16:58,560 --> 00:17:01,720
And I thought, you know, I didn't think like I'm a big extrovert by any means, but I thought

299
00:17:01,720 --> 00:17:03,040
it was kind of in the middle.

300
00:17:03,040 --> 00:17:07,400
But I'm the kind of person where if I go into a group of people, I'm fine, but you'll turn

301
00:17:07,400 --> 00:17:08,880
around and I'll be gone at some point.

302
00:17:08,880 --> 00:17:12,020
And I've just hit my wall and I'm like, all right, I'm out of here now.

303
00:17:12,020 --> 00:17:16,960
And so then when you look at a lot of us that weren't deep in opioid addiction, but for

304
00:17:16,960 --> 00:17:22,460
example, drink alcohol, and you look at people pre gaming, which I used to do to have a drink

305
00:17:22,460 --> 00:17:28,240
so you can go out and have a drink, you realize how many of us are introvert and how many

306
00:17:28,240 --> 00:17:33,520
of us do struggle, how many of us don't feel comfortable, you know, in these certain things.

307
00:17:33,520 --> 00:17:37,520
So I think, you know, yours is probably more extreme because you were exposed to certain

308
00:17:37,520 --> 00:17:39,800
things that maybe some people weren't.

309
00:17:39,800 --> 00:17:44,580
But I think that crawling under your skin, that not feeling comfortable and thinking that

310
00:17:44,580 --> 00:17:48,400
everyone else is the life of the party kind of feeling, I think there's a lot more people

311
00:17:48,400 --> 00:17:50,360
that suffer from that than we realize.

312
00:17:50,360 --> 00:17:51,840
Oh, 100%.

313
00:17:51,840 --> 00:17:57,820
I think that everything that an addict feels, they're human human feelings, right?

314
00:17:57,820 --> 00:18:00,400
They're not some extra feelings that we don't understand.

315
00:18:00,400 --> 00:18:05,520
It's just the way that we go about them, the way that we allow them to impact our lives

316
00:18:05,520 --> 00:18:11,120
and the way that we take them to the extremes that separates us in that aspect, right?

317
00:18:11,120 --> 00:18:16,300
So everything, and believe me, when I was young, before drugs and alcohol was a part

318
00:18:16,300 --> 00:18:18,800
of my story, I just thought like I was an awkward kid, right?

319
00:18:18,800 --> 00:18:22,040
Like I was just not adjusted to life, right?

320
00:18:22,040 --> 00:18:26,080
You know, it was a lot of chaos like that, a lot of insecurity.

321
00:18:26,080 --> 00:18:30,760
But it didn't feel like I was sick, right?

322
00:18:30,760 --> 00:18:34,240
It didn't feel like, it just felt like I was awkward.

323
00:18:34,240 --> 00:18:38,960
It felt like I was, you know, and it didn't really at that age have a whole lot of people

324
00:18:38,960 --> 00:18:41,680
who weren't talking about their feelings and all the thoughts in their heads.

325
00:18:41,680 --> 00:18:45,280
So it wasn't like I had a whole lot of relatability with anybody.

326
00:18:45,280 --> 00:18:50,480
So I was drawn to those that were acting out like I was, right?

327
00:18:50,480 --> 00:18:56,120
I found that, I almost want to say I went to the lowest common denominator, right?

328
00:18:56,120 --> 00:18:59,760
The people that would accept me for who I was and the chaos because they were chaotic

329
00:18:59,760 --> 00:19:00,760
too.

330
00:19:00,760 --> 00:19:04,640
And, you know, so that because we didn't have the communication skills, like I said,

331
00:19:04,640 --> 00:19:09,120
I don't think you're supposed to have them at that age.

332
00:19:09,120 --> 00:19:10,720
So what about career aspirations?

333
00:19:10,720 --> 00:19:14,880
When you were in the school ages, what were you dreaming of becoming?

334
00:19:14,880 --> 00:19:21,440
Oh, so my grandmother was that grandfather that passed away, his wife, my grandmother

335
00:19:21,440 --> 00:19:22,920
was a waitress.

336
00:19:22,920 --> 00:19:28,480
And in my small town, it wasn't like you needed to work cards or, you know, nobody

337
00:19:28,480 --> 00:19:29,480
was checking your ID, right?

338
00:19:29,480 --> 00:19:31,280
You just showed up and they paid you cash.

339
00:19:31,280 --> 00:19:36,520
So I was working in a kitchen pretty young, 13, 14 years old, I was working in a kitchen.

340
00:19:36,520 --> 00:19:39,040
You know, I started as a busboy, kind of worked my way up.

341
00:19:39,040 --> 00:19:41,900
And I don't know that I really had aspirations.

342
00:19:41,900 --> 00:19:45,560
I think at some point I was thinking about going to culinary school, but then my life

343
00:19:45,560 --> 00:19:46,560
got sidetracked.

344
00:19:46,560 --> 00:19:51,740
I went to prison when I was 17 years old, I got certified as an adult.

345
00:19:51,740 --> 00:19:53,280
So I spent three years in prison.

346
00:19:53,280 --> 00:19:59,560
I had my parents on the front lawn in handcuffs while they're searching the house two different

347
00:19:59,560 --> 00:20:04,280
times in the same week, you know, and so that kind of derailed a lot of that.

348
00:20:04,280 --> 00:20:09,640
And when I got out, I was still in the same small town, right?

349
00:20:09,640 --> 00:20:11,680
And all the cops know me, they know what I'm doing.

350
00:20:11,680 --> 00:20:16,080
They know my reputation or whatever it is, the rumors.

351
00:20:16,080 --> 00:20:20,040
So they're pulling me over all the time and they're searching the car.

352
00:20:20,040 --> 00:20:21,320
They were trying to help me too.

353
00:20:21,320 --> 00:20:25,680
Again, with the clearer set eyes, I look back and I realize there was a lot of conversations

354
00:20:25,680 --> 00:20:29,000
they were trying to have with me and trying to see what they could do.

355
00:20:29,000 --> 00:20:30,000
You know what I mean?

356
00:20:30,000 --> 00:20:33,360
I don't know if recovery was really mentioned, but it was just definitely about changing

357
00:20:33,360 --> 00:20:36,520
my life and my decision making.

358
00:20:36,520 --> 00:20:39,400
So after a couple years of that, I just said, okay, I've got to get out of here.

359
00:20:39,400 --> 00:20:44,240
I did a geographical and I came out to Vegas because I had a using buddy that was out here

360
00:20:44,240 --> 00:20:49,520
and he had sold me on a dream and I came out here with a couple hundred bucks in my pocket.

361
00:20:49,520 --> 00:20:51,620
I started working in some really nice restaurants.

362
00:20:51,620 --> 00:20:52,620
That was chaotic.

363
00:20:52,620 --> 00:20:58,800
It was, you know, the using buddy that I had was a lot further along the using path than

364
00:20:58,800 --> 00:20:59,800
I had seen before.

365
00:20:59,800 --> 00:21:04,400
And it was, I left that pretty quickly, but I started working at some really nice restaurants.

366
00:21:04,400 --> 00:21:05,880
I was working for Wolfgang Puck.

367
00:21:05,880 --> 00:21:08,320
I was working for Herman Lagasse.

368
00:21:08,320 --> 00:21:13,160
I was building up a nice little career, but at each of those jobs, I tell this story a

369
00:21:13,160 --> 00:21:14,160
lot, right?

370
00:21:14,160 --> 00:21:15,160
I was working for Wolfgang Puck.

371
00:21:15,160 --> 00:21:18,360
I was there for about two and a half years and I get a call from the chef.

372
00:21:18,360 --> 00:21:20,640
He says, Hey, Wolfgang is coming to town.

373
00:21:20,640 --> 00:21:21,640
He wants to talk to you.

374
00:21:21,640 --> 00:21:22,880
At least that's what I heard, right?

375
00:21:22,880 --> 00:21:25,360
I'm sure he wanted to talk to a lot of people.

376
00:21:25,360 --> 00:21:30,880
And so we sit down finally when it gets to town and I thought for sure, like, this is

377
00:21:30,880 --> 00:21:32,480
my call up to the majors.

378
00:21:32,480 --> 00:21:34,760
He sees my talent, all these things.

379
00:21:34,760 --> 00:21:38,680
And really he just, he proceeded to tell me about my alcoholism.

380
00:21:38,680 --> 00:21:40,920
I mean, how I was miserable.

381
00:21:40,920 --> 00:21:44,000
I was, you know, I was a hard worker, but I was always angry.

382
00:21:44,000 --> 00:21:45,000
You know what I mean?

383
00:21:45,000 --> 00:21:48,720
I was always coming into work on over.

384
00:21:48,720 --> 00:21:51,240
And you know, at that time I wasn't ready to face all that stuff.

385
00:21:51,240 --> 00:21:55,000
So what I heard was, you know, you're not going to value me, so I'm going to go somewhere

386
00:21:55,000 --> 00:21:56,000
else.

387
00:21:56,000 --> 00:21:58,800
And that would be a pattern for a long period of time in my life.

388
00:21:58,800 --> 00:22:02,600
And you know, I got married during that time when we had a kid.

389
00:22:02,600 --> 00:22:05,880
So she stayed with me for about 10 years and she was a saint.

390
00:22:05,880 --> 00:22:11,760
Like, she put up with me through like the thick and throes of all my addiction.

391
00:22:11,760 --> 00:22:16,920
And then eventually I spent the last two years of that relationship on methadone.

392
00:22:16,920 --> 00:22:20,880
And I'm a huge proponent for meth medication, but I wasn't ready and I wasn't trying

393
00:22:20,880 --> 00:22:21,880
to use it the right way.

394
00:22:21,880 --> 00:22:26,000
So I would lay in bed all day long for like two years straight and the only time I would

395
00:22:26,000 --> 00:22:30,480
get up would be to go get my dose or to army crawl through her parents' bedroom and steal

396
00:22:30,480 --> 00:22:32,560
their jewelry and pawn that.

397
00:22:32,560 --> 00:22:35,320
So I could get another dose or you know what I mean?

398
00:22:35,320 --> 00:22:37,520
It's just the tail end of my addiction.

399
00:22:37,520 --> 00:22:44,920
And finally she kicked me out and when she kicked me out I got arrested very shortly

400
00:22:44,920 --> 00:22:45,920
after that.

401
00:22:45,920 --> 00:22:48,800
And I did a little bit of time in a county jail, no big deal.

402
00:22:48,800 --> 00:22:54,160
And then when I got out I decided to—I had never been homeless before in my life, so I

403
00:22:54,160 --> 00:22:56,200
decided to go to a place called the Samaritan House.

404
00:22:56,200 --> 00:22:59,040
And the Samaritan House is like the last house on the block.

405
00:22:59,040 --> 00:23:01,960
And they had a house manager at the time that was very stern.

406
00:23:01,960 --> 00:23:04,040
Like you're going to do this or you're going to get out.

407
00:23:04,040 --> 00:23:06,960
And I was just scared enough to do it, you know.

408
00:23:06,960 --> 00:23:09,680
And I did all the things I was supposed to do in my recovery.

409
00:23:09,680 --> 00:23:14,240
And that time through recovery a lot of things came back really quick.

410
00:23:14,240 --> 00:23:19,040
Like within six months I had everything, everything was good, you know.

411
00:23:19,040 --> 00:23:23,280
And I started to believe that I was doing it, right.

412
00:23:23,280 --> 00:23:28,080
I had figured it out and you know that's how my alcoholism attacked me.

413
00:23:28,080 --> 00:23:30,560
So I was able to hang on for a couple more years like that.

414
00:23:30,560 --> 00:23:34,200
I think I got to like three years I'd remarried, had another kid.

415
00:23:34,200 --> 00:23:39,120
And I'd been asked to speak at a meeting at my three years.

416
00:23:39,120 --> 00:23:40,120
And I don't know why.

417
00:23:40,120 --> 00:23:42,560
I hadn't gone to a meeting in so long.

418
00:23:42,560 --> 00:23:48,880
I went, I spoke, and I went home that night and my head was so loud that I put a needle

419
00:23:48,880 --> 00:23:50,840
in my arm and I relapsed that night.

420
00:23:50,840 --> 00:23:56,520
And within a month she had found, you know, like a needle in the trash or something and

421
00:23:56,520 --> 00:23:57,520
she left.

422
00:23:57,520 --> 00:23:59,280
And within a month I was homeless.

423
00:23:59,280 --> 00:24:02,640
I had never been homeless before in my life.

424
00:24:02,640 --> 00:24:04,320
You know my homelessness was very progressive.

425
00:24:04,320 --> 00:24:08,560
I was, I started out in the shelters a little bit, you know what I mean.

426
00:24:08,560 --> 00:24:09,560
That was pretty chaotic.

427
00:24:09,560 --> 00:24:13,400
It was very, it's not like what you see in the movies by any means.

428
00:24:13,400 --> 00:24:17,480
It was very, not something I would ever recommend.

429
00:24:17,480 --> 00:24:21,960
And then eventually I got tired of that and I started sleeping on the streets around the

430
00:24:21,960 --> 00:24:25,600
shelter and then I started camping out in different areas.

431
00:24:25,600 --> 00:24:29,000
And eventually I made my way up to an area called the rescue mission.

432
00:24:29,000 --> 00:24:32,080
The rescue mission is part of the homeless triangle where the three shelters are.

433
00:24:32,080 --> 00:24:36,040
And then I lived in a bando for about two and a half years up there called the Moulin

434
00:24:36,040 --> 00:24:37,040
Rouge.

435
00:24:37,040 --> 00:24:40,160
It's like this big casino that's been abandoned for like sixty years.

436
00:24:40,160 --> 00:24:42,720
And then eventually the day came.

437
00:24:42,720 --> 00:24:45,680
One of my using buddies while I was out there said, hey, come with me.

438
00:24:45,680 --> 00:24:49,720
And I went with them and he introduced me to what would be my home for the next two

439
00:24:49,720 --> 00:24:53,560
and a half years was this tunnel that was really hidden.

440
00:24:53,560 --> 00:24:54,600
You couldn't get into it.

441
00:24:54,600 --> 00:24:58,040
Some tunnels in Vegas you can get into and walk into pretty easily and this one was very

442
00:24:58,040 --> 00:24:59,040
hard to get into.

443
00:24:59,040 --> 00:25:01,960
And it was isolated and it had a hierarchy.

444
00:25:01,960 --> 00:25:05,800
It had like a mayor and there was some basic rules.

445
00:25:05,800 --> 00:25:08,480
I call it Lord of the Flies.

446
00:25:08,480 --> 00:25:11,840
Everybody from the outside was suspect and we were very careful about.

447
00:25:11,840 --> 00:25:16,840
But internally there was a lot of chaos too and everybody's getting high and hustling.

448
00:25:16,840 --> 00:25:18,880
And I'm a heroin user.

449
00:25:18,880 --> 00:25:21,000
I did a lot of meth while I was out there obviously.

450
00:25:21,000 --> 00:25:24,800
But I couldn't do heroin in my tunnel.

451
00:25:24,800 --> 00:25:28,080
I had to like I'd get the itch to do heroin every once in a while and I have to go disappear

452
00:25:28,080 --> 00:25:34,760
for a little while and come back and spent two and a half years underground.

453
00:25:34,760 --> 00:25:37,680
I want to just kind of roll the clock back a little bit.

454
00:25:37,680 --> 00:25:38,920
You're crawling under your skin.

455
00:25:38,920 --> 00:25:42,620
You're never feeling comfortable as a child.

456
00:25:42,620 --> 00:25:48,160
When did alcohol come in and then when did opiates come in?

457
00:25:48,160 --> 00:25:51,320
So for me, you hear about it a lot in recovery.

458
00:25:51,320 --> 00:25:52,800
People talk about the aha moment.

459
00:25:52,800 --> 00:25:56,640
They had their first drink or they had their first whatever and they felt like they had

460
00:25:56,640 --> 00:25:58,800
arrived or they felt free.

461
00:25:58,800 --> 00:26:02,000
That's not really my experience and I don't know if it's because of the head trauma.

462
00:26:02,000 --> 00:26:03,000
We'll get into that.

463
00:26:03,000 --> 00:26:06,840
But like I don't ever remember the first time.

464
00:26:06,840 --> 00:26:08,200
I mean it was around.

465
00:26:08,200 --> 00:26:10,560
It was not in my house at all.

466
00:26:10,560 --> 00:26:15,640
I think my dad drank a little bit but like a beer or two once on a holiday.

467
00:26:15,640 --> 00:26:16,640
It was nothing.

468
00:26:16,640 --> 00:26:18,080
I mean it was never in my house.

469
00:26:18,080 --> 00:26:21,640
But I gravitated towards that chaos very early on.

470
00:26:21,640 --> 00:26:28,160
So I was the kid that would steal a beer out of the cooler and go drink with the neighborhood

471
00:26:28,160 --> 00:26:31,440
kids and we would all do that all the time.

472
00:26:31,440 --> 00:26:35,160
Weed was always kind of around even when I was young.

473
00:26:35,160 --> 00:26:36,920
And then I progressed.

474
00:26:36,920 --> 00:26:41,320
I think heroin started for me probably 14, 15.

475
00:26:41,320 --> 00:26:43,680
I started to delve into it a little bit.

476
00:26:43,680 --> 00:26:44,680
But it progressed very fast.

477
00:26:44,680 --> 00:26:48,480
I mean I was in prison at 17 so it was only two or three years.

478
00:26:48,480 --> 00:26:52,680
And then when I got out I went right back to it.

479
00:26:52,680 --> 00:26:54,280
The timeline for me is a little foggy.

480
00:26:54,280 --> 00:26:57,480
Like I said I don't know if some of that is just because it was always around in a

481
00:26:57,480 --> 00:27:01,400
sense in my neighborhood and whatnot and the people that I hung out with.

482
00:27:01,400 --> 00:27:08,400
But also I have pretty severe head trauma where my memory is not of those times is not

483
00:27:08,400 --> 00:27:13,840
as good as I think it should be.

484
00:27:13,840 --> 00:27:19,880
Johan and I have both interviewed a gentleman, Zhao Gu Lao, who was the man who spearheaded

485
00:27:19,880 --> 00:27:23,720
decriminalization of addiction in Portugal.

486
00:27:23,720 --> 00:27:29,360
And as a first responder for 14 years we get to see here in America the epic failure of

487
00:27:29,360 --> 00:27:30,680
prohibition.

488
00:27:30,680 --> 00:27:36,720
How it's empowered gangs and dealers and the sex working industry.

