Episode 2 Transcript
This is a radio transcript. It may still contain typos and errors.
[Chris] My name is Chris and I’m a grateful recovered drug addict.
[Audience] Hey, Chris!
[Chris] Hey! So, I get the distinct honor and privilege of introducing our commander in chief, Eric Spofford, CEO and founder of Granite Recovery Centers. (applause)
[Music in]
[Chris] It’s been a hell of a ride, man! (laughs)
[Eric Spofford] I’m about as well known of a drug addict – what a weird claim to fame – I’m a very well known drug addict in this state. I know the governor personally. I know the commissioner. I know most of the legislation. // And let me just tell you something, and I say this with all the love in my heart, nobody gives a fuck about you. They don’t. I’ve been there. // The troops are not coming. Nobody is coming to help.
[Music post]
[Eric Spofford] This isn’t on your government. This isn’t on the cops. This isn’t on the Department of Corrections. It’s on you. I do my part – do you do yours?
[Music post]
[Eric Spofford, 2018 speech to GRC staff] I will say this and I hope it empowers you and I hope you take it with you when you leave that nobody is more qualified to help addicts besides recovered addicts. Can we give it up? (applause)
[Music post]
This is The 13th Step. I’m Lauren Chooljian.
[Music out]
Eric Spofford knows how to get people’s attention.
He founded a wildly successful addiction treatment company in New Hampshire.
It’s called Granite Recovery Centers, and Eric built it on a story – his story.
For a while, there was a big picture of his face on the website next to some text that said, “Where you’re going, I’ve been.”
That’s because Eric’s story is about overcoming addiction and then turning around and guiding other people toward recovery.
Eric, you’ll remember, is the guy with the helicopter.
He’s also the guy who allegedly sexually harassed his former client on Snapchat.
The guy who was described by another woman as the “God of Recovery.” This is the same woman who told me Eric had 13th stepping, quote, "down to a science.”
And there are more women I’ve heard from. We’ll get to that.
How do we square these two characters? A man devoted to inspiring and healing others… and a man accused of abusing his power, especially with women.
[Music in]
There are so many places I could start the story of Eric Spofford.
I could start with his childhood. You get a pretty memorable image of Eric that way.
[Eric Spofford on “The Mike Drop”] Some kids have one lemonade stand, I had seven. And I had neighborhood kids manning my lemonade stands as I rode around on my bike and I split the dividends with them. (hosts laugh) You know what I mean?
In fact, this is how another podcast called “The Mike Drop” started their Eric Spofford story. The hosts are loan officers in Eric’s hometown of Salem, New Hampshire.
[Host] Right…
[Eric Spofford] And I also wanted to be a gangster too so I kept, packed a BB gun to keep everybody in line.
[Hosts] (laugh)
[Eric Spofford] It's just the way it was. And you know it was almost like that Tony Montana, Scarface mindset from a young age. I wanted to rule the world. I wanted it all.
I could also start Eric’s story a bit later on when he was a teenager, because this is where Eric often starts the story when he tells it. Like in this speech he gave at his company’s 10 year anniversary.
[Eric Spofford, GRC speech] I sniffed my first OxyContin off the back of a Slim Shady CD case in 1999, you know? // It wasn't much longer than that that I found heroin. I believe I was about 15 years old. And the first time I ever tried to get clean, I was 17 and 17 is a really young age to try and get sober and find recovery. But at that point, I was running with the hardest and I was a stone cold heroin addict.
Quick aside here: “Addict” is a word you’ll hear some people use in this podcast. It’s also the first word most experts or advocates will suggest no one use anymore. Because it can be stigmatizing. It implies that a person is a problem vs has a problem.
So, I’m not gonna use it. But a lot of people in recovery still do.
I have not been able to talk to Eric in the course of this reporting. I’ll tell you more about that later…
But as you can hear, he has done many interviews over the years. He posts about himself on social media and he published a book. So I have lots of material to work with.
Like this video where he describes what life was like when he was in active addiction.
[Eric Spofford on Instagram] Robbing and stealing, dealing drugs, robbing drug dealers – all sorts of crazy [beep] on the street. Just to survive. Living like an animal. That was a decision. I woke up every day and decided to do that.
For the record, I can’t confirm all these details. I’ve found documents that show Eric was arrested at least 10 times during the years he says he was using. There was one DWI. He got picked up a few times for driving without a license, and one time he was arrested in Maine for carrying a concealed weapon. A knife.
Nothing about robbing drug dealers though or being one. That doesn’t mean it’s not true. And it definitely sounds like, from what I can confirm, it was a rough few years.
But for a lot of people, the story of Eric’s empire really kicks off after all that.
It starts when he gets sober. Eric says the last day he used drugs was Dec. 6, 2006. He was 21 years old.
[Eric Spofford on “The Pomp Podcast”] The next morning, I woke up. // I was emaciated. I was disowned by everybody that I know. I didn't have a friend left in the world. I'd run out of lies. I was tired. They say you have to hit rock bottom. If that's true, that's exactly where I was.
