Paul Scudo had a flashy, high-powered hotel job -- and behind the scenes, he had a longtime drug addiction. When he couldn't hide it anymore, things blew up in his face. But he managed to use his newfound wisdom to help some of the most troubled drug addicts in Colorado get their lives back on track.
Transcript
Maureen:
This is Maureen in Denver, and I want to share how inspiring and compelling “Back from Broken” is. You know, I see people dear to me, who could be so much happier. I think if they weren't dealing with whatever issues they have, and this is anything from alcoholism to social anxiety, it's heartbreaking to see gifts that people have and for them to not be able to use those gifts, enjoy those gifts, enjoy their life. There's very often some point in our lives that can drag us down, that can pose huge challenges, whatever it might be. My message to Vic is gratitude for creating this podcast without fail. Any story that I listened to, I ended up in tears, good ones. “Back from Broken” gave me that sense that there are ways out of some of the biggest challenges that we face.
Vic Vela:
Well, that was really incredible. What Maureen said resonated with me so much. In recovery we can turn ourselves around and change our ways of thinking. And so to hear Maureen say something like that, I think she hit it right on the head. Hope and gratitude and turning your life around and facing challenges — that's exactly why we're making this show. Since we launched in February, we've gotten a lot of messages just like this one. And your response has been beyond what I could have ever imagined. Seriously. Sharing these kinds of stories is what helped me in my own recovery. And I knew it was going to help others. And it sounds like it has. So if you sent us a note, thank you.
And I bring all of this up because today's interview is what got this show started. You see, a year and a half ago, we dreamed up a pilot of this podcast. And we wanted to talk to someone who had seen some very hard times and fought his way back and had some wisdom to share with other people facing challenges, someone who could tell a good story. So today I introduce you to Paul Scudo. His journey helped inspire this show.
I'm Vic Vela. I'm a journalist, a storyteller and a recovering drug addict. And this is “Back from Broken” from Colorado Public Radio. Stories about the highest highs, the darkest moments and what it takes to make a comeback.
Vic Vela:
Someone offer you water. Do you want some water?
Paul Scudo:
I believe that a, that one would be great.
Vic Vela:
Paul Scudo almost struts when he walks into the room, but in a friendly, laid back sort of way. After all, he's wearing a Hawaiian-looking shirt. Then we start talking about the past. In 1992, Paul was a student at Michigan State and his career was already off to a great start. He took a job at the performing arts center on campus, where he met Yo-Yo Ma when the cellist played a concert there. He worked a presidential debate in 1992 and rubbed shoulders with the Bush, Clinton and Perot campaigns. It was a thrill for him. You see, this wasn't just a part-time gig. He fell in love with the work.
Paul Scudo:
This industry was professional. I had a job where I wore a suit, but I was still kind of doing that blue collar, work hard thing, but you're also serving these famous people. I always worked at this level of service that was, it was five-star service. So who I was meeting and rubbing elbows with were all of these very prominent, important individuals. So that was exciting to be doing that, to be able to walk in those circles. And we were always moving at light speed in the work we were doing.
Vic Vela:
It checked a lot of boxes for you.
Paul Scudo:
It did.
Vic Vela:
But Paul had a big secret: He'd battled drug addiction for a few years. His parents had actually sent him to rehab when his drinking hurt his grades, but he didn't really think he had a problem heading into rehab. He didn't think he had a problem when he left. When he got out, he just kept drinking. And around the time he started working in the service industry, he started to dabble in cocaine. That was my drug of choice too — well, that, and a lot of other drugs. I asked Paul to talk about what it was like for him the first time he took cocaine.
Paul Scudo:
For me, it was this rush of energy from a physical standpoint, and this rush of euphoria from a mental or emotional standpoint. It was a pleasure unlike any other feeling that I had gotten, whether it be from food or any of the other substances or sex or anything else that produces the endorphins that create pleasure.
Vic Vela:
And it was like that from the very first time you did it?
Paul Scudo:
It was. So now I find myself doing these things that are extremely meaningful and memorable. I felt like my drug and alcohol use was not a problem for me.
Vic Vela:
Because you're surrounding yourself with these important people.
Paul Scudo:
Correct.
Vic Vela:
The evidence is that I just served Yo-Yo Ma lunch; I can't have a problem. That's a big deal.
Paul Scudo:
The problem wasn't even a thought. My brain subconsciously just turned off the idea that there could be a problem.