489
00:27:36,720 --> 00:27:41,920
All these areas that we see a lot of criminality coming from is down to the prohibition of

490
00:27:41,920 --> 00:27:42,960
drugs.

491
00:27:42,960 --> 00:27:46,560
What Portugal did is they took someone like you and they put them into the medical system

492
00:27:46,560 --> 00:27:48,620
not the criminal system.

493
00:27:48,620 --> 00:27:57,080
So through your eyes as an addict speak to me about the resistance to getting clean,

494
00:27:57,080 --> 00:28:01,240
getting healthy in an environment where you basically have to go to the underworld for

495
00:28:01,240 --> 00:28:02,240
your fix.

496
00:28:02,240 --> 00:28:03,240
Yeah.

497
00:28:03,240 --> 00:28:07,520
I mean there's a lot of guilt and shame.

498
00:28:07,520 --> 00:28:12,480
And there's a lot of areas in life where unfortunately we put a lot of guilt and shame.

499
00:28:12,480 --> 00:28:15,200
As an addict I definitely felt it.

500
00:28:15,200 --> 00:28:18,880
I'm living underground and I don't feel like I'm a part of society.

501
00:28:18,880 --> 00:28:22,400
I live in the same world as you but I'm not.

502
00:28:22,400 --> 00:28:33,860
Even to the psychosis or the mentality I share about this a lot is the people making decisions

503
00:28:33,860 --> 00:28:37,480
aren't the ones with the lived experience thinking about these things.

504
00:28:37,480 --> 00:28:41,160
It took me a month to learn how to sleep in a bed when I got sober.

505
00:28:41,160 --> 00:28:42,720
I hadn't watched TV in five years.

506
00:28:42,720 --> 00:28:45,520
I hadn't had three hot meals in a day in five years.

507
00:28:45,520 --> 00:28:51,760
And I could spend the rest of this interview talking about all the things that were not

508
00:28:51,760 --> 00:28:53,440
in my life for five years.

509
00:28:53,440 --> 00:29:00,080
So when you do that, when you take away hope, when you have no hope you don't plan.

510
00:29:00,080 --> 00:29:02,000
There's no need for a Google calendar.

511
00:29:02,000 --> 00:29:03,000
There's nothing going on.

512
00:29:03,000 --> 00:29:07,440
I'm living directly in this moment.

513
00:29:07,440 --> 00:29:11,720
I prayed that I wouldn't wake up for at least a year, year and a half every day.

514
00:29:11,720 --> 00:29:15,160
I would be mad that I woke up.

515
00:29:15,160 --> 00:29:21,740
But when you do that, you take away all that outside distractions and all of Maslow's hierarchy

516
00:29:21,740 --> 00:29:22,740
of needs.

517
00:29:22,740 --> 00:29:23,740
I've just thrown them away.

518
00:29:23,740 --> 00:29:25,560
I don't care.

519
00:29:25,560 --> 00:29:29,640
And now I live in the same world as you but you're thinking about what you're doing later

520
00:29:29,640 --> 00:29:32,600
on and when you're going to get your Starbucks and what game's on tonight.

521
00:29:32,600 --> 00:29:35,080
And I'm thinking about where's my next fix?

522
00:29:35,080 --> 00:29:37,840
What do I got to do to get my next fix?

523
00:29:37,840 --> 00:29:39,200
Where am I going to lay my head?

524
00:29:39,200 --> 00:29:43,200
All those things that the basic primal needs.

525
00:29:43,200 --> 00:29:47,760
So my Maslow's became very different than the average human being.

526
00:29:47,760 --> 00:29:49,840
And then you're walking around.

527
00:29:49,840 --> 00:29:50,840
I had four teeth.

528
00:29:50,840 --> 00:29:53,400
I was 120 pounds.

529
00:29:53,400 --> 00:29:54,400
My beard's growing out.

530
00:29:54,400 --> 00:29:55,400
I haven't had a haircut.

531
00:29:55,400 --> 00:29:59,600
I haven't showered in five years.

532
00:29:59,600 --> 00:30:00,600
There's no hope in that.

533
00:30:00,600 --> 00:30:01,600
You know what I mean?

534
00:30:01,600 --> 00:30:06,320
It completely changes your perspective on the world.

535
00:30:06,320 --> 00:30:12,520
Talk to me about you kind of touched on some of the dark side of even your shelter experience.

536
00:30:12,520 --> 00:30:17,280
So people assume, OK, well, people go to a homeless shelter and they've got all the things

537
00:30:17,280 --> 00:30:18,960
that they would need.

538
00:30:18,960 --> 00:30:22,720
Clearly there's a spectrum, probably some incredible shelters.

539
00:30:22,720 --> 00:30:27,800
And then we saw even during Katrina, the horrible things that would happen in a giant football

540
00:30:27,800 --> 00:30:30,060
stadium when people were clumped together.

541
00:30:30,060 --> 00:30:36,280
So what are the things that people don't realize about some of the shelters or some of the

542
00:30:36,280 --> 00:30:41,780
areas that are homeless are able to get into on some nights?

543
00:30:41,780 --> 00:30:43,200
So what I would say is this.

544
00:30:43,200 --> 00:30:44,960
All I can share about is my own experience.

545
00:30:44,960 --> 00:30:47,720
I've never been in any other shelters but the one that I was in.

546
00:30:47,720 --> 00:30:49,680
So I'm not trying to group all of them by any means.

547
00:30:49,680 --> 00:30:50,880
I think you touched on that.

548
00:30:50,880 --> 00:30:55,680
So my personal experience was that it was very much a numbers game.

549
00:30:55,680 --> 00:30:56,680
Fill the beds.

550
00:30:56,680 --> 00:30:59,720
And there was one or two people working.

551
00:30:59,720 --> 00:31:00,720
They were like the security.

552
00:31:00,720 --> 00:31:03,000
They were very rough, very.

553
00:31:03,000 --> 00:31:06,640
And again, I can look back now like the crowd was very rough.

554
00:31:06,640 --> 00:31:08,480
So they probably had to be on some level.

555
00:31:08,480 --> 00:31:09,480
But it wasn't very empathetic.

556
00:31:09,480 --> 00:31:10,480
It wasn't conditioned.

557
00:31:10,480 --> 00:31:14,720
It was very get in by 10, get out by six.

558
00:31:14,720 --> 00:31:15,720
And that's it.

559
00:31:15,720 --> 00:31:18,120
And think about the guilt and shame of that.

560
00:31:18,120 --> 00:31:21,800
You're carrying everything you own all night long while you're sleeping.

561
00:31:21,800 --> 00:31:24,560
You're wondering if it's going to get stolen by somebody else in there.

562
00:31:24,560 --> 00:31:28,720
And then you wake up at 6 o'clock in the morning, get out.

563
00:31:28,720 --> 00:31:30,080
And then you're walking around the streets.

564
00:31:30,080 --> 00:31:33,720
So if I go apply for a job, I've got all my property with me.

565
00:31:33,720 --> 00:31:37,800
Now I've got to throw that in a bush or somewhere to hide that, hope it doesn't get stolen,

566
00:31:37,800 --> 00:31:42,200
go inside, apply for a job that I know I'm not going to get.

567
00:31:42,200 --> 00:31:46,440
So it's just the hopelessness just continues to stack up.

568
00:31:46,440 --> 00:31:50,320
I like to use the visual representation of paper guts.

569
00:31:50,320 --> 00:31:53,720
A lot of my homelessness was not these major traumatic events.

570
00:31:53,720 --> 00:31:55,080
There were some, 100%.

571
00:31:55,080 --> 00:32:02,160
It's not a lot of it was more slow evolution, paper cuts, just bleeding to death by a thousand

572
00:32:02,160 --> 00:32:03,600
paper cuts.

573
00:32:03,600 --> 00:32:05,760
I say the same thing in the fire service.

574
00:32:05,760 --> 00:32:10,720
Some of us were, for example, at the Vegas shooting, and that was a very large trauma

575
00:32:10,720 --> 00:32:13,080
of the capital T as they say.

576
00:32:13,080 --> 00:32:19,480
But most of us, it's 10, 20, 30 years of all these calls, all these nights without sleeping.

577
00:32:19,480 --> 00:32:23,680
And it is, I use exactly the same phrase all the time, death by a thousand cuts.

578
00:32:23,680 --> 00:32:30,320
Compassion, fatigue, and all of it's very real.

579
00:32:30,320 --> 00:32:37,520
As you are progressing through the years, experiencing homelessness, did you notice

580
00:32:37,520 --> 00:32:42,160
any common denominators by some of the men and women that you encountered that were also

581
00:32:42,160 --> 00:32:43,760
experiencing the same thing?

582
00:32:43,760 --> 00:32:47,040
I mean, there were some generalities.

583
00:32:47,040 --> 00:32:50,920
I think that it's also very individualized at the same time.

584
00:32:50,920 --> 00:32:53,120
So it's definitely that two sides of the coin.

585
00:32:53,120 --> 00:32:56,200
I think in a general way, there was a ton of substance use disorder.

586
00:32:56,200 --> 00:32:57,680
There was mental health.

587
00:32:57,680 --> 00:33:00,400
There was a lot of stuff like that.

588
00:33:00,400 --> 00:33:08,080
A lot of substance use disorder is such a hard track to operating and to working, right?

589
00:33:08,080 --> 00:33:12,400
Because it's not they have to be willing, right?

590
00:33:12,400 --> 00:33:18,080
And that is almost so hard to explain to anybody that doesn't exist in this space, right?

591
00:33:18,080 --> 00:33:20,440
That they have to be willing.

592
00:33:20,440 --> 00:33:25,680
You can give them tons of options, but if they're not willing, it doesn't matter, right?

593
00:33:25,680 --> 00:33:28,160
They have to get to a place where they're willing.

594
00:33:28,160 --> 00:33:32,920
And unfortunately, none of us want this, but pain is the motivator, right?

595
00:33:32,920 --> 00:33:33,920
Pain is the motivator.

596
00:33:33,920 --> 00:33:39,240
And again, that's relatable to a lot of us in our regular lives, but just not to the

597
00:33:39,240 --> 00:33:41,800
degree that they're in, right?

598
00:33:41,800 --> 00:33:44,520
What I saw out there was a lot of chaos.

599
00:33:44,520 --> 00:33:49,640
A lot of, I recently, literally two weeks ago, went back to my old tunnel.

600
00:33:49,640 --> 00:33:54,720
I've gone back a couple of times and where I stayed at, there was another section, maybe

601
00:33:54,720 --> 00:33:57,480
a thousand feet up the tunnel.

602
00:33:57,480 --> 00:34:01,000
And when I stayed in my tunnel, it was kind of blocked off because there was constant

603
00:34:01,000 --> 00:34:02,280
running water.

604
00:34:02,280 --> 00:34:06,080
My area was dry, but just above it was wet.

605
00:34:06,080 --> 00:34:08,520
So I never really went up that way.

606
00:34:08,520 --> 00:34:13,400
And I went back two weeks ago, we dropped in and I walked to that section that I had

607
00:34:13,400 --> 00:34:17,160
never really been to and I found everybody that lived in my tunnel.

608
00:34:17,160 --> 00:34:18,160
They were there.

609
00:34:18,160 --> 00:34:19,160
They were still there.

610
00:34:19,160 --> 00:34:20,160
There were a lot of them.

611
00:34:20,160 --> 00:34:22,680
And somebody had overdosed the night before.

612
00:34:22,680 --> 00:34:28,120
And it just, it brought me back to that feeling of like, you have no idea.

613
00:34:28,120 --> 00:34:32,480
Like if I'm living here, just homeless in general, let alone underground, right?

614
00:34:32,480 --> 00:34:33,920
Like who's watching?

615
00:34:33,920 --> 00:34:35,520
Who knows that they're there?

616
00:34:35,520 --> 00:34:36,520
Nobody.

617
00:34:36,520 --> 00:34:37,800
Like anything could happen.

618
00:34:37,800 --> 00:34:39,600
And I saw it happen, right?

619
00:34:39,600 --> 00:34:44,400
I saw shootings, I saw stabbings, I saw, you know, random cars driving by and throwing

620
00:34:44,400 --> 00:34:47,720
stuff and people getting in cars and I don't see them again.

621
00:34:47,720 --> 00:34:53,400
And, you know, there was a girl that was homeless in my area, part of my kind of homeless family.

622
00:34:53,400 --> 00:34:56,440
And one day she disappeared.

623
00:34:56,440 --> 00:34:57,440
Never saw her again.

624
00:34:57,440 --> 00:35:02,480
Then I get sober and I find out that she reached out to me on social media that she had gotten

625
00:35:02,480 --> 00:35:07,800
picked up on a warrant, transferred back to Utah, got sober, she's married today as

626
00:35:07,800 --> 00:35:10,000
kids, all that, sober.

627
00:35:10,000 --> 00:35:12,920
But on the streets we thought she got killed.

628
00:35:12,920 --> 00:35:14,840
And the same thing for me when I got attacked.

629
00:35:14,840 --> 00:35:19,200
You know, I went back a year later and everybody's, we heard you died in the tracks and all this.

630
00:35:19,200 --> 00:35:23,440
It's like, and I say those stories not to glorify that, but just like to say it like

631
00:35:23,440 --> 00:35:25,360
nobody really knows what's going on, right?

632
00:35:25,360 --> 00:35:26,360
Like nobody knows.

633
00:35:26,360 --> 00:35:27,360
Anything could happen.

634
00:35:27,360 --> 00:35:29,280
And that's a really weird place to be.

635
00:35:29,280 --> 00:35:31,920
And I don't know that many human beings feel that, right?

636
00:35:31,920 --> 00:35:35,440
To know that like your life is just not valued.

637
00:35:35,440 --> 00:35:36,440
Nobody knows.

638
00:35:36,440 --> 00:35:40,320
You know, like if I didn't come in to work today, it's going to trigger some alarms.

639
00:35:40,320 --> 00:35:43,440
If I don't go home tonight, it's going to trigger some alarms.

640
00:35:43,440 --> 00:35:47,720
When I was out there, nobody knew where I was for weeks at a time and nobody cared.

641
00:35:47,720 --> 00:35:49,400
I think nobody cared.

642
00:35:49,400 --> 00:35:53,320
There were people in my life that cared, my mom, my family, but like, I mean, you know,

643
00:35:53,320 --> 00:35:55,120
in that moment space, no.

644
00:35:55,120 --> 00:36:00,680
Well, I think this is what makes comments like, oh, they just need to make good decisions.

645
00:36:00,680 --> 00:36:04,560
You know, just pull yourself out of it kind of thing is I've said this is, you know, take

646
00:36:04,560 --> 00:36:05,680
out addiction for a moment.

647
00:36:05,680 --> 00:36:07,760
Let's just put in obesity.

648
00:36:07,760 --> 00:36:10,800
You know, we have an absolute crisis in this country at the moment.

649
00:36:10,800 --> 00:36:17,560
70 percent of Americans are overweight and I think it's 45 percent now are obese.

650
00:36:17,560 --> 00:36:21,840
And you know, I could stand on an ivory tower and say, well, all you need to do is just

651
00:36:21,840 --> 00:36:24,740
be like me, eat well and exercise.

652
00:36:24,740 --> 00:36:25,740
But that's all well and good.

653
00:36:25,740 --> 00:36:29,780
But you're talking to a farm boy, an English farm boy that grew up where there was orchards

654
00:36:29,780 --> 00:36:34,120
and vegetable gardens and, you know, acres and acres that I would be out playing.

655
00:36:34,120 --> 00:36:37,680
So my baseline was that.

656
00:36:37,680 --> 00:36:44,220
We'll take a kid from the Bronx who may be the only playground is concrete and it's controlled

657
00:36:44,220 --> 00:36:45,220
by a gang.

658
00:36:45,220 --> 00:36:48,360
And the only place they know to get food is a bodega.

659
00:36:48,360 --> 00:36:52,560
And I'm going to look down my nose at that kid and say, just make good choices.

660
00:36:52,560 --> 00:36:54,100
And it's the same with addiction.

661
00:36:54,100 --> 00:36:55,100
It's all well and good.

662
00:36:55,100 --> 00:37:00,140
And I'm, you know, I'm happy for you that you weren't an addict, you know, judgy person.

663
00:37:00,140 --> 00:37:04,680
But to tell someone who's living on the street to get a job or tell an addict to just, you

664
00:37:04,680 --> 00:37:09,240
know, make good choices, you're missing the biggest part of the problem, which is the

665
00:37:09,240 --> 00:37:10,240
environment.

666
00:37:10,240 --> 00:37:16,480
If the environment, an addict, if they purchase the thing that they need is a crime and they

667
00:37:16,480 --> 00:37:21,960
get punished and penalized for it and there's guilt and shame, how easy is it for someone

668
00:37:21,960 --> 00:37:24,980
to say, I need help when they're living on the streets?

669
00:37:24,980 --> 00:37:30,320
So if we're not talking about the environment, how dare we judge, you know, the quote unquote

670
00:37:30,320 --> 00:37:34,120
ownership of the individual solely on its own?

671
00:37:34,120 --> 00:37:35,120
I agree.

672
00:37:35,120 --> 00:37:37,240
And I would even take it a step further, right?

673
00:37:37,240 --> 00:37:39,840
The physical environment, of course, plays a part.

674
00:37:39,840 --> 00:37:43,560
But as an addict, the mental environment as well, right?

675
00:37:43,560 --> 00:37:45,040
It's so much deeper than that.

676
00:37:45,040 --> 00:37:49,360
And you know, it's a lack of empathy and a lack of understanding.

677
00:37:49,360 --> 00:37:54,080
And I think that, you know, luckily, in the last 10, 15 years, it's kind of come to the

678
00:37:54,080 --> 00:37:55,800
forefront more.

679
00:37:55,800 --> 00:37:58,560
It's out there more, it's more public now.

680
00:37:58,560 --> 00:38:04,400
We're beginning to see some inroads into different areas where we can really, it's

681
00:38:04,400 --> 00:38:08,480
officially notated as a disease.

682
00:38:08,480 --> 00:38:09,480
So there's more.

683
00:38:09,480 --> 00:38:12,920
But you know, in the common man, if you don't have experience with it, you don't have empathy

684
00:38:12,920 --> 00:38:14,560
until it happens to you, right?

685
00:38:14,560 --> 00:38:16,640
Until it happens to somebody close to you.

686
00:38:16,640 --> 00:38:21,080
And the nature of this disease is that it does impact everybody.