This is from yet another interview Eric did – this one is from “The Pomp Podcast.” It’s a show about investing, hosted by an entrepreneur.
Eric tells the host after he stopped using, he found a 12-step meeting in New Hampshire where he got to know men decades older than him. They had been sober a long time and Eric says they taught him ”how to live.”
[Music in]
[Eric Spofford on “The Pomp Podcast”] They… they didn't spare my feelings at all. They loved me so much that they literally did not give a rat's ass about how I felt. They’d tell me exactly what they saw. // And be like, “You are a selfish, self-centered, dishonest son of a bitch and you need to change,” you know? And they were right. I was. It was the truth about me. Then.
There are millions of people who credit the 12 steps with saving their lives. Eric is one of them.
[Music post]
The 12-step model was developed in the 1930s by the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous. They published the steps in 1939 in something that’s known as the “Big Book.” It’s used now by people facing all sorts of addiction, not just alcohol.
Step One is admitting you are powerless over your addiction. Step Two: believing in a higher power to, as the “Big Book” says, “restore you to sanity.” Step Three: surrendering to that higher power.
Step Four is to make a moral inventory. For this one, you take a hard look at yourself and literally write a list of all your so-called character defects and the ways you’ve hurt others.
In a speech to GRC staff, Eric says he remembers exactly where he was when he did his fourth step.
[Eric Spofford] I wrote my inventory sleeping in a studio apartment in the winter that I didn't have money to buy furniture. I was… My living arrangements was a pile of blankets that I was really grateful for and a busted couch.
So Eric sits on this busted couch, writing out his deepest darkest feelings. Then Step Five – he shares that list with someone. It’s usually a person who’s serving as a sort mentor through the 12 steps – they’re called a “sponsor.”
Steps Six and Seven can be really profound. You prepare for God or your higher power to remove those character defects.
Eric is blown away by this.
[Eric Spofford] By the time I was at my seventh step, I was absolutely on fire. I had been changed from the inside out.
This was a huge moment for Eric. He continues the steps. Eight is making a list of people he’s harmed. Nine is making amends to those people when possible. Ten is making a daily inventory, holding yourself accountable to the work. Eleven is remaining in contact with your higher power with prayer or meditation.
And then 12 – that one Eric takes to a whole other level. Step 12 is to spread the word, carry the message to others.
Over the next two years – 2007 and 2008 – Eric became fully absorbed in helping others recover.
Eric wouldn’t just attend 12 step meetings for his own recovery. He was actively looking for guys to sponsor. In fact, by Eric’s telling, he basically throws himself at people. He’d show up at meetings armed with his copy of the “Big Book,” ready to cut through people's bullshit and straighten them out.
[Eric Spofford, GRC speech] I had a hardcover “Big Book” that when you closed it, across the pages and permanent marker and large capitalized letters, I had “bullshit filter” and I would roll into AA meetings and I would slam that baby down on the table and I would light the room up.
Eric starts meeting a lot of people this way. I talked to one of the guys Eric sponsored back then. His name is Ken Newman.
[Ken Newman] The first day we met, it was a cold March morning. We were out on the porch. He was drinking an iced coffee. He had on his hooded sweatshirt. I was flipping cold, dressed really warm, and he was just in a hoodie, drinking iced coffee. And I was like, geez, this guy is friggin’ tough as nails.
In 2008, Ken was going through an addiction treatment program in Nashua, New Hampshire. Same town that Eric lived in with the broken couch.
Ken was looking for a 12-step sponsor. The guy who ran Ken’s program knew Eric, and he set them up.
That first day on the porch, Ken says Eric brought over a copy of the “Big Book.” And he told Ken, “Read a section on your own. Underline anything you don’t understand and we’ll talk about it.”
[Ken Newman] And then he asked me, he goes, yeah… He wanted to know if I was a real alcoholic. // So he asked me about my history of my use and times I tried to stop and what it looked like, and he // recommended his prognosis for that was that I needed to do the 12 steps with him.
From that point on, Ken says he and Eric talked almost every day for a year. They’d hang out together, too – go to the beach in the summer. Softball games.
[Ken Newman] Go to commitments. We went to commitments every weekend.
[Lauren Chooljian] What’s a commitment?
[Ken Newman] We’d drive in the car and go to another AA meeting and share our experience, strength, and hope with people. And he was like a frickin’ celebrity!
Someone described Eric Spofford to me once as both tough and vulnerable. This person pointed out that there’s incredible power in being not just one or the other – but both.
It helped me understand why Eric would be such a compelling presence in a 12-step meeting.
Standing in front of everyone. An intense look in his eyes. A dude that has seen some shit.
But then suddenly, he’s softening, opening up about his pain. Connecting with you. He gets you. Here’s Eric talking with GRC staff in 2018.
