twitter. thanks so much. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2017] >> saturday american history tv on c-span3 takes you to the american historical association's annual meeting in washington, d.c. for live, all-day coverage. 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. eastern. join us as historians and scholars talk about civil rights in 1968, watergate and the rise of partisanship. commemorating civil war reconstruction in national parks, and the new birmingham civil rights national monument. live coverage of the american historical association annual meeting. saturday on american history tv n c-span3. >> for the next hour, a book tv exclusive. our cities tour visits saratoga springs, new york, to learn about its unique history and literary life. for six years now, we've traveled to u.s. cities, bringing the book scene to our

viewers. you can watch more of our visits at cspan.org/citiestour. >> when grant arrived at the overlook, and here he is very ill, only a few days left before e passes away, and seeing this great beauty, this valley that ce saw conflict and warfare, and where our nation was born, was now a peaceful valley where farmers were working and he must have taken some satisfaction in that he was a part of the great american story. >> on mount mcgregor in upstate new york. only a few miles north of saratoga springs. and the significance of this historic site is this was the final home of civil war general

and president ulysses s. grant. and and this is the place where ulysses grant penned his memoirs. he was dying of throat cancer. his family was facing serious financial problems. at this point in his life, he was a man trying to take care of his family. we get the story here that most people don't know about. after his second term as president, ulysses grant and his wife julia went on a world tour from 1877 to 1879. he met many world leaders. he was well respected around the world. when they arrived in the states in 1879, they were looking for a place to settle. for grant, it was always an easy decision, even though they owned

multiple properties in the united states, the decision for grant was to be close to family. he chose the location where his young sons were living in new york city. the grants moved into the upper east side of manhattan. children lived nearby. they enjoyed a few years out of thelimelight, enjoying winters in new york city and summers with the family at their summer cottage. grant, when he arrived from his world tour, was in need of some income. which was a had scratcher, -- a hed scratcher, because should have had a penchant. he had given up his pension. he had spent a lot of money on the world tour.

his son, ulysses junior, buck, having been born in the buckeye state, got involved in wall street investment. they started an investment firm with a man named ferdinand ward. grant &ed the firm ward. money was coming in for the firm. everything started to collapse in the final year of grant's life. he ended up having a slip and fall on an icy sidewalk in new york city. that had him bedridden for a couple weeks. he arrived at the office of grant & ward and found out there was a major financial crisis. he had to get a loan for $150,000 to keep the firm afloat. he brought this money to their

business partner, ferdinand warned, who had been doing the books the entire time, and thought this would have helped firm survive. firm survive. in fact he found out soon afterwards that ward had been a had essentially been running a ponzi had essenty been running a ponzi scheme the whole time. it hit the grants like a bombshell. they were financially devastated. the whole family had heavily invested in this firm. grantgrant felt personally responsible. he really encouraged his family and others to invest in this firm. even though he was a victim, he felt responsible. the grants were in a difficult situationgrant felt personally responsible. he really encouraged his family and others to invest in this firm. financially because of this financial scandal. they packed up and moved up to

the new jersey cottage in the summer to figure out what they were going to do for the future to rebuild their lives financially. approached by century financially because of magazine at this time, a think magazine company, to -- a big magazine company, to write some articles. grant had been pestered to author for many years, but always resisted. he did not think he would be much of an author. he was a very modest man. but most of all, he knew she did knew he did not need the money. they offered him $500 per article to pay the basic bills. grant started writing articles about the civil war in the summer of 1884. that is when his writing career began. that was a way to bring in some money. there was going to have to be a larger work of literature to be able to bring his family out of the debt they were in.

