Vol. 11: Charlie Engle

I started dealing code. My teenage sons dropped me off at the front gate of Beckley Federal Correctional Institute. I had a decision in that moment, literally between living and dying, and I chose running. This is Charges with me. Rex Chapman, My guest today is not a household name as an athlete like some of our previous guests, but I guarantee that he will run right into your hearts during this episode.

Charlie Angle is known as Running Man. He is the closest example I can think of to being a real life Forrest Gump. If you threw him feet first into a requiem for a dream reality. Ten years of doing drugs in the streets around America, thirty plus years sober, three thousand miles running across America for mental health advocacy,

undred miles running across the Sahara Desert. One documentary executive produced and narrated by Matt Damon, six million plus dollars raised as co founder for water dot Org for clean water projects in Africa, and one mistake in judgment that led to sixteen months in federal prison. This is charges. Welcome to charges. I'm your host, Rex Chapman. I hate running. In fact, in basketball, it's punishment. You mess up, you run. You have a bad attitude, you run, you didn't run

fast enough, you run. I'm more of a brisk walker. God, I can't imagine it doing it for fun. And yet our guest today, well he'll tell you he doesn't necessarily do it for fun either, But that doesn't stop him from doing it a lot of it all on his own, no coach forcing him to do it. But Charlie Angele doesn't just compete as a runner. He's an ultra marathon runner. That means he runs anywhere from thirty five to a

hundred miles. He also has been using running to help keep him sober and away from addiction for almost thirty years now. I'd like to think that recovery, just like running, is all about putting one foot ahead of the other, over and over and over again. Let's find out from a man who'd know it best, Charlie. Thanks for being here, buddy, man. I that was the best intro I've ever had. And and actually you'd be you'd be surprised to learn that

I don't like running that much either. I definitely am, because honestly, you know, basketball is what I grew up playing, and uh, you know, everything even punishment off the floor, like if you got in trouble that didn't go to class up. You're up at six am running, which you know for a basketball player, I could run sprints all day long. You know, stop start stop start. The mindset unbelievable. I'm just I'm dying to find out more, you know what I mean in short, and I know we'll we'll

talk more about it. But you know, running for me is a running for me is about where running takes me. It's about you know, it's a vehicle to not just reach certain places within myself and learn more about myself. It's it's literally about cultural exploration. You know, I've I've run in about fifty countries at this point. And look, man,

most of the world is on foot. You know. We live in a very privileged bubble here in the US, and uh, you know, and I visit a lot of places where nobody has a car and everybody's on foot, and by being on foot with them, it creates a whole different dynamic and one that I seek out all the time. So running, as much as anything, is just a way for me to see the world in slow motion because I am slow. That's amazing and I can't

wait to get into all of that. Where'd you grow up, Charlie, And what was that it like at that time for you? I grew up here in North Carolina for the most part, and high school here and you know, played six sports and made some decent grades. And my my parents were nineteen years old so when I was born, and so I had a pretty bohemian upbringing in the sixties. What

were your teenage years like? And looking back, did you have any vices that you know, maybe led you down the wrong path or could have Yeah, you know, I as a kid, my mom was perpetually in grad school so she was a writer and uh, you know, basically

she wrote plays primarily. Uh there's a chapter in my book that I I sort of jokingly called my mother the Lesbie and who you know, she was married a couple of times, but let's just say those were loose arrangements and uh an only child, and you know, and there were you know, they were like cast parties and whatever in my house all the time every night. You said, it was a bohemian upbringing, and you know a lot of times there wasn't a lot of food or or

anything else in the fridge. And I would wander around as a nine or ten year old and finish off people's beers and a little bit of wine. And I actually say, you know, in the book, and I think it's so true. It's like alcohol planted a flag in my brain when I was a kid and like claimed that space for its own, and you know, and it took a while before it manifested, but like I knew, I sort of knew as a young kid that it was gonna be my you know, something I could always

count on. Like that's how I felt, like this makes me feel warm, been safe, and like I'm going to use that when I need it. Damn, damn. You know, looking back, I had addiction in my family, but it wasn't until I went to rehab that I started hearing you know, I knew what my issues were, but hearing people with alcohol issues and their stories. And you know, when you when you started talking, it takes me right back there, because you just don't know what people are

going through. You don't know how a certain drug or this this alcohol or that alcohol will affect you particularly well. And I'm a fourth generation addict, you know, I mean, I'm you know, I've got plenty of it in my family. And genetics are a bit and you know, you just like with any other disease, you it's pretty tough to escape genetics a lot of times. And and that in combination with environment, of course, and and some less than

good choices on my part. And you know, I I moved done with my dad and I sort of went the opposite direction, and I became trying to get you know, some love and attention from my father, which you know took me many years to figure out that was never gonna happen. Um, no matter what I achieved, I went the opposite direction. I played sports, and I, you know, dated a few cheerleaders and made good grades and early

acceptance to Carolina and I show up. I show up at u n C as a seventeen year old freshman in nineteen eighty you know, I'm going to play football and all this, And it took about three days. I fully expected there to be a banner on my dorm that said, hey, welcome Charlie, like we're so glad you're here. We could start our college experience now. And uh, it took like three days to figure out that I was

unbelievably average. And you know, and and I what I figured out very quickly is I was an All American. Don't forget nineteen eighty. Um, you can still drink as an eighteen year old in North Carolina. So I turned eighteen about a month after I went to college, and I took full advantage. And you know, I figured out that I was an All American first team drinker and I could just I literally could. I from the very beginning,