687
00:38:21,080 --> 00:38:25,680
Whether they realize it or not, it does.

688
00:38:25,680 --> 00:38:29,280
This was not a choice for me.

689
00:38:29,280 --> 00:38:32,320
Well, speak to me about the tunnels.

690
00:38:32,320 --> 00:38:34,200
People are like, oh, there's a tunnel and there's a mare.

691
00:38:34,200 --> 00:38:38,880
You know, firstly, what structurally, why were those tunnels there under Las Vegas?

692
00:38:38,880 --> 00:38:41,200
What purpose did they serve?

693
00:38:41,200 --> 00:38:43,280
So in Vegas, we have about 600 miles of tunnel.

694
00:38:43,280 --> 00:38:46,740
So if you've never lived in a desert, the ground is very hard.

695
00:38:46,740 --> 00:38:50,120
So it's not like, you know, I grew up in New Jersey, it rains, the water soaks into the

696
00:38:50,120 --> 00:38:53,480
ground eventually, you know, a little bit of flooding, no big deal.

697
00:38:53,480 --> 00:38:54,720
Out here is exactly the opposite.

698
00:38:54,720 --> 00:38:55,720
It's like concrete.

699
00:38:55,720 --> 00:38:57,040
It does not absorb at all.

700
00:38:57,040 --> 00:39:00,800
So smallest amount of rain, you're going to have two inches of water on the ground.

701
00:39:00,800 --> 00:39:03,840
It doesn't rain very often, but when it does, it's very impactful.

702
00:39:03,840 --> 00:39:07,240
So the city designed the 600 miles.

703
00:39:07,240 --> 00:39:12,160
And if you know Vegas at all, it's the northwest side of the city is higher.

704
00:39:12,160 --> 00:39:15,800
And that's kind of where it opens up and comes into the city.

705
00:39:15,800 --> 00:39:17,360
And the southeast side is lower.

706
00:39:17,360 --> 00:39:18,800
It kind of bumpy along the way.

707
00:39:18,800 --> 00:39:23,720
But so they designed the tunnels to all run to the southeast at some point and get out

708
00:39:23,720 --> 00:39:25,320
to the wetlands and out to Lake Mead.

709
00:39:25,320 --> 00:39:30,200
So they're flood drains to help with the water because the strip used to flood.

710
00:39:30,200 --> 00:39:34,000
Before I moved here in 99, there was a flood where people were on top of their cars on

711
00:39:34,000 --> 00:39:35,000
the freeway.

712
00:39:35,000 --> 00:39:36,400
Like it was really bad.

713
00:39:36,400 --> 00:39:40,280
So the design is needed.

714
00:39:40,280 --> 00:39:46,200
And obviously, unfortunately, it gives us this dichotomy that like a lot of places don't

715
00:39:46,200 --> 00:39:47,840
have because homelessness is everywhere.

716
00:39:47,840 --> 00:39:48,840
Right.

717
00:39:48,840 --> 00:39:52,480
But in Vegas, you've got these glitzing, glimmy five billion dollar casinos and right below

718
00:39:52,480 --> 00:39:54,040
it, these dark tunnels.

719
00:39:54,040 --> 00:39:57,680
And it gives this like it's if you're an author, it's a great story piece.

720
00:39:57,680 --> 00:39:58,680
Right.

721
00:39:58,680 --> 00:39:59,960
It's a great it's a great attraction point.

722
00:39:59,960 --> 00:40:04,480
But we've got about 1500 people living under a city like I'll be under Caesar's Palace

723
00:40:04,480 --> 00:40:05,480
this weekend.

724
00:40:05,480 --> 00:40:11,760
So you know, and we've been able to shine a light on the issue, utilize that to get

725
00:40:11,760 --> 00:40:14,600
the message out and get more help to our friends.

726
00:40:14,600 --> 00:40:19,000
But yes, I don't think we're the only city with tunnels.

727
00:40:19,000 --> 00:40:21,880
But I think that because we're the only one with the casinos.

728
00:40:21,880 --> 00:40:22,880
Right.

729
00:40:22,880 --> 00:40:25,080
And obviously gives it that dichotomy.

730
00:40:25,080 --> 00:40:26,360
You know, everybody wants to see it.

731
00:40:26,360 --> 00:40:29,280
And then, of course, there's like a lore now.

732
00:40:29,280 --> 00:40:30,280
Right.

733
00:40:30,280 --> 00:40:31,720
Because it's this deep, dark underground.

734
00:40:31,720 --> 00:40:36,080
And you know, when I went there, every tunnel, the best way I can tell you is that every

735
00:40:36,080 --> 00:40:38,360
tunnel is very different.

736
00:40:38,360 --> 00:40:39,640
Literally every time is very different.

737
00:40:39,640 --> 00:40:42,520
My tunnel in the beginning had a mayor, there was some structure.

738
00:40:42,520 --> 00:40:43,520
And I use that term loosely.

739
00:40:43,520 --> 00:40:44,520
Right.

740
00:40:44,520 --> 00:40:45,520
Like he was he was the guy that had the dope.

741
00:40:45,520 --> 00:40:49,200
He had been there the longest and he would kind of set out some rules.

742
00:40:49,200 --> 00:40:51,280
But it wasn't like a long list of rules.

743
00:40:51,280 --> 00:40:52,280
Right.

744
00:40:52,280 --> 00:40:56,800
And but then over time, he I think he got locked up at some point and then he stopped

745
00:40:56,800 --> 00:40:57,800
coming around.

746
00:40:57,800 --> 00:40:59,520
So it kind of turned into chaos.

747
00:40:59,520 --> 00:41:03,640
And then, you know, like if you go there now, there's like six, seven people living there.

748
00:41:03,640 --> 00:41:06,960
So they change and sometimes very individualized.

749
00:41:06,960 --> 00:41:11,960
So literally, it's a tale of a thousand cities anywhere, anywhere you went.

750
00:41:11,960 --> 00:41:15,000
They all have their own personality.

751
00:41:15,000 --> 00:41:21,200
What is the overall philosophy on homelessness in Vegas?

752
00:41:21,200 --> 00:41:25,560
And is it moving towards a progressive direction?

753
00:41:25,560 --> 00:41:29,820
Because one of the things that nauseates me the most is people who I know subscribe to

754
00:41:29,820 --> 00:41:34,840
certain religions, then leave their holy building and want homeless people shooed away from

755
00:41:34,840 --> 00:41:39,360
their neighborhood or think that Narcan is wasted on the addict, you know, very, very

756
00:41:39,360 --> 00:41:41,200
non-Christian or whatever.

757
00:41:41,200 --> 00:41:43,560
They subscribe to philosophy.

758
00:41:43,560 --> 00:41:48,960
So I've seen, you know, neighborhoods where they've literally dropped homeless off to

759
00:41:48,960 --> 00:41:51,040
a different jurisdiction before.

760
00:41:51,040 --> 00:41:54,280
And then obviously, you know, I've heard about some more progressive ones where they're actually

761
00:41:54,280 --> 00:41:58,100
trying to address the root causes and address homelessness that way.

762
00:41:58,100 --> 00:42:04,020
So what have you seen over your time in Vegas in the last couple of decades?

763
00:42:04,020 --> 00:42:07,800
So I again, both sides of the coin.

764
00:42:07,800 --> 00:42:08,800
Right.

765
00:42:08,800 --> 00:42:12,760
There's some people in our city, a lot of our community partners doing amazing work,

766
00:42:12,760 --> 00:42:15,800
holistically, there's still more work to be done.

767
00:42:15,800 --> 00:42:16,800
Right.

768
00:42:16,800 --> 00:42:17,800
There's definitely more work to be done.

769
00:42:17,800 --> 00:42:23,840
And I feel like really where we've.

770
00:42:23,840 --> 00:42:26,280
If I was to sell this to you and say, I would ask you this.

771
00:42:26,280 --> 00:42:28,280
Do you have life insurance?

772
00:42:28,280 --> 00:42:29,280
I actually don't.

773
00:42:29,280 --> 00:42:30,280
I'm self employed.

774
00:42:30,280 --> 00:42:31,280
Health insurance, car insurance.

775
00:42:31,280 --> 00:42:32,280
I have car insurance.

776
00:42:32,280 --> 00:42:33,280
I don't have health insurance either.

777
00:42:33,280 --> 00:42:34,280
Back in England, I do.

778
00:42:34,280 --> 00:42:35,280
We have national health there.

779
00:42:35,280 --> 00:42:36,280
Do you have homeless insurance?

780
00:42:36,280 --> 00:42:37,280
I do not have homeless insurance.

781
00:42:37,280 --> 00:42:38,280
No.

782
00:42:38,280 --> 00:42:39,280
I don't have insurance.

783
00:42:39,280 --> 00:42:40,280
I don't have insurance.

784
00:42:40,280 --> 00:42:41,280
I don't have insurance.

785
00:42:41,280 --> 00:42:42,280
I don't have insurance.

786
00:42:42,280 --> 00:42:43,280
Right.

787
00:42:43,280 --> 00:42:44,820
It doesn't exist, right?

788
00:42:44,820 --> 00:42:45,920
But you understand the point.

789
00:42:45,920 --> 00:42:46,920
Yes.

790
00:42:46,920 --> 00:42:49,400
Most people don't think it's going to happen to them.

791
00:42:49,400 --> 00:42:53,760
And it's almost seven out of 10 Americans live paycheck to paycheck.

792
00:42:53,760 --> 00:42:58,100
Seven out of 10 people that you know right now could be a paycheck or two away from being

793
00:42:58,100 --> 00:42:59,100
homeless.

794
00:42:59,100 --> 00:43:00,100
That's one car accident.

795
00:43:00,100 --> 00:43:01,100
It's one something.

796
00:43:01,100 --> 00:43:06,020
So to understand the depths of the problem is the first thing we need to do.

797
00:43:06,020 --> 00:43:09,000
And if I asked you, what is the safety net?

798
00:43:09,000 --> 00:43:13,440
What is the safety net where you live right now?

799
00:43:13,440 --> 00:43:14,440
What would you tell me?

800
00:43:14,440 --> 00:43:15,440
It's a loaded question.

801
00:43:15,440 --> 00:43:18,760
I've been asking this for like the last three months because it came to me in a conference,

802
00:43:18,760 --> 00:43:23,040
right, where I'm sitting in a room full of people that work within the safety net and

803
00:43:23,040 --> 00:43:25,400
they're asking questions and I don't know why it came to me.

804
00:43:25,400 --> 00:43:29,900
I just said, I just, when my time came on the panel, I just stopped and I said, I just

805
00:43:29,900 --> 00:43:33,040
started asking people in the audience, I said, what's the safety net?

806
00:43:33,040 --> 00:43:34,960
What's the safety net?

807
00:43:34,960 --> 00:43:41,200
The true definition of a safety net is any service, private to government, that helps

808
00:43:41,200 --> 00:43:46,220
you attain or maintain from whatever crisis you're experiencing, right?

809
00:43:46,220 --> 00:43:48,480
So that means that it is literally everything.

810
00:43:48,480 --> 00:43:54,800
It is your parents, your mom, if you God willing you have, friends, all the way to that shelter

811
00:43:54,800 --> 00:43:56,520
and everything in between.

812
00:43:56,520 --> 00:44:00,020
And most of the in between is nonprofits, right?

813
00:44:00,020 --> 00:44:03,040
Some big boys, but mostly nonprofits.

814
00:44:03,040 --> 00:44:06,380
So we started looking at it, right, based on our own experience.

815
00:44:06,380 --> 00:44:12,600
So I went through detox 50 times, a three to five stay in detox 50 times ballpark, right?

816
00:44:12,600 --> 00:44:15,040
The number is very big.

817
00:44:15,040 --> 00:44:17,400
Each time I got out of that detox, I got a piece of paper.

818
00:44:17,400 --> 00:44:21,220
They told me where to go, go to the shelter, go here, they'll help you.

819
00:44:21,220 --> 00:44:28,000
And I walk out of that place after a five day detox from heroin going, I don't know,

820
00:44:28,000 --> 00:44:29,360
you know, and what do I know?

821
00:44:29,360 --> 00:44:30,360
I know what I know.

822
00:44:30,360 --> 00:44:32,560
And that's where I'm going to go back to.

823
00:44:32,560 --> 00:44:33,560
And that was my experience.

824
00:44:33,560 --> 00:44:38,680
But that facility reported somewhere a successful completion, right?

825
00:44:38,680 --> 00:44:43,040
And they got more money and they kept doing what they're doing.

826
00:44:43,040 --> 00:44:45,920
And that was all of our experiences, right?

827
00:44:45,920 --> 00:44:48,720
How the safety net didn't really work for us, didn't really work together.

828
00:44:48,720 --> 00:44:50,120
There was no continuity.

829
00:44:50,120 --> 00:44:55,560
So we started doing Shine and Shine was founded a long time before we got involved into it.

830
00:44:55,560 --> 00:45:04,360
But taking it from what it was to what it is today in about 2000, what was it, 2017?

831
00:45:04,360 --> 00:45:12,920
So in 2000, no, yeah, 2017, I might be wrong, 2024, no, 2017, I apologize.

832
00:45:12,920 --> 00:45:19,080
So 2017, Paul is interviewed by the founder of Shine a Light for a book that he's doing.

833
00:45:19,080 --> 00:45:21,840
And at the time he works in treatment.

834
00:45:21,840 --> 00:45:26,460
And Jeff Iverson is one of our mentors and close friends.

835
00:45:26,460 --> 00:45:30,320
He goes to him and says, listen, I want to start trying to help people get off the streets.

836
00:45:30,320 --> 00:45:32,200
I don't want to just talk to them.

837
00:45:32,200 --> 00:45:33,440
I want to do all that too.

838
00:45:33,440 --> 00:45:37,480
But like when they reach out for help, I want to be able to help them.

839
00:45:37,480 --> 00:45:41,240
So he comes up with continuity case management through our IPath program.

840
00:45:41,240 --> 00:45:44,480
And that's a lot of words, right?

841
00:45:44,480 --> 00:45:47,520
Best way I can describe continuity case management to you is this, right?

842
00:45:47,520 --> 00:45:52,520
If you and I go to dinner tonight and it's 10 other people and in front of those 10 people,

843
00:45:52,520 --> 00:45:55,840
you say, hey, Rob, listen, the parking lot was really packed when we came in.

844
00:45:55,840 --> 00:45:57,160
We had to park far away.

845
00:45:57,160 --> 00:45:58,160
I forgot where we parked.

846
00:45:58,160 --> 00:46:00,200
But I know I parked next to you.

847
00:46:00,200 --> 00:46:02,700
Can you walk me to my car and show me where my car is?

848
00:46:02,700 --> 00:46:05,480
Now in front of everybody, I say, yep, I can do that.

849
00:46:05,480 --> 00:46:07,160
I look like a really good dude.

850
00:46:07,160 --> 00:46:10,720
And when I see those other 10 people later on in life, they're going to go, that's a

851
00:46:10,720 --> 00:46:12,980
really good dude, right?

852
00:46:12,980 --> 00:46:13,980
But here's the truth.

853
00:46:13,980 --> 00:46:16,800
I walked you halfway out in the parking lot and say, hey, listen, I got to go.

854
00:46:16,800 --> 00:46:20,380
Turn around, went back inside, and you're walking around the parking lot.

855
00:46:20,380 --> 00:46:25,200
So that's how the safety net works together, was working together, right?

856
00:46:25,200 --> 00:46:27,600
Not those silos, right?

857
00:46:27,600 --> 00:46:28,600
Nobody is transitioning.

858
00:46:28,600 --> 00:46:33,320
So instead of us building another treatment center, instead of us building this building

859
00:46:33,320 --> 00:46:39,520
or doing this and adding another piece to the safety net, we said, how do we help this?

860
00:46:39,520 --> 00:46:41,960
So we came up with continuity case management.

861
00:46:41,960 --> 00:46:46,040
So at a base level, we're a referral source for these facilities, right?

862
00:46:46,040 --> 00:46:48,600
That's the buy-in, right, on a simplistic level.

863
00:46:48,600 --> 00:46:50,200
I'm going to refer clients to you.

864
00:46:50,200 --> 00:46:53,720
What I'm asking is, allow us to help you case manage.

865
00:46:53,720 --> 00:46:56,640
And I use this, the triangle, because I'm a visual guy.

866
00:46:56,640 --> 00:47:01,920
At one point is the client, at one point is us, always, throughout the entire process.

867
00:47:01,920 --> 00:47:06,520
The other point will change as they're transitioned, but they always have us as a mentor, as a

868
00:47:06,520 --> 00:47:10,600
guide, somebody with lived experience and the access to the resources to help walk them

869
00:47:10,600 --> 00:47:12,200
through the process.

870
00:47:12,200 --> 00:47:13,840
That's what was missing.

871
00:47:13,840 --> 00:47:19,080
So until we do that, how do we even know if the safety net works?

872
00:47:19,080 --> 00:47:20,440
Nobody even knows what it is.

873
00:47:20,440 --> 00:47:22,400
Nobody even knows how they're working together.

874
00:47:22,400 --> 00:47:24,440
And there's all these little veins in it.

875
00:47:24,440 --> 00:47:25,900
These guys work with these guys.

876
00:47:25,900 --> 00:47:27,400
These guys don't work with these guys.

877
00:47:27,400 --> 00:47:28,800
I don't like this guy.

878
00:47:28,800 --> 00:47:29,800
Why?

879
00:47:29,800 --> 00:47:30,800
You know what I mean?

880
00:47:30,800 --> 00:47:32,040
How do we break these walls down?

881
00:47:32,040 --> 00:47:34,680
And sometimes they don't work with them because they're not doing the right thing.

882
00:47:34,680 --> 00:47:36,000
And I can respect that, right?

883
00:47:36,000 --> 00:47:40,520
But let's find all the people that are trying to do the right thing and let's create pathways

884
00:47:40,520 --> 00:47:41,520
that can help people.

885
00:47:41,520 --> 00:47:43,560
Because you asked me earlier, right?

886
00:47:43,560 --> 00:47:47,520
Like every individual person that's homeless is an individual, has an individual story,

887
00:47:47,520 --> 00:47:49,200
has individual needs.

888
00:47:49,200 --> 00:47:50,640
So we have to be able to walk them through.

889
00:47:50,640 --> 00:47:55,360
We need the entire safety net to be able to help them paint their story.

890
00:47:55,360 --> 00:47:59,120
Because if I asked them to do it the way I did it, they might not be able to do it.