grant started his writing career kind of shaky. his first article was seen as more of a dry, military report. the editor even went so far to remark that essentially it may be the second disaster of shilohte -- disaster of . it was a very poorly written article. oddly enough this editor came down to visit grant at his new jersey cottage and talked with him freely. will you talk about the civil war? grant started telling him anecdotes about the civil war. he sent, that is -- he told grant, that is the material people want to read. he came into his own. he had this idea that maybe this career could produce

more money for his family. around the same time century magazine was ready to make a push to get him to write a larger book that could be sold. --ury magazine told them told him they would publish it. ofwent to work in the summer 1884 and 1885. when grant was writing his articles in 1884, he started to have this throat pain. very bad sting a in the back of his throat that he felt when he was eating a peach. he shrugged it off as something maybe being on the fruit when he ate it. very bad sting in the back of his it, because s regular doctor was away in europe. really wanted to see his

regular doctor. he ignored it and said he would see his doctor in the fall essentially. they did not think much of it at the time. he had been ahe they ignore smos during the civil war. it was smoker's throat, what they called it at the time. he continued with his writing career until the fall of 1884, when they went back to the new york city home. he ended up going to his regular he continued with his writing doctor, who knew there was a serious problem when he looked at his throat. he sentence to a throat -- he sent him to a throat specialist. at grant's looked throat. grant look at his face and asked, is it cancer? the doctor had to tell him it was cancer. grant worked on his memoirs in the winter grant's throat. grant look at his of a committeo 1885.

winter of 1884 to 1885. doctors believed the only way he would survive long enough to finish his book was to get out of the city, which was humid and dusty and hot, to a mountaintop environment, which they did with a lot of ailing people in that time. a friend of the family, joseph drexel, approached the doctors and grain family to offer them the use of his cottage atop now mcgregor near saratoga springs. the cottage mr. drexel offered to the grants was modest in size, but had six rooms upstairs and a few rooms downstairs. been a smallally inn built by duncan macgregor.

it was built to accommodate a resort, and the resort was expanded to the point where a 100 room hotel just above the cottage. the whole property was turned victorian wilderness resort, you could call it. mountaintop wilderness resort with overlooks and pathways. obviously wonderful air. there was one advertisement for the hotel that victorian wilders said, if we don't cure your hayfever, your stay is free. known and was seen as -- mountain air was seen as curative at the time. the day grant arrived, it was incredibly hot. his trip up was very difficult. once he got off the train and came up to the cottage, he immediately got changed, came

back out on the porch, and the cool air of the mountains seemed to really revive him, and seemed to have a good effect on him right away. most importantly, he was able to be with his entire family here at the cottage. we will head into grant's bedroom. this is where grant would have come in from the outdoors. one thing you will notice is missing here is a bed. normally there is a dead in the bedroom. -- a bed in the venture. unfortunately because of grant's condition, he had to sleep sitting up. he would have his feet in this chair. this is where he would work when the bugs or heat chased him in. she had -- he had two doctors on call and

two nurses. they would come here to administer medicine. it was too difficult to eat with his throat. these items were provided to the great family from mr. drexel. these chairs did come up from new york city with the grants. these from new york city on the train. because mr. drexel left this to become a memorial, grant's son left his personal belongings here. we have some very personal items that show that grant was here. he was at homehe was at home he. he went through some very tough times here as well. we have his food bowl and spittoon. we have hairbrushes, stockings. wearing inhead he iswe

the photograph taken here. we have the food mashing equipment so he could take his nourishment. what is a really interesting item is grant's original medicine, the original bottle and the original substance. wearing in the photograph takenmost peoplet they were using for medication was morphing, -- morphine, or some heavy sedative. grant could not take medicine like that because he would not be able to concentrate on his book. doctors settled on a controversial substance of the time. it was cocaine. they would stir that up and apply that on his throat topically, so he could finish the work of the book for the sake of his family. when grant arrived, you could

imagine. this man was internationally famous. the train car behind his family's train car was the press corps. when they found out grant was dying in march of 1885, they kept up a 24-hour vigil. they came out across from the college -- camped out across from the cottage. they would send wire telegrams down to new york city. whenopened the hotel early the grants arrived. there was a lot of activity here. people knew grant was here. he was in the papers every day. he was a spectacle, you could say. service, the only person that volunteered was a civil war veteran about the same age as great, sam willis. he was a local civil war veteran

in his 60's. him nextup a tent for to the cottage. he ended up being grant's bodyguard. he would sit on the steps of the porch and tell people to move along and guarantee grand's privacy. job difficult. grant was such a friendly man that he would always tip his hat and wave. grant was always an unassuming . grant was such man. no matter the money or fame, he was a simple man, always times.hable at sam actually got frustrated. he said to his oldest son, to fred, can you tell your father to be less friendly? times. sam actually got frustrated. he is making my job difficult. friend went to his father and told him the situation.