[Eric Spofford, GRC speech] It did resonate with newcomers. // You know, when you came in like I did, shaking from the booze, from the withdrawals, or dope sick, and we started talking about the phenomenon of craving and restless, irritable, discontented, and the mental obsession, it grabbed their attention because it's real. And so I started to create the fellowship that I crave, as the “Big Book” talks about, and I had, you know, 15, 20 sponsees and I tried to get them through the steps quickly so they could start sponsoring other people. And then it became overwhelming and I couldn't keep up.
[Music in]
This is the moment where Eric goes from very active 12-step sponsor to entrepreneur.
It’s 2008. He’s spent the past few years building a community, getting to know a lot of people in recovery in New England. And he starts to see a huge gap in what’s available for people in recovery.
[Eric Spofford, GRC speech] Guys are coming out of these facilities that we were sponsoring them in and had nowhere to go. There wasn't a single sober house in the whole state.
I haven't been able to confirm that there were no sober homes back then, but it's certainly true that there weren't enough.
Sober homes can be a really helpful landing spot, especially for people coming out of residential treatment.
They’ve lived with round the clock support for the past month or so, and living in a sober home with other people who aren’t using can be a helpful next step back to reality.
Eric sees an opportunity.
[Eric Spofford, GRC speech] And so // I moved out of my little apartment that I eventually got a bed and a real couch for // and I moved into a modest three-family home. And we set it up so that it had 11 beds. And um, and I lived there for the next 18 months.
Eric opens up The Granite House in Derry, New Hampshire. He bought the house thanks to a loan from his dad, who runs a small logging company. He creates a space for men in recovery to start their life over. To live temporarily, paying Eric rent, while they find work and get back on their feet.
And Eric literally lives with them.
[Eric Spofford, GRC speech] I look back on it and they are some of my fondest memories. We went to meetings together. We went on commitments together. We cooked food on the grill together // but I would never do it again. (laughs) I enjoy that I don't have guys crazy, newly sober banging on my bedroom window at midnight anymore.
Over the next few years, Eric opens another sober home, and then expands his services. And Granite Recovery Centers is born.
Now, maybe it was because of the lemonade stand franchise and the scarface energy. Or the one two punch of tough-as-nails yet empathetic.
[Music in]
But it was also impeccable timing.
In 2008, America was in the early days of the opioid crisis. New Hampshire was having an especially hard time and it was only going to get worse.
If you needed treatment for substance use disorder – of any kind, not just opioids – the options were few and far between. And often, they were unaffordable.
Costs vary widely, but a single day of inpatient addiction treatment can be several hundred dollars or more.
But then, the same year Eric opened Granite House, Congress passed legislation requiring insurance companies to start covering addiction treatment.
And then in 2010, the Affordable Care Act comes along. It insures millions more people, which means they also get addiction treatment benefits.
This was a big deal because now tons of people who couldn’t afford to get help – they could count on their insurance to pick up at least part of the bill.
This apparently was also great news for entrepreneurs looking to make a ton of money in addiction treatment.
And this is not a very regulated industry. Even though addiction is a disease, a medical problem, the treatment world still operates, in many ways, outside of medicine. That gap has been narrowing in just the past decade. But still, you don’t need a medical degree to own a treatment center. Or a sober home. It was relatively easy to get into the industry, especially back then.
So there was lots of need, lots of money, and not a lot of people watching.
[Music post]
Over the next decade, Eric would build an addiction treatment network, growing from that one sober house into a multi-million dollar operation.
There was inpatient treatment, outpatient services, sober homes for men and for women. Eric picked up millions of dollars in state contracts along the way.
[Music out]
He’d become one of the biggest providers of substance use disorder treatment in New England. And he’d give himself the job of CEO of Granite Recovery Centers.
The services at every GRC facility were based on the 12 steps. In fact, it’s one of the most common approaches we have in this country for addiction treatment.
And Eric himself would sometimes lead 12-step sessions.
Eric said his goal was to create a movement, a community of people who got well at GRC, and then turned around and helped others, just like he did. It was pretty common for former clients to be hired as GRC staff.
For Eric, there was one word that defined how GRC operated. Here he is in a video the company made in 2020 for new employees.
[Eric Spofford, GRC company video] This company really focuses and operates on integrity. We pride ourselves on doing the right thing. We have always held a high standard of doing the right thing in a time where addiction treatment – not everybody that does this work is doing the right thing. And // we put clients over profits consistently and we care about the people we serve.
[Music in]
Many clients, including some I’ve spoken to, say Granite Recovery Centers and Eric saved their lives.
[Music post]
So in his mid to late 20s, a few years into sobriety, Eric’s life story wasn’t just well known around New Hampshire. He was like a local hero. By the time he’s 30, politicians were thrilled to show him off. And of course they were. Isn’t this what we all hope for as we drown in overdoses and deaths?
In 2015, New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte invited him to testify at a hearing in the U.S. Senate. He was the only treatment company owner on the panel.