891
00:47:59,120 --> 00:48:01,640
And vice versa for me when I went through, right?

892
00:48:01,640 --> 00:48:06,220
So how do I hand them a paintbrush and help them paint their story with the resources

893
00:48:06,220 --> 00:48:09,400
that are available throughout the city at all different levels of care?

894
00:48:09,400 --> 00:48:13,520
And levels of care means they go from detox, they go into treatment with housing.

895
00:48:13,520 --> 00:48:19,040
Then they go into sober living, into independent housing, all the while getting those, the

896
00:48:19,040 --> 00:48:25,160
lovely catch word that every facility likes to use, the wraparound services, right?

897
00:48:25,160 --> 00:48:27,200
The ID, the birth, the social.

898
00:48:27,200 --> 00:48:30,360
And then we're meeting with them to find out what their needs actually are.

899
00:48:30,360 --> 00:48:31,360
Do they need job training?

900
00:48:31,360 --> 00:48:33,200
Do they need more treatment?

901
00:48:33,200 --> 00:48:34,200
Trauma therapy?

902
00:48:34,200 --> 00:48:35,200
What is it?

903
00:48:35,200 --> 00:48:36,200
What's your pathway?

904
00:48:36,200 --> 00:48:37,760
How can we help you, right?

905
00:48:37,760 --> 00:48:39,320
And nobody's doing that.

906
00:48:39,320 --> 00:48:40,320
Nobody's doing that.

907
00:48:40,320 --> 00:48:41,320
They're case managed at that facility.

908
00:48:41,320 --> 00:48:45,920
But the second you walk out the door, you're not their problem anymore.

909
00:48:45,920 --> 00:48:49,480
So that's how we help build a pathway for the next 18 months.

910
00:48:49,480 --> 00:48:52,920
But the goal being at the end of those 18 months, you're in our life.

911
00:48:52,920 --> 00:48:55,440
Yeah, you're graduating our program, that's great.

912
00:48:55,440 --> 00:48:57,200
But you've already volunteered with us.

913
00:48:57,200 --> 00:48:58,200
You're in our lives.

914
00:48:58,200 --> 00:48:59,200
We're going to movies, dinners.

915
00:48:59,200 --> 00:49:03,040
And the first part of our program is outreach, right?

916
00:49:03,040 --> 00:49:05,520
But it's not just into the tunnels and washes.

917
00:49:05,520 --> 00:49:08,080
It's into the community.

918
00:49:08,080 --> 00:49:11,600
Meeting events, who we are as people advocating.

919
00:49:11,600 --> 00:49:16,360
I use the term layers, not levels, because levels promotes a hierarchy.

920
00:49:16,360 --> 00:49:17,880
But there's layers.

921
00:49:17,880 --> 00:49:22,160
And where can we fit in all these different layers and advocate?

922
00:49:22,160 --> 00:49:27,000
And then they get to see us and then the next wave and the next wave and the next wave of

923
00:49:27,000 --> 00:49:28,560
pulling more and more people up.

924
00:49:28,560 --> 00:49:33,560
So now we've touched in nine years 1,300 people's lives.

925
00:49:33,560 --> 00:49:39,040
We've got 240 active clients right now that I could tell you where they're at.

926
00:49:39,040 --> 00:49:40,040
I always use this example.

927
00:49:40,040 --> 00:49:41,040
And pardon me for looking down.

928
00:49:41,040 --> 00:49:45,920
I just want to show you something real quick that is the best example.

929
00:49:45,920 --> 00:49:49,640
This is, I don't know if you can see it, but this is Matt.

930
00:49:49,640 --> 00:49:51,360
And it says today, right?

931
00:49:51,360 --> 00:49:53,360
I don't know if you can see it.

932
00:49:53,360 --> 00:49:54,840
That's today.

933
00:49:54,840 --> 00:50:00,960
So Matt graduated our program 18, 18, two years ago, 18 months.

934
00:50:00,960 --> 00:50:02,560
I have no buy in with Matt.

935
00:50:02,560 --> 00:50:04,800
I'm not reporting on Matt.

936
00:50:04,800 --> 00:50:08,000
I'm not making nothing, right?

937
00:50:08,000 --> 00:50:14,400
Matt is one of my greatest examples of continuity case management, why this succeeds.

938
00:50:14,400 --> 00:50:15,400
Matt comes in.

939
00:50:15,400 --> 00:50:16,660
He's been homeless for many years.

940
00:50:16,660 --> 00:50:18,320
He had some head trauma like me.

941
00:50:18,320 --> 00:50:20,000
He had been attacked as well.

942
00:50:20,000 --> 00:50:21,440
He had some mental health.

943
00:50:21,440 --> 00:50:22,440
He reaches out.

944
00:50:22,440 --> 00:50:24,000
IPath is instant placement.

945
00:50:24,000 --> 00:50:25,000
There's no wait list.

946
00:50:25,000 --> 00:50:26,000
He calls.

947
00:50:26,000 --> 00:50:27,000
Within an hour, we pick him up.

948
00:50:27,000 --> 00:50:28,280
We bring him into detox.

949
00:50:28,280 --> 00:50:31,720
He's clinically and medically assessed for detox.

950
00:50:31,720 --> 00:50:33,800
He goes into detox three to five days.

951
00:50:33,800 --> 00:50:35,080
The triangle is engaged.

952
00:50:35,080 --> 00:50:36,080
He meets.

953
00:50:36,080 --> 00:50:38,720
They decide we're going to go into housing with treatment.

954
00:50:38,720 --> 00:50:43,600
So he does 90 days at Crossroads, which is a treatment facility.

955
00:50:43,600 --> 00:50:45,160
While there, he doesn't even know this, right?

956
00:50:45,160 --> 00:50:50,600
But a lot of our volunteers for our outreach and our tribe also work in treatment.

957
00:50:50,600 --> 00:50:54,840
So he's surrounded by like, you know, an instant 10 to 15 friends that are checking in on,

958
00:50:54,840 --> 00:50:56,120
talking to him.

959
00:50:56,120 --> 00:50:59,640
And we're all walking them off this, those little ledges that we all experienced right

960
00:50:59,640 --> 00:51:01,640
in the journey.

961
00:51:01,640 --> 00:51:05,800
So levels up from that goes into sober living, where we pay for the first three months.

962
00:51:05,800 --> 00:51:07,840
And now he's got six months, right?

963
00:51:07,840 --> 00:51:13,080
Well, Matt's story is that he went into sober living, and two months later, he's been in

964
00:51:13,080 --> 00:51:15,760
seven different sober livings.

965
00:51:15,760 --> 00:51:17,480
Never got high, never punched anybody, right?

966
00:51:17,480 --> 00:51:18,480
He couldn't adjust.

967
00:51:18,480 --> 00:51:22,280
He had a hard time readjusting the society, finding his people.

968
00:51:22,280 --> 00:51:23,960
He was this and that.

969
00:51:23,960 --> 00:51:29,000
But each time, because of our MOUs, our working agreements with all these different partners,

970
00:51:29,000 --> 00:51:31,840
we have a no street policy, which means they cannot street them.

971
00:51:31,840 --> 00:51:33,560
They cannot kick them in the streets.

972
00:51:33,560 --> 00:51:36,560
They have to call us and give us a chance to come pick them up.

973
00:51:36,560 --> 00:51:37,560
And that's what they did.

974
00:51:37,560 --> 00:51:41,520
I mean, unless they, you know, punch somebody or grab their stuff and leave, right, which

975
00:51:41,520 --> 00:51:45,240
can happen as well, but doesn't usually.

976
00:51:45,240 --> 00:51:51,560
Seven times, I apologize, six times they picked him up and kept him connected to the safety

977
00:51:51,560 --> 00:51:52,560
net, right?

978
00:51:52,560 --> 00:51:55,000
But nobody's doing that.

979
00:51:55,000 --> 00:51:57,080
You make a mistake here, you're out.

980
00:51:57,080 --> 00:51:59,600
People catch you when you land a detox again.

981
00:51:59,600 --> 00:52:03,560
Fast forward two years later, I know where Matt is.

982
00:52:03,560 --> 00:52:05,000
I talked to Matt.

983
00:52:05,000 --> 00:52:09,640
Our running joke for the last two and a half months, three months has been that he stood

984
00:52:09,640 --> 00:52:11,520
me up for lunch because he works for the union.

985
00:52:11,520 --> 00:52:14,880
He travels sometimes and he works for the, what is it, Nevada Paving.

986
00:52:14,880 --> 00:52:18,040
So he's the guy that's doing all the construction with the cones.

987
00:52:18,040 --> 00:52:19,040
So I'm sarcastic.

988
00:52:19,040 --> 00:52:23,520
I love to bust his chops about it all the time and how he's ruining my life.

989
00:52:23,520 --> 00:52:28,720
But he was in the office about three weeks ago doing an interview with a YouTuber that

990
00:52:28,720 --> 00:52:31,400
came out and telling his story.

991
00:52:31,400 --> 00:52:32,880
And I got to meet his fiance.

992
00:52:32,880 --> 00:52:38,560
I'm probably going to go to St. George here in the next week or two to watch him get married.

993
00:52:38,560 --> 00:52:41,400
You know, like that's an outcome, right?

994
00:52:41,400 --> 00:52:45,800
So that detox facility that I went through 50 times thought an outcome was a head in

995
00:52:45,800 --> 00:52:48,960
a bed and me successfully completing.

996
00:52:48,960 --> 00:52:53,360
The outcome really was that I went on to be homeless for five more years, overdosed 10

997
00:52:53,360 --> 00:52:56,000
times, you know, almost get murdered.

998
00:52:56,000 --> 00:52:58,720
Like that's not an outcome I want to report.

999
00:52:58,720 --> 00:53:04,080
I want to, I'll track all the inputs to tell a story of how I got to your successful outcome,

1000
00:53:04,080 --> 00:53:11,360
which is that you texting me two years later, you know, how you're nervous about your wedding.

1001
00:53:11,360 --> 00:53:12,360
That's amazing.

1002
00:53:12,360 --> 00:53:17,480
I think this underlines so many things that firstly, there's this complete mythology that

1003
00:53:17,480 --> 00:53:21,340
someone's an addict and then they go to rehab and then they're better.

1004
00:53:21,340 --> 00:53:25,280
But everyone I know, whether it's alcohol or opiates or meth or whatever their thing

1005
00:53:25,280 --> 00:53:28,280
has been, it's over and over and over again.

1006
00:53:28,280 --> 00:53:33,440
You said 50, you know, Matt, you know, seven times in this particular example, we know

1007
00:53:33,440 --> 00:53:37,960
just just trying to stay housed, but that this isn't just going to be a click your fingers

1008
00:53:37,960 --> 00:53:39,760
and everything's good again.

1009
00:53:39,760 --> 00:53:43,760
What I love about their philosophy, it reminds me of Tom Erbihar, who had on a couple of

1010
00:53:43,760 --> 00:53:48,940
times, he was the superintendent of Bastoi prison in Norway.

1011
00:53:48,940 --> 00:53:54,280
And their whole philosophy was you've got this person, they've made a mistake, they're

1012
00:53:54,280 --> 00:53:55,720
paying for their crime.

1013
00:53:55,720 --> 00:53:58,720
You know, they've had their freedom taken away.

1014
00:53:58,720 --> 00:54:03,700
But their whole thing is, but let's turn them into a functioning member of society because

1015
00:54:03,700 --> 00:54:06,080
one day they will move back into your street.

1016
00:54:06,080 --> 00:54:07,760
They will be your neighbor again.

1017
00:54:07,760 --> 00:54:11,820
Things that 95% of all incarcerated people will will be released.

1018
00:54:11,820 --> 00:54:14,160
And so they live in a house, not a prison.

1019
00:54:14,160 --> 00:54:15,440
I said, it's a community.

1020
00:54:15,440 --> 00:54:18,600
They live in a house, they cook, they clean, they go to work.

1021
00:54:18,600 --> 00:54:22,800
They go to school, you know, at this job creation when they're leaving, because that's one of

1022
00:54:22,800 --> 00:54:27,160
the biggest things I hear from the prison side is you're basically almost creating homelessness.

1023
00:54:27,160 --> 00:54:31,640
If someone's been in two or three years, where are they going to go when they walk out?

1024
00:54:31,640 --> 00:54:36,400
And then when you look at the Portuguese model, they took a lot of the money from the quote

1025
00:54:36,400 --> 00:54:39,660
unquote war on drugs, like arresting addicts.

1026
00:54:39,660 --> 00:54:47,540
And they put it into mental health counseling, addiction counseling, job creation, housing.

1027
00:54:47,540 --> 00:54:54,400
So again, they they wrapped, as you said, this particular person to a point where their

1028
00:54:54,400 --> 00:54:58,440
environment environment now, like forged success.

1029
00:54:58,440 --> 00:55:01,980
And of course, there are anomalies, there's going to be people that no matter what you

1030
00:55:01,980 --> 00:55:04,000
do still don't find their way out.

1031
00:55:04,000 --> 00:55:05,560
And it's tragic.

1032
00:55:05,560 --> 00:55:12,420
But this large group that you do manage to grab, they go from using tax money to creating

1033
00:55:12,420 --> 00:55:15,000
tax money as a functioning member of society.

1034
00:55:15,000 --> 00:55:21,960
So this is what's so maddening is the proactive solutions that you're doing there in Las Vegas

1035
00:55:21,960 --> 00:55:24,120
makes perfect sense.

1036
00:55:24,120 --> 00:55:28,400
Don't let that person go until you've got them to a place where they're truly back on

1037
00:55:28,400 --> 00:55:34,560
their feet, create an environment that drives success, not another relapse.

1038
00:55:34,560 --> 00:55:38,640
That's why Oregon's now going to make it illegal again, right?

1039
00:55:38,640 --> 00:55:41,560
Because they didn't do the same model.

1040
00:55:41,560 --> 00:55:42,560
They like the idea.

1041
00:55:42,560 --> 00:55:43,560
And that's the issue, right?

1042
00:55:43,560 --> 00:55:44,560
You see this a lot.

1043
00:55:44,560 --> 00:55:45,560
They like the issue.

1044
00:55:45,560 --> 00:55:46,560
They like cookie cutter.

1045
00:55:46,560 --> 00:55:47,560
They'd like to look good.

1046
00:55:47,560 --> 00:55:50,240
But all of these issues are not look good issues.

1047
00:55:50,240 --> 00:55:52,600
These are roll your sleeves up as a community.

1048
00:55:52,600 --> 00:55:53,840
And let's really get into this.

1049
00:55:53,840 --> 00:55:54,840
But they don't.

1050
00:55:54,840 --> 00:55:55,840
Right.

1051
00:55:55,840 --> 00:55:57,280
They want they want what makes them feel good in the moment.

1052
00:55:57,280 --> 00:55:58,280
Right.

1053
00:55:58,280 --> 00:55:59,280
They don't really want freedom from this.

1054
00:55:59,280 --> 00:56:00,280
They want relief.

1055
00:56:00,280 --> 00:56:01,280
They want it.

1056
00:56:01,280 --> 00:56:02,280
You know what I mean?

1057
00:56:02,280 --> 00:56:03,280
So it's frustrating.

1058
00:56:03,280 --> 00:56:06,000
You know, in Oregon, they had a really good chance to be successful.

1059
00:56:06,000 --> 00:56:09,480
And instead of putting all that money into the services, they just made it legal.

1060
00:56:09,480 --> 00:56:11,920
And you wonder why you wonder why it's chaos.

1061
00:56:11,920 --> 00:56:14,120
And you wonder why, you know, the city's falling apart.

1062
00:56:14,120 --> 00:56:16,040
Now you want to make it illegal again.

1063
00:56:16,040 --> 00:56:17,040
Of course it is.

1064
00:56:17,040 --> 00:56:19,040
You didn't you didn't follow the model.

1065
00:56:19,040 --> 00:56:20,280
No, exactly.

1066
00:56:20,280 --> 00:56:24,160
I can't help but feel like that was, you know, by some may be deliberate.

1067
00:56:24,160 --> 00:56:25,600
Look, you see, it doesn't work.

1068
00:56:25,600 --> 00:56:28,640
Let's go back to filling the prisons and so we can make more money.

1069
00:56:28,640 --> 00:56:30,640
You know, if you did it properly the first time.

1070
00:56:30,640 --> 00:56:35,440
I mean, look at the Obamacare versus national health in the country that I grew up in at

1071
00:56:35,440 --> 00:56:39,680
the time I grew up in when it was still good and supported by the government.

1072
00:56:39,680 --> 00:56:42,000
You know, no one went without health care.

1073
00:56:42,000 --> 00:56:47,480
You get nailed by a bus and the only thing they're asking you is how are you doing?

1074
00:56:47,480 --> 00:56:49,080
Not social security number.

1075
00:56:49,080 --> 00:56:52,000
And you know, we're going to take your house for these medical bills.

1076
00:56:52,000 --> 00:56:53,280
Just get better.

1077
00:56:53,280 --> 00:56:59,360
You know, so, you know, these proactive solutions and it just apply national health to our health

1078
00:56:59,360 --> 00:57:01,120
care right now.

1079
00:57:01,120 --> 00:57:06,720
Imagine if we had a national health 2.0 where it was using taxpayers money.

1080
00:57:06,720 --> 00:57:10,700
The drive then would be, well, shoot, we need to make Americans as healthy as possible so

1081
00:57:10,700 --> 00:57:13,200
we don't use much of this tax money.

1082
00:57:13,200 --> 00:57:14,200
Beautiful.

1083
00:57:14,200 --> 00:57:15,200
That's a win win.

1084
00:57:15,200 --> 00:57:16,600
And you're going to save billions.

1085
00:57:16,600 --> 00:57:17,720
It's the same with this.

1086
00:57:17,720 --> 00:57:21,680
You know, if we invest in the addiction and the homelessness and the things that we've

1087
00:57:21,680 --> 00:57:28,600
discussed, then you are going to not only solve the addiction crisis, but hand in hand,

1088
00:57:28,600 --> 00:57:31,900
the homelessness is going to drop dramatically and a lot of these things are going to take

1089
00:57:31,900 --> 00:57:33,160
care of themselves.

1090
00:57:33,160 --> 00:57:38,960
But if you just do it half ass, just like you said with the North Northwest, then all

1091
00:57:38,960 --> 00:57:42,760
your opposition are going to point their fingers and say, we told you it wouldn't work because

1092
00:57:42,760 --> 00:57:45,160
you never did it right in the first place.