nextnk what grant said shows his true character. he said, i don't want to be exclusive, let them come. buzz in there was literary community about grant writing a book. someone else interested in publishing other than century magazine was samuel clemens, better known by his pen name mark twain. he had just started his own publishing firm, and had self published "huckleberry finn" in feeding 84. -- in 1884. he had been a casual friend of the grants and showed up just as grant was starting his memoirs. he asked the general, can i look at your contract? he said later on, i don't know

whether to laugh or cry, it was the worst contract i had ever seen. it was only offering 10% of the profits. he said, that is totally inappropriate for a man of your stature. it was only offering 10% of the profits. he said, that is totally inappropriate for a man of your stature. i've got a publishing firm. i can offer you 70% of the profits, an critically generous eventually went with twain's offer. it was impossible to refuse. the name ofter was his nephew's publishing company. he and charles webster came up with a plan to sell the memoirs

door to door instead of selling them in bookstores. they would arrive and take preorders from folks door-to-door. one thing mark twain wanted to do was provide an opportunity for civil war veterans to be salesman. they would request civil war veterans to don their uniforms to go door-to-door. grant himself was a focused of his time. he was a celebrity. having him writing the book was but actuallys, having a civil war veteran, to the door as well helped -- civil war veteran come to the door as well helped sales. it allow them to make money for themselves and support their old commander in his final hours. twains came to the cottage a few

weeks before grant passed away. it was an important meeting. twain was checking on the progress of the book, but for grant, he wanted to find out how well it was selling. he wanted to find out if the book was a success. twain told him proudly, i have already presold 100,000 copies, and i have not even can just 2/3rd -- canvassed not even 2/3rd of the country. grant knew he had succeeded. by the time he reached the cottage, mark twain thought the second book of his memoirs was completed. grant was a perfectionist. as long as there was life in him, he would keep writing. she wrote at least another chapter to his book. it was a struggle to the very end. he wanted the book to be as good as possible. no matter what his physical

condition, he always tried to work on the memoirs. some days he couldn't get out of the bed physically. wrote 30 to 40 pages in one single day. give you the scope of the the memoirs would eventually be 1200 condition, my be an expert the memoirs would eventually be 1200 pages, almost 300,000 words. this is a major project for writer.in good but for someone struggling with cancer, this is an incredibly hearing effort for the sake of his family. -- heroic effort for the sake of his family. grant worked until his last few days. he asked to be taken down to the eastern overlook for onewest view of the valley. by the time they arrived at the cottage, grant was in very poor condition and they knew he did not have long to live. fred said to his father, would

you like to lie down? they brought a nearby bed from a hotel and placed it in the corner. grant was surrounded by his loving family here on the evening of july 22, 1885. he saw that their faces were anxious. he whispered to his doctors, i don't wish anyone to be alarmed on my account. his final wishes were that his family be comfortable. they went to vent, but came down the next morning at 8:00 before he passed peacefully 132 years ago. his son fred walked over to the mantle clock and stopped it at 8:08 in the morning to mark the time where his father passed. it hasn't been touched since. it is a symbol of the time

capsule this place has been kept years.se other than leaving a legacy for the country, the history of his life in the civil war, he also left his family an amazing financial legacy. the memoirs went on to sell 300,000 copies and bring in almost $450,000 for the grant family. in today's money, that would be between $10 million and $11 million. that allowed them to get out of debt and live comfortably for the rest of their lives. he succeeded in his final battle, his final devotion for his family. almost immediately after grant's passing, the owner of the cottage decided this place would be left in a memorial to ulysses grant. things were left just as they were when the grant family left.

