[Music]
[Applause]
so I had fallen asleep standing up in
the middle of a busy intersection in San
Francisco during rush hour traffic I was
coming off a one-week cocaine binge and
hadn’t slept the entire time horns were
blowing and cars were swerving to try
and miss me a friend of mine saw me
standing in the middle of the street
grabbed me by my shoulders and said hey
this is not you
you’re better than this you need to get
some help I was homeless and to continue
my drinking and drugging habits I was
committing crimes and getting arrested
see I didn’t know how to get help
my definition of help was to cover up my
emotions with drink drug and sex that’s
the only help I knew within weeks I was
arrested for the seventh time wasted
human potential that’s what mo was at
but mo isn’t alone here in the United
States there are six hundred thousand
who are homeless 23 point five million
are addicted to drugs and alcohol and on
any given day 2.3 million Americans are
locked up giving this nation the dubious
distinction of the highest incarceration
rate in the world day
aren’t we proud some people need to be
locked up but many who are locked up
don’t know how to change imagine being a
kid who gets high in elementary school
and no one tells her that it’s wrong how
do you figure out life and the problems
it throws at you when you’re getting
high as a kid I grew up in East Oakland
California I was a youngest of seven
children family members openly used
drugs and alcohol I had a brother who
thought he was a pimp
my brother was an alcoholic and a sister
who as a teenager gave birth to twins
addicted crack cousins openly sold and
used drugs I got caught in elementary
school selling marijuana joints I
remember being sent home and when I got
home I was intrepid reprimanded by my
parents nobody cared what I was doing
and there was no consequences we later
moved to Santa Rosa California and in
high school I progressed to cocaine and
speed
I was playing two sports at the time and
somehow getting away with it
in fact we were having some success we
won a couple championships and I got
Most Valuable Player of a couple sports
teams played in college and was good at
it until I was injured and I had to have
surgery the doctor prescribed pain pills
but long after the pain was gone I
continued taking those pain pills adding
that to the drugs and alcohol I didn’t
like the direction my life was going so
I moved to Atlanta Georgia thinking that
would change me but I soon found out
that I brought me with me my new jobs
aren’t to the King Center and I loved
working for a Coretta Scott King but my
drugs and alcohol it persisted I
remember sitting in my office and
looking out the window and there was dr.
King’s eternal flame and I thought to
myself dude you got to get it together
you’re in a great place and you’re part
of history that lasted for a little
while but not for long
knowing that I would eventually get
caught and fired I quit to avoid the
shame the next five years it was a
freefall downhill drugs alcohol
until finally standing in the middle of
the street asleep in San Francisco
arrested again okay as a society what do
we do with Maurice Egan he’s been
arrested seven times and he’s getting
worse sent him to a number of programs
and they haven’t helped what do we do
maybe this time let’s lock him away for
a really long time and say after 10
years and a half a million dollars of
taxpayer money later he gets out do we
think he’ll change do we think he’ll be
better
statistics show that 67 percent of the
people we let out of prison
reoffending three years what a great
return on our investment right what do
we do Moe’s recidivism rate had been a
hundred percent up to that point now for
the really great news there is a
solution for Moe and for the tens of
thousands like him fifty years ago a
model for transformational behavioral
change was built not by doctors or
correction officials but by addicts
themselves Moe was allowed to go to such
a place it’s called Delancey Street in
San Francisco at the LAN C Street they
don’t take any government money there’s
no charge to the participants the money
generated that’s needed to run the place
is generated
by the convicts and addicts that go
there who run vocational training
schools this is the same model that
we’ve adopted in the school that Moe and
I helped run in Salt Lake City it’s
called the other side Academy and we
hope to scale it across the United
States in this model we don’t focus on
the crime or the addiction we are not a
drug treatment plan we are a life skills
school that focuses on the underlying
behaviors that led to those actions we
teach people the skills that Moe never
learned in his East Oakland home how to
live lives of integrity and
accountability and love for others and
we do it without social workers
therapists or counselors at the other
side Academy it’s entirely run by former
convicts and addicts
Delancy Street and the other side
