His Past Doesn't Write the Ending: Jeff Thompson on Second Chances, Grace & Principle-Led Politics

Jeff Thompson is the Coalitions Director for Americans for Prosperity, vice chair of the Bartow County GOP, a board member for The Local Reach Project and the American Addiction Recovery Association, and a student at Luther Rice College and Seminary. He's also a girl dad who spent most of his adult life lost in addiction before turning it around in his mid-thirties. As Logan put it in the intro, Jeff's past is part of his story, but it doesn't get to write the ending. The two first met over lunch about a year earlier, and this conversation was a long time coming.

Wanting to fit in

Jeff was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and is still a die-hard Buckeyes fan. His family moved to the North Metro Atlanta area before he started kindergarten, and he's the youngest of three. Moving to Woodstock around age 10 was a culture shock: he remembers looking around and seeing almost no one who looked like him. Nobody was ever unkind, he said, but he felt different, and the nerdy kid he'd been turned into someone who acted out to be accepted. At Woodstock High he played football and ran track, and he partied hard enough that he never finished his senior year.

Fifteen-plus years of nonstop partying

What started with drinking in high school grew into years of addiction. Jeff describes his twenties and early thirties as one long party with no progress in between, held together by pride and an alter ego he built to block out the rest of the world. Several moments should have been rock bottom, he said, but none of them reached him. What finally did was his daughter. She was getting old enough to see what was happening, and he could tell his choices were making her sad.

Ten months in the woods

In 2018 Jeff entered a faith-based regeneration program in the woods, with no phone and no TV. "They say rehab, you go back to where you were," he explained. "Regeneration is like a new you." He stayed 10 of the 12 months, getting up an hour before everyone else to read the Bible and journal, and he says God started answering so clearly it was almost spooky. He calls it a hard reset on his brain. Coming out at 35 or 36, living with his parents, without a diploma or a degree, he had to fight the shame of comparing himself to friends with marriages and houses. He credits his parents, who always gave him a soft place to land, and the friends who kept showing up for him even at his lowest.

Mentoring the next generation

After the program, Jeff started serving in children's ministry at a church called The Factory and went on to spend four years as a youth pastor. Part of it, he admits, is making up for parenting years he was present for physically but not mentally. His daughter is now 18, and the two bond over building Lego sets. His approach to mentoring young people is to build real friendships, listen more than he lectures, and plant seeds. When a tough conversation has to happen, they already know where his heart is.

Principle-led, not party-loyal

Logan asked how Jeff handles people who assume a Black man shouldn't be working in Republican politics in Bartow County. Jeff says it rarely happens, and when it does, he wishes more people would just come talk to him. "A person can be in the Lions Club. That doesn't mean they're a lion," he said. He takes a "what have you done for me lately" approach: stand on your principles, don't move off them, and let people from either side come to you. He credits Representative Matthew Gamble and Senator Setzler for treating him with kindness before he ever worked in politics, back when he had a septum ring and a lime green flat top, and that experience is why he gives people so much grace. He'd like to see more bipartisan work, especially on addiction recovery, and wants to be known as someone who reached across to every group.

Making people feel comfortable

When Jeff got out of the program and needed new friends, he brought a notebook to church, asked people how he could pray for them, and wrote their names down so he could follow up by name the next time. It taught him he could talk to anyone. Ten years from now, he hopes to have a healthy family of his own, possibly through adoption, and enough money to quietly pay off a stranger's mortgage. Above all, he wants to make people feel comfortable. In the rapid-fire round he picked Meet the Parents as his favorite movie, booked Outkast, John Mayer and James Taylor for a dream Cartersville festival, and admitted he plays about five games of online chess a day.

Listen to the Full Conversation

Jeff and Logan also talk about why men need to check on each other, how social media fuels comparison, their shared love of video games, and why Cartersville feels so tight-knit. Jeff's morning drive? "I get to wake up every day and slay dragons." Learn more about Americans for Prosperity at americansforprosperity.org and The Local Reach Project, which connects local churches and nonprofits with people who want to serve, at thelocalreachproject.com. Watch or listen to the full episode below.