Episode Description - How to Navigate a Divorce and Addiction with Mitch Gordon
When your spouse's addiction threatens to destroy not just your marriage but your whole family's future, you need expert guidance to protect yourself and your loved ones. Attorney Mitchell Gordon brings over 23 years of specialized experience helping clients navigate the complexities that occur when addiction intersects with divorce, offering strategic solutions that safeguard both families and finances.
Drawing from his extensive experience with cases involving alcohol, drugs, gambling, and other addictions, Mitch emphasizes that the key to navigating a divorce and addiction is to treat the addiction as a disease rather than a moral failing.
Mitch’s approach focuses on implementing practical protections - from supervised visitation and breathalyzer requirements for parenting time, to innovative solutions for high-functioning professionals who need specialized treatment options that won't derail their careers.
Mitch also provides insight into sophisticated strategies for protecting assets and securing support payments in cases involving addiction. He demonstrates how modern technology and data collection devices including Soberlink can help prove addiction patterns. Finally he offers insights into structuring settlements that can protect both the immediate and long-term interests of the non-addicted spouse.
If you or someone you know is dealing with addiction and divorce, this is a “Can’t Miss” episode.
Show Notes
About Mitchell
Mitchell works exclusively in the area of family law. He has significant experience dealing with both parenting-related and financial litigation. Mitchell approaches his cases with the goal of problem solving through the understanding that each client has a unique set of circumstances. Mitchell works closely with his clients throughout the legal process to find reasonable and practical solutions. In addition to his litigation experience, Mr. Gordon has expertise conducting settlement conferences, drafting marital settlement agreements, parenting agreements, and pre and post-nuptial agreements. Furthermore, he is a skilled appellate advocate, having litigated numerous family law cases at the Appellate Court level.
Connect with Mitchell
You can connect with Mitchell on LinkedIn at Mitchell B Gordon and find more information regarding the services he provides on his website Bradford & Gordon, LLC
Key Takeaways From This Episode with Mitchell
- Addiction cases need unique handling in divorce court - since addiction is a disease, simply ordering someone to stop doesn't work and proper protections must be established
- For cases with children, safety measures include breathalyzer tests, supervised visits, video check-ins, and driving restrictions to ensure children's wellbeing
- High-functioning addicts with successful careers often deny problems, but specialized executive treatment programs offering private counseling have shown good results
- Evidence gathering relies heavily on modern technology - store rewards cards, casino player records, and detailed documentation through photos and videos
- COVID lockdowns significantly increased addiction issues, particularly prescription drug abuse, with some parents even taking their children's ADHD medication
- Gambling addiction can be proven through subpoenaed casino reward records and online betting history, with dissipated marital assets potentially recovered through structured settlements
- Porn addiction cases focus on two main issues: protecting children from exposure and addressing the misuse of marital funds on paid services
- When divorcing a high-earning spouse with addiction, securing assets upfront is safer than relying on long-term support payments that could be jeopardized by future job loss
- Non-addicted spouses often still love their partners but can't live with the addiction, and frequently struggle with timing the divorce out of concern for making the addiction worse
- Cases involving sex addiction may require special provisions in divorce settlements for ongoing medical costs, particularly if sexually transmitted diseases are involved
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Transcript
Mitchell Gordon - How to Navigate a Divorce and Addiction
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
addiction, dissipation, evidence
SPEAKERS
Karen Covy, Mitchell Gordon
Karen Covy Host
00:10
Hello and welcome to Off the Fence, a podcast where we deconstruct difficult decision-making so we can discover what keeps us stuck and, more importantly, how we can get unstuck and start making even tough decisions with confidence. I'm your host, Karen Covy, a former divorce lawyer, mediator and arbitrator, turned coach, author and entrepreneur. And now, without further ado, let's get on with the show. With me today is Mitch Gordon, and Mitch works exclusively in the area of family law. He has significant experience dealing with both parenting-related and financial litigation.
00:54
Mitch approaches his cases with the goal of problem-solving through the understanding that each client has a unique set of circumstances. He works closely with his clients throughout the legal process to find reasonable and practical solutions. In addition to his litigation experience, Mitch has expertise conducting settlement conferences, drafting marital settlement agreements, parenting agreements and pre and post-nuptial agreements. He's also a skilled appellate advocate, having litigated numerous family law cases at the appellate court level, which I am just going to throw in as my own commentary is not something that every divorce lawyer does, right. Appeals are their own kind of thing, and that Mitchell can do both is really kind of extraordinary, right? So with all of that, Mitch, welcome to the show.