1093
00:57:45,160 --> 00:57:46,160
Yeah.

1094
00:57:46,160 --> 00:57:48,120
I love what you said about the prisons.

1095
00:57:48,120 --> 00:57:51,960
I've watched a lot of videos of prisons in Europe, not all of them, obviously, specific

1096
00:57:51,960 --> 00:57:54,880
ones that were just switch the mentality, right?

1097
00:57:54,880 --> 00:57:56,640
That these are human beings.

1098
00:57:56,640 --> 00:57:57,640
They're going to get out.

1099
00:57:57,640 --> 00:58:00,320
So let's do everything in our power to prepare them for when they get out so they can be

1100
00:58:00,320 --> 00:58:03,080
successful and like, but let's be fair.

1101
00:58:03,080 --> 00:58:05,820
It's the biggest business in America.

1102
00:58:05,820 --> 00:58:09,800
What incentive does a prison have to not have their customers come back?

1103
00:58:09,800 --> 00:58:11,940
Exactly.

1104
00:58:11,940 --> 00:58:15,280
So much so that they've got private prisons and all.

1105
00:58:15,280 --> 00:58:21,800
Just commissary in prison is a billion dollar business.

1106
00:58:21,800 --> 00:58:24,720
We've incentivized the wrong things, right?

1107
00:58:24,720 --> 00:58:28,760
George Carlin says it best and I don't care about his politics or even know his politics.

1108
00:58:28,760 --> 00:58:34,680
He's a comedian, but nobody has figured out a way to monetize helping the homeless.

1109
00:58:34,680 --> 00:58:39,880
I promise you the second they do, it'll be Shine the Light sponsored by Coca-Cola and

1110
00:58:39,880 --> 00:58:41,160
the Denver Broncos.

1111
00:58:41,160 --> 00:58:45,800
I'll be wearing jerseys and trucks and lights as soon as they do, but they haven't, right?

1112
00:58:45,800 --> 00:58:48,800
Or they haven't tried to anyway.

1113
00:58:48,800 --> 00:58:51,400
Because it's not that important to them.

1114
00:58:51,400 --> 00:58:54,480
Let's just be completely transparent.

1115
00:58:54,480 --> 00:58:55,480
There's a quote that I love.

1116
00:58:55,480 --> 00:58:58,200
It's like, what are you willing to sacrifice for?

1117
00:58:58,200 --> 00:59:02,620
Those are the things that, those commitments are the ones that I want to talk about because

1118
00:59:02,620 --> 00:59:03,760
that's what this is.

1119
00:59:03,760 --> 00:59:05,840
You have to be willing to sacrifice.

1120
00:59:05,840 --> 00:59:09,160
And I jokingly say this, right?

1121
00:59:09,160 --> 00:59:13,120
We're literally a couple of ex-heroin addicts with backpacks that are rewriting the narrative

1122
00:59:13,120 --> 00:59:16,320
of how we address homelessness in our city.

1123
00:59:16,320 --> 00:59:19,920
Could you imagine what we could do as a city?

1124
00:59:19,920 --> 00:59:20,920
We're just two people.

1125
00:59:20,920 --> 00:59:27,880
There's three people that started and now it's 250, 300 volunteer force and seven employees.

1126
00:59:27,880 --> 00:59:34,000
So like, still, like how did we figure out to navigate the safety net and make your safety

1127
00:59:34,000 --> 00:59:36,000
network together?

1128
00:59:36,000 --> 00:59:38,000
Yeah.

1129
00:59:38,000 --> 00:59:39,820
I say the same thing.

1130
00:59:39,820 --> 00:59:47,200
How did a moderately intelligent, median level Englishman who just happened to come over

1131
00:59:47,200 --> 00:59:51,560
here and become a firefighter, figure out some of the things that I've been talking

1132
00:59:51,560 --> 00:59:56,400
about when it comes to the mental and physical ill health of our firefighters, when there

1133
00:59:56,400 --> 01:00:01,760
are chiefs and unions and all kinds of people that are paid a huge amount of money to address

1134
01:00:01,760 --> 01:00:02,760
this very thing.

1135
01:00:02,760 --> 01:00:05,400
So I completely understand.

1136
01:00:05,400 --> 01:00:07,040
I am not an intelligent man.

1137
01:00:07,040 --> 01:00:09,360
I am not a veteran of the fire service.

1138
01:00:09,360 --> 01:00:10,800
I only spent 14 years.

1139
01:00:10,800 --> 01:00:13,880
There's people that spend 30, 40 years.

1140
01:00:13,880 --> 01:00:16,160
Why me?

1141
01:00:16,160 --> 01:00:17,160
Where is everyone?

1142
01:00:17,160 --> 01:00:18,160
Where is the help?

1143
01:00:18,160 --> 01:00:21,240
And so I think this is an important question.

1144
01:00:21,240 --> 01:00:26,960
What needs to happen in Las Vegas to stick with your city to give you guys the support

1145
01:00:26,960 --> 01:00:33,440
to actually be able to apply this to all of the people experiencing homelessness?

1146
01:00:33,440 --> 01:00:40,280
We've been growing at a great pace and gaining support and gaining, you know, for us, it's

1147
01:00:40,280 --> 01:00:41,280
a nonprofit.

1148
01:00:41,280 --> 01:00:42,280
It's always about money, right?

1149
01:00:42,280 --> 01:00:43,880
We're constantly trying to raise money.

1150
01:00:43,880 --> 01:00:49,000
We've kind of, we're not, we're not an organization that's ever going to take restrictive funds,

1151
01:00:49,000 --> 01:00:50,000
right?

1152
01:00:50,000 --> 01:00:52,640
We're just trying to do what we do and that's what makes us successful.

1153
01:00:52,640 --> 01:00:56,080
So constantly raising money, constantly talking about it.

1154
01:00:56,080 --> 01:00:57,520
We're massive advocates.

1155
01:00:57,520 --> 01:00:59,360
I speak anywhere I can.

1156
01:00:59,360 --> 01:01:03,800
Just to talk about this issue and put it in front of people because I think that that's

1157
01:01:03,800 --> 01:01:04,800
really what it is, right?

1158
01:01:04,800 --> 01:01:08,800
I think there's a section of people that just don't know, right?

1159
01:01:08,800 --> 01:01:11,040
And then there's a section of people that don't want to know, right?

1160
01:01:11,040 --> 01:01:15,640
They just don't want to, either don't want to believe it or don't think that it's real

1161
01:01:15,640 --> 01:01:17,680
or whatever it is, right?

1162
01:01:17,680 --> 01:01:22,480
Because growth and awareness, it takes a certain amount of uncomfortability and it smashes

1163
01:01:22,480 --> 01:01:23,840
certain illusions, right?

1164
01:01:23,840 --> 01:01:27,680
Like that I like, I like my illusions sometimes, right?

1165
01:01:27,680 --> 01:01:33,760
And facing that stuff, which is vital to any kind of change is, is hard sometimes, you

1166
01:01:33,760 --> 01:01:36,760
know, like they don't want to believe it or, you know, they're, they don't want to believe

1167
01:01:36,760 --> 01:01:39,840
that it's happening in that part of the city because that's the nice quiet part where they

1168
01:01:39,840 --> 01:01:40,840
live.

1169
01:01:40,840 --> 01:01:45,720
But like this is, it's all about humility and understanding that these are community

1170
01:01:45,720 --> 01:01:46,720
issues.

1171
01:01:46,720 --> 01:01:48,040
And we don't want to change until we all come together.

1172
01:01:48,040 --> 01:01:52,440
But there's so many, a lot of times, you know, with a lot of issues, there's a lot of interests,

1173
01:01:52,440 --> 01:01:53,440
right?

1174
01:01:53,440 --> 01:01:54,440
In different ways.

1175
01:01:54,440 --> 01:01:58,240
And, you know, I don't know, it's, we're doing great work and it's happening and we

1176
01:01:58,240 --> 01:02:02,240
have tons of great partners and like, I feel the needle moving and I feel like the perspective

1177
01:02:02,240 --> 01:02:06,880
is changing, but never at the pace that it needs to.

1178
01:02:06,880 --> 01:02:13,760
Why do you think it is in such a faith based country that, for example, in the Bible, just

1179
01:02:13,760 --> 01:02:17,040
to choose that one, because that's the one I know, that's what I was raised on.

1180
01:02:17,040 --> 01:02:21,880
You know, Jesus is out there anointing the feet of the poor and, you know, counseling

1181
01:02:21,880 --> 01:02:25,360
sex workers and all the things.

1182
01:02:25,360 --> 01:02:30,880
Yet there's such a resistance when it comes to the homeless, the, the, you know, truly

1183
01:02:30,880 --> 01:02:36,320
empathetic proactive solutions to the homelessness and the addiction.

1184
01:02:36,320 --> 01:02:41,200
I struggle with the fact that someone can walk out of one of those buildings and then,

1185
01:02:41,200 --> 01:02:46,400
as I said, be, you know, move on the homeless, get them out of my community or stop wasting

1186
01:02:46,400 --> 01:02:47,400
Narcan.

1187
01:02:47,400 --> 01:02:52,640
I see a huge disconnect between the true goodness that I know exists in these holy books and

1188
01:02:52,640 --> 01:02:55,360
clearly the messages that these people are receiving.

1189
01:02:55,360 --> 01:02:58,400
So you mentioned that there are some beautiful nonprofits and there's a lot of them that

1190
01:02:58,400 --> 01:03:02,760
are churches and other faith based things that are out there walking the walk a hundred

1191
01:03:02,760 --> 01:03:03,760
percent.

1192
01:03:03,760 --> 01:03:08,080
But why do you think we have as much resistance when we're supposed to be such a faith based

1193
01:03:08,080 --> 01:03:09,080
country?

1194
01:03:09,080 --> 01:03:12,080
Well, what's the opposite of faith?

1195
01:03:12,080 --> 01:03:15,880
It's fear, right?

1196
01:03:15,880 --> 01:03:20,120
Fear is a lack of faith and fear on many levels, right?

1197
01:03:20,120 --> 01:03:25,840
That it could happen to them that, you know, and then it's, you know, some lack of empathy.

1198
01:03:25,840 --> 01:03:29,760
Why are you, you know, they don't want it around them almost like it's up, it's going

1199
01:03:29,760 --> 01:03:31,040
to get on them, right?

1200
01:03:31,040 --> 01:03:34,960
Like, so it's just, yeah, it's a lot, it's a lot of fear.

1201
01:03:34,960 --> 01:03:37,520
It's a lot of fear.

1202
01:03:37,520 --> 01:03:40,400
So you touched on the head trauma and your attempted murder.

1203
01:03:40,400 --> 01:03:43,200
We haven't really got to you leaving the tunnel.

1204
01:03:43,200 --> 01:03:49,740
So kind of talk to me about kind of what the, if any factors were leading to that attack.

1205
01:03:49,740 --> 01:03:51,560
And then let's talk about that.

1206
01:03:51,560 --> 01:03:54,640
And then you turning the corner yourself.

1207
01:03:54,640 --> 01:03:59,840
So my, my hustle when I was out there, it was like a, you know, low bottom dumpster

1208
01:03:59,840 --> 01:04:02,400
diver, crime of opportunity, real petty stuff.

1209
01:04:02,400 --> 01:04:07,240
I wasn't really, you know, hard core person, but I was always the guy that would get stuff

1210
01:04:07,240 --> 01:04:08,240
for people.

1211
01:04:08,240 --> 01:04:09,240
They'd tell me they needed it.

1212
01:04:09,240 --> 01:04:10,880
I'd go find it, you know, steal it, whatever.

1213
01:04:10,880 --> 01:04:15,880
And this particular day, the last day that I was out there, I, I think I had come up

1214
01:04:15,880 --> 01:04:17,880
on a dumpster where there was like an eviction, right?

1215
01:04:17,880 --> 01:04:22,160
And I find the suitcase and it was obviously somebody's personal property that the company

1216
01:04:22,160 --> 01:04:25,520
had thrown out as they were, you know, doing the eviction or clean out.

1217
01:04:25,520 --> 01:04:28,000
And it had a whole bunch of stuff in it, right?

1218
01:04:28,000 --> 01:04:32,920
And, you know, electronics, I just grabbed it and I took off and nothing about that was

1219
01:04:32,920 --> 01:04:33,920
illegal, right?

1220
01:04:33,920 --> 01:04:38,680
And I go through my, I go through my neighborhood and the area that I was living at where my

1221
01:04:38,680 --> 01:04:43,800
tunnel was that there was a, the Cubans ran my neighborhood, they controlled all the dope

1222
01:04:43,800 --> 01:04:44,800
for us.

1223
01:04:44,800 --> 01:04:49,120
And so I would always go by and give them something whenever I came up, right?

1224
01:04:49,120 --> 01:04:52,480
I would always kind of like a, like a tribute, I guess you would say, right?

1225
01:04:52,480 --> 01:04:54,480
Like, cause they always watch out for me.

1226
01:04:54,480 --> 01:04:55,800
Cause I was always doing something.

1227
01:04:55,800 --> 01:04:57,960
They'd always be like, Hey, this guy's looking for you.

1228
01:04:57,960 --> 01:05:01,480
Hey, we heard this, whatever I thought anyway, you know what I mean?

1229
01:05:01,480 --> 01:05:05,040
Maybe that's just the, some of that was probably delusion from being out there for

1230
01:05:05,040 --> 01:05:07,200
so long, but it was a lot of interactions.

1231
01:05:07,200 --> 01:05:12,080
And so when I went through and did that, I think I flashed, I think I opened it too wide.

1232
01:05:12,080 --> 01:05:14,520
I think somebody saw that I had.

1233
01:05:14,520 --> 01:05:19,920
And so I left there, went to my tunnel and then I, and my tunnel was, there was some

1234
01:05:19,920 --> 01:05:22,920
train tracks, they call it the homeless highway.

1235
01:05:22,920 --> 01:05:29,040
So maybe a thousand feet down from where my tunnel was on these tracks was four businesses.

1236
01:05:29,040 --> 01:05:32,960
And if you didn't live in the area or know of them, you would have no idea they were

1237
01:05:32,960 --> 01:05:33,960
there.

1238
01:05:33,960 --> 01:05:36,840
They didn't face the street really dark and none of them are there right now.

1239
01:05:36,840 --> 01:05:41,920
So I'm not even sure they were legal, but I went to the fourth business and I dropped

1240
01:05:41,920 --> 01:05:43,280
off all that stuff I had found.

1241
01:05:43,280 --> 01:05:45,680
Cause I, it was a guy that I used for stuff like that.

1242
01:05:45,680 --> 01:05:47,080
And he told me to come back.

1243
01:05:47,080 --> 01:05:48,080
It was a lot of stuff.

1244
01:05:48,080 --> 01:05:49,080
He wanted to check it out.

1245
01:05:49,080 --> 01:05:50,080
I said, okay.

1246
01:05:50,080 --> 01:05:52,160
I left, I went and got high, came back.

1247
01:05:52,160 --> 01:05:53,480
And when I came back, it was dark.

1248
01:05:53,480 --> 01:05:58,600
And when I, as I was walking up, I saw three guys that I knew waiting outside and they

1249
01:05:58,600 --> 01:06:01,080
had a hatchet, a knife and a pipe.

1250
01:06:01,080 --> 01:06:03,280
And I knew exactly what was about to happen.

1251
01:06:03,280 --> 01:06:05,200
Cause we were kind of like competition out there.

1252
01:06:05,200 --> 01:06:08,040
We had the same hustles and I had never really liked them.

1253
01:06:08,040 --> 01:06:13,040
But I also, you know, the true nature of what it is as an addict on the other side of them

1254
01:06:13,040 --> 01:06:14,400
was what I needed.

1255
01:06:14,400 --> 01:06:16,000
I had to get there, right?

1256
01:06:16,000 --> 01:06:17,520
And so I'm massless.

1257
01:06:17,520 --> 01:06:19,440
I'm not caring about, I don't care about my own safety.

1258
01:06:19,440 --> 01:06:21,560
I've got to get to this.

1259
01:06:21,560 --> 01:06:24,080
So they attacked me, they hit me with the hatchet in the head a couple of times.

1260
01:06:24,080 --> 01:06:29,080
I've got all the scars and you know, cracked my skull a couple of times, hit me with the

1261
01:06:29,080 --> 01:06:30,080
pipe a bunch of times.

1262
01:06:30,080 --> 01:06:31,080
They lacerated my liver.

1263
01:06:31,080 --> 01:06:34,720
They stabbed me in the leg and they, they dragged me on those train tracks right there

1264
01:06:34,720 --> 01:06:37,000
and they left me for dead.

1265
01:06:37,000 --> 01:06:41,320
So the first business, not the fourth, the first business, there was an overnight security

1266
01:06:41,320 --> 01:06:43,600
guard that I had fostered a relationship with over the years.

1267
01:06:43,600 --> 01:06:44,600
We would get high together.

1268
01:06:44,600 --> 01:06:48,120
Sometimes he'd feed me sometimes and he was a relatively decent guy.

1269
01:06:48,120 --> 01:06:51,960
And I had no idea he was working that night, but he had been working that night and he

1270
01:06:51,960 --> 01:06:57,240
saw it all happen and he called the, you know, the ambulance, the cops and they came, pulled

1271
01:06:57,240 --> 01:06:59,240
me off the train tracks and I'm dead.

1272
01:06:59,240 --> 01:07:01,080
They revived me.

1273
01:07:01,080 --> 01:07:04,800
So I wake up, I still think I'm fighting for my life and you know, I'm bleeding,

1274
01:07:04,800 --> 01:07:07,720
blood and I got knives sticking out of my leg, all kinds of stuff going on.

1275
01:07:07,720 --> 01:07:14,280
And they hit me with morphine and the train is coming by.

1276
01:07:14,280 --> 01:07:15,280
So it's loud.

1277
01:07:15,280 --> 01:07:17,720
Like I'm just complete chaos.

1278
01:07:17,720 --> 01:07:19,520
They hit me with some morphine and I died again.

1279
01:07:19,520 --> 01:07:24,920
I woke up in the hospital three days later on life support and I woke up to a nurse strapped

1280
01:07:24,920 --> 01:07:25,920
to the bed.

1281
01:07:25,920 --> 01:07:29,120
I've got all the bells and whistles going on and she's yelling at me.

1282
01:07:29,120 --> 01:07:30,760
I still think I'm fighting for my life.

