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Speaker 1: Coming up on Confessions of a Christian Alcoholic. People die

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Speaker 1: from benzo and alcohol withdrawal.

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Speaker 2: And I fully have not read the medical report, kind

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Speaker 2: of because, like, to me, it's sort of just, it happened.

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Speaker 2: But I believe they helped induce a coma at that

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Speaker 2: point because they didn't know if my spine was broken

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Speaker 2: to help with the seizures, all of that. But basically,

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Speaker 2: I was admitted into the ICU, and I was... from

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Speaker 2: what I understand, in a coma for 19 days.

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Speaker 1: Hello, hello, and welcome to the Confessions of a Christian

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Speaker 1: Alcoholic podcast. I am your host, John Seidel, and I

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Speaker 1: am the Christian who became an alcoholic. not the other

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Speaker 1: way around. Here, we get radically vulnerable about addiction, recovery,

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Speaker 1: messy sanctification, and all the things we turn to instead

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Speaker 1: of Jesus because we're all addicted to something. You'll hear raw,

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Speaker 1: honest conversations from those who have struggled, those who help

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Speaker 1: those who struggle, and why aiming for Jesus and getting

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Speaker 1: sobriety thrown in is actually the best goal. So, let's

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Speaker 1: get right into this week's episode. We'll be right back

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Speaker 1: after this. Josh Kerr has spent a lot of time

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Speaker 1: with people in recovery. He's especially worked a lot with families.

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Speaker 1: He's helped open sober living facilities. He's ran them. And

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Speaker 1: he is qualified to do that because he himself has

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Speaker 1: quite a recovery story. Josh reached out to me online

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Speaker 1: and asked if he could share his story. And boy,

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Speaker 1: is it incredible. I think one of the things that

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Speaker 1: I really appreciate, I was actually having coffee with someone

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Speaker 1: this morning, a very successful person. And someone who I've

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Speaker 1: interacted with and hung out numerous times. And this person

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Speaker 1: wanted to meet, I thought, for just a very different reason.

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Speaker 1: But in the conversation, They admitted that they were struggling

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Speaker 1: with their relationship with alcohol. And I know, like, at

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Speaker 1: this point, I shouldn't be shocked, right? But yet, I

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Speaker 1: was a little surprised. That was Josh, too, right? Like,

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Speaker 1: Josh was so successful. Like, he had a business. He was,

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Speaker 1: you know, great marriage. And, like, everything was.

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Speaker 1: Everything on paper was going fine. He had the lake house.

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Speaker 1: He had the boat. Everything was good. And yet at home,

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Speaker 1: he was cracking two beers at once so that it

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Speaker 1: only sounded like he was opening one. I continue to

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Speaker 1: be amazed at how innovative those of us who want

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Speaker 1: to hide our struggles and our sins and our addictions

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Speaker 1: can be, right? And that was Josh. It eventually culminated

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Speaker 1: in a 19-day coma. That's where his drinking eventually led.

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Speaker 1: And so Josh is going to tell that story, the seizures,

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Speaker 1: the jail time. But he's also going to talk about

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Speaker 1: the scripture that his mom continued to pray over him.

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Speaker 1: And it's one that means a lot to me personally.

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Speaker 1: It's Joshua 1, 9. And so I'm excited for you

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Speaker 1: to get to know Josh and hear his story. But

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Speaker 1: before we do that, I would be honored if you

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Speaker 1: would check out VeritasRecovery.org. That is the ministry that I

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Speaker 1: started for you. That's really, it's for you. If you're

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Speaker 1: listening to this, that is a ministry for you. We

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Speaker 1: meet every Sunday night at 7 p.m. Central Time. And

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Speaker 1: I was just so blown away this last week. I

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Speaker 1: think we had the most people we've had in a

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Speaker 1: long time. It was a full room. And you can

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Speaker 1: remain anonymous. It's a time for us to chat. I

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Speaker 1: share an encouragement. And then we talk about what I've said.

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Speaker 1: We talk about what you're going through. It's a place

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Speaker 1: for spouses as well. We have a lot of spouses there.

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Speaker 1: And there's also plenty of other resources that you can

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Speaker 1: take advantage of. So please go to VeritasRecovery.org. So without

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Speaker 1: further ado, Josh Kerr. Josh, thank you so much for

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Speaker 1: joining the Confessions of a Christian Alcoholic podcast. I love this.

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Speaker 1: You know, you're one of those people that reached out

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Speaker 1: to me on social media and just said, hey, love

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Speaker 1: what you're doing. Kind of have my own story. Let

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Speaker 1: me know if you'd ever like to chat about it.

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Speaker 1: And so when I talk about that on this podcast

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Speaker 1: and tell people, please reach out like you are an example.

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Speaker 1: So I'm excited to have you to have you here.

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Speaker 1: Thank you. Yeah, no, thank you. It was kind of a.

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Speaker 2: Nervous reach out, to be honest, because I've, you know,

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Speaker 2: as a Christian and a Christian in AA and growing

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Speaker 2: up in the recovery AA environment, I haven't been able

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Speaker 2: to tell much of my story kind of through the

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Speaker 2: lens of.

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Speaker 1: My faith, exactly the way I would like to at times.

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Speaker 2: So interesting. I was kind of about reaching out to you,

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Speaker 2: but I'm glad I did.

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Speaker 1: Well, that's interesting. I do want to, I actually do

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Speaker 1: want to dig into that then a little bit. But

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Speaker 1: before we get there, I think, you know, maybe if

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Speaker 1: you could just give people, you know, a quick intro,

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Speaker 1: you know, I had, I had the bigger intro before this,

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Speaker 1: but give people a quick intro of who you are,

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Speaker 1: where you are, what you're doing. Um, I know that

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Speaker 1: by the time this podcast airs, uh, some of that

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Speaker 1: will have changed, um, just based on what we've talked about. So, um, however,

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Speaker 1: however comfortable you feel, uh, talking about that and say that, um, just,

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Speaker 1: I just want to give you the floor real quick to,

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Speaker 1: to let, um, let everyone know who you are and

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Speaker 1: what you're doing. Yeah. So my name is Josh Kerr.

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Speaker 2: Um, I'm originally from Tulsa, Oklahoma. I, uh, Got sober

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Speaker 2: almost five years ago. I'll be five years in about

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Speaker 2: two weeks. Since getting sober, I kind of threw myself

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Speaker 2: at the mercy of my servant's heart, kind of as

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Speaker 2: John mentioned. I fell right in while I was in

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Speaker 2: treatment to start being of service to guys, and that

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Speaker 2: led to opportunities to work in treatment. I've worked at

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Speaker 2: three treatment centers in Colorado. I managed and helped open

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Speaker 2: a few well, four sober living homes.

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Speaker 1: And another treatment center.

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Speaker 2: I also did, beyond that, I started doing a lot

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Speaker 2: of family work, which was kind of where my passion was,

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Speaker 2: helping the families find, you know, safe place for the

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Speaker 2: loved one who's struggling to go. And through that, I

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Speaker 2: ended up learning a lot about intervention, doing a lot

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Speaker 2: of trainings. I had a mentor in Colorado and I

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Speaker 2: did a lot of transports for him all over the country.

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Speaker 2: So I've driven guys that need detox or on the

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Speaker 2: way to treatment or on the way back from treatment.

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Speaker 2: I've flown them across the country. And about two and

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Speaker 2: a half years ago, through an intervention I did, I

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Speaker 2: got asked to move to North Carolina, Raleigh, Durham, to

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Speaker 2: open a sober home specifically around the needs of one

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Speaker 2: person through that intervention that I did. It was a

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Speaker 2: person with special needs who struggled with addiction for some time,

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Speaker 2: about 10, 15 years.

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Speaker 1: And the family was kind of ready to try to

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Speaker 1: give him stability.

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Speaker 2: So getting to know the family, excuse me, moving out

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Speaker 2: here was also an opportunity for me to branch out

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Speaker 2: on my own and do private recovery coaching, family, work

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Speaker 2: with families on a private level, you know, getting to

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Speaker 2: know some of the treatment centers and what they offer

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Speaker 2: and where to send guys and just making that path

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Speaker 2: easy for people. Cause that's a very hopeless and fearful

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Speaker 2: time for, Not just the person who's struggling, but probably

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Speaker 2: more so for the family because the families are pretty

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Speaker 2: lucid for it. As the, you know, the person who's

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Speaker 2: struggling might not be all there to really realize what's

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Speaker 2: going on.

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Speaker 1: So I kind of cover all the bases on that.

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Speaker 1: So you alluded to your own story of recovery and,

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Speaker 1: you know, being depressed. five or so years into that.

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Speaker 1: I would honestly just love for you to take us

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Speaker 1: through that story, however long, however short that is, you know,

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Speaker 1: but with honestly the charge that like, man, I want

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Speaker 1: you to give it to us, right? In the sense

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Speaker 1: of like, you know, I know you kind of alluded to,

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Speaker 1: and I want to talk about that in a little bit,

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Speaker 1: just not being able to really tell the full story

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Speaker 1: in some of the circles that you've had to run in.

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Speaker 1: And so, man, I want the full story. I want

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Speaker 1: to know. I want to know everything in not in

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Speaker 1: a seedy way, but like, let's let's point to the

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Speaker 1: person who ultimately delivered you. So, man, tell us your story.

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Speaker 2: OK, well, I'll just start by saying I have been

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Speaker 2: able to tell my story with all the gory details.

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Speaker 2: um i just haven't been able to tell it often

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Speaker 2: in terms of exactly who jesus is to me that's

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Speaker 2: what i meant by that yeah yeah met um you

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Speaker 2: know you can allude to it in those recovery meetings

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Speaker 2: and people know but i try to respect the traditions

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Speaker 2: of that 12-step program and uh alluding is usually pretty

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Speaker 2: good enough um But as far as my story, like

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Speaker 2: I said, the reason I mentioned I'm from Tulsa, Oklahoma,

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Speaker 2: is because that's usually how we start our stories.

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Speaker 1: So I was born and raised there.

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Speaker 2: My parents, by everything on paper, I had a very

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Speaker 2: good childhood. We had a lake house. I went to

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Speaker 2: private schools after middle school. Catholic private school, that is.

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Speaker 1: You too.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Southern Baptist home, went to a Catholic private school.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it was an evangelical home, went to private Catholic school. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: So that was interesting. But, and I'll get to it later.

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Speaker 2: I didn't realize how I'd gotten to recovery as great

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Speaker 2: as my parents were and as faithful as they were

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Speaker 2: and as much of servants they were. of Christ, um,

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Speaker 2: there were certain things I don't think I necessarily got. Um,

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Speaker 2: and that was sort of a consequence of a lot

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Speaker 2: of things. Um, and I'll mention the first one being

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Speaker 2: that when I was at the age of 12, and

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Speaker 2: it's kind of where my drinking started, um, I caught

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Speaker 2: my dad having an affair on my mom. Um, I

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Speaker 2: saw that with my own eyes and I was sort

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Speaker 2: of Charged with the task.

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Speaker 1: Of letting it be known.

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Speaker 2: Come to find out later, you know, there were some

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Speaker 2: things going on and my mom had an idea, but

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Speaker 2: that was kind of the nail in the coffin, if

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Speaker 2: you will. So that happening, that was rough in the

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Speaker 2: sense of, you know, when we're young, we look at

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Speaker 2: our earthly father to be an example of our father,

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Speaker 2: our heavenly father. Um, so what I, what I got

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Speaker 2: from that situation was I very much honored my dad.

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Speaker 2: I looked up to him. He was my best friend.

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Speaker 2: And so when that happened, it was more or less

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Speaker 2: like a lot of abandonment issues came from it.

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Speaker 1: A lot of trust issues.

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Speaker 2: How could someone that supposedly loves me so much, not

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Speaker 2: just do that to me, but I was in real

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Speaker 2: time seeing what it did to my brother and my mom.

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Speaker 2: Mm hmm. Which was very difficult. And shortly after that,

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Speaker 2: I had a best friend at the time and he

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Speaker 2: was going, his parents were going through a divorce also.

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Speaker 1: And both of us having two older brothers that.

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Speaker 2: Were already in high school and already going out on

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Speaker 2: the weekends and kind of doing the dumb stuff. We

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Speaker 2: decided to partake in our own way. And I remember

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Speaker 2: the first night I went out drinking with him at,

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Speaker 2: you know, just found a park with some high school kids.

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Speaker 2: after a few, we laid down in the grass and

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Speaker 2: we're just chatting and sort of opening up about our

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Speaker 2: feelings of what was going on. And the comment that

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Speaker 2: was made was, this feels really good.

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Speaker 1: I can't feel anything. And we weren't talking about physically.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. And I'll never forget that moment. Um, and that

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Speaker 2: guy was a really good friend for a long time. Um,

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Speaker 2: he's doing very well in life now. Always has been.

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Speaker 1: Um, and that I just, I.

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Speaker 2: Held onto that. That was escape, right? You talk often

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Speaker 2: about escape. That was immediately what I found. So from there, um,

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Speaker 2: I was a pretty good kid. I got in your

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Speaker 2: normal trouble. I think, um, I did start at that

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Speaker 2: time partying on the weekends when I could in middle school.

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Speaker 2: And as I look back, um, A lot of addicts

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Speaker 2: and alcoholics like to say sometimes it was hard to

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Speaker 2: fit in. We never felt like we fit in. I

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Speaker 2: sort of did that to myself because I would get

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Speaker 2: invited to slumber parties and overnight things, lake trips or

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Speaker 2: whatever it was, and I would refuse to go because

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Speaker 2: I knew I couldn't drink. At that time, I was

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Speaker 2: also stealing cigarettes from my dad or my brother's friend

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Speaker 2: or I think my brother had a run of smoking

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Speaker 2: in high school. And I wanted to be able to

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Speaker 2: have my safety net. I didn't want to leave that.

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Speaker 2: So I kept myself away from a lot of relationship

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Speaker 2: building activities that most young people get. And I did

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Speaker 2: have plenty of that because I played sports. I was

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Speaker 2: very active. I traveled basketball, baseball, things like that. So

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Speaker 2: I had a solid group of friends, but it just wasn't, um,

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Speaker 2: I sort of kept myself from fitting in, in a

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Speaker 2: lot of areas. And that kind of led to just

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Speaker 2: an attitude towards life of I'm doing it on my own.

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Speaker 2: And that, you know, living with your mom as a,

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Speaker 2: in high school age boy who my brother had left

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Speaker 2: for college. My dad was obviously out of the house.

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Speaker 2: So I had become sort of man of the house. Well,

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Speaker 2: anyone can imagine that my mom was also going through

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Speaker 2: a very difficult time.

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Speaker 1: Right.

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Speaker 2: And as great as she was, she was a career woman.

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Speaker 2: She ran Special Olympics for about 25 years and then

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Speaker 2: worked at the University of Tulsa fundraising.

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Speaker 1: So very full life on her own. But we also never.

250
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Speaker 2: Missed a home cooked meal. There was dinner on the

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Speaker 2: table every night. She never missed a basketball game. or

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Speaker 2: a baseball game. She was actually my elementary school baseball coach,

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Speaker 2: and we won two city championships.

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Speaker 1: Come on, let's go, Mama Kerr.

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Speaker 2: And that's what they called her, Mama Kerr.

256
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Speaker 1: Let's go.

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Speaker 2: So a lot of good with a little bit of,

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Speaker 2: you know, just a lack of normalcy. And I kind

259
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Speaker 2: of kept my father at bay at that time, my dad. And,

260
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Speaker 2: you know, tried to have a normal childhood.

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Speaker 1: But was there was there, by the way, I think,

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Speaker 1: you know, you talked about I think you made the

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Speaker 1: comment raising a Southern Baptist home, going to a Catholic school.

264
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Speaker 1: And so at this point, what what does the relationship

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Speaker 1: with the Lord look like for you, for your mom,

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Speaker 1: for your dad? Like, is there any sort of animosity

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Speaker 1: that's kind of. festering with, with, with the Lord? Like,

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Speaker 1: how could this happen? How does, you know, you, you

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Speaker 1: saw your dad cheat on your mom. And is it like,

270
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Speaker 1: did that shatter your faith? Like what, what's that like?

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Speaker 1: We'll be right back after this.

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Speaker 2: It didn't shatter my faith at the time. And it was,

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Speaker 2: it's been kind of like, I've always known that was

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Speaker 2: my issue. I've always had a very realistic view of

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Speaker 2: God and, And the stuff that we go through is

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Speaker 2: not punishment. He's not doing it to us. He's doing

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Speaker 2: it for us. I haven't had that as a kid.

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Speaker 2: My mom would talk often about how everything was a

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Speaker 2: test to prepare you for the next thing. And I

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Speaker 2: don't want you to feel sorry or anything like that.

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Speaker 2: My mom actually passed away when I was 22, 23.

282
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Speaker 2: And my dad passed away the day I left treatment.

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Speaker 1: Hmm.

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Speaker 2: So, and I can go into that later about how

285
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Speaker 2: working the step, the 12 steps actually opened me up

286
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Speaker 2: to realize that I was a lot like my dad

287
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Speaker 2: in certain ways, which was the obvious part. But the

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Speaker 2: main thing was it helped me have a lot of

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Speaker 2: understanding for him. So I now, I now have a

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Speaker 2: lot of empathy. And I did at that time too.

291
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Speaker 2: and that kind of correlates back into my story as well.

292
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Speaker 2: But no, at the, at the time, um, I think

293
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Speaker 2: there was a part of me that had a little

294
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Speaker 2: victim hood mentality. Would this happen to me? Um, you know,

295
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Speaker 2: I was trying to be a good kid trying to

296
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Speaker 2: do all the things right. Um, but as time went on,

297
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Speaker 2: I just, I'm real good at putting a chip on

298
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Speaker 2: my shoulder and, I tried to learn from Michael Jordan

299
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Speaker 2: and Kobe growing up.

300
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Speaker 1: And he took that personally. I did.

301
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Speaker 2: And I learned how to take everything personally. There were

302
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Speaker 2: a lot of times in my life, especially on the

303
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Speaker 2: basketball court, that that did work. That worked in the

304
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Speaker 2: little businesses that I started in my teenage years, like

305
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Speaker 2: a lawn service and a little roofing company for a summer.

306
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Speaker 2: It just made me have some drive to work harder

307
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Speaker 2: and be a little competitive and But I would take

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Speaker 2: it into the rest of the areas of my life,

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Speaker 2: which just really leads to a lot of building resentment.

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Speaker 2: That kind of everybody, you know, in my recovery, we

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Speaker 2: call it people, places, things and situations. So it kind

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Speaker 2: of encompasses life. and a lack of acceptance and all

313
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Speaker 2: those areas really, um, kind of hinders you, or at

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Speaker 2: least it didn't me, you know? So as time went on, um,

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Speaker 2: in high school, I was your weekend partier.

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Speaker 1: I would go hard.

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Speaker 2: Um, And I would do okay in school, you know,

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Speaker 2: good enough to not or to be eligible for sports.

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Speaker 2: And then when I applied myself, people would say, what

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Speaker 2: the heck have you been doing? You know, well, we're

321
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Speaker 2: all these B's and a few C's. You're capable of

322
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Speaker 2: kind of doing things at a higher level. And what

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Speaker 2: I realize now with that was a lot of really

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Speaker 2: a fear of putting my full self out there or

325
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Speaker 2: back then, at least because of fear of rejection.