that is why i think this cottage is so important to keep the way it is, and to maintain it, because it is such a compelling story, and it gives you that insight into ulysses s. grant. we are here in congress park in saratoga springs. just across the street is a historical marker. he was lured into slavery at a from here.k or two louisiana as awe are here in cs slave until he could become a free man again. he has been known to scholars studying slavery for a long time, but the public have not been aware of him. when the film came out, that changed. they got all kinds of awards,

including oscars. it helped to increase awareness of solomon northup's story. solomon northup came to saratoga from washington county about 1834. he had been doing farming there, but he and his wife decided to make a change. she was an accomplished cook, so she was always able to get work as a cook at hotels over the years. he would do various odd jobs. sometimes he would play his violin for parties and dances. when some of labor the railroads came to town. during the summer, there was work driving people around to hotels and so forth. in 1830's, there were about 85 african-americans in saratoga. saratoga at the time was just a village. by 1840, had doubled to 190.

population -- the overall the population of saratoga springs was a couple thousand people. about 10% were black at that time. northup's h before period, there had been a gradual emancipation. a lot of slaves were freed. northup's they wanted to try sg different, so they came to a place like saratoga springs. maybe they would do other service jobs for the resort industry, just to established their identity now that they were a free person. solomon northup's father had been a's life to a ship's captain, henry northup in rhode island. after the revolution, henry northup decided to come over to

eastern new york state. eventually he freed his slaves. he had a provision in his will until 1798. by the time he was born, his father was free, so solomon northup was always a free person. menhe end of winter, some approached him on the street and said they had some employment for them if he was willing to connect with a circuit they were involved with. they needed a musician, and they heard he played the violin very well. solomon at that point was in need of some money, because saratoga springs is very much a summer place. a lot of money made during the summer, but the winters were a lot harder. he fought it was a good chance

to earn some money and get home relatively quickly. instead he ended up being taken to washington, d.c., and they turned him over to a slave trader, who put him on a ship bound for new orleans. there he was sold at the slave market, and was a slave there years before he was ward talked to people in the north who were able to locate him and bring him back to new york state. there was a law in new york state at the time, because there were other kidnappings that had taken place. the law provided that if a person notified the governor that a citizen had been kidnapped and sold into slavery, apply, and the state of new york would take care of those expenses for that person to go, ordinarily to the south,

to bring that person back to be free again. northup,an, henry b. he was an attorney, and he was a friend of solomon northup. he applied and got approval to go to louisiana and look for solomon northup. a common thing when people were kidnapped, they were given a different name, which would make it harder for friends and family to trace them once they were enslaved. oneolomon northup's case, of the men that tricked him in saratoga went by the fake name of hamilton. on mislaid manifest that took -- tooke slave manifest that solomon northup to new orleans,

there is a plat hamilton listed. throughout his time as a slave, he was known as plat rather than solomon northup. that costs some problems, because when henry b. northup went to rescue solomon, you could ask for solomon northup night and day and no one would know him. fortunately he came across someone who knew what he was talking about. he was a slave for just under 12 years. his northup was freed, family relocated to glens falls. he did not come back to saratoga, but rejoined his family there. worked on his book over four or five months. amazinglyame out

after he came back to new york state, pretty quick work. a year after solomon northup's book came out in 1853, there was a man in whole county just west of here who read the book. he realized from northup's description of the men who kidnapped him, he new who they were. he has been on the same trip to washington dc with them, and notice on the way back they did not have this black men with them, but were flush with money. they had fancy jewelry they had purchased. they arrested these two men and put them on trial just a few miles from saratoga springs. solomon northup was interviewed by the magistrate. he attended some of the trials. the attorneys for various parties argued about different aspects of the case.

it never came to fruition other than the two men were confined in the saratoga county jail for a period of time, we do not know what ultimately happened to solomon northrup. there are articles to apply he fell on some hard times in the 1850's, maybe it is the 1860's, that we do not know for sure. he could have become ill or old and just passed away quietly. about 2000,ent up in front of the center on broadway answer to a springs. -- and saratoga springs. historical story, but now people are aware more because of the films, but also they realized the black springs,n in search of

