Artie Lange's Podcast Channel - 7 - FORMER NJ GOVERNOR JIM MCGREEVEY

Episode Date: December 11, 2019

Artie Lange spends time with former New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey who now works to help opiod addicts find their way back into society after being incarcerated. Sponsored by... MyBookie.ag - to go http://bit.ly/MYB-Artie and use code Artie to get a 50% signup bonus BlueChew - go to BlueChew.com and use code Artie to try it for FREE!

Hey, it's Artie Lange's Halfway House. We got an unbelievably special episode right now that I'm actually very honored. I can't believe this is actually happening. My co-host, Mike Boschetti, is not here. Do not worry. Like a lot of the hip young millennial shows, my co-host has a heart condition. And he's... Yeah, very

hip show we're doing. Big with the X Games. Mike had chest pains. And he's in the hospital. But Mike is a survivor, and he's built like a tank. And I'm sure he'll be fine. That actually works out pretty good because he's not worthy of my guest today. How's that sound? First of all, one of my guests is Dom.

Dom, good to have you. Thanks for having me. Dom, just get right up on that microphone and speak. You could adjust it. Is it okay if I say how I know you? Sure. I met Dom through AANA. Yeah.

In recovery. And you're a recovering addict. Right. Six years. Six years, which is amazing. And you're young. How old are you? 31.

So you got clean at 25 years old. Yeah. I'm 52. I have 10 and a half months. If I had done that at 25, I mean... Let's give her a round of applause for her. Yeah, right, yeah. And I, you know, that's amazing, man.

When it comes to... Thank you. This show is really going to concentrate on addiction, not the normal silliness I get into, because it's a big part of my life, and my fans know about it. But guys like Dom are inspirational to me, because that's a mature decision at

25 to get clean, dude. I mean, I don't think that I had a mature bone in my body though. Yeah. But I mean, you know, something told you to get better because I mean, at 25, my life was a wreck because of drugs and alcohol and I didn't get better, you know? Yeah. So I commend you. Thank you very much.

And that's unusual. Yeah. My, my, my other guest is, again, very honored to have him, former New Jersey governor, and currently doing amazing, real important things that involves addiction, involves incarceration, and people

coming back into society after prison. Governor James McGreevy, former governor of New Jersey. Hey, thanks. And you're a proud son of New Jersey. Yeah, that's right. I'm as Jersey as it gets. Exactly.

Union Township, Union High. If Springsteen and Sinatra had a kid, I'd be that kid. I am very Jersey, very Jersey. And so are you. Yeah, Jersey City, Carteret, Woodbridge. You are a guy who's, you're one of the most fascinating human beings. You really are because you've gone through adversity. You're a survivor. And you're a guy who's you're one of the most fascinating human beings you really are because you've gone through adversity you're a survivor and uh you're a good man you know you uh you were got you grew up you said in carteret yes carteret new jersey which is you know i mean i'm from union

which i mean you know you think you're fancy yeah well well if i can feel fancy coming from union that says a lot because because union i mean look, look, the word Union, it's as blue-collar as it gets. But Carteret is like Youngstown, Ohio-type, you know, industry. It's all industry. There's a lot of chemical industry down by the waterfront. All factories, the company GATX, like I said, my friend worked there forever. And so that's where you're from. That's where you're from.

Son of immigrants. Yeah, I'm a grandson of immigrants. Grandson, okay. Yeah, my grandfather came over. He was a police officer in Jersey City. Okay. That's Irish. Yeah, that's Irish.

That's Irish. In fact, I didn't even know that my grandfather could read or write because he was like a farmer. Right. My father told me like the local parish priest took the police test. Like only could happen in Jersey City. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and so they grew up, and my dad went to college on the GI Bill, and my mom was a nurse. And what did your dad end up doing after he got a degree?

He was in the Marine Corps. He was a DI. Then he got the degree, and then he worked in sales in the trucking industry. Okay, okay. My mom worked at Jersey City Medical Center, that giant building. Yeah, no, I know. I could see it from my apartment. Absolutely.

Yeah, yeah. And you grow up and you end up going to Georgetown. You go to high school in Carteret? You go to Catholic school? Yeah, I went to Catholic school. St. Joe's in Metusha. St. Joe's. Yeah, exactly.

Exactly. I know St. Joe's. I mean, again, that's all St. Pat's and Elizabeth. Yeah. A lot of legendary sports teams. Great sports teams. Yeah. St. Anthony's in Jersey City. Yeah, St. Pat's and Elizabeth. A lot of legendary sports teams. Great sports teams. St. Anthony's in Jersey City. St. Anthony's is legendary for hoops.

But so and then, I mean, look, those are modest beginnings by anybody's standards. As my father would say, I have a lot to be modest about. Well, but then, you know, you get to Georgetown. And your undergrad Georgetown. Well, I actually went to law school at Georgetown. But anyway, that's but the important thing, you know what? And all of this is I was just blessed. Yeah.

Well, I was your smart guy. But also like schools were affordable back then. Yeah, absolutely. So like, you know, that's one of the things that concerns me is like, you know, can a can a working class person afford to go to college today? Can they afford it? You know, it's tough. I wanted to ask you about that, too, because the college situation, there's a lot of people Can a working class person afford to go to college today? Can they afford it? It's tough.

I wanted to ask you about that, too, because the college situation, there's a lot of people in politics that are saying colleges are so overpriced. But when you hear about that scandal with the celebrities paying their kids, paying to get their kids in, first of all, I think my theory with that is that's been going on since the beginning of time. Wealthy people have been paying to get their kids into school. But that's not your story. When you hear something like that, do you think that's part of society just like falling apart? I mean, or is it good that you know about all that? Like, you know, you know about a scandal like that. Yeah, I mean, I guess that goes public, but that what, what I think outprices people more obviously

overwhelmingly is just the cost. Right. Is that for the average. It's nuts. It's nuts. For the average family making, you know, 60 K and, and you're looking at costs and, you know, some schools provide for tuition assistance or scholarships or abatements. I mean, that's what we have.

And particularly in terms of public schools, public universities. Absolutely. I mean, that was always the gateway for, you know, middle working class families to move. Some sort of scholarship. Yeah. But, I mean, you talk about $60,000 a year. Forget about college.

You can't go to a Yankee game with a family of four. I mean, that's going to cost you a grand. You know what I mean? $60,000 you're making after taxes, $40,000, $42,000. Everything is nuts. But an education is – there's a lot of people who think there's only certain professions that you even need at college. Well, I mean, that's – look, we deal with a lot of guys obviously coming out of prison

and grappling with addiction. And a lot of times I'll say to them, you know, they think automatically I want to go to college. But I look at my cousins who are, you know, in the operating engineers, IUOE, Local 825, and my God, they're all doing a heck of a lot better than I ever did. All union guys. Exactly. I was a longshoreman.