Mitchell Gordon Guest
01:43
Hi Karen, thanks for having me.
Karen Covy Host
I am thrilled to have you because one of the things that was not mentioned in your bio but that I know, and the reason I wanted to have you on the show, is because of your vast expertise in working with addiction in the context of family law, in the context of family law. And so what, just to sort of kick off the conversation, what kinds of addictions are we talking about here? Is it specifically alcohol? Is it drugs? Is it gambling? Is it porn? Is it all of the above? What kind of addictions show up?
02:23
So it's really all the above. You know, the most prevalent is going to be alcohol or drugs, whether those drugs are illegal or even, in often cases, prescribed drugs or people are abusing prescriptions. Gambling is a big one, and over the last I'd say, call it eight to ten years.
Karen Covy Host
02:49
Uh, sex addictions yeah, I've talked to people who have um porn addictions. Yeah, it's a big thing and it will yeah part of marriage really quickly that's's right. So I guess the first question I have is that's a whole list of different kinds of addictions. Is the way that you approach a divorce different depending on the type of addiction?
Mitchell Gordon Guest
03:19
So I think so it has to be. And so, first and foremost, you have to approach a case where there's an addiction, particularly a substance abuse case, different than sort of a let's call it, you know regular divorce case or a case without an addiction, because it's a disease, it's a sickness and you know saying, well, knock it off, stop. You're going to have these limitations with the kids, you're going to get divorced, you're going to have these, whatever hoops to jump through as a result of your addiction People. You know if they could stop, they would stop. You know, if it was that simple. So you absolutely have to approach it differently. You know, I really started finding a different way to approach this years ago when I was involved in a case I actually represented the addicted party.
04:19
Mom was an alcoholic, she knew she was an alcoholic and the record orders it said she can't drink. And her ex then would file all these contempt petitions against her saying she violated it. And I remember at the time I was a younger lawyer then like this, this makes no sense, she can't, it's a disease, it's an illness. And I spent my time really talking to judges convincing a judge that you can't hold somebody in contempt of court over this. It's a sickness and so the approach to a case where there is addiction absolutely has to be different. Then I guess, to answer your more specific question, the type of addiction absolutely there are differences, because there are depending on the addiction and depending on the household dynamic if they're living together or if there are kids. If there are not, it really matters on the approach.
Karen Covy Host
05:31
Okay, how does it matter various aspects of this, how it makes a difference that a lawyer approaches a case with an addiction issue and how it matters that the spouse approaches it as well, because those are kind of two different questions. So let's start with the lawyer. What should you know? If you, as a lawyer, you've got a case, you know that there's an addiction issue involved, what do you do differently?
Mitchell Gordon Guest
06:08
So a couple of things. So, first and foremost, if there are kids, first and foremost you have to make sure that there are protections and guardrails around parenting. Okay, so you know, if you have, let's just say, for example, you have somebody with a parent with a substance abuse issue, well, there are certain tools we have, like you know, there are handheld breathalyzers that you blow into. You blow into, they have facial recognition software and they send almost instantaneous results to anyone you want it sent to. So you can have it sent to me, you can have it sent to you as the coach, you can have it sent to the GAL, the attorney for the children, you can have it sent to all the lawyers, to anybody. And let's say, there's, you know, a blood alcohol content there.
07:08
Well then, there may just be an immediate, you know, suspension of parenting time. You can have restrictions on driving. You can implement, you know, drug testing, whether it be random urinalyses, whether it be scheduled hair follicles, a combination of all these things. Also, when there are kids, the age of the kid is very important because you know a 14, 15, 16 year old is going to know that their parent. Let you know, let's just I'm going to pick on dad, you know, let's say it's dad has a drinking problem or substance abuse issue. The older child is going to be more in tune that something's wrong with dad and I'm not getting in the car with dad. Dad wants to go drive me somewhere and dad, I know that what's up and dad's not okay. And they also may have phones to call the other parent, call mom. Hey dad, dad's not right, dad's off.
