The Unmistakable Creative Podcast

Redemption and Reinvention After a Life Sentence with Andy Dixon- Part 2

Andy Dixon’s life has been anything but conventional. Born into a life of crime, he grew up imprinted with the notion that violence translated to love. In this amazing story, Andy talks about a journey of redemption and reinvention after a life sentence.

Coming from a long line of people who lived outside the law
An early vision of possibility in Andy’s life
How Andy wound up shooting somebody at age 12
Why the “nerds” in high school became friends with Andy
Returning to a life of crime after finishing high school
What it’s like to be $700,000 in debt as a criminal
What it’s like to be an unconditional taker and never give
The meeting with a spiritual leader that changed Andy’s prison time
A pivotal moment that caused Andy to let go of violence
The AIDS epidemic in the prison system
How the prison system takes advantage of the individuals in it
The marriage case that found its way to the Tennessee Supreme court
The generational issue that exists in the prison system
A look how we deal with maternal loss as children
The transformation from violence to nonviolence

Andy Dixon spent 27 years in Tennessee prisons, and has since committed himself to altering the generational conviction cycle, particularly with America’s youth. Through an open dialogue and open heart, he has changed the lives of hundreds, facilitating rehabilitation and hope rather than continued violence and sigma.

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Duration:: 1h 28m
Broadcast on:: 28 May 2014
Audio Format:: other

As you probably noticed, this month we're bringing you our "Life of Purpose" series and revisiting some of our most transformative episodes, tune in to explore expert insights and practical strategies on help, performance, and community well-being, all aimed at helping you achieve personal and professional fulfillment. If you sign up for the newsletter, you'll not only get recaps of the key ideas in each interview, but at the end of the series, you'll receive our free "Life of Purpose" ebook. What you have to do is go to unmistakablecreative.com/lifepurpose. In today's episode of the Unmistakable Creative, we get a part two of Andy Dixon's amazing story about serving a life sentence, and we discuss all the lessons he's learned and the insights he's gained from both his time inside prison and his time outside. 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You insane Hollywood f*ck. So to recap, we're cutting the price of Mint Unlimited from $30 a month to just $15 a month. Give it a try at mintmobile.com/switch. $45 up from payment equivalent to $15 per month, new customers on first three month plan only, taxes and fees extra, speeds lower above 40 gigabytes of details. I want to go back to the very beginning of this story and really kind of dig into your childhood a bit. And sort of the very first question for me is sort of around the loss of a mother and how that impacts your life. I think it's almost ironic that we're recording this on Mother's Day of all days and sort of how that shaped and influenced you growing up and how you think that impacted you? Well, it's hard to say, I know that being young, I'd like to say it kind of helps when you're young and it happens to you, but I was still old enough to always remember things like her laughter, her scent, she always smelled like soap, her hair and just her hugs, I could remember the smell of soap and she used dove and so I've always liked the smell of dove and that weird and so and like I said, her laughter, she was always laughing and very happy and sometimes, you know, that a tag in blood in her would ball up and she could get pretty, pretty hot, you know, but I was usually safe from my father when he did something crazy, but yeah, when she was gone, it was like, I don't know, I felt different because other people had mothers, you know, and here I am with a grandmother, but it's just not the same, you know, and I remember one of the reasons I didn't like going to church was because they always had these big mother's day events, you know, and I would be like the only young guy around that had to wear like a white flower, which meant my mother was dead, you know, you were red for, you know, your mom was alive, you were white when her shoe was passed on and I don't know if you're familiar with that custom, but it was really, really crazy, you know, and I would remember at those times, you know, the lack of having my mom around, but as far as influence in me to, you know, one way or the other, you know, I'm sure that had she lived, life probably would have been a little different, but I'm not so sure it would have been much different because, you know, she would have basically done like all the women before her and our family and just, you know, done what the men say, you know what I mean? That's kind of where it was, the men would, the men were the men and women were the women, you know? Yeah, I think that, that actually makes a perfect sort of setup for my next question, which is sort of the cultural influences of the time that you grew up in, I mean, the 50s and 60s, you referenced, you know, in the earlier part of our conversation and I'm very curious always about how somebody's cultural influences kind of shape, you know, the way they see the world. Well, my cultural influences were from my mother's side was Sicilian, you know? My father met my mother when he was in the Air Force during the Korean War and she came to America and when everybody got here, I got born in 1951, so that's how I came into the world right outside of the Anderson Air Force base out there in South Carolina was where my father was stationed and they came up to Chicago for some reason, I'm not quite sure, there was a reason for it and I was brought into the world at Cook County Hospital, so that's where I entered in at, that's where I came down and so from cultural-wise my mother already had a brother that was over here in America and he was knee-deep involved in crime and so culturally I had my uncle, my mother's brother who was already over here, then I had my father who was already involved in stuff with his father who was an Irishman and a hillraiser and a crook, you know, they were all crooks and also part of our Irish family was also mixed in there were some hillbillies, so we had this southern Irish a tag and mix, you know, it's just crazy bloodlines I guess you could say, wow, you know I guess one of the other things that you said earlier that really stood out to me was that you said that you know your grandmother was the first person to ever give you sort of a vision of possibility of a life that wasn't this, and you know, this is a question I think that anybody listening probably has had this sense of a vision of possibility at a very, very early age and it's almost kind of like, you know, I had Joe Loya here who I had mentioned to you earlier who had, you know, been a bank robber and he had talked about loss of faith and I really regret it not asking him about that but I get this sense that there's, you know, the vision of possibility and yet somehow it doesn't materialize to way later and I'm curious about why, like, why it takes so long, why did you lose the vision of possibility and for somebody who feels that they want to gain it back, how do they do it? My grandmother gave me those visions when I would visit her in Tennessee and she would take me to the side and she would tell me, she would say, I know that from your father and your uncles there is a strong draw to follow them and do what they do and I know that what they do seems very exciting but there is a very hard price that you have to pay for that life and I just want you to always try to remember that you deep down inside you're a good boy and that no matter how far down you go, you can always get back up and she held my face between her hands, one hand on each cheek of my face and look at me dead in my eyes and she says, you are a good boy, you have a beautiful soul, don't let them destroy that and so when I made my change in prison, one of the things