Where Mercy Is Shown, Mercy Is Given - Duane Dog Chapman [93]
Not long after that appearance, a man walked up and began telling me he’d just put his son in jail a couple days earlier. He said, “Dog, I heard your message and all you had to say a few weeks ago about losing a child. Putting my son in jail was the hardest thing I have ever done, but I realized you were right. There’s nothing I won’t do to help one of my children stay clean, even sending him to prison. I now know how you feel whenever I hear an ambulance or police siren late at night. I no longer wonder if it’s my boy they’ve got. I will not love my son to death. Thank you, Dog.”
I was standing with a friend from A&E at the time. I put one hand on his shoulder and the other on this man’s. I looked at my buddy and said, “Here’s our one.”
His response was quick and to the point. “I think there will be more than one this time, Dog. Many more.”
My grandpa used to tell me that the military was successful in training soldiers because they could tear a man down and build him back up to be faster, smarter, sharper, and more aware than when they started. It wasn’t until I began studying with Tony Robbins that I realized you didn’t have to be in the military to have those methods work for you. I once asked Tony his opinion on how to help people get off drugs. We opened up a dialogue on whether addiction was, in fact, a disease. I told him I thought that addiction was like an uncontrollable virus that spreads. Tony said he felt there are always signs of a spreading virus. In some cases it may be lesions, while in others it could be a limp. “If they’ve got a limp, you’ve got to give them a crutch,” Tony said.
That’s when it occurred to me that there were lots of nonthreatening crutches to offer. It could be the Bible, watching television, reading a book, or anything else that helps you relax and unwind from your stressed-out daily life. Taking a drink of alcohol, smoking a joint, or popping a pill here and there may not seem harmful, but I fully believe it’s not the long-term answer.
In the spring of 2009, I got a phone call from a guy named Bobby Magnuson, asking me if I would bond out his girlfriend, who I’ll refer to as Darlene. She had been arrested on drug charges. Bobby told me that she had a terrible methamphetamine problem and that he would only put up the bond for her if she promised to go to rehab and quit doing drugs. She agreed to get clean, so Bobby put up the collateral to get her out of jail.
They went to rehab together, but soon after they arrived, Darlene split in the middle of the night. Bobby left rehab to find her and bring her back. He called her over and over until she finally answered her phone. Bobby could tell she was high.
“Why do you have to be such a big pussy? Why don’t you just leave me alone? I don’t love you. Quit calling me!” Darlene was lashing out at Bobby, but she was too wasted to care.
“I’m going to kill myself if you don’t come back to rehab. I swear, I’ll do it. I can’t live without you!” I think Bobby believed that threatening her would help Darlene come to her senses. Instead, it backfired.
“Why do you keep threatening to kill yourself? Why can’t you be a man and just do it already!” Those were the last words he heard from the love of his life before Bobby threw a rope over the tallest branch of the largest tree he could find and hung himself. Just before he put the noose around his neck, he called Darlene