Younger kids they don't know, it's just dad said, get in the car, I'm gonna get in the car and they don't have phones in which to communicate, so some of those protections for younger kids need to be, you know, a little more. They need to be tighter.
Karen Covy Host
08:30
Yeah, so when you talk about protections, let's say that you know you represent mom and dad is the one with the addiction problem in this example, although it goes both ways.
Mitchell Gordon Guest
08:41
Absolutely, but yes.
Karen Covy Host
08:43
So you know mom is worried that little kids and they're young, they're two, three, four, five years old are going to get in the car with dad and dad's going to drive drunk. What kinds of restrictions should mom be saying to her lawyer? I want these rules or these guardrails written into some kind of court order so that my kids are safe. What exactly is she asking for?
Mitchell Gordon Guest
09:13
So a couple of things, there's a couple of ways to go about it. So to me, the sort of, let's say, most fundamental or most common in your example, particularly when it's alcohol, is this breathalyzer I was referring to, and you know the one we use are a few services. You know, I find Soberlink to be pretty reliable. I'm not, I'm not giving them a plug, they're just pretty reliable. And you, what you want to do is you want to have set times in which you know, in your example, dad will be testing. So let's say they have their parenting time. You know all day. You know from 9 am to 5 pm on Saturday, right that that at you know, at 8 45 am, before they start, they have to blow, maybe every two hours they have to do it, or at the beginning, the middle and end points they have to blow in to sober length when it gets egregious.
10:27
And remember there's usually a fight. You know the addicted party, you know the first step in recovery is admitting that you have a problem. So and that's a big challenge so they're not necessarily admitting I have this problem. So there's often can be a fight to get there. But I have had situations where, where you have, you know, there are devices that the breathalyzer is actually hooked up to somebody's car and the car won't start if there's a blood alcohol content. If there's a blood alcohol content, you know those get, you know typically. You know those can be harder to get because there's generally a fight.
11:12
They're just if there are duis involved or if somebody is has uh, uh, blown positive into a soberlink while they've had the kids and then they're still advocating I should have time and I should be able to drive, like maybe you know that could be one of the things. You know you probably want to have check-ins, uh, with mom. You know we all now have devices. So even if young children don't have phones or ipads. Well, dad does, and maybe you require a FaceTime check-in and you know at young ages to say hey, we're going to have a 15 minute call is you know, a five-year-old doesn't sit there for 15 minutes, but just to, it's a way to get eyes on the situation. So these things are. That's how some of the guardrails can work. We often sometimes have supervised parenting time.
Karen Covy Host
12:08
That and what does that mean? Just for those people who are listening, who don't you know they have people have all kinds of ideas about what things are that they're not right. So if you could explain. What do you mean by supervised parenting time?
Mitchell Gordon Guest
12:21
Supervised means you're not with your kid alone. Somebody else is a responsible adult is there. And one of the ways to do that you know there are professionals you can hire. Who will? You know you're having breakfast at dad's and their supervisor's there. For breakfast they, dad wants to take the kids to the park or the movie supervisor goes to. You got to buy the supervisor a ticket.
12:43
One of the ways, an alternative to that and sometimes this is all often more palatable for the addicted party to accept and even for the kids sometimes is you have a trusted family member. You know, maybe you know you have where, all in your example, all of dad's parenting time needs to happen at grandma and grandpa's house and they have eyes on it. Um, sometimes what we do is we say, well, you don't have to have a supervisor, but, but the nanny will be there just to help you out. Right, so, but it is a method of supervision and that, whether it's the supervisor, grandma, grandpa, the nanny, any trusted sort of friend or family member, that person needs to be aware of why they're there and what they're looking out for, just to make you know, to have eyes on it and to know that they should be that they have the authority to terminate the visit. Call mom in your example and say you got to come get the kids.
Karen Covy Host
13:50
OK. So how does somebody go about getting to that point? Because you and I both know from having been in the trenches, right? Mom is going to say dad's got a drinking problem. Dad's going to say, no, I don't. And then it's that big fight, right? And the judge, who doesn't know either one of them, has no idea what's going on. So if you're let's say you're representing mom, what kind of evidence are you asking her to collect? You know, besides, like, if dad doesn't have the DUI, what should she be looking for? Like, if dad doesn't have the DUI, what should she be looking for? What proof should she be getting? That's enough to say to the judge. Hey, you know, we're not saying he's addicted or he's not addicted, but there's, there's this proof, this evidence. You don't want the kids driving with drunk dad, right? So, what, what is she looking for? Or he looking for, depending?