I realized was, you know, I have to tell my family, you know, that I'm done with that too and I called my, you know, I told my father, I told my uncle who was still alive at the time, I said, you know, I've made a change and I'm, when I do get out, I'm not coming back to that life, I'm just not going to do it and I don't need any money or anything because see money that you get from my family always had strings to it, even if they said there were no strings, there was always strings, you know, there was always this sense of you owe me, you know, and I had to get rid of all that, I had to get rid of this feeling of warp sense of love, you know, you know, if I got to hurt somebody for you to love me, then, you know, that's not love, I had to remember that but as far as somebody finding that vision that's given to them, you just have to come to a point in your life where you challenge yourself, you know, if you never challenge yourself, then you're always going to be who you are, but I don't know anybody that likes to be doing wrong things or bad things or things that hurt their soul, I don't know anybody that likes that, I never enjoyed doing things that harm people, I didn't enjoy it, it was business, but just calling it business don't make it right either, that's just like a guy on death row who kills somebody, calling it his job, don't make it right, you know, the same thing in being a crook, you know, calling it your job, don't make it right, and so, you know, I would say to anybody who's calling a vice of violence and anger that you don't have to live that way, you can choose to live another way, but you first have to change who you are, you really do, you have to change who you are, and you have to realize that you need to change who you are, you know, some people are so far down the rabbit hole, I don't know if they can ever get back to be honest, the good news is, there's not a lot of people like that, but there are some people that are so wounded and fragmented that I don't think you can put them back together, you know, it starts when they're young, you know, they get beat up and sexually abused and treated like an animal and they're just, you know, they can't ever trust anybody, they're just, you know, they're totally mass, they're broken, defeated. Yeah, one of the other things that, excuse me, one of the other things that I am really curious about is the relationship with your father, you know, what that was like growing up, I mean, you mentioned that he was in prison when you were at a very young age, you know, we've talked a bit about your mother, but I'm curious, you know, what that relationship was like and how that influenced you. All right, so my father, like I said, he was my hero, he was a, you know, he was a tough guy and all my uncles, all my family, you know, a bunch of tough guys. And one of my earliest memories of my father is, you know, him fighting guys and kicking them out of the clubs and, you know, running them off and, you know, stuff like that. So, it's just kind of guy he was, but these people, they all, you know, we all live by a cold, you know, your friends and your friends and you do pretty much whatever you can form and kind of stick together, you know, and you know, that's how the economy was, you know, your economy worked because you all worked together, you know, for a common cause, which was to put money in your pocket. But I also realized that a lot of times that money went to people that didn't do nothing. You know, they were just like, you know, they were the top of the food chain, so you had to pay them a little bit just to operate in the neighborhood. You know what I mean? So it was kind of like that. It's really, I mean, do you like a real life version of Goodfellas almost? I don't know about all that. I mean, you know, I've seen these shows, you know, and I, you know, I actually knew Hill, you know, he passed away, but yeah, you know, I knew some of these guys, you know, wow. So, you know, the thing that, you know, the other thing you said that really stood out to me was that at a very early age, you were imprinted with this connection between violence and love and that sort of has played itself out throughout your entire life. And you know, I think about imprints and how they impact us. I'm really curious about how we overcome our imprints. You know, my business partner, Greg likes to say, you know, your temporary circumstances don't have to become your permanent identity. And I look at a life like yours and I wonder, you know, I'm thinking to myself, wow, I don't know how I would handle the situation. But the fact that you could be imprinted with something like that and still overcome such an imprint, I'm really curious about how we overcome, you know, our imprints that limit our lives. Well, based on your experience, on my experience, you overcome it because we're human. I mean, you know, there are certain things about being human that are common to us all. And that is that within all of us is a desire to love and be loved. You know, that's just something that's in us. We want to be connected. We want to contribute. And sometimes that gets screwed up. And with me, it got screwed up when the idea of what love was got screwed up. So love got screwed up with me when it was about an action that had to be committed to receive the reaction that you gave the name of love to. So like, if I smacked somebody down and all my friends and family congratulated me and hugged me, that felt good. Just like if the kid hit a baseball and got a home run and come in and step down on home and played his father would come out and hug him for, you know, making such a great play, you know, it's the same dynamic, I mean, a kid that does good in school and brings home straight A's. He gets the, you know, the love of the family, you know, if I went out and broke in a store somewhere and stole five or $600 and brought it home and put it on the table, that was like straight A's, wow. You know, so now having come from that, how do you get to where I'm at today is that you grow up, you see how other people in the world live. I mean, that's like you take a person that's never left, I don't know, Greenville, Tennessee, you know, a little small town in Tennessee, born there and never left. And then all of a sudden, when they're 50 years old, they get to leave Greenville and go to New York City and see all this, you know, multicultural setting, you know, they get to see what all these people are actually like instead of, you know, what they heard. So now all of a sudden they got to change your view, right? They, you know, if you've never met a, let's say you've never met a black person. And then all of a sudden you meet a black person and you find out, well, they're not so bad. Or if you never met a Mexican and you meet a Mexican, you go, well, they're not so bad. Well, in my life, it was like, okay, you know, you meet these squares. They're not so bad, you know, you meet, you know, you just meet people and you find out that they're not so bad. They got their, they got their good points about them too, you know. And I think that comes full circle because when people meet, would meet me back then, they would, their thought would be, well, you know, he's not so bad, you know, and, and then to them, I wasn't, you know, the only people I'd be bad to were the ones that I was, you know, going to steal from or something, you know, then that would be bad, but I never stole anything from anybody I knew, you know, we, we always stole from people we didn't know, you know, it's not, you know, you would never take anything from your friends or people within a neighborhood, you just didn't do it, you know, so, and in our sense, it was kind of like, you know, it's kind of like a, we were like a little country, you know, we had invaded another country that was okay, you know, we'd invade them, take what they had and that spools the war, you know, and one of the things I have mentioned earlier, you know, we, we kind of thought of ourselves as the country and, and the United States of America was another country and the United States of America, they're, you