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Speaker 1: Right.

327
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Speaker 2: Um, so during that time period in high school, when

328
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Speaker 2: it was just my mother and I, um, I learned

329
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Speaker 2: a lot of loneliness. I learned a lot of survival mode. Um, I,

330
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Speaker 2: I felt rejected even though I wasn't. Um, I think

331
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Speaker 2: those are, you know, kind of atypical feelings to have,

332
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Speaker 2: especially if you're a younger person. Um, I definitely wasn't

333
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Speaker 2: emotionally mature enough to be able to recognize all that then.

334
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Speaker 2: So I went on to college at the University of Tulsa.

335
00:21:20,800 --> 00:21:23,920
Speaker 2: I attempted to walk on the basketball team, which just

336
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Speaker 2: meant like I played with them in the summer to

337
00:21:27,090 --> 00:21:30,070
Speaker 2: see if I could get a practice squad spot. I

338
00:21:30,090 --> 00:21:32,450
Speaker 2: got a cool practice jersey, but I decided to go

339
00:21:32,530 --> 00:21:38,030
Speaker 2: to join a frat. Yeah. where, you know, the first

340
00:21:38,050 --> 00:21:42,149
Speaker 2: taste of freedom away from home, um, I could do

341
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Speaker 2: what I want. The, the benders really started at that

342
00:21:46,660 --> 00:21:56,960
Speaker 2: point off and on and it, I really, uh, I

343
00:21:57,000 --> 00:21:59,840
Speaker 2: really didn't do well in school that first semester. I

344
00:22:00,600 --> 00:22:04,480
Speaker 2: kind of pulled it together the second semester, but I

345
00:22:04,520 --> 00:22:09,100
Speaker 2: don't know. There was something about the drinking lifestyle that just,

346
00:22:10,300 --> 00:22:10,980
Speaker 2: it fit.

347
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Speaker 1: My, I don't know what it was, ADD.

348
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Speaker 2: Procrastination brain. I could still walk into a class and

349
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Speaker 2: pass a test.

350
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Speaker 1: Yeah.

351
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Speaker 2: You know, it crammed the night before and just go

352
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Speaker 2: do that. So it was kind of like, you know,

353
00:22:28,160 --> 00:22:31,780
Speaker 2: half measures in all areas of life. Just kind of

354
00:22:31,820 --> 00:22:36,129
Speaker 2: getting by. Um, but one thing I would like to

355
00:22:36,170 --> 00:22:40,040
Speaker 2: focus on throughout this whole time, especially after my mother passed.

356
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Speaker 1: Away, um, you know, I, I know it now.

357
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Speaker 2: I kind of knew it then, but I was hearing

358
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Speaker 2: from God the whole time. I, I had this, I

359
00:22:52,800 --> 00:22:56,980
Speaker 2: had this like unwavering faith about me that when I

360
00:22:57,000 --> 00:22:58,859
Speaker 2: would go to church, I wouldn't pay attention, but I

361
00:22:58,900 --> 00:23:02,419
Speaker 2: knew exactly what they were talking about. And I never, um,

362
00:23:03,740 --> 00:23:08,150
Speaker 2: I never went home and, you know, kind of did

363
00:23:08,310 --> 00:23:11,590
Speaker 2: set prayer time. I was always just constantly having a

364
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Speaker 2: conversation with God because I knew he was real.

365
00:23:14,330 --> 00:23:14,530
Speaker 1: Yeah.

366
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Speaker 2: Right. And every once in a while, it felt like

367
00:23:18,320 --> 00:23:21,920
Speaker 2: I would get like little nuggets of downloads of, you're

368
00:23:21,940 --> 00:23:24,960
Speaker 2: not acting very well over here. You know, you might

369
00:23:25,020 --> 00:23:27,780
Speaker 2: want to curtail that a little bit. And it was

370
00:23:27,820 --> 00:23:30,880
Speaker 2: more of a redirection. I just didn't always listen to

371
00:23:30,920 --> 00:23:31,609
Speaker 2: it because.

372
00:23:33,010 --> 00:23:36,450
Speaker 2: I didn't want it. Our flesh doesn't want to do that. Right.

373
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Speaker 2: Kind of like Paul says in Romans, like I do

374
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Speaker 2: the things I don't want to do.

375
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Speaker 1: Amen, man. So by the way, though, before we even

376
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Speaker 1: kind of go there, I'm curious, you had talked about,

377
00:23:48,300 --> 00:23:50,960
Speaker 1: you know, kind of that frat lifestyle in college. Like

378
00:23:51,280 --> 00:23:53,460
Speaker 1: what did that look like, especially as it relates to

379
00:23:53,500 --> 00:23:54,080
Speaker 1: your drinking?

380
00:23:56,119 --> 00:23:57,960
Speaker 2: I would say my life kind of revolved around it

381
00:23:59,010 --> 00:24:01,850
Speaker 2: at that time. That was the most important thing. And

382
00:24:01,869 --> 00:24:05,130
Speaker 2: that's where I'd say, I turned drinking into an idol.

383
00:24:08,290 --> 00:24:13,350
Speaker 2: It was a lot of drinking every day, really. Not

384
00:24:13,410 --> 00:24:16,570
Speaker 2: so much during the week. And then, you know, starting

385
00:24:16,630 --> 00:24:19,469
Speaker 2: Thursday night, kind of going all the way through Sunday.

386
00:24:19,490 --> 00:24:21,910
Speaker 2: I don't think I was doing anything much different than

387
00:24:21,950 --> 00:24:24,750
Speaker 2: some of the other guys. It's just for me, it

388
00:24:25,390 --> 00:24:29,750
Speaker 2: never stopped. I was always the last guy awake. I

389
00:24:29,790 --> 00:24:32,590
Speaker 2: was always the encourager of let's get things started.

390
00:24:34,330 --> 00:24:35,030
Speaker 1: I was that guy.

391
00:24:35,290 --> 00:24:37,669
Speaker 2: Every frame of reference they used to try to describe us,

392
00:24:38,290 --> 00:24:38,990
Speaker 2: I was that guy.

393
00:24:40,150 --> 00:24:41,770
Speaker 1: It gave me the false.

394
00:24:41,490 --> 00:24:46,650
Speaker 2: Courage to talk to girls, to just take other chances,

395
00:24:47,310 --> 00:24:51,230
Speaker 2: I would say. Which is kind of the weird part

396
00:24:51,250 --> 00:24:53,830
Speaker 2: about my life is some of the courage it gave

397
00:24:53,869 --> 00:24:57,250
Speaker 2: me to take risks actually did pan out. And when

398
00:24:57,290 --> 00:25:00,290
Speaker 2: those things happen, it proves your ego, right?

399
00:25:00,970 --> 00:25:01,690
Speaker 1: Yeah, right.

400
00:25:02,760 --> 00:25:06,080
Speaker 2: You know, and can keep rolling with that. And then

401
00:25:06,140 --> 00:25:12,160
Speaker 2: it just builds and builds and builds tilts pride. So the,

402
00:25:12,300 --> 00:25:14,600
Speaker 2: the funny part about my fraternity was I had some

403
00:25:14,700 --> 00:25:16,859
Speaker 2: really good guys in there who they would do a

404
00:25:16,920 --> 00:25:18,520
Speaker 2: Bible study once a week.

405
00:25:19,920 --> 00:25:22,700
Speaker 1: And I was good friends with them. They would invite

406
00:25:22,740 --> 00:25:23,300
Speaker 1: me every week.

407
00:25:23,460 --> 00:25:26,860
Speaker 2: I would pop in every Bible study for the prayer

408
00:25:27,180 --> 00:25:30,100
Speaker 2: and say, say what's up to everybody. And then I

409
00:25:30,119 --> 00:25:32,490
Speaker 2: was like, hitting the doors out the road to go

410
00:25:33,290 --> 00:25:37,359
Speaker 2: to whatever frat party was that night or where in Tulsa,

411
00:25:38,080 --> 00:25:41,159
Speaker 2: there's not a real big strip to go to, if

412
00:25:41,200 --> 00:25:45,040
Speaker 2: you will, but there are a few places. Um, but

413
00:25:45,060 --> 00:25:47,900
Speaker 2: I just concentrated more on what I thought was having

414
00:25:47,960 --> 00:25:53,159
Speaker 2: fun at that time. Um, and really what it was

415
00:25:53,200 --> 00:25:56,840
Speaker 2: doing was kind of knowing me out from reality. Uh, not,

416
00:25:56,960 --> 00:25:59,200
Speaker 2: not only what I was doing to myself, but the,

417
00:26:00,230 --> 00:26:03,260
Speaker 2: the truth of what I was becoming. And that was

418
00:26:03,380 --> 00:26:05,820
Speaker 2: the truth of that is I was, even though I

419
00:26:05,859 --> 00:26:09,320
Speaker 2: had faith, I was not walking with it and drinking

420
00:26:09,340 --> 00:26:12,399
Speaker 2: that way only pulled me further and further away from God.

421
00:26:13,840 --> 00:26:14,800
Speaker 1: On my side of things.

422
00:26:14,900 --> 00:26:17,120
Speaker 2: I know, I know for a fact that God never

423
00:26:17,200 --> 00:26:22,000
Speaker 2: leaves us, but when you start making things like that idols,

424
00:26:22,359 --> 00:26:26,179
Speaker 2: you know, it's, it's only a matter of time before

425
00:26:26,220 --> 00:26:29,669
Speaker 2: you fall away in a sense, lose complete sight of it.

426
00:26:31,600 --> 00:26:33,780
Speaker 2: I still hadn't at that time worked through anything with

427
00:26:33,820 --> 00:26:37,810
Speaker 2: my dad. I was very close with my mother. I

428
00:26:38,609 --> 00:26:40,730
Speaker 2: did work for my dad off and on at that

429
00:26:40,770 --> 00:26:47,109
Speaker 2: time still. And that relationship was always very tenuous and

430
00:26:47,170 --> 00:26:51,030
Speaker 2: to the point where I went on spring break my

431
00:26:51,070 --> 00:26:53,820
Speaker 2: sophomore year to Destin, Florida, and I didn't come home.

432
00:26:54,880 --> 00:26:57,580
Speaker 2: And I just dropped out of school without telling anybody

433
00:26:57,600 --> 00:26:58,879
Speaker 2: and I didn't come home for.

434
00:27:00,670 --> 00:27:03,210
Speaker 1: It was a couple months that I just staying down

435
00:27:03,250 --> 00:27:08,530
Speaker 1: in Destin. Yeah. And was that just like party, party, party? Yeah.

436
00:27:08,690 --> 00:27:11,840
Speaker 2: Cause I don't know if you know anything about spring break, Destin, Florida,

437
00:27:11,859 --> 00:27:15,840
Speaker 2: but it's like, yeah. So, you know, I had, it

438
00:27:15,880 --> 00:27:18,100
Speaker 2: was like, Oh, you spring break one weekend. Oh, it's

439
00:27:18,220 --> 00:27:22,030
Speaker 2: used the next university at Tulsa. I had friends at SMU.

440
00:27:22,090 --> 00:27:24,950
Speaker 2: So every week there was another friend group down there

441
00:27:25,310 --> 00:27:29,110
Speaker 2: for me to hang out with. And I finally came home.

442
00:27:30,220 --> 00:27:32,380
Speaker 2: And it was clear that I wasn't going back to school.

443
00:27:32,400 --> 00:27:35,240
Speaker 2: I was just admin at that time. School's not for me.

444
00:27:35,260 --> 00:27:40,070
Speaker 2: I just didn't want to be a student, which was

445
00:27:40,130 --> 00:27:44,070
Speaker 2: kind of insane because my mom was the chief development

446
00:27:44,109 --> 00:27:45,790
Speaker 2: officer for the University of Tulsa.

447
00:27:46,190 --> 00:27:48,290
Speaker 1: So I had a free ride.

448
00:27:49,070 --> 00:27:53,770
Speaker 2: Right. And I was willing to give that up to party, essentially.

449
00:27:53,790 --> 00:27:57,650
Speaker 2: That's not how I was framing it back then, but

450
00:27:57,790 --> 00:27:59,909
Speaker 2: ultimately that's what I was attempting to do.

451
00:28:00,869 --> 00:28:03,830
Speaker 1: What are you in this period, you had talked about

452
00:28:03,869 --> 00:28:07,950
Speaker 1: kind of, you had referenced the escapism. Like, what do

453
00:28:07,970 --> 00:28:12,149
Speaker 1: you feel like at this point is, you know, and

454
00:28:12,310 --> 00:28:13,780
Speaker 1: maybe on the surface, you're like, I just want to

455
00:28:13,820 --> 00:28:17,480
Speaker 1: have fun, right? But you had talked about the numbing

456
00:28:17,520 --> 00:28:20,960
Speaker 1: and the escapism. What is some of that underlying stuff

457
00:28:21,540 --> 00:28:24,300
Speaker 1: at this point that you're trying to numb and escape from?

458
00:28:26,020 --> 00:28:30,260
Speaker 2: At that time, the thing I could pinpoint is, thinking

459
00:28:30,300 --> 00:28:34,320
Speaker 2: back on, I prayed a lot about it, is really anger.

460
00:28:36,220 --> 00:28:40,060
Speaker 2: I was very angry and spiteful at my dad mainly.

461
00:28:41,520 --> 00:28:45,330
Speaker 2: And my older brother for reasons I don't really understand.

462
00:28:45,350 --> 00:28:50,570
Speaker 2: And him and I have talked about that, you know,

463
00:28:50,950 --> 00:28:55,290
Speaker 2: plenty to work through that at this point. But at

464
00:28:55,310 --> 00:28:57,090
Speaker 2: the time I was sort of angry. I saw a

465
00:28:57,090 --> 00:29:01,370
Speaker 2: lot of my other friends having kind of normal lives,

466
00:29:02,750 --> 00:29:05,590
Speaker 2: you know, as far as their parents were still together,

467
00:29:05,870 --> 00:29:09,830
Speaker 2: they were dropping them off at college, taking care of

468
00:29:09,890 --> 00:29:13,020
Speaker 2: them while they were in college. So just to give

469
00:29:13,040 --> 00:29:15,800
Speaker 2: you a frame of reference on that, the day I

470
00:29:15,840 --> 00:29:19,300
Speaker 2: left for college, but to move into the frat house,

471
00:29:19,800 --> 00:29:21,460
Speaker 2: it was, I walked out the door with a duffel

472
00:29:21,480 --> 00:29:23,500
Speaker 2: bag and just said, see you mom.

473
00:29:24,560 --> 00:29:25,780
Speaker 1: And she said, okay, bye.

474
00:29:25,800 --> 00:29:30,340
Speaker 2: And yeah, Also, at that time, my dad had been

475
00:29:30,440 --> 00:29:33,690
Speaker 2: paying for my fraternity fees, right? So my rent and

476
00:29:33,730 --> 00:29:36,510
Speaker 2: fees like that. And my parents had agreed to do

477
00:29:36,550 --> 00:29:41,120
Speaker 2: that as long as I was in school. Well, this

478
00:29:41,180 --> 00:29:45,020
Speaker 2: was the second time my dad started not doing so

479
00:29:45,060 --> 00:29:47,610
Speaker 2: well in business. He owned a chain of discount grocery

480
00:29:47,630 --> 00:29:53,590
Speaker 2: stores and a wholesale kind of operation. And all of

481
00:29:53,670 --> 00:29:56,430
Speaker 2: a sudden, this is where the animosity really got kicked

482
00:29:56,510 --> 00:29:59,250
Speaker 2: up and why I stayed on spring break. right before

483
00:29:59,310 --> 00:30:04,390
Speaker 2: I left, they asked me to move out. And not

484
00:30:04,470 --> 00:30:07,450
Speaker 2: only that, but I was at the University of Tulsa

485
00:30:08,090 --> 00:30:10,790
Speaker 2: big luau party where the whole school is partying on

486
00:30:10,810 --> 00:30:16,010
Speaker 2: the front lawn type of thing. And other students, including

487
00:30:16,050 --> 00:30:21,000
Speaker 2: girls from sororities, because of the president of my fraternity

488
00:30:21,020 --> 00:30:24,240
Speaker 2: had figured out that I was late on rent. And

489
00:30:24,320 --> 00:30:27,260
Speaker 2: so I was being kind of ostracized for not paying

490
00:30:27,320 --> 00:30:31,860
Speaker 2: my bills and And that's something my dad had never

491
00:30:31,960 --> 00:30:35,660
Speaker 2: told me he was behind on any of that. Or

492
00:30:35,740 --> 00:30:37,810
Speaker 2: I very well would have gotten a job and paid

493
00:30:37,830 --> 00:30:39,090
Speaker 2: for it myself. Right.

494
00:30:39,110 --> 00:30:42,070
Speaker 1: So there's a humiliating kind of aspect to that. Yeah.

495
00:30:42,430 --> 00:30:44,950
Speaker 2: So, you know, it wasn't only the hurt and the

496
00:30:44,990 --> 00:30:47,650
Speaker 2: pain from kind of what he put our family through,

497
00:30:47,710 --> 00:30:53,250
Speaker 2: but the embarrassment of that. So it's another form of rejection, right?

498
00:30:53,390 --> 00:30:57,729
Speaker 2: That I was experiencing. So that led to that. And

499
00:30:58,410 --> 00:31:02,560
Speaker 2: After the whole spring break kind of debacle, my mom,

500
00:31:02,860 --> 00:31:05,540
Speaker 2: I had just come back. She told me I needed

501
00:31:05,580 --> 00:31:07,780
Speaker 2: to come back because there was something big going on.

502
00:31:09,400 --> 00:31:11,600
Speaker 2: So I come back and I moved back in with

503
00:31:11,640 --> 00:31:16,880
Speaker 2: her because the frat house was gone. And my dad

504
00:31:16,920 --> 00:31:20,810
Speaker 2: had gone almost bankrupt, although he kept one store alive.

505
00:31:21,630 --> 00:31:24,410
Speaker 2: So I went to work for him, even though I

506
00:31:24,430 --> 00:31:27,330
Speaker 2: had all this animosity. I went back to work for

507
00:31:27,370 --> 00:31:29,690
Speaker 2: him to try to help him get this last store

508
00:31:29,750 --> 00:31:33,750
Speaker 2: up and running so he could get back in his flow.

509
00:31:35,390 --> 00:31:38,230
Speaker 2: So I was doing that for a few months and

510
00:31:39,630 --> 00:31:43,150
Speaker 2: my mom finally talked me back into enrolling back in school,

511
00:31:43,190 --> 00:31:49,330
Speaker 2: which I did. And right after that, there's a big

512
00:31:49,470 --> 00:31:51,790
Speaker 2: ice storm. I think it was 2008 or six.

513
00:31:53,150 --> 00:31:53,510
Speaker 1: Or eight.

514
00:31:53,950 --> 00:31:56,640
Speaker 2: And she, I was, pulling an all-nighter for a final

515
00:31:57,920 --> 00:32:00,479
Speaker 2: and she walked out in some serious pain, which my

516
00:32:00,520 --> 00:32:02,810
Speaker 2: mom did not show a lot of pain. I ended

517
00:32:02,850 --> 00:32:04,950
Speaker 2: up taking her to the hospital that night and it

518
00:32:04,990 --> 00:32:09,830
Speaker 2: was her appendix was going bad. Well, they also found

519
00:32:10,210 --> 00:32:17,200
Speaker 2: some tumors. So she was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. And

520
00:32:17,260 --> 00:32:19,520
Speaker 2: I was also at that time planning on moving into

521
00:32:19,580 --> 00:32:21,840
Speaker 2: a rent house with, you know, a couple of buddies,

522
00:32:22,480 --> 00:32:27,660
Speaker 2: college buddies. And, um, I decided to stay home because

523
00:32:27,680 --> 00:32:32,220
Speaker 2: she needed my help. So once again, I'm, I don't

524
00:32:32,340 --> 00:32:34,300
Speaker 2: know if it's once again, but I'm staying at home,

525
00:32:35,560 --> 00:32:37,940
Speaker 2: taking care of my mom. I'm still going out with

526
00:32:38,000 --> 00:32:40,600
Speaker 2: my friends on the weekends, but I don't have much

527
00:32:40,660 --> 00:32:42,080
Speaker 2: of a life cause I feel like I need to

528
00:32:42,120 --> 00:32:45,790
Speaker 2: be there with her. And I, I would never be

529
00:32:45,870 --> 00:32:47,990
Speaker 2: resentful for that cause of how much she had to

530
00:32:48,030 --> 00:32:50,190
Speaker 2: take care of me as a child. Cause I was

531
00:32:51,190 --> 00:32:54,890
Speaker 2: big time preemie and kind of sickly for a while. Um,

532
00:32:56,190 --> 00:32:57,630
Speaker 2: But that was just a real hard time to see

533
00:32:57,650 --> 00:33:00,370
Speaker 2: all my friends starting to graduate, move on. Some were

534
00:33:00,390 --> 00:33:04,340
Speaker 2: getting married. And I was sort of in this weird

535
00:33:04,390 --> 00:33:09,040
Speaker 2: no man's land. So the only solace I found was.

536
00:33:10,140 --> 00:33:13,660
Speaker 1: You know, drinking. It would make me feel comfortable.

537
00:33:13,900 --> 00:33:16,180
Speaker 2: And I would have these sort of grand delusions of

538
00:33:16,540 --> 00:33:18,660
Speaker 2: what I was going to do next. I would start

539
00:33:18,720 --> 00:33:23,300
Speaker 2: plotting my next move and things like that. Well, she

540
00:33:23,340 --> 00:33:26,100
Speaker 2: passed away. when I was about 22 and I was

541
00:33:26,140 --> 00:33:28,460
Speaker 2: finishing up, I had about a year left of school

542
00:33:29,880 --> 00:33:33,860
Speaker 2: and she had made kind of one last wish to me.

543
00:33:35,540 --> 00:33:37,730
Speaker 2: I call it kind of her dying wish. And it

544
00:33:37,750 --> 00:33:39,910
Speaker 2: was just conversation her and I had, I don't, she

545
00:33:39,930 --> 00:33:43,770
Speaker 2: didn't kind of outright say that was, but she asked

546
00:33:43,810 --> 00:33:47,330
Speaker 2: me if there's any way my brother to go back.

547
00:33:47,410 --> 00:33:49,830
Speaker 2: My brother had a store at the time, one of

548
00:33:49,870 --> 00:33:53,910
Speaker 2: my dad's stores. And They weren't working together. It was

549
00:33:53,970 --> 00:34:01,520
Speaker 2: almost a little competitive. My mom's kind of sentiment towards

550
00:34:01,580 --> 00:34:06,040
Speaker 2: me was, you know, I'm worried about your dad. What

551
00:34:06,060 --> 00:34:08,700
Speaker 2: happens if he never gets these stores back? That was

552
00:34:08,760 --> 00:34:12,180
Speaker 2: his life. Because he also had a little prison ministry

553
00:34:12,219 --> 00:34:15,760
Speaker 2: through it. He only hired people out of halfway houses

554
00:34:15,800 --> 00:34:17,260
Speaker 2: that were getting out of the prison system.

555
00:34:17,280 --> 00:34:18,010
Speaker 1: Wow.

556
00:34:19,250 --> 00:34:21,950
Speaker 2: So I grew up around people at halfway houses and

557
00:34:22,070 --> 00:34:24,950
Speaker 2: addicts and people that were coming out of prison. Um,

558
00:34:25,969 --> 00:34:29,839
Speaker 2: I worked alongside him my whole life. And later I,

559
00:34:30,160 --> 00:34:32,200
Speaker 2: I'm about to tell you, I took over that business.

560
00:34:33,480 --> 00:34:37,540
Speaker 2: My brother had decided that he didn't want to do

561
00:34:37,580 --> 00:34:40,080
Speaker 2: it anymore. I think he was on his, he's about

562
00:34:40,100 --> 00:34:42,520
Speaker 2: to have his third child. I could be wrong on that,

563
00:34:43,780 --> 00:34:45,450
Speaker 2: but he just didn't want to do it anymore. It

564
00:34:45,489 --> 00:34:48,550
Speaker 2: wasn't what he wanted for his life or his family.

565
00:34:49,110 --> 00:34:51,170
Speaker 2: And the night he told me he was going to

566
00:34:51,190 --> 00:34:54,589
Speaker 2: get out of it and wanted to sell, we had

567
00:34:54,630 --> 00:34:58,550
Speaker 2: a conversation and I just, I bought it from him essentially.

568
00:34:59,270 --> 00:35:02,290
Speaker 2: I ended up selling part of a landscaping business that

569
00:35:02,310 --> 00:35:04,089
Speaker 2: I had at the time that I'd built up since

570
00:35:04,110 --> 00:35:08,620
Speaker 2: high school. And I bought it from him over time.

571
00:35:08,660 --> 00:35:11,200
Speaker 2: He gave me a year, but the kicker was I

572
00:35:11,219 --> 00:35:15,600
Speaker 2: brought my dad to work for me. Cause I figured, well,

573
00:35:15,640 --> 00:35:19,190
Speaker 2: I'm full-time school. He's the one with 35 years of

574
00:35:19,250 --> 00:35:23,129
Speaker 2: connections in this industry. I know pretty much everything about

575
00:35:23,150 --> 00:35:25,750
Speaker 2: it because I've been working in his stores and warehouses

576
00:35:25,810 --> 00:35:29,230
Speaker 2: since I was a baby, pretty much. I drive a

577
00:35:29,270 --> 00:35:30,290
Speaker 2: forklift when I was five.

578
00:35:30,989 --> 00:35:34,150
Speaker 1: Yeah. You know, that type of thing. Some are doing

579
00:35:34,310 --> 00:35:38,230
Speaker 1: power wheels. You're doing forklifts. Yeah.

580
00:35:39,450 --> 00:35:43,710
Speaker 2: So that was another big ego trip for me because.

581
00:35:45,070 --> 00:35:47,840
Speaker 1: It worked. I was successful with it.

582
00:35:48,489 --> 00:35:50,130
Speaker 2: You know, I sort of just let my dad do

583
00:35:50,190 --> 00:35:52,190
Speaker 2: his thing when I finished school. But once I was

584
00:35:52,210 --> 00:35:55,750
Speaker 2: done with school, I started to expand it. I, I

585
00:35:55,790 --> 00:36:00,450
Speaker 2: developed a wholesale operation with it. I had a, not

586
00:36:00,489 --> 00:36:03,270
Speaker 2: just a store, but a warehouse in Tulsa. And then

587
00:36:03,330 --> 00:36:07,870
Speaker 2: I bought a seven half acre property in Grove, Oklahoma,

588
00:36:08,790 --> 00:36:10,470
Speaker 2: which was in a lot of art. And I turned

589
00:36:10,550 --> 00:36:15,670
Speaker 2: it into a multi-dimensional kind of retail operation. I had a,

590
00:36:15,640 --> 00:36:22,410
Speaker 2: 192 booth open air flea market. I got into selling,

591
00:36:23,590 --> 00:36:26,129
Speaker 2: you know, insurance claims from Lowe's and Home Depot, like

592
00:36:26,150 --> 00:36:30,549
Speaker 2: building materials out of some other barn type structures on

593
00:36:30,570 --> 00:36:33,110
Speaker 2: the property. I sort of was attempting to make it

594
00:36:33,130 --> 00:36:39,100
Speaker 2: into like almost a retail event center. You will. So

595
00:36:39,160 --> 00:36:41,600
Speaker 2: I was using the businesses at this point to try

596
00:36:41,620 --> 00:36:42,960
Speaker 2: to obtain commercial property.

597
00:36:43,480 --> 00:36:45,500
Speaker 1: And I, I mean, I was doing that. That was

598
00:36:45,540 --> 00:36:46,080
Speaker 1: my end goal.

599
00:36:47,550 --> 00:36:55,169
Speaker 2: Um, so working in that for almost 13 years was, um,

600
00:36:57,110 --> 00:36:59,970
Speaker 2: kind of, kind of brought out the real bad side

601
00:37:00,010 --> 00:37:04,660
Speaker 2: of me. You know, it was like never, never facing

602
00:37:04,719 --> 00:37:07,700
Speaker 2: or getting through your resentment, just hanging out with it

603
00:37:07,739 --> 00:37:14,790
Speaker 2: every day. Pretty much. Um, although, um, the blessing in

604
00:37:14,830 --> 00:37:16,910
Speaker 2: that was I got to spend almost every single day

605
00:37:16,930 --> 00:37:24,470
Speaker 2: with my dad who was the most unabashed, unabashed lover

606
00:37:24,510 --> 00:37:26,890
Speaker 2: of Jesus I've ever met. Okay.

607
00:37:26,910 --> 00:37:31,250
Speaker 1: Let's pause there because I know I'm thinking, wait, what?

608
00:37:31,650 --> 00:37:31,870
Speaker 2: Yeah.

609
00:37:32,010 --> 00:37:34,930
Speaker 1: And other people are maybe like, wait, what? I walked

610
00:37:35,030 --> 00:37:38,680
Speaker 1: in on your dad having an affair and you're categorizing

611
00:37:38,739 --> 00:37:41,540
Speaker 1: him as the most unabashed lover of Jesus that you

612
00:37:41,580 --> 00:37:46,230
Speaker 1: ever met. Now, I say that slightly facetiously, right? Explain that.

613
00:37:48,400 --> 00:37:53,140
Speaker 2: Well, he was broken and sinful like the rest of us, right?

614
00:37:55,940 --> 00:37:59,549
Speaker 2: My dad fought his own demons. We are very similar,

615
00:37:59,610 --> 00:38:02,850
Speaker 2: so I know which ones he fought. In fact, he

616
00:38:02,870 --> 00:38:07,070
Speaker 2: told me about them later in full detail. So I

617
00:38:08,510 --> 00:38:12,580
Speaker 2: also know A little bit more. I have been married myself.

618
00:38:12,760 --> 00:38:16,069
Speaker 2: So that really opened my eyes to problems that can

619
00:38:16,110 --> 00:38:22,770
Speaker 2: arise in a marriage. Not giving any excuses, by the way, whatsoever.

620
00:38:23,890 --> 00:38:26,799
Speaker 2: And I told him that at the time at the

621
00:38:26,880 --> 00:38:30,620
Speaker 2: age of 12, when it happened, I remember saying to him,

622
00:38:31,380 --> 00:38:34,900
Speaker 2: you know, I understand that you're not happy, but you

623
00:38:34,920 --> 00:38:36,680
Speaker 2: could have just gotten a divorce. You didn't have to

624
00:38:36,719 --> 00:38:40,719
Speaker 2: do this. I don't know what, what spurred that on

625
00:38:40,780 --> 00:38:42,939
Speaker 2: as a 12 year old. Um, but I just knew

626
00:38:44,580 --> 00:38:45,379
Speaker 2: how wrong it was.

627
00:38:45,480 --> 00:38:45,700
Speaker 1: Right.

628
00:38:46,600 --> 00:38:50,350
Speaker 2: Um, I do know, I do know the man really

629
00:38:50,410 --> 00:38:54,649
Speaker 2: well and he spent a lot of years. In fact,

630
00:38:54,690 --> 00:38:58,090
Speaker 2: why he would lose his businesses often was because it

631
00:38:58,130 --> 00:39:01,210
Speaker 2: was almost a false sense of atonement. Like he had

632
00:39:01,250 --> 00:39:04,200
Speaker 2: to make up for something and he was giving a

633
00:39:04,239 --> 00:39:09,910
Speaker 2: lot away. Um, he did spend, majority of the rest

634
00:39:09,950 --> 00:39:13,170
Speaker 2: of his life handing away six million copies of the

635
00:39:13,210 --> 00:39:14,550
Speaker 2: prayer of jabez book.

636
00:39:15,110 --> 00:39:22,360
Speaker 1: Wow for uh yeah wow wow yeah so.

637
00:39:24,180 --> 00:39:27,390
Speaker 2: He turned his stores and then later my stores because

638
00:39:27,430 --> 00:39:30,590
Speaker 2: he was so involved with them everything but the budgeting.

639
00:39:30,670 --> 00:39:33,910
Speaker 1: I wouldn't let him have a home.

640
00:39:34,070 --> 00:39:35,950
Speaker 2: He was more my business development guy.

641
00:39:36,450 --> 00:39:36,710
Speaker 1: Yeah.

642
00:39:36,750 --> 00:39:36,930
Speaker 2: Right.

643
00:39:37,710 --> 00:39:38,930
Speaker 1: Because he had all the connections.

644
00:39:39,530 --> 00:39:44,529
Speaker 2: But anyway, he ministered to people in a way on

645
00:39:44,590 --> 00:39:48,880
Speaker 2: the most authentic level that I think actually reached people.

646
00:39:48,900 --> 00:39:49,760
Speaker 1: Hmm.

647
00:39:50,890 --> 00:39:54,580
Speaker 2: And having that example is what I think helps me

648
00:39:55,480 --> 00:39:58,719
Speaker 2: do the same thing now in the areas that God

649
00:39:58,760 --> 00:40:02,739
Speaker 2: has placed me in. Cause when I, when I did

650
00:40:02,780 --> 00:40:05,600
Speaker 2: get sober, I was in Denver, Colorado or outside of it.

651
00:40:06,520 --> 00:40:08,640
Speaker 2: I went to sober livings out there. You know, there's

652
00:40:08,680 --> 00:40:13,299
Speaker 2: not a lot of Jesus talk, which, you know, to

653
00:40:13,360 --> 00:40:16,030
Speaker 2: each their own. I, I'm not allowed to judge anybody

654
00:40:16,050 --> 00:40:23,560
Speaker 2: and I don't, um, But I know for a fact,

655
00:40:24,160 --> 00:40:25,920
Speaker 2: I won't just say I believe, I know I have

656
00:40:25,940 --> 00:40:30,340
Speaker 2: a real knack for talking to unbelievers. And I'm not,

657
00:40:31,739 --> 00:40:36,160
Speaker 2: you know, dogmatically quoting scripture at them or anything like that.

658
00:40:37,010 --> 00:40:41,270
Speaker 2: I saw an example through my dad of, you know,

659
00:40:41,310 --> 00:40:44,610
Speaker 2: in a lot of ways, he was just trying to

660
00:40:44,650 --> 00:40:46,810
Speaker 2: be the light, right?

661
00:40:46,870 --> 00:40:48,830
Speaker 1: And when people were ready to hear it and needed

662
00:40:48,870 --> 00:40:49,950
Speaker 1: to hear it, he.

663
00:40:49,910 --> 00:40:53,990
Speaker 2: Would lay it down, but he wasn't afraid to walk

664
00:40:54,050 --> 00:40:57,529
Speaker 2: around anywhere in public. And when someone's griping or complaining,

665
00:40:58,050 --> 00:41:00,170
Speaker 2: his famous quote was, Oh, Jesus will handle it.

666
00:41:01,260 --> 00:41:04,680
Speaker 1: That was his way of saying, stop complaining. Yeah. Yeah.

667
00:41:04,960 --> 00:41:08,560
Speaker 1: He's this way into it. Don't worry about it. You know?

668
00:41:09,200 --> 00:41:13,680
Speaker 2: Uh, so I heard often his favorite, his favorite book

669
00:41:13,700 --> 00:41:18,250
Speaker 2: of the Bible was Mark, but his favorite, chapter in

670
00:41:18,270 --> 00:41:21,690
Speaker 2: the entire Bible was Matthew 6.

671
00:41:22,610 --> 00:41:26,190
Speaker 1: And he relied on that relentlessly. That's Sermon on the

672
00:41:26,210 --> 00:41:26,669
Speaker 1: Mount stuff.

673
00:41:27,410 --> 00:41:31,960
Speaker 2: Right. And that's recovery stuff. Especially when you're coming back

674
00:41:32,000 --> 00:41:35,460
Speaker 2: from nothing. Or in my case, coming back from losing everything.

675
00:41:36,800 --> 00:41:41,120
Speaker 2: Getting caught up in financial fears and everything else. You know,

676
00:41:41,239 --> 00:41:44,710
Speaker 2: that's not the point. Is what he's trying to make there. So,

677
00:41:46,969 --> 00:41:50,130
Speaker 2: That was kind of the relationship with my dad. Bad

678
00:41:50,489 --> 00:41:51,650
Speaker 2: and a lot of good, I think.

679
00:41:52,650 --> 00:41:55,250
Speaker 1: Do you feel like there was then a repentance on

680
00:41:55,290 --> 00:42:01,750
Speaker 1: his part? Oh, 100%. And I only ask that because

681
00:42:01,810 --> 00:42:05,160
Speaker 1: I think one of the things that we continue to

682
00:42:05,180 --> 00:42:07,380
Speaker 1: talk about is repentance, right? And that you can come

683
00:42:07,400 --> 00:42:11,760
Speaker 1: back from anything, right? And with genuine repentance, it's like

684
00:42:12,480 --> 00:42:16,129
Speaker 1: there may be consequences, right? still for your actions. And

685
00:42:16,390 --> 00:42:20,890
Speaker 1: yet you can still testify to the grace and the

686
00:42:20,989 --> 00:42:23,150
Speaker 1: power of God, you know, and I look at my

687
00:42:23,210 --> 00:42:25,609
Speaker 1: own stepdad and this was kind of hard at some point,

688
00:42:25,650 --> 00:42:28,469
Speaker 1: like when I wrote my book, there were some family

689
00:42:28,510 --> 00:42:35,580
Speaker 1: members who didn't like necessarily some of the details that

690
00:42:35,800 --> 00:42:38,180
Speaker 1: I included and even just and wanted to include that

691
00:42:38,219 --> 00:42:40,719
Speaker 1: I ended up not about just some of the way

692
00:42:40,739 --> 00:42:43,670
Speaker 1: that my stepdad was in our younger years. He had

693
00:42:43,690 --> 00:42:47,290
Speaker 1: a lot of anger. He was abused as a kid

694
00:42:48,760 --> 00:42:54,400
Speaker 1: and modeled and mirrored some of that with us at

695
00:42:54,420 --> 00:42:59,339
Speaker 1: a very young age. And yet, very similar to you,

696
00:43:00,480 --> 00:43:05,160
Speaker 1: like my stepdad went away for a period of time.

697
00:43:05,860 --> 00:43:09,380
Speaker 1: It's funny. It's like I've come to understand that it

698
00:43:09,400 --> 00:43:11,239
Speaker 1: was only a month. It seemed a lot longer to me,

699
00:43:11,280 --> 00:43:13,719
Speaker 1: but I was younger, right? Right. He went to a

700
00:43:13,860 --> 00:43:18,649
Speaker 1: Christian treatment facility to work on himself and came back

701
00:43:18,910 --> 00:43:25,340
Speaker 1: a different man, a broken, soft, literally just some of

702
00:43:25,360 --> 00:43:27,500
Speaker 1: the things that you're saying, right? Like we would get

703
00:43:27,560 --> 00:43:31,210
Speaker 1: up Like we're like, hey, the angry Mike, could we

704
00:43:31,250 --> 00:43:33,770
Speaker 1: have a little bit of him now? Because like you

705
00:43:33,830 --> 00:43:38,150
Speaker 1: are just getting walked over. You are getting stepped on.

706
00:43:38,510 --> 00:43:41,080
Speaker 1: You are like and you're just like, hey, God will

707
00:43:41,100 --> 00:43:43,660
Speaker 1: take care of it. Like if that's the thing, fine.

708
00:43:43,880 --> 00:43:47,080
Speaker 1: You know, we're like, yeah, we don't want, you know,

709
00:43:47,280 --> 00:43:49,460
Speaker 1: volatile Mike, but we could probably use a little like

710
00:43:50,060 --> 00:43:52,710
Speaker 1: justice here, Mike, you know, and he's just it was

711
00:43:52,750 --> 00:43:57,069
Speaker 1: just it was just a change. And I think the

712
00:43:57,090 --> 00:44:01,509
Speaker 1: thing that I tried to convey to my family in

713
00:44:01,810 --> 00:44:06,240
Speaker 1: using some of those details and writing confessions is, hey,

714
00:44:06,380 --> 00:44:09,899
Speaker 1: I want to point out who he was because that

715
00:44:09,980 --> 00:44:13,940
Speaker 1: makes who he became that much more of a testament

716
00:44:14,360 --> 00:44:16,379
Speaker 1: to God and what he did in his life.

717
00:44:16,700 --> 00:44:16,899
Speaker 2: Right.

718
00:44:16,920 --> 00:44:23,370
Speaker 1: Like understanding who he was before, you know, makes understanding

719
00:44:23,450 --> 00:44:27,010
Speaker 1: who he was. he also passed away before he passed

720
00:44:27,070 --> 00:44:32,150
Speaker 1: away that much more of like, wow, but God, you know,

721
00:44:32,410 --> 00:44:35,130
Speaker 1: that's what God can do. Right. And he was repentant.

722
00:44:35,190 --> 00:44:37,029
Speaker 1: And it's funny, you said something there that I need to,

723
00:44:37,140 --> 00:44:39,140
Speaker 1: I'm going to need to, Josh, I'm going to need

724
00:44:39,180 --> 00:44:43,580
Speaker 1: to like meditate on for a little bit, but just like,

725
00:44:43,660 --> 00:44:47,520
Speaker 1: like you said there about, you know, him giving away

726
00:44:47,560 --> 00:44:49,640
Speaker 1: a lot of, a lot of money and maybe, you know,

727
00:44:49,660 --> 00:44:52,540
Speaker 1: going bankrupt, if you will, on some of those businesses,

728
00:44:52,640 --> 00:44:57,920
Speaker 1: because of a, a sense of, And I just wonder, like,

729
00:44:57,940 --> 00:45:01,700
Speaker 1: I look at my stepdad's life, you know, after post

730
00:45:01,780 --> 00:45:05,560
Speaker 1: post treatment, which it wasn't for drugs or alcohol, but

731
00:45:05,580 --> 00:45:08,440
Speaker 1: it was for anger. It was for just some of

732
00:45:08,460 --> 00:45:12,960
Speaker 1: these root issues, you know, and I look at what

733
00:45:13,540 --> 00:45:15,609
Speaker 1: he would do. And I wonder if like there was

734
00:45:15,620 --> 00:45:21,069
Speaker 1: and not an atonement in a in a let me

735
00:45:21,489 --> 00:45:27,989
Speaker 1: earn God's favor. But also just like, I know the

736
00:45:28,030 --> 00:45:34,250
Speaker 1: grace that has been given to me. And this thing

737
00:45:34,570 --> 00:45:40,320
Speaker 1: that this person wants, like, fine, you know, great, take it,

738
00:45:40,690 --> 00:45:45,430
Speaker 1: you know. And I'm going to have to like, look

739
00:45:45,489 --> 00:45:47,969
Speaker 1: back at my stepdad's life and kind of be like,

740
00:45:48,110 --> 00:45:50,339
Speaker 1: I wonder if that's part of it, too. You know,

741
00:45:50,489 --> 00:45:53,390
Speaker 1: I would see my stepdad I would come down in

742
00:45:53,690 --> 00:45:56,009
Speaker 1: the mornings, you know, I don't know, to get a glass.

743
00:45:56,070 --> 00:45:57,550
Speaker 1: I grew up in Wisconsin, right? So it wasn't a

744
00:45:57,550 --> 00:45:59,189
Speaker 1: glass of water. I came down to get a glass

745
00:45:59,210 --> 00:46:01,629
Speaker 1: of whole milk in the middle of the night. And,

746
00:46:02,260 --> 00:46:03,759
Speaker 1: you know, it would be three, four in the morning

747
00:46:03,880 --> 00:46:06,420
Speaker 1: and he's just on his knees praying. And I think

748
00:46:06,560 --> 00:46:11,960
Speaker 1: at sometimes in my young high school years, I would

749
00:46:12,040 --> 00:46:18,200
Speaker 1: look at that with kind of like a skepticism, like

750
00:46:18,300 --> 00:46:23,399
Speaker 1: almost like a religiosity, like, oh, you know, Come on. Well,

751
00:46:23,739 --> 00:46:24,819
Speaker 1: you see the hypocrisy.

752
00:46:25,600 --> 00:46:25,920
Speaker 2: Right.

753
00:46:26,520 --> 00:46:29,600
Speaker 1: And what I think I'm, or what I know, what

754
00:46:29,620 --> 00:46:32,259
Speaker 1: I've come to understand and appreciate is, even though there

755
00:46:32,300 --> 00:46:38,420
Speaker 1: were still struggles, is that how much worse could it

756
00:46:38,460 --> 00:46:42,440
Speaker 1: have been if he wasn't doing that and how much

757
00:46:42,520 --> 00:46:47,440
Speaker 1: he knew he needed that? Because I know that like,

758
00:46:48,600 --> 00:46:51,259
Speaker 1: you know, my prayer times, you know, throughout the day,

759
00:46:52,760 --> 00:46:54,940
Speaker 1: I can just as quickly have a terse word for

760
00:46:54,980 --> 00:46:56,640
Speaker 1: my wife or kids, and they could look at me

761
00:46:56,660 --> 00:46:58,930
Speaker 1: and be like, well, now you're reading this? It's like, yeah,

762
00:46:58,950 --> 00:47:03,290
Speaker 1: because you don't know. If I don't, who the sin

763
00:47:06,650 --> 00:47:09,069
Speaker 1: wants me to become is even worse. So I know

764
00:47:09,110 --> 00:47:11,969
Speaker 1: it's a little tangent, but as you said that about

765
00:47:11,989 --> 00:47:14,310
Speaker 1: your dad, I think it's a good reminder to us,

766
00:47:14,570 --> 00:47:16,489
Speaker 1: for all of us, if you're listening to this and

767
00:47:16,530 --> 00:47:19,610
Speaker 1: maybe you have one of those father or mother figures

768
00:47:19,710 --> 00:47:22,590
Speaker 1: in your life and you're, and, and maybe instead of

769
00:47:23,790 --> 00:47:26,049
Speaker 1: chalking it up to their hypocrites, which by the way,

770
00:47:26,090 --> 00:47:26,790
Speaker 1: we're all hypocrites.

771
00:47:27,150 --> 00:47:27,370
Speaker 2: Yeah.

772
00:47:27,830 --> 00:47:36,520
Speaker 1: Um, 100% is, is like, maybe, maybe, uh, they are

773
00:47:36,580 --> 00:47:39,420
Speaker 1: pursuing the Lord in that aspect of their life. And

774
00:47:39,460 --> 00:47:42,739
Speaker 1: that's actually a gift because of who they could be

775
00:47:42,780 --> 00:47:43,200
Speaker 1: without it.

776
00:47:43,760 --> 00:47:48,180
Speaker 2: Right. And I, on that, I saw a direct correlation between,

777
00:47:48,650 --> 00:47:54,689
Speaker 2: when my dad passed, to my recovery program. Because, you know,

778
00:47:55,350 --> 00:47:59,940
Speaker 2: recovery emphasizes just what you just said, that relationship, right?

779
00:47:59,960 --> 00:48:03,800
Speaker 2: That is the main point, that we need that relationship

780
00:48:03,840 --> 00:48:08,720
Speaker 2: with Christ. And my brother and I found his prayer

781
00:48:08,760 --> 00:48:13,640
Speaker 2: journal after he passed away. And the times he stopped journaling,

782
00:48:15,880 --> 00:48:20,420
Speaker 2: we could directly... put with times where his businesses went down,

783
00:48:22,260 --> 00:48:27,730
Speaker 2: where his marriage started to fall apart, where our relationships

784
00:48:27,830 --> 00:48:32,810
Speaker 2: respectively with him fell apart or all during times where

785
00:48:32,850 --> 00:48:36,780
Speaker 2: he wasn't solely focused on things of heaven.

786
00:48:39,520 --> 00:48:39,739
Speaker 1: Right.

787
00:48:40,260 --> 00:48:45,380
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, And that was so important for

788
00:48:45,420 --> 00:48:48,210
Speaker 2: me because my dad passed away the day I left treatment.

789
00:48:49,830 --> 00:48:51,690
Speaker 1: So I never got to see him again. And that

790
00:48:51,710 --> 00:48:53,170
Speaker 1: was the first I got to see of him.

791
00:48:54,730 --> 00:48:57,569
Speaker 2: And it was just a reinforcement of how bad or

792
00:48:57,630 --> 00:49:00,100
Speaker 2: how intense I have to be about this thing.

793
00:49:00,800 --> 00:49:05,799
Speaker 1: Not just to say sober. That's not really the goal. Amen!

794
00:49:06,980 --> 00:49:11,550
Speaker 2: That's not my goal. My goal is to grow into

795
00:49:11,610 --> 00:49:16,400
Speaker 2: my identity in Christ. Who my creator created me to

796
00:49:16,480 --> 00:49:19,930
Speaker 2: be because for a long time, I wasn't living that way.

797
00:49:20,680 --> 00:49:25,920
Speaker 2: When you're living in fear of rejection, loneliness, inadequacy, all

798
00:49:25,940 --> 00:49:27,989
Speaker 2: these things, right?

799
00:49:30,070 --> 00:49:32,430
Speaker 1: Josh, what you're saying right there, that is what I

800
00:49:32,469 --> 00:49:35,610
Speaker 1: think is the difference between secular recovery or non-gospel recovery

801
00:49:35,670 --> 00:49:39,430
Speaker 1: and gospel-centered recovery. Is like, sobriety is not the goal.

802
00:49:40,960 --> 00:49:46,960
Speaker 2: Well, it's just different language in AA. Like the AA

803
00:49:47,040 --> 00:49:49,870
Speaker 2: book talks about growing in the image or likeness of

804
00:49:49,910 --> 00:49:54,050
Speaker 2: your creator, right? And talks a lot about emotional sobriety,

805
00:49:54,130 --> 00:49:56,569
Speaker 2: that the getting sober is just the first part.

806
00:49:57,850 --> 00:49:59,550
Speaker 1: You know, it mentions all that stuff often.

807
00:49:59,570 --> 00:50:05,340
Speaker 2: It just doesn't specifically name the true source, right?

808
00:50:05,820 --> 00:50:08,540
Speaker 1: Is how I kind of think of it. I think it's,

809
00:50:09,360 --> 00:50:10,240
Speaker 1: It's very clear.

810
00:50:10,080 --> 00:50:15,160
Speaker 2: To me that AA used the book of James, Colossians,

811
00:50:15,219 --> 00:50:20,440
Speaker 2: and Romans to write the big book of Apostles Anonymous.

812
00:50:20,940 --> 00:50:25,060
Speaker 2: And there's writings that Bill Wilson did to say he

813
00:50:25,100 --> 00:50:28,960
Speaker 2: wished he would have brought more Jesus into it. But

814
00:50:29,040 --> 00:50:31,319
Speaker 2: also it just leaves it open because there are so

815
00:50:31,340 --> 00:50:35,469
Speaker 2: many atheist agnostic people out there. And in my experience

816
00:50:35,530 --> 00:50:38,830
Speaker 2: working in treatment, that's the first battle. Hmm.

817
00:50:39,320 --> 00:50:40,739
Speaker 1: Besides drying out.

818
00:50:43,040 --> 00:50:46,480
Speaker 2: It's a lot of people have kind of what I've

819
00:50:46,560 --> 00:50:49,509
Speaker 2: noticed to be over the thousands of guys that I've

820
00:50:49,550 --> 00:50:50,910
Speaker 2: come across is this.

821
00:50:51,450 --> 00:50:54,529
Speaker 1: They take that hypocrisy piece and they they use it hard.

822
00:50:54,870 --> 00:50:56,069
Speaker 2: Yep. Right.

823
00:50:56,110 --> 00:50:56,250
Speaker 1: Yeah.

824
00:50:56,630 --> 00:50:58,870
Speaker 2: It's easy to do because like you said, we're all hypocrites.

825
00:50:59,830 --> 00:51:02,950
Speaker 1: And, you know, I wrote an article recently of just like,

826
00:51:03,489 --> 00:51:06,480
Speaker 1: I think as Christians, we need to start embracing the term.

827
00:51:07,150 --> 00:51:09,049
Speaker 1: like I think someone calls us a hypocrite, right? And

828
00:51:09,070 --> 00:51:10,649
Speaker 1: we like run from it and we're like, we think

829
00:51:10,710 --> 00:51:13,350
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, now they've got me. And I'm like, no,

830
00:51:13,430 --> 00:51:17,630
Speaker 1: like I'm a hypocrite, guys. You're a hypocrite. Christians are hypocrites.

831
00:51:17,770 --> 00:51:21,930
Speaker 1: If Christians weren't hypocrites, we would not need Jesus. Like

832
00:51:22,110 --> 00:51:24,090
Speaker 1: we are going to say one thing and do another.

833
00:51:24,690 --> 00:51:28,290
Speaker 1: We are going to profess that we love Jesus and

834
00:51:28,310 --> 00:51:30,870
Speaker 1: we're going to do things that are antithetical to our faith.

835
00:51:31,370 --> 00:51:34,240
Speaker 1: And who else? That's exactly why we need Jesus. So like,

836
00:51:34,820 --> 00:51:37,260
Speaker 1: Stop running from the term. Someone calls you a hypocrite,

837
00:51:37,280 --> 00:51:39,960
Speaker 1: be like, yes. And guess what? You're one step closer

838
00:51:40,000 --> 00:51:41,819
Speaker 1: to the gospel now. They're like, what?

839
00:51:42,239 --> 00:51:44,120
Speaker 2: And so, yeah. Right.

840
00:51:44,620 --> 00:51:52,670
Speaker 1: I mean, so let's reset in a sense of like, yeah, no, no, no,

841
00:51:52,710 --> 00:51:56,380
Speaker 1: this is good. Cause you had mentioned like coming out

842
00:51:56,390 --> 00:51:59,160
Speaker 1: of treatment and seeing your dad, like what happened in

843
00:51:59,180 --> 00:52:02,400
Speaker 1: your life? What led you to, to what led.

844
00:52:02,219 --> 00:52:02,880
Speaker 2: You to treatment?

845
00:52:04,680 --> 00:52:09,279
Speaker 1: Of knowing and getting into treatment. Like what did life become,

846
00:52:09,340 --> 00:52:12,680
Speaker 1: you know, kind of as you're, you know, growing successful

847
00:52:12,719 --> 00:52:15,930
Speaker 1: business and whatnot. And I'm assuming like so many of us, like,

848
00:52:16,190 --> 00:52:18,390
Speaker 1: you know, you drink when you're depressed, but you drink

849
00:52:18,430 --> 00:52:21,690
Speaker 1: when you have success, right? And so sometimes that success

850
00:52:21,710 --> 00:52:23,810
Speaker 1: can really mask it because it's like, well, I'm not,

851
00:52:24,630 --> 00:52:28,150
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not draining my savings in order to

852
00:52:28,190 --> 00:52:30,370
Speaker 1: get liquor. And it's like, things are really great. I'm

853
00:52:30,430 --> 00:52:34,910
Speaker 1: a better person, you know? So what led you to

854
00:52:34,930 --> 00:52:37,750
Speaker 1: get to treatment. All right, there's a lot in there,

855
00:52:37,770 --> 00:52:40,330
Speaker 1: so I'll try to fast forward it. We'll be right

856
00:52:40,350 --> 00:52:40,950
Speaker 1: back after this.

857
00:52:44,270 --> 00:52:48,910
Speaker 2: So I got married at the age of 30. So

858
00:52:49,310 --> 00:52:51,790
Speaker 2: we started dating around the time my mom passed away.

859
00:52:53,290 --> 00:52:57,350
Speaker 2: So talk about not feeling lonely anymore, first of all.

860
00:52:57,810 --> 00:53:02,190
Speaker 2: Great person. She is now my ex-wife. She's amazing in

861
00:53:02,230 --> 00:53:06,620
Speaker 2: her own right. nothing bad to really say. We dated

862
00:53:06,660 --> 00:53:08,980
Speaker 2: kind of off and on because she moved around a

863
00:53:09,000 --> 00:53:13,140
Speaker 2: little bit in our twenties. And while she was doing that,

864
00:53:13,239 --> 00:53:15,969
Speaker 2: I was kind of growing the business and doing my

865
00:53:16,030 --> 00:53:21,690
Speaker 2: own thing. And around the age 29, she moved back

866
00:53:22,930 --> 00:53:24,130
Speaker 2: and we decided to get married.

867
00:53:24,370 --> 00:53:25,310
Speaker 1: I proposed and all that.

868
00:53:25,969 --> 00:53:31,120
Speaker 2: And I also, that's the year I also bought that

869
00:53:31,180 --> 00:53:35,920
Speaker 2: big property that I talked about. Hmm. So I grew

870
00:53:35,980 --> 00:53:38,469
Speaker 2: in all sorts of areas at once. That was the

871
00:53:38,510 --> 00:53:40,630
Speaker 2: year I also bought a lake house close to that

872
00:53:40,650 --> 00:53:42,550
Speaker 2: new property. So I had a lake house, a boat.

873
00:53:44,010 --> 00:53:48,330
Speaker 2: Everything looked good on paper. Marrying a beautiful, intelligent woman.

874
00:53:50,170 --> 00:53:54,590
Speaker 2: Lake house, boat, solid businesses. And at this time, I

875
00:53:54,640 --> 00:53:57,379
Speaker 2: could hear my ego kind of, well, the enemy kind

876
00:53:57,420 --> 00:54:00,600
Speaker 2: of taunting me. Like, well, you got it all together now.

877
00:54:00,800 --> 00:54:06,620
Speaker 2: Now no one will really know. what's actually going on. Um,

878
00:54:08,060 --> 00:54:12,100
Speaker 2: a lot of people like to, a lot of people

879
00:54:12,120 --> 00:54:14,340
Speaker 2: close to me like to think it was the pressure

880
00:54:14,360 --> 00:54:17,569
Speaker 2: of all that, that kind of sent me toward downward spiral,

881
00:54:17,610 --> 00:54:21,950
Speaker 2: but I was already spiraling there. I mean, I was,

882
00:54:21,969 --> 00:54:27,130
Speaker 2: I was one bender at that point away from it

883
00:54:27,210 --> 00:54:32,000
Speaker 2: having its grasp totally on me. And I mean, it

884
00:54:32,040 --> 00:54:35,700
Speaker 2: was already taking me I would go out on a

885
00:54:35,739 --> 00:54:38,259
Speaker 2: long weekend, have everyone up to the lake and party

886
00:54:38,300 --> 00:54:41,899
Speaker 2: all weekend. And then it would take me until about

887
00:54:41,940 --> 00:54:43,760
Speaker 2: Wednesday to level out and feel normal.

888
00:54:45,100 --> 00:54:46,860
Speaker 1: And is it just alcohol at this point or is

889
00:54:46,880 --> 00:54:47,439
Speaker 1: there other stuff?

890
00:54:47,960 --> 00:54:51,220
Speaker 2: Yeah, just alcohol. Just alcohol for me at that point.

891
00:54:52,570 --> 00:54:56,250
Speaker 2: And that kind of, and like I was referring to earlier,

892
00:54:56,270 --> 00:54:58,250
Speaker 2: I kept those same habits from college.

893
00:54:58,790 --> 00:54:58,969
Speaker 1: Yeah.

894
00:54:59,430 --> 00:55:02,029
Speaker 2: I'm that type of addict where I was in that

895
00:55:02,090 --> 00:55:07,930
Speaker 2: same habit for years. 15 years. So that, that just

896
00:55:07,969 --> 00:55:10,890
Speaker 2: got worse and worse. You know, it progressed as it does.

897
00:55:12,410 --> 00:55:14,930
Speaker 2: Those vendors stopped being week long. They started turning into

898
00:55:14,950 --> 00:55:18,790
Speaker 2: a month and I started hiding how much I'm drinking,

899
00:55:19,090 --> 00:55:23,120
Speaker 2: how often, you know, I was doing the whole, um,

900
00:55:24,020 --> 00:55:27,140
Speaker 2: stopping at the gas station, especially out by my lake house.

901
00:55:27,200 --> 00:55:29,739
Speaker 2: Cause there's a two mile dirt road. So I could,

902
00:55:30,760 --> 00:55:33,000
Speaker 2: Slam some down before I walked in the door. And

903
00:55:33,280 --> 00:55:36,610
Speaker 2: then the ones I had later that night didn't, it

904
00:55:36,640 --> 00:55:40,130
Speaker 2: didn't look like I had the, it's back before, right?

905
00:55:40,370 --> 00:55:42,770
Speaker 1: Absolutely, man. I was a master at that.

906
00:55:43,270 --> 00:55:46,910
Speaker 2: I also would, and I laugh at it now. I

907
00:55:46,950 --> 00:55:51,850
Speaker 2: know it's not funny, but in my house, I had

908
00:55:51,890 --> 00:55:54,170
Speaker 2: a side room that was kind of my man cave

909
00:55:54,230 --> 00:55:57,549
Speaker 2: as a little TV room. There was a mini bar

910
00:55:57,590 --> 00:56:00,660
Speaker 2: in there. So a little mini fridge. And I would say, hey,

911
00:56:00,680 --> 00:56:02,580
Speaker 2: I'm going to go get a beer. Do you want

912
00:56:02,600 --> 00:56:03,580
Speaker 2: a glass of wine or anything?

913
00:56:03,620 --> 00:56:04,299
Speaker 1: It's always no.

914
00:56:05,840 --> 00:56:08,460
Speaker 2: And I would walk in there and simultaneously pull two

915
00:56:08,640 --> 00:56:10,360
Speaker 2: out and open them both at the same time. So

916
00:56:12,360 --> 00:56:14,640
Speaker 2: it just sounded like one. Well, you do that three

917
00:56:14,660 --> 00:56:17,130
Speaker 2: or four times. Yep. And I didn't care if it

918
00:56:17,170 --> 00:56:19,610
Speaker 2: got warm. They were there for me later in the

919
00:56:19,650 --> 00:56:23,529
Speaker 2: night or the next morning. Because at that time I

920
00:56:23,550 --> 00:56:24,870
Speaker 2: started getting the shakes.

921
00:56:26,270 --> 00:56:26,930
Speaker 1: I'll never forget.

922
00:56:27,890 --> 00:56:32,129
Speaker 2: Throughout the college years and even in real adulthood into

923
00:56:32,170 --> 00:56:35,670
Speaker 2: my 30s, I always relied on the hair of the

924
00:56:35,690 --> 00:56:38,710
Speaker 2: dog after a hard night. That was just my go-to.

925
00:56:40,940 --> 00:56:43,660
Speaker 2: This was more than that. This was, I need to

926
00:56:43,719 --> 00:56:47,400
Speaker 2: level out so I can start my day. It started

927
00:56:47,440 --> 00:56:51,140
Speaker 2: being that. Now, still at this point, there was times

928
00:56:51,180 --> 00:56:53,530
Speaker 2: where I could stop drinking for about a month or two.

929
00:56:54,350 --> 00:56:54,710
Speaker 1: Yeah.

930
00:56:55,350 --> 00:56:57,110
Speaker 2: Or even a week. You know, even if it was

931
00:56:57,130 --> 00:56:58,710
Speaker 2: a week, I would like go to the gym three

932
00:56:58,730 --> 00:57:00,730
Speaker 2: or four times. I would eat healthy that week and

933
00:57:00,750 --> 00:57:03,879
Speaker 2: be like, oh, I'm all good. Isn't that insane?

934
00:57:04,500 --> 00:57:08,219
Speaker 1: It's so insane. But like, I know that there are

935
00:57:08,239 --> 00:57:11,620
Speaker 1: people listening to this right now. That that's your story.

936
00:57:12,850 --> 00:57:14,930
Speaker 2: And. Josh.

937
00:57:16,090 --> 00:57:19,050
Speaker 1: Who drinking that way will get the shakes, could stop,

938
00:57:19,690 --> 00:57:23,030
Speaker 1: could stop for a little bit, a week, a month, whatever.

939
00:57:23,290 --> 00:57:26,770
Speaker 1: I could do the same thing, right? And I cannot

940
00:57:26,830 --> 00:57:32,830
Speaker 1: tell you how much I used that to convince myself

941
00:57:32,870 --> 00:57:37,610
Speaker 1: that I didn't have a problem. I'm like, no, alcoholics,

942
00:57:38,680 --> 00:57:41,500
Speaker 1: they look this way, they have these symptoms, it's this,

943
00:57:42,400 --> 00:57:44,740
Speaker 1: and man, does that keep us enslaved.

944
00:57:46,200 --> 00:57:48,760
Speaker 2: Well, my thing was I knew I had a problem,

945
00:57:49,060 --> 00:57:52,220
Speaker 2: but I had my problem under control. Sure. Yeah. Because

946
00:57:52,520 --> 00:57:56,800
Speaker 2: look how powerful I am. I'm essentially controlling everything else

947
00:57:56,860 --> 00:57:59,660
Speaker 2: in my life right now. So I control that too.

948
00:58:00,780 --> 00:58:03,690
Speaker 2: That was the sense that I had. But then it,

949
00:58:05,210 --> 00:58:08,010
Speaker 2: you know, I'm probably not even expressing how bad it

950
00:58:08,090 --> 00:58:12,650
Speaker 2: actually got like at that point, but it got worse.

951
00:58:14,480 --> 00:58:16,140
Speaker 1: Quickly, you can just like, what did that look like?

952
00:58:16,160 --> 00:58:17,020
Speaker 1: What did worse look like?

953
00:58:17,040 --> 00:58:20,080
Speaker 2: Okay, here's where I'm really getting into it, and it's

954
00:58:20,100 --> 00:58:20,760
Speaker 2: totally fine.

955
00:58:22,420 --> 00:58:24,700
Speaker 1: And that's up to you, man. It's like you share

956
00:58:24,760 --> 00:58:26,720
Speaker 1: as much or as little as you want. I'm an

957
00:58:26,800 --> 00:58:32,500
Speaker 1: open book with it, to be honest. Basically, it turned

958
00:58:32,560 --> 00:58:37,520
Speaker 1: into all day, every day. My employees eventually started knowing it.

959
00:58:39,360 --> 00:58:42,120
Speaker 1: I started going to said lake house, pretending that I

960
00:58:42,180 --> 00:58:45,780
Speaker 1: had to work. And I was working up there, but

961
00:58:45,860 --> 00:58:49,360
Speaker 1: I would sort of fib about, oh, I have, you know,

962
00:58:49,640 --> 00:58:52,010
Speaker 1: merchandise trucks coming the next two days, so I'm going

963
00:58:52,030 --> 00:58:54,189
Speaker 1: to be up here. Might as well spend the night

964
00:58:54,590 --> 00:58:56,430
Speaker 1: because it's an hour and a half away from home,

965
00:58:56,690 --> 00:58:59,770
Speaker 1: things like that. And that would just give me the

966
00:59:00,530 --> 00:59:03,190
Speaker 1: availability to drink the way that I wanted to, the

967
00:59:03,230 --> 00:59:06,050
Speaker 1: way that my alcoholism wanted to, right, without being judged.

968
00:59:07,950 --> 00:59:10,740
Speaker 2: But it started to have its hooks involved. me where

969
00:59:10,880 --> 00:59:16,380
Speaker 2: I would, I just couldn't go home. There were times

970
00:59:16,940 --> 00:59:20,480
Speaker 2: whether it was I was too drunk to drive, which

971
00:59:20,560 --> 00:59:26,890
Speaker 2: is kind of always, or if it was because my

972
00:59:27,010 --> 00:59:31,090
Speaker 2: anxiety was so bad coming down off of it, already

973
00:59:31,110 --> 00:59:35,890
Speaker 2: experiencing pre-withdrawal symptoms that I couldn't even leave my driveway.

974
00:59:38,120 --> 00:59:42,340
Speaker 2: And I couldn't tell that to my wife. So what

975
00:59:42,460 --> 00:59:47,320
Speaker 2: I would do would sort of start a fight to

976
00:59:47,340 --> 00:59:49,400
Speaker 2: be like, this is why I don't want to come home, right?

977
00:59:50,300 --> 00:59:53,400
Speaker 2: Because I'm angry. I don't like that you did something.

978
00:59:53,620 --> 00:59:55,930
Speaker 2: I think a lot of us do that in whatever

979
00:59:56,120 --> 00:59:57,050
Speaker 2: capacity or way.

980
00:59:57,160 --> 00:59:58,250
Speaker 1: Brother, yes.

981
00:59:58,980 --> 01:00:01,580
Speaker 2: You know, it's a way of throwing up walls and

982
01:00:01,680 --> 01:00:03,490
Speaker 2: flares to go pay attention to something else.

983
01:00:03,510 --> 01:00:04,790
Speaker 1: Giving you an excuse to drink more.

984
01:00:05,030 --> 01:00:05,190
Speaker 2: Right.

985
01:00:05,230 --> 01:00:07,950
Speaker 1: Well, we had a fight. I just need to calm down. Yeah.

986
01:00:08,630 --> 01:00:10,730
Speaker 2: And she would call and say, hey, well, you've been

987
01:00:10,750 --> 01:00:14,350
Speaker 2: calming down for four days now. Like grow up, which

988
01:00:14,390 --> 01:00:22,020
Speaker 2: I needed to. So my marriage became more distant. Right.

989
01:00:23,200 --> 01:00:26,440
Speaker 2: It wasn't like there was a ton of all the

990
01:00:26,480 --> 01:00:27,400
Speaker 2: really bad stuff.

991
01:00:27,220 --> 01:00:28,170
Speaker 1: You hear about or bad.

992
01:00:28,450 --> 01:00:33,530
Speaker 2: Really any of that necessarily. I have no doubt that

993
01:00:33,650 --> 01:00:39,010
Speaker 2: I was probably emotionally abusive just in those fits of

994
01:00:39,090 --> 01:00:44,100
Speaker 2: sort of my irritation to push away. I was emotionally abusive,

995
01:00:44,720 --> 01:00:49,220
Speaker 2: never physically or anything like that, but it just only

996
01:00:49,280 --> 01:00:55,000
Speaker 2: created distance between us. Um, so I started becoming kind

997
01:00:55,040 --> 01:00:59,310
Speaker 2: of a, isolated version of myself that is not who

998
01:00:59,350 --> 01:01:09,010
Speaker 2: she married right so eventually she decided to leave there's

999
01:01:09,050 --> 01:01:13,660
Speaker 2: a separation I took the separation as a one foot

1000
01:01:13,700 --> 01:01:16,860
Speaker 2: out the door which it was but in that moment

1001
01:01:16,940 --> 01:01:22,240
Speaker 2: of sort of either always under the influence or always

1002
01:01:22,840 --> 01:01:28,710
Speaker 2: very irritable restless and discontent I would lash out. I

1003
01:01:28,750 --> 01:01:33,100
Speaker 2: would justify things of you're giving up on our marriage

1004
01:01:33,480 --> 01:01:36,840
Speaker 2: after this like small thing. You know, it's just a

1005
01:01:36,920 --> 01:01:40,320
Speaker 2: rough patch. So that's how I was trying to justify

1006
01:01:40,360 --> 01:01:42,080
Speaker 2: it to myself when it was much more than that.

1007
01:01:43,160 --> 01:01:47,180
Speaker 2: Talk about your identity completely changing, right? In like a

1008
01:01:47,240 --> 01:01:50,050
Speaker 2: few years, I'd become someone that even the person I

1009
01:01:50,090 --> 01:01:53,510
Speaker 2: married didn't recognize. And not only that, but she was

1010
01:01:53,570 --> 01:02:01,220
Speaker 2: watching me slowly commit suicide. And, and after she separated,

1011
01:02:01,240 --> 01:02:08,970
Speaker 2: then COVID hit like shortly after, um, I had to

1012
01:02:08,990 --> 01:02:11,350
Speaker 2: have my gallbladder removed at that time. Cause I drank

1013
01:02:11,370 --> 01:02:16,070
Speaker 2: that away. Um, so my health was going down the

1014
01:02:16,110 --> 01:02:21,790
Speaker 2: drain and it was apparent. I was, you know, pale yellow, very, very,

1015
01:02:21,810 --> 01:02:24,110
Speaker 2: I'm a thin guy, but I was very, very thin.

1016
01:02:25,920 --> 01:02:29,680
Speaker 2: And it got to a point and I'll just fast

1017
01:02:29,720 --> 01:02:33,720
Speaker 2: forward again. A lot of things went down. Just me

1018
01:02:33,740 --> 01:02:36,600
Speaker 2: being even distant from my own businesses. I was rarely

1019
01:02:36,660 --> 01:02:39,780
Speaker 2: there and I would play the whole, well, it's COVID.

1020
01:02:39,860 --> 01:02:41,660
Speaker 2: So I can't come in. I can't get sick.

1021
01:02:42,520 --> 01:02:43,180
Speaker 1: So don't worry.

1022
01:02:43,220 --> 01:02:45,820
Speaker 2: I'll send you guys merchandise to fill the stores up.

1023
01:02:46,840 --> 01:02:51,510
Speaker 2: You know, just keep it, keep the tills running basically.

1024
01:02:52,290 --> 01:02:54,610
Speaker 2: So I was putting on this facade is still working.

1025
01:02:55,720 --> 01:03:01,780
Speaker 2: still caring, things like that. And that's when it got

1026
01:03:01,840 --> 01:03:04,390
Speaker 2: real bad. I invited a few people in my life, well,

1027
01:03:04,530 --> 01:03:10,410
Speaker 2: one mainly, that was not well at all. So we

1028
01:03:10,430 --> 01:03:13,090
Speaker 2: ended up getting divorced, and that was quick because we

1029
01:03:13,130 --> 01:03:16,210
Speaker 2: didn't have children. So in the state of Oklahoma, that's fast.

1030
01:03:17,650 --> 01:03:21,660
Speaker 2: And it was very amicable, everything like that.

1031
01:03:22,540 --> 01:03:24,730
Speaker 1: Would you consider yourself a Christian at this time or no?

1032
01:03:26,280 --> 01:03:29,230
Speaker 2: Well, I had my Bible open reading Psalms 37 just

1033
01:03:29,250 --> 01:03:36,850
Speaker 2: about every single day or Psalms 34 also. But it's,

1034
01:03:36,990 --> 01:03:40,590
Speaker 2: it's one of those things, at least in that moment,

1035
01:03:40,670 --> 01:03:43,870
Speaker 2: it was, I would read, read that.

1036
01:03:43,970 --> 01:03:44,710
Speaker 1: I would pray.

1037
01:03:45,350 --> 01:03:48,030
Speaker 2: And then 30 minutes later I would start screaming at God.

1038
01:03:48,050 --> 01:03:49,350
Speaker 2: Why haven't you changed anything yet?

1039
01:03:49,910 --> 01:03:50,650
Speaker 1: Right.

1040
01:03:50,890 --> 01:03:51,030
Speaker 2: Right.

1041
01:03:51,270 --> 01:03:54,910
Speaker 1: Right. Like, you know, who do you think you are?

1042
01:03:55,780 --> 01:04:00,520
Speaker 2: Um, But I did invite someone else that came in

1043
01:04:00,560 --> 01:04:03,420
Speaker 2: my life. I had known for a long time. She

1044
01:04:03,460 --> 01:04:06,390
Speaker 2: was living with me for a while and I was

1045
01:04:06,430 --> 01:04:10,470
Speaker 2: just making really weird decisions. Like this is when things

1046
01:04:10,530 --> 01:04:14,770
Speaker 2: were starting to get so bad that my family would

1047
01:04:14,810 --> 01:04:18,690
Speaker 2: send welfare checks and they, they didn't think it was

1048
01:04:18,750 --> 01:04:19,680
Speaker 2: necessarily drinking.

1049
01:04:19,700 --> 01:04:20,340
Speaker 1: They thought I had.

1050
01:04:21,840 --> 01:04:25,540
Speaker 2: Some sort of mental issue, like very bad mental health issue,

1051
01:04:26,420 --> 01:04:29,200
Speaker 2: which I, I did because the way I was drinking

1052
01:04:29,220 --> 01:04:31,900
Speaker 2: at that time and lack of REM sleep was causing

1053
01:04:31,920 --> 01:04:36,500
Speaker 2: me to be very manic. So I was presenting manic

1054
01:04:36,540 --> 01:04:40,230
Speaker 2: bipolar and all sorts of things. And when they would

1055
01:04:40,270 --> 01:04:43,250
Speaker 2: send those welfare checks, which was only a couple of times,

1056
01:04:43,590 --> 01:04:46,330
Speaker 2: and I went on my own also, I would literally,

1057
01:04:46,350 --> 01:04:49,640
Speaker 2: I had a bag ready after the first trip, but

1058
01:04:49,720 --> 01:04:52,160
Speaker 2: I would fly to go straight to the airport and

1059
01:04:52,180 --> 01:04:58,270
Speaker 2: I'd fly to Puerto Vallarta. And it's to the same,

1060
01:04:58,370 --> 01:05:00,700
Speaker 2: cause I knew it, it wasn't some, some sort of

1061
01:05:00,740 --> 01:05:03,220
Speaker 2: weird sentimental thing is cause I knew the place so well,

1062
01:05:03,800 --> 01:05:05,700
Speaker 2: I would go to the same resort where we had

1063
01:05:05,720 --> 01:05:09,840
Speaker 2: gone on our honeymoon and I would just go and be,

1064
01:05:10,300 --> 01:05:12,650
Speaker 2: you know, I thought I just needed to breathe. I

1065
01:05:12,810 --> 01:05:17,050
Speaker 2: just needed silence, um, to try to figure it out. Right.

1066
01:05:17,170 --> 01:05:19,650
Speaker 2: I need to figure something out. And there were a

1067
01:05:19,690 --> 01:05:23,460
Speaker 2: couple of times I actually didn't drink much at the

1068
01:05:25,760 --> 01:05:29,250
Speaker 2: but something would happen. I would hang out with a

1069
01:05:29,290 --> 01:05:32,370
Speaker 2: couple or, you know, get invited to dinner or something

1070
01:05:32,390 --> 01:05:35,770
Speaker 2: like that. And it would just be go time, you know,

1071
01:05:36,090 --> 01:05:38,820
Speaker 2: wouldn't stop. And I would, a few of those times

1072
01:05:38,910 --> 01:05:40,780
Speaker 2: I had a four day trip plane and kind of

1073
01:05:40,800 --> 01:05:43,340
Speaker 2: like destined, I would come back 15 days later.

1074
01:05:43,360 --> 01:05:44,220
Speaker 1: Wow.

1075
01:05:44,820 --> 01:05:48,880
Speaker 2: So I was just blowing money on, you know, all

1076
01:05:48,900 --> 01:05:54,690
Speaker 2: inclusive stays. But the main factor of that was, I

1077
01:05:54,750 --> 01:05:57,650
Speaker 2: knew what would detox me, what would level me out.

1078
01:05:58,310 --> 01:05:59,970
Speaker 2: And I knew I could get it in a pharmacy

1079
01:05:59,990 --> 01:06:00,570
Speaker 2: in Mexico.

1080
01:06:03,820 --> 01:06:04,340
Speaker 1: So I did.

1081
01:06:06,020 --> 01:06:10,880
Speaker 2: And that's when things got real, real interesting. So that's

1082
01:06:10,920 --> 01:06:16,780
Speaker 2: when I started to use Xanax. Very moderately, just what

1083
01:06:16,800 --> 01:06:18,590
Speaker 2: they call a quarter of a bar at a time

1084
01:06:19,070 --> 01:06:21,350
Speaker 2: and tell myself, okay, I'm just going to do that.

1085
01:06:21,490 --> 01:06:25,100
Speaker 2: It will take away the anxiousness. I'll only drink three

1086
01:06:25,140 --> 01:06:31,510
Speaker 2: or four drinks tonight. But in those intermediate times, and

1087
01:06:32,030 --> 01:06:34,610
Speaker 2: this is not an exaggeration, I know it sounds crazy.

1088
01:06:35,090 --> 01:06:38,370
Speaker 2: I was going to the quick trip at 61st and Harvard,

1089
01:06:38,610 --> 01:06:43,330
Speaker 2: or I'm sorry, 31st and Harvard, Tulsa, Oklahoma, every morning

1090
01:06:43,370 --> 01:06:47,280
Speaker 2: at 6 a.m. buying two 30-packs of Bud Light because

1091
01:06:47,320 --> 01:06:52,280
Speaker 2: I'd sworn off liquor, four bottles of Josh Chardonnay, and

1092
01:06:52,320 --> 01:06:53,100
Speaker 2: a pack of cigarettes.

1093
01:06:54,620 --> 01:06:55,660
Speaker 1: Every single morning.

1094
01:06:57,620 --> 01:07:00,100
Speaker 2: My sister found the receipts when I was eventually in

1095
01:07:00,120 --> 01:07:00,900
Speaker 2: the hospital and.

1096
01:07:00,820 --> 01:07:04,220
Speaker 1: Was like, what the heck? And you were drinking that

1097
01:07:04,240 --> 01:07:05,770
Speaker 1: in a day? Yeah.

1098
01:07:07,950 --> 01:07:08,230
Speaker 2: Wow.

1099
01:07:08,730 --> 01:07:09,410
Speaker 1: And she found.

1100
01:07:09,790 --> 01:07:12,050
Speaker 2: Her and my brother found all the evidence in trash

1101
01:07:12,090 --> 01:07:16,650
Speaker 2: bags in my garage. The bed of my truck were

1102
01:07:16,670 --> 01:07:21,760
Speaker 2: just full of empty beer cans. Like, an enormous amount.

1103
01:07:22,260 --> 01:07:22,740
Speaker 2: Do you....

1104
01:07:25,320 --> 01:07:28,470
Speaker 1: Do you remember that period of like, like, is that

1105
01:07:28,490 --> 01:07:30,490
Speaker 1: kind of like a foggy period then?

1106
01:07:30,590 --> 01:07:35,070
Speaker 2: Very, very foggy. And when I introduced the Xanax, which

1107
01:07:35,210 --> 01:07:39,480
Speaker 2: I honestly do not believe, obviously I was abusing it

1108
01:07:40,040 --> 01:07:43,560
Speaker 2: by taking it in general, but I wasn't going overboard

1109
01:07:43,600 --> 01:07:46,459
Speaker 2: with it. I wasn't like crazy popping pills, but even

1110
01:07:46,520 --> 01:07:48,820
Speaker 2: a little bit of Xanax, whether it's a half a

1111
01:07:48,860 --> 01:07:53,090
Speaker 2: bar or a quarter mixed with any kind of drinking brother,

1112
01:07:54,070 --> 01:07:56,350
Speaker 2: I did that for a year and a half. Dude.

1113
01:07:56,590 --> 01:07:59,570
Speaker 1: I mean, every time you're rolling the dice. Yeah.

1114
01:08:00,150 --> 01:08:03,910
Speaker 2: So that year, year and a half, see that that's

1115
01:08:03,930 --> 01:08:09,380
Speaker 2: where the timeline gets kind of hazy for me. I

1116
01:08:09,520 --> 01:08:11,120
Speaker 2: know I started losing.

1117
01:08:10,820 --> 01:08:11,560
Speaker 1: Chunks of time.

1118
01:08:11,580 --> 01:08:16,780
Speaker 2: I remember having moments of clarity and being talking to myself,

1119
01:08:16,820 --> 01:08:19,380
Speaker 2: being like, dude, you just lost a week. And then

1120
01:08:19,439 --> 01:08:23,170
Speaker 2: it was two weeks. And it wasn't like a crazy blackout.

1121
01:08:23,250 --> 01:08:26,060
Speaker 2: It was just like, I was in a dream world.

1122
01:08:28,100 --> 01:08:31,260
Speaker 2: And then, and then I started really acting out doing

1123
01:08:31,300 --> 01:08:36,840
Speaker 2: some pretty crazy things. Um, one, I, I won't mention,

1124
01:08:37,300 --> 01:08:44,550
Speaker 2: I did have to go to court for, um, yeah. Um, it,

1125
01:08:45,710 --> 01:08:50,870
Speaker 2: it happened in broad daylight. It involved a, uh, firearm.

1126
01:08:51,860 --> 01:08:58,090
Speaker 2: Not another person, but an object. I also cut down

1127
01:08:58,850 --> 01:09:02,710
Speaker 2: power lines in my back. with my bare hands and

1128
01:09:02,750 --> 01:09:03,410
Speaker 2: wire cutters.

1129
01:09:05,770 --> 01:09:05,990
Speaker 1: Why?

1130
01:09:06,450 --> 01:09:09,990
Speaker 2: So it was a new power line drooping over my

1131
01:09:10,050 --> 01:09:13,390
Speaker 2: back deck and the neighbors weren't calling the power company

1132
01:09:13,430 --> 01:09:16,150
Speaker 2: quick enough. So I walked out there, wrapped my hand

1133
01:09:16,189 --> 01:09:24,939
Speaker 2: in a towel, grabbed the live wires and cut it. Yeah,

1134
01:09:25,010 --> 01:09:31,070
Speaker 2: should not be here. Should not be here. And then

1135
01:09:32,290 --> 01:09:36,570
Speaker 2: there was lots of psychosis. I saw space troopers breaking

1136
01:09:36,630 --> 01:09:44,380
Speaker 2: down my back fence. Just all sorts of kind of

1137
01:09:44,439 --> 01:09:48,760
Speaker 2: what I know now is really demonic activity. There was

1138
01:09:49,300 --> 01:09:53,860
Speaker 2: a certain figure that would taunt me all the time.

1139
01:09:54,300 --> 01:09:58,680
Speaker 1: Especially at night. Let's just show up in your room. Yeah.

1140
01:09:58,939 --> 01:10:00,059
Speaker 1: Not just in my ear.

1141
01:10:00,140 --> 01:10:02,360
Speaker 2: Like I knew when it was right in front of

1142
01:10:02,400 --> 01:10:05,479
Speaker 2: my face and at night I could see it.

1143
01:10:07,680 --> 01:10:09,099
Speaker 1: And I'll get to that.

1144
01:10:09,660 --> 01:10:12,160
Speaker 2: Well, I'll just go ahead and, you know, a lot

1145
01:10:12,200 --> 01:10:14,269
Speaker 2: of guys in the treatment world, especially if you're around

1146
01:10:14,610 --> 01:10:17,330
Speaker 2: a heroin and meth addicts, well, fentanyl and meth now

1147
01:10:18,530 --> 01:10:22,570
Speaker 2: they talk about shadow people. That's exactly how I would

1148
01:10:22,610 --> 01:10:26,220
Speaker 2: describe this thing. So remember that because I'll get to

1149
01:10:26,280 --> 01:10:30,800
Speaker 2: it in a second. So after a little while of that,

1150
01:10:32,420 --> 01:10:35,700
Speaker 2: I had the police called on me at my house

1151
01:10:35,800 --> 01:10:39,519
Speaker 2: for something that went on at my house, which was

1152
01:10:39,600 --> 01:10:43,099
Speaker 2: like a breaking of a computer or something like that.

1153
01:10:44,920 --> 01:10:46,780
Speaker 2: And I had walked out to the truck in my

1154
01:10:46,820 --> 01:10:49,210
Speaker 2: driveway and I was just sitting in it and of

1155
01:10:49,290 --> 01:10:50,610
Speaker 2: course had a couple beers on me.

1156
01:10:51,750 --> 01:10:53,570
Speaker 1: And the cops pull up and they gave me a DUI.

1157
01:10:55,689 --> 01:10:58,769
Speaker 2: So they take me in, and this was such a

1158
01:10:58,810 --> 01:11:03,670
Speaker 2: blessing that this happened. They take me in. They made

1159
01:11:03,750 --> 01:11:07,250
Speaker 2: fun of how much I blew because I blew very

1160
01:11:07,370 --> 01:11:11,090
Speaker 2: close to a. 4. It was like a. 3.

1161
01:11:11,090 --> 01:11:14,210
Speaker 1: Wow. I mean, dude, I hadn't drank water in probably

1162
01:11:14,250 --> 01:11:14,670
Speaker 1: a month.

1163
01:11:14,830 --> 01:11:18,980
Speaker 2: It was just nothing but Bud Light or Kuru's Light, Chase,

1164
01:11:19,020 --> 01:11:20,440
Speaker 2: and bottles of Chardonnay.

1165
01:11:21,729 --> 01:11:23,860
Speaker 1: Wow. Whatever it was. Yeah.

1166
01:11:27,180 --> 01:11:30,580
Speaker 2: So I'm in jail for about eight hours, I think

1167
01:11:30,620 --> 01:11:34,880
Speaker 2: it was. And I felt very, very strange. That's the

1168
01:11:34,900 --> 01:11:38,689
Speaker 2: longest I'd gone without alcohol in a year and a half.

1169
01:11:38,900 --> 01:11:39,240
Speaker 1: Easy.

1170
01:11:40,020 --> 01:11:42,870
Speaker 2: Maybe two years. Like I hadn't gone more than two

1171
01:11:42,910 --> 01:11:47,849
Speaker 2: hours without a drink. And I definitely hadn't slept more

1172
01:11:47,890 --> 01:11:50,269
Speaker 2: than two hours in a couple of years either.

1173
01:11:52,030 --> 01:11:53,950
Speaker 1: But as I'm being released.

1174
01:11:56,310 --> 01:11:58,130
Speaker 2: I'm handcuffed to the guy in front of me. I

1175
01:12:00,410 --> 01:12:03,820
Speaker 2: started getting tunnel vision really bad. Kind of like I

1176
01:12:03,880 --> 01:12:07,320
Speaker 2: was also getting in the jail cell. And all of

1177
01:12:07,400 --> 01:12:11,580
Speaker 2: a sudden my right leg started shaking, like wobbling. And

1178
01:12:11,979 --> 01:12:14,160
Speaker 2: it was out of my body. I had no control

1179
01:12:14,220 --> 01:12:18,400
Speaker 2: over it. The next thing I knew I was losing consciousness.

1180
01:12:19,740 --> 01:12:24,110
Speaker 2: And I just remember falling, hearing what sound like a

1181
01:12:24,110 --> 01:12:28,530
Speaker 2: baseball sound. hit a wood bat like Mark McGuire just

1182
01:12:28,550 --> 01:12:31,870
Speaker 2: smacked a home run or something and a flash of light.

1183
01:12:33,490 --> 01:12:36,120
Speaker 2: So what had happened was I had a seizure while

1184
01:12:36,140 --> 01:12:37,599
Speaker 2: I was handcuffed to the guy in front of me

1185
01:12:37,900 --> 01:12:40,780
Speaker 2: and I fell and I landed right on my temple

1186
01:12:41,420 --> 01:12:43,800
Speaker 2: on one of those bolted in benches.

1187
01:12:44,540 --> 01:12:47,640
Speaker 1: Wow. And if I wasn't.

1188
01:12:47,680 --> 01:12:51,110
Speaker 2: Being released in 10 feet, 10 feet away from the ambulance,

1189
01:12:51,750 --> 01:12:55,410
Speaker 2: I would be dead. Wow. they immediately got me in

1190
01:12:55,430 --> 01:13:01,430
Speaker 2: the ambulance. I was having horrific withdrawals. My body was

1191
01:13:01,490 --> 01:13:04,349
Speaker 2: in shock. I was seizing like crazy, like a seizure.

1192
01:13:04,390 --> 01:13:10,200
Speaker 2: You don't survive. You're, you're not supposed to, well, people,

1193
01:13:10,780 --> 01:13:14,360
Speaker 2: people die from Benzo and alcohol withdrawal. Oh yeah.

1194
01:13:14,800 --> 01:13:15,559
Speaker 1: Just say that. Yeah.

1195
01:13:16,000 --> 01:13:21,640
Speaker 2: Die from. And I think I fully have not read

1196
01:13:21,740 --> 01:13:24,960
Speaker 2: the full medical report kind of. Cause like, To me,

1197
01:13:25,000 --> 01:13:28,850
Speaker 2: it's sort of just, it happened. I know what God did,

1198
01:13:28,870 --> 01:13:32,809
Speaker 2: so I don't need to know anything else. But I

1199
01:13:32,870 --> 01:13:38,250
Speaker 2: believe they helped induce a coma at that point because

1200
01:13:38,290 --> 01:13:40,610
Speaker 2: they didn't know if my spine was broken to.

1201
01:13:42,729 --> 01:13:44,340
Speaker 1: Help with the seizures, all of that.

1202
01:13:45,500 --> 01:13:48,420
Speaker 2: But basically what happened was I was admitted into the

1203
01:13:48,500 --> 01:13:52,660
Speaker 2: ICU and I was, from what I understand, in a

1204
01:13:52,900 --> 01:14:01,830
Speaker 2: coma for 19 days. And at day 13, well, my

1205
01:14:01,890 --> 01:14:04,630
Speaker 2: family didn't know I was in the hospital for seven days.

1206
01:14:04,650 --> 01:14:08,570
Speaker 1: Because you at this point probably just weren't really communicating

1207
01:14:08,590 --> 01:14:10,310
Speaker 1: with them, right? So seven days.

1208
01:14:10,890 --> 01:14:12,790
Speaker 2: I had gotten a completely new phone number. I was

1209
01:14:12,810 --> 01:14:16,780
Speaker 2: trying to disappear from everybody. Hadn't talked to them in

1210
01:14:16,800 --> 01:14:20,620
Speaker 2: a little while. One of the nurses recognized me from

1211
01:14:20,680 --> 01:14:25,420
Speaker 2: high school and called me. Who she knew to call,

1212
01:14:25,740 --> 01:14:29,780
Speaker 2: which was one of my best buddies, Michael, who I

1213
01:14:29,850 --> 01:14:33,950
Speaker 2: had sort of, he helped not really get to treatment,

1214
01:14:33,970 --> 01:14:38,290
Speaker 2: but sort of, I was supportive of him about 15

1215
01:14:38,290 --> 01:14:40,610
Speaker 2: years prior when he got back from Afghanistan.

1216
01:14:41,950 --> 01:14:45,090
Speaker 1: And I had known this guy off and on.

1217
01:14:45,270 --> 01:14:48,110
Speaker 2: We were kind of best buds at different points, always

1218
01:14:48,170 --> 01:14:50,330
Speaker 2: just showed up in each other's life there for each other.

1219
01:14:51,150 --> 01:14:54,910
Speaker 1: This nurse calls him. He gets a hold of my brother.

1220
01:14:56,729 --> 01:15:00,290
Speaker 2: My brother leaves his wife and kids in Frisco, drives

1221
01:15:00,310 --> 01:15:01,230
Speaker 2: straight to Tulsa.

1222
01:15:01,850 --> 01:15:04,720
Speaker 1: Frisco, Texas, where I'm from. Well, not where I'm from,

1223
01:15:04,760 --> 01:15:05,960
Speaker 1: where I'm doing this right now.

1224
01:15:07,680 --> 01:15:11,060
Speaker 2: Drives all the way from there, left his four children,

1225
01:15:11,560 --> 01:15:13,840
Speaker 2: his wife alone, to go sit in a hospital room

1226
01:15:14,780 --> 01:15:17,040
Speaker 2: looking at his little brother not knowing if he's going

1227
01:15:17,060 --> 01:15:21,280
Speaker 2: to live or die. And I'll also go back to

1228
01:15:22,400 --> 01:15:25,400
Speaker 2: from what I know One of the last things my

1229
01:15:25,460 --> 01:15:31,120
Speaker 2: mom asked of him was to protect me from myself.

1230
01:15:33,350 --> 01:15:36,559
Speaker 2: There's a reason my mom named me Joshua. And she

1231
01:15:36,590 --> 01:15:40,030
Speaker 2: would always point out Joshua 1.9 from when I was

1232
01:15:40,070 --> 01:15:42,250
Speaker 2: a little kid and say, you're going to need this someday.

1233
01:15:42,270 --> 01:15:45,090
Speaker 2: Because you're going to have a fight in your life

1234
01:15:46,970 --> 01:15:48,809
Speaker 2: that you won't be able to do without God's help.

1235
01:15:49,950 --> 01:15:50,850
Speaker 2: She used to tell me that.

1236
01:15:51,330 --> 01:15:53,979
Speaker 1: What's Joshua 1.9? be courageous.

1237
01:15:54,620 --> 01:15:54,900
Speaker 2: That's right.

1238
01:15:55,280 --> 01:15:57,380
Speaker 1: Right. For I'm with you.

1239
01:15:59,640 --> 01:16:02,260
Speaker 2: So, and that, that ends up being a cool story

1240
01:16:02,280 --> 01:16:07,500
Speaker 2: later in my recovery journey. But so sitting in the hospital,

1241
01:16:07,500 --> 01:16:12,600
Speaker 2: 19 days on day 13, my sister had asked the

1242
01:16:12,620 --> 01:16:17,580
Speaker 2: doctor a question and the doctor looked at her and said, well,

1243
01:16:18,220 --> 01:16:21,260
Speaker 2: we don't know if he's going to be paralyzed or,

1244
01:16:22,700 --> 01:16:26,049
Speaker 2: Or if he's going to be on a ventilator because

1245
01:16:26,090 --> 01:16:28,170
Speaker 2: of the wet brain, could be permanent.

1246
01:16:30,290 --> 01:16:31,769
Speaker 1: And she asked, what do you mean paralyzed?

1247
01:16:31,810 --> 01:16:34,550
Speaker 2: He's moving. And the doctor said, no, he's still having

1248
01:16:35,060 --> 01:16:35,940
Speaker 2: delirium tremens.

1249
01:16:36,900 --> 01:16:37,320
Speaker 1: Wow.

1250
01:16:37,640 --> 01:16:39,939
Speaker 2: And those are only supposed to last to day six

1251
01:16:40,000 --> 01:16:44,099
Speaker 2: or seven. We're on day 13.

1252
01:16:44,100 --> 01:16:44,360
Speaker 1: Wow.

1253
01:16:44,439 --> 01:16:46,920
Speaker 2: So the chances of him waking up and not being

1254
01:16:46,960 --> 01:16:58,490
Speaker 2: a vegetable or incapacitated. Very unlikely. Holy cow. Now, I

1255
01:16:58,530 --> 01:17:01,240
Speaker 2: had an experience while I was in that coma. I don't,

1256
01:17:01,880 --> 01:17:04,080
Speaker 2: like I said, I didn't read the report. I haven't

1257
01:17:04,200 --> 01:17:07,040
Speaker 2: heard anything from my brother or sister whether I ever

1258
01:17:07,280 --> 01:17:10,979
Speaker 2: toted or not. I can tell you my brother was

1259
01:17:11,020 --> 01:17:13,809
Speaker 2: in the room and he said he knew what happened.

1260
01:17:14,610 --> 01:17:16,470
Speaker 2: When I tried to tell him one day, he said,

1261
01:17:16,510 --> 01:17:18,790
Speaker 2: you don't need to explain it to me. I was there.

1262
01:17:21,350 --> 01:17:26,600
Speaker 2: And What happened in that coma was I was, I

1263
01:17:26,620 --> 01:17:32,210
Speaker 2: was basically taken to a place that at first were

1264
01:17:32,270 --> 01:17:32,970
Speaker 2: not the gates.

1265
01:17:34,150 --> 01:17:34,730
Speaker 1: It was dark.

1266
01:17:35,350 --> 01:17:37,450
Speaker 2: And the only thing that was there was that same

1267
01:17:37,550 --> 01:17:42,750
Speaker 2: shadow figure that was taunting me. Looked like it was

1268
01:17:42,810 --> 01:17:46,389
Speaker 2: in some sort of black cloak and like without hands,

1269
01:17:46,650 --> 01:17:49,310
Speaker 2: it was kind of waving me towards it. And it

1270
01:17:49,350 --> 01:17:53,100
Speaker 2: was going down into the left. And I remember looking

1271
01:17:53,180 --> 01:17:56,980
Speaker 2: around and thinking, well, there's nothing else here. That's the

1272
01:17:57,060 --> 01:17:59,130
Speaker 2: only thing I know. I guess I'll go that way.

1273
01:18:01,610 --> 01:18:07,229
Speaker 2: And then out of nowhere, I felt hands on my shoulders.

1274
01:18:07,790 --> 01:18:11,210
Speaker 2: And as soon as I felt that, that figure just

1275
01:18:11,430 --> 01:18:18,240
Speaker 2: vanished completely. Like ran off terrified so fast. There's no

1276
01:18:18,560 --> 01:18:23,040
Speaker 2: millisecond to describe how No millisecond of time to describe

1277
01:18:23,080 --> 01:18:28,120
Speaker 2: how fast it vanished. And those hands turned me towards

1278
01:18:28,180 --> 01:18:34,120
Speaker 2: a light. And then the person that was behind me,

1279
01:18:34,220 --> 01:18:37,599
Speaker 2: putting its hands on me, walked around to the right

1280
01:18:37,760 --> 01:18:38,380
Speaker 2: of that light.

1281
01:18:42,890 --> 01:18:43,799
Speaker 1: And all I got.

1282
01:18:43,700 --> 01:18:53,960
Speaker 2: After that was some very lovingly described, like, fatherly direction. Not,

1283
01:18:54,140 --> 01:18:58,640
Speaker 2: you're in trouble. It was more of a, you think

1284
01:18:58,700 --> 01:19:02,700
Speaker 2: you've been living the right way? And I got a

1285
01:19:02,760 --> 01:19:06,380
Speaker 2: glimpse at sort of where we go. I didn't get

1286
01:19:06,400 --> 01:19:09,160
Speaker 2: to see all the way into it. But I was

1287
01:19:09,220 --> 01:19:14,439
Speaker 2: told that everyone I've ever loved is waiting on me

1288
01:19:15,640 --> 01:19:19,000
Speaker 2: if I wanted to go, but that it wasn't probably

1289
01:19:19,040 --> 01:19:21,720
Speaker 2: my time yet. And so it was a choice in

1290
01:19:21,760 --> 01:19:22,240
Speaker 2: a way.

1291
01:19:24,590 --> 01:19:25,270
Speaker 1: For me to make.

1292
01:19:26,729 --> 01:19:32,170
Speaker 2: Um, but it was very strange in the sense that

1293
01:19:33,330 --> 01:19:35,950
Speaker 2: I remember a lot happening, but not all of it

1294
01:19:35,970 --> 01:19:38,870
Speaker 2: came back with me. So it's hard to describe sometimes.

1295
01:19:39,490 --> 01:19:39,650
Speaker 1: Hmm.

1296
01:19:42,280 --> 01:19:48,080
Speaker 2: The one takeaway from it was there were things I'll say,

1297
01:19:48,140 --> 01:19:53,099
Speaker 2: explain to me, but there was not through words. But

1298
01:19:53,200 --> 01:19:56,729
Speaker 2: now if I could fast forward a year into my sobriety,

1299
01:19:56,770 --> 01:19:59,330
Speaker 2: when I really started steadily studying the word again, it

1300
01:20:01,910 --> 01:20:05,930
Speaker 2: was more true than ever. I started seeing things and

1301
01:20:06,530 --> 01:20:07,910
Speaker 2: saying to myself, that's true.

1302
01:20:08,990 --> 01:20:09,670
Speaker 1: That's true.

1303
01:20:10,189 --> 01:20:13,540
Speaker 2: I was given that information. And it's not like this,

1304
01:20:14,960 --> 01:20:19,510
Speaker 2: some spiritual egotism or anything like that. It's just, I've

1305
01:20:19,570 --> 01:20:22,229
Speaker 2: heard other people, not that I don't listen to too

1306
01:20:22,270 --> 01:20:26,830
Speaker 2: many other people's near-death experiences, but I hear they say

1307
01:20:26,870 --> 01:20:30,130
Speaker 2: similar things of they got information that they weren't allowed

1308
01:20:30,150 --> 01:20:33,150
Speaker 2: to come back with. And that's kind of how it

1309
01:20:33,210 --> 01:20:37,290
Speaker 2: feels sometimes. But what I did get was Joshua 1.9.

1310
01:20:37,270 --> 01:20:37,340
Speaker 1: Hmm.

1311
01:20:40,560 --> 01:20:43,780
Speaker 2: And I was told, despite everything you've gone through, I.

1312
01:20:45,620 --> 01:20:46,840
Speaker 1: Still need you to go back.

1313
01:20:47,180 --> 01:20:50,120
Speaker 2: But you don't have to worry because I'll be with

1314
01:20:50,180 --> 01:20:55,550
Speaker 2: you just like I always have. And that's the thing

1315
01:20:55,610 --> 01:20:59,290
Speaker 2: I really took away from it. You know, I wasn't

1316
01:20:59,330 --> 01:21:01,670
Speaker 2: shown the secret to the universe or anything like that.

1317
01:21:03,710 --> 01:21:06,290
Speaker 2: But I think it was just very truth affirming to

1318
01:21:06,310 --> 01:21:08,810
Speaker 2: what we know to be the truth in the word.

1319
01:21:10,500 --> 01:21:15,780
Speaker 1: Right. And so I'm assuming you wake up, right? You

1320
01:21:15,800 --> 01:21:17,660
Speaker 1: go to treatment after that.

1321
01:21:18,460 --> 01:21:22,460
Speaker 2: I woke up and my sister was kind of frantic,

1322
01:21:23,080 --> 01:21:27,280
Speaker 2: which I don't blame her. You know, she was, do

1323
01:21:27,310 --> 01:21:29,170
Speaker 2: you know what you've done? I'm going to have to,

1324
01:21:29,930 --> 01:21:32,170
Speaker 2: she took my guardianship when I was in that coma

1325
01:21:32,710 --> 01:21:35,790
Speaker 2: because they didn't know if I was going to wake up. And,

1326
01:21:35,810 --> 01:21:37,630
Speaker 2: you know, at this point I have a little bit

1327
01:21:37,650 --> 01:21:40,950
Speaker 2: of an estate with my, homes and my businesses and

1328
01:21:40,990 --> 01:21:45,150
Speaker 2: things like that. And, you know, that was her main

1329
01:21:45,189 --> 01:21:50,110
Speaker 2: focus at the time combined with my wellbeing. But I

1330
01:21:50,150 --> 01:21:53,870
Speaker 2: remember waking up and just saying, send me wherever you

1331
01:21:53,890 --> 01:21:57,210
Speaker 2: want to send me. Everything's going to be okay. And

1332
01:21:57,290 --> 01:22:00,490
Speaker 2: people in the room, do you know how bad it is?

1333
01:22:01,760 --> 01:22:02,780
Speaker 1: Blah, blah, blah, all that.

1334
01:22:02,880 --> 01:22:05,680
Speaker 2: And I was just, I kept saying, everything's going to

1335
01:22:05,700 --> 01:22:09,059
Speaker 2: be okay. Just send me wherever you want to. And

1336
01:22:09,100 --> 01:22:12,710
Speaker 2: they still did the, my family being they, still did

1337
01:22:12,770 --> 01:22:15,729
Speaker 2: the intervention they had planned, which they read a few

1338
01:22:15,770 --> 01:22:17,969
Speaker 2: letters to me that they had written.

1339
01:22:18,810 --> 01:22:22,490
Speaker 1: And I really, I heard them at the time.

1340
01:22:22,550 --> 01:22:23,110
Speaker 2: I know I did.

1341
01:22:23,170 --> 01:22:26,000
Speaker 1: I don't remember very much of them except for one.

1342
01:22:26,020 --> 01:22:33,540
Speaker 2: And that's my niece, Ashton. And she kind of pleaded

1343
01:22:33,620 --> 01:22:38,099
Speaker 2: with me in that letter to, to find rest in Jesus.

1344
01:22:38,160 --> 01:22:42,280
Speaker 2: And finally, let him fight for me. And she wrote

1345
01:22:42,320 --> 01:22:48,000
Speaker 2: down Matthew 11, 28. And I still carry that, that

1346
01:22:48,060 --> 01:22:51,460
Speaker 2: letter with me. So anytime, anytime I got down or

1347
01:22:51,520 --> 01:22:54,660
Speaker 2: discouraged on myself in treatment, I'd pull that letter out

1348
01:22:56,020 --> 01:22:58,220
Speaker 2: and try to remember who, where I find rest and

1349
01:22:58,260 --> 01:22:59,200
Speaker 2: who fights my battles.

1350
01:23:00,979 --> 01:23:04,020
Speaker 1: Right. How long were you in treatment for?

1351
01:23:04,050 --> 01:23:08,300
Speaker 2: Um, I was supposed to go for a month. and

1352
01:23:08,360 --> 01:23:11,380
Speaker 2: I ended up staying 28 days. No, this is a

1353
01:23:11,420 --> 01:23:15,189
Speaker 2: different treatment center. They didn't, they didn't go by insurance. Uh,

1354
01:23:15,250 --> 01:23:19,970
Speaker 2: they did 30, 60, 90. Um, but I, I went

1355
01:23:20,010 --> 01:23:24,010
Speaker 2: there and voluntarily stayed six months.

1356
01:23:24,030 --> 01:23:25,150
Speaker 1: Hmm.

1357
01:23:25,689 --> 01:23:29,479
Speaker 2: Cause by month four, I was being asked to lead

1358
01:23:30,800 --> 01:23:31,879
Speaker 2: a book studies.

1359
01:23:31,900 --> 01:23:35,640
Speaker 1: I was giving tours to families.

1360
01:23:35,660 --> 01:23:38,800
Speaker 2: I was helping new guys, uh, And in fact, the

1361
01:23:38,860 --> 01:23:42,639
Speaker 2: first person I was ever able to really feel like

1362
01:23:42,700 --> 01:23:45,320
Speaker 2: I was of service to more than a way of

1363
01:23:45,360 --> 01:23:50,620
Speaker 2: like helping do their dishes or give a tour. He's

1364
01:23:50,660 --> 01:23:54,140
Speaker 2: now like a brother to me. Still five years later,

1365
01:23:55,140 --> 01:24:00,590
Speaker 2: old mountain cowboy. His name's Eric. He's funny guy. He

1366
01:24:00,710 --> 01:24:02,450
Speaker 2: was a little distraught when.

1367
01:24:02,390 --> 01:24:02,950
Speaker 1: He showed up.

1368
01:24:03,590 --> 01:24:06,090
Speaker 2: He was 54 years old, I think at the time

1369
01:24:06,130 --> 01:24:09,540
Speaker 2: or 53. he had lost his son in a car

1370
01:24:09,600 --> 01:24:13,990
Speaker 2: accident a few years prior. And what led him getting

1371
01:24:14,030 --> 01:24:17,130
Speaker 2: there was, of course, alcoholism, but stuff with his wife

1372
01:24:17,270 --> 01:24:20,950
Speaker 2: was not going well. And we clicked kind of the

1373
01:24:20,990 --> 01:24:25,720
Speaker 2: first day. And so I'm about four months in, and

1374
01:24:25,760 --> 01:24:29,500
Speaker 2: I finally had just picked up the Bible my brother

1375
01:24:29,560 --> 01:24:32,960
Speaker 2: had packed for me. And it was the same Bible

1376
01:24:33,000 --> 01:24:36,010
Speaker 2: my mom gave me. She monogrammed my name on it.

1377
01:24:37,310 --> 01:24:39,960
Speaker 2: And she had a sticky note on Joshua 1.9. And

1378
01:24:41,260 --> 01:24:44,120
Speaker 2: I heard this guy talking. And one morning I walked out.

1379
01:24:45,560 --> 01:24:47,740
Speaker 2: He was really kind of down and out about being

1380
01:24:47,780 --> 01:24:52,030
Speaker 2: in treatment and everything. And something just told me to

1381
01:24:52,070 --> 01:24:56,370
Speaker 2: go show him that verse. And this was kind of

1382
01:24:56,410 --> 01:25:00,650
Speaker 2: in a very secular AA house in Colorado where that's

1383
01:25:00,979 --> 01:25:01,900
Speaker 2: way more prevalent.

1384
01:25:03,180 --> 01:25:03,520
Speaker 1: I was stunned.

1385
01:25:04,020 --> 01:25:06,720
Speaker 2: Had apprehension to do that, but something just said, no,

1386
01:25:06,740 --> 01:25:10,740
Speaker 2: you need to go do this. So within 12 hours

1387
01:25:10,800 --> 01:25:14,360
Speaker 2: of me finding that Bible again, I walked out and

1388
01:25:14,400 --> 01:25:16,880
Speaker 2: I just slapped it down in front of him and

1389
01:25:16,960 --> 01:25:22,070
Speaker 2: pointed down and he just started crying tears. And he

1390
01:25:22,090 --> 01:25:23,550
Speaker 2: still calls me Joshua one nine.

1391
01:25:23,790 --> 01:25:26,010
Speaker 1: That's what I love.

1392
01:25:26,050 --> 01:25:34,680
Speaker 2: So I even used it to really, kind of put

1393
01:25:34,740 --> 01:25:37,760
Speaker 2: a stamp on it of how I was to be

1394
01:25:37,780 --> 01:25:42,469
Speaker 2: of service to people. Right. That I, at least it

1395
01:25:42,520 --> 01:25:46,170
Speaker 2: told me whether it's secular or Christian, I can't be

1396
01:25:46,210 --> 01:25:50,050
Speaker 2: afraid to talk about God wherever I go. Right.

1397
01:25:51,910 --> 01:25:54,099
Speaker 1: So, so that kind of brings, I mean, I feel

1398
01:25:54,110 --> 01:25:56,180
Speaker 1: like we could go for another two hours, but that

1399
01:25:56,200 --> 01:25:57,599
Speaker 1: kind of brings me to one of the things that

1400
01:25:57,620 --> 01:26:00,740
Speaker 1: I wanted to make sure that we covered as we

1401
01:26:01,040 --> 01:26:04,269
Speaker 1: wrap up here. And that is, You know, you just

1402
01:26:04,470 --> 01:26:06,830
Speaker 1: told that story, and I know there's more, like, in

1403
01:26:06,850 --> 01:26:11,610
Speaker 1: the sense of, like, there's more details. But when you

1404
01:26:14,180 --> 01:26:16,620
Speaker 1: talk about, you know, kind of the conviction to tell

1405
01:26:16,680 --> 01:26:22,720
Speaker 1: that story with the faith aspect, right, with God. Because

1406
01:26:22,740 --> 01:26:25,680
Speaker 1: I'm assuming, right, like, you open that Bible, and, you know,

1407
01:26:25,780 --> 01:26:28,220
Speaker 1: I know where you are today, right? Like, your relationship

1408
01:26:28,240 --> 01:26:33,500
Speaker 1: with the Lord is paramount, and shooting for Jesus is paramount.

1409
01:26:34,360 --> 01:26:42,310
Speaker 1: So how are you able to tell your story faithfully

1410
01:26:43,010 --> 01:26:46,450
Speaker 1: in kind of those more secular settings where you know

1411
01:26:46,490 --> 01:26:49,670
Speaker 1: you want to point to Jesus, but that's not really

1412
01:26:49,689 --> 01:26:56,300
Speaker 1: allowed or accepted? How do you fight that tension? We'll

1413
01:26:56,310 --> 01:26:57,180
Speaker 1: be right back after this.

1414
01:27:00,800 --> 01:27:04,370
Speaker 2: It's hard sometimes. the way I've learned to fight it

1415
01:27:04,590 --> 01:27:10,229
Speaker 2: is to not say what's on my heart. Right. Um,

1416
01:27:11,530 --> 01:27:14,189
Speaker 2: you know, essentially if everyone, if everyone in those rooms

1417
01:27:14,220 --> 01:27:16,520
Speaker 2: is allowed to talk about their version of their higher power,

1418
01:27:18,140 --> 01:27:23,980
Speaker 2: then I can't mind. Um, so in our, in the

1419
01:27:24,180 --> 01:27:27,439
Speaker 2: AA book, you know, it even says in there, real

1420
01:27:27,460 --> 01:27:30,510
Speaker 2: men of courage have faith and men of faith are

1421
01:27:30,550 --> 01:27:31,490
Speaker 2: not afraid to share it.

1422
01:27:32,310 --> 01:27:34,320
Speaker 1: Hmm. Right.

1423
01:27:35,100 --> 01:27:38,979
Speaker 2: So I think what's happened to AA is just along

1424
01:27:39,000 --> 01:27:40,740
Speaker 2: the lines of what's happened to culture today.

1425
01:27:41,120 --> 01:27:42,140
Speaker 1: Right. Yep.

1426
01:27:42,680 --> 01:27:44,970
Speaker 2: It's very clear that AA was supposed to be a

1427
01:27:45,010 --> 01:27:50,930
Speaker 2: lead into Jesus, right? Finding that again, in my opinion.

1428
01:27:51,450 --> 01:27:53,750
Speaker 2: I mean, I see the word all over it. I

1429
01:27:53,770 --> 01:27:56,509
Speaker 2: think it was meant to be a way to ease

1430
01:27:56,910 --> 01:28:02,540
Speaker 2: atheists and agnostics into it, or at least point in

1431
01:28:02,560 --> 01:28:06,839
Speaker 2: that direction. Right. you know, um, that's just my take

1432
01:28:06,900 --> 01:28:10,100
Speaker 2: on it, but I don't know. It's getting less and

1433
01:28:10,120 --> 01:28:14,960
Speaker 2: less difficult. You know, it's really easy to, you know,

1434
01:28:15,000 --> 01:28:19,560
Speaker 2: talk about grace. It's essentially what we're talking about. Redemption

1435
01:28:19,600 --> 01:28:20,720
Speaker 2: and grace in those rooms.

1436
01:28:22,120 --> 01:28:22,320
Speaker 1: Yeah.

1437
01:28:22,860 --> 01:28:26,940
Speaker 2: So, and I, I don't have a problem saying where

1438
01:28:26,960 --> 01:28:28,540
Speaker 2: I think mine came from. Yeah.

1439
01:28:29,400 --> 01:28:32,720
Speaker 1: I just love that in the sense of like, you know, um,

1440
01:28:34,000 --> 01:28:39,250
Speaker 1: I was talking to someone yesterday just about even just

1441
01:28:39,300 --> 01:28:41,810
Speaker 1: my own story and just like where the Lord is

1442
01:28:41,850 --> 01:28:47,920
Speaker 1: leading me and to just walk in a boldness, you know,

1443
01:28:48,040 --> 01:28:49,900
Speaker 1: and not in the same way that you are like,

1444
01:28:49,920 --> 01:28:52,520
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about like necessarily sharing my story.

1445
01:28:52,680 --> 01:28:52,860
Speaker 2: Right.

1446
01:28:53,479 --> 01:28:56,710
Speaker 1: But just in some other areas of my life. where, um,

1447
01:28:57,030 --> 01:29:00,210
Speaker 1: not looking for other people to affirm something in me.

1448
01:29:00,890 --> 01:29:02,470
Speaker 1: Like if I believe that that's what the Lord has

1449
01:29:02,510 --> 01:29:04,550
Speaker 1: called me to do, that's what I believe he's telling

1450
01:29:04,610 --> 01:29:07,849
Speaker 1: me to do. Like just walk in that if I'm wrong,

1451
01:29:08,280 --> 01:29:12,820
Speaker 1: asking him to correct it, you know? Um, and there's

1452
01:29:12,860 --> 01:29:16,090
Speaker 1: a freedom, there's a freedom to that, right? You're like, Lord, I,

1453
01:29:16,340 --> 01:29:18,860
Speaker 1: you know, believe that you've told me to do this.

1454
01:29:18,939 --> 01:29:21,520
Speaker 1: If that's not the case, correct it and, and, and

1455
01:29:21,660 --> 01:29:24,690
Speaker 1: bring me to a place where I understand that. Um,

1456
01:29:25,030 --> 01:29:27,210
Speaker 1: but I'm just going to let you in a sense,

1457
01:29:27,270 --> 01:29:31,470
Speaker 1: like it's, it's, it's my stepdad. It's your dad. It's

1458
01:29:31,570 --> 01:29:35,910
Speaker 1: just like, okay, God, that that's what I'm doing. You know? Well,

1459
01:29:36,150 --> 01:29:39,820
Speaker 1: and yeah. Well, I'll take it. I'll circle all the

1460
01:29:39,860 --> 01:29:40,340
Speaker 1: way back.

1461
01:29:41,240 --> 01:29:44,220
Speaker 2: And the same feelings I had sort of in high

1462
01:29:44,260 --> 01:29:49,500
Speaker 2: school about feeling rejected, never fitting in. I'm being tested

1463
01:29:49,540 --> 01:29:52,750
Speaker 2: with that big time. These last five years, I've had

1464
01:29:52,810 --> 01:29:56,160
Speaker 2: plenty of church people tell me, That I don't belong

1465
01:29:56,200 --> 01:29:59,360
Speaker 2: in AA. And I've had plenty of AA people tell

1466
01:29:59,400 --> 01:30:04,700
Speaker 2: me that I don't belong in church. So I'm still

1467
01:30:04,740 --> 01:30:07,689
Speaker 2: getting the pull in all those directions. I see them

1468
01:30:07,729 --> 01:30:15,210
Speaker 2: very clearly as melting together. Mainly because, at least as

1469
01:30:15,250 --> 01:30:19,240
Speaker 2: far as AA goes, I mean, where would Jesus be?

1470
01:30:20,180 --> 01:30:23,939
Speaker 2: Would he be in the church? Or would he be

1471
01:30:24,000 --> 01:30:26,870
Speaker 2: with the sinners? Right.

1472
01:30:27,010 --> 01:30:30,550
Speaker 1: I mean, we have examples of what he did, you.

1473
01:30:30,470 --> 01:30:32,970
Speaker 2: Know, and I'm not saying I'm Jesus by any means,

1474
01:30:33,090 --> 01:30:35,290
Speaker 2: but what I, what I am supposed to be his

1475
01:30:35,310 --> 01:30:35,889
Speaker 2: hands and feet.

1476
01:30:36,130 --> 01:30:36,650
Speaker 1: That's for sure.

1477
01:30:37,030 --> 01:30:40,460
Speaker 2: Right. And I just think you walk into any AA room,

1478
01:30:40,479 --> 01:30:45,040
Speaker 2: I have direct line to be of service on a

1479
01:30:45,080 --> 01:30:49,600
Speaker 2: daily basis and be the light and a representation of

1480
01:30:49,660 --> 01:30:52,430
Speaker 2: Christ and all those opportunities.

1481
01:30:54,040 --> 01:30:56,340
Speaker 1: I want to say something. You're saying that, and I

1482
01:30:56,360 --> 01:30:58,160
Speaker 1: want to make something really clear. If you've made it

1483
01:30:58,189 --> 01:31:00,600
Speaker 1: to the end of this podcast and you know that

1484
01:31:00,729 --> 01:31:04,729
Speaker 1: I've done episodes about AA, and I've talked about AA,

1485
01:31:04,770 --> 01:31:07,990
Speaker 1: and I just wasn't called in that direction. And yet

1486
01:31:08,070 --> 01:31:10,430
Speaker 1: here's what I want to make clear. Again, I was

1487
01:31:10,470 --> 01:31:16,170
Speaker 1: talking to someone who also really was saved and got

1488
01:31:16,210 --> 01:31:18,670
Speaker 1: sober in the AA culture. And they said this, and

1489
01:31:18,710 --> 01:31:22,850
Speaker 1: I think it's really important. They're like, I'm not against AA.

1490
01:31:23,300 --> 01:31:26,939
Speaker 1: In the sense of like as long as you, the

1491
01:31:26,979 --> 01:31:33,679
Speaker 1: general you, understand that it itself is not the gospel.

1492
01:31:33,720 --> 01:31:38,450
Speaker 1: The gospel is the gospel. But if you are going

1493
01:31:38,470 --> 01:31:47,630
Speaker 1: to do AA, do it with a spirit of that

1494
01:31:47,710 --> 01:31:52,720
Speaker 1: is an insanely right mission field. It is an insanely

1495
01:31:52,780 --> 01:31:55,780
Speaker 1: right mission field. And so if you've listened to this podcast,

1496
01:31:55,880 --> 01:31:58,380
Speaker 1: and just in general, not just this episode, and you've

1497
01:31:58,620 --> 01:32:03,020
Speaker 1: felt like I've said, don't do AA, what my encouragement

1498
01:32:03,040 --> 01:32:06,040
Speaker 1: to you is, first of all, be grounded in scripture.

1499
01:32:06,800 --> 01:32:09,540
Speaker 1: Be grounded in Jesus, right? He's the only, like, that

1500
01:32:09,580 --> 01:32:14,080
Speaker 1: is the ultimate goal. And then if you can go

1501
01:32:14,140 --> 01:32:18,920
Speaker 1: into AA with the understanding of who is your higher

1502
01:32:18,939 --> 01:32:24,259
Speaker 1: power and not be ashamed of that, I 100% want

1503
01:32:24,300 --> 01:32:29,040
Speaker 1: to encourage you to do that because just like Josh

1504
01:32:29,080 --> 01:32:32,060
Speaker 1: is saying, man, there's some language there that you can

1505
01:32:32,100 --> 01:32:37,299
Speaker 1: like really capitalize on, right? You can be this like ninja,

1506
01:32:37,460 --> 01:32:42,730
Speaker 1: this like gospel ninja in there, you know? And I

1507
01:32:42,850 --> 01:32:46,150
Speaker 1: love that. I love that. I'm not called to do that, right?

1508
01:32:46,170 --> 01:32:48,550
Speaker 1: Because I didn't study the big book. I mean, I

1509
01:32:48,570 --> 01:32:50,189
Speaker 1: studied the big book now, right? I go every week

1510
01:32:50,229 --> 01:32:54,490
Speaker 1: and do an AAB. Big Book Study. But the AA

1511
01:32:54,550 --> 01:32:57,210
Speaker 1: people look at me and they're like, you're not one

1512
01:32:57,229 --> 01:33:00,810
Speaker 1: of us, right? I'm like, great. So I can never

1513
01:33:00,910 --> 01:33:05,090
Speaker 1: fulfill the role that you're fulfilling, Josh. And I'm so

1514
01:33:05,170 --> 01:33:07,450
Speaker 1: glad that you've been called to fill that role. And

1515
01:33:07,470 --> 01:33:14,580
Speaker 1: I'm so encouraged that you are listening and doing that. Man,

1516
01:33:15,540 --> 01:33:17,120
Speaker 1: thank you for sharing your story. I feel like we

1517
01:33:17,160 --> 01:33:19,160
Speaker 1: need to have another episode.

1518
01:33:19,540 --> 01:33:21,380
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like a tenth of it.

1519
01:33:22,140 --> 01:33:25,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know. And so I'm excited. Josh is actually

1520
01:33:25,300 --> 01:33:27,580
Speaker 1: coming into town. Josh and I are going to meet up.

1521
01:33:29,460 --> 01:33:32,500
Speaker 1: And I just feel like even just in some some ways,

1522
01:33:32,560 --> 01:33:36,200
Speaker 1: this is just the start of something bigger. I don't know.

1523
01:33:36,640 --> 01:33:38,360
Speaker 1: You know, there's that song. I don't know what you're doing,

1524
01:33:38,400 --> 01:33:42,720
Speaker 1: but I know what you've done. And and man, I'm

1525
01:33:42,760 --> 01:33:45,460
Speaker 1: just so grateful. I'm so grateful for you. Thank you

1526
01:33:45,479 --> 01:33:48,229
Speaker 1: for reaching out to me on Instagram and let it

1527
01:33:48,270 --> 01:33:50,200
Speaker 1: be an encouragement to those other people who are scared.

1528
01:33:50,640 --> 01:33:52,020
Speaker 1: I don't think I'm a scary guy. I mean, it

1529
01:33:52,060 --> 01:33:53,840
Speaker 1: took us a while to like find a time. I

1530
01:33:53,860 --> 01:33:55,889
Speaker 1: felt like we kept missing each other, but we did.

1531
01:33:56,630 --> 01:33:59,650
Speaker 1: And here we are. So, Josh, thank you. Thank you

1532
01:33:59,689 --> 01:34:02,990
Speaker 1: so much. Thank you, John. I appreciate what you book.

1533
01:34:03,710 --> 01:34:06,730
Speaker 1: I really do appreciate what you do. Love you, brother.

1534
01:34:06,930 --> 01:34:12,300
Speaker 1: We'll see you soon. I love you, too. There's one

1535
01:34:12,340 --> 01:34:17,080
Speaker 1: thing Josh talked about in there that. Yeah, just especially

1536
01:34:17,100 --> 01:34:25,270
Speaker 1: home for me. it was the starting an argument and

1537
01:34:25,350 --> 01:34:29,170
Speaker 1: almost using that as an excuse to drink, right? Like,

1538
01:34:29,870 --> 01:34:33,530
Speaker 1: I remember, and it is one of the hardest things,

1539
01:34:33,570 --> 01:34:36,150
Speaker 1: I think, still, to just, like, that I have to

1540
01:34:36,229 --> 01:34:43,290
Speaker 1: fight back feelings regarding, like, feelings of shame and whatnot.

1541
01:34:44,070 --> 01:34:50,150
Speaker 1: But I would remember, like, starting an argument with my wife.

1542
01:34:51,430 --> 01:34:53,610
Speaker 1: And I talk about this a little bit in the book,

1543
01:34:53,670 --> 01:34:57,490
Speaker 1: but it was like trying to point out like, you know,

1544
01:34:57,670 --> 01:35:00,350
Speaker 1: things that she was doing wrong or, or, you know,

1545
01:35:00,550 --> 01:35:06,429
Speaker 1: or whatnot, because it made me feel better about myself.

1546
01:35:07,490 --> 01:35:07,689
Speaker 2: Right.

1547
01:35:07,729 --> 01:35:10,019
Speaker 1: Like, like if I could start an argument, if I

1548
01:35:10,030 --> 01:35:13,060
Speaker 1: could nitpick about something that she was going through, then, um,

1549
01:35:13,960 --> 01:35:17,690
Speaker 1: then I felt better about what I was doing. Right.

1550
01:35:18,590 --> 01:35:24,020
Speaker 1: And and then if it went sideways, I was then

1551
01:35:24,070 --> 01:35:25,200
Speaker 1: I had an excuse to drink.

1552
01:35:25,840 --> 01:35:26,020
Speaker 2: Right.

1553
01:35:26,040 --> 01:35:30,019
Speaker 1: Like I could go drown myself in my sorrows, if

1554
01:35:30,060 --> 01:35:33,120
Speaker 1: you will. And I could stay awake and I could

1555
01:35:33,160 --> 01:35:36,720
Speaker 1: stay up and I could just, you know, well, she

1556
01:35:37,620 --> 01:35:40,519
Speaker 1: she got me angry and and I'm right and whatnot.

1557
01:35:42,540 --> 01:35:46,320
Speaker 1: And I think, again, those things that we do. When

1558
01:35:46,360 --> 01:35:51,650
Speaker 1: we are fully pursuing whatever it is we want to do,

1559
01:35:52,010 --> 01:35:55,570
Speaker 1: like we can be so crafty. And so I appreciate

1560
01:35:55,610 --> 01:36:00,970
Speaker 1: Josh sharing his story and getting to know him a bit.

1561
01:36:01,350 --> 01:36:05,350
Speaker 1: If there is one thing in this episode that really

1562
01:36:05,400 --> 01:36:08,200
Speaker 1: spoke to you, I would love for you to share it.

1563
01:36:08,700 --> 01:36:10,660
Speaker 1: You can like and subscribe and all that stuff. But really,

1564
01:36:10,680 --> 01:36:13,480
Speaker 1: if you share this episode, that would mean the world

1565
01:36:13,520 --> 01:36:16,300
Speaker 1: to me. That is the most important thing. because the

1566
01:36:16,340 --> 01:36:19,880
Speaker 1: more that you share it, it's not about listens. It's

1567
01:36:20,080 --> 01:36:25,160
Speaker 1: about people getting free. And, you know, I, uh, as,

1568
01:36:25,780 --> 01:36:29,240
Speaker 1: as I'm releasing this episode now, I take the last

1569
01:36:29,320 --> 01:36:32,320
Speaker 1: two weeks off, not intentionally, but, um, I'm in a

1570
01:36:32,360 --> 01:36:35,990
Speaker 1: new role that is requiring just a lot of, uh,

1571
01:36:36,040 --> 01:36:39,440
Speaker 1: work up front and, and great work. And I'm excited

1572
01:36:39,479 --> 01:36:41,760
Speaker 1: about it. And I just was overwhelmed. And I felt like,

1573
01:36:41,860 --> 01:36:43,900
Speaker 1: I was like, Lord, I haven't, I haven't released a

1574
01:36:43,920 --> 01:36:47,270
Speaker 1: podcast and, And I just felt at peace about like,

1575
01:36:48,380 --> 01:36:51,009
Speaker 1: I just need to be and not try to force it.

1576
01:36:51,420 --> 01:36:54,100
Speaker 1: But there was someone on our Sunday night call, Veritas Recovery.

1577
01:36:54,120 --> 01:36:58,480
Speaker 1: And they're like, you haven't released an episode in two weeks.

1578
01:36:58,520 --> 01:37:01,790
Speaker 1: I'm like, you guys are listening. And listen, we have

1579
01:37:01,810 --> 01:37:05,730
Speaker 1: plenty of people who listen and I'm so grateful for that.

1580
01:37:05,790 --> 01:37:09,540
Speaker 1: But it's always a nice reminder. So if you miss

1581
01:37:09,580 --> 01:37:13,140
Speaker 1: these episodes, let me know. If you like these episodes,

1582
01:37:13,160 --> 01:37:15,220
Speaker 1: let me know. If there's someone you think I should interview,

1583
01:37:15,560 --> 01:37:17,549
Speaker 1: if you think I should interview you, let me know.

1584
01:37:17,939 --> 01:37:20,830
Speaker 1: You can fill out the form at veritasrecovery.org. As always,

1585
01:37:20,850 --> 01:37:24,389
Speaker 1: thank you to our partner, Life Audio, who makes this possible.

1586
01:37:24,410 --> 01:37:29,110
Speaker 1: I am so grateful for them. Check them out at lifeaudio.com,

1587
01:37:29,310 --> 01:37:31,330
Speaker 1: and you can listen to some other great podcasts. All right,

1588
01:37:31,370 --> 01:37:34,870
Speaker 1: we will see you back here, I promise, next week.