I was a longshoreman out of Port Newark. I worked on the orange juice pier. Didn't go to college. I was a horrible student. But I'm sure you made a decent salary. The rate in, I started working there in 1991. The rate was 19 bucks an hour and in 91, and then the double time, you know, 40 bucks an hour. So, so you got to look at, you know, what are the skills? And, and, and we talk about all the time when guys coming out of prison,

you know, that people don't want to hire them. But you have to have what they call an industry recognized credential. So at the end of the day, if you have that credential, whether it's, you know, electrician, a plumber, an operating engineer. A sort of skill that's marketable. A skill that's marketable. Right, right. And so for our guys, a lot of our guys, you know, they, you know, I don't know the background, the schools they went to, whatever. But they're starting behind the gate. So if I can get them a CDL license, if I can get them an HVAC.

CDL, commercial driver's license. They could drive a rig. Exactly. Class A, that's a license to print money. Yeah, exactly. Or I can get them training to become a diesel mechanic. And then all of a sudden you get certified by Ford and then you can move over or stay there. And then all of a sudden you've got the skills that you can compete in the marketplace.

Right. Okay. Obviously you're talking about what you're into now, which I think is unbelievable. I've been to jail. I've never been to prison. Dom, you ever been, are you a prison guy? Jail. Good.

Good for you. Get us a look at it. Exactly. But I've been, I've been in a lot of county jails. I've been, you know, I mean, again, addiction has, you know, in a lot of ways, you know, I'm a miracle that I'm alive. But I've been in jail in Paris, France, Los Angeles, Union County Jail, Hudson County Jail, and Essex County Jail, this last run. And hopefully that's all. It's the Artie Lang tour.

It's the Artie Lang tour. Exactly. Not just stand-up jails. I've been very funny in jails all over the world. Was the food in Paris any better than... Let me tell you something. Horrible. It was a thousand-year-old jail.

I got into a drunken fight with Paris cops because I got mad at my fiancée. I took a swing at a Paris cop, and my shirt came off in the fight. The cop said to me, Majord, if you have no drugs in your system, we let you go. So thank God I just had alcohol. And they were calling me Majord. I felt said to me, Majord, if you have no drugs in your system, we let you go. So thank God I just had alcohol.

And they were calling me Majord. I felt like it was, you know, like La Caja Falls or something. And then I got sent in there where like a guy was like a 100-year-old drunk from Paris, cut to me 9 a.m. hitchhiking with no shirt on next to the Eiffel Tower trying to get a cab. I mean, you talk about a movie.

So what happened to the fiancée? Well, she, again, again, this is what Lickner does to you. So I got mad at her for no reason. It was not her fault at all. So we're in this nice suite in Paris, like right off the Champs-Élysées, whatever you call it. And I got so mad at her, I threw her clothes out the window twice. And I was tipping the guys so much, and they kind of knew I was in show business.

The doorman, two times, I threw her stuff out on the boulevard. They brought it back up. They brought it up as if I sent them for dry cleaning. As if I said, they said, they show your clothes. Your clothes, exactly. Oh, I accidentally threw them out the window. Right, no, exactly. So, so, and then, but she, she stayed, I left. Uh, but again, that, that's all it's, it's, I left. But again, that's all, it's addiction. It's booze and drugs. And so many Americans grapple with that.

Do you have any history with that in your world? No, in everybody's family you have addiction. But for me personally, you know, you could say already that, you know, whether it's politics, whether it's, you know, drugs, whether it's alcohol and anything, you know, there's a great Franciscan priest, Richard Rohr. And he says, Father Rohr says, you know, addiction is the byword for American society. Yeah. And he talks about that openly. And it could be anything.

It could be anything. It could be food. It could be gambling. I have a gambling problem, too. But, you know, it's funny. I was just in Turning Point in Paterson to play. It really helped me. A shout out to Steve DeL turning point in Paterson to play. It really helped me. Shout out to Steve DeLaval. They're great people there. They really helped me. I was there for three months.

And a doctor said something, and I never knew this, but addiction is literally the Latin translation for the word enslaved. And that really hit me because that's exactly what you are. I became a slave to heroin. And it could be, Don looks like the head of IBM. And then the fact that he had a drug problem. A heroin problem. A heroin problem.

I mean, this is what happens when you get clean young. You look good. You clean up. If you don't, you have this nose. I look like I got into a fight with drugs for 30 years. And I did. But you're winning today. I'm winning today.

That's all that counts. Ten and a half months. So this program you're involved with now, again, like I said, you're doing a lot of great things. But what we do, it's called the New Jersey Reentry, and this is for people in prison or jail. Exactly what you just said. They want to come out. I met a lot of these guys. They're good people.

A lot of them are smart as hell. Smart as hell. They can do a lot of things. They can build whatever. They just need focus, and they need an opportunity. Yep. And a lot of guys, Artie, a lot of guys today, and I didn't have this growing up,

but a lot of guys today have anxiety. Right. They have depression. It's nuts. And it's nuts. The world They have depression. It's nuts. And it's nuts. The world moves fast now. It moves fast. And, you know, whether, and I don't mean to sound so old-fashioned, but whether they had

a father figure in their life or they had somebody kicking them in the pants and giving them direction. And so they, you know, whether it's guys or gals, but a lot of them don't do, some of them, a lot of them do drugs for escape. Just to relax. Just to relax. They think they're going to relax. And so what happens is they do that.

And today, they also, I mean, with the advent of fentanyl, which is just synthetic opioid, it just, with three administrations, it changes the neural pathways in the mind. It's elephant tranquil, actually. Yeah, exactly. Guys are dropping out from sniffing it. I mean, shooting it is a total, if you're an IV drug user, shooting fentanyl is just a total Russian roulette. The problem is, and I was just, you know, I was at my outpatient today

without, you know, giving away anything a guy said. And this is a threshold. It's like, you know, you say people start off having a beer. Then you go to weed. And then that's a gateway drug. Then you graduate to maybe cocaine. And the worst of the worst graduate to heroin. What you're hearing now is so insane to me.

Heroin was in the 70s and 80s, like growing up. That's what the Rolling Stones did. That's what Keith Richards got. That was the exception. That's what they got. That was as strong as a drug can get. Now people are going from heroin to fentanyl, and heroin's not good enough for them.

Like, when you say heroin, I need the fentanyl, because heroin's not good enough. You're in the danger zone, man. You're beyond the danger zone. You're in the death zone. So we actually have young guys who started, you know, first they start with a Percocet. Right. And then they start with the oxycodone, so it's the painkillers.

And so because their drug problem started with opioids, then they'll chase the heroin, and then they'll chase the fentanyl. Heroin's cheaper than the pills. I mean, the pills on the streets can be $12 a pill. Exactly. And after they doctor shop and prescription shop, then they need the heroin. And then they chase the fentanyl. And it's gotten to the point, Artie, literally insanity where when somebody dies, they want to know how that bag was marked. Absolutely.

