Dr. Adi Jaffe on Addiction, Prison, and Rewriting Your Life

What does it take to completely rewrite your life when the world has already written you off?

In this powerful episode of Conversations with Rich Bennett, Rich sits down with Dr. Adi Jaffe, a psychologist, author, and addiction expert whose life once spiraled into drug dealing, addiction, and a SWAT arrest that nearly cost him everything. Facing up to 18 years in prison, Adi made a decision that changed the course of his life forever.

Together, Rich and Adi dive deep into addiction, shame, mental health, and why true recovery starts with honesty, not judgment. This conversation isn’t just about addiction. It’s about breaking destructive patterns, owning your story, and proving that transformation is possible no matter how far down you’ve gone.

If you’ve ever felt stuck, judged, or afraid to face your truth, this episode will challenge and inspire you to see what’s possible.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction & Guest Overview
• 3:07 Moving from Israel to the U.S.
• 7:07 First Experiences with Alcohol and Drugs
• 9:37 College Life and Escalating Addiction
• 15:37 Drug Dealing and Dangerous Situations
• 22:37 SWAT Arrest and Facing Prison
• 30:37 Rehab, Relapse, and Final Wake-Up Call
• 35:37 Turning Life Around and Legal Outcome
• 38:37 What Adi Does Now and Helping Others
• 45:37 Parenting, Shame, and Honesty
• 56:37 Final Thoughts and Where to Find Adi

Transcript

Wendy & Rich 0:01
[MUSIC PLAYING] Harford County Living presents Conversations with Rich Bennett. Joke is a fair. 

[INTERPOSING VOICES] 

I don't know what you're going to do. No, no, no. It's fine. The truth is--

Rich Bennett 0:28
What does it take to rewrite the story of your life when the world has already written you off? My guest today is someone who's been to rock bottom and didn't just climb out. He built a ladder for others to follow. He's a PhD who once faced serious prison time, a respected voice on national news who once battled shame and addiction behind closed doors. And today, he's helping thousands break free. Not with judgment, but with radical honesty, science, and a deeply personal understanding of what it means to start over. This conversation isn't about playing it safe. It's about owning your truth, redefining success, and choosing to get unhooked, one step at a time. It's an honor. We've been trying to hook up for a long time, but he is here. So welcome, Dr. Adi Jaffa. I almost messed it up. I almost-- 

Adi Jaffe 1:28
Thank you. 

Rich Bennett 1:29
[LAUGHS] 

Adi Jaffe 1:29
Well, you know, it's funny. Now, it's a joke. But I almost changed my name when I first moved to this country because I almost went by Adam because nobody could pronounce my name. And then after a while, it just kind of became this calling card, if you will. So I'll say to you and all the listeners the easiest way. So my first name is pronounced like you've got a bad grade on a test. Pretend you got a really 

Rich Bennett 1:52
Adi? 

Adi Jaffe 1:53
bad grade on a test you got a D. Hopefully, saying my name feels a little bit better than that grade. But yeah, That challenge alone meant for me, Rachel. And I moved to the States when I was 14 in high school. 

Rich Bennett 2:07
oh wow. 

Adi Jaffe 2:08
And I know about you, but high school and junior high were kind of a weird time for me anyway in life. And so moving from a country where nobody had a hard pronouncing my name, to somewhere where nobody could pronounce my name, was a big enough challenge by itself, when the last thing on Earth you want to do is stick out. But 

Rich Bennett 2:25
So-- 

Adi Jaffe 2:25
I told you. 

Rich Bennett 2:27
So you moved to the States at 14. Where did you move from? 

Adi Jaffe 2:30
I moved from-- Israel. 

Rich Bennett 2:31
Oh, really? 

Adi Jaffe 2:32
Well, yeah. Yeah, grew up in the same apartment my whole life growing up in Israel, small neighborhood. And my dad who was a doctor, got a job in Chicago. 

Rich Bennett 2:45
Oh, 

Adi Jaffe 2:45
So 

Rich Bennett 2:46
wow. 

Adi Jaffe 2:46
we'll move the whole family there. And it was a massive culture shock, yeah, absolutely. 

Rich Bennett 2:51
I was going to see, especially moving here as a teenager, because you're meeting all-- while making all new friends and just the lifestyle alone, how long did it take you to adapt? 

Adi Jaffe 3:06
You know, interestingly, what ended up really happening for me was-- so I spent two years in one high in the northern suburb of Chicago called Skoki. And-- Made famous by the movie, the usual suspects and a 

Rich Bennett 3:20
Yeah. 

Adi Jaffe 3:20
neo-Nazi march in the '70s. And so lived there for two years, and it was hard. I'm not gonna lie. It was really hard. Everything was different than it was in Israel-- language, obviously, but just the way people were. School was different. And so, I had about two years there to kind of adjust. And my parents moved us again. So by the way, I'd never moved in my life once. And then I was in two completely different moves from Chicago to upstate New York, Rochester, New York. And-- 

Rich Bennett 3:49
oh, wow. 

Adi Jaffe 3:50
--and the good news is, by the time I got there, I kind of got my feet under me in terms of what it means to be an American high school kid. But it was tough. High school was already weird. I had no friends in the first school and took some time to make some. My English was weird. I've gotten it on a control, obviously, sense. But 

Rich Bennett 4:09
Right. 

Adi Jaffe 4:09
my English was really weird. And so I didn't really fit in. And yeah, the second high school was a lot easier. I'll just put it that way. 

Rich Bennett 4:18
All right. So, growing up-- actually, I want to-- yeah, let's start from the beginning from when you got here in the States. Growing up, trying to make friends in everything-- I don't want to say trying to make friends, making friends, everything. What was probably one of the biggest struggles you had besides the language barrier and all? 

Adi Jaffe 4:41
Well-- 

Rich Bennett 4:42
End the moving. 

Adi Jaffe 4:44
Yeah, I didn't realize at the time. I'll tell you, I have a story that's funny about how different America was from where I came from. And you know, we're now-- it's now the mid-2020s. But-- I moved in 1990, so cell phones were not a thing. I mean, I knew of America from movies. I'd never been there. So it sounded really fun and enticing, but I'd never been there. My parents moved us to this apartment right off of Elm Street in Skokia, Illinois. And I'd never been in the US before. So I thought this was an Elm Street from like Nightmare on Elm Street. 

Rich Bennett 5:24
I had a feeling you were going to say that. 

Adi Jaffe 5:26
And I sent in my parents, I go out of everywhere in America. You move me here. This is insane. Now obviously I knew it was a movie, but You know, I mean, like 

Rich Bennett 5:36
still. 

Adi Jaffe 5:36
I was, I was literally a little scared. I kind of like, wait, where, where'd you move me to? And and that was just how naive I was. So I thought, I thought moving was just going to be an adventure. Right. But it was hard. Look, I'd probably 10, 15 friends in Israel, because I went to the same elementary school that then moved to the same junior high with everybody else. And then all of a sudden, I knew nobody. I mean, I didn't know a soul. So that was, that was hard. And it was actually in junior high. That's where most people start drinking anyway. But in 

Rich Bennett 6:06
Right. 

Adi Jaffe 6:06
junior high, I didn't touch anything. And in high school, I started drinking with friends because it was a way to make friends. You know, people may not know you. They made, they didn't dislike me, but just didn't know me. And so it went from not knowing me to, oh, I'm one of the kids who's drinking. I started drinking at a sleep away camp when somebody just handed me a bottle. I talk about it in my, in my new book. And it was just a way to fit in. 

Rich Bennett 6:33
Yeah. 

Adi Jaffe 6:34
But, but it also, it's solved so much of my social anxiety. I could talk to girls. I could make friends as long as I was tipsy. And so I started drinking every weekend. A couple of years later, I got introduced to weed by this girl that I thought was cute. And so she wanted me a joint. I was not about to say no to a girl. I thought it was cute. And by the time I got the college, I was drinking the smoke in every day. 