Mitchell Gordon Guest
14:44
So this is it's a great question because it's always, in a lot of ways, one of the biggest hurdles to do right out of the gate, right. And so, for those listening, if you have yet to file for divorce, or if you're on the verge, or if you're still starting, you're still living together, keep a journal and take photos, you know.
Karen Covy Host
15:08
Photos of what.
Mitchell Gordon Guest
15:11
Of if let's stay on your example of dad has a substance abuse issue, of dad being passed out of dad if there are drugs because it's really helpful. So a lot. Very typically in this day and age, the addicted party is functional. They have a job. So let me give you two examples of what I mean where this really helped carry the day you make the accusation. You know I have one right now going case going on right now where dad's a lawyer and mom took photos of, you know, a white powdery substance all over, spilled all over the house. It was in the kids playroom, it was everywhere. Dad, you know, when we went in on an emergency when we had these photos, dad showed up and was saying that it was caffeine powder and he had a little vial of caffeine powder and it's not cocaine, but it's caffeine.
16:28
Now it becomes not believable and the judge can at least say OK, I'm not going to say it's cocaine, but I am going to order you to go get an immediate hair follicle and urinalysis and we'll see if there's cocaine in your system. Right, so that at least gives an avenue to the judge. Another thing I've had and I've had this a lot, one I have going on right now is actually mom who's the alcoholic? She's got a big job and one of the things with her job is she always has events at night where she, where she, drinks too much. So dad was taking pictures of her completely passed out in her work clothes and at one point you know I had him I said look Next time. They were living together.
17:20
So he had eyes on the kids, but the divorce was ongoing and so he knew eventually they were going to, she was going to move out. He videoed her and he was videoing saying, you know he was saying mom, mom, mom, help, emergency fire, help, mom. Right, the kids were not around for this, of course, and, and you know, moms passed out cold and so we filed our emergency and mom said what are you talking about? I have drinks after work and we played the video and that carried the day okay, so I just have to ask, because so many clients ask me this question.
Karen Covy Host
17:59
It's like is it legal do that? Is it legal to take a video of somebody without their consent or to record them without their consent?
Mitchell Gordon Guest
18:08
Everybody wants to do that and I know there's some rules and fine lines there very general premise you're not allowed to record somebody with that if they don't know about it, right? That being said, in this issue there's really two things at play.
18:26
One he wasn't you're not hiding it because you have the camera out and your video. You know it's not. It's not a hidden camera or a hidden recording. And also when you're talking about some immediate safety issues of the kids, you know it's. You know the lawyers can't ever advise to do anything illegal, but also the you never get there because the in this situation, mom, what does she? What does she say? She's passed out cold in her work clothes. She was passed out on the bathroom floor.
Karen Covy Host
19:05
Let's talk, though, about those people, because you and I both know I mean, I think when most people think of alcoholism or drug addiction, you're thinking about the homeless person on the street who's got no money, but you and I both know that there are a lot of high level, very wealthy people who have serious addiction issues, right.
Mitchell Gordon Guest
19:26
Oh yeah, oh yeah.
Karen Covy Host
19:27
Let's talk about that person like who's got the high-level job. And let's say you're the lower earning spouse or the stay-at-home spouse. Now you know that if you bring to light that your spouse has, let's talk, drug addiction, because that's more socially unacceptable than alcohol, right So let's say you've got that evidence, where do you walk the line? Because you can prove your spouse has a drug addiction. And now they just lost their job and now you have no money to support your family.
Mitchell Gordon Guest
20:02
That's right. You have to be careful there is a balance, and part of that is on the lawyer to walk that fine line to make sure that, like hey look, we want the kids to be safe and we want, you know, this man in your example to be able to keep his job because he's the, he's providing support for the family. And so there is that fine line to walk and it's really on the lawyer to make sure they're doing it artfully, because you need to be really strategic about it. You know there are certain uh, the years, what has come up, really, also since COVID, these have grown in popularity some treatment facilities that are designed around the addicted executive.
Karen Covy Host
20:57
Oh yeah.
Mitchell Gordon Guest
20:59
Yeah.
