The Upside of Fear: How One Man Broke the Cycle of Prison, Poverty, and Addiction

Criminals are an interesting lot to me. There is such a heightened ideal of the criminal element in fiction that romanticizes bank heists, lovers on the run, car chases, and even successful criminal careers, that the fantasy bares no resemblance to the reality. The two almost seem incomparable. I'm reminded of the famous painting my Rene Magritte of a smoking pipe with the words "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" beneath it, "This is not a pipe". Magritte reminds us that the image is something far different from the reality. Such is the lesson that Wally Long is taught in Weldon Long's "The Upside of Fear", a memoir about the frayed strands of broken reality, and how he was able to fuse them back together again just at the moment where it seemed that the last thread was about to pop. It begins with a chance encounter with a hitchhiker named Elliot, who has the same destructive disposition that Long himself has cultivated. The two of them, after a night of booze and cocaine, begin to fantasize about being Butch and Sundance, and decide to rob a couple walking out of restaurant. The robbery goes bad, a car chase ensues, (which is nothing like the glorified car chases you might see in the movies, by the way), and both guys end up in handcuffs. This begins a long pattern of behavior for Long, who becomes a career criminal trying with unconscionable verve to achieve that heightened ideal, forgoing his reason, his sense of self, and his morality in order to do so. At best, he can only achieve a spurious success that mocks the kind of success that he could achieve if he put the same ingenuity into legitimate ventures. He concocts brilliant plans for dodging his parole officers and running underground telemarketing scams in Las Vegas. Even in modest success he is haunted by the role that he plays in life, the role of the criminal. It's hard to like Long throughout much of the book, and it even seems that he is looking back with the same disdain that he expects readers to feel. This, from a literary standpoint, is the book's greatest flaw since the author frequently passes judgment, taking that liberty away from the reader and interrupting the narrative. But that does little to quell the fascinating story surrounding its author, and the extraordinary arch that it takes in its later chapters. There is still that piece of us that loves a good caper, and I'll admit that even when I was disgusted by depths to which the narrator stoops, the lower they were, the more I was drawn in. Long makes even the court proceedings an act of unbearable tension, given how real his fear is, and how close he's able to get to the guillotine without losing his head. (I speak figuratively of course.) If Magritte's intent was to give us the idea of the pipe, Long's is to make us choke on the real thing. Long's final tribulation seems about as simple as saving the Titanic after it's already upended. Having his history of malefactions stacked against him, and weighing the number of year

This book has all the makings of a best seller. It draws you in from the first page. Once you start reading it you can't put it down. The book begins with the crime which first sent Wally to prison and the thinking which lead him down a path of self destruction. While in prison Wally comes to the realization that his life could be different. Determined to change, he begins a quest to transform his life. He writes down on a piece of paper, glued to the prison wall with tooth paste,the kind of person he will become and the life he will have. Every day and every night for seven years, Wally focuses on what his new life will be like. Thinking about his new life, helps him escape for a short time, from an otherwise bleak prison life. When Wally is released from prison he is able to live the life he dreamed of. This book makes you believe anything is possible and is a true example of how changing your thinking can change your life.

Moving, but never sentimental. Inspiring, but not preachy. I am a psychiatric nurse practitioner who has worked in jails and prisons for years. It is an ongoing challenge to instill hope in inmates. This book offers the story of one man who found hope and used it as a tool to transform his life; it is a story I plan to share with as many inmates as I can, and a story everyone in this field should read.