Rich Bennett 6:59
Jesus. 

Adi Jaffe 7:00
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 7:00
Alright, now you said that first party somebody handed you a bottle was a bottle of liquor or just a bottle of beer 

Adi Jaffe 7:07
warm warm vodka man. It was, it was the worst. I can almost. I closed my eyes, I can almost still remember it was a jug. So our sleep away camp, it was one of those, you know, 

Rich Bennett 7:20
yes, 

Adi Jaffe 7:20
gallon jugs of crappy warm vodka. And I, I'm Jewish. So I, you know, in some ceremonies, I may have a little wine here and there as a kid, but never really got drunk or even tipsy. And so I took two swigs. And I mean, I literally almost threw up but kept it down. And 15, 20 minutes later, it's like, this feeling just washed over me, you know, 

Rich Bennett 7:48
Wow, holy cow, alright, so that's throughout high school that 

Adi Jaffe 7:54
yeah. 

Rich Bennett 7:54
take it when you were in high school, your plans were to be a doctor. 

Adi Jaffe 7:58
Um, my dad was a doctor. So good guess. Yeah, I mean, I didn't think I was going to be anything else. Um, 

Rich Bennett 8:04
right. 

Adi Jaffe 8:06
When I'm when we moved to the States, my grades started really slipping. I can, it's not really important. Why, but not just the language is just the way schools run here is very different in the way I was running in Israel. And so it took me some, it was, it took some work to adjust, but yeah, I thought I was going to be a doctor. I was going to college for premed. That was the original goal. 

Rich Bennett 8:26
Alright, so when you got in the college, how was the, it was still drinking and smoking a lot? 

Adi Jaffe 8:32
So, man, the, the wheels came off. The train fell off the tracks. The boat was taking on water. I mean, I don't care what, what metaphor you want to use. College, especially the first two years. No, that's not true. All, all, all four and a half, five years of my college were not pretty. And 

Rich Bennett 8:53
this was in the 90's, right? 

Adi Jaffe 8:55
This was now 94 graduate. So yeah, 94, 95 I made it in. And, um, man, it is, I mean, you know, we've all seen animal house. We've all seen those things. I wasn't in a frat by any stretch of the imagination, but we drank and we used and we smoked weed. You know, you would walk into somebody's room. The people I hung out with and there was a towel under the door. And the room was just full of weed smoke. I would say all day. I mean, we smoked from 10 am to whatever time at night. And, um, it was, it was crazy. It was really, really crazy. I bear, I barely did make it out. I barely graduated college. I mean, by the skin of my teeth. 

Rich Bennett 9:41
So did your parents know about this? 

Adi Jaffe 9:45
You know what's an interesting point. I've now been doing this work for 25 years on the other side of this. My family didn't really talk much about things that mattered. We talked about, did you get your tasks done, did you finish what you were supposed to do? And I got pretty good at hiding how bad things were in high school already. And then I went to college, so the first college was two hours away from home. 

Rich Bennett 10:12
So 

Adi Jaffe 10:12
far enough away where it's hard for somebody to just drop by and an instant. 

Rich Bennett 10:15
Right. 

Adi Jaffe 10:16
And then I moved to UCLA in Los Angeles. I was on the other side of the country. And so you know, no, my parents never really talked to me about that stuff after high school. But again, just to be really fair because now I'm a parent. I got three kids. I don't know if we can swear on the show or not. So all 

Rich Bennett 10:35
Yeah, you're fine. Go ahead. You're fine. Look, 

Adi Jaffe 10:38
over. 

Rich Bennett 10:38
hey, I did, I did it ain't no lie. It used to be I would bleep stuff out. But when you, you know this, when you talk to people in recovery. 

Adi Jaffe 10:48
Yeah, 

Rich Bennett 10:48
the language comes out. And to me it, it just. it. It's more, it's 

Adi Jaffe 10:56
Part 

Rich Bennett 10:56
really 

Adi Jaffe 10:56
of 

Rich Bennett 10:56
telling the story. Yes. Yeah. 

Adi Jaffe 10:58
Well, I'll just keep this one. This piece short. I was a little shit. And when I was 14, 15, 16 and on, I was. I don't know. I got this thing in me about rebelling. We can talk about why my, my did not get along with my dad. My dad was not a great. There was not a lot of loving anyway, but he was not a 

Rich Bennett 11:19
Right. 

Adi Jaffe 11:19
really good partner to my, my mom. And so I hated him. We got in fights all the time. I rebelled. And so I think, not I think by the time they left me for college, it was kind of like, drop me off and say good, good luck, man. You know, just 

Rich Bennett 11:34
wow. 

Adi Jaffe 11:35
Hope you keep it together. And I can't blame him at all. So, yeah, I think it was out of mind, out of sight, out of mind, trying to just, you know, my sister was at home. I now know my dad has passed since, but I now know, you know, my parents fought about me all the time. I was a major cause of stress for them. And I feel, I feel really terrible about that. But I was not, I was self centered. I was, yeah, I just, I 

Rich Bennett 12:05
I was 

Adi Jaffe 12:05
didn't really 

Rich Bennett 12:05
just you and your sister, 

Adi Jaffe 12:07
just me and my sister. 

Rich Bennett 12:08
Yeah. Oh, wow. Okay. 

Adi Jaffe 12:10
Yeah. And so 

Rich Bennett 12:11
your sister's younger. 

Adi Jaffe 12:13
My sister's three and a half years younger and she was the angel, right? She, she did go to medical school. She followed my dad's footsteps. She went to Cornell and then Columbia. You know, I mean, she was an Ivy League student. So proud of her. So proud of her. And I, I just made her life tougher because she was performing so well. And yet I was the one that was taken up to space, even when I was away from home, because my parents were constantly worried about me constantly fighting about me. It was not, it was not a good scene. 

Rich Bennett 12:44
Do, do you think your father expected you to be almost like a guardian to your sister? Like a, yeah, like a, yeah, a lot of times we look at the older brothers are their ones that are protective. 

Adi Jaffe 12:56
Yeah, 

Rich Bennett 12:57
supposed to be the protector of their siblings. 

Adi Jaffe 13:01
Maybe, you know, look, my dad was absent most of my life. 

Rich Bennett 13:05
Right. 

Adi Jaffe 13:05
So we lived in Israel. He was in the military, which met one week out of every month into his late 30s. He would serve every, every week out of one week out of every month. And so, um, and then he worked two jobs because it was hard to make ends meet in Israel. When I say I didn't see my dad, it's actually funny, I just pulled out some pictures from childhood. He was around on the weekends and on vacations, but he really wasn't around. From any, anytime that I can remember until we moved to the States. So my sister and I got along incredibly well in Israel. And then when I started being a punk in the States, I think I just became a source of pain. You know, I was in, yeah, I just wasn't the guy they knew, you know, a year, two years earlier when we were living in Israel. 

Rich Bennett 13:58
How long did it take me? I take it. Your sister was having a hard time talking with you as well then. 

Adi Jaffe 14:05
Yeah, yeah, we definitely, because I'm three and a half years difference, we ended up never being in the same school again once we left Israel. And so we never went to the same school, we're in the same building. And so, yeah, I mean, in a way, I was the older brother. So I think in a way, she still looked up to me, but there wasn't a lot of 

connection. There weren't a lot of opportunities for us to actually really connect with each other. 

Rich Bennett 14:32
And how do you both get along now? 

Adi Jaffe 14:35
We're amazing. Now and now we're great. I want, you know, we'll talk about the rest of my story here at some point. There was a real, I would say three to five year turnaround, 

Rich Bennett 14:47
Uh-huh. 