I could just drink more than anybody else. And unfortunately that became, you know, kind of, you know, part of my identity. And that's the way it works. What were your addictions. Uh when did they start? Was it right around that time? Yeah? You know, And and look my involvement with um first of all, I should say too, like I should have run track. There's only a few regrets I have in my life, and it probably wouldn't

have changed things. You know, I think my path was genetically set, and I think I probably would have found the same problems, if not sooner than later. But you know, when I got to college, and I really I was very I broke my ankle playing basketball like the first week I was there, and um, you know, I started drinking. And cocaine was absolutely a ubiquitous drug on campus in the eighties. I mean, I I think it probably still is to a certain degree, but not like it was

in the eighties. I mean even while you were there in Kentucky. I mean you just and as a young person in a college student, you don't actually realize that what you're doing is illegal because when everyone around you was doing it too, it just doesn't like feel that way. Pretty quickly, I went from you know, the first time,

second time really that I tried coke. It's like, uh, you know, a light went off in my head and it said Okay, I finally found the thing that's gonna make me, you know, invincible, and I'm gonna you know, cure cancer and uh make my dad happy and make straight a's and oh, give me another line, and uh we'll keep talking about it. And you know, I do think that's that's definitely where it started, thanks to quite honestly,

thanks to JV basketball. You know, I I sort of hung on for a couple of years and managed to not flunk out. But by my junior year, you know, I just basically stopped going to class and I started dealing. I was in a fraternity and I started dealing coke and not you know, certainly not to make money, just simply so that I could. You know, it's an expensive drug and and I just wanted to make sure that I had enough to do for myself. And you know that led me down a certain path. Do you know

have you heard of Chris Herron? Well, Chris is the reason I'm on here. Chris. I know Chris and I know his story and what in am I mean? I consider him He doesn't even know it, but I consider him a mentor from Afar. Same. But it reminded me

because when I was talking with Chris. I was, and yes, cocaine was everywhere in the eighties, um, every party, every everything, and I was always so afraid and mainly I felt like I would from what my friends said, I would either just love it or it would kill me just straight away and I'd have a heart attack. But what I found interesting with Chris was his description. I said, what,

what's it like? You know? He said for me? He said, you know, I would open up and talk about things I wouldn't normally talk about and feel like I had the whole world figured out. And then of course I'd wake up in the morning and would barely remember or just want to forget what I had talked about. So

I find that fascinating. Charlie, it's it's it's yeah, I mean what he said, and and yeah, you know you got these big ideas, And I mean, maybe the difference between me and Chris is, um, I just never you know, I never did wake up from a cocaine binge, because is I just never went to sleep. You know, I was two or three days at a time, always dictated by how much money or drugs I had, And after

I you know, flunked out and left college. You know, it wasn't uncommon for there to be four or five or six day binges um and it went from you know, coke to crack, which was much easier to get and especially in the in the eighties, and I never wanted

to do that. I was working in Denver, I'll never forget it, and I was, uh, you know several years I was probably twenty four and I was working there and I went down you know, my thing is I'd go into a town and I go to a bar and I'd be like, hey, where do you have fun around here? And they'd say, oh, you go here, and you go here, but be sure you stay away from Colfax, you know, don't go to that neighbor. And I'm like, okay, well, just so I don't go down there. Where is that,

you know? And of course I would drive straight there, and anybody who knows Denver, you know, there's a certain part of Colfax as a pretty rough spot and and um, you know that's where I would go. And I had this binge there that you know, after about five days, I'd run out of money and the dealer I was using stole my car um because of course drug dealers can be very inconsiderate, and uh, you know, and I

literally they stole my jacket. And it's snowing, and I leave this dumpy ass motel and I'm walking down Coal Fax and I literally see my car down the road and I it's all it's running. I could see smoke coming out the tailpipe. And I run to my car and I get in and I'm like, just I'm blown away. I'm getting my car. I get in and pull out and drive around the block and I hear this sound in the back seat, you know. And I turned around and there's like a twelve month old baby strapped into

the back seat of the car. And of course, I you know, drove around the block and I come back up to the house where the car had been, and there's a woman frantically waving her arms out in the street, and you know, and I literally I just pulled up.

She looked at me. I looked at her. She opened the back door, she unstrapped her baby and took the baby out, and because she knew the deal, and I knew the deal, and you know, and I drove away, and I mean, but that is the kind of craziness that I put myself into almost constantly stealing your own car back. Yeah, I mean that's amazing, amazing. Well, and the crazy thing is I never got in trouble back then, and I you know, that's almost another We could do

a whole show on the reason for that. But the reason is, you know, of course I was a still a pretty clean cut white guy driving a Toyota four Runner, and nobody ever stopped me, you know, and I mean literally in years, no one, despite the fact that I deserved all kinds of d U E s and everything else back in the day. You know, I didn't get

stopped back then. And you know, I look back on those days and those experiences as probably the most you know, formative and of my life, and some negative things, but of course, in fact, like all lessons, some really positive things came out of it, and some advocacy and some understanding of the kind of the real world. Man. What's so unique about the timeline of Charlie Engel is that he spent his young adult years as a traveling salesman

before becoming a world class athlete. Not exactly a story that we've heard before. Frankly, Charlie and the millions that he's helped through his foundation. Are fortunate that he even survived his downward spiral that didn't all across America. So it's Charlie, what what was your turning point? Uh in the early nineties, What were you doing and what happened that made you go, oh shit, you know this is