know, they're the baddest kid on the block. So you kind of want to stay away from them. You know, if there's a bully in the neighborhood, you don't want to mess with him. So in our way of thinking, the government was the bully, you stayed away from him because if he, if he didn't, it squashed you like a bug because they had more guns and they were meaner than you were. So, I mean, that's kind of where we talk about it. So let me ask you this, you know, one of the things that you also mentioned was that you had done a bit of time in the military. And what I, you mentioned that, and then you mentioned also when you would see these sort of square guys, you would think, you know, you don't know how lucky you have it. So two questions come for you for that. One is it, it seems like there was a handful of opportunities, it's a course correct here to almost go the other way and not end up where you did. And I'm very curious, you know, what, what is sort of going through your mind in those moments when you could, of course, corrected and also, you know, when you see those square guys, I don't, you know, these guys don't know how lucky they are. I mean, other than that, what else is going on there? I mean, what's the story you're telling yourself in those moments? Well, I guess I have to go back to the moment. I remember we'd been trying to think how to tell the story here. We had had a job that we had done and this guy had had the goods and he didn't show up and I was waiting outside of his place and I was going to take care of him for what he had done and I wasn't particularly comfortable doing it, but I knew it had to be done and I stayed out there probably eight, nine hours waiting on him and a lot of people walked by during that time and I was like in a gangway near the building and that's when I saw this young guy and this girlfriend walking by and holding hands and just, I just had this passing thought how great it would be to be like that, you know, but if you can see where I was at the moment, that wasn't going to happen. You know, I didn't have nobody like that in my life. I didn't even, and to be honest, I didn't even hardly date because I didn't want to bring a woman into my life and I didn't want to have a, I'd already seen guys get married and the way they would cheat on their wives and I just didn't want to be like that. I didn't want to have a family raised in that kind of environment, which goes to the point that I didn't like what I was doing, but at the same time, I didn't see a way out. I mean, now, looking back, you can go, oh, you could have done this, you could have done that. Well, maybe not, yeah, you know, maybe not. So, you know, I want to spend a little bit of time talking about the time inside prison. I mean, you know, I've had two friends here who are in, who have spent time in prison, but I mean, your sentence was far beyond anything, either of them. So, I mean, Julia, maybe, but like, you know, my friend, Max, was two years, but 27 years. I mean, when you, when you went in, did you know how long the sentence was going to be? Well, when I went in, I was given life. And so, you know, I knew life is life, but at the same time, prison always, you know, when you go to prison, you got good time that you get and then they, you know, they cut time different ways, you know, like for instance, when I went in, the average life sentence, a guy was getting out on parole after 13 years. So I figured, you know, I'll do 13, you know, and I'll get out. Well, just tough on crime thing hit about that time. So by the time my 13 come rolling around, 13 had done, changed 20. And then, you know, 20 changed again, the life without, I mean, they just went on this runaway lock them up the way to key things. So you know, it just kept getting worse. So let me ask you this, when you're sitting there knowing that, hey, you know what, the next 13 years of my life are going to be spent in this situation, I remember telling a friend once I said, you know, if I knew I was going to go to prison, I would just kill myself because I think I'm not, I would be so terrified about the experience and what was going to come from it. And yet, you know, what has happened, you know, the people who I've spoken to, people like you, people like Joe Loya, people like my friend Meg Wharton, have dramatically altered my entire perception of our prison system, and you know, to learn that there are these amazingly nice people in prison, hell, I mean, Meg Wharton is one of my great friends, somebody who I never thought would be one of the greatest influences in my life. And I guess, you know, for me, the question is, you know, when you look at that and say, you know, I've been given 13 years, what goes through your mind in a moment like that? Is it a moment of giving up? I mean, what's going on in that moment? Well, most guys that commit crime, they're risk takers anyway, you know, I mean, let's face it. There's an old saying, you know, too lazy to work and too scared to steal, you know. And so a lot of people out there in the world today, they're like that. They're too lazy to work and too scared to steal, so they spend their lifetime bouncing around from, you know, some kind of program to a program looking for a handout or a couch to sleep on or, you know, they're just bumming their way through life. Well, guys that are too lazy to work, but not scared to steal, they're risk takers. And so when they go to prison, you know, they've been playing games all their life, prison is just another game. Now of course it can get violent up in there, you know, you can go up in there and you can get killed, you can get raped, you can get beat up. But usually that happens to people, unfortunately, that aren't equipped for prison and those are actually your innocent people. You know, the people I feel sorry for are the ones that go to prison for stuff that they should never go to prison for, you know, you like druggies, you know, drug addicts and people that do drugs, they're not criminals, but they throw them in there with people that are, you know, and to me that was so sad because now you got a guy that comes in, he's got a drug problem. And then by the time he gets out, he's got, he's still got a drug problem because prison don't stop you from having a drug problem. You get drugs in prison, so now when he gets out, he's got skills to where he can be even a bigger drug dealer, you know, so it's just, it's insane. And as far as prison and I don't know if I can make it in there, you know, there's no saying you don't know what you can do until you got to do it, you know, really you don't, you don't know what you can do until you got to do it. And I have seen some of the guys that come in prison, you look at them, you think they'd never make it, and they take the prison like a duck to water. And I've seen other guys that come in and you would think, oh, that guy, he ain't going to have no problem. And that's the guy that wraps a rope around his neck and jumps off the tear, you know, you just, you never know how that's going to play out, but prison has changed a lot, you know, when I went to prison, it was, it was 80% physical and 20% mental. And what I mean by that is, is when you go in 80% of your troubles are going to be physical, which means that when you go in, if you lay down the groundwork, you're never going to have a problem. And what I mean by laying down the groundwork is you go in, you don't take no, you don't start, no crap with nobody, you don't go in there like I'm Superman or something, you just go in there and you stand, you ain't got to stand tall, but you do got to stand. And if you do that, you know, you're going to be all right. It don't matter if you get your ass kicked, you just got to, you know, throw a punch. You can't just, you know, take it. You got to, you got to, you know, you got to stand up. And so you never have a problem after that. But if you go in and you're not able to physically, you know, muster up just 10% of courage to stand up, you're going to get abused and passed around like, you know, like a little girl. So sadly, that happens to some people. But most people back in