1283
01:07:30,760 --> 01:07:37,080
So I'm flailing around doing my best at whatever and I feel a hand touch my forehead and I

1284
01:07:37,080 --> 01:07:40,600
hear the words calm down and I felt the presence of God in that room.

1285
01:07:40,600 --> 01:07:45,040
So you know, God came to me through a shot of morphine on life support.

1286
01:07:45,040 --> 01:07:49,840
And from there I spent the next four or five days there then I was transitioned into a

1287
01:07:49,840 --> 01:07:52,680
physical therapy hospital where I spent the next month.

1288
01:07:52,680 --> 01:07:57,120
I had a broken jaw that they couldn't wire because of the swelling in my brain.

1289
01:07:57,120 --> 01:08:00,400
You know, and if you're early in recovery it's a really beautiful thing.

1290
01:08:00,400 --> 01:08:03,520
I wouldn't recommend getting hit by an axe but if you are it's actually really a good

1291
01:08:03,520 --> 01:08:05,640
thing because it really affects your memory.

1292
01:08:05,640 --> 01:08:09,360
So all my anger and my resentments, my fear, it would go away.

1293
01:08:09,360 --> 01:08:11,880
I would forget it, you know.

1294
01:08:11,880 --> 01:08:16,520
My fiance would say that some of that carried with me to this day but you know, I think

1295
01:08:16,520 --> 01:08:19,960
it's gotten better but you know, and I'm joking.

1296
01:08:19,960 --> 01:08:27,560
But like in that hospital really what happened was a gentleman that has become my best friend

1297
01:08:27,560 --> 01:08:35,080
and our director here, our president of SHINE, came to the hospital and just offered me the

1298
01:08:35,080 --> 01:08:36,080
next step.

1299
01:08:36,080 --> 01:08:38,960
You know, he told me a lot about how my family had been looking for me and you know, kind

1300
01:08:38,960 --> 01:08:43,720
of unpacked a lot of what the last five years looked from their perspective and he offered

1301
01:08:43,720 --> 01:08:46,920
me treatment on a scholarship and I just said okay, that was it.

1302
01:08:46,920 --> 01:08:47,920
You know what I mean?

1303
01:08:47,920 --> 01:08:52,160
It wasn't, I didn't say okay to what my life would be like for the next six years plus

1304
01:08:52,160 --> 01:08:54,640
but I just said okay.

1305
01:08:54,640 --> 01:08:59,560
I knew in that moment that if I didn't take this opportunity, if I went back to being

1306
01:08:59,560 --> 01:09:02,000
homeless I was going to die.

1307
01:09:02,000 --> 01:09:07,000
That was as close as I had ever come to dying in my life and I knew that it wasn't going

1308
01:09:07,000 --> 01:09:10,960
to get any better and I also felt like I was really frail, like I wouldn't even be able

1309
01:09:10,960 --> 01:09:12,080
to defend myself.

1310
01:09:12,080 --> 01:09:17,720
So I said okay and I started my journey.

1311
01:09:17,720 --> 01:09:23,280
What worked at that time, Johann wrote the book Chasing the Scream, another one, Lost

1312
01:09:23,280 --> 01:09:27,440
Connections but there's a quote that I love, he said the opposite of addiction isn't sobriety,

1313
01:09:27,440 --> 01:09:33,800
the opposite of addiction is connection and when you look at even some of the biochemistry

1314
01:09:33,800 --> 01:09:38,160
when it comes to some of these substances, we assume that one hit and you're hooked and

1315
01:09:38,160 --> 01:09:42,040
it's the substance but more often than not as you mentioned with the mental health side,

1316
01:09:42,040 --> 01:09:45,760
the substance is a lot of times just filling a void for a person.

1317
01:09:45,760 --> 01:09:51,040
It could be anything from social media to porn to gambling or opiates and alcohol.

1318
01:09:51,040 --> 01:09:57,680
What worked this time that stopped you relapsing when you'd had a 50 count years prior?

1319
01:09:57,680 --> 01:10:04,960
Pain, pain, I was broken.

1320
01:10:04,960 --> 01:10:07,480
That's not everybody's story when they come into recovery.

1321
01:10:07,480 --> 01:10:12,280
Everybody is broken spiritually and mentally but also I was physically broken, that was

1322
01:10:12,280 --> 01:10:13,960
the lowest point of my entire life.

1323
01:10:13,960 --> 01:10:22,440
I was 120 pounds, broken jaw, lacerated liver, stitches, staples, just so frail and so weak

1324
01:10:22,440 --> 01:10:27,400
that I just didn't have any more fight in me that day.

1325
01:10:27,400 --> 01:10:32,280
I just kept winning days, that's it.

1326
01:10:32,280 --> 01:10:37,760
That inability to settle that you had as a kid, did that start coming out when the sobriety

1327
01:10:37,760 --> 01:10:41,240
was forced on you originally?

1328
01:10:41,240 --> 01:10:49,800
There was a lot of uncomfortable moments, you're unpacking a lot of stuff and that's

1329
01:10:49,800 --> 01:10:56,600
not going to be an easy road but I don't know that it definitely wasn't bad.

1330
01:10:56,600 --> 01:10:58,840
There's a perspective change that has to happen.

1331
01:10:58,840 --> 01:11:05,800
I'm seeking relief, I'm seeking instant gratification and nothing about recovery is instant gratification,

1332
01:11:05,800 --> 01:11:11,760
it's freedom which is a lot of hard work and it's completely worth it but it's very

1333
01:11:11,760 --> 01:11:14,680
hard to understand that.

1334
01:11:14,680 --> 01:11:20,420
Our director says this all the time, it's like when you do outreach think about this.

1335
01:11:20,420 --> 01:11:25,720
If I walked up to you right now James and said, look, great life, beautiful life, here's

1336
01:11:25,720 --> 01:11:31,480
the deal, come with me right now, leave everything you know, come with me right now and I'm going

1337
01:11:31,480 --> 01:11:36,200
to give you a life that's 10 times better than the one that you have.

1338
01:11:36,200 --> 01:11:37,200
Could you do it?

1339
01:11:37,200 --> 01:11:43,240
No, because I would assume that my life now was as good as it was going to get.

1340
01:11:43,240 --> 01:11:46,080
So why is it any different with homelessness in addition?

1341
01:11:46,080 --> 01:11:47,080
Exactly.

1342
01:11:47,080 --> 01:11:53,940
I used that analogy earlier with the paper cuts, my life had become so small that a backpack

1343
01:11:53,940 --> 01:11:59,200
and a little spot in a tunnel was my entire life and if it all went away as long as I

1344
01:11:59,200 --> 01:12:04,280
could start over, I'm a survivalist, right, that the mentality was right.

1345
01:12:04,280 --> 01:12:11,240
So my world had become so small that that was my world and now you're asking me to come

1346
01:12:11,240 --> 01:12:19,040
in and go to detox and go through a crippling heroin withdrawal, go to treatment, do this,

1347
01:12:19,040 --> 01:12:25,840
do that, be here on, the world seemed so big, overwhelmingly big that it didn't seem like

1348
01:12:25,840 --> 01:12:30,800
I could ever do it again and then you factor in like, you know, I'm 42, I think I've wasted

1349
01:12:30,800 --> 01:12:36,560
my whole life, you know, I've abandoned my family, my kids, all these things, like the

1350
01:12:36,560 --> 01:12:41,600
weight of all that and now this guy is telling me, so if I hadn't been in that pain, because

1351
01:12:41,600 --> 01:12:46,240
like I had been in recovery before, I knew where there were services at, right, like

1352
01:12:46,240 --> 01:12:53,760
I never tried to access them, that's my story, you know, so in that moment of complete defeat,

1353
01:12:53,760 --> 01:12:59,440
physically, mentally and spiritually, you know, I feel the presence of God, it wasn't

1354
01:12:59,440 --> 01:13:03,340
enough for me to build a relationship with him, but it was like this, I use the analogy

1355
01:13:03,340 --> 01:13:07,680
like there's a new player at the table, right, that's my Vegas analogy.

1356
01:13:07,680 --> 01:13:12,020
I had never felt that before, I had never had an understanding that there was anything

1357
01:13:12,020 --> 01:13:18,320
higher than me, right, and not that I had been in situations before where I knew other

1358
01:13:18,320 --> 01:13:21,480
people were in control and all that stuff, but I'm talking about like on a spiritual

1359
01:13:21,480 --> 01:13:27,360
level, I'd never done, I'd never felt that and just that alone was enough for me to go,

1360
01:13:27,360 --> 01:13:32,720
okay, just okay and it would take me a while to build a relationship and faith and all

1361
01:13:32,720 --> 01:13:37,960
that but that, it happened, you know.

1362
01:13:37,960 --> 01:13:42,640
What about the tools that you use, I mean, again, you know, you're dealing with a life

1363
01:13:42,640 --> 01:13:47,960
of trauma, you know, some, as you said, contrasted with an absolutely loving household that you

1364
01:13:47,960 --> 01:13:53,520
grew up in a little bit later, but you know, there's things that had to be dealt with,

1365
01:13:53,520 --> 01:13:57,720
there's voids that had to be filled with kind of healthy coping mechanisms, there's

1366
01:13:57,720 --> 01:14:00,080
traumas that had to be processed.

1367
01:14:00,080 --> 01:14:05,040
I don't think people realize how vast the toolbox is and now, you know, in 2024, we're

1368
01:14:05,040 --> 01:14:09,880
realizing that even, you know, psychedelics and some other things that we were never thinking

1369
01:14:09,880 --> 01:14:14,200
about before are being very effective, especially in military and first responders.

1370
01:14:14,200 --> 01:14:21,120
So what were some of the things that you started using to kind of, you know, as a rung on the

1371
01:14:21,120 --> 01:14:24,680
health ladder that you were climbing?

1372
01:14:24,680 --> 01:14:32,400
For me, it was a spiritual fellowship, you know, I was surrounded by guys that were,

1373
01:14:32,400 --> 01:14:38,440
you know, of the same disease that were, you know, working a program and, you know, and

1374
01:14:38,440 --> 01:14:39,440
service, right?

1375
01:14:39,440 --> 01:14:44,600
Like I, I'm not somebody that's trying to tell anybody else how to heal, that's

1376
01:14:44,600 --> 01:14:45,600
not my business, right?

1377
01:14:45,600 --> 01:14:50,200
Like I think we all have to have our own ways to do that and none of them are better than

1378
01:14:50,200 --> 01:14:53,000
any, whatever works for you is the way, right?

1379
01:14:53,000 --> 01:14:57,240
And for me, really without my permission, it was service, right?

1380
01:14:57,240 --> 01:15:02,200
So I was able to take that restless, irritable, and discontent, that energy that I had running

1381
01:15:02,200 --> 01:15:08,520
all over the place when I was homeless, hustling and all that, and shift it into service and

1382
01:15:08,520 --> 01:15:10,080
giving back, really, right?

1383
01:15:10,080 --> 01:15:12,360
And complaining the whole way, you know what I mean?

1384
01:15:12,360 --> 01:15:16,800
Because I'm new in recovery and I'm miserable and all that, but I did it, I showed up, right?

1385
01:15:16,800 --> 01:15:20,280
In spite of me, I showed up, I showed up, I showed up.

1386
01:15:20,280 --> 01:15:25,840
And for me, what I realized is that I healed from a lot of things in service to other people,

1387
01:15:25,840 --> 01:15:26,840
right?

1388
01:15:26,840 --> 01:15:31,560
I found self-worth, I found all these things and, you know, and in the long run, I found

1389
01:15:31,560 --> 01:15:36,120
a relationship with a higher power that I can do business with, right?

1390
01:15:36,120 --> 01:15:39,160
Service helped me to find my faith.

1391
01:15:39,160 --> 01:15:43,680
That's what worked for me, you know what I mean?

1392
01:15:43,680 --> 01:15:47,960
I've lost count of how many times, firstly, on the bad side, how many times I've heard

1393
01:15:47,960 --> 01:15:52,880
of a first responder or a member of the military struggle once they transition out, whether

1394
01:15:52,880 --> 01:15:58,120
they're fired, whether they got hurt, whether they retired, because that was their tribe,

1395
01:15:58,120 --> 01:16:00,400
but that was also their purpose.

1396
01:16:00,400 --> 01:16:03,560
They got up every morning and like, I'm going to go on a fire engine and help people who

1397
01:16:03,560 --> 01:16:06,280
are hurting for 24 hours.

1398
01:16:06,280 --> 01:16:11,200
Conversely, people that have been through their own struggles, I've watched this kind

1399
01:16:11,200 --> 01:16:16,520
of beacon of light element emerge where once they've actually healed to a point, I mean,

1400
01:16:16,520 --> 01:16:21,980
obviously you're on a roller coaster forever, but that kind of aha moment where people came

1401
01:16:21,980 --> 01:16:25,640
out of the shadows and said, hey, I'm hurting too.

1402
01:16:25,640 --> 01:16:29,720
And they, because they see themselves in that person, was there a moment or was there a

1403
01:16:29,720 --> 01:16:35,520
kind of period where you kind of realized, oh, wow, I'm not even so much the recipient

1404
01:16:35,520 --> 01:16:36,600
of the healing now.

1405
01:16:36,600 --> 01:16:41,560
I'm actually able to use my story and use my scars to help other people.

1406
01:16:41,560 --> 01:16:44,640
Oh yeah, there's a lot of them.

1407
01:16:44,640 --> 01:16:49,120
I think in doing outreach, because I got involved with Shine as soon as I got out of treatment,

1408
01:16:49,120 --> 01:16:53,560
because Shine at the time was based in that same treatment center that I went through.

1409
01:16:53,560 --> 01:16:56,360
I just started going out with them and talking to people and getting to know them.

1410
01:16:56,360 --> 01:17:01,680
And at that time, I'm only three months off the street, so I knew a lot of people out

1411
01:17:01,680 --> 01:17:06,280
there and they knew me on a personal level and they saw me gaining weight.

1412
01:17:06,280 --> 01:17:07,280
They saw me, you know what I mean?

1413
01:17:07,280 --> 01:17:10,600
So it was those little examples of things that they were starting to see in me.

1414
01:17:10,600 --> 01:17:14,800
And then you start to build up stories of the people that you interact with and how

1415
01:17:14,800 --> 01:17:16,360
you're able to show up for them.

1416
01:17:16,360 --> 01:17:20,400
And in the beginning, I think there was very simple things.

1417
01:17:20,400 --> 01:17:25,680
It was like, go pick them up or show up and just talk to them, spend time with them.

1418
01:17:25,680 --> 01:17:34,040
Like little things that I could share with them at that time that impacted them and me.

1419
01:17:34,040 --> 01:17:42,920
I remember being like six or seven months sober and I'm living in a sober living.

1420
01:17:42,920 --> 01:17:45,760
And I walk in the bathroom, I look in the mirror, and it's the first time in my entire

1421
01:17:45,760 --> 01:17:49,640
life that I was ever just okay with what I saw.

1422
01:17:49,640 --> 01:17:51,520
Not high, not low, I was okay.

1423
01:17:51,520 --> 01:17:52,520
I had always been uncomfortable.

1424
01:17:52,520 --> 01:17:55,840
It was the first time I was like, ooh.

1425
01:17:55,840 --> 01:17:59,080
And I couldn't tell you what specific thing that I was doing that led me up.

1426
01:17:59,080 --> 01:18:00,720
It was all of it, right?

1427
01:18:00,720 --> 01:18:05,760
And in spite of me, you know, because it wasn't like enjoyable for me to be of service in

1428
01:18:05,760 --> 01:18:07,160
the beginning.

1429
01:18:07,160 --> 01:18:12,800
I was really going to hang out or I was doing it because I was directed to do it and didn't

1430
01:18:12,800 --> 01:18:14,260
want to be homeless anymore.

1431
01:18:14,260 --> 01:18:16,000
But that's okay, right?

1432
01:18:16,000 --> 01:18:17,160
Willingness looks like what it looks like.

1433
01:18:17,160 --> 01:18:20,240
It doesn't matter as long as you have it.

1434
01:18:20,240 --> 01:18:24,960
One of the things I think that made the Portuguese model so successful when it came to decriminalization

1435
01:18:24,960 --> 01:18:31,600
of addiction was if you and I were in a car and we got pulled over and we both had a user's

1436
01:18:31,600 --> 01:18:37,360
amount of anything, you know, it can be meth, it can be heroin, whatever it was, we're not

1437
01:18:37,360 --> 01:18:38,360
arrested.

1438
01:18:38,360 --> 01:18:46,280
We're simply detained and put into almost like an educational conversation on the resources

1439
01:18:46,280 --> 01:18:48,520
that are available to us.

1440
01:18:48,520 --> 01:18:54,320
And so that way you're not being told we command you to go get rehab.

1441
01:18:54,320 --> 01:18:57,980
You know, we command you to go get this mental health counseling.

1442
01:18:57,980 --> 01:19:00,860
What they're doing, they're removing the criminality in the first place.

1443
01:19:00,860 --> 01:19:03,960
So again, that guilt and shame is gone.

1444
01:19:03,960 --> 01:19:08,320
You know, that then lures a lot of people to ask for help because they're not worried

1445
01:19:08,320 --> 01:19:10,920
about am I going to get locked up in the process?

1446
01:19:10,920 --> 01:19:12,940
But also there's that autonomy.

1447
01:19:12,940 --> 01:19:13,940
And I think this is important.

1448
01:19:13,940 --> 01:19:17,440
You know, people have said, oh, we try programs here where we send people to rehab.

1449
01:19:17,440 --> 01:19:19,240
And so, yeah, but did they want to go to rehab?

1450
01:19:19,240 --> 01:19:22,440
Like you said, were they at that point where they were ready to get help?

1451
01:19:22,440 --> 01:19:27,640
And this is what I think is great about the Portuguese model is now you create an environment

1452
01:19:27,640 --> 01:19:31,800
for that individual to say, I need help and help is everywhere.

1453
01:19:31,800 --> 01:19:36,800
Like, you know, I don't have any problems finding help versus, you know, this I command

1454
01:19:36,800 --> 01:19:42,720
you to get sober mentality in some of these programs that just out of, you know, not spite

1455
01:19:42,720 --> 01:19:47,440
the wrong word, but the fact that someone of authority tells me I need to go and do that

1456
01:19:47,440 --> 01:19:52,400
thing might in turn just that that dynamic have the equal and opposite effect.

1457
01:19:52,400 --> 01:19:55,440
Like no, I'm not going to go because you told me to go.