Because they want to use that heroin or that fentanyl because they miraculously believe that they're not going to die from the same thing that killed their friend. If you tell a junkie that someone died from a bag of dope, there'll be a line outside that dope spot. Yeah, where do I get it? And it's not that we want to die. We just want to get high. That sounds amazing. But you'll risk your life. Yep.

So it's about pulling them all back. So, I mean, you know, it took me a long time to understand the importance. And, you know, we work closely with AA and NA. It's so critically important. I was going to ask you real quick before you go on because, again, addiction is all – of the guys and girls, you know, that you're trying to get jobs in the reentry program from prison, how many of them have addiction issues? I'd say, Art 75% and 78%. Yeah, it's insane. So it's all tied to drugs.

We track it. In New Jersey, it's particularly high. I mean, there's a high rate of correlation between if you're an addict, you're going to run into the criminal justice system. You're going to run into courts. You're going to run into prison. And if you're in prison, there's a high probability. And you can get high in prison.

In jail, you see it all the time. And just picking up on what you said, though, when you're getting high in prison, the strength of the heroin that you're using is a lot less toxic or powerful than what's on the street. And so the real danger is when guys and gals come out and their cravings are high, but their resistance is very, very low. And they go back to what they used to use. They go back. And for our clients within the first two weeks of prison, their rate of overdose death is 129 times higher than the average American. 129 times. So when you're looking at- Those numbers are staggering. Those numbers are staggering. And so within the first two weeks, why it's so critically important

that we work with them, we get the medication assisted treatment, we help them with housing and support, because if we're not at that prison door, if we're not linking services, they're going to run into, you know, everything from where am I going to sleep tonight? Where am I going to eat today? And that stress starts to build up. And then it's like, why not get high? Yeah. Why not get high? And then you get a case of the efforts. Right. And it just goes within two weeks. So you got again, this is an insanely practical, practical thing, but it's such a difficult undertaking because there's different parts to it. Okay, 75% to 80% of the people you're trying to get back into the world, into society. And 40% have some level of mental illness.

Okay, that's a whole other issue. Anxiety, depression. And you know, by the way, when people think of mental illness, I mean, we're not talking about acute schizophrenia. It's not a guy chasing you with a white net. Exactly. It's somebody who's, yeah, but it's somebody who's, you know. You're overly depressed and anxious. They're overly depressed. Overwhelmed.

They've lost their family. They may have lost their significant other. They're by themselves in the world. I mean, like, write down, like, we just went through Thanksgiving, and we had a series of Thanksgivings and Christmas. I mean, all the things that so many of us take for granted in our lives, people, whether friends or family or loved ones, providing some sort of context for community. When you're coming out of prison, I mean, people have just passed you by, right? Yeah.

And nowadays with technology, a new phone comes out every two minutes. If you're locked up for a year, you feel like, my God, it went from horse and buggy to flying cars. Exactly. I've had guys walk out after 20 years and just be complete. Oh, that's insane. If you weren't locked up the last 20 years, think about what – I always say this all the time.

My father fell and basically ended his life in 1985. 85, okay, his life was over. He never used an ATM, played a CD, or used a phone or a car. So that's how much technology in 35 years, if you've been locked up for 30, I mean, you talk about, I mean, that's why this, what you're doing is so insanely important. I see these guys, but the problem is, and the mammoth undertaking you have is, okay, say 80% are linked to addiction. The first thing you got to do before someone can do anything, even get ready to get training for a job, you got to get over the addiction part. Yep. Artie, you got it. Right. You got to get it. But that's the new way of doing it. The old way of doing it was you get the guy a job. Just get out, get a job. Get a job. He's still got the same problems.

But, I mean, that was the old way of thinking, and God bless him. How'd that experiment go wrong? Yeah, really. But, no, but a lot of people they met well in social services and a lot of good charitable organizations. They just get him a job, get him a paycheck, and he'll hang out. And those people are overwhelmed, too, with work. And, you know, you want to do good, but people get lost. And they didn't last, I mean, six months, let alone six years.

Right, right. So now the first thing we have to do is we've got to make sure that when Jim's walking out of Northern State Prison and I've got an addiction problem, I've got to get stabilized. And, you know, to give a shout out to Carol Johnson of Human Services and the administration, I mean, she's worked to make sure our guys can become Medicaid eligible. Right. And then get MAT. Now, that's worked to make sure our guys can become Medicaid eligible. Right. And then get MAT. Now, that's a big thing. MAT, explain that. I mean, I know what it is, but Suboxone is an example of that.

Suboxone, Vivitrol. Right. And so the whole notion was, is that we're not talking about drinking Jägermeister or Ripple anymore. Right. I mean, what we're talking about is injecting heroin and fentanyl. Right. I mean, what we're talking about is injecting heroin and fentanyl. Right.

And the only way to get past that is to have medical assistance. Right, because there's withdrawals. When you're in opioid addiction, there's something called withdrawals, which is like, and basically the only way I can describe withdrawals and dope sickness, and Dom could either expand on this or agree, to me, the way I explain it to people is it's like every eight hours you need oxygen. Like you're out of oxygen. Like imagine if you didn't have oxygen.

What would you do to get it? You do anything. Yeah. Sorry, just stay right on. When you see that tsunami coming of withdrawals, emotionally, you've got to react. You've got to do something. And that leads to why does everybody go to jail

and get drug court and stuff like that? They start robbing people. They start dealing, whatever, and they get caught doing that. So what you're talking about is very important. In the old days, they had this methadone, which I tried, which why not just do dope? It makes no sense. And methadone was horrible on the body. But the advent of suboxone, which I first heard about about 15 years ago,

Subutex and Suboxone, it's an opiate blocker, so you can't, it takes away the cravings so you can't get high, but the withdrawals, it lets you kind of steadily get off it, right?

And, we have clients that are on it for now three years. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you can be on it a long time if you get your life, if you use it properly.

Exactly. You can abuse that too. It's sold on the street. I used the you could be on it a long time if you get your life to use it properly. Exactly. You can abuse that, too. It's sold on the streets. I used the hell out of it. Me, too. I shot it through the last year. I mean, that's insane. But listen.

But we also, like, have these guys participate in AANA. Oh, absolutely. So it's critically important. It's a bunch of parts to recovery. Yeah. It's MAT. It's AANA. It's, it's MAT, it's AA, NA, it's medical services. It's making sure that

whether you have hepatitis B or hepatitis C that's being treated, it's making sure that you have an opportunity to talk to a psychiatrist or psychologist about some of the challenges. And, you know, part of the reluctance for a lot of guys in prison, they're, they're very reluctant to talk to a doctor in the prison setting or, you know, at all affiliated with the court system because... Nobody wants to look like they're talking to anybody on the other side. And exactly, they don't know where the boomerang is coming. Absolutely. And so that's what we do. Our job is to be an advocate for the person, an advocate for the addict, an advocate for the person returning home to help them get their medication-assisted treatment, get their addiction treatment, get their medical treatment, right?