those days, you know, they got it. They would stand up. They'd fight a little bit and the next thing you know, they'd be in there telling jokes in a child hall and, you know, managing really well through prison life. And then it changed and it became to where now prison shifted from being 80% physical to 20% mental. It became 80% mental and 20% physical, because when you go into a prison today, they have it so locked up tight that there's not going to be a lot of fighting. Then they still have killings in prison, but they don't have nearly as many killings as they used to have. I mean, used to, you could kill an inmate and they'd give you 10, 15 years and they'd run it in with what you were already doing. So basically you get to kill for free. You know, you could kill another guy and it wouldn't cost you nothing because they just run it in with what you were doing. Nowadays, if you kill another prisoner, you know, you can wind up on death row or they'll just, you know, give you a sentence that you're never getting out. You know, they'll give you life without parole. So guys are, you know, trying to get through prison life without killing somebody. But on the other end, prison administrations these days, they like, they like to toy with people's lives and their minds. You know, they get off on disrupting their days and messing with their head and telling them, oh, you get out, you know, I know you got 180 years, but we got a program coming out here in a little while that's going to, you're going to fit into it and we're going to let you out then. And then five years go by, well, we've got another program, another five years goes by and we've got another program. And before you know it, you got guys that spent in there 15, 20, 30 years and now they're old and they're sick and then and now they're laughing at them and telling them, well, you know, looks like you're going to die here. So I mean, they got their games that they play and it's ugly and then they get by with so many different things. You know, when you tell about an individual case, it just doesn't seem to, I don't know how you get people to understand how important it is the small things that a person in prison can have like they'll say, okay, you can have paint supplies and you can have a TV and you can have all these things, but no one gives those to you. You have to make that money yourself and buy these things yourself and it takes a long time to do this. The equivalent would be for you to buy a house and a car and start a family. And then all of a sudden I'll come in and say, you know what, I'm taking your house in your car, you're no longer allowed those things and by the way, I'm going to break you and your family up. I'm going to send them here and send you there. And that's how prisons is these days. I mean, they'll come in and all these things that you have saved years to buy because it takes a long time to save enough money on prison wages to buy a TV and art supplies and other things that you might want. And then they'll come in and they'll say, well, we've changed the rules and you can't have these things anymore and then they'll take them away from you. And then a year or two later, they'll say, oh, you can have these things back, but they can't give you what they took because they don't destroy debts and now you got to save money again and go out and buy it. And then they turn around a year later and take it back again because, you know, these things can drive you nuts. So that's why I'm saying prison has turned into a really mental battlefield. It's really, really hard on people. And one of the things that I saw happening during my time there was how they were criminalizing homelessness and mental illness. You got a lot of people that are homeless and mentally ill and they just, you know, the courts get tired of dealing with them and they just send them to prison. And then they wind up on these psychological programs and wind up on psych wards and, you know, they don't get help. They lay around in there eating their own feces and everything else. Well, spark something uncommon this holiday with just the right gift from uncommon goods. The busy holiday season is here and uncommon goods makes it less stressful with incredible hand-picked gifts for everyone on your list, all in one spot, gifts that spark joy, wonder delight and that it's exactly what I wanted feeling. They scoured the globe for original, handmade, absolutely remarkable things. Last year, I found the perfect gift for my nephew, periodic table building blocks. These blocks were a big hit and considering he was talking in full sentences before he even turned two, I'd say that's a pretty good win. 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So, you know, I want to ask you about one other moment during your time there, which I guess to me this seems really like the arc of this story or the sort of the peak of the story that we've been telling here is when you finally make the decision, that that's it. I'm done. After so much time and a life in which you've committed to one of crime and violence, you make a decision that that's it. And I mean, that's a drastic change in a moment like that, and I'd love for you to sort of expand on making those kinds of changes in our own lives. And you know, what's that? What is that like? I mean, to go from one extreme to another. It's like you go from a violent, you know, somebody who's violent to becoming just a complete pacifist. Well, it doesn't happen overnight. I'll put it that away. It doesn't happen overnight. And it's just something that you decide that you're going to do. And then basically you spend the next 5, 10, 15 years fighting your nature, you know, because it's like your nature for such a long time was to be violent. And now all of a sudden you've made this decision that you're not going to be violent anymore. You're going to be a pacifist. And so it's really hard and difficult. And I guess one of the stories that I can relate is that I had gotten to the point to where my pride was involved. I thought I'd gotten to a point where I was like, you know what? I'm such a wonderful pacifist. I won't even kill a cockroach. You know, I'll take a trap rat and release it in the yard. You know, I won't even kill an animal. And I'm proud of this. And then one day in prison, there's this guy who has a mental health issue, he's a paranoid schizophrenic. And I don't know why, but they always, God either tells them to do something or the CIA does. I don't know why. But if people have a mental illness, that seems to be something that's always there. It's either the CIA or God makes them do crazy things. And so this particular fellow had this thing in his mind where he thought the CIA was out to kill him. And I don't know how it played out in his mind. But one of the things I always used to say is that it doesn't matter what we think because the craziest person in the world, whatever they do, makes perfect sense to them because if it didn't, they wouldn't do it. So I don't know why the guy decided to jump me, but it made perfect sense to him. And I was watching a TV program and I got up to go use the bathroom. We had a common bathroom and I go in the bathroom and I'm, I'm urinating an install. And I see this bright, white light. And all of a sudden I'm like dizzy and I turn around and here's this guy. He's like six foot, I don't know, six foot five, six foot six. He's a big fellow and he's got a knife in one hand. It's actually a shank, but it's more like an ice pick type. And he's got a sock full of batteries in the other hand. And he had just hit me in the back of the head while I was taking a piss with the sock full of batteries. And I'm standing there and I'm looking at him. And in my mind, I'm wondering, what the fuck? And all of a sudden he swings out again and hits me in the forehead. And I, and it liked to knock me, it liked to knock me down. And I was like, you know, my felt my knees buckle. And then he started moving toward me with the knife and I went on automatic. And the next thing I know, I busted this guy's head, I've busted his nose, his mouth. I've got him on the ground