This is Rumblestrip. I'm Erica Heilman. Today, episode two of what class are you?

This is a show about Mark LaRouche. He is the director of shelters and facilities at Good Samaritan Haven in Berry, which serves unhoused people in central Vermont.

Mark has also had a lot of experience working with people with addiction issues, and he's very good at it. He understands it. Mark lived with severe addiction from his early teens through his late 30s. He was in and out of jail in those years, and we talked about how addiction is its own kind of class. First, here is Mark talking about his childhood in Rutland.

We're a big church family, so everything was related around middle or upper class.

I don't know. I mean, it was strictly Catholic, strictly Catholic. All the friends that came

over, all them, they would all fit into one bracket there wasn't much diversity there and that's not just

a color thing that's in general very specific type of people thoughts oh where did you find where did

you find comfort reality for me i thrive in the lower class i like the lower class and I like the lower class.

And things are just a bit more genuine.

Middle class is competition.

That's all that's about.

Fucking the Joneses and who has a bigger goddamn boat.

Rich people are just,

they're living a whole different reality.

Here I am struggling to do a down payment on goddamn RV. But my mom can drop 20 grand on a three-year lease on a car v.

Like it's nothing.

How old were you when you started to see class distinctions in your school or in your...

What was that? Sixth grade?

Depending upon where the parents are at,

that tends to start way before that,

where you don't want people hanging out with this one,

that one, and the other one.

...