Academy are built on a few simple ideas
first one you have to want to change
when I got arrested in San Francisco on
my last run the arresting officer was my
old college football coach turned cop
and I remember him saying to me once you
start you’ll continue showing up here
until you do something about it and that
hit me I had spurts of being clean and
successful in life and I knew that there
was a better way for me I don’t think
God intended for me to be homeless
walking the streets or dope-fiend
alcoholic I heard the last retreat was
two years and it was very difficult and
that sounded like something I needed so
while in jail facing new charges I wrote
a letter to the lansing street and they
gave me an interview in that interview I
was desperate and I begged and pleaded
for them to help me and by the grace of
God I got accepted the second principle
of change is what we call act as if this
is really important it means that even
if you don’t
like being decent or honest or caring
you act that way until it becomes you we
practice being a moral person over and
over and over until we become that
person yeah so when I first arrived at
Delancey Street one of the leaders said
hey you know what we act as if here he
said you know the kind of person you
want to be you want to have some
integrity you want to be honest and you
want to be truthful
he said let’s face it you’re not that
person today and the only way that
you’ll become him is if you practice
being him for a really long time one of
the things that we say in Delancey
Street and at the other side Academy
work hard keep a good attitude and don’t
get a caught up practicing doing the
right thing that’s principle number two
principle number three is what we call
each one teach one
this means we like to say when a helps
be a gets better in other words the way
you save your life is by saving someone
else’s when I first got to the Lancer
Street all I was talking about was the
street the drugs the women and the
crimes it was the only way that I knew
how to connect was by telling old drug
addict war stories and one of the
leaders overheard me he said hey did you
come here to change or did you come here
to be the same loser you came here as
and that hit me hard I didn’t want to
waste my time I said yes I want to
change
he said we’re great get back in there
find somebody else that’s telling those
losers stories and tell them to knock it
off and that’s exactly what I did it was
a new and powerful thing to be trusted
to help save somebody else’s life
the next principle is pure
accountability when you come to the
other side Academy you give your peers
the power to hold you accountable for
your actions and to be brutally honest
with you when you mess up which we know
you’ll do and that’s where learning
really happens right so I had gotten
some trouble at Delancey Street later on
in a meeting that we call games an
opportunity to get feedback from your
peers one of my peers step two and said
mo you’re a liar you’re a sneak and
you’re cheap I wasn’t having any of that
they weren’t talking to me must be
somebody else and then another person
said the same thing and then another
offer some specific examples about the
fifth person into it I felt something
good should you know what you’re
absolutely right I’m a liar and I’m a
manipulator and for the first time it
made me sick later that night as I laid
down I thought to myself man this is who
I become and that’s the person I wanted
to change games became a game changer
for me it got to where even though it
hurt I looked forward to going to games
so that could have my destructive flaws
brought to me by people who loved and
cared enough about me to tell me the
truth I feel sorry for anybody that
doesn’t have friends like that feedback
became my best friend the next step is
immediate consequences for bad behavior
once again I got in a little trouble
and this time I’d gotten a haircut a
verbal reprimand by one of the leaders
in the community she gave me some extra
chores had some extra dishes now that
might sound crazy a house full of
criminals and the punishment you use
it’s extra dishes and extra chores but
it works when she gave me that haircut I
felt embarrassed I felt ashamed I wanted
to split and go get high to deal with my
emotions and my difficulties I said you
know what it’s time to change time to do
something different it’s only some extra
chores some extra dishes an opportunity
for me to look at what I did wrong the
last principal she have to practice
doing the right thing for a really
really long time until you become that
person I had been to other programs but
after two weeks or six months or
whatever the funding ran out for that
program I hadn’t changed because I
practice being a lying
sneaky cheating impulsive person for so
long two weeks six months or whatever it
wasn’t going to do it and so at the
other side of Kadim II we don’t talk
about being good we practice being good
we don’t sit in classrooms we practice