and I've got the knife away from him. And I'm getting ready to plunge this knife right straight through his heart. And I stop myself and I break the knife off and I drop it down the drain. And I look at him and I say, brother, what is your fucking problem? And he looks up at me and he says, what's going on? What's happening? What's going on? And I get up off of him and I help him get up and I'm cleaning the blood off of his head and his nose and his mouth and I'm helping him get cleaned up. And all of a sudden he's okay. His psychotic break is over. And I have this huge concussion. I wind up going to the hospital and they bring me back from the hospital because I have, again, I have a really bad concussion and I'm laying up there in the infirmary and I'm thinking about this guy and I'm thinking about how I hurt him and it's hurting me. I'm like really hurting and Dr. White's comes up to visit me in the infirmary to see if I'm okay and I tell him I'm okay. I mean, how's this other guy, the guy's name was Larry, I said I was Larry. He said, well, he's all right. He's got a few stitches in his head but he's going to be okay. I mean, it really hurt me that I hurt him and it took weeks talking to Dr. White's and a couple other guys and they were saying it's okay to defend yourself, it's okay to defend yourself. I said, you don't get it. I broke my deal, I hurt that guy and then Dr. White's kept asking me to play it out and tell what happened and I told him, he says stop right there and I shall wear and he had me stop at the park where I was holding the knife and I was going to plunge it into his heart. He said, you didn't do that. He said the knife away, you stopped when you had hurt him enough and he didn't go on and I was like, that's right. He said, would the old you have done that? He was right, I mean, even though I had done a violent act, it was like in self defense and I sort of rationalized that around a little bit. And I guess I kind of got to the point where I realized that, yes, I'm a pacifist up to a point. I will protect myself and of course, if somebody tried to hurt my wife or something like that, I'm not just going to stand there and let that happen. You know what I'm saying? But it was a very sobering moment to realize that I wasn't a pure pacifist, that what I really was was just a guy that wasn't going to hurt anybody. But at the same time, I wasn't going to let anybody hurt me or my family. Really just mind blowing stuff. I mean, I love that you brought up that it doesn't happen overnight. I think that that's one of those things. I think that when we want to change, we really, we expect that. I think we're incredibly impatient by our very nature and my guess is when you have as much time as you did, patience was something that you had to cultivate, you didn't have a choice. We would like to have things to happen in an instance. I mean, we live in that kind of society. I mean, we don't need like a headache. We've got to have a pill for that. So, you know, especially in America, you know, we like our pills. We like instant relief from everything. Unfortunately, you know, in the real world, there's no automatic. What is automatic is the decision to do something there. Now we can't make that decision. We can make a decision that says, you know what, I'm going to move away from this direction and hit this direction. Don't mean you're going to get there overnight, you know, depends on how far a trip is. My trip was a long trip. I'd spent probably over 30 years being what I was. So I wasn't going to get to where I'm at today in five years. But from a year of making my decision, I was already seeing the results. It's like a fat guy on a weight loss program. You might not lose a hundred pounds in a year, but you see two pounds a week fall off. You know what I mean? So you could like see things that you're doing differently, you know, and you feel different. You know, that's probably the main thing, even though you might still have a reaction like somebody being talking loud and your reaction early on might be to feel like getting up and smacking him down, well, as you begin to change somebody talk from loud, you're like. How did you actually sleep last night? If it didn't feel like your very best rest, then you need to upgrade to the softest, most luxurious bedding from bowl and branch. Their signature sheets are made from the finest 100% organic cotton and get softer with every wash. Millions of sleepers love their sheets. And right now, you can feel the difference for yourself during their biggest sales of the entire year. Hurry to bowlandbranch.com to shop their best offers. Limited time only, exclusions apply, see site for details. If there's one thing that my family and friends know me for, it's being an amazing gift giver. 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Expand the way you work and think with Claude by Anthropic. Whether brainstorming solo or working with the team, Claude is AI built for you. Perfect for analyzing images and graphs, generating code, processing multiple languages and solving complex problems. Plus, Claude is incredibly secure, trustworthy and reliable so you can focus on what matters. Curious? Visit claud.ai and see how Claude can elevate your work. Forging ahead together drives Colorado's pioneering spirit at Chevron. We donate funding and volunteer thousands of hours in support of the community's WeCall home. We also employ our neighbors to deliver the energy needed as the state's largest oil and natural gas producer. All to help improve lives in our shared backyard. That's Energy in Progress. Visit colorado.chephron.com. You're looking at it in a different way. You're like, "I still want to smack him down." It's more like, "How did he get there?" Having compassion for, "What made this person get to where they're at?" Compassion is a good word because you have to have that same compassion for yourself. It took me a while to get there. I knew I wanted to be a different person. I didn't want to be violent anymore, but also I had to get to a place where I had compassion for me. I had to get in touch with, I guess, what you'd call my little kid and hug him when he needed to be hugged because I missed out on a lot of kid hugs. I didn't get to have a childhood. I grew up quick. I mean, at 12 years old, I was a man. I did a man's deed and I had to act like a man. Most kids today, their parents try to keep them kids even when they're in their 20s. When I was 14 and 13 and 15, I was hitchhiking all over the United States when I would escape from reform school. I mean, I'm out on the dark streets at that age, hustling and keeping a wide eye of the state, and making moves, so that's a long road to go down. When you make that change, it's a long road to go down, and then again, it doesn't happen overnight like maybe we would want it to, but I would encourage anybody that wants to change the direction they're in, like if it's drugs, if it's relationships, whatever it is in their life that is a challenge, I would encourage people, you know, stay focused on the goal that you want and don't be upset with yourself if you don't get there right away. I mean, if you're a drug addict and you've been in rehab five times, fuck it, dude. Go seven, go eight, go until you get it done, you know? So if you quit, then you're done, you know? That's kind of like what the reverend told me, you know, Father Kerwin. I mean, when he told me, if you can't, you can't, he's right. You know, if you get it in your mind, you can't do something, guess what, you can't do it. So I would say to people, you know, if you're stuck somewhere in your life and you don't feel like that's where you want to be, you want to be somewhere else, then you've got to start making that move in that direction. And something happens and it stops you for a moment. Don't let that something be a roadblock. Just let that something be an obstacle and then you work your way around that obstacle. So, you know, there's so much here in your story. I mean, we could easily, you know, like you said, you're like it would take 100 episodes to cover everything. So you know, let's shift