You don't go inpatient, you don't go to group meetings, they come to you, they come to your house. You have this really one on one treatment program, sometimes two on one, not with another person going through the treatment, but another addiction counselor. How can you stay functioning, how can you stay high performing without this substance abuse, without the need of this substance that you're abusing? They're very expensive, but they also I have found they work.
Karen Covy Host
21:58
That's interesting. What do you think makes them work, whereas other programs maybe aren't as successful?
Mitchell Gordon Guest
22:06
I mean look first and foremost, in order for any program to work, at some point you need the buy-in of the person going through the treatment. They have to say OK. I admit Now I want to get healthy and I think part of the difference is for people who have big jobs, who are executives, who are high performing. I think they view themselves often. I'm generalizing differently that you know, that's not me. I'm not addicted, I haven't hit rock bottom, and the reason I can prove I haven't hit rock bottom is my career.
Look, I don't have an addiction. Look at my career, look at how successful I am, look at the money I earn, look how I'm doing. I don't get fired, I'm not those other people. And so, having that more tailored experience and I'm guessing here, and I've had clients who have gone through it, I've been on the side where I've been, I represent the non-addicted spouse where they go through it you know so from in my experience they can say well, that's not me, I sort of have this.
23:30
I have this sort of very highly specialized counseling and it can fit into their persona of I'm getting the VIP treatment here and so it's worked. It's expensive but it worked.
Karen Covy Host
23:45
Wow, I really liked that. That sounds. You know, that sounds like it would be like exactly what people need. Do they do that for just alcohol, or does that include drug addictions as well?
Mitchell Gordon Guest
23:58
Drugs as well. You know over the past, you know since the COVID. You know, in the early parts of 2020, right when we had the COVID lockdown, my phone was ringing off the hook because people's addictions really ratcheted up or the non-addictive spouse really had to pay attention because there was nowhere to go.
24:21
There are no bars or no after work events, right, but it alcohol, uh the drugs. Oftentimes it's cocaine, but really also prescription. People are abusing prescription medications, whether it's opioids, you know, painkillers, um, or or they're. They're getting into their kids, uh, adhd medication, they're getting to their kids Adderall. I mean people colloquially refer to it as diet coke, because it, you know if but then we're having their kids yeah, if you have adhd, the way you know it's a stimulant.
25:10
But the way the chemical works in your brain is you're having a dopamine deficiency or dopamine shortage. So the stimulant actually smooths you out, calms you down. If you don't have adhd, the stimulant stimulates you.
Karen Covy Host
25:34
Wow I don't even have words for that. That one's a new one on me.
Mitchell Gordon Guest
25:35
There is an ADHD medication shortages in our country, like terribly. A big part of the reason Are people who are abusing the medications. Now that the studies are showing a big part of that abuse is are really college age kids, where you know kid who has adhd on the dorm is either sharing or selling his pills to so that's partly where there's the shortage. Um, but oh yeah, I've had parents who you know the adhd meds are running low real too. You know too quickly yeah.
Karen Covy Host
26:19
All right. So let's let me throw you a scenario. Let's say that there's a spouse um, and you represent the spouse who is non-addicted, and the addicted spouse super high, functioning, big job, makes a lot of money, doesn't have a problem right, they're not going to admit it, um, and then, and there are kids, but the kids are older. So you're not worried about putting those guardrails up around parenting so much.
26:47
But that person is afraid that their spouse is someday like the train is coming down the tracks at them. The light is shining and they're you know, someday they're going to crash and burn, right, someday they're going to hit rock bottom. They're going to lose their job. Maybe they've lost a job in the past, right? So the non-addicted spouse is looking at this saying I need that income to get back on my feet after the divorce. I'm afraid of what's going to happen in the future and I don't want to cause them to go down the tubes faster, right, I don't want to be the cause of their pain. I still fundamentally love this person. However, I don't love their addiction and I can't live with it anymore. What would you counsel that person to do differently in their divorce and their negotiation, and what they agree to and in whether they even do this because they? They just have so much you know guilt, so much doubt, like how do you deal with that?