being good working in one of our
vocational schools lawn care the moving
company catering or selling delicious
funnel cakes out of our food truck
[Music]
throughout the course of the day the
real you is going to come out the liar
the sneaking cheating and pulse a person
somebody’s going to see it somebody’s
going to hear it and we’re all going to
call you on it and then you go back you
try it again and again and again until
you get it right and if at the end of
two years
you didn’t get it right you can humbly
ask to stay longer it wasn’t until my
third year in Delancey Street that I
felt like I was ready I had it am I good
yes I’m ready to go be productive and I
stayed an extra year to give back
because I loved what I was doing I
graduated in 2012 and I’ve been clean
for ten years
I got a job I became a trusted manager
and a company and I bought my own home
in November of last year I was recruited
by the other side Academy to be part of
staff when I helped another person I get
that feeling
I haven’t got anywhere else you can’t
buy it you can’t drink it you can’t
snort it and you can’t smoke it and
that’s stuck with me I know what it
feels like to help another person and
have them get better as a result I
believe our only hope is to reform the
criminal elements of our society and how
we treat them
is to adopt a new belief in the richness
of human capacity I believe that all of
us have the capacity to undergo
transformational change for the better
today our jails and prisons and homeless
shelters are filled to the brim with
people who have hit rock bottom
who don’t know how to change it doesn’t
have to be that way
so now we have that opportunity to go up
to these people grab them by the
shoulders just like my buddy did me and
say hey this is not you you’re better
than this you need to get some help we
may have been silent in the past because
we didn’t know how to help we don’t have
to be silent anymore we have a proven
solution it’s worked for moe it’s worked
for tens of thousands others like him
and we believe that it can work for
millions more by following these proven
steps for transformational behavioral
change so that they can live lives of
sobriety integrity and fulfillment like
Moe has done
you
[Applause]
so I had fallen asleep standing up in
the middle of a busy intersection in San
Francisco during rush hour traffic I was
coming off a one-week cocaine binge and
hadn’t slept the entire time horns were
blowing and cars were swerving to try
and miss me a friend of mine saw me
standing in the middle of the street
grabbed me by my shoulders and said hey
this is not you
you’re better than this you need to get
some help I was homeless and to continue
my drinking and drugging habits I was
committing crimes and getting arrested
see I didn’t know how to get help
my definition of help was to cover up my
emotions with drink drug and sex that’s
the only help I knew within weeks I was
arrested for the seventh time wasted
human potential that’s what mo was at
but mo isn’t alone here in the United
States there are six hundred thousand
who are homeless 23 point five million
are addicted to drugs and alcohol and on
any given day 2.3 million Americans are
locked up giving this nation the dubious
distinction of the highest incarceration
rate in the world day
aren’t we proud some people need to be
locked up but many who are locked up
don’t know how to change imagine being a
kid who gets high in elementary school
and no one tells her that it’s wrong how
do you figure out life and the problems
it throws at you when you’re getting
high as a kid I grew up in East Oakland
California I was a youngest of seven
children family members openly used
drugs and alcohol I had a brother who
thought he was a pimp
my brother was an alcoholic and a sister
who as a teenager gave birth to twins
addicted crack cousins openly sold and
used drugs I got caught in elementary
school selling marijuana joints I
remember being sent home and when I got
home I was intrepid reprimanded by my
parents nobody cared what I was doing
and there was no consequences we later
moved to Santa Rosa California and in
high school I progressed to cocaine and
speed
I was playing two sports at the time and
somehow getting away with it
in fact we were having some success we
won a couple championships and I got
Most Valuable Player of a couple sports
teams played in college and was good at
it until I was injured and I had to have
surgery the doctor prescribed pain pills
but long after the pain was gone I
continued taking those pain pills adding
that to the drugs and alcohol I didn’t
like the direction my life was going so
I moved to Atlanta Georgia thinking that
would change me but I soon found out
that I brought me with me my new jobs
aren’t to the King Center and I loved
working for a Coretta Scott King but my
drugs and alcohol it persisted I
remember sitting in my office and
looking out the window and there was dr.