Adi Jaffe 14:48
that's how long it took to turn the ship. But 

yeah, there was a lot of living immense. There was a lot of, you know, just doing the right thing to pay 

Rich Bennett 15:02
for 

Adi Jaffe 15:03
all the pain that I caused. I'll just put it that way. 

Rich Bennett 15:05
Alright, so I want to go back to college, because here it is, you're still smoking and drinking. Now, was that the worst of the addiction just the smoking and the drinking? 

Adi Jaffe 15:15
Right away. 

Rich Bennett 15:16
Okay. 

Adi Jaffe 15:17
Um, no, so went to, went away to college, smoking and drinking every day all day. And then I had a girlfriend who, uhm, 

broke up with me. It was that classic, like, right? We were high school, sweetheart. Went away to college. Two different colleges. One of the men and older guys. Good news is she's still married to him now, so it's like, at least I lost out to the guy that she ended up spending the rest of her life with. 

Rich Bennett 15:40
Right. 

Adi Jaffe 15:40
And all the more power to her, you know, shout out to Alison. But, uhm, broke up with me and I took it really, really hard. And so I got into this massive depression and college, nah, I'm drinking the smoke and even more and then I found Coke, I found heavier 

Rich Bennett 15:55
she 

Adi Jaffe 15:55
drugs, I found hallucinogens, uhm, and I just started using everything that I could to just not be present. Uhm, I mean, I was, man, I would be high on acid and classes. It was, it was a nightmare. It was, I was, I was a train wreck when I left, so I left Buffalo, which is where I went to State University in New York in Buffalo, I went there for, 

Rich Bennett 16:19
uhm, 

Adi Jaffe 16:20
transferred to UCLA. And again, you know, I have, there's somebody watching over me somewhere because I barely made it out of-- ---- college in Buffalo and I barely made it into UCLA. 

Rich Bennett 16:37
Wow. 

Adi Jaffe 16:37
Uhm, and, and what, one thing that happened along the way that is important to point out is it'll come back later. I would get another trouble. Like, I got caught shoplifting when I was in college, but I didn't want my parents to know about anything, so I would come up with these seemingly smart hacks on how to solve my problems that always led me down to more trouble. 

Rich Bennett 17:00
Right. 

Adi Jaffe 17:01
I needed about 500 or maybe $1, 000 to pay for the lawyer to get me out of the, uhm, shoplifting charge. So what did I do like a smart kid? I sold weed in order to make the money for the lawyer. Well, that worked, but as we'll see later I moved to LA selling weed just became kind of a way for me to make money when I didn't have any and then that started escalating and getting me into more and more and more trouble. So I just, when I say that the, the train fell off the tracks, I mean, full. 

Rich Bennett 17:34
They did rail big time. 

Adi Jaffe 17:36
It flipped over, people were falling out, it was not good. 

Rich Bennett 17:40
So I take it that, especially when you started selling, is that when, um, the part about, you know, you were facing serious prison time, is that, I take it, you got caught selling? 

Adi Jaffe 17:56
Yeah. So moved to LA. Now I was really broke. My parents were, they had enough money to kind of pay for the out of state tuition, which was expensive, but they still everything else is up to you. So I got a job, I had a motorcycle because I couldn't afford a car, but I loved having a motorcycle. So it was fine. And it was LA, you know, so it's, weather's 

Rich Bennett 18:16
Yeah. 

Adi Jaffe 18:16
amazing. I'm back in, I'm from Israel, so I'm kind of used to nice desert weather beaches. So I got along really, really well there, but it kept going back to this thing when I ran out of money and I liked parting. So when I ran out of money, selling drugs the way out. But it started with weed. And then it kept moving on and on and on because when you have drugs and people know that you can sell them drugs, they ask for other drugs that they need. And so it went from weed to ecstasy, to mushrooms, to LSD. And then it was, I think my second year at UCLA that somebody asked for a meth. I'd never, I've used meth before. But I got it for them and I sold them some meth. And what ended up happening is I ended up having to face finals. I had another break up, just like that one of my freshman year in college. And it was finalist time. And one of my friends said, Hey, you know that meth stuff you got, if you do some of that, you'll be able to study better for your finals. And I was already, you know, Rich, I used anything, I didn't care. I 

Rich Bennett 19:19
of, 

Adi Jaffe 19:19
used 

Rich Bennett 19:19
yeah, 

Adi Jaffe 19:20
I don't know me. So I said, all right, let's try it out. And they weren't wrong. I mean, I studied for three day straight, man. I couldn't stop studying, passed all my finals. And then from, 

Rich Bennett 19:32
oh, I was gonna say, but did you remember what you studied? But if you passed your finals, I guess so. 

Adi Jaffe 19:39
I taught myself an entire accounting class that literally never attended. 

Rich Bennett 19:47
Oh 

Adi Jaffe 19:47
god. 

Rich Bennett 19:47
my 

Adi Jaffe 19:47
Three days. And you can, you know, it's funny. So I sat on it. There was a, the textbook and the homework and I just laid it all on in front of myself. And I studied for two straight days for that test, man. And I 

Rich Bennett 19:59
why 

Adi Jaffe 20:00
got to be in there. And I'd never been in the class. So it worked really well for me for studying. But the was that me being the guy I am I now started using it every time for studying. So now all midterms and all finals, man, I was doing math. And next thing you know for anybody who's listening right now and ever new to somebody or has ever used real uppers like met. The problem with something like that is once you start using it even semi-regulately, you start needing to use it because you can't really function without it. So next thing you know I was using it every day and meth was a drug that brought me down. And so I barely made it out of college, I mean I graduated again, but I graduated on a technicality from my undergrad from UCLA. And when I graduated I was making you know seven to ten thousand a month cash from selling drugs which for college student was amazing. 

Rich Bennett 20:57
especially 

Adi Jaffe 20:57
So I didn't even go 

Rich Bennett 20:58
do 

Adi Jaffe 20:59
so I didn't rich I didn't go look for a job. I just said hey I'm going to double down on this drug dealing thing. And and I did really well by it and what I mean but I did really well was I made a lot of money, had a lot of customers got higher and higher up the food chain of drug dealing by the end I was making three to five hundred thousand dollars a year 

Rich Bennett 21:23
drugs. 

Adi Jaffe 21:23
selling 

Rich Bennett 21:24
Jesus! 

Adi Jaffe 21:24
At 23 years old you know 24 years old. And 

you know it was it was hard work you had to stay up all hours of the night. I joke that we had two days off a year. It was Christmas day and Thanksgiving where the only days you got off. People people are always wanting drugs. You know it's a seller's market. If you've got drugs people will buy them from you. So it was really stressful. Got held up a gunpoint got robbed got beaten up a few times. Got put in very dangerous situations literally like cartel like the movies 

Rich Bennett 22:03
like 

Adi Jaffe 22:03
you see 

Rich Bennett 22:03
oh 

Adi Jaffe 22:03
in 

Rich Bennett 22:04
shit. 

Adi Jaffe 22:05
Like pulling up a near navigator walking out having the guys walk from the other you know put the bag with the drugs in the middle put the money like just found myself in those situations over and over and over. And then yeah about four years into that life got arrested by the squad team the Beverly Hills squad team. 

Rich Bennett 22:27
Holy so they were watching you for a while. 

Adi Jaffe 22:29
They were watching me. I mean I always to this day I have a sneaking suspicion somebody snitch me out. 

Rich Bennett 22:34
Yeah. 

Adi Jaffe 22:36
But it's the life you choose you know. 

Rich Bennett 22:40
But with that because you stay there it wasn't 

Adi Jaffe 22:45
federal charges it was state right. Yeah it wasn't federal it was all state. 

Rich Bennett 22:47
Thing 

Adi Jaffe 22:48
yeah really really I mean again you know the things you don't know that say I'm 

Rich Bennett 22:52
yeah 

Adi Jaffe 22:52
telling you right now people people somebody's watching out for me I had a guy one of my main guys that I got drugs from an alcohol sold big quantities to they would send meth to Hawaii. and 

Rich Bennett 23:06
Oh 

Adi Jaffe 23:06
so when they got busted was federal charges. 