So now all of a sudden you come out of prison, and a lot of guys have been using a needle in prison. So whether it's a tattoo needle and you've exchanged blood and somebody has hepatitis or— Hep C, HIV, it's all over the place. Exactly. All of that. And you've got to sort of sort through that medical piece, and then it's also providing sober housing. Well, here's, okay, going step by

step here, here's, everything you just said has a stigma attached to it in society, too. You know, a guy, an old-fashioned guy trying to hire a guy, here's drug addict, prison, Hep C, HIV, you know, even tattoos. They're more socially acceptable now.

All those things are obstacles of them getting any sort of mainstream work, you know. So, yeah, it's almost like what you're doing, too, is you almost have to go to employers and say, oh, we do. Yeah, yeah. We do. And when we first started out, I know, like, three years ago when Governor Christie started talking about, obviously, the stigma about addiction and confronted it head on. When Oxy's got big. Exactly. You've got to react. And also in terms of Monmouth and Ocean County and with our friend Joe Carter.

And so we've sort of grappled with the stigma. But, you know, Artie, look at the percentage of families that are grappling with addiction. It affects you. And so it crosses every demographic. Right. It crosses all families. And so I think what we're trying to do now is to make sure that not only to have the medical, not only to have the addiction treatment, but housing, but in the workplace,

we've had really good responses from businesses who understand. We're doing a program right now where we've got 60 guys. Rob Angelo, the commissioner of labor, we've got 60 guys learning how to become diesel mechanics. And we've got an organization, Sansone Auto, New Jersey Cars, saying, hey, Jim, we'll take all of your veterans. We'll take all of the guys that are addicts and sincere that want to work. And also, you know, the unemployment rate also helps because they have to reach into our guys. But it's already, it's having that certificate. It's having that certificate that says I'm a diesel mechanic and I actually know what I'm doing. I can do this and I can do it

well. But then there's always, again, again, society is always going to have that, that prejudice. You know, if you come out of the prison system, that's why what you're doing is really a great thing because look, we're losing people left and right, whether they die or whether they leave society. Like, the workforce is getting depleted. Like, fentanyl is killing so many people that it is like zip codes are going away. Yeah. I mean, you know, the mortality rate of an American male went down. It's gone down.

It's gone down. Three years in a row. Yeah, I mean, that's a lot. It's unheard of in our lives. So the workforce needs people out there. So these are people that would have been in the workforce years ago that aren't. And like you say, all demographics. But that's why we also say the steps are important.

If I can say it, it's also, and I don't mean to sound terribly old-fashioned, but it's having a sense of purpose in life. I think somebody needs to sound old-fashioned these days. Exactly. We need a good old old-fashioned. Yeah, being grounded. And that's why, I mean, in terms of AA and the first step and the third step to make a decision to turn your life and will over to your higher power, it's understanding there has to be a greater good in your life.

And so for a lot of these— Exactly. You need something to be passionate about besides getting high. Besides yourself. Yeah, exactly. And then the 12-step in the, I mean, again, whatever gets you all right gets you all right. But I'm a 12-step guy. That's what's worked for me.

And eventually getting to that 12-step, what people don't realize, but that 12-step to me is true altruism. It really is. It's like I don't want anything from you. It's about service. I want to help you get better. Exactly. And that helps me. That stroke of genius of me helping you don't want anything from you. It's about service. I want to help you get better. Exactly. And that helps me. That stroke of genius of me helping you help me.

Build up you. Exactly. At the end of the day, my serving you is going to make my strength and my sobriety. Somebody said, you know, it's funny, speaking of that, just to hammer home, like this really got to me. A guy who came to speak in Turning Point, one of the AA guys, older guy, was talking about the history of AA. And I never heard this story before. So Bill W. and the other guy who started AA with, it was a stock market guy and a doctor,

right? Dr. Bob, right? Okay. So they're going around to hospitals after they figure out that talking to each other helps each other stay clean and sober. So they're looking at hospitals and they're saying, where's your drunk ward? So they go into this drunk ward and they find this wife of this guy who is a legendary drunk, just chronic, just, you know, near death, hopeless, and says to the woman, the hospital let me speak to you. We found a cure for alcoholism. They tell this woman, we found a cure for alcoholism. And she

goes, get out of here. I don't believe you. And she goes, well, listen, you could try to cure him. He's right in there. You can talk to him. I'll try anything. And this is so simple, but so brilliant. And it talks about what we were just talking about. She goes, Bill W. and Dr. Bob say to this woman, we're not going to cure him. By talking to him, it's going to cure us. Which that's really – I got the chills when I heard that. Like we're not going to cure him.

But by talking to him and trying to help him, we're doing this service and that helps us. And they made that guy the third member in the history of it. That gives me chills sometimes. That's what you're talking about. That's what we do with our guys. It's working in a soup

kitchen. It's serving children. How bad the prison system is, how wrong you feel, it's getting out of yourself. And it's PTSD, too. I mean, like, it's like going to war, you know. And there is a disaster around the corner.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There is a monster. And the stress of looking over your shoulder in just county jail, but then prison, you know, those guys suffer from PTSD. And, Artie, when they come out, they think those monsters are still there. Right. And if the monster isn't there, sometimes they create one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is the problem, right?

Because like, you know, what we try to say is we get them to write their biography, write their obituary. If I were to die now, what would it be? And then if I could rewrite my obituary and live another 20 years, what would it look like? Right. And then begin to think, begin to imagine how your life story would change. But part of that requires you to think beyond the trauma, the incarceration, the difficulties, the horrors, and to think about good things in your life. Really get to what you are, what you could offer society. Sobriety isn't just about pain. Sobriety is also about, you know,

having a loving relationship, building a family, also about, you know, having a loving relationship, building a family, having work that you love, having a passion. Anything you're passionate about. Because, again, this hits home to me because, obviously, in my situation,

before I... We're encouraging thousands of guys to have their own podcast. Listen, again, this is my thing. Exactly. Performing on a microphone.

That's what I've always wanted to do. I wanted to play shortstop for the Yankees until I was 14, and I was smart enough to realize that was never going to happen with people like Derek Jeter in the world. And then I never wanted to be a fireman,

a cop, a doctor, a lawyer. God bless those people. I wanted to be a comedian. Yep. And I got my dream existence. God bless you. I really did. But drugs and alcohol were always a big part of it.

The difference now is I think with the world and all these people worried about likes on Instagram and all this other bullshit, you know, I really do think these younger people have so much more, like, worrying about acceptance. Acceptance. So my drug use in my early years was not about hide and pain. It was just part of the party. I was having fun. Yeah. It was a blast for a while. Until it wasn't.

Yeah. Well, what am I going to do? I'm going to get a show business and not get hookers and blow them. That's what I want to do. But the fun ended because I couldn't stop. That's the addict in me. And it took me until 52 years old to learn what I know about myself and the horrors and the, you know, I somehow survived.