King’s eternal flame and I thought to
myself dude you got to get it together
you’re in a great place and you’re part
of history that lasted for a little
while but not for long
knowing that I would eventually get
caught and fired I quit to avoid the
shame the next five years it was a
freefall downhill drugs alcohol
until finally standing in the middle of
the street asleep in San Francisco
arrested again okay as a society what do
we do with Maurice Egan he’s been
arrested seven times and he’s getting
worse sent him to a number of programs
and they haven’t helped what do we do
maybe this time let’s lock him away for
a really long time and say after 10
years and a half a million dollars of
taxpayer money later he gets out do we
think he’ll change do we think he’ll be
better
statistics show that 67 percent of the
people we let out of prison
reoffending three years what a great
return on our investment right what do
we do Moe’s recidivism rate had been a
hundred percent up to that point now for
the really great news there is a
solution for Moe and for the tens of
thousands like him fifty years ago a
model for transformational behavioral
change was built not by doctors or
correction officials but by addicts
themselves Moe was allowed to go to such
a place it’s called Delancey Street in
San Francisco at the LAN C Street they
don’t take any government money there’s
no charge to the participants the money
generated that’s needed to run the place
is generated
by the convicts and addicts that go
there who run vocational training
schools this is the same model that
we’ve adopted in the school that Moe and
I helped run in Salt Lake City it’s
called the other side Academy and we
hope to scale it across the United
States in this model we don’t focus on
the crime or the addiction we are not a
drug treatment plan we are a life skills
school that focuses on the underlying
behaviors that led to those actions we
teach people the skills that Moe never
learned in his East Oakland home how to
live lives of integrity and
accountability and love for others and
we do it without social workers
therapists or counselors at the other
side Academy it’s entirely run by former
convicts and addicts
Delancy Street and the other side
Academy are built on a few simple ideas
first one you have to want to change
when I got arrested in San Francisco on
my last run the arresting officer was my
old college football coach turned cop
and I remember him saying to me once you
start you’ll continue showing up here
until you do something about it and that
hit me I had spurts of being clean and
successful in life and I knew that there
was a better way for me I don’t think
God intended for me to be homeless
walking the streets or dope-fiend
alcoholic I heard the last retreat was
two years and it was very difficult and
that sounded like something I needed so
while in jail facing new charges I wrote
a letter to the lansing street and they
gave me an interview in that interview I
was desperate and I begged and pleaded
for them to help me and by the grace of
God I got accepted the second principle
of change is what we call act as if this
is really important it means that even
if you don’t
like being decent or honest or caring
you act that way until it becomes you we
practice being a moral person over and
over and over until we become that
person yeah so when I first arrived at
Delancey Street one of the leaders said
hey you know what we act as if here he
said you know the kind of person you
want to be you want to have some
integrity you want to be honest and you
want to be truthful
he said let’s face it you’re not that
person today and the only way that
you’ll become him is if you practice
being him for a really long time one of
the things that we say in Delancey
Street and at the other side Academy
work hard keep a good attitude and don’t
get a caught up practicing doing the
right thing that’s principle number two
principle number three is what we call
each one teach one
this means we like to say when a helps
be a gets better in other words the way
you save your life is by saving someone
else’s when I first got to the Lancer
Street all I was talking about was the
street the drugs the women and the
crimes it was the only way that I knew
how to connect was by telling old drug
addict war stories and one of the
leaders overheard me he said hey did you
come here to change or did you come here
to be the same loser you came here as
and that hit me hard I didn’t want to
waste my time I said yes I want to
change
he said we’re great get back in there
find somebody else that’s telling those
losers stories and tell them to knock it
off and that’s exactly what I did it was
a new and powerful thing to be trusted
to help save somebody else’s life
