February 5, 2025 • 32 mins
Eddie Jones is an attorney who found himself in trouble with drugs and with the law. A federal prison sentence allowed him the opportunity to get help and turn his life around. Now, twenty-three years into recovery, Mr. Jones is an attorney in the Paducah, Kentucky, office of Boehl, Stopher & Graves and is also the McCracken County Commissioner. After years of helping others through his volunteer work, Eddie recently received a pardon from President Joe Biden. He discusses his troubles and his recovery. He can be reached at https://bsg-law.com/edwin-jones/
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Mike (00:12):
Welcome, everybody.
This is Avoiding the AddictionAffliction brought to you by Westwords
Consulting and the Kenosha CountySubstance Use Disorder Coalition.
I'm Mike McGowan.
As we know, or at least we shouldknow, we better know, substance
use disorders do not discriminate.
Everyone who's affected has a story andeverybody's recovery has its own path.
(00:33):
The path to recovery of our guest tooka look that was not traditional, but is
one numerous people have taken over time.
Eddie Jones is a nativeof Western Kentucky.
After graduating law school, Eddieserved as captain in the United States
Army JAG Corps, serving with theservice, both the 2nd Infantry Division
and the 101st Airborne Division.
(00:54):
Eddie has practiced law inWestern Kentucky since 1994,
with a break here and there.
He's also in his second term asMcCracken County Commissioner.
And as we'll find out, we'llhear in a little bit, he spent
a little bit of time in Alabama.
Welcome Eddie.
Eddie (01:12):
Thank you, Mike.
Mike (01:13):
I love starting with the positive stuff right off the bat.
So you're in recovery for a long time now.
How long?
Eddie (01:20):
23 years.
Mike (01:21):
Wow, that is...
Eddie (01:22):
23 years, February 6th this coming year.
Mike (01:26):
Wow.
So that's the date around thedate that this is going to air.
So happy anniversary.
Eddie (01:30):
Okay.
Mike (01:31):
Well, you were and are an attorney.
That's not an easy course of study.
Eddie (01:37):
Yeah, I was very motivated early in life and you know, read
to kill a mockingbird in highschool and Atticus Finch is now,
his pictures are in my hallway.
So that was my...
I don't know.
It stuck.
I wanted to be a lawyer andbut in the middle of it I found
some problems with addiction.
Mike (01:57):
Well, okay.
So, (chuckle) yeah, where doesthat, where does that come in?
I mean, you're on a roadand where does it come in?
And when did you become awarethat, Uh oh, this may be a problem.
Eddie (02:10):
Yeah.
So very atypical path for me, which Ithink probably made me more vulnerable
once I actually decided to experiment.
My drug of choice was cocaine.
I didn't have an upbringing or astreet sense, if you will, that
prepared me for that type ofexperiment later in my thirties.
(02:34):
Raised, my father was a minister kindof an apostle Paul tent making minister.
He always had another career as well.
My mother was that, you know, avery, she was a prayer warrior.
I went to a Christian college.
And you know, honestly, thispath, you know, when I went this
(02:56):
way, it surprised everybody.
I mean,
I don't think my parents sawthis coming and I hit it well
for a minute and then I didn't.
So I'll bring you forward to thatcollege, law school, army, get back.
(03:16):
And I'm practicing law in mysmall hometown, about 30,000
folks at Henderson, Kentucky.
Not doing poorly in the practice of law.
But I go through a divorce at 35.
And in that process, I hadmoved downtown and had this cool
(03:37):
downtown apartment, lived above it.
And you know, which was alsoprobably, not a good setup.
I wasn't prepared for that either.
Everything was too easy access.
Just a block down the streetwas really a cool bar.
And before I knew it, I was tryingto work hard because I needed money.
And I was trying to stay awakebecause, you know, this was, you
(04:03):
know, a younger person might notunderstand this, but this was before
text messaging, before Facebook.
If you wanted to have a social life, youknow, it occurred generally between the
hours of 7 and 11 at nighttime (laugh)after working, you know, and they're, you
know, you didn't have the option to sendout 5 text messages and see what happened.
(04:24):
You actually had to show up,interact, wink, say something
funny and see if it worked.
(laugh)
But so anyway.
Mike (04:34):
And cocaine probably helped you stay awake.
Eddie (04:38):
It helped me stay awake and it
it brought a little more of me out thansometimes people wanted but there for a
minute, everybody thought I was funny.
And then maybe 30 minuteslater, I wouldn't be.
So my first experiment was, Iremember it was a group of friends
(05:03):
said, Hey, let's go to Nashville.
At that time, there was a second streetin Nashville was kind of a new thing.
And so we were down to experience that.
Went to the University ofKentucky Vanderbilt football game.
It was October 1999.
We can pull it back to the very date.
And I had worked that day.
(05:25):
I was a partner in a law firm.
It was a Saturday, soI'd worked that morning.
We drove down that afternoon.
I remember I drove, did a couple of Uturns on the way and the guys freaked out.
And I'm like, just a U turn guys.
What are you, you know, I didn'tknow we had cocaine with us.
(chuckle)
So anyway, so we go to the game.
(05:48):
I still didn't know we had cocaine andI know I'm, I'm more tired than them.
And I, you know, I, I'mnot going to make it.
And I say, guys, listen, Iknow I'm gonna hold you back.
I'm just going to go tothe room and go to bed.
And he said, well, we'll walk you back.
Which I thought was alittle weird at the time.
And anyway, I remember going intothe restroom in my hotel room.
(06:11):
They were still there.
I came out.
When I went into that restroom, Ihad never thought of using cocaine.
When I came out, it was laid out,lined out, presented, and I had been
asking for probably six months, howdo you guys stay up so long, you know,
and I remember one of them saying,you've been asking, this is the answer.
(06:36):
And in that environment, you know,with the reward system of second
street in Nashville, I said, allright, I'll try this experiment.
And I don't know if you remember themovie Interview With The Vampire.
Mike (06:51):
Sure.
Eddie (06:51):
Brad Pitt.
Kirsten Dunst, the little girl.
Yeah.
And Tom Cruise.
Kirsten Dunst.
Remember, she gets her firsttaste of blood and she immediately
says, I want some more.
Mike (07:03):
Wow.
Eddie (07:04):
And it was kind of like that with me.
I mean, it wasn't like, I want somemore, I want to be a full blown addict.
But the first line felt good, andI did feel energy, and I did feel
awake and alert, and, you know,it wasn't long before I was like,
Hey, who's got the rest of that?
(07:24):
And on the way home, I remember thinkingand asking you know, thinking about, hey,
I'm in the business of billable hours.