-- in sera took a springs, a lot of people are not aware of the black history of this particular city. andrew mckenna, can you describe for me the first time you tried heroin? >> i can. i hurt my back when i was in the marine corps, injured it, and treated it how should be treated, with motrin, heating pads, ice packs. i did not seek out open wheel opioids atseek out all. but when i joined the justice department as a prosecutor, i would to a civilian doctor in washington, d.c., and he prescribed me percocet, and would give me as many as i wanted. looking back over time as a child, i never developed coping

skills, and i was the youngest of four, a fairly normal family i upstate new york, but wondered if i smoked pot, if i would drink, my feelings of insecurity would go away. i carry that into my 20's and 30's. it was almost a perfect storm, performing at a high level as a prosecutor, as a parent, brother, son, but i was self-medicating with percocet. badack did not hurt that where i needed that level of medication. eventually i left justice and moved to upstate new york, got a job at a law firm, good job, holding the family together, that i could not find a new york doctor to prescribe opioids the way my washington, d.c., dr. would. i eventually turned to a friend

and asked if he could get something for pain, and this is an old friend i had known for years, and he said i can get oxycontin, which is heroine in a pill. there's no two ways about it. it is an offensive term called hillbilly heroin when the company first brought it on the market, and that is because in appalachia, people were taking the pills, crushing, injecting them, overdosing on that come and dying. i knew about it as a prosecutor. had dealt with it. it had just come on the market. they put a lot of money into saying it was not addictive, and note outd a foot of an article that was completely fraudulent. as soon as i tried oxycontin, i was a completely different

animal. it was completely different from percocet. when you run out of percocet, you feel like you have a cold, but it is manageable. when i ran out of oxycontin, i started going to massive withdrawals. i remember sitting in my law office in albany and i had probably taken my last oxycontin a day and a half earlier, my stomach started to sort of floating, my body start -- flipping, my body started to cramp up, nausea. i remember the wastepaper basket asked to me. i had a client in the waiting room, the secretary is saying, are you going to see this client, and i was about to throw up. was having.t i had never been through withdrawals for. i called my friend, what is happening? he said you are withdrawing from oxycontin. -- times 30,lly

and it was coming on fast. it was panic. there was no way i could have andin front of a client give legal advice. i was trying cases in federal court and was going to state courts and seeing clients, and so long as i was on the oxycontin, it was ok. it was not great. we know we would addiction and addiction in general is a house of cards, but this was a different animal. so when i called this guy, he said there is something that can replace oxycontin, and i kind of in the back of my minute what he was about to say. not talk abouto it, and he said, on over. and he was reluctant to introduce me to any of this stuff. but he was in the throes of his own addiction. and i did not know it at the time. i should have noted as we were

using oxycontin -- i should have known it, because we were using oxycontin. as soon as i did that tiny little bit of heroine, all the withdrawal symptoms when a way, shaking, nausea, everything, and it was like a miracle. i was able to go back to work under thesee a client influence. i was able to prepare for trials, was able to go home and be apparent -- be a parent and a husband at the time. >> so when you started in the beginning, how often were you using heroin and then at your peak, how often were you using it? >> the beginning, here is the thing for is a cousin and heroine -- and percocet and hydrocodone are just as bad.

but oxycontin is a different animal. it is heroine in a kilt. i started using every day, and in a kill. i started using every day, and my body needed it every day. it was a great high, so productive, but it is a lie. and unsustainable. after three days if you do not have it, then your body starts to -- the stomach starts flipping, nausea. once i started using heroin, it was off to the races. at that point the house of cards had come down, i lost my job, i lost custody of my children, i had lost the trust of friends and family, and i started using 60ot of heroine, like 50 to bags a day, if you can imagine

that. a bundle is 10 banks, and back then it was 130 bucks. now it is she, 40 bucks. it was hard to get my mind around from a law enforcement perspective, how did the price goes so far down, but i know first responders are doing all they can to prevent it. to answer your question, a lot, and every day, to the point where if i did not do it, i would become finally ill. is a-- and addiction disease, not a moral failing. i'm starting to see a sea change, especially in the criminal justice system in terms of understanding this. failing, thatral there are viable alternatives to incarceration. but it arrives you places you could never imagine. it caused me to act in a manner completely inconsistent with who i was and my value system.