really bad? Yeah? Yeah, well, you know, and during those years, and it's basically a decade of pretty hardcore use, you know, I made sure that I was always the top salesman. You know, I had a lot of geographics, as we call them in recovery, where I would move to a new town, Seattle, l A, San Francisco, Atlanta. I mean I I made the rounds and for six months i'd get a job, I'd be the top salesman. I would kick ass and get a girlfriend and then decide, hey,

you know, I'm doing great. I deserve to have a beer or whatever. And even though I've never had one beer ever in my life, without having all of them, and uh, you know, in this path often led me to want to quit. Yeah, I always made a joke about it. I said, you know, quitting is easy. I've done it a hundred times. Just the starting up again. I went to rehab, I went to church, I went to uh, I saw a shaman. If I could have

found a witch doctor, I would have done that. Like I mean, I I felt like I had tried everything, and in when I was twenty nine years old, my first son was born, and Brett was gonna be my savior. You know, I thought that, finally, Okay, you surely I can stay sober for my son, right because, uh this person, you know, holding this little baby and feeling the feelings

I had for him. And I know you have kids, so I know you know what I'm talking about, you know, and you're you're like, this is as an addict, I actually thought I was incredibly broken and completely undeserved being of love or incapable of giving love. And all of a sudden that all changed with this little boy. And you know, for the first time in my adult life, I kind of had I had hope and I had strength.

And two months later, you know, I'm in Wichita, Kansas, and inexplicably, I end up in the worst neighborhood in town. And I spent six days smoking crack and drinking, and that binge ended with me sitting on the ground outside a fifteen dollar a night motel room that I couldn't

pay for anymore. And I'm handcuffed behind my back and the police are searching my car and there's three bullet holes in the car, and you know, and those were meant for me, like they weren't shooting at my car, and you know, and I'm watching this cop actually search around the driver's seat and like he reaches under the driver's seat and he pulls out a pipe, a glass pipe, and he turns around, looks at me and like shakes

his head. And any rational, moderately sane person would have been like, oh ship, you know, I'm in some serious trouble, Like this is gonna be bad. And instead, all I could think was, so that's where that was. Like I've been looking for that pipe for two days, you know. It's like how did that cop find it in like five minutes? You know, And and and then my next thoughts like I wonder if there's anything left in there? And are you columbo hell? And you know, look, man,

I know you have the same thought. You can't stay in the darkness. You have to make fun of this stuff and of ourselves in these situations. But the important thing is in that moment, the after six days of not sleeping and all the other stuff that goes along with it, you know, I had the clearest thought that I'd ever had, and it was simply, nobody he's coming to save you. Your son can't save you, your dad can't save you, your wife can't save your job, can't

save you. Like until you make the decision that you want to be saved, Like, there's just no way it's ever gonna happen. And you know, and I realized I had a decision in that moment, literally between living and dying, and I chose running, you know. And I went to an a meeting that night. That's the first one I'd ever gone to that I actually like, was that your lowest moment the hand, Yeah, lowest and highest right, because for a change, I no longer felt the yeah, the

pressure of it all. And I'm look, man, I'm not a religious person. I didn't grow up in a church or anything like that, but you know, I mean the only church I went to was with my grandparents, and it was Southern Baptist. And I was pretty sure at the age of like five, that I was going to Hell already. So it was it was. It was pointless. But but in that moment, I actually said a prayer that you know, wasn't a Santa Claus prayer, you know,

it wasn't. It wasn't the typical prayer of like, if you'll just get me out of this, then I will fill in the blank, you know. It was just simply I don't want to feel like this anymore. And you know, and I went to a meeting. I went to a meeting at night. I got up the next morning and I put on my running shoes. And that was almost twenty nine years ago, and I haven't stopped since. How does one stay sober for thirty days coming from where you were, let alone thirty years? Were there any moments

where you almost caved? Have you ever relapsed? You know? From that day? So I went to treatment as a twenty six year old and I stayed sober for about six months, and I relapsed, you know, for two more years. So and that was when I was twenty six, and then at nine, you know, when I got sober this time, um um, I certainly had close calls, and a couple of them, one that you can relate to very much was uh and just as a tease because I'm sure

we're gonna get there. You know, I I spent some time on Federal Holiday in sobriety, and just before I went to prison, I had surgery on my knee and because I needed It's just a menisca surgery. It wasn't that big a deal. But you know, my friend picked up a big bottle of you know, I don't know if vicodd or oxy. I don't remember what it was now, but you know, and I'm staying at his house and there's a six pack in the fridge and I had a little bit of time with you know, both of

those things sitting on the counter in front of me. But, um, but to your question, the first thirty days, Um, it's funny. You made me think. It's a story I hedn't hold in years, and it's a short one. But I got a spot. I finally followed some of the suggestions and I got a sponsor. Dude was in his seven and has been sober over forty years. And in typical fashion, I'm like, John, you've been sober forty years? How how like? How is it possible? Is there a secret? He's like, yeah,

there is a secret. Come to the meeting tonight, like thirty minutes early, and I'm going to tell you the secret. I'm like, Ship, that's fantastic, thank you, this is amazing. I show up thirty minutes early. He's like, I said, okay, can we talk now. He's like, yeah, you know, do me a favorite. See those coffee pots over there, go make like five pots of coffee and then we'll talk. And of course it took me thirty minutes to make

