>

To get at the root causes of our alcoholism, Frank asked each of us to get a notebook and start writing: first about the symptoms of our disease, then about our conception of God, and finally to inventory our behavior to date. It was time to stop conning myself. Several weeks later, I was struggling and asked Frank to meet me for a quick dinner before the meeting. We ordered fish and chips at a fry joint. Sitting at a scratched Formica booth, graffiti scrawled across the table, our food arrived just as I started to complain about my ex-wife. He brought me up short. "I thought you told me you cheated on her, Matt?"

"Yeah, so what? She is still a complete bitch, accusing me of being a bad father," I snapped back.

"Well, that was not right. Plain and simple."

"Yeah, but... "

"No f*****g buts about it, pal. Let that sink into your f*****g brain."

I thought to myself, "Why the hell am I taking advice from an ex-con who was just last week talking about cruising hookers," but pushed the thought away. I tried to listen to what he was saying.

"The only way you are going to get over f*****g up is to admit that you did. Stop denying it. You made a mistake. A big one," Frank continued. We ate our fried food for a while, shooting the s**t about sports. As we finished up, I came back around.

"Maybe you're right," I admitted. "I can't seem to get over feeling shitty about being a cheat, which causes me to do all kinds of insanely stupid things to cover up the past. I just keep making the same mistake over again in the present."

"Bingo! Let's go help some sick mother fuckers who have a hell of a lot more to worry about than you do," Frank yelled as he got up to pay the bill and slapped me on the back.

By the week of Thanksgiving 1999, two years after making our original investment, my Internet company was selling more stock to the public in a secondary offering. The insiders agreed to sell a small percentage of our holdings. That week I was on a retreat in Vermont, staying at a bed and breakfast with just one phone line. I huddled in an upstairs hallway, the phone receiver pinned to my sweaty ear as I listened to music, on hold for the secondary pricing call. My right leg jumped uncontrollably, causing the old wooden chair supporting my large frame to creak noisily.

Finally, I heard a series of clicks as the founders, the rest of the board, and various advisors joined the call. When I heard the price—over one hundred times our cost basis—all the twitching and huffing stopped. I couldn't believe that in three business days several million dollars would be wired to me. I still owned stock worth, on paper, many multiples of that number.