Witness Wednesday - Matt Kacprzyk - From Alcohol To Freedom

He tried willpower. He tried “cutting back.” He tried detox. None of it touched the one thing he kept admitting out loud: he didn’t want to drink anymore, but he couldn’t not drink. Matt Kacprzyk joins us for a Witness Wednesday story that moves from a happy childhood in Middletown, Delaware into family collapse, bitterness, and a years-long battle with alcoholism that brought withdrawal, blackouts, DUIs, and moments that easily could have ended in tragedy. 

We talk honestly about how addiction grows in plain sight, how secrecy and shame hollow out relationships, and why consequences often fail to change the heart. Matt shares the turning points that started breaking through his skepticism: a near-death seizure on a hiking trip, a growing pull toward church through the woman who became his wife, and one unforgettable moment on the side of Route 1 when a desperate prayer was met by unexpected help. From there, we dig into what surrender to Jesus looked like in real life and the miracle Matt describes as the desire to drink disappearing. 

Sobriety is not the end of the story. We also unpack the hard work that followed: rebuilding trust, walking through marriage conflict, getting counseling, and learning how community keeps healing moving forward. You’ll hear about Lifehouse ministries like Reclaim and Recover and Re Engage, and why forgiveness and reconciliation are possible even after years of damage. If you’re searching for addiction recovery, Christian testimony, marriage help, or hope that change is real, this conversation is for you. Subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find these stories of transformation.

New episodes every Monday
www.lifehousemot.com
info@lifehousede.com

Join us Sundays at 9 & 11 AM

Intro music by Joey Blair

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:09

Well, what's up, Lifehouse family? Welcome back to the Life Talk Podcast. Man, we are always excited to be bringing you a great episode, great content. We are so thankful you spend time with us. And today is always exciting. We've been working through Luke on Mondays. You get to hear from Pastor Mark on Tuesdays, but we are still staying true to our roots. We say that every time of bringing you stories of hope, stories of change. We call it a Witness Wednesday, just an opportunity to hear from somebody who's just been changed, transformed through Christ, through experiencing the truth and the life, and uh just coming to know the way. And so today I am so excited to be joined by my brother in Christ, Matt Kasperzik.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

How's it going, Matt? Good, Nate. Super excited to be here. Super excited to share what God's done in my life. Just pray that I'm able to glorify him. And thank you for having me on and Lifehouse Family. It's great to be here.

SPEAKER_02 1:06

Amen. Now, here's the important place we got to start. You got to spell your last name and tell us how many vowels are in it.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

It's nowhere near as difficult as it looks. It's K-A-C-P as in Paul, R as in Robert, Z Y K. Like Casper the Ghost, Zik at the end. That's right. When you first see it, I was like, it was it was a word wall word in like second grade. So it was a challenge question on one of our tests. Every time I'm sure you call customer service, you have to spell that out, right? Yes, which is where, yeah. I've got it down now. Yeah.

Childhood And No Church Roots

SPEAKER_02 1:38

Casper zik, but anyway, so all joking aside, good to have you here. And man, just start with the early days. What's Matt's earliest memories? How was growing up as a as a young man?

SPEAKER_00 1:51

Yeah, uh, for sure. So really my story starts. Uh yeah, I grew up here in Delaware. I was born and raised in Middletown, Delaware. I am a the oldest boy in a family of four. I've got an older sister, I've got a younger sister, and I've got a younger brother as well. We grew up, like I said, right here in Middletown before it exploded when there was like farmland here still. And we really had a pretty good childhood in the beginning for sure. I I remember, you know, the big backyard that we had, and you know, tons of friends. We lived in a great neighborhood and just a lot of great memories from when I was younger. It wasn't really until I hit, you know, a little bit older, I would say like 12, 13, where we kind of started having some issues in our family. We, you know, started going on vacations, which was something we did every year, and my mom kind of stopped showing up to as much. And she was in and out with like medical stuff regularly. So that was a pretty common occurrence, right? Life was still kind of okay in the beginning of that. My dad, he was a business owner, he had started his own company, and he was a home theater installer, which was pretty sweet because our house became the show. The latest tech, right? It was pretty nice. So we had movies on demand, and you know, it was cool. We were the house to be at. But yeah, really uh again, like great family. We had a really tight-knit family. My brothers and sisters were all uh we go, girl boy, girl boy. We're all two years apart, so we had a lot of the same friends. Again, you know, we were like a fun house to be at. I was really close with my dad growing up. I was, you know, his oldest son, and I went everywhere with him. My dad was you know my best friend. So anything he did, anywhere he would go, I'd go out to different jobs with him. And my dad was really influential on me as a kid on what I thought was, you know, the life to live, right? Any successful businessman, and I still love him very much to this day.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

We'll get to that later.

Family Crisis And Divorce Fallout

SPEAKER_00 3:58

But yeah, so again, close family, really close with my dad. We did Sunday family dinners instead of church. We really had no church presence in my early life. Every single Sunday we would have, you know, anywhere from 15 to 25 people at our house, aunts, uncles, cousins, watch football. You know, it it was great. But he, like I said, great, great father as far as like involving me, teaching me family values, even without church in his life, he still had a moral code, right, as many of us do. He was still important and providing for the family, sounds like. Yeah, yep. Work hard. Those were the main things. And again, like family was his number one thing. Like, you don't ever do anything that wrecks your family, and you know, stay on track, do what you need to do. And his version of provision looks a little bit different than what Christ did. So that was kind of the role I had from him. Again, I I was close with my mom, but not super close. You know, she mostly did the things with my sister, she was an ultrasound tech, but she was always around, like certainly loved my mom as a kid. But yeah, the big things in our house were drinking, watching football. That was what we did to have fun. It was around and involved in everything that we did, and it was just a part of life. I didn't really think much of it, and that's just kind of the way that I rolled through life. Work hard, be present, provide for your family. Have fun, right? Yes, and of course have fun. And again, my experiences with anything church related. I remember being maybe 10 years old, and I really wanted to go at the end of our neighborhood. We had a tiny little church, and they would always have vacation Bible school. And I remember hearing that they had dirt cup Sundays for like their snack. So I always really wanted to go to Bible study. My parents would never really send me there. I didn't want to go for the word, I wanted to go for dirt cups, and I did get to do that once. So I had that experience. My neighbor down the street, who was my best friend, he believed it was a Catholic church, but I remember he was an altar boy, and I always remember picking on him as a kid and was like, oh, you know, you gotta go dress up and hang out with the priest, and yeah, there was that, and uh the only other thing was like in my drawer as a kid. I remember forever. I was baptized as a baby, I guess. So I had a little candle, and you know, in my head, like we didn't regularly like pray together or anything like that, but I was like, oh, if there was a God, I mean I have the candle, right? So I'm good. This this represents that I'm fine. Uh but yeah, so early life after that, like I said, probably around 13-ish, maybe 14. Heading into high school. Yeah, heading into high school time frame was when we really started to have family issues. My mom stopped showing up on vacations and really being present. You know, she would come home and she would have surgeries and different things done that like nobody would know about, and she, you know, was on pain medication, all these different things. She was pretty much out of work at that point. My dad, I remember, you know, he would get increasingly frustrated with these things, and it led to a ton of them fighting, you know, yelling, screaming, just, you know, curse words flying and doors being slammed. I remember, you know, one time like vividly my dad was so angry, and he, you know, never laid a hand or did anything other than blow up, lose temper, because she wasn't very present at that point in time. But I remember one time him being so upset he like ripped the banister off our upstairs thing and like kind of chucked it, and it was just a mess. So, like I said, super close with with him, and as we continued down this road of them, you know, my mom off in pain medication and not really being present for us, dad always angry, and you know, I remember his drinking and going out kind of increasing, right? Almost nightly. We were going out to you know local restaurants rather than eating home. So we really transitioned from like we were home all the time all together to like my dad and we're doing sports and all these different things, but we're always stopping out for dinner, and that always ended up being at like regular spots. He's you know, friends with the owners or whatever, and you know, that would turn into hanging out there for like two and a half hours. I remember getting frustrated, my brother getting frustrated, you know, if we were with him, because it meant we're gonna be stuck out here for like three hours. Which again, I'm complaining about going out to eat and hanging out with my dad. It could be worse, or so you know, and that's really what I looked at it at at this as the time. Uh he was kind of drinking a lot during that, or yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:45