Rich Bennett 23:09
Yeah. 

Adi Jaffe 23:11
And you know he was facing seven I was facing more years I was facing 15 18 years he was facing seven years. But he got all seven and he served all seven it was just it all depends on minimum sentences and all these things but 

Rich Bennett 23:24
Right. 

Adi Jaffe 23:24
he ended up serving all seven years because you know it's federal. So swatting the book actually opens up and I in my TEDx talk talk about this as well but you know that's what team arrest was one of the scariest moments in my life. 

Rich Bennett 23:38
I bet. 

Adi Jaffe 23:39
Oh yeah. But also probably one of the necessary moments for me to totally shift my life. 

Rich Bennett 23:44
Wooky up. 

Adi Jaffe 23:47
It woke me up it was like this I had these multiple stop signs if you believe in God from God from the 

Rich Bennett 23:53
Yeah. 

Adi Jaffe 23:53
universe whatever it is but I had a motorcycle accident that's where they found about a half a pound quarter pound of coke on me. 

Rich Bennett 24:01
That was the Jesus 

Adi Jaffe 24:02
time. Yeah so that was the first stop sign because I literally couldn't walk. I was in the hospital for a week two weeks surgeries then in a wheelchair for two months. This was 9-11 happened in the middle of all this. So you know here's a funny story for everybody I'm in a wheelchair. I mean there's so many stories but I'm in a wheelchair. I wake up let's say 10am right I'm not waking up early I'm on bike it in for pain wake up and let's say 10am and I look out my window I was living in Brentwood California at the time. I look out my window and there is a row 50 to 60 large of FBI and 

military guards and personnel AK47s and UZs and fully fully fitted 

Rich Bennett 25:00
my 

Adi Jaffe 25:00
in 

Rich Bennett 25:00
I 

Adi Jaffe 25:01
front 

Rich Bennett 25:01
bet 

Adi Jaffe 25:01
of 

Rich Bennett 25:01
you are shit in your pants weren't you. 

Adi Jaffe 25:04
I was so fucking scared this before the SWAT team arrest I was so scared waking up. 

Rich Bennett 25:08
I 

Adi Jaffe 25:09
look out my window and I'm like what the hell is going on now they weren't moving so I I went outside and it was 9-11 and right outside my window the inside courtyard of my building everybody was talking about what just happened and I opened up the TV and I saw the 9-11 planes. I lived across from the VA so they were guarding the VA because they thought it was a potential target, but 

Rich Bennett 25:37
Right. 

Adi Jaffe 25:39
You know the paranoia of meth on top of the fact that I was dealing it was it was a scary scary time and it was only I mean I was you know obviously September 11, so I got arrested But two months after that in that same apartment 

Rich Bennett 25:56
Jeez yeah, I think I would have felt like it was an iraily old and good fellas 

Adi Jaffe 26:04
Yeah, 100% literally looking out your window going. Oh shit. Okay, it's over 

Rich Bennett 26:09
And then looking up for the black helicopters and everything else. Yeah, that would have Yeah, that would have done it for me. 

Adi Jaffe 26:16
was 

Rich Bennett 26:16
I think that 

Adi Jaffe 26:18
Well, that's the thing so I you know talking about multiple stop signs. I was like the accident was one stop sign being in a wheelchair was another stop sign 9/11 happened police everywhere Literally everywhere 

Rich Bennett 26:28
Yeah, 

Adi Jaffe 26:28
around my house because across from the VA another stop sign And I wasn't listening. It's like you know that story about the man and the boat 

Rich Bennett 26:36
uh-huh 

Adi Jaffe 26:38
Right, he's in his house it starts flooding. He's boarding up the the home for the hurricane and and his neighbors come by They're like hey, we got room in our truck if you want how he's like no no God God's got me. It's all good I'm you know, I'm gonna be okay, then his place starts flooding he goes up to the second floor hanging out You know, he sees the last Neighbor in a little, you know, little thingy going hey, we're we're gonna make it out I don't think it's gonna you know the neighborhood's gonna go under because no, no, it's okay. God got me Second floor flooded right he goes up to the top And he's on this roof and a helicopter was nearby and goes do you want to ladder? I mean you kind of like the only person in the neighborhood now, and he goes no, it's okay. God got me drowns He goes up the to God. He goes man God I've been praying to you every day my whole life and you wouldn't save my He goes, man, what did you want I sent you a neighbor? I sent you a boat. I sent you a helicopter right that's kind of what it felt like for me 

Rich Bennett 27:32
Right, 

Adi Jaffe 27:33
was stopped sign after stop sign at any point in time I could have just stopped But my thick head didn't get it until the SWAT team in the arrest and that's actually technically not even the last one But I got to thick head man 

Rich Bennett 27:46
All right I got a scary question for you because the motorcycle accident you're in the hospital in wheelchair Did they give you opioids for your pain? 

Adi Jaffe 27:59
They did they did I wasn't sober anyway, so man I I had one of the guys 

Who was selling for me at about four guys always out selling for me They would meet people on the street and do the actual deals cuz I was only doing the bigger deals at that point So I have one of those guys come to the hospital to bring me cash Because I needed to move cuz now in a wheelchair. I couldn't go up to my old apartment So I needed to move so he brought me cash for the deposit and he brought me meth and I would smoke my meth pipe under the blanket in my hospital bed 

Rich Bennett 28:35
Get out 

Adi Jaffe 28:36
Because I couldn't move. I mean, I would literally when nobody was watching lift the blanket and light up my meth pipe in the hospital man Wow Yeah, it was bad 

Rich Bennett 28:49
Totally 

Adi Jaffe 28:50
cow that 

Rich Bennett 28:51
I so the Swan team gets you they arrest you but you said that that one is not when you were facing 

Adi Jaffe 28:59
time 

Rich Bennett 28:59
prison 

Adi Jaffe 28:59
Well, so what happened was swap team arrest mean I go to Beverly Hills JL which is by the way one of the nights or jails in the world as you can probably imagine 

Rich Bennett 29:07
Well, because it says Beverly Hills of course 

Adi Jaffe 29:10
Yeah, I mean look you're still sleeping on concrete slabs just 

Rich Bennett 29:14
Right 

Adi Jaffe 29:14
so Sleeping on concrete flat. You know the breakfast the morning breakfast was like essentially the equivalent of like a sausage egg McMuffin You compare that to LA county jail when you're getting cold oatmeal. It's a little bit different right 

But it's still jail so I'm there for a couple of days. They hold me there, but then Swan team. I have a broken leg They don't let you take the crutches cuz the crutches are like a weapon So I got a broken leg I'm popping around on one leg and they moved me from the Beverly Hills JL to LA county jail But there's a hospital ward Think hospital ward. It's like the people had jumped out of windows and broke their legs or guys like me Who've been in accidents and injured themselves So everybody's pretty much an invalid and you kind of laying in bed. I was coming off meth So pretty much the only thing I did was just sleep 

Rich Bennett 30:05
right and 

Adi Jaffe 30:06
I 

Ended up having almost a million dollar bail Jesus 

He's added a lot of drugs in the house, but also I had a gun next to my bed. 

Rich Bennett 30:20
Oh, 

Adi Jaffe 30:21
shit So with the gun and everything else It was it was a big charge and so I stayed in jail for a week Telling my parents you're not paying a million dollars for me to get out jail Just wait I got my bail reduced to $50, 000 which meant like a $5, 000 bond 

Rich Bennett 30:38
That's a big difference 

Adi Jaffe 30:39
Yeah, big defense. And then I got out, but I got sent to rehab right away. And this is, I think, you know, for anybody who's still sticking with us with the story, the important part of this next piece is. We get to use the opportunities in our lives to make us see what's wrong so we can correct it. 