And it ultimately works against Artie. 100%. But what, so I used to go because I had the means from the age of 27 on to go to these like passages in Malibu type places, which was just like, you know, I'm at an infinity pool getting a massage from a model. Let's get some cocaine. I mean, this is not working. And all these like really sort of bougie type places.

The last, the last couple of years. This is big stuff for a Jersey guy. No, you're right. And the last couple of years of my, and I can never relate to those people. I can, you seem the same way. Wasn't you. I mean, you've probably met, you know, you met kings and queens, right? I mean, you're presidents, you were governor. Carteret's always in there, right? Exactly. Carteret's in your DNA. I can't get rid of union either in there, right? Carteret's in your DNA. I can't get rid of union either. So I always felt more comfortable around those guys and girls. But the last three years, I'm in the system.

I'm on drug court. I got arrested, and I'm in the system. And they locked me up, and I've been going to these state-run facilities. So these kids, when I was in Turning Point, a lot of the younger guys, they figure out how to get on YouTube. Some older guy will say, hey, he's a comedian. They'll see my career. It's all there. And I'm sitting next to

them in a group. Sitting on a plastic leather chair. The guy who's Santa Claus and Elf. And he's on the Tonight Show. And he's sitting next to me saying, hi, my name is Artie. With his nose. Yeah. But again... But you being there, though? This touches me. With this nose. Yeah. And, but again.

But you being there, though. This touches me. They say, how did you do it? I'm like, how did you get any success at all with your drug history? Because I'm honest about my drug history. I started getting high when I was 12 years old. And I go, and I could tell that's what they want. They want something.

I go, what do you love to do? And I'm no counselor. But I really want to help. I really want to help these kids. Well, you see yourself in them too. Well, absolutely. To a degree. And part of this podcast, it's going to be fun and games and all my silliness that I always do. But I really want to try to get a message across of, like, how important my career is to my sobriety. Yep.

And to your purpose. important my career is to my, to my sobriety. And that's exactly why I was so happy you were able to come in here because it's directly related to what you're talking about. What you got to do is, is my, what comedy is to me, these guys and girls coming out of prison and addiction have to find their comedy. They have to find, and it could be a diesel mechanic. You're also doing good for people. And I'm not just saying that because you're here, but part of what drives you is to make people laugh, is to have people enjoy, and giving back. And I think service is so key.

You can't stress that enough. I agree. Exactly. I agree. I've always done benefits and stuff, but never with this clear head. And I would always lie like an addict does. I was on the Howard Stern Show. Howard would go, are you high? I'm like, no, I'm not going to tell my always lie like an addict does. I was on the Howard Stern show. Howard would go,

are you high? I'm like, no, I'm not going to tell my boss in front of 14 million people I'm on heroin. But you lie when you're an addict. So what you're doing is, I'm telling you, Governor, what you're doing is amazing. So we just want people to know. We just want also, if I can already

just turn out, we just want people to know. We just want also, if I can already just for now. Go ahead. We just want people to know that if you're in Jersey and you're in an addiction crisis, that you can always go online at www.njreentry. It's one word, N-J-R-E-N-T-R-Y.org. Right. And within 24 hours, we'll get you into detox. We'll get you into a residential program. We'll get you into intensive. We'll get you into a residential program. We'll get you into intensive outpatient treatment. And I just want to thank the Speaker, Craig Coughlin, the Senate President, Steve Sweeney, and Governor Murphy because they enabled us to do this work.

But part of this only works if people use our services. How did you get passionate about this? What made you go to them? use our services. How did you get passionate about this? Like, what made you go to them? You know, I was always, I always worked with, when I was mayor of Woodbridge,

we had something called Woodbridge Action for Youth, and I saw, like, you know, great families, and my own family. I mean, you know, sort of, you know, addiction and alcoholism touches everyone. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I saw these families that, you know, that look like Mayberry RFD, and the kid is a cocaine addict. It's nuts.

It can happen anywhere. It can happen everywhere. And parents, you know, people didn't know what to do. I mean, candidly, a lot of people don't know what to do now. If all of a sudden they find their kid with a needle in his arm downstairs in the basement and he's 25 years old and he's back from college or still working and mothers are like, what do I do? They don't understand. Where does he go for detox? Right.

Do I go for IOP? They think it's something that happens on Law and Order. Exactly. It doesn't happen in their life. And, you know, young guys and gals are very good at masking this, very good at covering up. Sure. For a while.

For a while until it hits the wall. Yeah. And so we'll get them into detox. We'll get them into residential, IOP, medication-assisted treatment, particularly if they're on fentanyl or heroin. We'll get them a doc, a psych to wrap around services. So, you know, you think to your family in the middle of union, they don't know, like, what treatment facility, what detox, what hospital.

Especially if you were born in 1942 like my mother. Yeah. It's like, what do you – they have no idea what's going on. They have no idea. And so we navigate that system for them. And so if I can – They need an education too. Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, no, no, and it's a painful education, right? Right. Because then they've got to – they can't be enabling. And I deal with families all the time. My son's in such and such county jail. Can you get him out? I'm like, well, actually, it's probably better off if he's inside.

That's what helped me, I got to tell you. And trying to work with the prison system, with the county jails, et cetera. Yeah. So you get through. Now, okay, like we talked about before, that first part is beating the addiction part. And then at that point. And that's a long-term stretch. It is.

Let me just say that, you know. That can take a year. You know, I think it takes 12 to 18 months. Let me just say that, you know, people talk about, you know, that, you know, you're going to get this, beat this in two weeks or 30 days. You're not. Not going to happen. The 28-day thing, I don't know who came up. Probably an insurance guy said 28 days is all we'll pay for.

No. You're not beating heroin or fentanyl on 28 days. So what we try to do is, Artie, we try to link them to the same doctor for 12 to 18 months. So they're seeing the same shrink. You need a guy who knows you you people jump from therapists that that doesn't work either yeah and you can't do residential get out relapse right use go back another residential out relapse use I had the ability to sit on the state police

fatality review board and they were looking at young guys and gals who had overdosed and they were going to young guys and gals who had overdosed. And they were going to a residential program, to go to your point, Artie, for 30 days, out, then use, then go to another place. And you would see they would do this, like one, out, in, out, in, out. Right. It's like it's maddening. And about six times they would overdose and die.

It's maddening. And so the thing is, to go to your point, is you've got to see the same doc. You're going to relapse, but that doesn't mean you're going to start from the beginning. Let's talk about what we have to change. Well, it's a form of psychotherapy. I mean, you can't go shrink to shrink and expect to beat your OCD. And we've got to moderate your meds. I mean, if you've got mental health problems, if you've got anxiety issues, depression issues. And so it's about the constancy it's like seeing somebody who's gonna monitor and regulate your addiction who cares someone really who

cares you know and looking at addiction it's not and looking at addiction as a chronic disease I mean the same way that we look at cancer we look at diabetes understanding that it's not gonna miraculously go away one day and I mean the whole disease thing some people you, sort of defend that it's not, I mean, you feel it's a disease. It's a disease. I mean, look, you have environmental factors, you have genetic factors. Right.

