A journey to gratitude
After a tormented childhood, a young man succumbs to addiction, sex work, and white-collar crime, until a brush with prison awakens him to recovery and a discovery of his wholeness.
Ended
The first time David took a hit of LSD was one of the most profound experiences of his life. After ingesting a square of gel he bought from a dealer at school, he strolled around his old neighborhood until he found himself standing in front of his family’s home—the setting of his stepfather’s merciless abuse until the day he escaped to the safety of foster care.
Despite the painful memories, his acid trip escorted him into a new dimension—his mind opened to an experience of pure, unending love and forgiveness for everyone who had harmed him. In this sacred state of awakening, he fully comprehended that every human being—no matter what they’ve done to others or themselves—is redeemable.
Over the years that followed, this initial revelation faded into the far recesses of memory, and David descended into the deepest pit of helplessness and despair. He aged out of foster care and ended up homeless on the streets of San Francisco. He turned to sex work to survive, finding support in transgender street workers, gay hustlers, drug dealers, hookers, and misfits of all kinds. He sought refuge in homeless shelters and stood in food lines at local churches. Occasionally, he found temporary jobs filing papers, answering phones, or sweeping floors, after which he returned to the shabby and squalid Delta Hotel on Sixth Street, San Francisco’s Skid Row.
David’s life pivoted sharply in September of 2004, and after decades of struggle and failure, he found his way to freedom from addiction. His spiritual journey has gifted him with inner peace and an abiding gratitude for the wonder of his own existence. The spiritual experience he longed for never needed to be “found” in the first place—he was already living it, but completely unaware.
David’s story is not merely about recovery from addiction—it’s for anyone trapped in loneliness and limiting beliefs about their worthiness. This story is meant to illuminate and eliminate the shame and self-loathing that plagues communities across all demographics and socioeconomic lines. It’s about liberating our minds and hearts to give and receive love. We all need freedom from shame—especially the self-destructive and often deadly shame of our complex sexual experiences, traumas, and desires.
The essence of every individual is whole, pure, and beloved. When we wake up from the illusion that we’re broken and begin to live from this incorruptible place of being, we heal, we find peace, and we begin to live out our purpose. David’s hope is that anyone who reads his book might find liberation from the illusions of brokenness and identify how to forgive the unforgivable. His story will also encourage readers who have awakened and emerged from their own darkness to now carry their message and shine their light so others can find their way home to love.
Introduction
Chapter 1: On September 20, 2004, David sits in jail, preparing to face sentencing for numerous white-collar crime charges. After another inmate returns to the holding cell stricken by an unexpected ten-year sentence, David braces himself for the worst.
Chapter 2: At six years old, David’s innocence and wonder are shattered after an encounter with the neighborhood pedophile, whose religious condemnations only add to his traumatic shame.
Chapter 3: During his earliest years, David remembers kindness from his new stepfather, but tender moments give way to cruelty and constant confinement that he tries desperately to escape.
Chapter 4: As an adolescent, David first experiences the mind-numbing effects of alcohol and low-level drugs as a way to escape the abuse and chronic incarceration.
Chapter 5: After calling the police to remove him from his home, David enters foster care and discovers freedom and love like he’s never known in his life. But during a home visit, his family convinces him to move with them to Missouri.
Chapter 6: David hatches a new escape plan by blackmailing his former molester into rescuing him. He returns to the San Francisco Bay Area and goes to live with friends until his drug use results in burned bridges.
Chapter 7: David finds himself in a Los Angeles County jail for grand theft auto. Released on his own recognizance, he takes a bus back to San Francisco where he walks the streets and sleeps at hotline hotels, finding sugar daddies to help make ends meet.
Chapter 8: At a shelter, David befriends a man whose spiritual inclinations ignite his own curiosity and longing. He reads Louise Hay and Shakti Gawain, and beautiful truths struggle to break through his drug-induced haze. After jaywalking, he’s arrested as a fugitive and returned to Los Angeles for a four-month jail term.
Chapter 9: Back in San Francisco, David has a promising future at a new job until his past catches up with him. After he loses his job, he takes up escort work. Though a means to survive, David finds meaning and purpose in caring for men others consider “untouchable.”
Chapter 10: David’s drug addiction reaches new lows after he discovers the particular highs of shooting up crystal meth. He tries and fails repeatedly to get clean.
Chapter 11: While living at a halfway house, David secures a solid job, and he stays clean and sober for fifteen months until a trip to Mexico leads to relapse. To fund his ongoing addiction, he and his partner engage in white-collar crime until his arrest.