Rich Bennett 30:58
Yeah. 

Adi Jaffe 31:12
I've been around but the, you said, paying a forward. What I try to teach people in my work now is you can use any bad experience in your life as a starting point to change. You don't have to wait for rock bottom. You don't have to wait till you're drowning. 

Rich Bennett 31:28
Right. 

Adi Jaffe 31:29
What happened for me is I got out of jail after that week. And my lawyer said to me, he said, look, you're going to face 15 to 18 years in prison minimum. Okay, we're getting away from that. The only way we have a chance is if you clean up your act. I'm sitting here in front of 165 pounds, 5 foot 10. I was 124 pounds. So 

Rich Bennett 31:51
what? 

Adi Jaffe 31:52
Think of me right now 40 pounds less. I was like a skeleton, man. Yeah. I think my girlfriend's weight as much as I did at the time, right? Like it was, I was skin and bones. And so in black circles, I'm in my eyes because I wasn't sleeping at all. And my 

Rich Bennett 32:07
Right. 

Adi Jaffe 32:07
lawyer started me straight up. And we all, I think we all need somebody in our life that's going to talk to us straight up. And he said, which is my job half the time with my clients. He said, um, look, if you don't go to rehab, you don't clean up. I'll fight for you, but you're going to spend a decade or more in prison. 

Rich Bennett 32:22
Yeah. 

Adi Jaffe 32:23
And I was like, all right, still trying to figure out the shortcut, by the way, I was like, all right, let's go to rehab. Not because I knew I needed to clean up, but because I didn't want to spend 

Rich Bennett 32:31
years. 

Adi Jaffe 32:31
15 to 18 

Rich Bennett 32:31
Right. 

Adi Jaffe 32:32
Right. So I go to rehab, I play it off. I think I'm smarter than everybody else, and I can take shortcuts. And within a month, I started using again in rehab 

Rich Bennett 32:42
in rehab. In You 

Adi Jaffe 32:42
can make every day in rehab again. 

Oh, they ended up testing me one day. I tested positive for meth. They kicked me out that day. And this was the final stop sign for me. This was the final moment where I was like, Oh, crap. I'm going to dig myself a hole. I can't dig myself out of. 

Rich Bennett 33:06
Uh huh. 

Adi Jaffe 33:07
And I knew coming out of that rehab. I was now essentially homeless at a car that my parents helped me get because all the money, all this stuff, everything was taken away with the swap. 

Rich Bennett 33:16
Right. 

Adi Jaffe 33:17
So I had a used Honda Civic that my parents helped me get. And that was all I had in the world. I was like, Oh, crap. I'm now essentially homeless living in my car. Now I actually ended up sleeping on friends, couches and beds and stuff for the next two weeks, but all I did rich was look for the next solution. I now knew nobody's coming to save 

Rich Bennett 33:37
me. You guys. 

Adi Jaffe 33:39
I have to. I have to figure out how to get this thing done. And I wasn't clear how that was going to work. So in a conversation with my dad, I fessed up everything that happened, including the using in rehab. And he said, he was screaming at me, he said, what the hell do you expect us to do? And it was the first time in my life that I said, you know what you can't do anything. Stop. Don't work for me right now. I need to figure this out. And I spent two weeks using every day, by the way, but I spent two weeks researching the next place. And I found a sober living that is where I ended up getting sober. Stayed so I'm not sober now, by the way, but this was 25 years ago. But. I stayed sober there and that sober living for eight months, which I, I did everything they wanted me to do, including all the stuff that sounded stupid. I just started listening. I just started listening and I started having some humility. By the time I got to the judge at the end, he gave me instead of 13 years to 15 to 18, whatever he could have thrown the book at me. I ended up getting something called a seven plus one. So it was seven years plus one year. But the seven was suspended. And you essentially 

Rich Bennett 34:48
Oh, 

Adi Jaffe 34:48
said, look, I'm giving you a chance. I'm going to give you one year to prove yourself. If you go to jail and you come out clean and there's no problems, you'll never have to serve those seven years as long as you make it through probation. But if you get in trouble again, whatever you get in trouble for next time, you got seven more years on top of it. 

Rich Bennett 35:08
Oh, geez. 

Adi Jaffe 35:10
And so I figured out I've got to do whatever I've got to do to keep myself on the right end, because if I didn't, my life was over. 

My next arrest, I had nine felonies on my record. You know, in California, there's the whole three strike thing. 

Rich Bennett 35:31
I 

Adi Jaffe 35:33
mean, I could have been the next the next time I went down could have been for life. And and I wasn't willing to risk that 

Rich Bennett 35:42
damn nine felonies. 

Adi Jaffe 35:45
Nine felonies. Yeah, they get you for every drug and then side. 

Rich Bennett 35:49
Oh, 

Adi Jaffe 35:50
had possession with intent to sell of six different drugs and then manufacturing of three drugs. 

Rich Bennett 35:57
Holy cow. And all this is in your book 

Adi Jaffe 36:02
all that well all the SWAT teams stuff all the stuff is in the book. The book has a lot of stories from clients, too, not just my 

Rich Bennett 36:07
right 

Adi Jaffe 36:07
story. But you know, the book's point is I'm now 25 years, well, 22 years after getting out of jail. So 22 years ago, I got out and I've spent, I spent the first six to seven years after getting out. Well, first trying to get a job then go into school and trying to figure out what the hell happened to me, man. Like, how did I get some bad. And I've spent the 15 years since just trying to help other people who found themselves in similar situations. Get out faster. Um, because I don't believe we have to get that bad. But I don't believe anything will change in our lives until we own how bad things are. 

And I become willing 

Rich Bennett 36:52
to do 

Adi Jaffe 36:53
anything to get to the other side. 

Rich Bennett 36:56
Your, your, God, your story should be a movie. Your, let me rephrase that it can be a movie. Anybody approached you yet about writing a screenplay for it? 

Adi Jaffe 37:09
No, no, no, no. And I'm, I'm so busy with work right now. You know, it's funny. I don't know how you feel about this. You know, you said 700 some episodes of the podcast, right? 

Rich Bennett 37:19
Uh-huh. 

Adi Jaffe 37:21
I like doing the work a lot more than I like talking about the work if I'm honest. 

Rich Bennett 37:25
Right. 

Adi Jaffe 37:25
My favorite thing to do now is to sit with a client and help them, right? Like you're a podcaster. One of your favorite things to do probably is to just sit and have 

Rich Bennett 37:34
Sitting, 

Adi Jaffe 37:34
conversation. 

Rich Bennett 37:35
learning. Yeah. 

Adi Jaffe 37:36
Yeah. The rest of it is the stuff I have to do to do my work. And so, um, nobody's approached me up to it now. I talk. I use it in talks when I, when I have that. But it's my story taught me one thing more than anything else. And that's humility. 

Rich Bennett 37:53
Mm-hmm. 

Adi Jaffe 37:54
Because I came from a good family upper middle class. And if I can go that far down and be that far lost, um, who am I to judge anybody? 

Rich Bennett 38:04
Yeah. Explain to everybody what it is you actually do now. 

Adi Jaffe 38:10
Yeah. So I do two, two different things I, um, I primarily help coach and help people transform out of their own struggles. So sometimes that drug is an alcohol, but sometimes it's work addiction, sex addiction, gambling, right? People get themselves. 

Rich Bennett 38:25
And everybody's gone to the addiction. 

Adi Jaffe 38:28
Everybody's addicted to something. 

Rich Bennett 38:30
Mm-hmm. 

Adi Jaffe 38:30
And sometimes it's bad enough to ruin your life and ruin your family. So, that's my main gig. But what I started doing because of that is I started now going into organizations. Because a lot of people don't know this, but addiction and mental health struggles are the number one hidden cause for businesses. 