Vic Vela:
Soon Paul finished college. He quickly moved up the ladder in the hospitality business.
Paul Scudo:
Because I love the industry so much, I was able to do very, very well. Moved up — I won't name any of the corporations, but five-star hotel corporations — was able to get promoted, transferred around the country, was kind of the golden boy and moved from the actual food service to more of the sales and marketing, and ultimately had very high positions for major hotel corporations.
Vic Vela:
What did that success look like? Nice suits, travel, first class…
Paul Scudo:
Yep, great office, managing a number of people, overseeing a number of hotels and to be able to have achieved that, again, while drinking and using the entire time, made me feel like I never had a problem. But it was — having the power, decision-making — it was something that stroked my ego immensely.
Vic Vela:
Paul, how did you know you had made it in your career?
Paul Scudo:
I think for me, it was the day that I walked into the first office that had windows and a big mahogany desk with leather chairs and a credenza. And I looked out onto these beautiful grounds. I had a leather blotter. All these things you see in the movies or television for the rich guy that has the nice office, they were telling me this was my office.
Vic Vela:
And Paul's personal life was great. He got married. He and his wife bought a home and settled in Denver. And he had a good time on nights and weekends drinking and using cocaine with friends until one day when one of the people Paul used drugs with told his wife he thought Paul had a problem. So his wife confronted him.
Paul Scudo:
It was a Saturday morning. And I woke up to her sitting on the bed saying, “I want a divorce.”
Vic Vela:
Just like that.
Paul Scudo:
Yep. And I said, “Why?” She said, “Because I know you've been doing cocaine. I know that's where you've been, at the bars, who knows what else you're doing there. And I can't live this kind of life. And the primary reason is not the drug itself, but that you've been dishonest with me for years.” It was almost a relief, Vic. For folks that suffer from the disease of addiction, one of the biggest stressors is the hiding and the lying and the manipulating and the trying to remember to whom you've told what.
Vic Vela:
So Paul's life actually got a little easier for awhile.
Paul Scudo:
Until the day that I got arrested. And that was the beginning of the end.
Vic Vela:
Let's talk about that. What day was that?
Paul Scudo:
So I was coming home from work. And at this point I was able to use at the pace that I wanted to use, because I didn't have to hide it from my wife, but every day, as soon as I left work, I would go and pick up. And I was in a rush to get home to use, and I rolled through a stop sign and I was pulled over. I was driving a Jeep Grand Cherokee. I'm in my nice car, in my nice neighborhood, wearing my nice suit. The policeman is extremely polite. He steps up and says, “Mr. Scudo, you rolled through that stop sign. Let me check your license, insurance, registration, and I'll get you a warning, and I'll let you be on your way.” And so I pulled out my wallet very quickly because I was nervous. The drugs were in my wallet. They fell out onto my lap.
Vic Vela:
What did it feel like having those handcuffs slapped on you?
Paul Scudo:
Uncomfortable physically, uncomfortable psychologically, humiliating, because I was always an individual that was “better than.”
Vic Vela:
What do you mean by that, “better than”?
Paul Scudo:
Many people do this and they don't even recognize that they're doing it. They kind of classify themselves with respect to other people. And I was not the type of person that would ever get arrested for drugs. I was better than that. I was bailed out the next morning. I went home, sat with my sister who had bailed me out, made up this elaborate lie and told the story and began fabricating what was to be a four-year story while I was in drug court.
Vic Vela:
Let's talk about drug court. It's different. It works different than anything else in the criminal justice system, right? How does drug court work?
Paul Scudo:
The goal is to not have people in jail. The goal is to not have people with a criminal record that's going to preclude them from participating in society — getting an apartment, getting a job, that sort of thing. And so all I had to do were follow a few simple conditions.
Vic Vela:
It's a golden opportunity.
Paul Scudo:
Absolutely.
Vic Vela:
And a lot of people don't know that drug court can help people get clean without getting them caught up in a never-ending cycle in the criminal justice system. How'd you do in drug court?
Paul Scudo:
I did poorly, because by this point I could not stop drinking and using. And then when I would show up in court, I was showing up in a suit. I could speak very eloquently, and they were extremely patient with me. But every time I was sentenced to a couple of days in jail.
Vic Vela:
You still believed that you were a successful person who didn't belong there.