gears a little bit. I want to talk about two things. One is coming out of prison and sort of this adjustment period. And then I would love for you to talk about youth turns and the fact that, you know, when you told me that the way they count, you know, future prison beds is based on the children of existing prisoners, that's incredibly disturbing to think that that's how we're planning. So we're planning for the worst, which is horrible. So you know, I want to really help you voice this message out to our audience. But I also want to talk about the transition of coming out and kind of what that was like. And then I'm just going to give you the floor to talk to us about this issue and why it's so important and, you know, tell us what we can do to help. Well, for me and, you know, everybody's experience is a little bit different. Some people when they come out, they've got family to go to, excuse me, some people don't. And so the experience is different, but for my experience, I think one of the things that helped me was that I was on work release and being on work release that allowed me to kind of ease my way back in before I was actually released. I would leave the prison at seven o'clock in the morning and I wouldn't have to report back to seven in the evening, excuse me. And so the job I had, I was a plumber and so doing that, it kind of helped me get over some hurdles like I remember one time going to a gas station and sitting there waiting on an attendant to come out, you know, I didn't realize it, you know, it was now all, you know, self service. Everybody had to pump their own fuel. I was waiting for a guy to come out, do my windows and pump gas and, you know, give them some money. But I realized real quick, you know, those days were gone. And another weird thing happened to me was I would stand in front of the doors, you know, and wait on somebody to come and open them for me because I hadn't had the experience in a long time of opening my own door. So I got over that quickly though. I mean, that's, you know, I never waited for an attendant more than that one time. You know, I got it, you know, once I saw what it was, I understood it. And the same thing with the door after standing there, you know, and it was embarrassing, I guess, you know, and well, I don't guess, I know it was, it was embarrassing to kind of be behind the eight ball on all that stuff, you know, but these are the small things. You know, I prepare for myself, but pretty good for the bigger things. You know, I put a, you know, put back a little bit of money, made all the right moves that I could make. And I also had family, you know, my father was still out, I had my wife. So we had a home to go to. So I didn't like, like a lot of guys, I didn't get just dumped on the street. And I can tell you horror stories about people that get out of prison and they got nobody in nowhere to go and they essentially get dumped on the street. I got a guy now that he's my house setter while Linda and I travel, he takes care of our property in our house. And when he got out, he got out on a halfway house program and they let him out on a Friday and it was a holiday weekend, the halfway house people didn't even come and pick him up. He was stuck there at a bus station, had to make arrangements two o'clock in the morning to get somebody to go down here and pick him up. And it took four or five days to get him straightened up and was able to talk to some people at the pro headquarters down there in Tennessee and they were helpful. You know, I'd like to say that, you know, that some of these government systems try to be helpful if you know who to talk to, you know what I mean? And so for some people, it's difficult and we really, really need reentry programs. I mean, that is just going to have to happen at some point or I mean good ones. These fly by the Nikon jobs are out there, but they need some real good reentry programs. And so my transition was pretty smooth. The day that I got out of proof, it was January and there was a surreal moment when I walked out the gate and I asked myself, do I want to look back and I thought, sure, I did. Why not? You know, that was home for me for 27 years, you know. Yeah, I just, you know, turned around. I did look back and I just said bye, you know, and pick my wife up and swung her around and we just, you know, held real tight and cried a little bit and got in the car and the way we drove and she wanted to take me to an Indian restaurant. You know, it was one of her favorites and so we went there and I'd never eaten Indian food before. And I guess, people curried to acquire taste and so, but I did enjoy the salads, those are good. And after that, we went over across the street from there. There was a Catholic church. I wanted to go in and light a candle and I did a little candle and gave thanks for my freedom. We went home. We had a great meal at home later that night and, you know, we got busy with it. It had been a while, you know, we just had a great time and then the next day, and I started going back to my job, you know, I was still working where I was working when I'd gotten out and after being there for a while, I got to noticing, you know, they're always going to treat me like an ex convict around there. You know, the company that I was at, they, they wanted me to work 14 hour shifts, but they weren't willing to pay me, but they were paying the other guys. So I started looking around for something better to do. And that's when I took a van that my father had given me and I started hauling auto parts around town. I knew some people that got me involved in that and made pretty good money at it. And then met a guy that wanted me to haul parts for Chevy and a full son backward and back and forth from the Tennessee area down to Mississippi. So I did that for a while. And then I realized, you know, I need to get a truck, you know, and I could probably do better. So I got a truck and then later on, I got a couple more trucks and just started my own business. And I realized, you know, pretty quickly that working for somebody else with that label of ex-con, you know, they're not going to treat you all that well, at least that was my experience. You're going to have to, you know, they're going to pay you less than anybody else. They're not going to give you a fair wage and, but they're going to expect you to work like a dog. And I'm like, well, you know, I can work like a dog for myself. And I encourage everybody just getting out of prison, you know, to try to find something that they enjoy doing and, you know, go out and make that their job. And Linda and I, you know, we try to help people when we can, without naming names, we've helped quite a few people and some of them have gone on to be successful. Some of them, you know, not so good, you know, we've had people that, you know, took advantage and stole from us, but, you know, I got an old saying that, well, it's not an old saying, it's kind of a new saying that I started when I got into my own self-healing. And that was that, you know, I got to be willing to take a risk on people because people took a risk on me. And, you know, if you aren't willing to put your hand out there to get it smacked, then you're living a life that's way too safe. And if you're living a life that's way too safe, then you ain't living. So, you know, and that that's the truth to that. So let me ask you this, you know, this part about coming out takes me back to a scene from the movie "Shoshank Redemption." I don't know if you've seen it. Shoshank, Shoshank. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I seen that Morgan Freeman on the beach he meets his most years now. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, you know, the thing that really struck me as you're talking about, you know, the time that you've spent and coming out was there was this scene where he says, you know, I don't know if I could make it out on the outside of become institutionalized. And you know, you clearly sort of overcame that. And, you know, you said that, you know, you were prepared for the mental battle more than the average person when coming out because, and I'm really curious to hear your thoughts on that whole idea. I mean, do people become institutionalized and does that just cause them to go back? What happens, you know, I don't, the word institutionalized is a word. It's just a word because when you get right down to it, what people call institutionalized is letting themselves off the hook for not having good reentry programs. That's the real truth. I mean, if these guys coming out had something, if there were real rehabilitation and if there were real reentry programs, then most of these guys that are being called institutionalized would be just fine working jobs and staying out of prison. What happens is a guy gets out of prison full of hopes and dreams and ambitions. And he realizes that once he gets out, there's not much he can do, because when he gets out of prison, he's got $25 in his pocket. And that is gone with then probably 10 or 15 minutes of hit in the streets. And now he's got nothing. He's got a mission home that he's staying at or he's sleeping off in an alley somewhere. He got nothing and there's nobody and a lot of these guys cases that'll help them because in their formal life as a druggie or a thief, they burned a lot of bridges. So no one's willing to give them a hand. So all those dreams and aspirations that they had hit the cold wall of reality and they realized they're on their own. They got no help. No one's knocking down their door to give them a job. They're paralyzed. They don't know what to do or how to act in society. And most of these guys coming out or their emotional IQ is somewhere down around mental retardation. I mean, they just don't know how to social go. They don't know how to do it. Now prison is full of people and you can check this out. Anybody can. It's full of people that have these tremendously high IQs, but their emotional IQ is like retarded. They're off the chart retarded because they just don't know how to handle their emotions and societal interactions. They just don't know how to do it. They've never been taught. They've never had anyone to work them through it. And so when these guys get out, again, they're just paralyzed. They don't know what to do. So what do they do? They do what they know, which is what? Go back to drugs, go back to stealing. And then the next thing, they're not the smartest guys in the world. That's how come they get caught and they go to prison, you know? So it's just a cycle, it's a vicious cycle that will continue until somebody says, hey, you know what? We've got to do a better job. We've got to have real re-entry programs. We can't have this, you know, the condmanship going on. We've got to really work with these guys and try to help them stay out. And like I said, I've worked with guys, my wife and I have. And the ones that we've worked with, they're doing good. You know, they're doing pretty good. We've had one or two that went back. And I'll tell you why they went back is because they were in a big hurry to regain everything that they thought they had lost. And that set them up for failure because you can't gain 20 years in a year. You know what I mean? Yeah, definitely. And so you try to tell these guys you can't do that. So institutionalized, I don't believe in it. But what I do believe is that guys get so broke down that the only alternative form is to go back to prison. That's all they got. They don't have nothing else. And so people have come up with the word institutionalized, concrete, mama, you know, all this stuff. Like somebody really wants to be in prison. Nobody wants to be in prison. I've never known anybody that if the gates fell down would just sit there. So let me ask you this. I mean, you've got up breaking the cycle, which I think is actually a perfect transition to sort of wrap things up and really get to the end of our conversation. But one more question around the process of coming out, you know, what I see in you as you describe the process of, you know, recognizing that somebody was going to work you like a dog is that you saw opportunity, and you saw opportunity to rebuild yourself. And you are clearly somebody who broke the cycle. And you know, I'm curious what you think it is that distinguishes the person who breaks the cycle. I mean, what is it about their mindset that enables them to break the cycle from the ones who don't? When preparation meets opportunity, I mean, when you prepare your mind to do things and then the opportunity arises and you're already prepared, you just step right into it. And so I was already thinking and looking and trying to figure out things that I would do when I got out. I had several different plans from simple to complicated, you know, my most simple plan was if I were, you know, before I got married and met my wife, I had a plan of getting out. I was going to wash dishes and ride a bicycle, basically sleeping a sleeping bag and find a warm climate and save all my money for like five or six years and have enough money to start my own business because I figured it up. I did the math on it and I figured it up and I said, you know, in five years, I could have about $100,000 if I save every nickel, you know, don't spend no money on rent or gasoline, ride a bicycle, sleep in the park, take baths, you know, wherever I can grab them. You know what I'm saying? I had a plan. And so people, if they put a plan together and they stick with the plan, they can work the way out almost anything. Wow. And any just guys coming out prison, that's anybody. Yeah. That's why I asked that question because I knew there was something really powerful there. And I mean, I think that it's really interesting how resourceful we become when our backs are against the wall. I think most people think that they wouldn't have the capacity to generate ideas the way you did. But I think often it's only being put in those situations that causes us to start, you know, getting creative about solving our problems. Absolutely. You know, what's that all saying, necessity, the mother of invention? Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's true. That's true. You know, when you get in a situation, you're going to figure it out. I mean, that's part of being human. We figure these things out, you know, and I always tell everybody don't, you know, don't cut yourself short. You don't know what you can do until you got to do it. Yeah. And so, you know, I want to wrap things up here by having you talk a little briefly about youth turns. I mean, you know, you talk about breaking the cycle. And I was just telling a friend about the first half of the conversation about what you said in terms of how prisons plan for the future, the fact that they use the children of inmates to do their statistical modeling. That was probably one of the most disturbing parts of our entire conversation to me. And I felt that, you know, wow, the fact that we're not doing anything about this other than planning for the worst, that that's horrible. So I'd love for you. I mean, consider this a moment to plug, you know, what it is you do it and what you're hoping to accomplish in terms of trying to change this problem because that really is a horrible thing to hear. Well, a lot of different states use different methods to try to figure out, you know, the need for prison beds and they have these different models that they use, but I've heard it said time and time again from different professionals and I know they're being straight about it. The biggest indicator that they have is they know that anywhere between 50 and 70% depending on the region of the country and the area, basically, they know that these young kids that have parents in prison are going to grow up and go to prison themselves. I mean, it's a gift and they know it. And so that's one of the things that they use when they start figuring out, you know, how many beds we're going to use in the future. I mean, you go to any prisoner that's been locked up for a while and you ask him one simple question. Have you participated lately in a survey that was done in prison asking prisoners how many children they had and when they said how many children they're talking about