Yes. So kind of the environment you were in during those times was not a great one. It wasn't like hanging with dad, it's dad's kind of yeah, going that route.

SPEAKER_00 8:53

Yes, yeah. I remember, you know, again, going into my teens, still at this point with all the arguing, all the fighting, all the different stuff, and that was kind of how life was. I was either hanging out my with my friends or we were going out to eat with my dad and staying out late on school nights, doing whatever, not until like 10 o'clock or anything, but probably more than we should. Which again, at that age, right, that kind of thought process started to become kind of like normal. And it really started to kind of taint my thought of like what a marriage is. I knew and I was seeing what a marriage shouldn't be, right? I knew it wasn't a great environment for any of us to really be in. And I think we all kind of, you know, me, my brothers and sisters did our own things to sort of distract ourselves from that. I was, you know, not the most athletic person in the world, but I loved sports at the time, you know, played a ton of sports. And what's your favorite? Would you play? What were you the all-star? I really enjoyed baseball. Okay. Second base. Didn't have much of an arm at the time, but it's gotten better these days, coaching my daughter. But yes, I really liked baseball. We did a lot of backyard football too. So that was where where things were kind of at. Like we would just isolate, be with our friends. We really kind of started to grow apart, my brothers and sisters and I, in ways too, right? Which is somewhat natural, I guess, at that age, as you become teenagers, you start to branch out. I remember as I was turning 16, I was super excited to get my license, and that meant that I could go and go do more things. I know my my dad at that time looked at it as like, now I've got my built-in DD. Like it was like, I knew I was gonna have to go because I was gonna have to drive home. And for a little while, like at that age, I was like, I I don't really want to touch alcohol. Like that's kind of I I see what happens. But I think there was a part of me still that looked at it as like it equaled fun, right?

SPEAKER_02 10:48

Plus your dad is a role model, somebody you were close with, so we're kind of seeing that as well, it sounds like.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

Yeah, yeah. But again, more focused like sports and stuff. But probably again, same thing around that time frame, 16, 13 to 16, I would say, was when the major kind of issues happened in our family. I was very close, as I said, with my dad. We found out at that point in time that even while my mom had all of these things going on, that there was some affairs going on. Which was on your mom's side or your dad's side? On my mom's side. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, it was very open from my dad to me at that point in time. You know, his closest friends were like the owners of the restaurant and and me, and I'm everywhere with him. And, you know, uh, it just was like there was no barrier to any of it. You know, I I I think he had like put a tracker on her car at one point because he was like, I don't know where you're going, you're not home, and like what is going on? We're constantly fighting. It seemed like everything would like result in just bashing heads, and he couldn't figure out why. And again, my dad was super big into like your family is everything, and he really impressed that upon me as a kid. And so this really like destroyed my dad. And that's your identity when that's where everything is, and then that falls apart. Your whole world's crumbled, yeah, exactly. Right? There's nothing else to fall back on. So at that point, again, there was really like no barriers. He told us everything, showed emails and all these different things, and it really caused, obviously, some major problems immediately once this was like discovered. Like, I'll never forget the day that it was brought to the attention, and it was like one parent running through the house trying to avoid, and one parent's trying to confront, one parent's like my dad's point at me. Like, you read the emails, right? Uh with teller, and it's bringing you into it, too. Sounds like yeah, which as an adult now, right? Like, I make mistakes too. And you know, I've I'm a father of three kids that I love dearly, and I want to shield them from everything, and that's where I'm so grateful at this point in my life, having Christ, that I have some safety net, right? But at the time, obviously, he didn't. So we took the brunt of all that. I I spent a lot of time at at that point. I I was worried about my brother and my sister, sisters, but I probably wasn't like the best brother in the world to them, because it kind of rocked me too, right? At that point, I don't know what to think. I'm super close with my dad, so my gut instinct is that I am like viciously angry at my mom. So I remember feeling like that hatred, and that kind of got worse too. Like it's my testimony, not theirs, my sister and brothers, brother and sisters, whatever they had gone through, right? Like I said, I did what I could, at least looking back, to try to shield them, but not much that I could do. Um so life kind of went at that point with my mom out of the house for a little bit. This was where we spent all of our life growing up in this house, and my mom was out of there. She wasn't there anymore, and all of this stuff was going on, and my dad's, you know, spending every day just super angry.

SPEAKER_02 14:07

All of it about 16, 17 is when it kind of came to a head.

SPEAKER_00 14:10

Is that yeah, I would say when I was like 16, right? Because when I look at the rest of the timeline, um, yeah, those years again, it was bad for a while, and then this happened, and it was like, you know, finding out that, okay, well, there's a big piece of why things have been so distant or frustrating, or you know, whatever at that point. So to speed things up a little bit, they kind of, you know, ended things and they were getting a divorce. Mom was out of the house, they were trying to figure out, you know, what it is that they exactly were gonna do. My dad at that point had us, and we were in the house, and it wasn't just me that he had no barrier on that with, right? Like, he wasn't just close with me either. He was close with all of us, and he was a great dad, and this really like pulled him into like, I am the provider for these four kids, and now their mother, you know, whatever. So he did, you know, openly share everything with them as well, which as the whole thing progressed, you know, they ended up going to court, and my dad got sole custody of all of the kids, and it was just her fighting every day, trying to do whatever she could to, you know, she was super upset with him because in her mind it was like you're altering their mind so that they don't talk to me. And in our mind, it was like we've been wondering where you are for the past several years, and like all these things came out, and yeah, super frustrating.

SPEAKER_02 15:30

Kids always get caught in the middle, I think. You know, unfortunately, many parents think you can divorce and oh the kids will be all right, but would honestly say that's probably not possible, right? Especially sounds like yours weren't even trying to kind of shield you guys from that.