Mitchell Gordon Guest
27:52
so it's a good question. So one thing you said um, that's important, that that I find a lot of is in it in in related divorces, the non-addicted spouse. They didn't fall out of love with the person, which makes it really hard. You said it right. They can't live like this anymore and they live like on this day-to-day basis Today is a good day, today is a bad day. They're afraid to leave because they have eyes on the person and they're worried. If I file for divorce they're going to get worse. Hey, they're doing great, I don't want to file because they're going to fall off the wagon. Hey, they're not doing great, I don't want to make this worse. So it's really hard for them because they haven't necessarily fallen out of love. You just can't live like that anymore.
28:44
That being said, in your example, let's say, there's no kid. Kids are older, they're grown, they're in college or they're out of college, or there's just no kids. You want to make sure to the best you can. You want to get as much, essentially, of the assets as you can up front. So let's say we have a scenario let's stay on your example of dad's the earner and mom would be entitled. Or the wife in this year would be entitled to maintenance. You know out, formally alimony. Now maintenance, she's going to get support to the extent you can get a buyout of that, whether a full or partial. Here's your money up front. You should strongly consider it Because, for what you said, this person they're not, even though they may have this job, even they haven't lost their job before.
29:47
If they have, they struggle with addiction it might show up at work and they lose their job and they're out. You know, and there are certain I've had situations where I've the addicted person works for a government entity and when then they're fired for having addiction issues, they can't get rehired in that sort of sector. So let's say somebody works for CPS, for Chicago public schools.
30:21
It's right in their database that you're on the no hire. You know potentially be on the no hire list for whatever reason. You know they showed up to school drunk. You're on the no hire list and then you cannot work at CPS again. So you're going to want to get as much as you can on the front end for these reasons as you can on the front end for these reasons.
Karen Covy Host
30:50
That makes sense. But let's talk about that because I think a lot of people they don't understand the concept of present value, right. So they look and they say, okay, I'm going to get support. Let's say, you know, the spousal support was going to be I'm making up a number a month that's sixty thousand dollars a year. They were going to get it for 10 years. And so they're like, ok, then I should get six hundred thousand dollars. Why is that wrong?
Mitchell Gordon Guest
31:15
So the reason why that's wrong is you do a couple of things. If you say, hey, look, you know and I'm going to make up the numbers let's say instead of you'd get 600,000 if you got 5,000 a month over your time period, but we say, look, you're going to get 450 or 500,000 right now, today, and then no maintenance. The reason why you take less there's really a variety of reasons. Mainly one is the present day value of money. Right, the value of money typically decreases over time to where you know. When a gallon of milk, when you hear you know your grandparents say it was a nickel, well it's not necessarily that milk has gotten that much more expensive to produce. It's that the value of the dollar, buying power of a dollar, decreases over time. One of the other reasons is the guarantee. You have your money now, you can invest it.
32:18
You know, do you want your money now or do you want your money later? Right, there's a value of having your money in hand for you to do what you want with it and not have to wait to get it.
32:29
In five-thousand-dollar monthly increments over 10 years. You get it now you can. You can make that money work for you more. The third and final reason is there are statutory factors that can limit or eliminate your receipt of maintenance. So let's take your example and say the person says no, I want the full $600,000 over 10 years. And they're four or five years into receiving maintenance and they meet somebody and they want to move in with that special somebody. Well, you either can't, because if you start what's called cohabitating, you lose your maintenance period. Like, unless you've agreed otherwise, people generally don't maintenance is over, it's done, it's gone. Or if you get remarried, it's over, um, they don't even need to file a motion to terminate it. If you're living with somebody, that's it, so you can move on with your life. You have more freedoms.
33:36
One of the statutory factors that eliminate it is if you die as the recipient, you, they don't, they don't the person paying your ex doesn't pay your estate. And if you're saying, well, why would I care? I've died? Well, you would still have all that maintenance and all that money in your estate. You want to leave it to your kids, you want to leave it to your cousin, you want to leave it to your cat. You know it's your money to do what you want with, so you take a discount for all those reasons. And again kind of circling it back to your question, is you know, think about that If you're worried that somebody has an addiction issue and they may not be able to pay you the $5,000 a month you know if they go into court after four years and say I lost my job.
34:26
Well, court's going to pay attention to that, yeah.
Karen Covy Host
34:31
Yeah, but if you get your money now, you don't have to.
Mitchell Gordon Guest
34:34
It's kind of not your problem.
Karen Covy Host
34:37
Yeah, I think that's something that people they don't really understand, right. They don't realize that. They think that just because it's in a court order and it says you're going to get maintenance for X amount of time, that you're really going to get it for that amount of time, no matter what. And you and I both know that that's not always true.