Rich Bennett 38:48
Oh, yeah. 

Adi Jaffe 38:50
It causes burnout. It causes turnover, but also not just from the addiction standpoint. Like everybody listening here has either been or has worked for. A nightmare box that screams that everybody, um, 

Rich Bennett 39:03
Mm-hmm. 

Adi Jaffe 39:04
can't, you know, you can't have a straight conversation with them or on the opposite side, they avoid conflict no matter what. So the 

Rich Bennett 39:11
Right. 

Adi Jaffe 39:11
company's dysfunctional or they've had a team with a member who's obviously struggling, but nobody knows how to deal with it. But I do now a lot of times I go to organizations or I and I give talks to help people understand how to wrap their heads around mental health and addiction issues so that they can make their work culture and their team work better. Um, have less retention issues lower burnout increased staff satisfaction and performance because when you can figure out how to talk to somebody and help them get their own life under control and make themselves happier. You build connection. People want to stay longer and it helps every group that I've worked in. 

Rich Bennett 39:56
Oh my god. I know you got to be busy as well now, especially with how generations have changed and especially since after covert when a lot of your businesses went to that. Was it daily pay? 

Adi Jaffe 40:10
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 40:11
Just the nightmare stories I hear of when I have business owners on here and people coming in for the interviews like wearing pajamas, bringing their mothers in they're mentally, there's something going on there. 

Adi Jaffe 40:26
Oh my gosh, and also COVID made it so easy to hide 

Rich Bennett 40:30
Yes. 

Adi Jaffe 40:30
right people. It was known I have my coffee mug right here. I swear I was coffee. I think it's empty at this point, but you know, it was no people would come sitting in a meeting like this. 

Rich Bennett 40:38
Uh-huh 

Adi Jaffe 40:40
and have a drink and them like they be drinking on the job. 

Rich Bennett 40:44
Yeah, 

Adi Jaffe 40:45
because there was no monitoring and everybody was anxious. Everybody was depressed. Everybody was having issues. So yeah, I think that's 100% true. COVID made it worse and also a lot of us we didn't talk much about your childhood here, which but look a lot of us have been through things. 

Rich Bennett 41:04
Oh yeah. 

Adi Jaffe 41:05
It's a lot of fun and it's really hard to see the fact that it's a lot younger and 

we still carry those with us. And so they bleed into our love life. They bleed into our parenting. They bleed into how we show up at work. And it doesn't have to be an addiction right avoiding conflict. can be compulsive. If you're one of those people who grew up where there was never arguments, your parents never fought or on the flip side, they were so violent and so aggressive in the way they fought. They you now are so scared of conflict. That's interfering with your life, but it's a habit that you have a hard time getting out of. And so in the book Unhook, I talk more broadly about how do we change bad habits instead of just how do we deal with addictions? 

Rich Bennett 41:51
All right, it's up to important. Is the book also an audio forum? 

Adi Jaffe 41:57
It is. Kindle audio, Kindle audio, art cover and I think the soft coverage is coming out in the next couple of weeks. 

Rich Bennett 42:06
Now, are you doing the audio? Do you that? Did you do the audio for it? 

Adi Jaffe 42:10
I did the whole audio. 

Rich Bennett 42:11
Good. 

Adi Jaffe 42:13
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 42:13
Good. Something you mentioned because you're good at organizations and companies and everything. What about schools? Because I'm thinking not mainly just for the students but for the teachers and the staff. 

Adi Jaffe 42:27
That's a great question. I haven't done that yet. I've been a bunch of colleges. I didn't do a 

Rich Bennett 42:32
Okay. 

Adi Jaffe 42:32
lot of college talks, 

but I haven't done lower level schools. I'm all in for anything. Look, to my mind to the that you're making, I think, bridge. The earlier we get people thinking about this, 

Rich Bennett 42:47
Quicker, we 

Adi Jaffe 42:48
the 

Rich Bennett 42:48
can 

Adi Jaffe 42:48
better. 

Rich Bennett 42:48
save them. Yep. 

Adi Jaffe 42:49
Yeah, and also students, look, I started drinking when I was 14, right? A lot of people started drinking with 12, 13, 14, 15 years old. 

Rich Bennett 42:57
Yeah. 

Adi Jaffe 42:58
And and not all they have for it. Some schools are better at this, but most of what they have for it is just don't 

Rich Bennett 43:06
do it. 

Adi Jaffe 43:07
And we know that's not 

Rich Bennett 43:08
Yeah. And work. 

Adi Jaffe 43:08
realistic. 

Rich Bennett 43:09
Yeah, we think about it. When you're a kid and your parents don't they tell you not to do something? What do you do? You do it 

Adi Jaffe 43:16
right out. 

Rich Bennett 43:17
Yeah. 

Adi Jaffe 43:18
Well, why? Let me try it out. 100. 

Rich Bennett 43:20
So I'll never forget you know, as a kid, the old soda cans, which you had to, had the, it wasn't the pop top, I figured what you call 

Adi Jaffe 43:30
opener, 

Rich Bennett 43:30
it, 

Adi Jaffe 43:31
that 

Rich Bennett 43:31
like the 

Adi Jaffe 43:31
tab that 

Rich Bennett 43:31
can 

Adi Jaffe 43:31
you pulled off. 

Rich Bennett 43:32
Yeah. And I could be asking my mother for a drink for she wouldn't give me a drink. And then she finally this, she goes, but don't stick your finger in the can. So what I do, I stick my thumb in the can and it got stuck. And they couldn't get it out. 

Adi Jaffe 43:45
No. 

Rich Bennett 43:46
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, my, I was, 

Adi Jaffe 43:49
those things were sharp too. 

Rich Bennett 43:51
Oh, yeah. I mean, I was bad. My parents tell me not to do something. I did it. I was like, you remember to show modern family. 

Adi Jaffe 43:58
So 

Rich Bennett 43:58
God. 

Adi Jaffe 43:58
of course. 

Rich Bennett 43:58
And Luke, 

I was like, I was in one stick in my head between the railings 

Adi Jaffe 44:05
Oh, my 

Rich Bennett 44:06
and give my head stuck it all that. 

Adi Jaffe 44:09
Do you have your own kids? 

Rich Bennett 44:11
Yes. Yeah. I have an older son and older daughter. And, uh, 

Adi Jaffe 44:14
yeah, you know, it's really interesting after everything we just talked about this to go through this with my own kids now. 

Rich Bennett 44:22
Yeah. 

Adi Jaffe 44:22
Cause my oldest are 15, 13 now. So they're starting to go through that age. hmm. 

Rich Bennett 44:26
Oh, 

Adi Jaffe 44:27
And to the point that you're making, Rich, I told my kid my 13 year old is kind of the more trouble maker, but they both, you know, their teenagers. 

Rich Bennett 44:33
mm 

Adi Jaffe 44:34
Um, I, I told them both I said, look, I would be delusional. If I thought for a second, you're going to get out of your teenage youth, you know, junior high school without experimenting with things. yeah. 

Rich Bennett 44:47
Oh, 

Adi Jaffe 44:47
I said, I said, the only thing I want you to know is just just come to us and talk to us about it. And don't hide it from us. Because in my family, you really couldn't talk about those things and didn't make the experimentation better. It's just meant that if I got in the trouble, or I thought I would get in the trouble, I would hide and I learned to hide. That's what I learned to do. 

Rich Bennett 45:07
Yeah. 

Adi Jaffe 45:07
And when you learn to hide, you have to lie to yourself and you have to lie to everybody around you. And that doesn't feel good. And it doesn't serve you. And it doesn't serve anybody else. 

Rich Bennett 45:16
Yeah, that's one thing that... Well, number one, you definitely don't want to lie to yourself. I mean, you don't want to lie to others. But you definitely don't want to lie to yourself. Because and you see this a lot, a lot of people are lying to themselves. They don't respect themselves. And something that I've always said, they don't even like themselves. 