Chapter 12: In police custody, David feels relief that his life will finally change for the better. He spends nine months in jail before a dramatic day of sentencing and a second chance.
Chapter 13: David begins his lasting recovery, and a fledgling dog-walking business turns out to be a deeply healing spiritual experience. He gives up his business to return to escort work, only now sober and a sexual healer for men wracked by shame.
Chapter 14: David achieves his childhood dream of traveling the globe through his travel-companion company, the Male Adventure, and he discovers every trip is a spiritual awakening.
Chapter 15: In 2011, David meets his partners, Todd and Carl, on a cruise. He also creates his workshop on sex, love, and intimacy, which he teaches at recovery conferences and retreats.
Chapter 16: In 2016, David’s older sister sends him a photo from when he was six. Poignant memories open him to new levels of grief and healing. He embarks on a retreat where he meets this young inner self on a deep spiritual level.
Chapter 17: David and his partners delve into their newly founded virtual reality company, Heal-VR, as a means to awaken and nurture others' spiritual journeys. While in Bali, he takes part in a “self-marriage" ceremony, which illustrates his message: We are all messengers carrying the truth that we are whole, perfect, and infinitely loved.
Every Grain of Sand will appeal to men and women ages 30-65 with moderate to progressive political and spiritual views, especially anyone who has battled addiction, depression, anxiety, or low self-worth.
Fans of memoir, especially inspirational stories of overcoming adversity
Recovery communities and others struggling with addictions
Survivors of childhood sexual abuse
Survivors of childhood abuse and neglect
Spiritual seekers, including people who are religiously unaffiliated or affiliated with alternative spiritual movements such as Course in Miracles, New Thought, and conscious evolution.
Fans of self-help and personal development
Leading up to the preorder campaign launch, David has been rolling out short preview videos to promote the book to nearly 5,000 Facebook followers.
His email list of at least 1,980 contacts includes influential former clients, colleagues, and personal growth coaches who will help promote preorders and book sales on his behalf.
David will also hire a publicist to supplement and enhance marketing and public relations efforts for Every Grain of Sand.
Foreword by T. J. Woodward or Michael Beckwith, leaders in the New Thought movement and Agape International Spiritual Centers in California.
Speaking engagements
David has established himself as an expert on sex, love, intimacy, and healing shame through an original writing workshop that he conducts for private groups. He is also a frequent speaker to men's groups, recovery groups, and private retreats.
He will conduct bookstore readings, meet-and-greets, and personal growth workshops once the book releases.
Previous media
David's impact as a sex worker has been featured in significant publications including Out magazine, with a readership of 203,000: "Price of Intimacy: The Time I Hired a Sex Worker" by Andrew Gurza. He also contributed his perspective to research on male escorts for Australia's Queensland University of Technology.
His company Heal-VR was featured in VizWorld.com, a VR news site with 50,000 page views per month: "Heal-VR Offers Guided Meditation in Chakra VR on the GO" by Dean Meyers.
These memoirs focus on a combination of addiction, prostitution, recovery, or dysfunctional families, along with the journey toward forging a new life. Every Grain of Sand weaves a mystical thread through the phases of David’s life, culminating in an inspirational message for any reader who has ever struggled with shame, isolation, and abuse.
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Author, speaker, and sexual healer for those seeking freedom from shame and fear around sex, love, and intimacy. Co-founder of Heal-VR, a software development company providing immersive meditation experiences.
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SEPTEMBER 20, 2004
I swung my legs out from under the thin cotton blanket and rested my feet on the cold concrete floor. In the early morning hours, my cellblock remained still and dark. Despite the weariness permeating my bones, I’d barely slept at all.
This was it—Judgment Day.
The Santa Rita Jail in Dublin, California, had confined me for the past nine months, but by the end of the day, I would know whether I was leaving jail at last or here to stay for decades to come.
I stood up slowly and pulled out my clothes. For appearance in federal court, I had the right to dress in normal clothing, whereas county prisoners went in prison uniforms. But whatever normal clothes I was wearing the day of my arrest had gotten lost inside the county system, so I had no civilian clothes at all. The best I could do was a clean, ironed white T-shirt that José, one of the jail trustees, had secured for me from the laundry and a pair of red scrub pants I’d been given during intake.
Santa Rita Jail in Alameda County was an enormous facility that houses more than four thousand inmates—typically convicted felons sentenced to county jail or those still awaiting arraignment, trial, or sentencing. The men in our maximum-security pod were under protective custody and segregated from the general population. Our group of inmates included informants, gays, transgendered women, and horny straight guys who wanted an easier stay—all rather harmless people at risk of being killed or maimed by the violent felons and gang lords on the other side.