Paul Scudo:
Correct.
Vic Vela:
But at some point, did the judge finally have enough of you and your excuses?
Paul Scudo:
So, yes, they were extremely patient with me. They kept me in drug court for four years. I went to jail every month for two days, for four years.
Vic Vela:
That's a patient judge.
Paul Scudo:
He was an extremely patient judge. And he would also, so as I would not lose my job, allow me to do my jail time on the weekend. So I would come back on a Friday afternoon, changed out of my suit into comfortable clothing, my jail clothes, I called them. And they'd put me in jail for the weekend. I'd get out Monday at 2:00 a.m. in the morning, go home, shower up, go to work. I would tell my friends that I was away for the weekend on a business trip and was able to maintain this lie for four years. After four years, the judge finally said, “Mr. Scudo, this is obviously not working for you. We're revoking your deferred judgment. You now have a felony on your record and you're going to jail for six months.” And that's when I lost my job.
Vic Vela:
Heading into that court hearing, did you think that was going to happen?
Paul Scudo:
I did not. And that's the very deceiving thing about this, is that anyone with any modicum of self-awareness would say, what am I doing? But I had lost the ability to think in that manner.
Vic Vela:
No more nights and weekends. He'd lost a great job and now had a felony on his record, which made finding another job much harder. But when he got out, he just kept using. He burned through thousands in savings and started to get warnings from creditors and his mortgage company.
Paul Scudo:
Phone calls, letters, all types of reminders…
Vic Vela:
… that went ignored. What happened with your mortgage?
Paul Scudo:
So eventually I was evicted from the home. That was probably one of the more traumatic experiences of my life. I was forced to watch all of my possessions thrown into a roll-off dumpster and then towed away. And for me it was not about the material or the financial things that I lost — the leather couch, the plasma TV, the Calphalon cook set. It was about the sentimental things that I had had with me for most of my life. One of the things that to this day I will never forget is I did a finger painting of a snowflake in kindergarten. I brought it home to my parents and they framed it, and it was in their home for all of their life. And when they sold their home and retired, they gave me this finger painting and it was in every one of my homes and that was thrown away. It was as if my history and my emotions had been ripped away, thrown in a dumpster and driven off to the landfill.
Vic Vela:
Paul was homeless and in debt. His family down in Florida took him in, but he just kept using. And pretty soon he was kicked out of their house. And now Paul was really living on the streets. He slept behind some dumpsters next to a strip mall in Florida.
Paul Scudo:
And I would ask myself, how did I get to this place? And never did it once occur to me to think that it was a drug and alcohol problem. It was my depression. It was my ex-wife. It was my employers. It was the police.
Vic Vela:
All these things conspiring against you.
Paul Scudo:
To some degree, yes. But these were the reasons I was sleeping on the ground. Not me, my choices, my actions, my behavior, and ultimately the disease of addiction. That did not occur to me.
Vic Vela:
Paul, what did you eat? How did you eat?
Paul Scudo:
Einstein's Bagels was probably my primary diet for the majority of that time, because they would take the day old bagels, they would bag them up, and they would throw them in the dumpster. So pulling it out of the dumpster was safe. And so I would open this bag and I would stuff my backpack with bagels. And that's how I existed.
The other daily exercise that I engaged in was I would walk up and down the streets that had meters and I would collect the change that people had dropped. And the key number was $3.58 because at $3.58, I had enough money to get a pint of vodka. I would then walk to the liquor store and buy my pint, by then it was about two o'clock. I would go back to the Einstein's Bagels and wait for them to drop the bagels between two and three. And then I would begin drinking, and I would drink until I blacked out and passed out.
Vic Vela:
How Paul woke up — after this break.
Paul had been living on the streets in Florida for months when he caught a lucky break: he went to the public library to check his messages on the computer. One was from an old friend in Denver who wanted to help Paul stop using. He sent him money for a bus ticket and invited Paul to stay with him. So Paul moved back to Colorado, but he continued to use drugs, usually when he was out of the house, away from his friend.
Paul Scudo:
One evening it was about 2:15 in the morning. I had a bag of cocaine and a half a bottle of vodka. And I was sitting in this car and up behind me pulls a Denver police officer and turns on the lights. So very quickly it goes through my mind that I have no license, no registration, no insurance, and I'm a convicted felon for the possession of narcotics. I've got to find a way to get out of this. So I wait until the police officer walks up to the car and taps on the window, and I start the car and I speed away. And this begins a high-speed chase.