the five pots of coffee. There's the meeting. I come up to him after the meeting, I'm like, John, can we talk now. He's like, I'll tell you what I gotta go right now, but show up thirty minutes tomorrow, thirty minutes early tomorrow. And you can see where this is going. And it took me like three or four days to catch on because I'm not all that bright. It was the first and greatest lesson that I ever had in sobriety, and and it fits for the rest

of life. And that's that if you want to get out of your own problems, serve somebody else, you know, be of service in some way small. You know, none of the other people in that meeting knew that I was making coffee. Nobody thanked me, and it was like, you know, the first time in my life that I sort of did. I mean, it sounds silly in a way, but that I did something small and selfless and didn't expect to be congratulated for doing it somehow or thanked and it and it felt great and that it turned

out to be the secret, you know. And I did it for thirty days and I loved it, and it it taught me, I think, the greatest lesson that I still use today. All I think of this an expedition so extreme it had never been attempted, that is until now. And one of the three to conquer this feat is Greensboro's Charlie Be. A very busy weekend for ultra a little verified runner, Charlie angels. In fact, the next month

and a half will be kind of busy. Since he glanced to you the time to run from San Francisco to New York City, it took more than forty mile run through Africa Sahara As a for professional runner Charlie Angle to realize that there was money to be made in the athletic skincare market. Film star Matt Damon and Oscar winner James mull recorded angles track through the Sahara to raise awareness about the need for drinkable water in Africa in their documentary And Running the Sahara. How do

you start competing? I mean, come on, you're running? How do you start competing in running? I mean because in the intro was just pure punishment to me. No way I'd sign up to do it as a primary competitive thing. I mean, what, Yeah, be careful what you say, Rex, because now you're in. You're in. You're in my orbit now, so you're we're going to be having an offline conversation about exactly how you're gonna challenge yourself next. No, but I I did love the few ing of You know

what I love about still running a marathon? And I've probably run more than two hundred marathons, and I I like the feeling of standing on a start line. Sometimes it's a hundred people, sometimes it's fifty thou people and being surrounded by uh fellowship and community. It's you know, not the same with twelve step recovery or whatever type

of recovery of person does. But you don't know, the beautiful thing about running is the guy next to you you don't know if he's the CEO of a Fortune five company or a janitor at the local high school. And it doesn't matter because either one of them is probably gonna kick my ass. And you know, and there's a beauty to being having a shared shared suffering is actually the best. And that's why twelve step recovery works. It's why organized running works, because we we like to

go out and sweat and suffer with other people. It's it's human nature. It makes us feel connected. And you know, I spent a few years trying to break three hours in a marathon, which which made me like moderately fast, but nowhere near like elite level. I mean, were you maniacal about it? I mean it was something, Yeah, I bet I wasn't. I made myself miserable for a while because I I like five races in a row. I ran like three oh one, three O two and and

and perfect fashion. My son, it was a funny story my my son, who was about two years old. You know, I ran the San Diego Marathon and I ran three oh one again, and the race is over, and I've got him on my shoulders and I'm I'm complaining to my wife about my first wife, about um not breaking three. You know, the wind was in my face and some bullshit, and my son is like tapping me on the head, you know how they do when you know they're sitting

on your soldiers. And it was like dad, daddy, daddy, daddy, And he's like, why didn't you just run a little bit faster? Like, yeah, that's a good idea, but but what it really did was remind me that I was actually ruining my own experience by trying to put, you know,

a measure of success on it. And look, I mean the short version of my running career, just so people know if they care, is you know, I I learned a lot in those first thirty marathons, and what it really taught me was that I wanted to see just

how far I could go. You know, basically, if I learned this lesson from running the marathon, what lesson could I learned running a fifty mile or or hundred miler or I started running and actually winning races across the Gobi Desert in China, across the jungles of Vietnam and Fiji, and um I ran across you know, Ecuador, the Mountain range is and climbed, you know, Mount McKinley and a bunch of volcanoes in Ecuador, and all of that led

me in this. You know, I was on a weird path of uh, both in my business life too at that time. I and this is the early two thousands. I was now sober about ten years and and I became the senior producer for a show called Extreme Makeover Home Edition on ABC, you know which most people you know, h it was a top show on TV for a while, and you know, and I worked started working on the pilot on that show and worked for a few years. And UM was doing these races all over the world.

And I did a race in the Amazon Jungle in two thousand five, and a guy, just I've never met him before, he blurts out this idea. He's like, Hey, I wonder if youbody's ever run across the Sahara Desert,

like the whole Sahara Desert. And I looked at him and I said, well, that's a dumb idea, like you'd have to be You'd have to be an idiot to do that, you know, And of course, being the idiot I am, I I couldn't stop thinking about it, and I went home and I found out no one Go Figure had ever run all the way across the Sahara, and first in the adventure world are really hard to come by, like there's very few things that somebody hasn't done.