[Eric Spofford at U.S. Senate] I’m a man of integrity today. A good friend, son, boyfriend, and father. I’m respected in my community and recently, I won the Business of the Year Award from the Chamber of Commerce.
Eric got close with New Hampshire’s governor, Chris Sununu. Sununu once said that when he had questions about the addiction crisis, Eric was his first call. At a press conference at GRC’s headquarters in 2021, the governor called Eric the best of New Hampshire.
[Gov. Chris Sununu] You have to find your path of service. How can you give back? It isn’t just running for office, right? It could be being a teacher or // doing what Eric Spofford did and saying, “Look, I went through my challenges. I’m going to give back by creating a system that can help other people.”
Eric also became one of the go-to addiction experts for local media. And that includes New Hampshire Public Radio – my newsroom.
[NHPR’s “The Exchange” theme music fades up]
[Host Laura Knoy] Addiction treatment is ramping up in New Hampshire…
This is from a daily talk show we used to air called “The Exchange.”
[Laura Knoy] Our guests in studio are Eric Spofford, chief executive officer of Granite Recovery Centers. And Eric, it's really nice to meet you. Thank you for being here.
[Eric Spofford] Pleasure to meet you, too. Thank you.
[Laura Knoy] Also with us is Dr. Molly Rossignol. She’s an addiction physician…
[Audio fades out]
…
[Audio fades in]
[Lauren Chooljian] Look at you!
[Lori Caputo] I’m telling you… Have a seat. He’s the one – You might get your ass a little wet. These should be a little dry, but…
[Lauren Chooljian] That’s fine.
[Audio fades out]
On a rainy day in October of 2021, I drove up to a horse farm near the White Mountains to meet Lori Caputo.
Lori was a nurse at Green Mountain Treatment center for years.
And Lori is the first person who helped me understand there were actually two Erics at play here. The Eric you’ve just heard about and the Eric who allegedly harmed people he was supposed to take care of.
We sit outside. Lori smokes a cigarette, takes a sip of her extra large coffee from Dunkin Donuts.
And she tells me when she started working for him, Eric wasn’t just a CEO. He was their leader. Commander in chief.
[Lori Caputo] Everyone looked up to him… respected him, looked up to him. Honestly. Like, even though he's young. You know, I'm 55 years old. He's in his 30s, right? You know what? You do an amazing thing. You know, you're just an amazing person. It's awesome. Good for you. You're a great role model. You’re this – I just want my kid to be like you.
That’s not just some throwaway line for Lori – “I want my kid to be like you.”
When I visited, Lori’s kid, her oldest daughter – she had been struggling with heroin addiction for more than a decade. Most of the time, Lori had no idea where she was. Today though, she’s with her mom. She’d just gotten out of jail when I visited. She waved to me from the front stoop of the farmhouse.
Lori worked at Green Mountain Treatment center twice. The first time was from 2017 to 2019. And she says she and the other nurses were encouraged to spend quality time with clients.
Like real time – Not just checking their vitals, but listening. Lori was a detox nurse. She cared for clients while they went through the agonizing symptoms of withdrawal – dope sick some call it – a time that can take a week or more. A horrifying, but crucial step toward sobriety.
[Lori Caputo] These kids come in and they are so broken. Most of them – I can tell you even with my own – she’s been couch surfing for 13 years. I mean, it’s exhausting. // Most of them have exhausted all of their family members, any friends that they've had, because they've either stolen from them or they've lied to them or whatever or worse. And, you know, so getting them through those seven days and having them understand that we do care whether you make it, we do care. It's important to us. You're not just a number. You're not just a name on an insurance card.
There’s this one video Eric made that Lori says crystalizes it all for her. The pride she felt for her work and her boss.
She puts down her cigarette, digs out her phone and hits play.
[Video of Eric Spofford] Guys I gotta say this, too many people are dying of overdoses. We’re at fucking war out there…
The video is about four minutes long and it’s just Eric, talking to a camera.
[Eric Spofford on video] I am so fucking sick – for years now – of just being flooded with RIP posts on my Facebook. I can't stand it…
Lori has seen this video many, many times.
And at this next part, Lori shakes her finger toward Eric’s face and goes, “This right here.”
[Eric Spofford on video] Like, you need to know that even though you think you’re not worth shit…
[Lori Caputo, quietly] This right here.
[Eric Spofford on video] And you think that people don’t care. And you think you’re all alone, and you think that no one understands the struggle, there’s a lot of people that do. We can get better.
I sat there and watched Lori. Her eyes welled up with tears.
[Lori Caputo] That's why I worked there because that’s the message we sent people. No one was going to judge you. // I mean, you know, he was the real deal. You know, so many places, like, whatever, you see, whatever, those stupid things out in California, “Something Recovery, come to the beaches…” Whatever, you know, that was such bullshit, you know what I mean? Like, this was the real deal. He was the guy, like, he was the guy that was going to make a change. And we were. We really were.
We were. He was. Past tense.
