By late 2021, I was at the end of my rope. I was living a life of “professional survival,” but I was running out of places to hide.
I remember being at the Tropicana in Atlantic City. I had been up for four days straight, a ghost drifting through the neon lights. I looked down at a slot machine and saw $400 just sitting there—someone had left it behind. In my old life, I thought that was a “win.” I took it, cashed it out, and stayed in the building. But that $400 was a trap. It kept me in the very place where the law finally caught up to me.
I ended up on the run, headed toward Virginia. I was high, I was exhausted, and I was behind the wheel on Route 80. I totaled the car, hitting two concrete barriers and a tractor-trailer. I should have been dead, but my instinct was still to run. I grabbed what I had and headed up a mountain, hiding in a ditch.
I watched six cops and a K-9 unit closing in. When that German Shepherd found me and ripped me out of that ditch, I thought my life was over. I spent ten days in a Roanoke, Virginia jail, waiting for New Jersey to come to get me.
At the time, I blamed the dog, the cops, and the car. But today, I see that ditch was the place where the “running” finally had to stop. I was 45 years old, and I was finally tired enough to listen.
Sometimes, hitting a dead end is the only way to realize you’ve been driving in the wrong direction. Have you ever had a “lucky” moment turn into the wake-up call you actually needed? 👇