And I began to tell people I was going to be the first person to run across the Sahara, and I mean, I owe all this to sobriety and and it was audacious, but you know, I finally, I think my friend got tired of hearing me talk about it, and he introduced me to a big Hollywood director. Um. I was sort of you know, on the fringes of that world with the TV show and um he had won the Academy Award for Best Documentary a few years earlier. So I tell him my idea and he's like, yeah,

I'll do it. And he calls me a week later and he's like, hey, I just hung up with Matt Damon and Matt would like to executive produce this project and he wants to be the narrator, Like would that be okay with you? And I I dead I dead pan because I like to think that I'm funny, and I like I paused and I said, you know, God, I was really hoping for somebody better, but yeah, I

guess mad day it will be fine. Uh. And you know, and like a year and a half later, I found myself at the coast of Senegal in West Africa, you know, right at the Atlantic Ocean and Senegal, and I'm getting ready with two teammates. Um. One of them is the guy that told, you know, sort of mentioned this bad idea to begin with. And I would say, you know, words said to us by a stranger can sometimes change like the entire course of our lives. And you know,

and we ended up running. I ran two marathons a day for one hundred and eleven consecutive days without taking a day off, and um, you know, be we became the first people in history, the only up to this point, to run all the way across the Sahara, almost five thousand miles across the Sahara and you know, a hundred and fifty degree ground temperatures and you know, mostly deep sand and it was it was a crazy, uh life changing experience. Yeah, I can't even fathom. I mean the

endurance part, where did you always have that? Did you have the endurance as a kid when you were running, you just you could run forever. I did, I really did. I mean it was and I have I've worked from time to time with I'm not actually even plugging the company, but there's a company called inside Tracker, and they they

do these blood tests which tests certain markers. And I did come to find out a couple of years, just a couple of years ago, though, that I I do actually have a genetic marker that is considered like the endurance gene um. But I mean, look, dude, I could do coke for six days without even taking and without even taking a nap. So this is this was child's play. How many countries did you run through? What you see for better or worse? That still stays with you to

this day. Yeah, so the I've running more than fifty but on the Sahara Run, that was six countries including like you know, Synegal, Mauritania, Molly, Niger, Libya, and Egypt. And you know, the most beautiful that run was two thousand seven, So that's been a little while now. But the most amazing thing about that run was it was still at a time where not everybody had a cell phone and um, so we would run into these little villages, you know, in the in the middle of the desert,

and they don't know where coming. Every kid in the village comes out and ah, you know, half of them. Of course, I always laugh. They all have a you know Chicago Bulls or are of Jordan's T shirt on, which just cracks me up because you know, they're it's just everywhere, and you know, but they would just run. They would, and I'm talking like from five years to

twelve years old. They'd run sometimes five or ten kilometers out into the desert and they're just happy, just the joy that they have of this weird thing of three white guys running through their village. And then they just like then they just kind of wave and turn around

and leave. And um, I sort of said this at the beginning, But one of the things that strikes me is that even well meaning tourists very often um sequester themselves in their car, you know, so they'll drive into that same village maybe, but they're in a car, which separates you from the people. And I always tell people like, that's fine to have a car. Realized, not everybody wants

to run across the desert. But before you get into the village like in Africa or South America, get out of your car, like a half mile before you get into the village and just walk in and notice the difference. People don't come at you with their hands out. They don't like you know, we're the ones that create the sort of dynamic of you know, people coming at us and like asking for whatever, um, because we put ourselves

above them. And and that's been the greatest gift of my running life is to be able to just be a cultural explorer and to see really remote places on the planet that no, you know, you just don't get to see. And you know, you have to be willing to put yourself into Uh. I certainly spent ten years putting myself in really dangerous, bad situations. And to think that I wouldn't do that as a sober person would be crazy. So well, put be curious, right, be curious

running across the desert. What are the challenge during the day and nighttime of being in a desolate desert? Man? Yeah, many, um, logistics were We're so complicated. But I mean we started the run and it was a hundred forty fifty degree ground temperatures, you know, the ambient temperature probably you know, one twenty or so, but like, you know, it was it was hot, and you can plan all you want on the drawing board, you know, it's like drawing a

game plan. You drop up a game plan in a game, right, and it doesn't really take into account the other team, like having the best night of their life. And uh, you know the desert. I always say that, especially with Africa. You know, Africa makes the rules. And within a week of starting that expedition, we had run out of food, we run out of water. It's a hundred and fifty degree ground. My two teammates both have I v s every day and we've covered about half the distance we

need to. And this is an expensive project, you know, we there's a lot of money invested, and I was worried the producers were going to pull the plog quite frankly, because we were not doing well at this point. And interestingly, what I recognized at that point, I wasn't even thinking about this, but um, I was going about it all wrong. Right. I was the expedition leader and this was my project, but I was so I felt so much pressure to be successful, and success meant getting to the other side

of the desert. I was so focused on that that I forgot the lessons I had learned in sobriety. And by this time I was fifteen years sober. And that lesson is quite simply, you know, the mantra, the one day at a time mantra that we all know. But the point is, the only miles that I could actually run were the ones right in front of me. And I needed to stop worrying about the next country, than next day, the next week, and focus on what was

happening right now. And I woke up like on day eight, and all I thought about was running a marathon before lunch, and I took a little break, and then I got up and all I thought about was running a second

marathon before dinner. And at the end of that second marathon, I put my little thin foam matt down on the desert and I laid there and I stared up at a billion stars because there there wasn't a single electric light within five hundred miles, and and I just gave thanks to the universe for giving me the opportunity to

be alive and suffering. And in that one day at a time, you know way, we started to make progress and we made our way across the desert and it you know, and again it was an experience that changed my life. But the metaphors are pretty much they're endless because the idea of just focusing, the idea of like I had a plan every day Rex I was a leader. I get up at four o'clock and I would write my plan and my little book. We're gonna go to this village. We're gonna cover this many miles. We're gonna

do this. I went back at the end of the expedition. Out of a hundred and eleven days, I think like on five days it went exactly as I wrote it down. On the other hundred and six it went from like a little bit wrong to completely go into hell. But we made it. And it is that. It's that idea of continuous forward motion. If you just keep moving and use the experience that you've had in life, people quit marathons.