1458
01:19:55,440 --> 01:20:00,360
It's like, you know, it almost it baffles me.

1459
01:20:00,360 --> 01:20:03,000
It baffles me.

1460
01:20:03,000 --> 01:20:05,400
It's like they don't understand what it is.

1461
01:20:05,400 --> 01:20:06,400
Right.

1462
01:20:06,400 --> 01:20:08,560
You don't understand the disease.

1463
01:20:08,560 --> 01:20:11,680
You don't like so education is vital.

1464
01:20:11,680 --> 01:20:15,320
And empathy and understanding, we need to really look at what it is.

1465
01:20:15,320 --> 01:20:20,240
And addicts and alcoholics by nature are defiant by nature.

1466
01:20:20,240 --> 01:20:23,280
It's it's a it's an earmark of what it is that we have.

1467
01:20:23,280 --> 01:20:24,280
Right.

1468
01:20:24,280 --> 01:20:29,960
And if you're creating environments of guilt and shame, then you become the enemy.

1469
01:20:29,960 --> 01:20:30,960
Right.

1470
01:20:30,960 --> 01:20:36,440
It almost becomes this like regardless of what it is, even going into treatment becomes

1471
01:20:36,440 --> 01:20:38,920
the enemy because it's just I have to go.

1472
01:20:38,920 --> 01:20:39,920
I have to do this.

1473
01:20:39,920 --> 01:20:42,520
It's like there's a lot of that.

1474
01:20:42,520 --> 01:20:46,000
There's a lot like even in Vegas, we have the camping van now that's coming online here

1475
01:20:46,000 --> 01:20:47,000
soon.

1476
01:20:47,000 --> 01:20:48,000
Right.

1477
01:20:48,000 --> 01:20:52,400
It's like it's a lot of a lot of I use the visual representation of house painters.

1478
01:20:52,400 --> 01:20:57,680
A lot of people in big offices like to come up with these glorious ideas that look at

1479
01:20:57,680 --> 01:20:58,680
it.

1480
01:20:58,680 --> 01:21:00,280
Imagine if you're painting a house.

1481
01:21:00,280 --> 01:21:01,280
Right.

1482
01:21:01,280 --> 01:21:02,280
Let's say homeless.

1483
01:21:02,280 --> 01:21:03,760
This is a house and the house needs to get painted.

1484
01:21:03,760 --> 01:21:04,760
Right.

1485
01:21:04,760 --> 01:21:06,600
Somebody will come up with some great idea to get a bunch of funding.

1486
01:21:06,600 --> 01:21:10,600
And what they'll do is they'll get that big spray gun out right and spray the whole house

1487
01:21:10,600 --> 01:21:14,120
with a new coat of paint and look the house looks beautiful.

1488
01:21:14,120 --> 01:21:20,200
But like how do you paint a house with a spray gun when it's you know all these intricacies?

1489
01:21:20,200 --> 01:21:21,200
We've got to get out brushes.

1490
01:21:21,200 --> 01:21:22,200
We've got to look at this.

1491
01:21:22,200 --> 01:21:24,000
We've got to but they don't want to do that.

1492
01:21:24,000 --> 01:21:25,000
Right.

1493
01:21:25,000 --> 01:21:26,240
They want to they want to throw some money over here.

1494
01:21:26,240 --> 01:21:28,720
This new facility we've got and look it's going to be great.

1495
01:21:28,720 --> 01:21:33,480
And then with homeless with that with addiction like how are you you're going to punish me

1496
01:21:33,480 --> 01:21:35,800
for disease.

1497
01:21:35,800 --> 01:21:40,120
The scary part about it is right that if I had cancer you wouldn't do that.

1498
01:21:40,120 --> 01:21:41,120
Right.

1499
01:21:41,120 --> 01:21:45,960
But because I steal from you it's any more or less a disease or I deserve any more or

1500
01:21:45,960 --> 01:21:46,960
less empathy.

1501
01:21:46,960 --> 01:21:50,600
And I'm not here to say that people shouldn't be punished for crimes.

1502
01:21:50,600 --> 01:21:55,120
I'm not saying that you know some addicts won't need to go to jail at some point.

1503
01:21:55,120 --> 01:21:56,120
I get it.

1504
01:21:56,120 --> 01:21:57,120
Right.

1505
01:21:57,120 --> 01:22:00,200
But to say that that's our holistic approach to humans is just not.

1506
01:22:00,200 --> 01:22:03,040
But like I could sit on that soapbox all day long.

1507
01:22:03,040 --> 01:22:08,520
You know like so many issues of like kindness is nobody's trigger.

1508
01:22:08,520 --> 01:22:09,640
Right.

1509
01:22:09,640 --> 01:22:13,000
Guilt and shame is everybody's trigger.

1510
01:22:13,000 --> 01:22:20,040
So why when you're trying to foster connection and connection to services connection to all

1511
01:22:20,040 --> 01:22:24,920
of these things guilt and shame is not the way to go about it.

1512
01:22:24,920 --> 01:22:26,840
Like and then we can go deep further.

1513
01:22:26,840 --> 01:22:27,840
Right.

1514
01:22:27,840 --> 01:22:28,840
How do the drugs even end up here.

1515
01:22:28,840 --> 01:22:32,640
You know I mean like but that's a whole another episode.

1516
01:22:32,640 --> 01:22:39,240
Well I think you know if you look at the statistics we the US makes up 4 percent of the world's

1517
01:22:39,240 --> 01:22:40,580
population.

1518
01:22:40,580 --> 01:22:44,400
We consume 75 percent of the world's opioids.

1519
01:22:44,400 --> 01:22:50,540
We have almost now 25 percent of the world's incarcerated people.

1520
01:22:50,540 --> 01:22:56,920
So if the war on drugs worked then we wouldn't have gangs you know and we wouldn't have you

1521
01:22:56,920 --> 01:22:58,880
know homelessness everywhere.

1522
01:22:58,880 --> 01:23:01,360
Like we'd be the model you know.

1523
01:23:01,360 --> 01:23:06,160
But I would argue that you know parts of Scandinavia and Portugal are the model.

1524
01:23:06,160 --> 01:23:09,480
You know we it's an epic failure and it goes back to the 30s.

1525
01:23:09,480 --> 01:23:12,080
Harry Anstinger is the origin story.

1526
01:23:12,080 --> 01:23:15,360
So clearly what we're doing isn't working.

1527
01:23:15,360 --> 01:23:16,740
It's just that simple.

1528
01:23:16,740 --> 01:23:22,240
And you know for me like for example witnessing the absolute failure you know in uniform of

1529
01:23:22,240 --> 01:23:29,160
drug prohibition I'm a huge advocate for you know the Portuguese model or even complete

1530
01:23:29,160 --> 01:23:34,080
you know legalization but I saw decriminalization because that was empathy for the addicts.

1531
01:23:34,080 --> 01:23:39,720
But you know you're not legalizing certain things because obviously there is a gray area

1532
01:23:39,720 --> 01:23:43,480
you know marijuana for example is having a lot of healing elements.

1533
01:23:43,480 --> 01:23:46,980
So you know psilocybin and MDMA.

1534
01:23:46,980 --> 01:23:50,760
But then you've got crystal meth and some of these other ones that arguably maybe aren't

1535
01:23:50,760 --> 01:23:52,640
really you know benefiting society.

1536
01:23:52,640 --> 01:23:54,240
So you could still have classes.

1537
01:23:54,240 --> 01:24:00,440
But you know to me just abolishing the prohibition of drugs full stop and you know decriminalizing

1538
01:24:00,440 --> 01:24:05,120
addiction you know not only will free up resources to get the smugglers the dealers just like

1539
01:24:05,120 --> 01:24:10,040
you pertain to but you know free up the court systems minimize the amount of time people

1540
01:24:10,040 --> 01:24:13,960
are even in custody so they can actually you know post bail and get out and go back to

1541
01:24:13,960 --> 01:24:14,960
their family.

1542
01:24:14,960 --> 01:24:20,540
You know the upside to me is amazing and the longitudinal study has just been an epic failure

1543
01:24:20,540 --> 01:24:21,540
and I've witnessed it.

1544
01:24:21,540 --> 01:24:25,720
You know I've scraped the bodies off the streets for 14 years.

1545
01:24:25,720 --> 01:24:30,360
If you could be king for a day what would be all the pieces that you would put in place

1546
01:24:30,360 --> 01:24:34,640
to proactively make a huge dent in the issue that we've been talking about the last hour

1547
01:24:34,640 --> 01:24:40,400
or so.

1548
01:24:40,400 --> 01:24:46,560
I think one of the greatest things I've heard a year and a half ago I was at a conference

1549
01:24:46,560 --> 01:24:52,760
and a doctor came up and he was the opening speaker and he said that how many people here

1550
01:24:52,760 --> 01:24:58,520
think that the system is broken and everybody of course starts clapping and yelling and

1551
01:24:58,520 --> 01:25:00,480
he goes it's not.

1552
01:25:00,480 --> 01:25:04,760
He's like the system as its design works for exactly the people it was designed for by

1553
01:25:04,760 --> 01:25:06,360
the people it was designed for.

1554
01:25:06,360 --> 01:25:08,680
He's like that's the problem.

1555
01:25:08,680 --> 01:25:13,320
He's like it needs to be blown up because it was not designed for us.

1556
01:25:13,320 --> 01:25:17,720
So it's not a current system in the situation that we're in but if I was king for a day

1557
01:25:17,720 --> 01:25:20,400
you would have to look at every issue.

1558
01:25:20,400 --> 01:25:23,080
How are they getting in right?

1559
01:25:23,080 --> 01:25:29,240
All the way down to the addict and support all of those services like you can't have

1560
01:25:29,240 --> 01:25:32,200
a jail or a prison where there's no reformatory.

1561
01:25:32,200 --> 01:25:33,200
You can't.

1562
01:25:33,200 --> 01:25:34,200
It's impossible.

1563
01:25:34,200 --> 01:25:35,200
Right.

1564
01:25:35,200 --> 01:25:37,040
Like it doesn't make any sense.

1565
01:25:37,040 --> 01:25:41,880
Like to isolate somebody in a prison with other prisoners where they're not getting

1566
01:25:41,880 --> 01:25:48,180
any help they need all it's fostering is further criminality and addiction.

1567
01:25:48,180 --> 01:25:51,320
So it's negative into negative into negative.

1568
01:25:51,320 --> 01:25:53,640
So how do we turn negatives into positives?

1569
01:25:53,640 --> 01:25:56,000
How do we turn those at every step?

1570
01:25:56,000 --> 01:25:57,000
Right.

1571
01:25:57,000 --> 01:25:59,880
I'm a huge proponent for harm reduction.

1572
01:25:59,880 --> 01:26:00,880
All of it.

1573
01:26:00,880 --> 01:26:01,880
Safe use sites.

1574
01:26:01,880 --> 01:26:07,040
I'm a huge proponent for all of it but they never support it the way it's supposed to

1575
01:26:07,040 --> 01:26:08,040
be sorted.

1576
01:26:08,040 --> 01:26:09,040
Right.

1577
01:26:09,040 --> 01:26:11,360
We have a camping ban in Las Vegas that's about to come into effect where it's going

1578
01:26:11,360 --> 01:26:13,760
to be illegal to camp on the streets.

1579
01:26:13,760 --> 01:26:14,760
Illegal.

1580
01:26:14,760 --> 01:26:18,440
And like I'm going to be honest with you I don't really have an issue with the camping

1581
01:26:18,440 --> 01:26:19,440
ban.

1582
01:26:19,440 --> 01:26:23,880
I have an issue with the fact that we start with the stick before the carrot.

1583
01:26:23,880 --> 01:26:26,280
The carrot's not even in place.

1584
01:26:26,280 --> 01:26:28,240
The carts in front of the horse.

1585
01:26:28,240 --> 01:26:30,040
It's Oregon all over again.

1586
01:26:30,040 --> 01:26:31,040
Right.

1587
01:26:31,040 --> 01:26:34,440
And because they want to clean up the streets for the businesses and the casinos.

1588
01:26:34,440 --> 01:26:39,640
Like I said I'm not so unempathetic that I don't understand that somebody taking a

1589
01:26:39,640 --> 01:26:44,440
shit in front of your business is a bad look for your business.

1590
01:26:44,440 --> 01:26:49,640
But holistically as a city we've got to look at and ensure that we have these pathways

1591
01:26:49,640 --> 01:26:51,600
created that when the person is willing.

1592
01:26:51,600 --> 01:26:52,600
You know what I mean?

1593
01:26:52,600 --> 01:26:55,720
And I'm not even saying that jail can't play some part in it.

1594
01:26:55,720 --> 01:27:00,160
But why does jail have to be such a drastic difference from everything else going on?

1595
01:27:00,160 --> 01:27:03,120
Why isn't the rehabilitation happening in jail?

1596
01:27:03,120 --> 01:27:06,400
So that when they come out again they're connected.

1597
01:27:06,400 --> 01:27:11,400
Why aren't like the safety net needs to work together to be a true safety net.

1598
01:27:11,400 --> 01:27:13,200
Right now we have safety bubbles.

1599
01:27:13,200 --> 01:27:15,440
And hopefully you land in one of those bubbles.

1600
01:27:15,440 --> 01:27:18,680
And when you're out of that bubble good luck.

1601
01:27:18,680 --> 01:27:20,360
That's not a proactive approach.

1602
01:27:20,360 --> 01:27:24,000
So I think for me it would be continuity through all things.

1603
01:27:24,000 --> 01:27:25,000
Beautiful.

1604
01:27:25,000 --> 01:27:29,680
Well I want to throw a few closing questions at you before we make sure you know we talk

1605
01:27:29,680 --> 01:27:33,060
about Shine and Light and where people can contribute.

1606
01:27:33,060 --> 01:27:37,000
First question, is there a book or are there books that you love to recommend?

1607
01:27:37,000 --> 01:27:41,400
It can be related to our discussion today or completely unrelated.

1608
01:27:41,400 --> 01:27:43,880
Wow.

1609
01:27:43,880 --> 01:27:44,880
So many good books.

1610
01:27:44,880 --> 01:27:50,120
You know obviously Johann Chasing the Scream was the game changer for me early in my recovery

1611
01:27:50,120 --> 01:27:51,120
and still is to this day.

1612
01:27:51,120 --> 01:27:53,400
I like to go back and walk through it.

1613
01:27:53,400 --> 01:27:58,360
But more recently I've gotten into a friend of mine, Ryan Hampton wrote a book called

1614
01:27:58,360 --> 01:27:59,360
Fentanyl Nation.

1615
01:27:59,360 --> 01:28:01,600
It's a really good book.

1616
01:28:01,600 --> 01:28:08,280
And then I have a personal favorite that has been impactful for me.

1617
01:28:08,280 --> 01:28:10,080
It's called New Pair of Glasses.

1618
01:28:10,080 --> 01:28:13,760
It's a really cheap five dollar paperback that changed my life.

1619
01:28:13,760 --> 01:28:16,000
And what else?

1620
01:28:16,000 --> 01:28:18,800
I think I mentioned What Happened to You, The Body Keeps the Score.

1621
01:28:18,800 --> 01:28:20,760
Those are great books.

1622
01:28:20,760 --> 01:28:26,560
Trauma related books and The Pathways of the Brain, How Trauma Affects You.

1623
01:28:26,560 --> 01:28:27,840
One of them was a book by Oprah.

1624
01:28:27,840 --> 01:28:32,280
So I didn't see that one coming but it was good.

1625
01:28:32,280 --> 01:28:34,360
That's funny with the title of the book.

1626
01:28:34,360 --> 01:28:35,960
I forget who said it to me.

1627
01:28:35,960 --> 01:28:37,760
It's not that I had this thought at all.

1628
01:28:37,760 --> 01:28:41,880
But someone said, you know, don't ask what's wrong with you.

1629
01:28:41,880 --> 01:28:43,160
Ask what happened to you.

1630
01:28:43,160 --> 01:28:47,900
And as I've had over a thousand conversations now, it's absolutely a thing.

1631
01:28:47,900 --> 01:28:49,260
Everyone has an origin story.

1632
01:28:49,260 --> 01:28:54,060
And then I just wrote my own second book that came out a few weeks ago.

1633
01:28:54,060 --> 01:28:58,520
And there's a multi-generational trauma story element woven in as well.

1634
01:28:58,520 --> 01:29:03,200
And it's not just your own experience as a child, but what happened to your parents,

1635
01:29:03,200 --> 01:29:04,200
what happened to your grandparents?

1636
01:29:04,200 --> 01:29:09,300
There are these dominoes that are falling that will continue going through these generations

1637
01:29:09,300 --> 01:29:14,080
until one of us actually stops and won't let that last domino fall.

1638
01:29:14,080 --> 01:29:16,200
But yeah, so I love that phrase.

1639
01:29:16,200 --> 01:29:18,960
What happened to you rather than what's wrong with you?

1640
01:29:18,960 --> 01:29:19,960
Snap out of it.

1641
01:29:19,960 --> 01:29:20,960
Get a job.

1642
01:29:20,960 --> 01:29:25,800
It's that lack of empathy we expect from people too.

1643
01:29:25,800 --> 01:29:30,880
You know, it's like when we don't have empathy, it's like they're bothering us, right?

1644
01:29:30,880 --> 01:29:32,680
With their thinking, what's wrong with you?

1645
01:29:32,680 --> 01:29:35,080
It's like, no, let's dig deeper.

1646
01:29:35,080 --> 01:29:36,520
Like if you really care.

1647
01:29:36,520 --> 01:29:37,520
That's work.

1648
01:29:37,520 --> 01:29:38,520
You know what I mean?

1649
01:29:38,520 --> 01:29:41,240
And I'm not perfect at that.

1650
01:29:41,240 --> 01:29:45,560
I'm walking through some stuff in my personal life right now that I'm being reminded that

1651
01:29:45,560 --> 01:29:46,560
I need to get better at that.

1652
01:29:46,560 --> 01:29:47,560
You know what I mean?

1653
01:29:47,560 --> 01:29:50,560
So it's a journey and a process, believe me.

1654
01:29:50,560 --> 01:29:52,880
You mentioned earlier about your kids.

1655
01:29:52,880 --> 01:29:58,840
I just had a Navy SEAL on and it was actually his father that was deep, deep in his meth

1656
01:29:58,840 --> 01:30:00,840
addiction with him.

1657
01:30:00,840 --> 01:30:05,440
And he was talking about it was psychedelics, ironically, of all things that was the kind

1658
01:30:05,440 --> 01:30:08,740
of corner turn for his father.