I mentioned Lori worked at Green Mountain Treatment Center two separate times. The first time was when she wore that sweatshirt proudly.
But in 2019, Lori hurt her shoulder and had to take a break from work.
When she returned to Green Mountain in 2020, pretty quickly she realized, “This is not the same place I left.” There were way more clients than they had room for.
When she started that year, she said they had about 80 clients. A few months later, there were 170 clients. She says they had to stack three people per room. And this was the beginning of the pandemic.
Lori says the job became mechanical – get as many people as you can through here as fast as possible – to make room for more.
[Lori Caputo] And by the time you left up to your 12 hour shift, you were so stinking tired. I just didn't want… You became… I mean, and I watched other nurses do this, too, like, you just didn't want to hear another story, like, you know what I mean? And that's not how it should be.
Lori and other nurses tried to get management to slow down admissions, especially because of COVID. But she says they wouldn’t listen.
I’ve confirmed all of this with texts and emails – even a company spreadsheet that shows the climbing daily client totals. One former manager actually told me, “Oh, Lori Caputo? She was a total pain in my ass. But she was usually right.”
[Lori Caputo] It’s just… It’s… I don’t know what it's about. I don’t know whether it’s about the money. I can tell you it's just not the same. It's a business now. It's not personalized. There's nothing – there's just nothing about it that's… that's even inviting, you know what I mean? Like, you're just a number.
I’ve talked to a lot of former GRC employees who worked there around 2020. And most of them shared similar concerns.
Lori says she was fired from Green Mountain Treatment Center around this time. Which was just as well – she was getting pretty fed up with the place.
And after Lori left, she ended up fielding a lot of phone calls and texts from other nurses saying – we are drowning over here.
And then a few months later, in May of 2020, someone tells her, “Lori, something weird just happened.
[Music in]
“A bunch of administrative staff just quit!”
[Lori Caputo] Those were people that knew Eric from day one. And when they started dropping like flies, we're all standing there going, “What the heck is, like, what is going on? Like, if these people who have known him for all these years can't support him, then what is going on?”
That’s after the break.
[Music post]
[Jason Moon] Hey, this is Jason Moon. Thanks for listening to The 13th Step. This podcast, it took three years to report – and a lot of resources. One way to show how much you value local journalism and longform investigative reporting is by giving to New Hampshire Public Radio. It takes just a few minutes and it makes a big difference. To give now, click the link in the show notes – and thank you.
[Music out]
MIDROLL
The first person to quit was Brian Stoesz. This is May of 2020 and Brian was just a few months into his new job as Chief Operating Officer of Granite Recovery Centers.
Brian is in recovery like so many people who work in addiction treatment.
He’s been in the behavioral health industry for decades. His last job before GRC was a VP level job, overseeing multiple treatment facilities across the country.
But Brian says he was getting sick of all the travel and Eric made him a pretty good offer.
[Brian Stoesz] Eric offered me a package. I mean, he offered me three hundred thousand a year with 5% ownership in the company. And he pitched that, you know, “Within a year or so we will be selling it and your share will be 3 to 5 million.” And I'm like…
[Lauren Chooljian] Wow.
[Brian Stoesz] …it sounds like a good opportunity. Yeah, why don't… why don't I do that? So then, I got there and I'm telling you, within 15 minutes it's like, what have I done?
Brian went up to Green Mountain Treatment Center and he walked right into the chaos that Lori Caputo told you about. Way too many clients and not enough staff to care for them. Group counseling sessions that were packed.
[Brian Stoesz] I mean, you would go into a group and there would be 90 people in a group. I mean, you couldn't even breathe. And this is amongst the COVID outbreak. The cafeteria was almost standing room only and he's still packing them in and, you know, and I would push back and it's like, “Eric, we don't have the staff! We don't have the accommodations!”
Brian says Eric was also willing to accept any person, regardless of their situation, even if Green Mountain Treatment Center was unable to care for them.
[Brian Stoesz] I mean, we would get clients that would… would be admitted to the facility. It's like, no, no, no, this client is not appropriate. Active psychosis – just clearly medically compromised. So we – medical and myself would deny the admission. And you can count on your fingers in eight seconds, Eric Spofford would call me and ream me up one side and down the next, and he would deny the denial of the admission. // I mean, I have a masters’ degree. I've done this work for 35 years and you have Eric who quit school in ninth grade who’s overturning decisions made by people who actually have an education!
This was not what Brian had signed up for. Not only was it a disaster - it didn’t seem like there was anything HE could do to fix it. Eric had complete and total control of the place.
But that wasn’t why Brian quit.
[Brian Stoesz] But, I mean, the bottom line, all that chaos, // all the bullying, the demeaning stuff… I mean, yeah, I had started looking for another job. That was… that wasn't… I wasn't going to stay there, but what the catalyst for me was… All of a sudden then one day out of the blue, he called me and he said, “I want [BLEEPED NAME] fired.”