Mitchell Gordon Guest
35:01
That's right. Or let's say, the person you know, they lose their job and they get rehired somewhere, but it has to have to pay. Well, your maintenance is going to get significantly reduced.
Karen Covy Host
35:14
Yeah, those are. Those are all good reasons. So let's talk. Let's segue a little bit into porn addiction, because you said that you've seen more of that over time. How does that affect a divorce case? What happens differently in a case that a divorce that involves pornography?
Mitchell Gordon Guest
35:35
So you know, when you're talking about porn addictions, you know the main thing. Really two things you're looking for. One is if there are kids, they're exposed, if they have any exposure to this because you can't, you know typically how we figure this out, you know somebody calls and they're like my eight-year-old was messing around on dad's computer. Or dad left this up on the screen, or dad used the kid's ipad. So you're really trying to limit the exposure the kids have. The other is people spend significant amounts of money paying for this.
Karen Covy Host
36:23
You know they how does that factor into a divorce? It's just like the money's gone. They paid it. How does that affect a divorce?
Mitchell Gordon Guest
36:33
So it's really about the concept called dissipation. The legal definition of dissipation is the use of marital money for a non-marital purpose at the time the marriage is breaking or broken down. What that means is generally about eight out of 10 times that's a boyfriend or a girlfriend. Hey, I have a side piece and we went to Vegas together, or we went to Paris and I paid for it, but the other times it's, you know, one of the times it can be gambling or it can be pornography.
37:08
People spend a lot of money on pornography, and so though those funds spent on, say, you're 50-50ing a state, if you spent $10,000 on pornography, you may owe your spouse $5,000.
Karen Covy Host
37:34
Okay, so would this, and I assume, just for the sake of the audience, that the same thing would be true if the money was spent on a call girl service or prostitutes or you know other. It's not pornography, but it's the same kind of.
Mitchell Gordon Guest
37:56
Yeah, absolutely the same exact thing applies. There's an added element when you're talking, you know, if there's like a sex addiction and a lot of times those sex addictions are really they manifest with people you know, hiring prostitutes and the thing you have to be careful of. Or sometimes what comes out is if there are any sexually transmitted diseases as a result. When in those cases, know let's, let's stay on this example of dad having the addiction. If dad contracts a sexually transmitted disease and passes it to mom, or the husband gets it, passes it to, the wife could be liable for any past sort of medical bills or future medical issues that the wife has as a result of contracting this sexually transmitted disease because of what the husband was doing. You know it could go on forever. So if you say, hey, we've bought you out of maintenance or whatever it is, the medical bills and the medical liability can go on forever.
Karen Covy Host
39:08
Is that the kind of thing that you could, that the wife could negotiate because she doesn't know what her medical is going to be? But could she, could there be a provision in her divorce paperwork and her settlement that says he will continue to pay all of the medical bills associated with this?
Mitchell Gordon Guest
39:28
Yeah, I actually had one of those this year. I represented husband who was the one who passed along, passed on HPV and she was having no symptoms.
39:40
But there is a risk of cancer, and so you know we negotiated terms that said, look, if this ever comes up, where she has cancer and one of the tricks is you have to be able to say okay, but you have to be able to point to hpv being a contributory factor that yeah, he could have some liability.
Karen Covy Host
40:10
All right, let's take this concept of dissipation and move it into the area of gambling, which you touched on. Because, gambling is an addiction where you could literally gamble away your entire life's savings right and the entire marital estate right. So what happens when one spouse? Let's make it the woman in this case, just to be fair, because we've been making the guy the addict.
40:37
All right. So in this case, it's the woman who has the gambling addiction and she's, literally, without her husband's knowledge, gambled away a significant portion, maybe all of the marital estate. So, okay, so the guy's entitled to get reimbursed for half of what she lost. But where, where's it coming from?
Mitchell Gordon Guest
40:59
Yeah. So that was what can be if you, if that money is like poof, it's gone and there's no money to make it up then you may have to just negotiate, essentially a structured reimbursement of that of like hey look, you're going to pay 10,000 a year, a thousand a month, whatever it is, to compensate for that.