Adi Jaffe 45:34
And 

Rich Bennett 45:35
I think when you turn all that around, you start, you, you have to know yourself You know, don't put a... I want to say like a band-aid on it, you know, because let's face it, when you're drinking, you're using drugs, that's all you're doing. You're putting a band-aid, your mask in something else deep inside. 

Adi Jaffe 45:54
Yep. 

Rich Bennett 45:55
It doesn't work. It definitely doesn't 

Adi Jaffe 45:57
Yeah, 

Rich Bennett 45:58
work. 

Adi Jaffe 45:58
and you're masking it, which means you're not dealing with it. 

Rich Bennett 46:02
Right. 

Adi Jaffe 46:03
And not dealing with it is a best going to keep it as terrible. But it's likely just going to keep getting worse, right? Like, yeah, I give an example. This is a really good example. A work, I'll give a work example, because we were just talking about work. If there's somebody toxic at your work environment and you're the boss. or your manager and you don't do anything about it because you avoid it because you've been avoiding conflict your whole life and you just don't like dealing with it and you just hope that it'll get better or you hope they'll screw up badly enough and you'll just be able to fire them but it's hard to fire them because they're aggressive and violent and so you don't really want to step in the middle of the line of fire. 

Rich Bennett 46:42
Right. 

Adi Jaffe 46:44
Not only that not helping you become better at being a manager and knowing how to deal with people which is if you're a manager if you lead people you have to know how to deal with conflict 

Rich Bennett 46:56
is 

Adi Jaffe 46:56
and if you don't have that it's not going to get better just because you hope that it does. Number one. Number two that person's behavior is going to keep getting worse because it's unchecked. Now they have their own issues but if you don't learn how to deal with them they're not going to get better and the problem about it is it's going to ruin your entire rest of your team because now everybody else is burnt out nobody wants to show up to work they're all scared 

Rich Bennett 47:21
and they're driving down around 

Adi Jaffe 47:23
and they're looking to use so now the culture suffers the employee that you're not getting rid of or not retraining suffers and you suffer and everybody's doing worse because you're not stepping up and I think in a way that's not all that different than the kind of addictive compulsive stuff I was talking about before 

things don't get better. I've started drinking and smoking a lot of weed because it was there and it helped me deal with my social anxiety and it made it easier to talk to girls etc but the problem is I never learn how to do those things without alcohol and drugs until I was in my late 20s early 30s because I was high time. 

Rich Bennett 48:03
Yeah, I was the same way 

Adi Jaffe 48:06
yeah 

Rich Bennett 48:06
same way I mean I I I was very shy in school 

Adi Jaffe 48:10
yeah 

Rich Bennett 48:11
and I around girls I should say but yeah 

Adi Jaffe 48:15
yeah 

Rich Bennett 48:16
I feel like felt like Raj from what was the show big bang theory remember 

Adi Jaffe 48:24
I 

Rich Bennett 48:25
he could he could he could only talk to women after he had a drink and then he wouldn't shut up. 

Adi Jaffe 48:30
Right totally. But 

Rich Bennett 48:33
yeah it's the same way nowadays it's like yeah and the scary thing is as we got older you know especially when I was working in the clubs and everything there's times that I was so messed up I don't even remember what to how I said to people 

Adi Jaffe 48:52
you 

Rich Bennett 48:54
know and or what I did which is even scarier. 

Adi Jaffe 49:00
Well and that's the thing right so you hide you mask like you said right which is a version of lying and so then either it works because it removes the anxiety while you're in it but then the anxiety comes right back when the alcohol and drugs are out of your system so you you haven't learned how to live better you just learn how to live while intoxicated 

Rich Bennett 49:21
right 

Adi Jaffe 49:22
or you embarrass yourself even more because you do something stupid and a brown out or a blackout and now you feel even worse about your skills in socializing with others so you need to drink more and then we haven't talked about this a lot but just like any habit tolerance comes in and so next thing you know you do more of the drinking or you do more of the by the way workaholism to me is the same kind of thing right if you don't know how to deal with conflicts in your life you just work harder which looks good to everybody else but I you know how many clients I've dealt with that are really successful but have destroyed their marriage and their family because of their success so I 

Rich Bennett 50:02
play out 

Adi Jaffe 50:02
think this 

Rich Bennett 50:03
yeah 

Adi Jaffe 50:03
a lot of scenarios 

Rich Bennett 50:06
yeah I mean I it's something my father always told me and he well he was a steel worker so he was always working um but he always told me he said it doesn't you can make all the money in the world but if you're not happy at your job you're not having fun it's time to find another job because something more important than that is family and friends and you've got to be able to spend the time with him. Green it what I do now it seems like I work I him I work more than what I did before but I work from home so it's easy for me to take it with my wife and daughter or home it's easy for me to take them breaks and go up there spend spend dinner with them you know whatever and yeah so come now my son will come everyone's out because they're they're both older my sons in his 30s my daughter just 

Adi Jaffe 50:55
got it. 

Rich Bennett 50:55
Just turn 24 she was one of those she was in the COVID graduation class so 2020 and 

Adi Jaffe 51:03
they missed they missed like two years of school right? 

Rich Bennett 51:05
yeah oh my goodness I saw a study said the the kids that were in school during COVID lost like three three years of their social life. 

Adi Jaffe 51:17
Wow 

Rich Bennett 51:18
and it's it's but you look at them and yeah that's probably probably right or something something very important. How did people first of all purchase the books? Where can they purchase the books? And how did they get in touch with you to you come into our business. 

Adi Jaffe 51:36
Yeah, I love it. So the books are all over Amazon, Barnes and Noble, anywhere you buy books. I'm one of my favorite things I see is when somebody I know or somebody I don't know shares the picture of the book at a store or library that they sell. So available everywhere, it's on Amazon. I think the hardcover because the softcover is coming out, I think the hardcover is on sale right now in a pretty meaningful... 

Rich Bennett 51:56
Okay. 

Adi Jaffe 51:57
So good time to get the hardcover. I will be for anybody listening, you know from the middle of the country somewhere. I'm going to speaking tour here and there, so in December, I'm going to be in Oklahoma speaking to their mental health, the state mental health community. But I do talks around the country, so that's one way to connect. And then the other one is just my website, a djaffy.com, adi. fa.com. Feel free to connect anywhere. I'm all over social media as @doctordradjaffy. That's where I'm on LinkedIn, on Instagram, on Twitter, on all the things. 

Rich Bennett 52:34
All right. Something on your website, I saw which is pretty damn cool, but I can't figure out where to buy them. Explain to hashtag #Fucksheen. 

Adi Jaffe 52:43
So that comes out of my TEDx Talk. I had one big TEDx Talk at UCLA and it's like half a million people have seen it. So one of the people remembered most out of that is @Fucksheen. Because what I say is look, I'm not an addict, I talk about my ADHD too. So I say I'm not an addict, I'm not an ADHD supper. I'm 

Rich Bennett 53:07
a 

Adi Jaffe 53:08
capable human being who is different than some others, and I expect success for myself, not failure, @Fucksheen. And so everybody remembers that phrase from it. And I think the rallying cry to the point that we may look, I'm now really successful. I make good money. Got my PhD from UCLA, I own a company, I consult with big firms. I could hide the addiction part of my life. I could hide the jail. 

Rich Bennett 53:38
Yeah. 

Adi Jaffe 53:39
Well, the point I make to people is exactly that. If I start hiding those things, then I'm hiding who I am. And that can become shame over time, because what you're saying to yourself when you feel like you have to hide parts of yourself, is that you're not enough. And so @Fucksheen comes out of this concept of no matter where you are right now, shame is not going to lead you towards a better future outcome. 