1659
01:30:08,740 --> 01:30:11,880
But then, you know, he was talking about the healing.

1660
01:30:11,880 --> 01:30:15,920
Okay, now you've overcome your addiction, but you've got this wake of destruction and

1661
01:30:15,920 --> 01:30:17,800
pain that you've left.

1662
01:30:17,800 --> 01:30:21,600
How do you then start picking up the pieces and trying to heal these relationships?

1663
01:30:21,600 --> 01:30:24,440
What have you been able to do with your own?

1664
01:30:24,440 --> 01:30:25,440
For me, I haven't been able to.

1665
01:30:25,440 --> 01:30:26,440
I haven't been able to.

1666
01:30:26,440 --> 01:30:32,120
One of my kids is an adult and I've reached out several times and got no response.

1667
01:30:32,120 --> 01:30:36,320
And then one is 10 and her mom will not let me see her.

1668
01:30:36,320 --> 01:30:40,960
So first of the year, I'm gonna have to get a lawyer and do all that and go down that

1669
01:30:40,960 --> 01:30:41,960
road.

1670
01:30:41,960 --> 01:30:44,320
I'm sorry to hear that.

1671
01:30:44,320 --> 01:30:48,240
And I've got a friend that he went through a divorce and his daughter didn't talk for

1672
01:30:48,240 --> 01:30:50,680
him for years, but then she came around.

1673
01:30:50,680 --> 01:30:52,000
And I do hear this a lot.

1674
01:30:52,000 --> 01:30:55,520
I mean, you know, hope is a superpower, of course.

1675
01:30:55,520 --> 01:31:01,080
But I hope that one day, you know, your oldest will hear a conversation like this and maybe

1676
01:31:01,080 --> 01:31:04,080
find a little bit more compassion and forgiveness because I get it.

1677
01:31:04,080 --> 01:31:05,800
You know, when people are hurt, they're hurt.

1678
01:31:05,800 --> 01:31:11,080
But again, when you really hear where that all came from originally, hopefully that will

1679
01:31:11,080 --> 01:31:14,480
kind of, you know, crack the door of that conversation again.

1680
01:31:14,480 --> 01:31:15,960
Yeah, I hope so.

1681
01:31:15,960 --> 01:31:17,960
Something I pray about every day.

1682
01:31:17,960 --> 01:31:23,320
You know, Johan actually wrote a letter to one of my children's mothers for me on my

1683
01:31:23,320 --> 01:31:24,320
behalf.

1684
01:31:24,320 --> 01:31:29,680
And it's kind of, I do a lot of work on social media and a lot of speaking and all that stuff.

1685
01:31:29,680 --> 01:31:31,640
And a lot of it is because my mom's watching, right?

1686
01:31:31,640 --> 01:31:34,200
Like I want my mom to be proud for the first time in her life.

1687
01:31:34,200 --> 01:31:35,840
Like she has a son she can be proud of.

1688
01:31:35,840 --> 01:31:40,280
But I think some of that too is that, you know, maybe someday my daughters will look

1689
01:31:40,280 --> 01:31:43,640
at that and think, okay, you know, I mean, let's.

1690
01:31:43,640 --> 01:31:45,240
Yeah, I hope so.

1691
01:31:45,240 --> 01:31:46,240
I really do.

1692
01:31:46,240 --> 01:31:48,260
Well, we talked about books.

1693
01:31:48,260 --> 01:31:51,560
What about films and documentaries that you love?

1694
01:31:51,560 --> 01:31:55,400
Oh, that's a good one.

1695
01:31:55,400 --> 01:31:56,760
I'm a huge fan of City of God.

1696
01:31:56,760 --> 01:31:59,080
I don't know if you've ever seen that.

1697
01:31:59,080 --> 01:32:00,680
I don't know if I saw that one, actually.

1698
01:32:00,680 --> 01:32:01,680
I'll write it down.

1699
01:32:01,680 --> 01:32:04,480
It's out of the favelas in Brazil.

1700
01:32:04,480 --> 01:32:09,640
True story about a photographer that grew up in the favelas in Brazil and his journey

1701
01:32:09,640 --> 01:32:14,920
through all the chaos and how he overcame it was a really great movie.

1702
01:32:14,920 --> 01:32:15,920
What else?

1703
01:32:15,920 --> 01:32:16,920
What else?

1704
01:32:16,920 --> 01:32:17,920
I'm trying to think here.

1705
01:32:17,920 --> 01:32:18,920
What else?

1706
01:32:18,920 --> 01:32:21,640
Move Me No Mountain was something we were kind of a part of a little bit.

1707
01:32:21,640 --> 01:32:27,240
It was a story about homelessness that just was filmed here in Vegas with a friend of

1708
01:32:27,240 --> 01:32:29,240
ours that was really good.

1709
01:32:29,240 --> 01:32:35,240
And then, I'm trying to think.

1710
01:32:35,240 --> 01:32:36,800
In the moment, I can't think of anything else.

1711
01:32:36,800 --> 01:32:37,800
I love movies.

1712
01:32:37,800 --> 01:32:42,080
I get to watch a lot of TV, but I like to watch TV.

1713
01:32:42,080 --> 01:32:43,080
Beautiful.

1714
01:32:43,080 --> 01:32:49,480
Yeah, I had a guy on Judge Craig Mitchell and he was the subject of what was it called?

1715
01:32:49,480 --> 01:32:51,320
Skid Row Marathon.

1716
01:32:51,320 --> 01:32:54,880
And he was a judge and again, had a lot of addiction, a lot of homelessness kind of come

1717
01:32:54,880 --> 01:32:56,360
through his courts.

1718
01:32:56,360 --> 01:33:03,400
And so, he was a runner and he started just inviting the local, whether they were homeless,

1719
01:33:03,400 --> 01:33:07,480
whether they were struggling with addiction and ended up competing in the marathons around

1720
01:33:07,480 --> 01:33:08,480
the world.

1721
01:33:08,480 --> 01:33:13,080
And again, such a beautiful story of just one person caring enough to do something.

1722
01:33:13,080 --> 01:33:18,560
He's already paid to help, to be a public servant, but he went over and above and just

1723
01:33:18,560 --> 01:33:21,320
created a movement there in Los Angeles.

1724
01:33:21,320 --> 01:33:22,560
I like a lot of YouTube.

1725
01:33:22,560 --> 01:33:28,240
I like following YouTubers because I get to see different parts of the world, different

1726
01:33:28,240 --> 01:33:30,360
perspectives that I didn't think.

1727
01:33:30,360 --> 01:33:35,000
That's kind of how I found the jails, the prisons, some prisons in Europe.

1728
01:33:35,000 --> 01:33:44,560
And even found in Romania, there was tunnel people, people living in the tunnels, but

1729
01:33:44,560 --> 01:33:48,760
the tunnels were very different, Eastern European style tunnels, like steam tunnels.

1730
01:33:48,760 --> 01:33:51,120
I saw that.

1731
01:33:51,120 --> 01:33:52,120
I like that.

1732
01:33:52,120 --> 01:33:53,120
I like seeing different.

1733
01:33:53,120 --> 01:33:54,120
It was really impressive.

1734
01:33:54,120 --> 01:34:01,680
I think it's super important that the rehabilitation factor and the way they took away shame was

1735
01:34:01,680 --> 01:34:07,000
by the end of it, the one that I saw, by the end of it, they never wore prison clothes.

1736
01:34:07,000 --> 01:34:08,960
They always wore their own clothes.

1737
01:34:08,960 --> 01:34:11,200
And by the end of it, they had had weekend passes.

1738
01:34:11,200 --> 01:34:14,320
They had a job outside of prison.

1739
01:34:14,320 --> 01:34:18,200
So there was no jump off the cliff.

1740
01:34:18,200 --> 01:34:20,360
Their family had seen them, knew they were there.

1741
01:34:20,360 --> 01:34:23,080
They were connected with their family, their employment.

1742
01:34:23,080 --> 01:34:28,880
And as a community, it destigmatized it too because they're used to seeing him and it

1743
01:34:28,880 --> 01:34:29,880
was beautiful.

1744
01:34:29,880 --> 01:34:32,440
Yeah, I mean, this is what I've said.

1745
01:34:32,440 --> 01:34:36,080
We beat our chests and say we're the greatest country in the world.

1746
01:34:36,080 --> 01:34:38,640
And I always say, well, firstly, it's not a competition.

1747
01:34:38,640 --> 01:34:39,640
Like we're a round rock.

1748
01:34:39,640 --> 01:34:40,640
We're all on it.

1749
01:34:40,640 --> 01:34:41,640
You know what I mean?

1750
01:34:41,640 --> 01:34:43,480
But secondly, we're not.

1751
01:34:43,480 --> 01:34:47,080
If you look at education, if you look at the addiction, you look at the violence in our

1752
01:34:47,080 --> 01:34:51,280
schools, you look at the obesity crisis, we're not winning in every area.

1753
01:34:51,280 --> 01:34:57,280
And the problem is because of that arrogance, we're not having the humility to say, Norway,

1754
01:34:57,280 --> 01:34:58,280
tell us about the prisons.

1755
01:34:58,280 --> 01:34:59,280
Portugal, tell me about drug.

1756
01:34:59,280 --> 01:35:02,320
You know, decriminalization in the UK.

1757
01:35:02,320 --> 01:35:07,040
Tell me about the original NHS, not the one that you've destroyed, but how it was supposed

1758
01:35:07,040 --> 01:35:08,200
to be.

1759
01:35:08,200 --> 01:35:12,440
Because then we can go, OK, well, it's not apples to apples, but let's take that blueprint

1760
01:35:12,440 --> 01:35:18,720
and apply it to make an American version of, you know, so having the humility to ask people

1761
01:35:18,720 --> 01:35:23,560
who are already doing it better than us, I think is how we really kind of move forward

1762
01:35:23,560 --> 01:35:24,560
in a lot of these issues.

1763
01:35:24,560 --> 01:35:25,560
Yeah, 100 percent.

1764
01:35:25,560 --> 01:35:26,560
You don't know until you know.

1765
01:35:26,560 --> 01:35:29,600
So you got to find somebody that does exactly.

1766
01:35:29,600 --> 01:35:30,600
All right.

1767
01:35:30,600 --> 01:35:35,120
Well, the next question, is there a person that you recommend to come on this podcast

1768
01:35:35,120 --> 01:35:39,720
as a guest to speak to the first responders, military and associated professions of the

1769
01:35:39,720 --> 01:35:40,720
world?

1770
01:35:40,720 --> 01:35:47,440
I would recommend probably Jeffrey Iverson, Jamie Hatfield, Brent Nowak.

1771
01:35:47,440 --> 01:35:51,560
I've got a good group of guys around me, guys and girls.

1772
01:35:51,560 --> 01:35:52,560
Beautiful.

1773
01:35:52,560 --> 01:35:53,560
All right.

1774
01:35:53,560 --> 01:35:56,480
Well, then the very last question before we make sure everyone knows where to find Shine

1775
01:35:56,480 --> 01:36:04,520
Light Foundation and yourself, what do you do to decompress?

1776
01:36:04,520 --> 01:36:07,640
Last couple of years, not much.

1777
01:36:07,640 --> 01:36:08,640
I enjoy it.

1778
01:36:08,640 --> 01:36:09,640
It's my purpose.

1779
01:36:09,640 --> 01:36:10,640
Right.

1780
01:36:10,640 --> 01:36:16,600
So I have a beautiful family at home that I get to spend time with when I can and just

1781
01:36:16,600 --> 01:36:19,680
recently helped my fiance to open her business.

1782
01:36:19,680 --> 01:36:25,200
She started a business, which is going really well and little things, you know, date nights

1783
01:36:25,200 --> 01:36:28,160
and, you know, we're just really active in our recovery.

1784
01:36:28,160 --> 01:36:29,800
We're really active in the community.

1785
01:36:29,800 --> 01:36:32,320
So I enjoy those things.

1786
01:36:32,320 --> 01:36:34,360
We're going to F1 on Saturday.

1787
01:36:34,360 --> 01:36:35,360
Brilliant.

1788
01:36:35,360 --> 01:36:40,880
I'm not particularly an F1 fan, but I'm going for the event, you know, and be with friends.

1789
01:36:40,880 --> 01:36:41,880
Right.

1790
01:36:41,880 --> 01:36:42,880
I get to show up for people today.

1791
01:36:42,880 --> 01:36:43,880
I get to be.

1792
01:36:43,880 --> 01:36:44,880
Yeah.

1793
01:36:44,880 --> 01:36:46,880
There's a lot of money in that sport.

1794
01:36:46,880 --> 01:36:50,880
If only you get a sponsor from the F1 community to help with homelessness in America.

1795
01:36:50,880 --> 01:36:53,000
Yeah, we got a call from them.

1796
01:36:53,000 --> 01:36:55,000
They reached out to us.

1797
01:36:55,000 --> 01:37:01,040
This came by the office and we thought maybe there was a chance.

1798
01:37:01,040 --> 01:37:03,040
Still they beautifully gave us tickets.

1799
01:37:03,040 --> 01:37:06,480
They just wanted to partner with somebody to give us tickets, gave us all free tickets

1800
01:37:06,480 --> 01:37:07,480
to go.

1801
01:37:07,480 --> 01:37:08,480
So it was beautiful.

1802
01:37:08,480 --> 01:37:09,480
Yeah.

1803
01:37:09,480 --> 01:37:12,640
Hopefully that will lead to a further conversation then.

1804
01:37:12,640 --> 01:37:14,680
Yeah, for sure.

1805
01:37:14,680 --> 01:37:20,040
I think what we've seen in Vegas a lot, and I don't know where anywhere else, but in Vegas,

1806
01:37:20,040 --> 01:37:21,640
the narrative is changing, right?

1807
01:37:21,640 --> 01:37:25,360
People are getting tired of the old guard and the old way and not that they want to

1808
01:37:25,360 --> 01:37:26,360
tear them down, right?

1809
01:37:26,360 --> 01:37:27,360
But what else?

1810
01:37:27,360 --> 01:37:28,920
How can we add to this?

1811
01:37:28,920 --> 01:37:31,920
Okay, we've been supporting this for a long time.

1812
01:37:31,920 --> 01:37:33,400
You guys are self-sustaining now.

1813
01:37:33,400 --> 01:37:37,360
Let's go out and find the next one to prop up and how do we help this?

1814
01:37:37,360 --> 01:37:41,420
And I think like, I think ideally we're perfectly suited, right?

1815
01:37:41,420 --> 01:37:45,400
Because we're essentially the piece that works with everybody, the piece that connects all

1816
01:37:45,400 --> 01:37:49,680
the pieces, the piece that can, and then report data for 18 months.

1817
01:37:49,680 --> 01:37:51,240
Nobody can do that.

1818
01:37:51,240 --> 01:37:56,400
We can report data for 18 months that people can do three months, six months tops, and

1819
01:37:56,400 --> 01:38:00,600
then we can track all these things for a long period of time.

1820
01:38:00,600 --> 01:38:01,600
Yeah.

1821
01:38:01,600 --> 01:38:04,840
Well, and true successes, like you said, not just coming out of a rehab facility after

1822
01:38:04,840 --> 01:38:10,560
five days, but actually someone transitioning back to a home and a job and truly, you know,

1823
01:38:10,560 --> 01:38:11,560
being back on their feet.

1824
01:38:11,560 --> 01:38:12,560
Yeah.

1825
01:38:12,560 --> 01:38:17,120
And we got a graduation, our board downstairs, we have the, you know, where all our clients

1826
01:38:17,120 --> 01:38:20,360
are placed and then we have another board for our graduation.

1827
01:38:20,360 --> 01:38:26,560
So far we have 70 clients for our March graduation and we're working on like 30 more possibly.

1828
01:38:26,560 --> 01:38:27,560
Amazing.

1829
01:38:27,560 --> 01:38:28,560
Absolutely amazing.

1830
01:38:28,560 --> 01:38:33,040
Well, for people listening then, where can they learn more about Shine a Light Foundation?

1831
01:38:33,040 --> 01:38:37,880
How can they donate and, you know, where are the places online or social media?

1832
01:38:37,880 --> 01:38:41,280
Also website www.shinealightlv.com.

1833
01:38:41,280 --> 01:38:46,120
That's the same for our Instagram, Shine a Light LV, Facebook Shine a Light.

1834
01:38:46,120 --> 01:38:49,360
In the Instagram, it's in our bio where you can donate.

1835
01:38:49,360 --> 01:38:50,920
We have a match grant going right now.

1836
01:38:50,920 --> 01:38:53,760
So every dollar donated is automatically doubled by our board.

1837
01:38:53,760 --> 01:38:59,640
So it's a great opportunity to maximize your money and just shoot us a like, a post, a

1838
01:38:59,640 --> 01:39:00,640
follow.

1839
01:39:00,640 --> 01:39:04,440
Just, yeah, we're pretty active in our social media and we do it all ourselves.

1840
01:39:04,440 --> 01:39:05,440
Beautiful.

1841
01:39:05,440 --> 01:39:07,960
Well, I want to say thank you so much, Robert.

1842
01:39:07,960 --> 01:39:10,520
It's been such an amazing conversation.

1843
01:39:10,520 --> 01:39:13,560
Just your life story, obviously on its own is incredible.

1844
01:39:13,560 --> 01:39:18,560
But what I love about the human beings that come on the show, the common denominator is

1845
01:39:18,560 --> 01:39:23,220
these are people that have either been through horrendous struggles or, you know, have served

1846
01:39:23,220 --> 01:39:31,120
in uniform or judges, I wouldn't say costume, but whatever you call it they were, you know,

1847
01:39:31,120 --> 01:39:32,440
and then they just want to do more.

1848
01:39:32,440 --> 01:39:33,440
They want to keep serving.

1849
01:39:33,440 --> 01:39:37,200
They want to be a bigger part of the solution and to go through the crucible that you went

1850
01:39:37,200 --> 01:39:41,280
with your addiction and come out and be this incredible beacon of light with this community

1851
01:39:41,280 --> 01:39:44,600
that you've built has been so amazing to hear.

1852
01:39:44,600 --> 01:39:48,240
So I want to thank you so, so much for being so generous with your time and coming on the

1853
01:39:48,240 --> 01:39:49,720
Behind the Shield podcast today.

1854
01:39:49,720 --> 01:39:50,720
Thank you for having me.

1855
01:39:50,720 --> 01:40:03,720
I appreciate it.