the next principle is pure
accountability when you come to the
other side Academy you give your peers
the power to hold you accountable for
your actions and to be brutally honest
with you when you mess up which we know
you’ll do and that’s where learning
really happens right so I had gotten
some trouble at Delancey Street later on
in a meeting that we call games an
opportunity to get feedback from your
peers one of my peers step two and said
mo you’re a liar you’re a sneak and
you’re cheap I wasn’t having any of that
they weren’t talking to me must be
somebody else and then another person
said the same thing and then another
offer some specific examples about the
fifth person into it I felt something
good should you know what you’re
absolutely right I’m a liar and I’m a
manipulator and for the first time it
made me sick later that night as I laid
down I thought to myself man this is who
I become and that’s the person I wanted
to change games became a game changer
for me it got to where even though it
hurt I looked forward to going to games
so that could have my destructive flaws
brought to me by people who loved and
cared enough about me to tell me the
truth I feel sorry for anybody that
doesn’t have friends like that feedback
became my best friend the next step is
immediate consequences for bad behavior
once again I got in a little trouble
and this time I’d gotten a haircut a
verbal reprimand by one of the leaders
in the community she gave me some extra
chores had some extra dishes now that
might sound crazy a house full of
criminals and the punishment you use
it’s extra dishes and extra chores but
it works when she gave me that haircut I
felt embarrassed I felt ashamed I wanted
to split and go get high to deal with my
emotions and my difficulties I said you
know what it’s time to change time to do
something different it’s only some extra
chores some extra dishes an opportunity
for me to look at what I did wrong the
last principal she have to practice
doing the right thing for a really
really long time until you become that
person I had been to other programs but
after two weeks or six months or
whatever the funding ran out for that
program I hadn’t changed because I
practice being a lying
sneaky cheating impulsive person for so
long two weeks six months or whatever it
wasn’t going to do it and so at the
other side of Kadim II we don’t talk
about being good we practice being good
we don’t sit in classrooms we practice
being good working in one of our
vocational schools lawn care the moving
company catering or selling delicious
funnel cakes out of our food truck
[Music]
throughout the course of the day the
real you is going to come out the liar
the sneaking cheating and pulse a person
somebody’s going to see it somebody’s
going to hear it and we’re all going to
call you on it and then you go back you
try it again and again and again until
you get it right and if at the end of
two years
you didn’t get it right you can humbly
ask to stay longer it wasn’t until my
third year in Delancey Street that I
felt like I was ready I had it am I good
yes I’m ready to go be productive and I
stayed an extra year to give back
because I loved what I was doing I
graduated in 2012 and I’ve been clean
for ten years
I got a job I became a trusted manager
and a company and I bought my own home
in November of last year I was recruited
by the other side Academy to be part of
staff when I helped another person I get
that feeling
I haven’t got anywhere else you can’t
buy it you can’t drink it you can’t
snort it and you can’t smoke it and
that’s stuck with me I know what it
feels like to help another person and
have them get better as a result I
believe our only hope is to reform the
criminal elements of our society and how
we treat them
is to adopt a new belief in the richness
of human capacity I believe that all of
us have the capacity to undergo
transformational change for the better
today our jails and prisons and homeless
shelters are filled to the brim with
people who have hit rock bottom
who don’t know how to change it doesn’t
have to be that way
so now we have that opportunity to go up
to these people grab them by the
shoulders just like my buddy did me and
say hey this is not you you’re better
than this you need to get some help we
may have been silent in the past because
we didn’t know how to help we don’t have
to be silent anymore we have a proven
solution it’s worked for moe it’s worked
for tens of thousands others like him
and we believe that it can work for
millions more by following these proven
steps for transformational behavioral
change so that they can live lives of
sobriety integrity and fulfillment like
Moe has done
you
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