Rich Bennett 54:05
Something else with that, and I have to commend you for this and a lot of the people I talk to, actually everybody I've talked to that's that's in recovery. It seems that and you're starting to see more and more people start to talk about their addiction or their mental health problems or whatever. And it feels like, and I want you to take on this, I'm sure it's happening with you, too. But they said, and some of them, it was the first time I ever talked about when they came on the show, but they said it felt like a ton of bricks being lifted off their shoulders. And they felt so much better just being able to tell their story. 

Adi Jaffe 54:48
Yes, I have the exact same experience and I just want to mention to anybody who's thinking about this right now, as Rich is saying this, there will be a lot of people who will have the opposite opinion. And look, I don't have a monopoly on truth. So those other people could be right. I'm just letting you know, I was told many times to not share my history because it would taint people's minds about who I am. And I just decided to go this way. And those people weren't wrong. I've lost opportunities. I've been turned away from things because of my past. Certainly, but I've also gained an open doors and opportunities. And so I would rather gain the opportunities that know me fully and understand who I am in my history than gain the opportunities that I did because people don't know about my past. And that's my own choice. You get to make your 

Rich Bennett 55:40
up. Plus, I mean, think about it because of that, you're helping a mess load of people. 

Adi Jaffe 55:47
I hope so. 

Rich Bennett 55:47
Well, oh, you are. You're, you're making a difference. You are making a difference. All right, so before I get to my last question, is there anything you would like to add? 

Adi Jaffe 55:57
No, I just, you just said it there in the end. I'll just double click on it. Part of the reason I share my story and the story of a of different clients, that's what you read in my books, is so that you know as you're reading it, that no matter how far down you are, no matter how bad things are, you can turn things around and get to a life that is incredible, not just a life that is okay and less painful, but a life that is incredible. 

Rich Bennett 56:20
If you ever make it out to Maryland, look me up because I have got to introduce you to Wendy who co-hosts with me, who runs that nonprofit I was talking about, Read Against. 

Adi Jaffe 56:32
Heck yeah, my wife is from DC and in Central Maryland, like like Boonsboro, 

Rich Bennett 56:40
Oh, 

Adi Jaffe 56:40
agres. 

Rich Bennett 56:40
from Nora Roberts area. 

Adi Jaffe 56:44
exactly. She used to 

Rich Bennett 56:44
Yeah, 

Adi Jaffe 56:44
work in Nora Roberts bookstore. 

Rich Bennett 56:46
No way. 

Adi Jaffe 56:47
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. 

Rich Bennett 56:49
Oh, 

Adi Jaffe 56:50
we do make it out there quite a bit. 

Rich Bennett 56:52
We my wife and I went out there for our anniversary one year and stayed that what's it called Boonsboro in. 

Adi Jaffe 56:59
Yep. 

Rich Bennett 57:00
Oh my god, I fell in love with that place. And the day that we were leaving, we went downstairs, they had the breakfast and everything. I was the only guy there. I'm surrounded by all these all these women sitting down. What they're talking about this woman who was up in the library and everything, I'm like, well, apparently, Nora Roberts wrote about it in her trilogy book. It's a spirit that's up there waiting for her fiancé to come back from Antietam. 

Adi Jaffe 57:28
There you go. 

Rich Bennett 57:29
But this one lady said, yeah, my husband doesn't come here anymore because he was here and he was sitting in the library by himself and the door closed. 

Adi Jaffe 57:37
No, 

Rich Bennett 57:38
I was like, are you kidding me? Oh, she knows why I said. Okay, I told my wife, I said, we gotta go back here and I want to bring my recording equipment. I want to sit in the library by myself. I want to talk to her. 

Adi Jaffe 57:49
That's awesome. I love it. There you go. That's how you know you're in the right line of work. 

Rich Bennett 57:53
Oh, that place is beautiful though. All right, so this, I don't know what the question is going to be. So I need you to pick a number between one and 100. 

23 23 why 23? 

Adi Jaffe 58:10
And actually, this just came out of me. When I moved to Chicago, I became a huge Michael Jordan fan. So Michael Jordan's number. 

Rich Bennett 58:18
You can't argue that. And this is a good question. What's a part of yourself that you're still exploring or trying to understand? 

Adi Jaffe 58:28
Oh, man, I'm doing it right now. The parent, the dad side of me. Like I said, my dad was not around growing up. So I'm still making it up. I'm almost 50 years old. I'm still trying to figure out how to be a dad. So that's that's the part easy entrance. 

Rich Bennett 58:41
It's a blast though, man. 

Adi Jaffe 58:43
It is. It is. 

Rich Bennett 58:44
It's 

Adi Jaffe 58:44
It's challenging. 

Rich Bennett 58:45
a lot of work though. Yes. 

Adi Jaffe 58:46
It's a lot of work. And especially if you're trying to turn things around from what they were like for you growing up, for sure. 

Rich Bennett 58:51
You said two kids, right? 

Adi Jaffe 58:54
Well, three total kids, two teenagers and a seven year old little girl. 

Rich Bennett 58:58
Uh-oh. 

Adi Jaffe 58:59
No, she's great. She's the love of my life. 

Rich Bennett 59:02
Yeah, that's the scary thing because 

Adi Jaffe 59:07
they'll get weird at 

Rich Bennett 59:08
teenage. Oh, no. When they get older, it's like, I always told my daughter, I said, If a boy, you want to date, the boy's got to come here and age with my permission. 

Adi Jaffe 59:19
Hey, 

Rich Bennett 59:20
She's 

Adi Jaffe 59:20
man of 

Rich Bennett 59:20
like, 

Adi Jaffe 59:20
that. 

Rich Bennett 59:20
Dad, they don't do that anymore. I said, I don't care. 

Adi Jaffe 59:22
They do. They do here. 

Rich Bennett 59:24
That's right. 

Adi Jaffe 59:24
Did you hear that? 

Rich Bennett 59:25
That's right. That's like, they too. Um, well, I think I want to thank you so much. Look, the door is open because I know there's a lot we 

Adi Jaffe 59:34
talk 

Rich Bennett 59:34
didn't about. And I would love to have you on again. 

Adi Jaffe 59:39
can 

Rich Bennett 59:39
And hopefully I 

Adi Jaffe 59:39
maybe next time I'll do it in 

Rich Bennett 59:40
With 

Adi Jaffe 59:40
person. 

Rich Bennett 59:41
us. That works for me. Hey, maybe we'll do it at Boonsboro. 

Adi Jaffe 59:46
at that in the attic. I love it. I 

Rich Bennett 59:49
Look 

Adi Jaffe 59:49
really, really appreciate the time, Rich. Thank you so much. 

Rich Bennett 59:52
Oh, thank you. Take care. 

Adi Jaffe 59:54
Yeah, we'll talk soon. 

Rich Bennett 59:55
Thank you for listening to The Conversations with Rich Bennett. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and learned something from it as I did. If you'd like to hear more conversations like this, be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode. And if you have a moment, I'd love it if you can leave a review. It helps us reach more listeners and share more incredible stories. Don't forget to connect with us on media or visit our website at conversationswithrichbent.com for updates, giveaways and more. Until next time, take care, be kind and keep the conversations going. You know, it takes a lot to put a podcast together. And my sponsors help add a lot, but I also have some supporters that actually help me when it comes to the editing software, the hosting and so forth. There's a lot that goes into putting this together. So I want to thank them and if you can please, please visit their websites, visit their businesses, support them however you can. So please visit the following. Full Full circle boards, nobody does charcuterie like full circle boards, visit them at fullcircleboards.com. Sincerely, Sincerely Sincerely, Sawyer photography, live in the moment, they'll capture it. Visit them at sincerelysoyer.com. The Jopetown Lions Club, serving the community since 1965. Visit them at JopetownLionsClub. org. And don't forget the E at the end of "Japital" because they're extraordinary.