I love this example. We always hear about hitting the wall, right, Well, the same is true in addiction recovery or in and I know you relate to all of this. When we hit a real low spot, our mind tells us that we're gonna feel this badly for the rest of our lives. You know, you have a big argument with your spouse and it's like, well, this relationship is gonna feel just like this forever, or or we want to have a drink or do a dry or whatever like that. In

that moment, that's what we want. And it's because you know, life is at a low point right now and it's always going to be this way. But experience tells us if we just let that pass by, the next day will wake up and and you know, all the problems won't be gone, but the perspective will be different. Yes, yes, trust the process. One man couldn't quite fathom Charlie's success. Robert Nordlander is an agent at the I R S who has what some folks think is a peculiar way

of choosing his targets. The New York Times reports that Norlander told a grand jury that if he sees someone driving a fancy car, he might check into their finances to see if they can really afford it, even if there's no but it's that they can't. The Times also reported that no Orlander testified to the grand jury that he just couldn't figure out how a guy like Charlie Angel could possibly afford to train for running across continents.

You know, this is charges. So we need to talk about your indiscretions that you did go to prison for. Tell me about how you found yourself under investigation and then ultimately convicted for mortgage fraud. Yeah, what a crazy I mean, I I still am. I still say that to you, and I feel I feel bad even asking because I know how. You know, I know how when people ask me about, you know, the Apple store, immediately

I go, God, I can't believe that was me. Well when I mean, look, I'm lucky enough, even at my age almost fifty nine, to still have sponsors for running and things like that. And I have these conversations all the time, and I I say to them up front, I'm like, look, all I gotta say is if you don't know everything about my background, google it. It's on

my website. You to my website to read all about what happened to me, like you read my book, because I don't want you to come back to me later and say, oh, well, we didn't know this part of your background and we can't do business with you somehow. But you know, first of all, the irony of going through ten years of street level addiction and all of

the inherently legal things that I did. Um. Now, and I'm not implying, I mean, this country puts way too many people who have a drug problem in prison when they should be going to treatment. That's a subject for another day. But um, in my case, I escaped pretty much all penalties during my ten years of addiction. And so the Sahara put kind of put me on the map. You know, I told you I got some good media

and all of that. And there was I'm living in small town North Carolina, and there was one single I R. S Agent in my down in North Carolina that saw the movie Running the Shara and he was not impressed with my running, or with my philanthropy or anything else. And on that literally Rex from that alone, he just decided he wanted to see how a runner could afford to go run across the Sahara Desert. I would say, it's weird that apparently he'd never heard of Matt Damon

because like, I didn't pay for it. But this led to him opening an investigation into my taxes and I ended up going to trial. Um, he ends up like sending in a undercover a good looking woman to come knock on my door and she's moving I'm using air quotes for people just listening, moving into my building. And she wants to know if I'm a runner. And I fall for all of this, and because I'm a guy, and yeah, stupid and you know, and so um, you

know all there's dumpster diving, they're tapping phones. It's the weirdest thing. And just so people have perspective, this is two thousand nine and ultimately two thousand and ten when

I'm arrested. But all right, so I'm out running errands one day in Greensboro, North Carolina, and I come back to my condo and I get out of the car and like six armed federal agents come rushing towards me, and they handcuffed me and they put me in a you know, in a police car and take me downtown and I spend the night there and I don't actually know. I'm not told anything at this point, and this is

this couldn't be anymore out of the blue. I mean, I'm now like nineteen years clean and sober, and and the next morning I'm handed a big stack of papers and long story short, I am being charged with overstating my income on a home loan application and four from two from two thousand and five a stated income. I'm a borrower. I'm not like a real estate person or

anything else. I mean I was I've been making enough money that every couple of years I'd buy a property, fix it up, hold onto it, sell it, just like everybody else, and especially in those days, you know, I mean, basically the joke was if if you had a pulse, you could get a loan. But I become the only person in the United States at that point actually being charged with overstating my income on a home loan application, and for that I can be sentenced to federal prison

for twenty years. And this isn't like I'm not here to like try to bash the Feds or whatever, But you know, the fact of the matter is they pretty much only charge people that they are certain they can win. You know, they have a ninety nine point six percent success rate with prosecutions, and about eight percent of people take plea deals. And to be honest, I wasn't. I just wasn't gonna take one because I sound like a weird broken record for guys that go to prison, But

I didn't do what I was being accused of. I end up being found not guilty of providing false information on loan application because I didn't do it. The I had a mortgage broker who falsified a loan application. He admitted it trial, he signed my name to it, right. But I, and this is where I do take uh full credit. You know, I signed the closing package and I put it in the mail, and whether it had false information that I knew about or not really didn't

matter anymore. And I at that point took ownership, if you will, of everything within that packet, and that became mail fraud. And I was found guilty of mail fraud, bank fraud, wire fraud, basically mortgage fraud for that reason, and sentenced to twenty one months in federal prison in Beckley, West Virginia. And my kids, my teenage sons, dropped me off on Valentine's Day two thousand eleven at the front gate of Beckley Federal Correctional Institute to start serving a

twenty one month sentence in federal prison. How did you handle being in prison and how did your family? How did your kids handle it? It was it was terrible. I mean, I you know, and the worst part of it was the limbo that I was in because once I was charged, you know, and again you you can relate, and some of your other guests can relate. You know, once your charge, your life is pretty much on hold

until there's resolution. And you know, so for me, that was over a year process where I couldn't really work. I couldn't like, you know, I couldn't do anything, it felt like. And of course my both my boys are struggling at this point, you know, as teenage boys, and I'm not married to her mom anymore at that point, and and it was hard. But you know, I'll never forget walking into that prison. You'll appreciate this, it said the book. We have to read the book or listen

to it. But the first guy that I meet when I get in as a guy, everybody's got a nickname in prison. And first guy I meet his pick and Roll. I'm not kidding you, that's his name. And so Picking Roll looks at me and he's like, he's like, hey, you know, and he's an inmate obviously, and so've I've gone through the processing and so now I'm in the prison and and he's like, how long you here? For