Our pod also kept federal holds—guys like me facing prison time for federal crimes. My list of charges included possession of controlled substances, conspiracy to commit credit card fraud, fraud and related activity, possession of stolen mail, and possession of stolen identities—all of it the racket my then-boyfriend, Richard, and I had used to fund our relentless drug habit. Addiction owned me then, mind, body, and spirit. I wholly and completely belonged to the oblivion. And as a result, I’d spent nearly a year in this hellhole with the possibility of many more to come.
Dressed and cleaned up, I sat tensely on the edge of the metal bed, my hands clasped and my gaze down, when the cell door buzzed. The sound jolted me like a bolt of electricity. The next thing I heard was the deputy calling my name. It was time to go.
The deputies entered my cell to cuff my hands and shackle my ankles for the transport to the federal courthouse in San Francisco. Hindered by the restraints, I could only shuffle between two guards out of my cell and through the ward. The cellblock had begun to come to life, but the other inmates, still drowsy from sleep and knowing where I was headed, spoke few words, mostly just offering a nod or a look that meant good luck. Tamica, one of the transgender women, yelled out, “Miss David!” I usually hated being called that, but she said it with love, and I needed to hear it that morning. “You gonna be fine—don’t worry,” she said, waving.
Outside, the transport unit, a motor coach with different sections of interior caging, stood ready to receive the line of us en route to court. The guards placed me in a seat within the locked cage for prisoners in protective custody before unshackling my arms and legs. I rubbed my wrists and stared through the tinted windows, seeing nothing. I thought back to earlier conversations with my defense attorney, Nina Wilder.
For much of my time in Santa Rita, I’d had little communication from Nina or anyone in the court system—no dates, no guidance, no news from the outside world. I had written letter after letter to the court asking for even one iota of a clue as to what to expect. Nina had asked me to be patient while the prosecution built their case. And once they did, she said, “You’re going to have to take a plea deal. Federal court has a 98 percent conviction rate. You’ll never fight this, and if you do, you’re going to prison for a long time.” So, I had agreed to take a plea deal, but that morning, I still had no idea what Nina had negotiated on my behalf. The stress of not knowing made me crazy.
On the bus across from me sat a county prisoner, a handsome, muscular black man named Marius who had been busted with ten grams of speed. He too was headed for a sentencing hearing, but unlike me, he remained calm and at ease.
“Yeah, my baby momma gonna hit me up with some cash on the books, and I’ll do my thirty-six months and be outta there,” he bragged.
I didn’t know how many baby mommas he had, but even in his yellow jailhouse clothes, he was the kind of sexy that could have commanded a harem.
Given the sentencing guidelines for drug possession with intent to distribute methamphetamines, Marius was looking at thirty-six months to ten years. He had a girlfriend and a baby and a life on the outside, so he trusted he would get a lenient sentence. I wished I shared his confidence. Maximum sentences on the combined total of my charges added up to fifty-five years. But since I didn’t have a long criminal history and I wasn’t a violent offender, I was also looking at more like thirty-six months to ten years as well. I could barely tolerate the thought of even one more day in that jail, let alone a decade.
After the forty-mile ride into the city, our transport unit pulled into a parking garage beneath the Phillip Burton Federal Building and US Courthouse. The monolithic concrete and glass structure runs the length of a city block on Golden Gate Avenue in the heart of San Francisco’s Civic Center. One by one, we submitted our hands and feet back into the shackles and descended from the bus.
Fear coursed like ice water through my veins. The weight of exhaustion bore down on my whole body. I found myself in almost constant prayer to a god I barely believed in. Beyond a miracle, what hope did I have left? The only thing that consoled me was knowing one way or another the waiting would be over. After such a long, harsh battle, the closure would bring a measure of relief, even as I dreaded the possibility of being locked indefinitely in a human cage.
A team of deputies led us through a system of tunnels, hallways, and secure elevators until we arrived at a large holding area on an upper floor of the courthouse. I waited there until my name was called again, and then a guard escorted me down to a smaller holding cell outside of my judge’s courtroom. The cement cell had no windows—just an entry door and a side door that led to a glass conference room where inmates could meet with their attorneys in advance of their hearing.
In my holding cell sat four other guys, including Marius, all of us slouched on cold metal benches bolted to the wall. I stared at the floor, trying to piece together the years of my life and series of decisions that had led me to this place. I shook my head in disbelief that this was what I had become. If only I could start over again, do a few things differently—but it felt useless to hope or dream.