Independence And Alcohol Creeps In

SPEAKER_00 15:45

Yeah, it was, you know, and like you said, being caught in the crossfire, right, is is not something any kid should have to, you know, whether it's voiced or vocalized as as a child or not, right? Like I didn't realize how detrimental a lot of those things were at the time, right? My feelings were just my feelings. And to me, I had every right to be angry, they had every right to be angry. All of it came to a head there with me getting to an age I was about 17. I just finished up high school, and it was a long divorce process for them, right? So by the time that all of it was kind of said and done, I think I was already 18 because when my dad was awarded child support, it was for my younger sister and my younger brother, not me and my older sister. So it it went for a while, but I remember hitting adulthood and well, like we just suddenly hit adulthood and and we're there. We've arrived. Yes. Now I know everything. So I remember at that point thinking, like, at 17, 18, I've had enough of like being roped into all of this family stuff, and you know, I can't, I love my dad, but I can't do this every single day. I'm gonna move out. And I had some friends that were ready to move out too. Actually, lovely former members of our church who have since moved, the Dinaoudis. Okay. Yes. They I was very good friends with their son, worked with Reuben for a little while, and he was working with me at the time. They were moving out of their house, and they graciously had us, you know, move in. We paid rent, and you know, that was our first place. So I was thrilled. It wasn't super far from where I was living, so I, you know, kind of started to want to put that behind me and just turn the page into my own version of what this is going to be like. I don't think I thought too much about marriage or anything at that point in time. It was like, I'm finally out. By this point in time, I was attending Dell Tech. I was going there for I wanted to be a drug and alcohol counselor. So I was taking a classes to get a human services degree there, which was kind of going well. At the same time, when I graduated high school, I wanted to start a business. I was kind of being all over the place. And I did start a business. It was called Squeegee Clean. I was a residential window cleaner for a little while. And it's one in hindsight. Wish I could have me keep on to that one. But uh yeah, I was going through school. Obviously, the squeegee clean business had not fully uh taken off at that point in time, so I still needed to supplement my income to pay my new rent, and as my dad said, be able to afford toilet paper. That was my big thing that I was gonna learn being on my own. Toilet paper was never an issue. It was all the other things that were expensive. But doing all these things, got into college, still wasn't talking to my mom. You know, our family at that point in time, when I say our family, me, my brothers, and my sisters, we all but cut my mom off, right? It was just not a thing. You know, my family is very much on the lines of like, you do wrong, you're out. Again, that was like the cardinal rule. No forgiveness in that scenario, right? Not at all. No. And we made up our minds that there would be none. So all of us stopped talking to her and kind of just left it at that. I took a job to supplement, like I said, needed to pay some more bills, so I took a job at waiting tables at a golf club house, worked there for a little while, life was kind of going all right. I was did great in Dell Tech. This is when I really started, though, to dabble with alcohol. You know, being in my own place, it was like you know, we'd have some friends over, have some drinks, then I got a job at a restaurant, and it was like a very laid-back restaurant where there was really not much oversight and definitely a party atmosphere, which I thought at the time was fantastic, right? So I really pressed forward in there. At 21, I became a bartender over there, and then quickly became the assistant manager of the clubhouse restaurant, which led me to believe that I have made it to the pinnacle of where I was going to be in life, right? Like to me, this was a great job. Like it's whatever. It was a great golf clubhouse restaurant. I could be here, make good money. So I stopped school. I had graduated and I had an offer for the STARS program to have my four-year degree paid for at Wilmington, which I turned down. Didn't want to do that because, like I said, thought that the restaurant was the place to be. I dropped the window cleaning business. When I was a bartender at this point, I was drinking regularly with the customers. It was a very like neighborhood kind of restaurant. So we'd often stay open after hours with our regulars, hanging out, you know, doing a lot of things that we weren't supposed to be doing. But it was great because nobody cared. So I continued to drink more and more while I was there. Ended up, I really wanted a dog. And um, in the first house that I moved into, they did not want pets in the house. So I was like, okay, well, realistically, then that's obviously the next big important thing in my life is that I need to get a dog. So I moved to another place where I could get a dog, and uh, that was out in Chesapeake City. And I I moved there with some friends that were, you know, good friends at the time, but also not the best role models, lots and lots of drinking and doing things that we shouldn't have been doing. It was just a very simple life, right? Looking back, it was like I had no again, my moral compass stopped at like be nice to people and don't steal. Not at what I'm doing and really not understanding like what kind of consequences my own actions could have, not only on like me in an extended period of my life, but even on those like around me at the time.

SPEAKER_02 21:42

Again, it sounds like alcohol sort of crept in, right? It wasn't like you kind of like just got hooked and couldn't stop, but sort of just started that lifestyle and it started to take more and more. Is that yeah fair to say? Definitely, right? And then the position and the bartending, it just becomes now the lifestyle that you get in front.

Alcoholism Takes Over Daily Life

SPEAKER_00 22:00

A hundred percent, right? So it's like, you know, we're up late every night till one in the morning, and then party continues at home, wake up, get into work. And it was like I remember starting shifts at the restaurant and like being two o'clock, and it's the first thing when I walk in, you know, pour a drink, put it back behind the bar, and then you know, start doing whatever it was that I needed to do. Which left many a night, right? When I talk about like not really like understanding what your actions have consequences of, but like there's important things that have to happen when a restaurant closes down, the money's got to be counted up, the place has got to be closed, the alarm's got to be set. Like so many times, like things would happen, and nothing bad would happen per se, but like it wasn't good things either. Like money would be counted wrong, or the safe would be open, or the door would be open to the restaurant, like all these different things, right? And for thinking, like in my own mind, that I'm this great person, I got a human services degree and I had great grades, right? Not taking into account that I stopped going to school and stopped progressing. I just thought that at some point, right, like I would turn back and I would be as successful as my dad, right? Like I would start my own business that wasn't window cleaning because I didn't want to clean windows forever. And I would all of a sudden have fully arrived to the point where, like, in my mind, it was you get enough money that you can provide for a family, then you have a family. And at that point, you really can't do anything wrong as long as you love your family and you give enough money to do what it is that you need to do. So very materialistic view on the world at that point in time and what it meant to be an adult, to be successful, to be a man, all these different things. It was just every day was like a blur. Like I said, years started to pile up, right? And things weren't changing for me. Like I was just at the same position, doing the same things, making similar money. I wasn't saving any money because I'm constantly at this point, like I would say unrealizingly like addicted to I was an alcoholic at that point, right? I'm drinking every single night significantly more than I should, right? Like I remember many a time. Chesapeake City is not close to where the restaurant was, and there were many drives home. Like I do not remember getting back, right? So, like how foolish and how like inconsiderate of me, right? I I know families that have lost loved ones to drunk drivers, and like it makes me want to tear up looking back and thinking about the amount of times that I went on the road and I put somebody at risk. And I thank God every day that like I never hit somebody and like killed somebody, but it happens, right? Not saying that it should happen, but it does, and I'm grateful that that I don't have to carry that burden. But I can look at other people, right? And sympathize with with it from the sense of like I know how wrong it was now. So, anyways, like I said, many a night with that. Family stuff at this point in time. Yeah, my dad had moved out of the house. We lost the house that we grew up in, didn't really understand why it was told to me that my mom took the house. Kind of didn't really make sense. I wasn't sure how that happened, but I was so invested in my own self at this time and doing what it was that I wanted to do that it was like, man, that really sucks. So again, one of those things I really didn't think affected me at that point in time. It was more just the drinking piling up and the years adding on, right? So it got to a point in the restaurant where, like, like I said, I realized that I was like becoming an alcoholic and I was addicted to this drinking. I would come in for shifts and like my hands would be shaking to the point of like, man, if I don't grab a drink, that's the only thing that's gonna calm me down. It additionally got pushed to a point of, you know, people in alcoholics circles or alcoholics anonymous will often say that it's you know, it's a disease or all these different things, right? Or I'm allergic to it. Every time I drink, I break out in handcuffs. Uh huh. Well, I really started to become allergic to it. Every time that I was starting to drink, I would break out in hives all over my face and my hands and my chest. And it was like, I did not know, and I still to this day, like uh now what I believe was it was a sign from God of like, hey man, here's your warning, like you need to stop. This isn't yeah. So now it was very obvious every time that I was drinking as well. Like there was no like hiding it. Yeah. So as all of that was going on, I was like, man, maybe it's time for me to get out of restaurant. Like this, this isn't what I'm supposed to be doing. And at this point, again, as I'm getting older, it's like I've I'm failing. Like I'm still stuck at this thing. Let me go do something else. So I tried that, went to a few different jobs at this point. I kind of like job hopped and I left the job where I was drinking, but the drinking didn't really leave me. It was an issue everywhere that I went after that. I remember being at jobs where it was like I've got to be there at eight. So I'd be up at four to like make myself a drink before I had to go to work countless times, you know, calling out sick or waking up and like being so ill that I couldn't go. Then I also remember going sometimes where it was like, man, I mean, I know now looking back that I was just like the biggest eyesore on any of these job sites or anything that I was doing, because it was like, you look like crap, your work is like crap. And again, it was just more failure, right? And that failure I feel like too, one, I couldn't stop drinking at this point. I don't know if it was because of a band-aid for how I was feeling, just all of the different things that had been going on in my life, and realizing like essentially like what my view of making it was that I might not make it. So that combined with like not being able to necessarily I not could I never got fired from any of these jobs, I always left, but it's like you can, you know, you can't. You can kind of tell the writings on the wall. Yeah, and it's like it's probably my time to get out of here. I've always been a decent talker, so I could always, and I was finding myself like into these okay jobs still at this point, like place to place. At one point in this journey, I was probably, man, maybe 25, 26 now. I'm about to be 33. So probably about 25, maybe 24. But I I remember the girl that I was dating at the time. My my next thought as these jobs were happening, I I had gotten a job of a family friend doing construction work, and a lot of our work was down at the beach. At this point in time, I was living in Smyrna, and I was having to wake up brutally early to get down to some of these jobs at like seven o'clock. So my idea was that we would just move down to the beach. So we did that, and I went, we moved to stay. This was this girl that I was dating at this point. Yeah. So relationship-wise, right? Like I said, I didn't have the most ideal view of a relationship, but what my dad and that whole divorce process and everything that happened in there, like it really did solidify in me of like, I don't want to just date to just date. I want to make sure that it's somebody that I'm invested in, or they're invested in me, and that they'll never betray me, that they'll never hurt me, and I'll never go through that.

SPEAKER_02 29:39

But when you're in the world, you weren't really casually dating you at least. It kind of kept you sort of from that, or how did you feel that?

Detox Attempts And A DUI Spiral

Church Exposure And Near Death Wake Up

SPEAKER_00 29:46

Yeah, I I certainly was not like out there like Mr. Macho wanting to be with different girls all the time, or you know, anything like that. I was like more of the mind that if I'm gonna see somebody, I wanted to be in a dating context. I think for me, right, it was because I wanted to know that I had that security, right? Like that I if somebody was just casually dating or like whatever, things weren't that serious. Like to me, they were like that was a sensitive area of my life. I didn't really, and I, you know, still don't necessarily love being super open because it, you know, had a at least oh, I say I still don't, but here I am on a podcast story. Um, you know, I I didn't want to open myself up to the potential of something like that happening at the time, anyway. Right. Yeah, exactly. So at this point, this girl that I was with for a while, she was a non-Christian, you know, which you know, there's there's plenty of girls like that when you're dating in the world, and a lot of different things happened. So we moved down to the beach because that seemed like the best idea, which if you're from Delaware and you've been to the beaches, there's a lot of drinking down at the beaches. It's not helping the habitat, right? Not going to a no, for sure, right? So I I felt okay in this job because again, it was like a family friend. I was kind of at a good position within this company, and like he trusted me. I started to really know what I was doing with this job, you know, got a promotion or two. I was making really decent money, so it was like, okay, like maybe I'm kind of putting it behind me. And clearly the drinking hasn't affected me. Like, those were just stepping stones. And yeah, the drinking, like, I know, like at this point in time, you know, I kind of started to lose some friends, like as other people were getting older, they weren't having the same behavior that I was having. And I I I like to drink and party every single night. So I was just kind of me, that girl, and a few different friends. And again, the the drinking didn't really feel like that much of a problem because now I had established myself once again to a point of where like I thought I was good. So stayed down at the beach for a while. At this point, it really started to intensify my drinking. This was the first time where I had ever woken up and started to have like really severe withdrawal symptoms from alcohol, which I don't know how much you know alcohol-wise, right? Like, of course, every addiction, right? Like being in the space, I understand like how difficult that struggle is, right? At the time, I had no clue what alcohol withdrawal really was or what the repercussions could be. It's one of the few. I believe there's only two alcohol and one other one, where you can die from the withdrawal. So I was starting to get these withdrawals really bad, and it was still to the point like my boss knew that I drank. He didn't know that I would sometimes drink before work and, you know, do things that I really shouldn't have been doing. I was still driving, you know, I would want to get out of work, you know, by 12 o'clock so I could stop at the liquor store and then do what I needed to do. It was causing me to avoid him, still kind of causing some issues, but they didn't seem that big because the money was good and I was still sort of getting done what I needed to get done. But yeah, I started waking up with really bad withdrawal symptoms. I remember being so sick one day, I was just vomiting nonstop, and I was like laying on the floor and I called my boss, and I ended up going to the hospital because I was like, I'm throwing up, there's some blood in my throat, like I I feel like I can't move. And now at this point, like my good graces with this guy were starting to kind of wear thin. Like, once again, right, this somebody seeing through the facade. So I was like, man, I I could get a drink or I could go to the hospital. Like, this is really bad, but like if I don't do something and go to a hospital to like kind of show this guy, like, hey, this is serious, I might lose my my good job. So I go to the hospital as I'm laying there, they're going through, and they were like, Well, you're in severe alcohol withdrawal. Like, they had somebody come into the room and they told me about a detox. They were like, you know, is this something that you would be willing to do? And I was like, uh, yeah, I I guess. Like, whatever's gonna make me feel better, right? So they yanked me down to this place called Dover Behavioral Health, and it was a wild place in there. Just, you know, all kinds of walks of life, just things I hadn't really experienced before. And it was somewhere I really didn't want to be. I didn't identify myself as an alcoholic at that point in time. So I felt like I didn't belong there. And when you're in there, you can't leave. Not until they have a doctor and a psychiatrist like sign off on it. Typically, a period in a detox center is five to seven days. So, like on day two, once I really like they gave me enough medicine to get me of a clear mind, I'm calling my dad. I was like, You gotta get me out of here, man. Like, and he was like, They won't let me. I was like, Can I check myself out? No matter what I did, couldn't get out of there. So to pick it up a little bit, I went through that, thought that I was kind of fixed, and I was like, All right, well, I won't drink like that again. Couldn't do it. Continued on, ended up at another detox facility down at the beach called Sun Behavioral. That was probably six months after this first one, six to eight months, and each time it would kind of get worse. After I would leave one of these places, my drinking would be like on hold for a week, and then it would be like, Okay, now I've got to drink enough to make up for this whole week that I missed. So jumped from there, went to this other one, and it was the same kind of deal, different group of people, and at this point, like I had already been through it once, so I knew what their whole drill was. Go through there at this point in time. After that, I ended up man like that's where just my drinking went off the rails. I I ended up with a DUI in the near future after that. I was in the middle of breaking up with my girlfriend at the time because I was gonna stop drinking, right? Which I had told her that I would do. That was okay because obviously it was destroying my life. It wasn't a very healthy relationship, anyways. You know, it came out of like a behavioral health place, and like two days later, she wants me to stop at the liquor store for her, and I'm like, hey, I'm really trying to not drink, like, and she was like, Well, then don't. Like, just I was like, it doesn't work like that. So we were in the midst of a breakup, and I had found out that she was cheating on me, and it was like, man, everything came crumbling, right? At this point, I recognized like I've been to two D doc two detox centers, like I the writing on the wall with the job, so it was like I gotta find a different job, I gotta figure something out here. Ended up breaking up with her. I was living by myself at this house for like a month, and at that point, like I remember one time falling through a window and like scratching my face all and like I said, had gotten the DUI. I at the time that I got my DUI was when I moved back up north. My sister had let me live with her for a little bit. My older sister kind of took me in. I was supposed to be, you know, working on getting a job and figuring things out, and you know, obviously not drinking, right? So at this point, I'm breaking out in hives every time that I drink. I've been to two detox centers. Everybody always knows. So like I was identified as like, okay, he has he has the problem. We can't let him drink. Yeah, so drinking at my sister's. I had picked up a job as a pizza delivery driver while high trying to hide my drinking, right? So I get this DUI delivering pizzas late one night, and I what I started doing was taking Benadryl when I would drink so that I wouldn't get the hives. And I was out on Route 9 somewhere just before getting on 13, and like the car was still in drive in this like ditch, and I remember the police officer knocking at my window, and you know, I woke, woke up, kind of came too. Benadryl and alcohol is not a very good combination, making you super tired and really not supposed to be on the road. And again, like there was a God sign that I didn't see or look at at the time is like my car's in drive just in front of 13, and I'm like in this ditch, unable for the car to go anywhere. Cop pulls me out, does all that he needs to do, and I'm super angry and yelling at these cops because it was their fault, and you know, they didn't read me my rights and blah blah blah, right? So I have an associate's degree in human services, but I became a lawyer in an instant. And this was just like not a good situation. I I got a lawyer, I ended up going. My family took me to a salvation army up in Wilmington, and that was a disaster. I left there after like a week and was just walking around the streets of Wilmington, came back home, uh took a job at this company called Letl, a grocery store, as a supervisor. Realized, right, again, like my drinking's gotta stop. Throughout this whole time, like I think what goes unnoticed is like I didn't want to drink anymore. I just couldn't not drink. Like I would feel so sick. It was just such a crutch, like something that I just felt like I depended on for all these different things, right? But I I couldn't kick the habit, no matter how bad I wanted to. I tried going to these AA meetings and doing all these different things, support groups, none of it was working, none of these detoxes, anything. So at this point in time, I would have little stretches of sobriety that I felt like were these big wins on my own, right? Like that was the problem. I was still on my own. And it was sad and frustrating because I would expect all these different things to happen when I would be sober, and they wouldn't because I turn around, I'm still facing this DUI situation, and life was still really hard, and like I'd get depressed. I I had nothing. But intermittently, I kind of started getting back into the gym and like feeling like I could be athletic again, and you know, I would fall. I ended up during this time reconnecting. This was getting close to the start of COVID with my now wife. We kind of started talking back and forth, and you know, I thank God every day for sending her into my life, right? Like, I still look back at like the countless things throughout the journey that happened, but like him using her as a messenger in my life, like I idolized a lot of things in my life, right? And especially as a sinner, like I would just turn to the next thing, whether it was money, a possession, something, right? Like I had a lot of idols, and my my wife, even at that point in time when we started to connect, she didn't just come off the bat as like an idol, right? Like she was just this light in a dark place, right? And I didn't know why she was like such a light, but she was, and I remember like wanting to pursue her, and I was like, man, I need to kind of figure things out. So we connected, we started getting really close. I was still battling this drinking thing. I was open enough with her to tell her that I'd had some issues with it, but I kind of kept some of the details shrouded as far as like how bad it actually was. She knew that I had been to a few different like detox places and she knew that it was an issue. But you know, I was sober. So I'm really pushing for sobriety at this point in time. She's talking to me now on a regular basis, right? And something my wife would do at that point in time is send me a lot of Bible verses, and like I was always like, oh gosh, like she's sending me these things, right? They didn't really, I didn't think meant much at the time. It was just like, oh man, like I think she likes me. This is her way of talking to me. Her not realizing, like, she could see how like lost and wandering I was and how badly I needed a savior. And you know, she was trying to be the door to that. So I remember just as we were talking, I really wanted to date her, and she really didn't want to date at the time. Kind of got put in the friend zone with her for a while, about a year of us like talking back and forth, and it was frustrating. And at the same time, right, like she would still talk to me, and in my head, I'm like, I definitely still think she likes like there's a way out of this, this friend zone place. Again, still didn't really know God at all, other than the Bible verses that she's sending me. And we we finally ended up starting to date. I started coming to church at this point in time, not like because I wanted to, but because she was here. So for me, it was like I could not work a Sunday morning shift at this grocery store. I could hang out with her for a little bit, and I I come in here. So I thought that was life house. Yes, that was life house. Yep. I remember, you know, Pastor Mark, you know, for her first introducing me to him, and like I was like, eh, the music's okay. Like I can I can tolerate this for a little bit. But yeah, many, you know, sad to say looking back, but there was many servants that sermons that I sat, you know, with deaf ears, but they weren't so deaf, obviously. It just drilled through to me eventually, but it it it took a while, right? So during this time, as as my wife and I are getting closer now, we're finally dating after a year, and I I was still dealing with the alcohol issues. So we had planned like a little trip. It was a case. Does she know about the alcohol? She had seen like some issues arise with it, but she had also seen where like I wasn't, right? Like during my stretches. So like it seemed like at the time, like she saw that there was some potential for like a good person here. Maybe you have it under control enough sometimes. Right. Just characterizing, yeah. Yeah, a hundred percent, right? From her point of view, you know. I don't know what I look like. I don't know how she saw the good of me, but she did. So we had planned a trip to go camping with my now sister in law and one other friend at this point in time. My wife, I I have my oldest daughter, Everly. My wife had her when she was younger, and Everly. Everly was about three and a half, four uh when I first met her. So she was probably about five at this point. Again, my wife and I, I was friends for a year. Um and yeah. So Everly was on the trip too, and we planned it. I the it was a far away place. It was kind of near Pittsburgh out in PA. Again, even though I had been to these places, I didn't really understand what alcohol withdrawal could do. I was in one of the phases where I was drinking again, and every single time, right? Like with alcoholism, it's you don't just like start the book back from the beginning. It's like you put a bookmark in, and when you pick up and drink again, it's like you're on the same page that you left off. You don't get to go backwards. You know, I look at everything that my wife did. She helped me and paid for my lawyer because I had gotten a second DUI as well within all of this stuff happening. But uh I I took this trip up at this point. I had told her no. They go up to Pennsylvania six hours away. I felt super sick in the morning. By the time it hit like 5 p.m., I was like, I am good to go now. So I go and I take this six-hour drive up, and it's like 11 o'clock, super far away. And the next day we were out hiking, and this is like again a big piece of like where I look at God intervening in my life, really stepping in. But we were hiking the next day. I'm going through these withdrawals, I'm shaking, I'm sweating, and my wife wanted me to take a picture, climb down this hill. I'm not in physical shape at this point in time to do anything like this. Climb down this hill, there's a waterfall in the background, step on these stones and go stand over where there's like a little thing and all these sharp rocks around, and I'm gonna take a picture with a waterfall in the background.

unknown 45:51

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 45:51

So I go and I somehow manage to get out there. And when I did get out there, I started seeing like spots everywhere, and I just remember everything going black. And the next thing I knew, I woke up and I was soaking wet and like looking at my now sister-in-law, her friend, my wife, and I I ended up falling face first into the water. Like, by the grace of God, I missed all these rocks. Like, I don't know how I didn't smash my head open. I was underwater for probably a little over a minute, maybe two minutes, and I was having a seizure. So when I woke up, I didn't really understand what was happening.