I mean, that indications that, you know, the probability of certain DNA. But the reality is whether you have cancer by virtue of your smoking or where you live, whether you have diabetes. It's environmental, too. It's fascinating. I got to read a couple of commercials. Okay. This will be painless.

I apologize. Oh. I want to ask Dom, too, when we come back, how long it took you, because I think you sort of got into a program, and it didn't take you to a bunch of programs. You weren't that guy, which just fascinatesates me too. So I'll be right with you. I apologize for this. Got to pay the bills. Yeah. Artie Lang's Halfway House is brought to you by Blue Chew. Blue Chew is a pill, you know, it's a sex pill, let's face it. And we all need sex pills nowadays,

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All right. Now, there's a lot going on there. A lot going on there. You're taking care of it all. Gambling in New Jersey. Yep. Gambling in New Jersey. Okay, let's talk about that.

What are your feelings about that? I mean, it's like, that's a controversial thing. There are people. Now, again, there are people who can do that in moderation. But as far as addiction is concerned, where does gambling lie? It can wipe you out. Yeah, absolutely. And it could be the worst vice sometimes.

Well, it's a quote-unquote apparently a painless vice in the beginning. Yeah, but the thing about gambling is it is a physical thing with like releasing dopamine and stuff like that but what I can't believe young people don't realize about drugs is there is no way to do a little heroin there's no way yeah there's no

way there's no way and there's no way to do a little fentanyl like you can't dabble in it no you can't dabble it's not gonna happen it's a one-off yeah and and how much of it do you think is prevention like just like these doctors for a long time were just saying to a kid who had a knee injury in football, take these oxys. Well, that was also, you know, it's interesting you say that, Artie. When you look at sports, it's wrestling. Yeah. It's also basketball.

So you don't, particularly like, you know, there's not a lot of depth there in the sense of you've got to make sure you have a team and you're making it work. And so we have cases where sports physicians were giving young guys painkillers. I mean, again, there's money involved. The people selling for these pharmaceutical companies, you know, do this.

I mean, it's crazy. I mean, you look at the Sackler family. You look at, you know, the lawsuits. I mean, doctors were like dealers I mean, you look at the Sackler family, you look at the lawsuits and the litigation. I mean, doctors were like dealers for a while. They really were. And I think that was the problem because people thought that when you had an MD, and God willing, that's how it should be after your name,

that you're going to recommend what makes sense. But the oxycodone, the Percocets? I mean, that's heroin. That's the other thing that you have to remember is when you hear that, you just think heroin. Percocets are dope. And when you think about having it for a long period of time. Yeah, it doesn't work.

No. It doesn't work. We had a young woman. She was a school teacher. She taught fourth grade. She had gotten into an accident, automobile accident, hurt her knee, got hooked on Percocets. Artie, within two and a half years, she was robbing houses of her families and then went to Edna Mahan.

Yeah. And she was doing heroin and Oxycontin. She literally said to me, she goes, Jim, I felt like Alice in Wonderland. Like I dropped through the rabbit hole. Here I am, had this wonderful family wonderful existence fourth grade teacher had this accident percocets and then now i'm in state prison right now i mean again and all of a sudden you were a fourth grade teacher yeah that now she's an addict and grappling with it and then she's come back and yeah but it's just people you know when and when i talk

at a community or vfws or churches i i say this is this is not like for my generation drinking jaeger and you you know you you get through it as bad as that was but this you know your your mind has changed right with with the fentanyl. And so it's so destructive. So what do you think the reason is for, like, why do they even let people make fentanyl? Well, I mean, so much of the fentanyl comes in from Mexico, from China, and now synthetic. But I mean, just legally. So, I mean, it's prescribed. Well, it's supposed to be for, I mean, look at that.

At the end of the day. But there's drugs to laud it. I can't agree with you more. I mean, it's like, how many, you know. How many pain drugs do we need? Right. It's like Jerry Seifeld used to have this great bit about Tide detergent, laundry detergent. Like, every extra Tide gets your clothes whiter.

How white can your clothes get? Exactly. Like, how, I mean, you're in pain. The lauded takes care of pain. I've had the lauded. I mean, we need fentanyl from China. I mean. Yeah.

And the answer to me. So much of it now is illegal. Yeah. And you meet with the DEA guys, the Drug Enforcement Agency guys, and they said, Artie, it's a whole different... I mean, you've got young guys ordering it off of the dark web,

literally being dropped off their house, and now the DEA says, you know, the fentanyl is not, you know, the heroin, you know, you would move bags of traffic through airports or into this country, and the fentanyl, you know, you would move bags of traffic through airports or into this country. And the fentanyl is four grains kill you. Exactly.

It's the equivalent of four grains of sand. Feds are touching it and falling out from it. But again, to me, the reason they're making it, again, it's money. It all goes back to money because the dealers, what they do is if you could, like a bag of dope where I was buying in south newark for a while i got a bundle which is you know 10 bags uh for 50 bucks that's five bucks a bag that's insanely expensive now when fentanyl comes in the game because fentanyl the dealers can cut it with that stuff and it stays so strong now it's stronger there's dollar bags and there's not and there's

and but there's not even heroin there's not even heroin in the heroin. It's fentanyl being cut with. Right. And then you move from heroin to fentanyl. Forget it. Forget it. Because if heroin, again, I said this before. Heroin's not good for you. It's good enough for you.

But what we're doing here right now maybe might scare the heck out of somebody into not doing this. I really do. Because when I grew up again, there was a lot of glorification of drugs. Again, I mentioned the Rolling Stones. I loved the Stones. I loved i love the stones i loved i i love the who zeppelin and you thought you thought that's that's that's what you know keith richard is being cool he's playing gimme shelter on on heroin but what you don't see is you know the road back is the which again the first there's no way to look cool in withdrawals no there's no way to look rock and roll you. No. There's no way to look rock and roll. You are in a, you're begging.

In a fetal position. In a fetal position. You're begging like a little child. It's, it's just, it's terrible. Tom, you got, you got, did you go to one rehab and get better? One rehab, yeah. And why do you think that is? Like, why?

I don't, I mean, I stopped dope in 2010. That's a rare story. To be what they call a first time winner. Yeah, yeah. In 2010, I used my last bag of dope and I went on Suboxone for three and a half years. Okay. And I abused the hell out of Suboxone. Yeah.

So, but your clean date to you is when you got off the Suboxone? Right. Yeah, okay. November 17, 2013. Did you start getting it legally, or you bought Suboxone on the street? I was buying, well, I was getting it legally, and that didn't, you know, that wasn't enough, and then I started getting getting off Craigslist. Right, right.

And then all that. That's another – again, you talk about being old-fashioned, Governor. And again, I'm in this – that's the other reason I think so many younger people are addicted. You just said it, technology, Craigslist, stuff like – your dealer is right in front of you. You wake up, so your laptop is your dealer. You're delivering the shit to kids' houses. And younger people know how to get. I couldn't get on Craigslist with 14 computers right now. I don't know.