This type of energy might help meproduce more billable hours, which
will help me produce more money.
And I went down that roadand it seemed, (sigh)
(07:45):
almost seemed like I had beeninvited to a secret world that
wasn't as illegal as maybe it seemed.
Meaning that there were more people,once you kind of got introduced into
it, they were like, oh, they usedto, they used to, and it's like,
(08:07):
well, there was kind of this subset.
in that community of successfulfolks who were using cocaine.
And, you know, and I say that sometimes,you know, my daughter who's 22, 23 now.
You know,
(08:27):
sometimes I have to remind you, thisis before the world of Adderall, before
Vyvanse, before there was a Starbuckson every corner, before you could
buy an energy drink at the 7 Elevenor the, you know, the grocery store.
I don't remember there being a, other thanmethamphetamine came along shortly after,
(08:49):
and I think it was kind of on its spinup at that time, but I didn't like that.
Mike (08:56):
Yeah, it was Mountain Dew or you stepped it up four notches, right?
Eddie (09:00):
Mountain Dew, ALA, or cocaine.
And then, you know, I don't know.
Mike (09:04):
Well, how long before you got in trouble with it?
Eddie (09:07):
Yeah, I always say that I'm a terrible addict because by, I
use at 35, by 37, I'm indicted by afederal grand jury and I'm in trouble.
But because you know, this groupof, you know, some other folks got
indicted and I was kind of, youknow, I suspect it was attractive to
(09:27):
include the lawyer in the conspiracy.
Turns out I didn't know much and I wasn'tinvolved in the conspiracy other than...
I wasn't involved in theconspiracy any more than I am
with, you know, the grocery store.
I just, I wanted somebody to sellit because I wanted to buy it.
Mike (09:43):
And I was reading about it and what you were charged with
federally was you were overcharged.
Can I use that word with a lawyer?
Whatever.
But then you turned it aroundand said, thank goodness.
Eddie (09:57):
Yeah, that's true.
So ultimately, I was charged asbeing part of this conspiracy.
Ultimately, they figured out, all right,you weren't quite as clever as we thought.
And so I ended up pleading to an Efelony, and that's called misprision of
a felony, failure to report a felony,and when they actually caught me, I
(10:19):
had a small amount of cocaine on me.
Mike (10:25):
When you got, you then got sentenced to how long?
Eddie (10:29):
So I think this, the federal sentence called for 22 months.
The federal sentence got online.
So when you get, you know my charges inthe state court probably get probated.
Mike (10:41):
Right.
Eddie (10:42):
But in the federal system it was a little more rigid,
particularly at that time.
It was before some cases calledApprendi and some other cases
that gave judges more discretion.
It was very rigid for thefederal judge at that time.
So I got 22 months.
I served 10 of those months inAlabama at Montgomery Air Force Base,
(11:06):
which I suspect you are familiarwith a guy named Chuck Colson.
Yes, sure.
So I don't know him other than hewas in charge of prison fellowship
at the time that I'm, you know,figuring out where I'm going to go.
And, you know, I told you my parentswere in the ministries, so my mother's
like, you gotta talk to Colson.
Mike (11:27):
Well, and for those of you listening who don't know, he was in the Nixon
administration, got caught up in theWatergate stuff, and ended up turning
to God and turned his life around.
Eddie (11:36):
Right.
And I remember I'd heard him cause I'dbeen to, there was some things called
promise keepers that my brother anddad had gotten to earlier in life.
And I remember being reallyimpressed by his sermon and...
Email was, it wasn't new.
We'd, we'd had emailfor probably 10 years.
So I'd found Chuck Colson'semail and I emailed him.
(11:57):
And you know, he connected mewith some folks and kind of turned
out that's where he had been inprison when he went to prison.
And yeah, I don't know, maybe youdidn't tell that part of the story,
but he ended up serving about a yearin federal prison and then became
just a very effective baptist ministerand started a prison fellowship.
Mike (12:19):
So once you got sentenced, I read that you said the judge
probably saved your life, right?
Eddie (12:26):
Yeah.
Mike (12:26):
Sentencing you long enough that you could take advantage of the program.
Eddie (12:30):
Yeah, I think he was actually there was a nine month and I think
there still is a nine month program.
If you get into the federal system andyou're not a violent offender and you're
truly an addict, you can't kind ofdecide you're an addict after the fact.
You've got to be truly an addict.
They'll give you if you successfullydo that nine month program they'll
(12:51):
give you a year off of your sentence.
So he gave me long enough to give me anincentive to do that nine month program.
Took about a month to get in.
And it was a really good program.
I got to tell you, and, you know,and I know part of your mission is
to develop, you know, protocols.
So, you know, what, what works forrecovery and what doesn't and what
(13:14):
the federal government was doingat that time and what I think is
still doing while it takes a while.
It's a nine month program, right?
You got to pay for the incarceration.
I can compare it to what I wentthrough on the state system.
Cause after the federal system, Igot transferred to a halfway house
where I also did the state program.
Night and day.
(13:35):
Federal program.
Mike (13:35):
Really?
Eddie (13:36):
Way better.
Yeah, way better.
Mike (13:37):
What, what made it, Eddie, what made it better?
I'm really curious about that.
Eddie (13:40):
So we had a job.
So in the morning time, I would dosome sort of labor at the prison.
I'm O.
D.
R.'ed, I did the weed eating.
Eventually got a pretty cool job inthe museum on the Air Force Base.
(laugh) Just in time forthe winter, by the way.
And in the afternoons, itwas kind of a small group.
(14:02):
Twelve guys.
We had a pretty active counselor.
So for nine months we spend threehours in the afternoon together.
And there's all kinds, you know, there'ssome real serious addicts in there.
There's some folks who were really insome distribution plans, if you will.
(14:25):
So they knew a lot about the gameand, you know, and then there's
me you know, the lawyer who justbecame an addict late in life.
But you know, you gotto know each other well.
You become friends, you eventuallyshare each other's story and
you learn from each other.
There was a course descriptionthat helped us go through.
(14:46):
It was an effective program, really.
Mike (14:48):
You know, I've always liked groups like that because they
hold each other accountable.
Hard to BS a BSer, right?
Eddie (14:55):
Right.
Yeah.
So, you know, we have nocontact now, but you're right.
In the meetings if somebody saidsomething that didn't sound like truth.
There were three guys saying, oh, come on.
(laugh)
Mike (15:08):
Yep.
Well, now when you finally get out,but your law license is suspended.
Eddie (15:15):
Right.
So, I get arrested in 2002.