[Music in]
The story Brian is going to tell you – the reason why he and at least five other people left GRC – it’s about another sexual misconduct allegation involving Eric Spofford. Another story of how Eric seemed to use his power to manipulate women.
You are not going to hear from the woman at the center of this allegation because she declined to speak with me.
So I’m only going to tell you a few things about her out of respect for her choice. I will tell you she used to work at GRC. She was also a former client of GRC before working there, so she is also in recovery. And I’m only going to share limited details about what multiple people said happened between her and Eric.
I’m going to call her Employee B.
[Music fades out]
So, Brian says Eric called him all worked up and said...
[Brian Stoesz] “I want her effing ass fired.” I'm like, “Eric! She does a good job. Why don't I give her a performance improvement plan? What are your concerns?” So he just said, “Well, she's insubordinate. She talks back to people. She's unprofessional.” I'm like, “OK, I'll write up a plan.” So I // wrote up a plan. // I send it to him. He emails me back. He says, “This is garbage.”
[Nancy Bourque] Brian called me and he said, “I need your help.”
This is Nancy Bourque – she was the Director of Human Resources at the time. And she remembers thinking, “This situation sounds so bizarre.”
[Nancy Bourque] Like, you're the owner of the company? // Like, why are you getting so involved in this? But he tended to swoop into all these situations, so I thought like, “Well, here he goes again.”
Eventually there’s a meeting with Employee B and a so-called corrective action plan gets finalized. I’ve seen a signed copy of it. It says Employee B could lose her job if she got in trouble again.
The next day, Nancy talked to Employee B.
[Nancy Bourque] I said, // “What's going on?” And she goes, “I know why that happened yesterday. I know why.” /// And she goes, “It's because I set boundaries. I set appropriate boundaries.” // And I said, “OK…” I said, “I don't want to put words in your mouth, but are you saying that certain boundaries had been crossed?” And she said, “Oh, yes.”
Nancy says Employee B told her that she and Eric had a sexual relationship and it was not always consensual. And that Eric was retaliating against her because she tried to end things.
To be clear: Non-consensual sexual activity – that is sexual assault.
And it goes without saying that most workplaces frown upon relationships between leaders and their employees. Eric actually was in relationships with at least two other employees during his time as CEO. He didn’t hide it.
Nancy took handwritten notes during her conversation with Employee B. I’ve seen them – they include words like “retaliation,” “boundaries,” and “predator.” Nancy also wrote, “Need legal advice on this.”
Nancy remembers feeling torn because she’s the HR Director.
[Nancy Bourque] And I said, “I will do everything I can to protect you in your job, but I also have to report this. Right? I'm not… I'm, you know, I work for the company. I report to the owner.”
The owner – as in Eric Spofford.
[Nancy Bourque] “It’s my position – I have to.” And I felt so conflicted.
The next day Nancy met with Eric.
[Nancy Bourque] I just flat out said, “Before I say anything,” I said, “You need to know how uncomfortable I am right now with what I have to share with you. // And so I told him. I said, “I received, you know, a very serious allegation that has to do with you and this person.” // At first, he was just like, “What?”
And then Nancy says Eric started to get really upset. And the words she says Eric used to describe this employee – they track with what a lot of people have told me about how Eric spoke about women who had crossed him.
[Nancy Bourque] He was like, “This is crazy. This is insane. She's a psycho! She's this. She's that. She's – she's crazy!”
Both Nancy and Brian, the COO, say Eric brought someone in from outside the company to look into the allegations by Employee B, and interview staff. But they both say they never saw the results of the investigation. And Nancy says she was never interviewed.
Brian says before his interview, Eric tried to coach him on what to say.
[Brian Stoesz] So Eric said, “Listen. I know they're going to talk to you. She's just – she's a pathological borderline. Just remember that: She's a borderline and there's not a shred of truth with anything she says.”
Brian talks to his wife and is like, “I gotta get out of here.”
Brian called a meeting with Eric and Nancy and resigned on the spot.
[Brian Stoesz] “Here's your company credit card. Here's all your keys. Do not under any circumstance ever contact me again.” And he stands up and he said, “I don't even know what the fuck you're talking about!” I said, // “You know exactly what I'm talking about and don't ever treat me like an idiot again. Goodbye.” That was it.
So that was the first person to quit.
Next to go was Piers Kaniuka, the Director of Spiritual Life at GRC. Many people have told me Piers was deeply respected by staff and clients.
Piers and Eric have a long history together. Piers was one of Eric’s first 12-step sponsors, one of the most instrumental figures in Eric’s early recovery.
They’d had their ups and downs over the years. They’d grow apart, then come back together.
In 2016, Eric hired Piers to work for him at GRC. They’d end up writing a book together called “Real People Real Recovery.”
So Piers knew Eric better than Brian did in many ways.
[Piers Kaniuka] I – I went into this knowing fully well that he had liabilities. I certainly didn’t know (sigh) that he was going to turn out to be like Harvey Weinstein.