>> so were you becoming -- i do not want to put words in your mouth -- but how was your addiction manifesting itself to your family and your job? >> my work performance went way down. i was late to go to work. my quality of work was not what it should be more used to be. and family was just borrowing money. there were times when i stole -- and i write about it in "shared madness," and it is not pleasant to recall, but that is how it manifested itself, and it completely destroyed everything that i stood for, everything that i believed in, anything that i admired about certain peers of mine, and that is also a self-crushing blow, because when you are going through that, yourself-esteem absolutely --

self-esteem is absolutely down the drain. you know you did not just take 100 bucks from 70 with no expectation you will never repay them and see the look in their eye, they see the look in other people's eyes, and it is almost soul,or into their own not to be overly dramatic, but it is a terrible, terrible feeling. but there is hope, there is a way through it. there is no way around addiction. you have to go through it and do the work, but the wheels came off the bus rather quickly for sure. >> was your lowest point during -- what was your lowest point during your lowest time of addiction? >> my lowest point was following my arrest, and naturally -- >> before you get into that story, or can you tell us

how the idea of robbing banks come into your head? >> also a great question. clearly, not from what i did, and what i wrote about was not bank wrappers. -- robberies. one day i was driving to family court, i was going to lose again, and judge called me a junkie in my previous appearance. now you are a junkie and nobody believes a junkie. definitely getting punched in the stomach. so i was trying, trying. i could not fight the depression issue. and the anxiety and the addiction, it just overcame me. instead of going to family court in saratoga, i went north to lake george, and i robbed a bank. now, that is not rational behavior, clearly. i am not a tank robber -- a bank

robber. i'm not a sociopath. i was so angry at everybody that i got a case of the forget, and i just remember driving north, and i remember at right now, it was like i was in a fog. not clinically insane, but clearly disturbed. i could run through my mind, i cannot see my kids, i cannot see my kids, so i drove, got off the exit, walked in, went to the little desk where you can write in receipt, a deposit slip, and i used one of their deposit slips, and i wrote a demand. i got in line, and i will never get the teller's face out of my mind. sorry.

so i handed her the note him and she gave me the money. and after i had used -- and that was the beginning of the end. i ended up robbing several more ranks. finally got caught. -- more banks. finally got caught. this was my disguise. talking about rational behavior? my father, a college professor for 50 years, i remember him coming to the jail and say, but we saw the footage on the evening news. o --dn't you have warned i couldn't you have worn a disguise? my girlfriend at the time came to see me in jail. she saw me on the morning news because there was a helicopter and all this footage and all this other stuff, and she did not know what i was doing, what was going on. and again, when you are in

active addition, you can really -- addiction, you can keep the people close to you at it distance. -- at a distance. the lowest point was when she came to jail. it was terrible. i looked absolutely horrible, and i look through on the floor of the jail, seven or eight days, throwing up, going to the my -- on myself, going in and out of consciousness. they do not give you comfort meds in jail. there is no ativan to get you through the shakes, and no methadone, november trawl -- no vivitrol, know anything. so those seven days, neele knowing that she had to deal with all of my stuff, all of her

stuff, it was devastating. but there was a turning point in there for me, that when you hit your bottom like that, you make a decision that i cannot live like this anymore. misconceptions and stereotypes surrounding a particular heroine, because in the beginning you said they called it the hillbilly -- >> hillbilly heroine. yeah, i think so, and a journalist, the director of the writers' tate institute, and he was a journalist for a great newspaper, he reviewed my book, and he had this great line. he said heroine does not read resumes, and that is the changing of the thought, because i thought growing up the person who was addicted to heroine lived under a bridge somewhere and was pushing a shopping cart around or something like that. but that is not the case.

one of the most abused drugs right now on wall street among elites, and these are , professionals, are opioids. and going back to the no feel, no deal, you just may $20 million on a trade, anyone shut that down? that is the drug, and it only works for a little while, and ultimately it spirals out of control. >> when you hear the discussion with the president talking about the opioid crisis we're having in this country and how they are planning on tackling it, what goes to your mind? >> couple different things. i think trump has probably gotten a lot of bad press, which a lot of it -- it is partisan stuff. but he did appoint chris christie to the commission to lead the commission, the opioid task force.