When Marius’s case got called, I straightened up a bit and nodded at him. “Good luck, man.”
He smiled and gave a thumbs-up before following the bailiff out of the cell.
I wondered how he would fare in his hearing. This was no county courthouse. This was a federal institution where everyone dressed in their Sunday best on a daily basis to appear before the judge. And no low-level magistrate either. Inside the courtroom presided a stern district judge named Phyllis J. Hamilton who had been appointed by President Bill Clinton and made famous for her controversial decision to strike down the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act earlier that year. She followed the rules. Her court went by the book. That’s just how it was.
While I waited, Nina appeared at the glass side door; she was a small but fierce Jewish woman who spoke straight and sharp. I exhaled loudly when I saw her. She motioned for me to join her in the conference room next to the holding cell.
“David, you have to stop writing letters to the court! You’re not helping your case,” she said, straightening a stack of papers on the table before her. After a brief explanation of the plea deal she’d worked out with the prosecutors, she continued, “Listen, I have no idea what’s going to happen. This could go in any direction. We don’t even know what kind of mood the judge is in today. Just don’t expect any mercy. And don’t you dare go in there and talk about how you found God.”
After a bit of coaching on what I should say to Judge Hamilton, Nina released me, and I returned to my spot in the holding cell. I was staring at the ceiling, rehearsing my prepared speech, when Marius returned from his hearing.
The moment he entered, the outcome was evident; his face revealed his devastation. He rushed to the corner of the cell, fell to his knees before the toilet, and threw up his breakfast. When he finished retching, he fell back against the wall, catatonic. He’d gotten maxed out—ten years, a year for every gram he’d had in his possession. And he would have to serve 85 percent of that time, no matter what. The federal system had no good behavior program, and though there were ways to get a sentenced reduced or be granted an exception, such motions were extremely rare.
Marius shook his head slowly back and forth, his mouth hanging slightly open. A few minutes later, a deputy buzzed the door to take him back upstairs.
After his sentencing, I could barely breathe. He had been so confident he wouldn’t get maxed out, but he did. I wasn’t confident at all about my chances before this judge. No one, not even my attorney, had been able to discern what would happen in my case. She might be lenient and give me the lesser sentence, or she might decide to make an example of me to deter other white-collar criminals. After what she had handed to this guy, my last ounce of hope dissipated altogether.
My case wasn’t called until late in the day. When the door clicked and the bailiff finally said my name, I nearly jumped out of my skin. This was it. I took a deep breath and stood up to go. No matter what happened in the next few minutes, I knew only one thing for sure—my life was never, ever going to be the same again.
What can I say except thank you very much WOW!! Such a great roll out. Just a few housekeeping items I want to say.
Tomorrow …
$20
165 readers
• One print copy hot off the presses
• Invitation to the book launch party
1 entry into the drawing for a $500 Visa Gift card on March 20, 2019
Includes:
$60
37 readers
• Three limited-edition signed copies
• Ebook (PDF, ePUB, MOBI)
• Invitation to the book launch party
3 entries into the drawing for a $500 Visa Gift card on March 20, 2019
Includes:
$200
16 readers
• 10 limited-edition signed copies
• Ebook (PDF, ePUB, MOBI)
• Invitation to the book launch party
• Recognition in the Acknowledgements
10 entries into the drawing for a $500 Visa Gift card on March 20, 2019
Includes:
$500
4 readers
• 25 limited-edition signed copies
• Ebook (PDF, ePUB, MOBI)
• Invitation to the book launch party
• Recognition in the Acknowledgements
• Customized affirmation audio recording, valued at $100
25 entries into the drawing for a $500 Visa Gift card on March 20, 2019
Includes:
$1000
0 readers
• 50 limited-edition signed copies
• Ebook (PDF, ePUB, MOBI)
• Invitation to the book launch party
• Recognition in the Acknowledgements
• Customized affirmation audio recording, valued at $100
• “Sex, Love, and Intimacy: Writing Your Way to New Relationships” workshop, not including travel costs
50 entries into the drawing for a $500 Visa Gift card on March 20, 2019
Includes:
$2500
0 readers
• 125 limited-edition signed copies
• Ebook (PDF, ePUB, MOBI)
• Invitation to the book launch party
• Recognition in the Acknowledgements
• Customized affirmation audio recording, valued at $100
• “Sex, Love, and Intimacy: Writing Your Way to New Relationships” workshop, not including travel costs
• Keynote speech, not including travel costs
125 entries into the drawing for a $500 Visa Gift card on March 20, 2019
Includes:
