He Robbed His Own Mother for Crack | Now He's 38 Years SOBER

He Robbed His Own Mother for Crack | Now He's 38 Years SOBER

From Nothing’s Off the Table with Louis Ruggiero by Louis Ruggiero

August 13, 2026 · 59 min

About this episode

Dan Ryan shares his journey from addiction to 38 years of sobriety, detailing his struggles and the framework that helped him recover.

In November of 1987, Dan Ryan was a broken man. He'd spent most of that year living between crack houses, under bridges, and in the back of a friend's van. He hadn't seen his children in a year. He'd robbed his own mother that summer. This was a man who once managed on Wall Street — climbing the ladder, doing well — until addiction stripped everything away. When he finally got a shot at help, he missed the bus to the shelter. And in that moment of defeat, the demons called him back. He returned to the crack house that same day, on his knees looking for rocks on the floor. That's how insidious this disease is. But Dan made it to Graymoor — a men's homeless shelter in Garrison, NY — where they stripped him down, deloused him, and handed him a job. He cried in a room of 45 bunk beds, the lowest he'd ever been. That was the beginning. 38 years later, Dan is the longest-sober AA member ever to sit at this table. He's still the treasurer of his home group. He still goes to six or seven meetings a week — "because I don't know which one I need." In this episode, he breaks down his childhood in Woodside, Queens with an alcoholic father, his rise and fall on Wall Street, the week that…

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