I report to prison in the spring of 2003.
So, it takes a long time.
You've got about 18 months ofjust pre trial hanging out.
Which, that was misery.
Misery in, in that you don'tknow what to do with your life.
You know you're aboutto take a vacation...
extended.
(15:35):
And, how do you plan around that?
My daughter is about a year old, shewas six months old when I got arrested.
So, I did what I wassupposed to do at that time.
I bonded with, a little girl, whichmade prison harder, but made getting
out of prison and life thereafter,well, more meaningful, right?
(15:58):
So I do a halfway house.
So, one of the crazy things about mysituation is almost hard to explain.
You got to know a little bitabout Kentucky geography.
My hometown is Henderson, whichis about middle of the state.
Come on down the river to the skinny partof Kentucky, near the very end, almost to
(16:21):
Missouri, and that's the town of Paducah.
Well, my indictment came outof Paducah, not Henderson.
So, by the time I get to thatpoint, I don't have any money left.
So the attorneys won $50,000 and I'm smartenough to know I'm not giving it to them.
I'm not letting anybody borrow money.
(16:41):
Cause I kind of knew wherethis was headed, right?
(chuckle)
So I showed up to a judge I'd nevermet, in a courtroom I'd never been to
and said I'm going to represent myself.
Well, the judge didn'tlike that idea much.
And he concluded pretty wellthat I probably qualified for a
appointment of a public defender.
(17:02):
And he appointed me to a part time publicdefender and his name is Rick Walter.
So walk up the street, he's just got abrand new office and just ironically,
I'm now in that today, 23 years later.
And Rick is still in my life.
He was just in the kitchen.
Mike (17:23):
Wow.
Wow.
He came, so we kind of connected.
I mean, I wasn't a bad lawyer.
I just, you know,
I just needed to becontrolled for a minute.
Eddie (17:38):
And once I was drug testing every week, which is what the federal
government did, in the 18 monthsthat I'm talking to you about.
And we can come back to that.
I think that's reallyimportant information.
And I don't know why wedon't do more of that.
Drug testing has to be weekly.
In order for an addict to really have thataccountability, it's got to be weekly.
(18:02):
As a government, we often tryto cut the corner and say, well,
we're going to do it random.
We'll do it once every 30 days.
Not good enough.
Got to be weekly for a full blown addict.
Anyway, so I start working.
It works out.
I'm in prison in Alabama and I get a callto the visiting room, which most of the
time, you know when somebody's coming.
(18:23):
And it's a little unnerving whenyou get called to the visiting room
and you don't know who's coming.
And so I get called to thevisiting room and there's Rick.
He's come down and he'sjust come to see me.
And he's like, you know,
I think when you get out, you got tomove to Paducah and be my law clerk.
You know, by that timethe bar had suspended me.
(18:45):
We knew I wasn't going to bepracticing law when I get out.
So I didn't know what I was going to do.
I just didn't know.
And well that worked out.
So there was a halfway house inPaducah and transferred to the
halfway house and start comingto work from the halfway house.
And I'm still here.
(laugh)
Mike (19:06):
How does this go because eventually you get your law license back.
Eddie (19:10):
Right.
Mike (19:11):
But you couldn't have seen that on the horizon at Fort Henderson.
Eddie (19:16):
Yeah, that's right.
So, during the 2003/2004, that wasn'teven, I mean, I was thinking, well,
maybe, you know, what else can I do?
I
really didn't know.
I mean, I figured I'd find something.
But when he said move and be mylaw clerk, he paid just enough
(19:39):
for me to make it (laugh) and notenough for me to get in trouble.
Mike (19:42):
That's not, I was shaking my head.
That's not bad.
Eddie (19:45):
Yeah, I lived a completely different lifestyle.
I no longer had the cool apartment,you know a block from the bar.
I had a mobile home in a trailer parksurrounded by some really nice neighbors.
And we made that work.
And so by about 2006, the BarAssociation let me back in.
(20:06):
I went to AA, NA every day.
And on the weekends I wastraveling back to Henderson.
It's about two hours betweenPaducah and Henderson.
So I would travel back.
On the weekend, stay with my parentsand I would co parent my daughter.
Mike (20:22):
We were talking before we started this, and I love what you said about the
AA meetings, that your sponsor told you.
Eddie (20:28):
Yeah.
So I remember kind of complainingbecause sometimes you go to, well,
often you can go to an AA meetingand you leave there and you're like,
that was a complete waste of time.
And you're right.
And then the truthfulness ofthat is important to understand.
And I remember Sammy said,you're probably right.
You only need three meetings a week, butyou're going to have to go to about eight
(20:51):
of them to find those three, because Idon't know when they're going to happen.
And that is the connection of AA and NA.
You know, it depends a little on you.
Something can happen beforeyou go to the meeting.
Maybe you have a bad conversation withyour girlfriend, boyfriend, or mom or dad.
That ruins that meeting.
So you just got to sit through it.
(21:12):
Or maybe the mix, you know, maybeit's just the wrong mix of people.
Well, you just have to sit there, getwhat you can out of it, come back for
another meeting, and maybe that will be.
But I found that, and I was tellingyou that, you know, I always tried,
you know, you get to where you lookat the cars, all right, and I could
(21:34):
see, ah, there was a guy named Jack,and Jack, I always liked it when Jack
was there, because Jack had been...
I really didn't have an addiction toalcohol, but I, you know, obviously
there are correlations betweencocaine and alcohol, and AA had a
(21:55):
noon meeting at that time, NA did not.
So, I needed a signature, and theywanted me to go, so I was willing to go.
But Jack, I don't know, Ilove the hope of his story.
He was a local physician and I don't know.
I always just liked hearing himtell of the hope of recovery.
(22:15):
He'd read the promises from the AA programand those become my favorite reading.
Mike (22:22):
You know, there's a moment, and you haven't hit it yet, but there's
a moment where you go from, becauseyou've now talked about so many
different people, and you haven't evenhit them all, in your support system
that helped you get it back on track.
But then you, you became asupport system at some point.
You began to reach out and help others.
Eddie (22:43):
Yeah, so as part of the program, there were folks that would
ask me to be their sponsor, and Iwould agree to be their sponsor.
My dad got asked, so there was a localrehabilitation ministry, Teen Challenge,
my dad was an assembly godmaster.
So Teen Challenge was kind of formedout of a ministry [inaudible] that we
(23:05):
got, by the name of David Wilkerson.
And so dad was asked to be on the boardfor this new Teen Challenge program and
a lot of the ministers knew me causeI'd been the preacher to get right
on, so they needed a token director.