and we have to put more money into the problem, and i think the money has to be spent wisely. i think the money should probably be allotted to the states to control, because each state is a little bit different. issue,s got their own west virginia, everybody looks a little different. new hampshire, the first primary state, massive open we ordered problem. the but -- massive opioid problem. the rural setting, the urban setting, those all represent different problems. it is important to give the state incentives, have evidence-based treatments. we have to put that into place. when i got clean, the main thing that i availed myself of was a 12-step program, is very effective for millions of people, but we know statistically that

evidence-based programs, treatment programs, where they use dialectical behavior therapy dfulnessng mine from to a person, feeling out what triggers a person, and tackling those things, that is where the money has to be. opioid-dependent veterans right now, and that number is low. they cannot get into programs in the v.a. you guys have probably covered this, if i remembered right. so why don't we open up that to the private sector little bit question mark -- bit? you do not need a $50,000 treatment program, open it up, monitor it for fraud, but get these folks into treatment. these guys and gals were overseas fighting in ridiculous

wars, in my view, largely. but take care of them. so i think trump is probably doing -- i think his administration is making some smart choices. i do not think they are putting enough financing into it. i am about cuts to medicaid and medicare with regard to treatment. but ultimately it is not a republican or democrat issue. we are all in this together, and it is interesting because i will talk to super fiscal conservatives, and they say, do not, they made bad choices, put them in jail, we do not want them on the street. we know that economically that does not make sense either. this put some money into

the front end, and i wrote about this for a piece i did with the hill, let's train these guys and females when they are in prison. let's teach them traded we have eated. i remember walking the track with this guy from north carolina or south carolina, any had a few months to the door. he was getting out in a few months. what are you going to do? what can i do? i got my ged while i was in here. i did not have money to go to college. i know president obama brought back pell grant's for inmates, which is a huge thing to do -- grants for inmates, which is a huge thing to do. can we send them back to their communities with a skill set

where they can make money, pay taxes, be productive members of society, and live a life free of crime? that has to be our goal. >> is it easy to pinpoint the heart of the issue? is it accessibility? pharmacies prescribing these drugs to easily -- too easily? people not being able to get treatment for depression anxiety, things like that? readilyrs prescribe too opioids, and there is a chart one liney the dea, showing the rate of prescribing opioids by physicians, and it shows the use of heroine, and the lines almost go up in sync. so i think that is an issue. but the fact is doctors have to be able to prescribe we always for pain. it is one of the tools in their

set that they have to use. he knows not to prescribe me. he does my story. he has read my book. he knows not the prescribing opioids. i know not to seek them. that is one issue. that issue is we have to dig in -- why are they trying to escape t by using this stuff? this epidemic has been going on six or seven years, but now we are in full force. what is everybody tried to run from, because every clinician will tell you, it is a no feel no deal trick. that is an issue, and a lot of that in terms of getting people into treatment, you talk about cooccur in mental health issues, and almost always, 90 percent-plus we're seeing , spectrum, anxiety

disorders, all these things that have gone untreated. it is hard to say where is the cart and the horse because using drugs over time changes the chemical balance of your brain. you stop producing your own domains, -- your own dopamine, and is hard to feel happy. if you're not happy, you can always spend three dollars and get happy. >> for people who read your book, what you want them to take away from it? >> is not a book about the crimes, nothing sexy about bank robbery. i think when i wrote it and started it as a journaling exercise, and a psychologist i used to work with says you start journaling, all your thoughts. get it down on paper, and it is a freeing experience.

i recommend that the families and clients that get into treatment. gotten away that i have -- the take away that i have gone from families is now i understand, i understand why my son is doing what he is doing or my husband or my wife. now i have a different perspective on addiction. and i relies that it takes people places that they never thought they would go, and clearly it did for me. >> our visit to saratoga springs, new york, is a book tv exclusive, and we shared it today to introduce you to c-span cities tour. for six years we have brought the book seem to our viewers. you can watch more of our visit at www.c-span.org/citiestour. >> laura litvan, a congressional reporter with bloomberg news. house leaders are meeting with pren