SPEAKER_02 46:28

So you've woken up from the seizure, and so man, that was must have been a big wake-up call.

SPEAKER_00 46:34

You would think, right? It was in some ways, it wasn't in some as well, right? I, you know, see my my my now daughter, she's visibly upset and shaken. My wife's visibly upset and shaken, and I tried to just like blow it off, and and you know, I felt terrible. But I I realized, you know, at that point, like something had happened. But you know, that was a moment of like, man, this is another time. I should have been in a car accident, should have hit my head on the rocks, should have drowned in the water, like, you know, I'm making it through these things.

SPEAKER_02 47:08

Like I said, somebody's looking out for you, maybe.

A Roadside Prayer Gets Answered

SPEAKER_00 47:10

Something's going on, right? And like it started to creep into my head of like, church, all these things my wife is saying, like, Pastor Mark on Sundays, like maybe paying a little bit more attention. Because again, I'm having these like near-death experiences. I won't get fully into it, but like I said, I got a second DUI not too long after the first one wrapped up. And yeah, it just still like the wake-up call of wake-up calls hadn't really happened. I'm doing everything in my power to make this thing stop. I ended up getting checked in after this. I went to a 30-day rehab, stayed there. They talk about, you know, uh working a program and doing these different things and a higher power. And, you know, their concept of a higher power is like, they don't tell you, a higher power can be a tree if you want it to be a tree. It's just got to be something that's, you know, bigger than yourself. Uh which sounds pretty descriptive of somebody that I know, but you know, some people have a hard time taking that in. I remember leaving out of that rehab, things were kind of good for a while. I went and this was like, it was like God really tried to nail me this time, right? And like it sticks to me. I'll remember forever. Still was working at this Leto place at this point in time. I had just gotten out of this place. It was, you know, kind of put some strain on the job to be able to go out to a 30-day rehabilitation, like do what I needed to do. Thank God I was able to do that. But I I was coming home, I had this broken down truck. I'm driving into work down Route One. Those of you from Delaware know, like Delaware summer can be it can be hot. And this was right during one of the big races by Dover Downs. I had this jalopy of a truck. It was a miracle. It was another saving grace that that truck made it to PA the time that I, you know, drove up there. Didn't have any brakes. It's like skipping when I hit them. I'm having to pull the e-brake. But, anyways, I blew a tire out just after getting back from this rehab place on the side of Route 1 in the middle of summer. It was like a hundred-degree day during the race. Like I can hear the cars, and I'm like, oh god, I'm got I'm gonna lose this job. Like, this girl, she's not gonna wanna, you know, it was just not a good situation. So I, you know, I've learned how to change a tire. I start pulling out the stuff, and it's one of the old hand crank things, stick it under, and when I bought this truck, I guess I never really paid attention that they had aftermarket tires. It was a little bit bigger. So the jack couldn't pick the truck up off the ground to get this tire off. And I'm almost in tears at this point, just thinking of like I'm gonna lose everything. Uh-huh. Sweating through my vest and shirt. And uh, I I remember praying for the first time. Now, certainly like was not on my game to know like you know anything about repentance or anything. It was just like, okay, let me try this. Now, in my head at the time, it was like, if you ask, God might do it. Like, if he's real, then maybe he'll answer. And I'm sitting there and I'm like, God, please, just like get me out of this one. Just this one, right? Not realizing there's been like 70 things that God's like, you're not gonna make it much longer if you keep on going this way. So, but sure enough, right? God is so faithful, he is so good. Like, again, nobody's gonna stop. This little white van, it was like a transit, pulls up and starts slowing down. I look and there's a cross on the back of this little tiny, like, double-door transit thing. And these two pastors like come out and they open up the back of the thing and they're like, Do you need help? And I was like, I do. Like, this is crazy. My mind was like blown. They pulled out like ice water from their cooler and they had a floor jack and they like popped the truck right up. And I was like, Man, and to this day, I so wish I knew the name of that church. I would love to see those two guys and like just thank them. But that really like opened my eyes and my ears and my heart. Like, that's when I started to really pay attention in church that I really started to pay attention to the things that my you know, now wife was sending me, and things started to like click, and I'm like, okay, like there's no way I really evaluated all these different things that had happened, and it's like I I shouldn't be here anymore. Like, I put my life in in such risk, and I have lived in such a way that like to get out of these things without somebody or something, having some kind of plan for my life is is a little bit more ridiculous than thinking this is all just by chance. Right. If if I was this lucky, I'd have won the lottery at this point. But I did not, right? And things continued on from there, but I started paying a lot more attention in church, right? God started speaking into my life. That's when I started thinking about marriage with my wife. You know, I actually proposed to my wife here at Lifehouse Church during Christmas Eve service, and we were moving along in our life, right? Now, we didn't have the perfect walk either, but both of us were still learning a lot about Christ. You know, we did some things in our early, like even in our engagement that were not what we were supposed to do, right? Like we still weren't married, but we were pregnant. We were engaged, and to us, it was like you don't get much closer than that. We made the commitment. Yeah, sort of made the commitment, right? Exactly, right? Like, not understanding still that that was outside of God's word, but we were at where we were at, right? And we were kind of, I don't necessarily want to say rebuked by the church at that point in time, but like we had people lovingly come and tell us, and we have people lovingly offer to like, hey, why don't you come live with us until you guys are married? So, you know, my wife and I are like, at this point, like we love each other, and and she had been there through so many of these hard times, like so many of these struggles. I was like, let's let's get married, right? We love our church. I don't want to make people at our church angry at us, but like I want to be with you forever. So we ended up getting married in our kitchen. We had a pastor come out, and like it was like, okay, like we're married. So we never had like a big wedding celebration, but like we'll always remember our little townhome kitchen, like it's special. One day we're gonna do like an actual thing and we're gonna make that happen whenever you listen to this, babe. But um, so again, with this point, we have my my daughter who's now three and a half, Piper. She was born. I still haven't fully beat the alcohol, right? Like, and I say I, it's because I never fully beat the alcohol.

SPEAKER_02 53:27

I think you said earlier you were doing everything you could in your control.

