Confessions of a Wall Street Insider |

As I inched my Honda Civic up Third Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, I checked my phone…

Who am I meeting with again? Oh yeah, Michael.

He had sent me an e-mail mentioning writing a book, my sobriety, and that he’d worked on Wall Street for years. He asked if we could meet and I agreed. I parked my car and walked to our meeting spot, a coffee shop a few blocks over. As soon as I entered he spotted me and we shook hands.

Michael Kimelman looked successful: clean haircut, well-dressed, and well-mannered. We found a table near the front, and immediately started playing the “Wall Street name game,” connecting on several peers.

If this were a gameshow, we’d have advanced to the next round. We knew a lot of the same people, and although we’d never actually met, we joked about being at the same party and pushing each other out of the way for a drink. And then…