Harvey Weinstein. It is quite a comparison. A man who we now know used his incredible power in Hollywood to abuse many, many women.
Piers said that because he’d heard rumors that there were more – other women that claimed to have had bad experiences with Eric.
One of those rumors was actually about Elizabeth, the client you heard about in the last episode. The one who received the dick pictures from Eric the day she left treatment.
And I want to take a brief break in this quitting story to tell you about another rumor Piers heard.
A rumor about a woman I’m going to call Employee A. I tracked her down – I talked with her. And I’m going with A because what she alleges? That happened 2 years before Employee B came forward.
Employee A agreed to talk with me on tape as long as we did not use her name.
…
Employee A saw Granite Recovery Centers as a shot at a second chance. She is not in recovery and she was never a client. But she has a criminal record, a drug charge, so she says when she got a job at GRC, she felt indebted to Eric.
[Employee A] I thought in my mind that this was the only job that will ever hire me again, and I needed to keep this job, and I needed to do whatever it took to keep this job.
She started out in an entry level position at one of GRC’s sober houses for women and she says she loved it.
But around 2018, Employee A was promoted to supervisor. And that’s when she says things got weird.
Eric started messaging her on Snapchat. At first, it seemed innocuous.
But then she says things escalated. He sent a message about how he works hard at the other steps so he can use sex as a sport. She didn’t know quite what to make of that.
But then came pictures of Eric without a shirt on. And then pictures of his penis. Just like Elizabeth.
Employee A says she had no idea what to do.
She remembers she settled on sending back short messages, just to acknowledge that he messaged her.
But then one day Eric invited Employee A to a one-on-one meeting in his office – and I should say, what she’s about to describe may be upsetting.
She was driving around while she told me this story.
[Employee A] I had no idea what that meeting was about, but obviously, he did. So he was very quick to, like, just pull me in and start kissing me. And then, he went to his desk and he grabbed out a condom. And.. and we did end up having sex on his couch in his office.
[Lauren Chooljian] Did you want that to happen?
[Employee A] No… But I also didn't know how to… tell him… no.
It was the middle of the workday. At GRC’s corporate headquarters.
[Employee A] There were people working outside. Like, he has blinds in his office and his door locks, so there were, there were people working, like, pretty much right outside of his office door. So I didn't – I had no idea how to. I didn't know what to do.
After that, she tried to avoid him, she made excuses to not meet with him.
A few months later, she was having lunch at GRC’s headquarters with a male colleague she was dating.
She says Eric saw her and started yelling and screaming and telling her to leave the property. She says she responded with something like, “I can come here and hang out with you, but I can’t just grab a bite to eat?”
[Employee A] And that probably wasn't the best thing to say in that time. However, I was – At that point, // I was just, I had Eric… like, I had to try to navigate Eric from doing weird things with me. Like, I just was… I was so stressed out that I didn't know how else to react.
The next day, Employee A was fired. Her immediate boss told her it was for incomplete work. But she thinks it was retaliation by Eric.
[Employee A] I still believe to this day, the people that work for Eric, for the most part, really, truly want to do what's best for people in recovery. I really believe that. And it's… it's sad that… that they're all kind of sucked into somebody who… who literally just does it for the money, because he doesn't practice what he preaches at all.
[Music in]
I spoke with three people who independently confirmed details of Employee A’s story.
One of them is a friend this employee called right after she was fired, who remembered an anguished phone call and even the detail about the condoms in Eric’s desk drawer.
Eric denies all accusations of sexual misconduct – a point I’ll be digging into later.
But right now, I want to go back to the quitting story. The story about Piers Kaniuka, the director of spiritual life, in the spring of 2020.
Piers had heard rumors in the past about Employee A. That something had gone wrong between her and Eric. And, as I mentioned earlier, he’d heard rumors about Elizabeth, too – the former client. And yet, he’d shrugged it all off.
[Piers Kaniuka] And I didn't want to believe it. This was inconvenient to me. You know, that's – // I don't want it to be true, I guess.
[Music out]
But now, he hears about a third woman and this time, he goes to her directly. He talks to Employee B.
And something about that conversation with her convinced him that there was a pattern. He told me he faults himself for not realizing it sooner. And he’s since apologized to Employee A.
…
So Piers decided to just walk out. He was the most recognizable figure at GRC besides Eric, so he figured if he left suddenly, Eric’s reputation might take a hit.
His hope, he says, was that, quote, “This was going to snowball.”
[Piers Kaniuka] He is – he should not be in this field. He should be shunned, shamed and probably prosecuted.
So Brian Stoesz, the COO – he was gone. Piers Kaniuka was gone. And then, a few weeks later, Nancy Bourque, the HR director – she says she noticed that Employee B was gone, too.
[Nancy Bourque] So then I saw Eric that afternoon // and he was like, “Oh yeah, I meant to tell you. We put that all to bed. // Situation's done. She signed off on everything, so we can put that behind us.”
What Eric was saying, according to Nancy, is that he signed a paid settlement with an employee who had accused him of sexual assault. In fact, multiple sources told me this.