So I want to make that soundmore lofty than it was.
I think I was asked to be on thethe board of directors for that.
(23:28):
A, because I was a recovery drug addict,and two, they'd all watched me grow up and
they wanted to see me there (laugh) as wayof a proof of recovery to them themselves.
So, but it was obviouslygood to experience.
But, let me make that point also.
At some point when you're inrecovery, you realize you owe.
(23:58):
Give me a minute.
Mike (23:59):
Yeah, no, that's great.
I think you're right on the right track.
That's the moment I was talking about.
Eddie (24:06):
You got me.
I've been doing good.
But you owe proof of your recovery, right?
And sometimes we'rereluctant to give that.
And I would just say, come on, give it.
You know, I became a runner,and I learned it's hard to run
at a good distance, at a goodtime, and be a cocaine user, right?
(24:29):
So,
if I ran races, my dad saw that score,he'd check it, all right, we're good.
(laugh) So, you know, those littlemoments of comfort, somehow build them
in where they're not fake, but allowyour people to be, to see the proof
(24:51):
of your recovery in a way that you'renot demanding it, you know, in a way
that goes beyond just your voice.
Which they probably
are not yet ready tobelieve without action.
Mike (25:10):
That's really well put because there's there's that trust and there's
that doubt and you don't want to makeit the center of every conversation
and so any little opportunity you haveto alleviate those concerns is good.
And sometimes, Eddie, supportcomes from unusual places.
(25:31):
My friends would tell meis called burying the lede.
What?
(laugh) But you did so much good stuffover so long that you recently received
and, but when we're taping this, by theway, the president is still Joe Biden.
President Biden gave youa presidential pardon.
How does that come about?
Eddie (25:51):
I applied some years ago.
I think I told you earlier,I'm now married, ironically,
still in the same law firm.
I've married one of the youngladies that was working here and
she's now been elected judge.
While we're dating, she's like, youshould, you should apply for a pardon.
And so I got motivated and that wassome years ago, probably seven years,
(26:15):
you know, another guy was president.
That didn't work out.
And but I had worked through the process.
And just so you know, that process, abouta 20 page application, they want letters.
You know, it's notimpossible to do on your own.
But you know, it takes some time.
And in fact, I procrastinated for a longtime, just because I had work, I had
(26:38):
cases that were more important than that.
And I eventually did it.
You know, there's a season for pardon.
It's kind of like, you know,squirrel season, duck season.
And that season, pardon season isusually around the end of the term.
So after the Novemberelection, I did reach out.
So there's a UnitedStates pardon attorney.
(27:01):
And some administrationsdon't lean on them much.
Joe Biden has leaned on them quite a bit.
It seems to me, or at least thatday, that round of pardons he did.
And I had sent a letter saying,Hey, I just want to check
in, see if you need anything.
They had previously already sent a retiredFBI agent to Paducah twice to corroborate.
(27:27):
So they're just from a public standpointthere, I can tell you there was
there was quite a bit of scrutinygiven to the application by the U.S.
pardon attorney over a matter of years.
But you know, it's also, what,10,000 people apply a year.
I don't know.
I think I heard that figurethat may not be right.
(27:48):
So, you do what you can.
I didn't know what was goingto happen on December 11th.
Ironically, it was my 60th birthday.
About 2:30 in the afternoon, I looked downat my cell phone and it's a Washington, D.
C.
area code.
All right.
I'll take that one.
Normally I don't take a callunless I know who's calling, right?
(28:09):
I'll let it go to the voicemail.
But I took that one and it was, Idon't know the name of that person.
But she was wonderful and shesaid, you got about 20 minutes?
Let me walk you through this.
She even said, this isprobably going to be emotional.
She was right.
(laugh) So she asked me atthe end of it, she said, do
you have any questions for us?
And I said, do you knowtoday is my birthday?
Mike (28:31):
Oh, wow.
She didn't, did she?
Eddie (28:33):
She didn't.
No, of course she didn't.
But I will say this,and her name was Deanna.
I wrote it down, Deanna Evans, she'llprobably never watch this, but she was
so kind, she's a White House attorney,she called the next night, and she said,
(28:54):
I'm just checking on you, you know, thisis gonna be emotional, and, you know, it
was, it was clear that she knew way moreabout me than obviously I knew about her.
It was just, I don't know, just thekindness of the process was cool.
Mike (29:10):
Well, and as you said, it's not an easy process.
It's not one you can do by yourself.
So you must be incredibly gratefulto the people in your county.
Well, one, they've elected youtwice as commissioner, right?
Eddie (29:22):
Yeah.
Mike (29:22):
But there's a lot of support there.
Cause what I was reading, there wasno like, Oh, and this is undeserved.
They were like, they were at thereat the front line saying you do this.
Eddie (29:39):
Yeah.
I really enjoyed being able, neverwould have thought I'd have the
opportunity to do public service.
My major in college waspublic administration.
I don't really, you know, I doremember why I decided to write it.
I'll tell you, it was 2016.
(30:00):
And a guy who had started a coffeeshop had been a city commissioner.
I thought he was a cool commissionerand I'd gotten to know him and somebody
else on the city commission decidedthey weren't going to run on that.
You know what?
I'd like to meet more people.
What's the worst thing that canhappen is they're going to talk
about my recovery and my problems.
(30:22):
And I'm pretty honest about thatanyway, and I'm going to have a
reason to meet more people in mytown and I'll make more friends.
And for the large part, that's been true.
You know, it turns out even inlocal government, you can come a
little passionate, you can maybehave opposite positions of people
and that can affect your goal ofmaking friends if you're not careful.
(30:43):
But for the most part, that's happened.
And what a rewardingexperience it's been to be...
So I didn't win that race, by the way.
I lost.
And the next time there was an opportunityto run for the county seat and run for
the county seat and won, and that's beenjust a really heartwarming experience and
(31:06):
consider the other commissioners and thecounty judge, some of my closest friends.
Mike (31:11):
An opportunity to give back.
Eddie (31:12):
Yeah.
Mike (31:15):
Eddie, this has been fantastic.
I could listen all day.
I love stories like this.
Is the reason we started the podcast,you know, break the stigma, allow people
second chances, start all over again.
Thanks for your story.
Thanks for your work.
Eddie (31:31):
Thanks.
You honor me.
Thank you.
It's wonderful.
Our country and its foundingdocument has a provision for grace
and that's pretty cool.
Mike (31:47):
It is.
Eddie (31:48):
Yeah.
To get the forgiveness of our country.
I'm greatful.
Mike (31:54):
Outstanding.
Eddie (31:55):
[inaudible] (laugh)
Mike (31:56):
Well, for those of you listening, I'm emotional too.
I hope you find support wherever you are.
We always thank you for listening.
Be safe and if you need a secondchance, heck, I hope you get
one and make the best of it.
Welcome, everybody.
This is Avoiding the AddictionAffliction brought to you by Westwords
Consulting and the Kenosha CountySubstance Use Disorder Coalition.
I'm Mike McGowan.
As we know, or at least we shouldknow, we better know, substance
use disorders do not discriminate.
Everyone who's affected has a story andeverybody's recovery has its own path.
(00:33):
The path to recovery of our guest tooka look that was not traditional, but is
one numerous people have taken over time.
Eddie Jones is a nativeof Western Kentucky.
After graduating law school, Eddieserved as captain in the United States
Army JAG Corps, serving with theservice, both the 2nd Infantry Division
and the 101st Airborne Division.
(00:54):
Eddie has practiced law inWestern Kentucky since 1994,
with a break here and there.
He's also in his second term asMcCracken County Commissioner.
And as we'll find out, we'llhear in a little bit, he spent
a little bit of time in Alabama.
Welcome Eddie.
Eddie (01:12):
Thank you, Mike.
Mike (01:13):
I love starting with the positive stuff right off the bat.
So you're in recovery for a long time now.
How long?
Eddie (01:20):
23 years.
Mike (01:21):
Wow, that is...
Eddie (01:22):
23 years, February 6th this coming year.
Mike (01:26):
Wow.
So that's the date around thedate that this is going to air.
So happy anniversary.
Eddie (01:30):
Okay.
Mike (01:31):
Well, you were and are an attorney.
That's not an easy course of study.
Eddie (01:37):
Yeah, I was very motivated early in life and you know, read
to kill a mockingbird in highschool and Atticus Finch is now,
his pictures are in my hallway.
So that was my...
I don't know.
It stuck.
I wanted to be a lawyer andbut in the middle of it I found
some problems with addiction.
Mike (01:57):
Well, okay.
So, (chuckle) yeah, where doesthat, where does that come in?
I mean, you're on a roadand where does it come in?
And when did you become awarethat, Uh oh, this may be a problem.
Eddie (02:10):
Yeah.
So very atypical path for me, which Ithink probably made me more vulnerable
once I actually decided to experiment.
My drug of choice was cocaine.
I didn't have an upbringing or astreet sense, if you will, that
prepared me for that type ofexperiment later in my thirties.
(02:34):
Raised, my father was a minister kindof an apostle Paul tent making minister.
He always had another career as well.
My mother was that, you know, avery, she was a prayer warrior.
I went to a Christian college.
And you know, honestly, thispath, you know, when I went this
(02:56):
way, it surprised everybody.
I mean,
I don't think my parents sawthis coming and I hit it well
for a minute and then I didn't.
So I'll bring you forward to thatcollege, law school, army, get back.
(03:16):
And I'm practicing law in mysmall hometown, about 30,000
folks at Henderson, Kentucky.
Not doing poorly in the practice of law.
But I go through a divorce at 35.
And in that process, I hadmoved downtown and had this cool
(03:37):
downtown apartment, lived above it.
And you know, which was alsoprobably, not a good setup.
I wasn't prepared for that either.
Everything was too easy access.
Just a block down the streetwas really a cool bar.
And before I knew it, I was tryingto work hard because I needed money.
And I was trying to stay awakebecause, you know, this was, you
(04:03):
know, a younger person might notunderstand this, but this was before
text messaging, before Facebook.
If you wanted to have a social life, youknow, it occurred generally between the
hours of 7 and 11 at nighttime (laugh)after working, you know, and they're, you
know, you didn't have the option to sendout 5 text messages and see what happened.
(04:24):
You actually had to show up,interact, wink, say something
funny and see if it worked.
(laugh)
But so anyway.
Mike (04:34):
And cocaine probably helped you stay awake.
Eddie (04:38):
It helped me stay awake and it
it brought a little more of me out thansometimes people wanted but there for a
minute, everybody thought I was funny.
And then maybe 30 minuteslater, I wouldn't be.
So my first experiment was, Iremember it was a group of friends
(05:03):
said, Hey, let's go to Nashville.
At that time, there was a second streetin Nashville was kind of a new thing.
And so we were down to experience that.
Went to the University ofKentucky Vanderbilt football game.
It was October 1999.
We can pull it back to the very date.
And I had worked that day.
(05:25):
I was a partner in a law firm.
It was a Saturday, soI'd worked that morning.
We drove down that afternoon.
I remember I drove, did a couple of Uturns on the way and the guys freaked out.
And I'm like, just a U turn guys.
What are you, you know, I didn'tknow we had cocaine with us.
(chuckle)
So anyway, so we go to the game.
(05:48):
I still didn't know we had cocaine andI know I'm, I'm more tired than them.
And I, you know, I, I'mnot going to make it.
And I say, guys, listen, Iknow I'm gonna hold you back.
I'm just going to go tothe room and go to bed.
And he said, well, we'll walk you back.
Which I thought was alittle weird at the time.
And anyway, I remember going intothe restroom in my hotel room.
(06:11):
They were still there.
I came out.
When I went into that restroom, Ihad never thought of using cocaine.
When I came out, it was laid out,lined out, presented, and I had been
asking for probably six months, howdo you guys stay up so long, you know,
and I remember one of them saying,you've been asking, this is the answer.
(06:36):
And in that environment, you know,with the reward system of second
street in Nashville, I said, allright, I'll try this experiment.
And I don't know if you remember themovie Interview With The Vampire.
Mike (06:51):
Sure.
Eddie (06:51):
Brad Pitt.
Kirsten Dunst, the little girl.
Yeah.
And Tom Cruise.
Kirsten Dunst.
Remember, she gets her firsttaste of blood and she immediately
says, I want some more.
Mike (07:03):
Wow.
Eddie (07:04):
And it was kind of like that with me.
I mean, it wasn't like, I want somemore, I want to be a full blown addict.
But the first line felt good, andI did feel energy, and I did feel
awake and alert, and, you know,it wasn't long before I was like,
Hey, who's got the rest of that?
(07:24):
And on the way home, I remember thinkingand asking you know, thinking about, hey,
I'm in the business of billable hours.
This type of energy might help meproduce more billable hours, which
will help me produce more money.
And I went down that roadand it seemed, (sigh)
(07:45):
almost seemed like I had beeninvited to a secret world that
wasn't as illegal as maybe it seemed.
Meaning that there were more people,once you kind of got introduced into
it, they were like, oh, they usedto, they used to, and it's like,
(08:07):
well, there was kind of this subset.
in that community of successfulfolks who were using cocaine.
And, you know, and I say that sometimes,you know, my daughter who's 22, 23 now.
You know,
(08:27):
sometimes I have to remind you, thisis before the world of Adderall, before
Vyvanse, before there was a Starbuckson every corner, before you could
buy an energy drink at the 7 Elevenor the, you know, the grocery store.
I don't remember there being a, other thanmethamphetamine came along shortly after,
(08:49):
and I think it was kind of on its spinup at that time, but I didn't like that.
Mike (08:56):
Yeah, it was Mountain Dew or you stepped it up four notches, right?
Eddie (09:00):
Mountain Dew, ALA, or cocaine.
And then, you know, I don't know.
Mike (09:04):
Well, how long before you got in trouble with it?
Eddie (09:07):
Yeah, I always say that I'm a terrible addict because by, I
use at 35, by 37, I'm indicted by afederal grand jury and I'm in trouble.
But because you know, this groupof, you know, some other folks got
indicted and I was kind of, youknow, I suspect it was attractive to
(09:27):
include the lawyer in the conspiracy.
Turns out I didn't know much and I wasn'tinvolved in the conspiracy other than...
I wasn't involved in theconspiracy any more than I am
with, you know, the grocery store.
I just, I wanted somebody to sellit because I wanted to buy it.
Mike (09:43):
And I was reading about it and what you were charged with
federally was you were overcharged.
Can I use that word with a lawyer?
Whatever.
But then you turned it aroundand said, thank goodness.
Eddie (09:57):
Yeah, that's true.
So ultimately, I was charged asbeing part of this conspiracy.
Ultimately, they figured out, all right,you weren't quite as clever as we thought.
And so I ended up pleading to an Efelony, and that's called misprision of
a felony, failure to report a felony,and when they actually caught me, I
(10:19):
had a small amount of cocaine on me.
Mike (10:25):
When you got, you then got sentenced to how long?
Eddie (10:29):
So I think this, the federal sentence called for 22 months.
The federal sentence got online.
So when you get, you know my charges inthe state court probably get probated.
Mike (10:41):
Right.
Eddie (10:42):
But in the federal system it was a little more rigid,
particularly at that time.
It was before some cases calledApprendi and some other cases
that gave judges more discretion.
It was very rigid for thefederal judge at that time.
So I got 22 months.
I served 10 of those months inAlabama at Montgomery Air Force Base,
(11:06):
which I suspect you are familiarwith a guy named Chuck Colson.
Yes, sure.
So I don't know him other than hewas in charge of prison fellowship
at the time that I'm, you know,figuring out where I'm going to go.
And, you know, I told you my parentswere in the ministries, so my mother's
like, you gotta talk to Colson.
Mike (11:27):
Well, and for those of you listening who don't know, he was in the Nixon
administration, got caught up in theWatergate stuff, and ended up turning
to God and turned his life around.
Eddie (11:36):
Right.
And I remember I'd heard him cause I'dbeen to, there was some things called
promise keepers that my brother anddad had gotten to earlier in life.
And I remember being reallyimpressed by his sermon and...
Email was, it wasn't new.
We'd, we'd had emailfor probably 10 years.
So I'd found Chuck Colson'semail and I emailed him.
(11:57):
And you know, he connected mewith some folks and kind of turned
out that's where he had been inprison when he went to prison.
And yeah, I don't know, maybe youdidn't tell that part of the story,
but he ended up serving about a yearin federal prison and then became
just a very effective baptist ministerand started a prison fellowship.
Mike (12:19):
So once you got sentenced, I read that you said the judge
probably saved your life, right?
Eddie (12:26):
Yeah.
Mike (12:26):
Sentencing you long enough that you could take advantage of the program.
Eddie (12:30):
Yeah, I think he was actually there was a nine month and I think
there still is a nine month program.
If you get into the federal system andyou're not a violent offender and you're
truly an addict, you can't kind ofdecide you're an addict after the fact.
You've got to be truly an addict.
They'll give you if you successfullydo that nine month program they'll
(12:51):
give you a year off of your sentence.
So he gave me long enough to give me anincentive to do that nine month program.
Took about a month to get in.
And it was a really good program.
I got to tell you, and, you know,and I know part of your mission is
to develop, you know, protocols.
So, you know, what, what works forrecovery and what doesn't and what
(13:14):
the federal government was doingat that time and what I think is
still doing while it takes a while.
It's a nine month program, right?
You got to pay for the incarceration.
I can compare it to what I wentthrough on the state system.
Cause after the federal system, Igot transferred to a halfway house
where I also did the state program.
Night and day.
(13:35):
Federal program.
Mike (13:35):
Really?
Eddie (13:36):
Way better.
Yeah, way better.
Mike (13:37):
What, what made it, Eddie, what made it better?
I'm really curious about that.
Eddie (13:40):
So we had a job.
So in the morning time, I would dosome sort of labor at the prison.
I'm O.
D.
R.'ed, I did the weed eating.
Eventually got a pretty cool job inthe museum on the Air Force Base.
(laugh) Just in time forthe winter, by the way.
And in the afternoons, itwas kind of a small group.
(14:02):
Twelve guys.
We had a pretty active counselor.
So for nine months we spend threehours in the afternoon together.
And there's all kinds, you know, there'ssome real serious addicts in there.
There's some folks who were really insome distribution plans, if you will.
(14:25):
So they knew a lot about the gameand, you know, and then there's
me you know, the lawyer who justbecame an addict late in life.
But you know, you gotto know each other well.
You become friends, you eventuallyshare each other's story and
you learn from each other.
There was a course descriptionthat helped us go through.
(14:46):
It was an effective program, really.
Mike (14:48):
You know, I've always liked groups like that because they
hold each other accountable.
Hard to BS a BSer, right?
Eddie (14:55):
Right.
Yeah.
So, you know, we have nocontact now, but you're right.
In the meetings if somebody saidsomething that didn't sound like truth.
There were three guys saying, oh, come on.
(laugh)
Mike (15:08):
Yep.
Well, now when you finally get out,but your law license is suspended.
Eddie (15:15):
Right.
So, I get arrested in 2002.
I report to prison in the spring of 2003.
So, it takes a long time.
You've got about 18 months ofjust pre trial hanging out.
Which, that was misery.
Misery in, in that you don'tknow what to do with your life.
You know you're aboutto take a vacation...
extended.
(15:35):
And, how do you plan around that?
My daughter is about a year old, shewas six months old when I got arrested.
So, I did what I wassupposed to do at that time.
I bonded with, a little girl, whichmade prison harder, but made getting
out of prison and life thereafter,well, more meaningful, right?
(15:58):
So I do a halfway house.
So, one of the crazy things about mysituation is almost hard to explain.
You got to know a little bitabout Kentucky geography.
My hometown is Henderson, whichis about middle of the state.
Come on down the river to the skinny partof Kentucky, near the very end, almost to
(16:21):
Missouri, and that's the town of Paducah.
Well, my indictment came outof Paducah, not Henderson.
So, by the time I get to thatpoint, I don't have any money left.
So the attorneys won $50,000 and I'm smartenough to know I'm not giving it to them.
I'm not letting anybody borrow money.
(16:41):
Cause I kind of knew wherethis was headed, right?
(chuckle)
So I showed up to a judge I'd nevermet, in a courtroom I'd never been to
and said I'm going to represent myself.
Well, the judge didn'tlike that idea much.
And he concluded pretty wellthat I probably qualified for a
appointment of a public defender.
(17:02):
And he appointed me to a part time publicdefender and his name is Rick Walter.
So walk up the street, he's just got abrand new office and just ironically,
I'm now in that today, 23 years later.
And Rick is still in my life.
He was just in the kitchen.
Mike (17:23):
Wow.
Wow.
He came, so we kind of connected.
I mean, I wasn't a bad lawyer.
I just, you know,
I just needed to becontrolled for a minute.
Eddie (17:38):
And once I was drug testing every week, which is what the federal
government did, in the 18 monthsthat I'm talking to you about.
And we can come back to that.
I think that's reallyimportant information.
And I don't know why wedon't do more of that.
Drug testing has to be weekly.
In order for an addict to really have thataccountability, it's got to be weekly.
(18:02):
As a government, we often tryto cut the corner and say, well,
we're going to do it random.
We'll do it once every 30 days.
Not good enough.
Got to be weekly for a full blown addict.
Anyway, so I start working.
It works out.
I'm in prison in Alabama and I get a callto the visiting room, which most of the
time, you know when somebody's coming.
(18:23):
And it's a little unnerving whenyou get called to the visiting room
and you don't know who's coming.
And so I get called to thevisiting room and there's Rick.
He's come down and he'sjust come to see me.
And he's like, you know,
I think when you get out, you got tomove to Paducah and be my law clerk.
You know, by that timethe bar had suspended me.
(18:45):
We knew I wasn't going to bepracticing law when I get out.
So I didn't know what I was going to do.
I just didn't know.
And well that worked out.
So there was a halfway house inPaducah and transferred to the
halfway house and start comingto work from the halfway house.
And I'm still here.
(laugh)
Mike (19:06):
How does this go because eventually you get your law license back.
Eddie (19:10):
Right.
Mike (19:11):
But you couldn't have seen that on the horizon at Fort Henderson.
Eddie (19:16):
Yeah, that's right.
So, during the 2003/2004, that wasn'teven, I mean, I was thinking, well,
maybe, you know, what else can I do?
I
really didn't know.
I mean, I figured I'd find something.
But when he said move and be mylaw clerk, he paid just enough
(19:39):
for me to make it (laugh) and notenough for me to get in trouble.
Mike (19:42):
That's not, I was shaking my head.
That's not bad.
Eddie (19:45):
Yeah, I lived a completely different lifestyle.
I no longer had the cool apartment,you know a block from the bar.
I had a mobile home in a trailer parksurrounded by some really nice neighbors.
And we made that work.
And so by about 2006, the BarAssociation let me back in.
(20:06):
I went to AA, NA every day.
And on the weekends I wastraveling back to Henderson.
It's about two hours betweenPaducah and Henderson.
So I would travel back.
On the weekend, stay with my parentsand I would co parent my daughter.
Mike (20:22):
We were talking before we started this, and I love what you said about the
AA meetings, that your sponsor told you.
Eddie (20:28):
Yeah.
So I remember kind of complainingbecause sometimes you go to, well,
often you can go to an AA meetingand you leave there and you're like,
that was a complete waste of time.
And you're right.
And then the truthfulness ofthat is important to understand.
And I remember Sammy said,you're probably right.
You only need three meetings a week, butyou're going to have to go to about eight
(20:51):
of them to find those three, because Idon't know when they're going to happen.
And that is the connection of AA and NA.
You know, it depends a little on you.
Something can happen beforeyou go to the meeting.
Maybe you have a bad conversation withyour girlfriend, boyfriend, or mom or dad.
That ruins that meeting.
So you just got to sit through it.
(21:12):
Or maybe the mix, you know, maybeit's just the wrong mix of people.
Well, you just have to sit there, getwhat you can out of it, come back for
another meeting, and maybe that will be.
But I found that, and I was tellingyou that, you know, I always tried,
you know, you get to where you lookat the cars, all right, and I could
(21:34):
see, ah, there was a guy named Jack,and Jack, I always liked it when Jack
was there, because Jack had been...
I really didn't have an addiction toalcohol, but I, you know, obviously
there are correlations betweencocaine and alcohol, and AA had a
(21:55):
noon meeting at that time, NA did not.
So, I needed a signature, and theywanted me to go, so I was willing to go.
But Jack, I don't know, Ilove the hope of his story.
He was a local physician and I don't know.
I always just liked hearing himtell of the hope of recovery.
(22:15):
He'd read the promises from the AA programand those become my favorite reading.
Mike (22:22):
You know, there's a moment, and you haven't hit it yet, but there's
a moment where you go from, becauseyou've now talked about so many
different people, and you haven't evenhit them all, in your support system
that helped you get it back on track.
But then you, you became asupport system at some point.
You began to reach out and help others.
Eddie (22:43):
Yeah, so as part of the program, there were folks that would
ask me to be their sponsor, and Iwould agree to be their sponsor.
My dad got asked, so there was a localrehabilitation ministry, Teen Challenge,
my dad was an assembly godmaster.
So Teen Challenge was kind of formedout of a ministry [inaudible] that we
(23:05):
got, by the name of David Wilkerson.
And so dad was asked to be on the boardfor this new Teen Challenge program and
a lot of the ministers knew me causeI'd been the preacher to get right
on, so they needed a token director.
So I want to make that soundmore lofty than it was.
I think I was asked to be on thethe board of directors for that.
(23:28):
A, because I was a recovery drug addict,and two, they'd all watched me grow up and
they wanted to see me there (laugh) as wayof a proof of recovery to them themselves.
So, but it was obviouslygood to experience.
But, let me make that point also.
At some point when you're inrecovery, you realize you owe.
(23:58):
Give me a minute.
Mike (23:59):
Yeah, no, that's great.
I think you're right on the right track.
That's the moment I was talking about.
Eddie (24:06):
You got me.
I've been doing good.
But you owe proof of your recovery, right?
And sometimes we'rereluctant to give that.
And I would just say, come on, give it.
You know, I became a runner,and I learned it's hard to run
at a good distance, at a goodtime, and be a cocaine user, right?
(24:29):
So,
if I ran races, my dad saw that score,he'd check it, all right, we're good.
(laugh) So, you know, those littlemoments of comfort, somehow build them
in where they're not fake, but allowyour people to be, to see the proof
(24:51):
of your recovery in a way that you'renot demanding it, you know, in a way
that goes beyond just your voice.
Which they probably
are not yet ready tobelieve without action.
Mike (25:10):
That's really well put because there's there's that trust and there's
that doubt and you don't want to makeit the center of every conversation
and so any little opportunity you haveto alleviate those concerns is good.
And sometimes, Eddie, supportcomes from unusual places.
(25:31):
My friends would tell meis called burying the lede.
What?
(laugh) But you did so much good stuffover so long that you recently received
and, but when we're taping this, by theway, the president is still Joe Biden.
President Biden gave youa presidential pardon.
How does that come about?
Eddie (25:51):
I applied some years ago.
I think I told you earlier,I'm now married, ironically,
still in the same law firm.
I've married one of the youngladies that was working here and
she's now been elected judge.
While we're dating, she's like, youshould, you should apply for a pardon.
And so I got motivated and that wassome years ago, probably seven years,
(26:15):
you know, another guy was president.
That didn't work out.
And but I had worked through the process.
And just so you know, that process, abouta 20 page application, they want letters.
You know, it's notimpossible to do on your own.
But you know, it takes some time.
And in fact, I procrastinated for a longtime, just because I had work, I had
(26:38):
cases that were more important than that.
And I eventually did it.
You know, there's a season for pardon.
It's kind of like, you know,squirrel season, duck season.
And that season, pardon season isusually around the end of the term.
So after the Novemberelection, I did reach out.
So there's a UnitedStates pardon attorney.
(27:01):
And some administrationsdon't lean on them much.
Joe Biden has leaned on them quite a bit.
It seems to me, or at least thatday, that round of pardons he did.
And I had sent a letter saying,Hey, I just want to check
in, see if you need anything.
They had previously already sent a retiredFBI agent to Paducah twice to corroborate.
(27:27):
So they're just from a public standpointthere, I can tell you there was
there was quite a bit of scrutinygiven to the application by the U.S.
pardon attorney over a matter of years.
But you know, it's also, what,10,000 people apply a year.
I don't know.
I think I heard that figurethat may not be right.
(27:48):
So, you do what you can.
I didn't know what was goingto happen on December 11th.
Ironically, it was my 60th birthday.
About 2:30 in the afternoon, I looked downat my cell phone and it's a Washington, D.
C.
area code.
All right.
I'll take that one.
Normally I don't take a callunless I know who's calling, right?
(28:09):
I'll let it go to the voicemail.
But I took that one and it was, Idon't know the name of that person.
But she was wonderful and shesaid, you got about 20 minutes?
Let me walk you through this.
She even said, this isprobably going to be emotional.
She was right.
(laugh) So she asked me atthe end of it, she said, do
you have any questions for us?
And I said, do you knowtoday is my birthday?
Mike (28:31):
Oh, wow.
She didn't, did she?
Eddie (28:33):
She didn't.
No, of course she didn't.
But I will say this,and her name was Deanna.
I wrote it down, Deanna Evans, she'llprobably never watch this, but she was
so kind, she's a White House attorney,she called the next night, and she said,
(28:54):
I'm just checking on you, you know, thisis gonna be emotional, and, you know, it
was, it was clear that she knew way moreabout me than obviously I knew about her.
It was just, I don't know, just thekindness of the process was cool.
Mike (29:10):
Well, and as you said, it's not an easy process.
It's not one you can do by yourself.
So you must be incredibly gratefulto the people in your county.
Well, one, they've elected youtwice as commissioner, right?
Eddie (29:22):
Yeah.
Mike (29:22):
But there's a lot of support there.
Cause what I was reading, there wasno like, Oh, and this is undeserved.
They were like, they were at thereat the front line saying you do this.
Eddie (29:39):
Yeah.
I really enjoyed being able, neverwould have thought I'd have the
opportunity to do public service.
My major in college waspublic administration.
I don't really, you know, I doremember why I decided to write it.
I'll tell you, it was 2016.
(30:00):
And a guy who had started a coffeeshop had been a city commissioner.
I thought he was a cool commissionerand I'd gotten to know him and somebody
else on the city commission decidedthey weren't going to run on that.
You know what?
I'd like to meet more people.
What's the worst thing that canhappen is they're going to talk
about my recovery and my problems.
(30:22):
And I'm pretty honest about thatanyway, and I'm going to have a
reason to meet more people in mytown and I'll make more friends.
And for the large part, that's been true.
You know, it turns out even inlocal government, you can come a
little passionate, you can maybehave opposite positions of people
and that can affect your goal ofmaking friends if you're not careful.
(30:43):
But for the most part, that's happened.
And what a rewardingexperience it's been to be...
So I didn't win that race, by the way.
I lost.
And the next time there was an opportunityto run for the county seat and run for
the county seat and won, and that's beenjust a really heartwarming experience and
(31:06):
consider the other commissioners and thecounty judge, some of my closest friends.
Mike (31:11):
An opportunity to give back.
Eddie (31:12):
Yeah.
Mike (31:15):
Eddie, this has been fantastic.
I could listen all day.
I love stories like this.
Is the reason we started the podcast,you know, break the stigma, allow people
second chances, start all over again.
Thanks for your story.
Thanks for your work.
Eddie (31:31):
Thanks.
You honor me.
Thank you.
It's wonderful.
Our country and its foundingdocument has a provision for grace
and that's pretty cool.
Mike (31:47):
It is.
Eddie (31:48):
Yeah.
To get the forgiveness of our country.
I'm greatful.
Mike (31:54):
Outstanding.
Eddie (31:55):
[inaudible] (laugh)
Mike (31:56):
Well, for those of you listening, I'm emotional too.
I hope you find support wherever you are.
We always thank you for listening.
Be safe and if you need a secondchance, heck, I hope you get
one and make the best of it.
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