It was like a television show. I'm looking in the rear view mirror and I'm picking up police cars as the officer obviously has called this in and other officers are now joining the chase. And I will always attribute this to a spiritual experience because I have no other explanation for it. I turned quickly down a side street and then quickly into an alley, sped down the alley, and then there was an open garage. I pulled the car into the garage, got out of the car, ran down the alley, hopped a fence and got underneath a deck of a home that had about a one-and-a-half-foot clearance. It is freezing cold and I am lying under this deck, hiding from the police, high on cocaine. So I'm extremely agitated, scared beyond anything, any type of fear I've ever had and frankly freezing and miserable, absolutely miserable. And somehow or another, they never found me.
Vic Vela:
Paul hatched a plan during those hours he spent shivering under the deck, hiding from the cops. No, it wasn't to get sober. He wanted to head back to his friend's house where he'd been staying.
Paul Scudo:
My thought is that I'm going to get all my stuff and go to Mexico, because there's now a warrant for my arrest in the United States. And I'm not thinking well, but this is my plan to get away. And so I decide that I'm going to clean the bathroom I was using, clean the bedroom, wash the sheets so that I leave the home in the condition that I moved into it in.
Vic Vela:
Why did you do that? Here you are, you just fled the police, right? And you're hiding and you're thinking of going to Mexico, but you still want to clean the house.
Paul Scudo:
I don't know. It, it it's part of feeling responsible and—
Vic Vela:
You were anything but responsible at that time.
Paul Scudo:
But I felt responsible to these people. They made me promise them that I would never disappear again. And that struck me in such a profound manner that I knew I had to wait for them to get home and face them face-to-face to apologize and to tell them I was leaving.
Vic Vela:
There was something inside of you that needed to do the right thing in a series of events where you were doing anything but.
Paul Scudo:
That's a very good way of summing it up, because this was a catastrophe.
Vic Vela:
So he went back to his friend's house to apologize. They offered to help send them to rehab.
Paul Scudo:
And I said, “Yes.” And in my mind I was still going to Mexico. But right then I said yes. So we all went to bed with the understanding that the following morning I was going to be calling the treatment center. Well, I woke up the following morning and my keys were gone and the house was locked and my friend was sleeping on the couch by the front door. So escaping to Mexico at that point was not an option. And I made the call to the treatment center and set up intake for the following day.
Vic Vela:
They meant business. Your friends meant business.
Paul Scudo:
They were wise to me and what I was going to do, and they did mean business.
Vic Vela:
And so you only had one way to go now, and that was to rehab.
Paul Scudo:
At that point, I had surrendered to the fact that I needed help.
Vic Vela:
Rehab takes work. It can feel uncomfortable at times, but it can feel like an epiphany when you learn how your sober brain is supposed to work. There's this Seinfeld episode where George tries to do the opposite of what he'd normally do. That's what I remember what early recovery felt like. Paul says his experience was a little different.
Paul Scudo:
Learned, ingrained behaviors often take time to change. So I would find myself lying or trying to manipulate. The difference is I would catch that. And I would say, wait, that's not true. Or wait, can I try that again? But it did not come naturally right off.
Vic Vela:
And how long were you in rehab for?
Paul Scudo:
I stayed in treatment for a total of 90 days. I felt like a completely different person. And I was on that pink cloud that you hear people describe, where your life has been so bad for so long, and you see this tangible evidence of it getting better, and you can do nothing but feel good about that.
Vic Vela:
But because of his criminal record, Paul still worried about what would come after getting clean, and he still needed a way to pay bills. So his sponsor hooked him up with a job at a handyman business.
Paul Scudo:
And I knew it was going to be difficult for me to find a job again. So I started working with him in a very menial job — clean this up, pick that up, bring this here, carry that. I was essentially doing grunt work, which was good for me for a couple of reasons: A) it was mindless, and I just had to do what I was told. B) it was a job that, while I lived in that high-powered white collar world, I looked down on and this humbled me to be doing that job, but also gave me an appreciation for how hard people work in that industry, and how dare I judge those people.
Vic Vela:
From there, he got another job at the addiction and recovery center where he had gotten clean. It's called Cedar. He met a woman who was also in recovery. They got married and soon they looked for a home.