It makes two of us. Give me my phone. I don't know. Somebody. No, it's changed. And the accessibility to drugs has changed remarkably. It's the doctors writing the scripts. Then you get addicted.

Then how do I get it myself? You said it before, the dark web. Who the hell in the 1940s jazz music? Miles Davis was getting high in the dark. I mean, now a 14-year-old kid or a fourth-grade teacher. Who doesn't make the best decisions for himself. Right, of course. Well, that's the thing.

Again, I don't care how intelligent you are. Once you get into this dance, you're going to start making horrible decisions. Now, when they come out of prison and you say, okay, so you get through the addiction part and they feel like they're good. Then at that point you say to them in this program, you say, what would you like to do? Like, do you have any skills?

What do you want to do? So what you look at, I mean, Artie, it's part of it is that you don't want to put a guy or a gal in a warehouse for 90 days and then they get punted after the health benefits to do. So we look at, I mean, Artie, it's part of it is that you don't want to put a guy or gal in a warehouse for 90 days and then they get punted after the health benefits come due. Right. Because that's a big, say, okay, say you just get to this point, get over the addiction, you get someone to hire them. And then all of a sudden, three months, now they're disappointed. Exactly. And remember that a lot of the guys and gals who were bright and who were selling dope

made a heck of a lot of money. Oh, absolutely. Some of the dealers, I don't care what you say, there's no laziness, there's no stupidity. No. They could run AT&T. So the point is— It's just environment. So the point is exactly getting them to transfer those skills, that intellect, that creative intelligence to something legitimate.

Right, right. And so what we do is we do something called the tape test, the adult basic education test. We want to know what your mathematical skills are, what your reading skills are. Because you do need to know your limitations, too. Like someone tells you I'm a dream, you know. And so then you've got to tell us what you want to do. And so basically we have career specialists that sit down with them, and they perform these career tests that tell us, all right, what's your proficiency?

What's your background? All right, what did you do in prison? We had one guy that was in prison for Candida for 28 years. He's supposed to have a 50-year life sentence. Obama commuted him, and now he's got a restaurant in Jersey City, and he's doing great stuff. That's an amazing movie right there. I'd watch that movie.

But in other words, you're saying like a 4'11 Asian guy wants to play center for the Knicks, you're going to go, it's not going to happen. It's not going to work. It's not going to work. Exactly. I need you to stretch a little bit. So, again, there's a reality check. Yep.

And then, you know. It's your sobriety, it's your medical, it's your housing, and then it's your legal. So many of our guys come out, and they've got, Dom can speak to this far better than I can. They walk out with 28 warrants. So all of a sudden your brother and your cousin has used your license 700 times. This is insane.

Artie, they walked in the day before that they walked into prison. They parked illegally. Now there's a warrant for their arrest. And all of a sudden they're walking down the street legally and a police officer properly stops them for whatever reason and there's a warrant for their arrest, and all of a sudden, they're walking down the street legally, and a police officer properly stops them for whatever reason, and there's a warrant for their arrest. Or they go to a motor vehicle, and they go to the front desk, and the woman sits there

in a motor vehicle and pulls up the fact that there's three warrants outstanding. Yeah, and then what's going to happen? You're not going to get a license. We call Dom. Yeah, you call Dom. Go Dom. Is Dom the fixer? Dom's the fixer.

Is that what you do? That's what I do. Is that what you deal in that? Yeah. So how come your head hasn't exploded yet from Dom. Is Dom the fixer? Dom's the fixer. Is that what you do? That's what I do. Is that what you deal on that? Yeah. So how come your head hasn't exploded yet from, I mean, the red tape? I mean, God bless what you guys are doing. This is a lot of work. It's a lot of work.

Yeah, I mean. Tell them what you do. So you get a call like that. Like, what happens? Tell me that process. The client comes in. They have a five-day orientation period. Right.

And they come in. They see me. We usually request an abstract. And the abstract shows everything that's suspending their license. And we go, you know, court by court. So this will let me go a little slower. Oh, God.

Dom's in law school. Stop talking like a lawyer. So what happens is we get it from Motor Vehicle Commission, and I want to thank Sue Fulton, because what we do is we get an abstract. An abstract is not just already, like you know parking ticket parking ticket or moving fine but it has everything on it every reason why i mean including child support right child support actually can't suspend your license anymore but it used to but child support man those are good guys on child

they will find you you go to nicaragua and the way to protect they will child support will find you and so it in time. And so tell them what you do. And that holds a lot of guys back. Oh, it does? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, everybody needs their license either to get the job. Absolutely.

To get identification. Identification, yeah. Just to be a citizen in the world. Right. So a lot of them have municipal warrants. That was pretty elegant there, Oren. Thank you. This is really pretty fancy.

It's become pretty highbrow. Yeah, yeah. Citizen of the world. This is really pretty fancy. It's become pretty highbrow. This is what I wanted. I wanted a highbrow show. I need one. So a lot of these guys, they have municipal warrants outstanding when they get released. So they come in and we'll usually run a municipal court case search that will tell us everything. You got to see what the warrants are for. If it's a serial killer, you know.

No. But a lot of it's petty stuff. It's usually nonpayment of for. Right, right. If it's a serial killer, you know. No, yeah. But a lot of it's petty stuff that, you know. It's usually not payment of fines. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, these are fines that they've done time for. Right. And usually we can get time served for, you know, $50 a day. Right, so you'll get the warrants out of the system.

Right. Right, right. By communicating with the court on their behalf. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so tell them, like, literally, you send letters of purport. How long does it take on average to get one warrant out of the system? It depends on the court. Oh.

You know, the busier the court, the longer it takes. You've got to stay on the courts because a lot of times you can't even get them on the phone. But the judges work with us. I mean, I'm sure you guys get respect. Judges always work with us. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I want to thank the municipal court judges. They work with us well.

Because these are the guys already that are trying to do something different. So if you're going to whack them, where are we going? I have a judge now, I'm on Hudson County Drug Court, it sounds like I'm saying this, but it's a woman, Judge Venable. Oh, she's the best. She really cares. She's the best. I mean, she cares, man. You could tell

there's pain in her face when she hears a bad story and she wants to, she will, you know, stories, she'll help you get a cdl she'll work with you yeah she'll work with and that's good to see because you know a lot of young kids stand in front of a judge it's intimidating yeah it's intimidating so you need somebody who cares and and she does but i mean what you guys are taking undertaking man there's so many parts to it so So, because now maybe you get someone that, you know, you start to care about who wants to do something, a particular career, but you try to push them

into another career that's more realistic. That's got to be hard to do, too, because people have dreams. I want to, you know, I want to do this. And that's it. So you try to find out what their skills are. What their skills are and what time management is. So, Amy, one of the real problems, and you were, this is the demands of the court time.