Karen Covy Host
41:27
Wow, and how does in a gambling addiction, because this it's a little trickier. How? What kind of information, evidence is mom looking for to prove, or that would you know, to prove, to a judge? Dad has this problem. Dad gambled away the money versus made a bad investment in the stock market.
Mitchell Gordon Guest
41:49
Yeah, so that's, that's the fight right.
41:52
We get that a lot with the with the uh, when you're talking about investments and that's not typically going to be dissipation you know my first boss always used to tell me a story. You know it was clearly made up. You know he said you know, husband comes home and says I bought a thoroughbred racehorse, and the wife says why would you do that? That's your horse, I want nothing to do with it. Uh, I can't believe. You spent all our money on a racehorse and then a year later, the horse wins the Kentucky Derby and you say, well, great, now we have our horse right. That's the way it works. If you're going to share in the good investments, you have to share in the bad investments.
42:37
Gambling is getting easier to prove in this day and age because people who gamble a lot's let's say that you have somebody going to the casino they, the casinos, comp the gamblers, the high volume gamblers, or even if it's high dollar, they comp them. you know, whether it be meals or hotel rooms, or concert tickets. And in order to comp them, they have what's called these ratings cards. So every bet is logged on the ratings card, because that's the way they get comp. That's how they know how much you're gambling. They're just watching you.
43:28
You know keeping tabs. You have a card. It's like a rewards card. You can and the lawyers should subpoena the rewards card. It gives you every single bit of information, gives you every bet, every amount, the table they were at the time. They did it if they won, so that's some of it too. Sometimes they show you say, hey look, you came out ahead this year. Where's the money? So that's how that becomes easier. Now, sports gambling. You see like DraftKings commercials every five seconds on TV. You know if you're watching like football on a Sunday, these DraftKings things come up. ESPN has their own betting sites. Same thing. Everything's online, it's all logged. You send a subpoena, they send you every bet that was made.
Karen Covy Host
44:25
Wow.
Mitchell Gordon Guest
44:26
Yeah. So that's the way to, in large part, to prove that. One of the carve outs. One of the things I find is you get people who say, hey, look, my husband or my wife. They play fantasy football or fantasy baseball and they sent their buddy two hundred dollars a year. Knock it off, it's not worth the lawyer's fees. That's a hot game, right, unless it's huge money, maybe, but stay away from that stuff. But it's probably you're going to spend more on lawyer's fees. This leads me back to when your questions about proof. One of the ways you prove alcohol as well is you know if somebody goes to the grocery store and they put in their phone number to get the rewards points, well, that tracks all your purchases. So if you're not supposed to be drinking or say I don't drink and you know you bought hamburgers and you bought deli meat and you bought cheese and you bought 10 bottles of vodka. That will show up.
Karen Covy Host
45:39
Yeah, it's not like just a regular, like a regular credit card purchase. You just get the total, but if it's again, those cards will really get you. They get, they track everything Right.
Mitchell Gordon Guest
45:53
You know all these, all these companies want your data, so they're logging your data. It's why they give you rewards, so they track your data, so they know what to sell to you, and so you just subpoena Juul, subpoena Whole Foods
Karen Covy Host
46:19
You know, Mitch, this is total gold for somebody who's trying to divorce, someone with an alcohol or any kind of addiction issue. And we could go on and on and on. I want to be respectful of your time so you know, if somebody is dealing with this issue and they're in Illinois and they want to look you up, or even if they're not in Illinois and they want to look you up, where's the best place that they can find you?
Mitchell Gordon Guest
46:35
BRANDFORDANDGORDAN.COM. If you want to call me, I'm at 312-346-6911. I'm happy to talk through it. I've been doing this 23 years now and the addiction is really you need a lawyer that knows how to handle this, because it's different and it can be complex and you need to be sensitive to certain things, you need to be strategic about many things, and so I'm always happy to even just talk through it with people.
Karen Covy Host
47:22
That's awesome, Mitch. Thank you so much and for anyone listening or watching, we're going to link to all of this stuff to your website. We'll put your phone number. All the things are going to be in the show notes, so thank you so much.
Mitchell Gordon Guest
And thanks for having me, Karen.
47:38
I'm thrilled. And for those watching and listening, if you like this show, if you enjoyed today's content, if you want more of it, do me a big favor like subscribe. Subscribe wherever you're listening, wherever you're watching, and I look forward to talking with you again next time.