Paul Scudo:
And all of a sudden, we're able to buy our own home again. And that was a major milestone for us. So at this point, life was really good and it happened very, very quickly over a two-year period.
Vic Vela:
Paul, what was that like, the day that you put your name on the, you know, to sign the mortgage, because you had lost it all, not that long ago, right?
Paul Scudo:
It was scary. It was exhilarating. It was unbelievable, because to your point, it was not that very long ago that I had been living on the street. Not that very long ago that I had been running from the police. Not that very long ago that I had been in treatment. And not that very long ago that I'd been living in a sober living home. And here I was with a wife and a great job, and we were buying a house, and I had owned three other homes prior to this. This one, I really feel like I earned this one. I have a whole different level of responsibility for taking care of. And this one feels more like a home than any of the others I've lived in.
Vic Vela:
Professionally, Paul moved from Cedar to another treatment program called Step Denver. When he got to Step, it had a pretty high relapse rate. They wanted Paul to make the program more effective. It was the perfect job for him.
Paul Scudo:
Because while I felt that what I was doing at Cedar was important, the patients that I was serving there were not yet at the bottom of the barrel, not yet homeless without resources. And so every time I would go to Step and I would work, I would leave with this feeling that I had done something truly valuable for people that wouldn't otherwise have this opportunity. And along with two of the employees that were there, who had been residents of the program and were now employees, the three of us built a recovery program around the core philosophies of sobriety, work, and accountability that were a part of Step's original founding principles.
Vic Vela:
You go from homeless, cocaine addict, alcoholic to executive director of a Denver men's recovery center. How does that register in your heart and in your head? That is a heck of a life in terms of the events that led up to it.
Paul Scudo:
I still on many mornings wake up and it is fresh in my mind, that feeling of being homeless and scared, there is still some part of me that thinks this has happened so quickly. And for the decades that it took me to destroy my life, for it to come back in just under a decade, almost doesn't seem like it's fair.
Vic Vela:
When Paul talks about sometimes feeling scared over what he's accomplished in his recovery, or even that it's unfair that his life has turned around for him so quickly, that's something that's common for recovering addicts. We're so used to messing things up all the time that there's still a voice in our heads that tells us we're not worthy, but in time that voice grows softer. It just goes to show that recovery is a long road.
Paul Scudo continues to work at Step Denver. The guy who was once so driven to have a great career in the hospitality business, and sometimes looked down on the addicts that surrounded him now says he feels most grateful that he gets to help those who struggle with addiction when he goes to work every day.
“Back from Broken” is a show about how we're all broken sometimes and how we need help from time to time. And if you're struggling with addiction, you can find a list of resources at our website, backfrombroken.org.
Sean:
Hi, my name is Sean, a former resident and now recovery support manager at the Step Denver program. Here's what's been happening in my recovery. This past February, I celebrated a five-year milestone. I also will be celebrating my two-year anniversary with my wife.
Jacob Marion:
Hello, this is Jacob Marion, and I am a person in long-term recovery. During my addiction, I was going to school for social work, hoping to become a counselor helping other people, but I couldn't help myself during that time. As a result of getting sober, I now am a peer recovery support specialist, I work at Step Denver, helping other men overcome the consequences of addiction.
Vic Vela:
We'd love to hear how you're doing in your recovery, and we might share it on this podcast so everybody listening can give you a virtual pat on the back too. Record a voice memo or MP3 and send it to [email protected]. If you know someone who might benefit from stories like this, please share this podcast with them. We spent more than a year building this show, research, interviews, production, editing, because we know it's going to help people, but it does cost money. The people who listen to this podcast, people just like you, make it a reality. You can support the making of future episodes right now at backfrombroken.org.
“Back from Broken” is hosted by me, Vic Vela. It's a production of Colorado Public Radio’s Audio Innovations Studio and CPR News. Thanks to people in recovery who helped us develop this podcast — Ben, Matthew, Sean and Mateo — thanks for your guidance. The show is produced by Rebekah Romberg, Jon Pinnow and Matthew Simonson. Rachel Estabrook edited this episode. Our executive producers are Brad Turner and Kevin Dale. Music by Brad Turner and Daniel Mescher. Thanks also to Francie Swidler, Kim Nguyen, Doug Clifton and Jodi Gersh. Please subscribe, rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts. It helps other people find it. And thanks for listening to “Back from Broken.”
