Working on the trading floor I witnessed booze and drugs destroy many young people.
I’m not talking about destroying a career or ending a marriage. That usually happened along the way for these people. These people ended up dying, dying young.
The money starts rolling in and the market closes at two o’clock in the afternoon. Some of these guys had two or three cocktails in them by 2:15 and a couple lines of coke right behind.
Gone too soon….
I’m talking thirty five year olds, forty year olds. I had a guy that would pound two Bloody Mary’s down at Ceres before the open. We opened at 7:20 in the morning.
This guy would get to his desk ripped out of his mind and fling thousand lots into the pit. A huge bank trusted this guy to operate millions of dollars everyday. Nobody knew at first because he was a functional drunk.
One day he was running late for the open and missed his morning drinks. His hands were trembling and he could barely talk. He asked me to send a clerk down to Ceres and get him a to go cocktail.
I fucking did it because this guy gave my trading group $200,000 of business a month. I enabled this one guy and he died at forty eight years old.
That’s just one story.
I have a classmate from high school that has walked this path of pain since our high school days. A kind hearted kid who can’t shake the grip of addiction and depression.
This troubled man reached out on a group chat yesterday. He does this occasionally when he’s dragging along the bottom.
This is a group of fifteen or twenty people that were in our graduating class. I think it was put together for a class reunion.
A group of people from my high school so you know they received the straight F’s….
FOUNDATION: FAITH, FAMILY and FRIENDS….
So this poor bastard is in the right place to reach out. He has our support. We are all with him as we’ve been since the 1980’s.
I think this guy is a regular reader of the Chalkboard.
Since he hasn’t listened to any advice through these last few years… here it is for the last time.
I’m going to tell my old friend, my classmate what I didn’t tell my colleague, my customer on the trading floor. The one who died at forty eight.
HEY…… we have told you countless times that we love you. We have told you we will help you!
You don’t listen….
You don’t listen because you don’t know how to love yourself and you can’t seem to help yourself.
We can’t help you until you start loving yourself.
You are so lucky that you’ve made it into your mid fifties. I’ll be honest, if you see sixty I’ll run naked down State Street.
You get your shit together and I’ll put on my Speedo and my “middle aged dad” New Balance gym shoes and jog from Lake Street down to VanBuren just for you.
It would be painful to lose you Brother… we are tired of watching you take this path.
Don’t give up to the pain and grief. You have thirty solid years of life to live…..
LIVE IT BROTHER!
Reach up from the valley and climb up this steep mountain of glory. Each step will strengthen your foundation and build back your faith. You will see the love of your family. You will find joy in those friends that have loved you since childhood.
John Wagner doesn’t want you to join him on these conditions. Wags doesn’t want you to come to heaven. He wants to see you do what he couldn’t do. GROW OLD!
How about Matt Debono? You think he wanted to die before he was twenty? Fuck no he didn’t! You’ve been given the gift of a long life that Matt didn’t receive. Live for Matt Debono. Run through the meadows that he didn’t get to run.
Your grandfather, the strongest man from Indianapolis. He wants you to become strong and pick yourself off the floor. Show him you can lift the weight.
Only you can end this shitshow you’ve put yourself in.
We have a big reunion next year. Set a goal to finally fix yourself and be clean and on the road to recovery when the Class of ‘84 unites.
You can do this Brother… it must start with you.
We have a full moon this weekend. Look at it with sober eyes and never see another full moon drunken ever again!
This is the Full Moon Challenge… this is the rest of your life old friend.