I have not seen this settlement, but I’ve seen other agreements Eric made and they include clauses like NDAs that have become notorious, in other sexual misconduct cases, for silencing people.
[Nancy Bourque] And then the next morning I came in… I wasn’t in the office five minutes. And two people came in and said that I was done.
Eric fired Nancy. In a text message he sent her – which I’ve seen – Eric took issue with how she handled the allegations. He texted, quote, “You did not have my back.”
[Music in]
[Nancy Bourque] And so now, anybody that knew anything is gone. And you can write your own narrative now about how bad we all were.
[Music post]
A few more GRC employees would quit after this.
Multiple sources told me there was talk of legal action from a group of women with accusations against Eric, but it appears nothing came of that.
Eric would remain in charge until the end of 2021, because that is when Eric sold Granite Recovery Centers.
[Eric Spofford] I closed on December 21st. I saw more money than I’d ever seen in my entire life.
We don’t know exactly how much money Eric made on the GRC deal, but judging by his social media posts, it was substantial. One number I’ve heard him throw around is $115 million dollars, but I haven’t seen any public documents that back that up.
Social media, by the way – that has ended up being quite a window into Eric’s post-GRC life and career.
He bought a home in Miami for nearly $21 million.
[Eric Spofford audio fades up] …So this house has seven bedrooms, which I really like…
He’s building a real estate investment company, and he bought a yacht to rent out.
[Eric Spofford] …but, you know, we’ll cashflow this thing. The demand for yachts and charters…
He travels around via his own private jet.
He posts on social media constantly, offering advice on how to “level up” in life and business.
[Eric Spofford] How big is the vision? Fucking bigger – that’s the answer. // Listen, click the link. You’re gonna get on my team and I’m gonna show you how to fucking blow your life up in all areas…
He even hired a video producer to follow him around and post videos to YouTube about what Eric’s up to.
That’s where I learned that despite his new, fancier business endeavors, he is still staying close to his beginnings.
In one video, soon after selling GRC, he’s on the phone with a business contact.
[Voice on the phone] How are you, sir?
[Eric Spofford] I’m very well. How are you?
Spofford tells him, “I’m totally out of GRC now…”
[Eric Spofford] …And, you know, they bought 100% of the business, and so that left me kind of a soldier without a war, if that makes sense.
[Voice on the phone] Right, right.
[Eric Spofford] And so, you know, looking at doing it again…
Doing it again. Opening more addiction treatment centers.
…
In March of 2022 I published a news story about sexual misconduct allegations against Eric.
That story included Elizabeth, Employee A, and Employee B. I went to Eric before we published to give him a chance to respond. He refused to answer specific questions about the allegations.
Instead, his lawyer sent a statement.
The first sentence reads, quote, “Eric Spofford has spent most of his adult life pulling thousands of people out of the depths of addiction, depression and trauma.”
The statement then goes on to criticize my sources. Eric’s attorney accused them of deceptive behavior, and says that Eric denies any alleged misconduct.
I read you some of this statement in the last episode. But there’s much more. Quote – “Because of the very nature of the work, the recovery industry can be a stressful and sometimes toxic environment. Some recovering addicts are uniquely suited to work in the field and are able to use their past experiences to help others in need. Others relapse and revert to the lies that tragically go hand-in-hand with addiction.” End quote.
That statement, as we’d soon learn, was just the beginning.
[Music in]
Next time on The 13th Step:
[Police Chief]: This is clearly not a random act. This was a targeted event.
[Music post]
[Lisa Banks]: If they can start picking off the witnesses one by one, pretty soon their case gets better and better and your story looks thinner and thinner.
[Voicemail] My name is Misty Marris. I’m an attorney from the law firm Gordon and Rees. I sent you an email yesterday regarding a potential litigation in federal court brought by Mr. Spofford against you.
[Justin Downey] My first my first initial reaction was I fuckin’ laughed and I think it's – I think it's funny because I think it just shows how scared he is.
[Music post]
The 13th Step is reported and produced by me, Lauren Chooljian.
Jason Moon contributed reporting and mixed all the episodes.
Alison MacAdam is our editor.
We also had lots of editing help from Senior Editor Katie Colaneri and our News Director Dan Barrick.
Dania Suleman is our fact checker.
Sara Plourde created our artwork and our website 13thsteppodcast.org. That’s the number 13.
Our lawyer is Sigmund Schutz.
NHPR’s Director of Podcasts is Rebecca Lavoie.
Special thanks to Casey McDermott, Taylor Quimby, Ariana Lyke, Max Green, Ilya Marritz, and Chris Ballard.
Jason Moon made nearly all the music in this podcast with the exception of the hip-hop beats at the top of this episode. That’s an excerpt of a track by “grapes” featuring J. Lang and Morusque. It’s called “I dunno.”
The 13th Step is a production of the Document team at New Hampshire Public Radio.
[Music out]