Full Surrender And Sobriety Miracle

Marriage Healing And Forgiveness

SPEAKER_00 53:31

Yes. So yeah. So it was still there, right? At this point, though, like I'm married, we had a kid on the way, and a kid just born, and it was like things were starting to pile up of where, like, I can't just like it's very open that I have an issue with alcohol, so it needs to be hidden, right? So I started my marriage off with a lot of lies, a lot of deceit, and hiding things, right? Like, I'm going to the grocery store and I'm buying like cooking wine and like drinking that, which if you look at the sodium content in a bottle of cooking wine, that's another miracle. And you know, die from that. But uh, it was still, you know, bad, right? And it was resulting in much more like tension and frustration. I think my wife thought when we get married, this we get married, it'll fix everything, right? So we often go into that. Yeah. And it didn't. I still had to unpack all of that. But it ended up getting to the point where we had had a few like knockdown drag outs about it, or I was caught in a lie, and you know, her coming and going again, she still put up with so much uh and still showed back up and loved me. I I remember getting to the point with it where it was up when my middle daughter Piper, when she was a month old, so December of 21. She was born November 5th, so December 5th. My wife was like, you know, what's going on? She had been sick with COVID. We didn't want to get it. It was like that time, and we kind of like went, she went to her mom's house. I stayed home when she left. I was drinking at the house, right? And I remember we had a little baby monitor, and I thought I was slick, like, I gotta turn this thing off. She can't see me in the living room, like, whatever. She ended up coming home, and like I I remember confessing to her and just like breaking down and telling her, like, I don't know how to stop this. Like, and I am sure that she was super angry at me at that point in time. We have a one-month-old daughter, she's got COVID, she's recovering. Like, how could you do this? Right. And like, I just broke down on the floor, and that was the moment of like final and utter surrender for me, where I was like, God, please take this, right? Like, I'm gonna die. I I I just had a daughter. I have my oldest daughter who already like I failed so much as a dad, and like her biological father's not present, so I'm all that she has. And you know, I you could look at it as a consequence, but at the same time, like none of the consequences that had ever happened before really mattered. So it my kids, it's like, okay, my dad drinks, and like whatever. So I kind of always was like, Well, if I do, I do, and like they'll deal with it. But this was like a different kind of pressure, like it was the Lord laying his hand on my life and saying, like, you're done. And like finally, I said, like, please take this from me. Like, I mean, every you know, I well, that was a bad comparison, but like the cup, let this pass, right? I am not Jesus. But the Lord was so gracious to take that cup, right? Like giving it to him instead of trying to do it on your own. Absolutely, right? Like, and it was just the biggest, like, even with all of the potential consequences of whatever, like that surrender and that lifting that off and saying, I can't do this, right? Like, I've done everything in my power and I've fallen so flat on my face. Like, please take this from me ever since that day, right? So I'm what's that, 21 uh four years? Four and a half years, four and a half years. Yeah, I I have not had a single desire to drink, like it doesn't matter where I go. I can be in a bar, I can be in a restaurant. Like, I wake up, I have no like desire. And it was something I could not like go a day without thinking about. The times when I had little windows of sobriety, I'm like gripping the table every day, and like each minute was so slow, right? But God worked such a miracle in my life to remove that desire to drink, like completely, nothing that I did, and it still amazes me to look back of like in all, not just God's saving grace through those different experiences, but like the power of God to take something that was so ingrained that like under my own power, I tried every like there was nothing else for me to try. Um, and he was able to lift it in like a second when I truly surrendered, right? And gave because it wasn't just take it from me. Like it was like, Lord, I will follow you, like please. I I just want to serve you. Just take this from me and I will do what you tell me and I will be where you want to be. Now, I can't say that I've lived a perfect life ever since, right? But I've never craved a drink. I am in church, like in these groups, I'm taking in the word, like the Lord has made such an impact in my life, right? In the way that I view things, in the way that I've looked back. So my mom that I hated, right? Like there's been reconciliation with her that God has walked our family through. You know, she watches our kids now. I'm able to forgive her. I'm able to look at like what Christ did on that cross, like every time that I start to get those bubbled up like feelings, those things. And you hand it over to him, and and then you take a step back and really look at like what it means, the sacrifice that he made, and how we're called to live because of that sacrifice, right? So, like, even in those early days when I first handed it to him, there was a lot of skepticism on my wife's part, right? And and thank God again that we have such a good church and so many good people here because like I was surrounded by so much love because things got really hard for me and my wife at that point. I had done so much damage, and I'm only trust was very broken, right? It was shattered, right? Like, even though God lifted that, she doesn't know that. She doesn't live in my body, she doesn't feel that the the rush of the Holy Spirit that like I knew it was gone. You know, she doesn't. Now it's my job to live a life like uh I told God I will follow you. So now that's what I gotta do. So that first year after of being sober was really, really difficult. It was really tough on our marriage. You know, I think that in our early time, my wife spent so much time having to look out for me that she was never able to really unpack her own stuff either, right? So not only was the trust broken with me, but piled that onto like, now we've got a new child in the house. Again, like think we're gonna get married, it's gonna fix things. She still has her own stuff that she's got to unpack on top of everything that I did because I treated her so poorly in the beginning of our marriage that like it was, you know, again, like I know it was God's grace and mercy working through her and her being able to show up and still love me through all of those things, right? Like just another instance of God's grace in our life. But, you know, at some point she had to walk through that. And again, I won't give her testimony, right? But it was a hard year. And there were many times where like I questioned God and where I was like, Why did you pull me out of that to put me into this? Like, this can't be what you saved me for. Um however, the desire to drink was still gone. I continued to lean into like men at this church that really came alongside to me, right? And the most important thing that kept being pushed, right, was God wants us looking at ourselves always, right? So even after, like, okay, now I'm sober, I realize and I see all the damage that I've caused, right? I still am just called to be a husband and I'm called to walk with my wife through this. I'm called to love her through this, through this first year. And it it was getting so frustrating because every time these great people are coming around me, the the verse that always comes to my mind is the one of like where it's we it's really easy to see the log in somebody else's eye, or we don't see the log in our own eye, but we can see the other and that's what everybody kept pointing me, right? Like it was like you can't fix, you have to let God work. He worked in you, let him work in her, and you continue to focus on like you didn't become a saint overnight, so you still got a lot of things that you've got to walk through. So evaluating that and and going through this, and it was so so difficult. There were so many nights where it was like I just questioned uh of what was going to happen, how do I fix this? How do I stop this? Again, why did I get sober for this? To the point where my wife and I, like, you know, I spent so much time hurting her, she had spent so much time hurting me that year after that, like we were ready to be done, right? Like at one point she had like divorce papers and we were ready to just do it. But there was a part of us, and that part was God, like saying no. We kept being dragged back here. We we Pastor Mark came alongside of us and and took the time to really connect with us and and work with us. We got pointed to a great Christian marriage counselor who really like worked with us individually, but again, it was very much like you have to do nothing except work on increasing your relationship with the Lord. And in our finite, like human minds, I feel like time is just always like it's either moving way too fast or it's moving way too slow. There's never like just the right time. And in this point in time, each day felt like an eternity. And I'm like, I just don't know how I can make it through this. And Lord, like please. And I I really got into reading at that point in time, not just the Bible, but reading uh marriage books, men's books, right? Specifically for men, right? And looking at it all now, I can see how much God was preparing me for what life had in store after, right? And and since we have walked through that time, my wife and I again, I mentioned reconciliation earlier. Like, I will never forget that point in time, too, where I thought we were getting a divorce and like I'm kind of okay with it, but not like I didn't want a divorce. I never wanted that to be the case. But if we were there, I was ready for this to stop. And my wife, like I told Pastor Mark, I remember, I was like, it's like she got struck by lightning. Like she stopped me upstairs when I thought we were about to have this whole another like knockdown drag out. Like, and she was just like, Well, it's we can't do this, and I don't want to do this, and I love you, and let's put all of our chips on the table and let's do this. And I was like, This is what I've been like, yeah, this is great news, right? Like, and I bought all in because I love my wife so dearly again. Like, I look at just her, I don't just see her, but I see like the the mouthpiece of God, like I see how much he worked through her to bring me to my saving grace and to understand like him and his glory and all that he does, and like how intimately he knows us, right? Like, it just blew me away to continue to recognize and learn these things and actually see it play out in my life, right? So after all that, it was about a year, again, like I said, looking at it now to see like where God was using that time as like, because I have an addictive personality, right? I I this what happened with alcohol. If there was something I could do to fix my wife, I'd have been addicted to it and I'd have been all in, right? So, like, unless we had that separation where she had to have the time to finally be able to not worry about me and focus on healing from the things that she had been through, not just from me, but throughout her life. And for me, like I would have thrown it back out the window as quickly as that grace was given it to me, had I not had that time to isolate and be with him and really like know and understand what it means to follow him. So I felt like my relationship with God grew so much, which allowed me to love my wife so much better. You know, we still had our bumps and bruises and we've had some issues, but you know, at the end of the day now, like we are so much stronger for everything that we've gone through because of him. And like every day we we we usually take some time to reflect, and it's like, man, like how bad that was, I wouldn't trade it because we would have never known Christ like this. Like, he's given us on so we have Piper, we have our son Hudson, who just turned a year and a half old. Like, we have this beautiful family where, like, like I said, growing up, I had no safety net. My dad had no safety net. Like, it was nothing to fall back on. If you failed, you were a failure, right? In Christ, you cannot fail as long as you're following him, right? Like, the worst of the worst, he is right there closer than a brother. Like, he lifts you back up. It doesn't matter what fire or what trial or what tribulation, to be able to lay your head down at the end of the day, right? And as a sinner, to know and understand that he still. Loves us through anything that we can do. And he intends all things for good. Like, even the trials is just such a comfort and such a blessing. Like, God, it has just put such a passion in my heart, right? To know him better and to like share, right? Like that is his command is to share. And however I can do that, I I see very little of myself these days. Like I don't seek a big job anymore. I still have desires of like a bigger home or whatever. But at the same time, right? Like we have a roof. Our kids aren't. It is what it is. We have our health. I have so many blessings that to even be alive that I I just count it all joy, every single bit of it. To be at where we are now, like I said, the Lord is just so good, so faithful. And sorry if that dragged.