I'm like twenty one months. Man. He's like, shit, that ain't even long enough to unpack your clothes, you know, because so many of these guys are in there for so long. And and look, I was scared. I was scared. I was sad, and I was really piste off. And you know what, the Rex. It only took a few days to realize that I wasn't going to I was piste off about, you know. And again I'm using air quotes what had been done to me, right, And it took a matter of maybe two or three days to

gain perspective. Number One, I figured out I wasn't going to survive this time in prison with that anger and bitterness. It was gonna kill me. Number two. The first guy after Pick and Roll that I met was a guy in the cell next to me, and he's in his early sixties, he's black, and he got a twenty five year sentence for a single graham of crack cocaine. Oh my god, and he's on like year twenty three when I meet him. He had had his entire life taken away.

And I'm focused on you know, I mean, we're selfish by nature, all of us, but I'm focused on what has happened to me, and I immediately get slapped in the face by the reality of real unfairness, and you know, and it it allowed me to sort of settle down and recognize that, in the weirdest way, I was the most well prepared person for prison every No, really, I was just thinking the same. Ten years on the street

and nineteen years clean and sober. I recognized that I could do this and that in fact, it was gonna be learning and just human experience. And I'm sure this will get into it, but how did you become a motivational force for other inmates to overcome addiction while you were there? Yeah? You know it is. Yeah, it's attraction

rather than promotion. Again, because I do I do like to make the joke that I didn't all of a sudden say you know, hey, dude, you look like you could lose some weight, why don't you work out with me? It's it's not a good strategy for prison, not in prison. Um, But you know what I really did, Rex, was I just started doing what I always had on and that

is that I started to run, you know. And and they're about five guys in this prison, and it is a low security facility in Beckley, West Virginia, and the vast majority were non violent drug offenders, you know. And and that's the way our country is. In the federal system, in particularly, got over eighty percent of people in prison for non violent drug offenses. And the irony is, there's no in the federal system. There is no A A, there's no n A, there's no there's no that's insane.

There's no kind of recovery program. You can get a twenty year sentence for a drug charge and never get treated for your drug problem while you're in there. What you will get is near the end of your sentence, you get what's called drug education, which if you take the class, it will give you like six months off of your sentence potentially. But the class is basically this, you suck your leech on society and your family, don't do drugs like That's what the whole course boils down to.

And it's so insane. And so I actually did. I I did start teaching addiction recovery classes while I was in prison, but they were actually health classes that I changed the curriculum and I started I turned him into basically what amounted to informal AA meetings, and you know, and I and I started to run every day and people made fun of me. And this is this is funny. I mean, I was a middle aged white guy still am,

and you know, people made fun of me. Like the most dubious choice I ever made in there as I started doing yoga a couple of days a week on the softball field by myself. And for any of the list there's no for any listeners who are are thinking about going to federal prison, I do not recommend doing yoga by yourself. But um, but anyway, here's what happened. You know, after a couple of months of my running. And I'll never forget that the day it happened. But

this guy, Kenny Squirrel was actually his name. He yells out across the wreck yard. He's like, hey, running man, you're gonna come in for lunch, and like that is where the sort of the Monica running Man came from. But slowly, but surely, guys started to come up to me in you know, the cafeteria line or whatever and asked me if I would teach basically teach them to run. And you know, these are guys from all walks of life. West Virginia is probably fifty fifty black and white in

this prison. And you know, all the white guys were meth heads and all the black guys were businessman. And I say that tongue in cheek, but I actually mean it. Most of the black guys were dealers and not users. Most of the white guys were actual addicts. Um. But guys started to come up to me and just say, and you know, when I got to Beckley, there were maybe three guys running every day on a regular basis.

And when I left a year and a half later, I had a running group of fifty guys and I I run it with me every single day and I had um maybe ten or twelve of them lost more than a hundred pounds um. By when I left, I had twenty five guys doing yoga with me on this off fall field three days a week. You know. And it wasn't because I ever promoted what I was doing. It's just because I did it. And these guys started to see, I mean, my life was just I mean, I don't want to say it was better. We're all

in the same place. And I had some haters. I had some uh, you know, I was a white collar again. Air quotes guy in a in prison, and there is a weird stigma that goes along with that. My biggest concern was, like, what kind of tattoo am I going to get in prison? You know, what is it? What do you get for mortgage fraud? Like an like an ink pen? I thought about getting a fountain pen on my arm. There we go. I could have put M M effort, M effort mortgage froud start. Charlie Angle truly

is an inspiration to me. If he can pull himself up from the literal gutter with a bullet ridden car and a crack pipe to becoming an advocate for change at the top of his profession, then almost anyone can too. What strikes me about Charlie is that he owns his messy story instead of running from it. I'd imagine that trotting mile after mile after mile gives a person plenty of time to think about the good, the bad, and