So that if you're on parole, you've got to report into parole. If you're on probation, if you're on drug court. I mean, I'm on phase one of drug court at Hudson County, and that's like a part-time job. And then you're going to do IOP, so you're going to make sure that you have to report. I went this morning. I got court tomorrow. I got probation Thursday. There's random urines. It's a full-time job. And so the whole goal is to get you in a place where you're making sure that you're acting in your sobriety. Structure, too.

Structure. Structure, structure, structure. So, I mean, we work with—so you've got to understand. You're not going to be able to go to school full-time at Hudson County Community College if you're on drug court. So it's getting—going slow and steady. And as a drug addict, and I'm sure Dom can relate to this, is you just hit on something else. Instant gratification.

Yeah. Drug addicts don't want to wait. It's like if you're depressed, if you're depressed and you're a coke addict and someone says, get on medication, get some therapy and in a year you'll feel better. Well, I can feel better in 10 seconds. Yeah. I got to do a line of blow. Yeah.

You know what? Get a job. Go get training. Well, I can feel better in 10 seconds. I got to do a line of blow. Yep. You know what? Get a job. Go get training. Well, why? I'll just sell a brick of dope and make $1,000 a day. And it's instant. So you're battling that too. You're battling just a natural human want to make money quick or get happy quick.

And it's also already guys that have been in prison for like seven months, let alone seven years or 17 years, feel like, hey, I've lost a lot of time. Yeah. You know what? If you could have to me what sums up what you guys are trying to do. In the movie American Gangster, Denzel Washington plays a legendary heroin dealer, frankly, he goes to prison for 14 years. He's in prison from 1977 to 1991, okay? Basically misses the 80s.

And when he goes away, he's listening to the OJs and the stylistics and, you know, cooling the gang. Gets out. Now there's cell phones. He hears rap music, and it's Denzel Washington. They close the prison. They say, bye, you're gone. And he's looking around going, what the F do I do now?

And it's scary. That should be your flag for what you're going to do. And it's scary to those guys. Yeah. It's scary. I mean, this is a dangerous guy. He's like, you know. But so now what does he go back to maybe?

What he knows. Dealing. Yep. You go back to running and gunning and doping. Right. Ripping and running. When I was working up at Harlem and I would see these guys that came out as Sing Sing

and these guys were built and you would say alright. Yeah, they weren't Catholic. They're more dangerous. And you would say, look, could you call up for a GED? And so many of them couldn't do it. Yeah. They couldn't make the call. Just the call itself. The call itself, it's like all it is

because what happens years in prison, years in being being in an institution you're being taught to do what somebody else tells you right and so getting them to think for themselves it really is i mean again i've just done a lot of jail time but you know you gotta wait for people and you're locked in mentally again there's there's there's the physical stuff the medical stuff the sobriety stuff but, but it really is, I'm not taking anything away from guys who go to war, but it's similar to going to war. And you're looking over your shoulder. The other thing is you don't trust anybody. I don't trust this guy who told me to call.

I don't trust the person I'm going to talk to on the phone. Exactly. What do they want from me? That's what's great about what we do because they know we're there for one reason. Right. We're there to be your family. We're there to be your advocate. We're not there for any reason. We're not reporting we're not over there is to help we're here to

help you yeah and again you talk about the other people in your family it affects i mean you know i have a very close italian family jersey and they uh you know they felt my pain like my mom would tell me when you're in jail i'm in in jail. And my uncles, my cousins, my aunts, such wonderful people, my close friends, my sister, who's saved my life so many times. You start to see, they start to look like they're on drugs because of how tired they are. But I got to say, when Don was nice enough to set this up, and thank you, Don, very much for doing this, because this is important stuff. I was worried.

I'm talking to a politician. Who knows if it's going to be bullshit. I could tell just by talking to you, man. You're into this. I was worried. I'm talking to a politician. Who knows if it's going to be bullshit. I could tell just by talking to you, man. You're into this. I could tell. I mean, I think being a Jersey guy is me knowing bullshit. And I don't like recovering politicians. I'm in a 12-step program.

You want to make a difference, I think. And it's just so much more. You could have chosen a lot easier shit to try to do. I mean, work on the parking authority. Getting addicts, mostly addicts or mentally ill people out of jail and getting them careers, man. You know, but you see it already. You see there's nothing better when you see people. That's got to be the most rewarding thing ever.

Exactly. Is seeing someone like, you know. Even like right now, like God willing, you know, somebody might pick up the phone and call us. Somebody might get their son or daughter to detox. You know, I got a long road before I get better. But I love to detox you know I I'm I got a lot long road before I get better but I love my legacy to be that I helped even just a couple of people but I can't again the reason this was so important to me uh you know I wanted to meet you but I'm saying I can't stress based on what young kids say to me they look at this career and I'm a

c-list celebrity at best but I've I've I've made millions of dollars doing what I love. And the biggest thing that's keeping me clean right now is my career. So my biggest message is, you know, if you're struggling and you need help in this area, call the New Jersey Reentry Program. Find them online, whatever you got to do, because what you need is whatever comedy is to me, you need your comedy. You need what these guys are trying to do. A passion. And especially, you know, a man needs to know he's providing. And once you see that first paycheck.

And feel good about themselves. Once you see that first paycheck and you know you're in society doing it the right way, it's a bigger hide than the other stuff, than the ripping and running, the dealing. Exactly. It is. So, again, how do you find you guys online? Just www.njreentry, one word, n-j-r-e-n-t-r-y.org. Do you have anything else you guys want to mention? You wrote this report that I posted on my social media.

I was one of the writers. I didn't write the whole thing. No, I'm saying a few guys. Right, right. So we wrote a report for the New Jersey Reentry Services Commission. And we talk about opioids, we talk about drugs. I read

most of it and I posted it. Thank you. Amazing stuff. Thanks, Artie. And it just touches everybody's family. It touches everyone. And society, because you could be, you have nobody in your family, but, you know, a guy on heroin runs you over, robs you. Then you're, you know, it's insane.

And until we do something about it, and the fentanyl is just, guys, we got to, you know, the pharmaceutical companies, we got enough shit for pain. Amen. Enough shit for pain. So, again, thank you, Dom. Thank you so much, Governor. And by the way, this is like, it's not every day a kid from Jersey City in Carteret gets to hang with a guy from Union. Wow, you're moving up in the world. This is a real big deal.

You moved up Route 109 a little bit. Exactly. Exactly. Moved over on the 78 from the Turnpike to the Parkway. Yeah, that's a big deal in Jersey. That's a big deal in Jersey. That's two exits, bro. Exactly.

All right. I hope this helps somebody. And look, if you're an addict out there, this show is always here for you, man. It's called Arnie Lang's Halfway House because that's where I belong. And if you feel you belong, you're not alone. I love you. Thanks, Arnie. And thanks again.

Thank you so much. We'll see you next time on the show. God bless. Thank you. you