Reclaim And Recover And Re Engage

SPEAKER_02 1:06:47

No, it's an I mean, just amazing how God works. And I think, like you said, God's timing too, of bringing you to that point. And it has to bring us to the end of ourselves, right? To that point where we're giving it all to him. You know, we're just gonna lay it all down, and you know, that's when he can do the most with us, right? And really do amazing things. And now your story, prayerfully, story you have with you and your wife, and where you guys are going from here, it's all gonna be God's story and just that movement towards him, which is just awesome. So appreciate you sharing. So that's you know, man, just everything through your life coming to that point, amazing healing, but then think, all right, I'm healed, but then still struggles, right? We still work through our marriage, our divorce, and yeah, seeing him work in both of you guys, which just brings you together. So that's awesome. So I know you're part of a ministry here at the church. Anything you want to kind of say for if you're listening to this, if you are in a similar situation, I think something you said is when you were able to get into church, there were people around you. I think that's something sounds like you know you were very isolated for a long time and it took kind of coming into that community. So anything you would kind of say to encourage others and and what we have here at church that you're involved in?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:02

Yeah, a hundred percent. So we we do have a ministry here at Lifehouse. It's called Reclaim and Recover. We meet on Monday nights at 6 30 p.m. in in the back hallway. It's it's just a group of people that have gone through struggles. It doesn't have to be alcohol, it doesn't have to be drugs, right? It can be whatever it is that you're struggling with if you feel like there's so much brokenness, right? And we know that it's not limited, but yet it's a group of us that meet. We go through different pieces of scripture, we just surround one another with love, point each other back to the Bible, and really just are trying to build a community of people that have struggled and understand what that's like to deal with. We would love to have you come out and take part and join us and continue to see what God's gonna do through that ministry.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:45

No, you guys are in the middle, your wife and you are doing our re-engage program. Has that been helpful for you in the marriage and anything else you might kind of say, just as maybe learning from that? And and how I know you use the word reconciliation, which is so important, you know, and the forgiveness and those kind of things that you work through. Any insights, how that's helped you all kind of being in community in your marriage as well?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:07

Yeah, 100% right. I can't say enough good things about re-engage. So even going through all that we went through, right, and finding ourselves in this really good spot, like again, like God built that complete circle for us of like breaking everything down and really replacing that like shabby foundation with like a really firm foundation in him, right? But that foundation needs constant like work, right? So we know that we still have so much room to grow in this re-engage ministry that that we offer here at Lifehouse right now is on Wednesday nights. Contact Nate if you want to figure out when the next round is to get in. But yeah, it's been so great to really break things down because no matter how good you think you are doing, there's always room for improvement. God never wants us to stop growing, right? So, like this has helped us break down communication barriers and different things that we still face and really like connect again at a different level, right? Like we've been able to look at our past and see how much we've grown and really come together after the fact and like start to reestablish the next layer of that foundation and like see more of what God intends to do with our marriage. And it it's just been a beautiful thing. So I would strongly encourage if you have the opportunity to get involved in that ministry.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:20

Continue to grow stronger, right? There's always we worship an infinite God, so there's always more of Him that we can bring into our lives. And yeah, I always think as soon as you think you got it, you know, you know, you start to do it in your own control again. So yeah, just encourage, and I think, like you said, being in community. Monday nights, opportunity to be in community with others who are struggling. Like we we bear each other's burdens, and I think that's just your testimony of when that was really happening in church and and ultimately leading to that healing. I'm sure there were people praying for you, you know, during that time. And same thing in our marriages, anything you're going through in your marriage, it's not just you, you know. Hopefully, why we do these testimonies so that you can be encouraged, that it's you're not alone in this. Others have been where you're at. So if that's where you are, we encourage you to reach out to us, be part of these ministries. We want to see that same transformation for you. And and like you said, even when you are healed of those things, still still a road to travel, right? We still travel that road.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:19

So we want to get to the end and be able to say that we finished the race, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:11:23

Amen. Run the race. So well, Matt, so thankful for your story. That's so thankful for your willingness to share with us. Uh, Lifehouse Family, we hope this encouraged you. Again, we want to continue to bring you these stories, the the truth that we see of God's transformation, whatever skepticism you have. I think we talked about this a podcast episode a while back. Like the stories God continues to write in our lives are living proof of the gospel. And I know Matt's a testimony. I am a testimony. Uh, our marriages are both a testimony to that. And so we encourage you to reach out. Um, God can write that same story in your life. So we appreciate you joining us. Thanks for sharing this time with us, and we will look forward to seeing you next time. Thanks for tuning in to the Life Talk Podcast. If this episode encouraged you, please be sure to like, comment, subscribe, and leave a review so others can find this content as well. And we'll look forward to seeing you next Monday for another great episode.