the ugly transgressions in their life. For those in recovery, attacking the road ahead is the best forward momentum some one can achieve one day at a time. What would you say to someone who knows that running and exercise would benefit their lives, but just can't get over the mental hurdles. You know, it's such a great question. I actually think about it all the time. And I have just recently been asked to be depox. Chopra and I

became friends years ago, and so I am now. It hasn't even been announced publicly, so this will be the first time I've actually said it out loud. I'm in public, but I am now the ambassador for the Chopper Foundation for Addiction and Recovery, And thank you. It's a big deal. Of it's a big deal for me because it's uh. Part of the reason I gave you that answer is that my mission in a way is relies on this mantra, and that is that if you don't feel good, you

can't get well. You know, it's about mentally, just getting it through your head that if I do this every day, you know, it really will get easier. And also the you know, look, I have a son who's almost four years clean and sober, and you know, again, genetics play a role, and I tell him, I tell both my

sons all the time. You know, never quit at a low point, never quit anything at a don't quit a relationship or a job or sobriety or anything else, because those those low moments aren't real, like they will pass if we just let them pass. And I think physical exercise, you know, exercises that way people People go for their first run in five years and they feel like shit. Well no kidding, but you're not gonna feel that way all the time. You just have to keep doing it. Terrific,

terrific advice. Hey, so tell me this, what are you up to today, Charlie? Uh, where are you and how do you handle the pandemic? Assume you were just out running every day? Yeah, you know that. I mean. So, I'm I'm back in Durham. I've lived all over the country, but I got married again about eight years ago to just an amazing woman and and in full disclosure, um, she is battling a really serious cancer and has been for a while. So we're you know, my world has

been a little small, even even apart from COVID. We're also sorry, but thank you, thank you, But again, you know what, I get to show up for this every single day and to be um, a supporter, a caretaker, all the things that I need to be and would be incapable of being if I was still you know, using and get to You just said, I get to be. Yeah, it's not a burden, it's a gift. And I would take it away from her in a second, you know, the cancer. But I you know, I I get to

be fully present. I don't go high, either in a bottle or a pill, and you know, and I'm able to just be here and be present. And you know, covid is UM. She can't get vaccinated, so it's complicated. I'm vaccinated, but I have to be really careful about

where I go and what I do and UM. I am working on another book because you know, I I think there's a I sort of touched on it earlier, but I think that people in early recovery, when you go into addiction recovery, there should be more focus not you know, there's a time for talk therapy and it's very important in the process, but physical health needs to be put first. And I said it earlier. If you

don't feel good, you can't get well. And so I'm really working on a book through my own experience that will lay out the case for really focusing on physical health. I'm also vegan, have been for more than twenty years. You know, I'm not a preacher on these things, but it is, you know, it's the way I've chosen to live and um, and it's made things good. You know. I'm I celebrate my sobriety every year by running the same number of hours to match the years that I've

been sober. So this year, later this month will be you know, twenty nine hours of running. And you know that's my kind of party these days. UM, if you just put yourself out there and you tell the truth, opportunities the right opportunities present themselves. UM. I'm heading to uh. I am actually heading at the end of this month July. I'm getting a chance to go down to neck Or Island with Richard Branson and a small group and and speaking to a bunch of people in the addiction space

and advocating for some things around the Chopra Foundation. And you know, it just is. It's a fun journey. Man. I would I wouldn't even take the prison stuff back, you know, I got I. I work with the Innocence Project, UM from time to time for you. UM, I'm sure you know those guys or know who they are, a great friend of mine. Jason flam is one of the

founding board members. He has a great podcast um about wrongful incarceration, you know, and getting people out and and I think it all comes back down to where we started. It's service based. And the thing I say to myself and I remind others service makes you sound like you're being some generous Uh. You know, I don't know goody two shoes almost. I do it because I recognize that if I don't keep doing stuff for other people that I put myself, it's a really selfish act. I put

myself at risk if I don't do those things. Man, that's beautiful, it really is. And I'm I'm with you it. It makes me feel bad when I think back about all the years I spent just as a selfish asshole, you know, just only thinking of about me. Wasn't until I got in trouble that I thought about how it was affecting everybody else. I mean, and uh, just that perspective.

Thanks Charlie, Thanks for being here with me today on charges your story and your effort or inspiring and as someone else who's in recovery, you know, I want you to know my door is always open if you ever need anything. You're the man, Charlie. Thank you so much. Same here, brother, And it was I can't tell you how excited that was to be here. And it was, You're really good at this. You should keep going. It's not me, it's the guests. You guys, come on here, dude.

I've done a lot, I've done a lot of podcasts. I can assure you you're being You're I appreciate your humility you but it's you know, doing these kind of things is uh, it's another gift, you know, of experience and being able to just have a conversation and it's it's, uh, You've got a really good platform here and I look forward to, you know, spreading the word. Thanks buddy, Thanks Pal,

thanks for coming on My pleasure. Charges Selling No Runnians with the Law Charges set Lee Send the Tennis and Ball as a charge is the celebrity gank plums and charges we came along with from Living Lawless Charges. Selling No Runnians with the Law Charges sper Lee Send the Tennis and Ball as Charges. The celebrity gank forums and charge we came along with from Living Lawless Charge Charges is created by Portlay and Control Media. It's produced by

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