The Upside of Fear: How One Man Broke the Cycle of Prison, Poverty, and Addiction by Weldon Long is one of those books that looked interesting for review purposes, but I initially said no due to my horrible backlog piles of books to be read. But after about four different emails from unrelated sources on the book, I thought that perhaps someone was trying to tell me something. I received my copy and started reading it one night as I was suffering from a bit of insomnia (nothing new there!) I quickly found that I couldn't put it down, both for Long's story, and for the lessons contained within it. The book touched me on a number of levels. In short, Long was a life-long "loser" who drank himself into over a decade of time spent behind bars. After dropping out of school in the 9th grade, he quickly became an alcoholic who was not willing to work hard at anything in life. He was always after that next get-rich-quick scheme, while drinking away most of the money that his girlfriend/wife earned at her job. This constant need for money without effort finally led him to pick up a hitchhiker and plan an armed robbery to get a quick score. That wasn't the start of his downhill slide (he was already sinking), but it *was* the accelerator that pushed him to even lower depths. He was quickly apprehended for that crime, and was sentenced to ten years. As with most sentences, he was able to get out early while swearing to himself he was going to change for the better, in order to be a better father to his baby boy. But the patterns were already ingrained, and he went back to robbery to get his next cash infusion. He was pulled over while planning another heist, and the police found him in possession of a firearm along with tools that could be used (and would have been) for his next crime. This parole violation sent him back into the system, but he was able to dodge any responsibility for the prior crimes as they couldn't tie him to the acts. You'd think by now he'd start thinking about how to *really* change his life, but that was not to be. With his next release, he was again back to drinking, drugs, and telemarketing fraud. All this finally caught up with him, and he ended up back in jail once again, this time facing the possibility of spending the rest of his life behind bars. It was then that a transformation started to occur... He reached out to a Higher Power and asked for help in turning things around. It was at that point that he started to understand that *he* was responsible for what had happened to him in life, and he had the choice on how to respond to his circumstances. He started to read a number of personal improvement books, taking the lessons to heart. Most importantly, he started to own up and take responsibility for his past actions. This didn't mean that all of a sudden his life got rosy. But it did give him a purpose and guiding principles to continue his personal growth and to pursue his life goals he was now focus

Twenty years of drinking, drugging, robbing, and lying led author Weldon Long to become a three-time loser and a wasted 13-years in prisons, jails, and halfway houses. Another consequence was an almost non-existent relationship with his young son. Long had dropped out of school in the 9th-grade, and financed by his father, twice tried selling auto parts. Both efforts failed, losing over $25,000 in the process. Inability to hold a job and the pressure of meeting rent payments were followed by Long's first robbery. The effort netted less than $20 from two customers leaving a Colorado Springs restaurant, and a quick arrest thanks to witnesses calling police and following behind. Sentenced to ten years, Long completed an AA degree while in prison and was lucky to progress to work-release status after only three years. Despite twice being caught drinking and driving, he was soon released from parole. Marriage, a son, more drinking, and additional robberies followed. Caught with a gun, a felony violation, he was lucky to only be charged with a misdemeanor that netted another year in jail. This time Long switched to illegal telemarketing, lost $30,000 in a Las Vegas drinking/drugging binge, and eventually was caught and sentenced to another four years. Soon after his last three robberies caught up with Long and five more years were tacked on while still in jail. His father's death prompted considerable introspection and reading of a number of self-help books. Long primarily credit's Steven Covey's writings with helping him turn around. Long began writing down and visualizing what he wanted - an education, a home, sobriety, a wife (his current wife was having an affair and rarely visited), being thin and active, and a healthy, stable life for his then 4-year-old son. Long also took responsibility for his own actions and started acting consistent with what he wanted. Long finished his B.A. program and began an MBA. Additional demonstration of his new life-style came when a guard passed out and a group of prisoners gathered around, watching. Long, despite long-faded memories of CPR, decided to cut through the anti-guard environment and attempt to save his life. The guard recovered. Soon after Long was sent back to work-release near the end of his sentence. Finding a job proved quite difficult despite having completed his MBA - nobody wanted a felon as employee. Eventually, however, Long landed a job as a HVAC salesman and set a company record for sales the first month while earning over $10,000. Personality and jealousy problems vs. the owner led to Long starting his own business, and within four years of his release he was running the largest and fastest growing HVAC company in Colorado, partnered with an ex-cop. He also had a new wife and was living with her and his son adjacent to a golf course near Colorado Springs. Long now also makes regular appearances to help motivate recently released convicts. Bottom Line: "The Upside of Fear" is