not just children that you have a wife or a grandmother or somebody out there taking care of, they also want to know how many children you got that you don't even claim, but you know or yours. You know what I mean? Because they know these kids are in trouble too and it's just it's terrible and it breaks your heart because when I was in prison, I would see these kids, like I said, you know, seven, eight years old on the picnic air, running around playing and next thing you know, ten years later, they're 18, 19 years old and they're in there with a number on their back for robbing a drugstore or stealing a car or whatever, you know, they were there and it just would break your heart and they would go the regular route. They would go to the form school and then after the form school, they'd graduate and go to penitentiary. I mean, it's almost like middle school and college and high school and college. You know, high schools reform school, college is your local state pen, not pen state, but state pen. Wow. So, you know, that's the route and there, I mean, this is no secret. There are a lot of people that have programs that they're running and they're trying to address this issue and one way or the other, but, but see, you can't just do this by helping the kids. You have to help the family unit, you know, that whole family unit has to be helped and it can be done and it's worth doing and the money that would be saved is phenomenal. I mean, taxpayer money, we're spending enough money on the average guy that goes to prison. Like we could send this guy to Harvard for the money that we spend on the average guy in prison. Now, we could spend just half of that to keep them out of there. Look at all the money that taxpayers would save. To me, it's a fiscal issue because there's tons of money that could be saved if we would just do the right thing and the smart thing and give up this, uh, uh, uh, uh, hop along Cassidy, Yippee-K-A cowboy shit, you know, lock them up, throw away the key, rope them and hang them and all that crap. We have to start looking, in my opinion, at criminal activity as a mental health issue and we have to start looking at mental health issues and stop trying to criminalize everything. You know, at one time in this country, there were only three federal offenses and now they got enough books to fill a frickin library of federal fences. I mean, this is lock up crazy nation that we're living in. And the good news is there's a lot of politicians on both sides of the aisle. There's a lot of, uh, citizens out there now, uh, that are aware of this because we've reached what I call the saturation point where now everybody seems to know somebody to spend the prison. You know, there was a time when nobody knew anybody or they might have heard of somebody that used somebody, but now almost everybody knows somebody. It's been in prison and it's just getting harder and harder not to, you know, come in the cross areas of the law. Uh, this drug policy that we have in our country, it's insane. You know, it's just plain and sane and they know it and it needs to change. We don't even need to have a drug policy. We don't need to have it. We just need to, to let people do what they do and then the money that we would save from, from the, this war on our citizens, we could use for a rehab centers and, uh, things that would actually help them instead of throwing them in prison. I never saw anybody get help for a drug problem getting thrown in prison. That's not hell. You know, that, that's perpetuating the problem. So anyway, don't get me started. Well, Andy, uh, you know, I, I really appreciate you coming, uh, to, to join us and, and share, you know, your insights, uh, with our listeners because it's, it's interesting to hear you say that now everybody, you know, you come across probably knows somebody that has gone to prison and I can tell you in my lifetime, I never thought that I would ever chat with somebody who, who's gone to prison, but I, you know, I felt that when Brett told me everything about your story, I felt we had a very moral obligation, uh, to give you a microphone to talk about this. And, uh, so I've had to close things up with one final question and this is actually, you know, sort of a, a departure from everything that we've been talking about, but it's more a question about creativity and, and, uh, how we stand out in the world today. Our show is called the unmistakable creative and, uh, I'm really, uh, curious, based on sort of the experiences of your life, uh, and the things that you've seen and, and, you know, seeing the internet after, uh, 27 years in prison, what is it that makes something or somebody in your mind unmistakable makes them unmistakable, unmistakably creative? Maybe. I guess that's what you're asking. That's a, that's a good way of putting it. I mean, basically, what is it that makes them so distinctive that you know it's them that they listen, that they have listened, you know, uh, to be, uh, uh, to be creative, you have to listen because creativity comes from the universe out and in. And if you're not listening, then you're not getting it. You're not filling it. You're not, you're not projecting it through your poetry or through your painting or, or through these, uh, uh, wonderful music or whatever creative function that you have within you. And I think create creativity, uh, whatever the format is an expression of, uh, of God or of, uh, the universe because we're all born to be creative. I mean, that's, that's what we do from the time that we're little babies. We just giggle and laugh when we're able to predict something and predicting something is like the, the forerunner of a creative process. And so, uh, we're born to create and, uh, it's funny you should mention that because a friend of mine, I don't know how familiar you are with country music, uh, Mark Colley. He came in to Brushy Mountain and did this wonderful documentary about, uh, how music, uh, uh, brings out a creative spirit in people and it actually helps them to express deep down emotional issues, which is therapeutic to them and helps them to rehabilitate themselves through their music. And, uh, the documentary was called, uh, The Mountain. And I think it's coming out soon, but anyway, it was a great, great thing. And so that, that was all about what you're talking about, creativity. And, um, I believe we all have it. We just have to listen and open up to it. Awesome. Well, Andy, uh, like I said, it has been my absolute pleasure to have you here, uh, as a guest on the unmistakable creative. I mean, this is, this has been one of the most, uh, riveting and, uh, you know, mind-blowing conversations. I've had the good fortune to have in the time that I've done this and, uh, I really, really appreciate you coming and sharing your story and your insights, uh, and your mission, uh, without listeners here at the unmistakable creative. All right. Well, you can tell everybody that they can tweak me or Facebook me or whatever. I'd be glad to hear it from your audience. Awesome. And I'm sure you will be. All right. And for those of you guys listening, we'll wrap the show with that. Thank you for listening to this episode of the unmistakable creative podcast. 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Coming from a long line of people who lived outside the law
An early vision of possibility in Andy’s life
How Andy wound up shooting somebody at age 12
Why the “nerds” in high school became friends with Andy
Returning to a life of crime after finishing high school
What it’s like to be $700,000 in debt as a criminal
What it’s like to be an unconditional taker and never give
The meeting with a spiritual leader that changed Andy’s prison time
A pivotal moment that caused Andy to let go of violence
The AIDS epidemic in the prison system
How the prison system takes advantage of the individuals in it
The marriage case that found its way to the Tennessee Supreme court
The generational issue that exists in the prison system
A look how we deal with maternal loss as children
The transformation from violence to nonviolence

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