SpeakLifeAZ
The testimony of Jesus in, with, and through everyday people like us. A father and son who were addicts for over 20 yrs. You name it, WE DID IT, TOGETHER!!!! we used to use drugs together now we share about what God Has done for us to encourage the body of Christ and anyone else who may listen to this that is feeling hopeless and empty. LISTEN TO OUR STORY...and the testimony of others who feel led to share with you.... GOD BLESS YOU....TODAY WE CHOOSE TO SPEAK LIFE AZ!!!!!!!!!!
SpeakLifeAZ
Wade C. Testimony
What if embracing life’s toughest challenges could actually lead you closer to peace? On this episode of the SpeakLifeAZ podcast, my son Rowdy and I explore the ups and downs of our daily lives, focusing on the character-building moments and the significance of walking with Jesus through those experiences. We reflect on days that both test and bless us, sharing stories of finding victory and serenity amidst frustration. We also celebrate the little joys, like spending quality time with family, and what those precious moments teach us about resilience and faith.
We are thrilled to have Wade, a mental health representative for Celebrate Recovery in Arizona, join us with his compelling life story. Wade opens up about his tough childhood, marked by an absent father battling alcoholism and a mother fighting cancer. His story is a testament to the power of vulnerability and prayer, highlighting the transformative journey that comes when someone decides to confront past struggles. Wade’s narrative shines a light on the freedom found in healing and the hope for a brighter tomorrow, emphasizing the distinction between salvation and sanctification.
From high school challenges to the spontaneous joy of a Vegas wedding, Wade’s personal journey is a powerful reminder of love and transformation. He shares how early responsibilities and abandonment issues shaped his academic and social life, his battle with addiction, and how joining the military became a turning point. Meeting his future wife marked the beginning of a new chapter, filled with heartwarming family traditions like a drive-thru wedding at the White Wedding Chapel. Tune in to hear about these memorable milestones and the beauty of embracing a life story that’s both messy and miraculous.
all right, everybody. Welcome back to the speak life az podcast. Testimony of jesus and everyday people. I'm your host, eddie, and always with me is my son, roddy, jesus.
Speaker 2:What up dude? What's up dude?
Speaker 1:Oh man, how was your day, buddy that's. You know, some days are better than others, man.
Speaker 2:They sure are man Some days build character.
Speaker 1:Some days you get blessings, never the same man. Today was a character-building day. Some days you walk in the sufferings, but all of it's walking with jesus. Yeah, it's a good day. I can't complain man.
Speaker 2:Come on, buddy, I don't mind working hard and challenges are always good. They build character, brother. You can't, sir. Yeah, uh, what's the what? Hardship is a pathway to peace, buddy.
Speaker 1:Yes, it was cool because I was right in the middle of this car and I was so frustrated, bro, and like I told pastor just now, I was like in the middle of it. God was like don't you remember who you are? And I was like car, don't you know who I am? I'm the son of the king man I always have victory come on and man.
Speaker 2:The car job just went like that after that, brother I was like hey started speaking life even knew an automobile. What about you, man? I was really good. Man hung out with mama. Um man, uh, cleaned up the house. Man, I got rid of my box spring. Dude dog was up on the bed he was so happy bro he was so happy that big guy man you're trying to keep him from him. Yeah, this is good bro this is gonna be great.
Speaker 1:It is man. We know this dude, so it's gonna be kind of fun to hear the details that we don't know. So, yeah, who'd you bring with you?
Speaker 2:yeah, um, we got my brother wade what's up? Wade, how are you friend?
Speaker 5:hey, what's up, fellas?
Speaker 1:what's going on oh, this is gonna be fun it got me to the very clear to us man to uh honor his kids. So, uh, we just want to take a moment and say thank you. Um, it is an honor to sit down with you and hear your story, brother. Um, it's almost like you're entrusting us with your, with your story, and to us that's, that's an honor, brother, and we don't take that lightly and and we just pray that god blesses you for this, that you know, um, you find victory in things that you've been struggling with, in this, and that there's we're going to war right now, bro, come on, man, you know, I mean we really are. I love the eight mile analogy when eminem, you know, told everybody about himself. Then, when he handed the mic to papa doc, papa doc had nothing to say. That's right. So that's what we're gonna do right now the enemy man. We're gonna tell the world, uh, who we are, where we came from, what we did, and take all his power away from him, brother.
Speaker 2:So, thank you, sounds good um, wait, wait, for me personally, dad, while you were just talking, man, you said like he's handing us this. I felt like you're handing us your crap. But you know, bro, that's the stuff, man, that we have. Some people, hello, somebody kept hidden and locked away where I couldn't let nobody know that I'm taking this to my grave man, and there's just some freedom that happens and some healing and some life that we experience when we're able to share the things that we've been through.
Speaker 2:And so for me personally, man, just knowing the Celebrate Recovery community and your I don't want to say position or the place that you serve at within the Celebrate Recovery community as the mental health rep for Arizona, for me, man, I'm not, I don't feel called to the mental health, but you know I'm in CR. But it's just, it's a blessing for me to to be able to have you on, because I know you and me we've already had dinner with one of the guys that I'm working with, man that, um, it's crazy just how God does things. Even that relationship that you guys have, man, it's just, it's cool how God does things. Um, and I know we've been trying to get you on this thing and, um, here we are man, uh, have you ever? Have you ever listened to one of these?
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:You, you, okay, so I don't have to make you repent. When my pastor came on, man, I asked her and she's like I got to repent. So now if people say, no, I'm like you need to repent, but I'm just messing around, dude. So, basically, when God gave us this thing, man, it's Speak Life AZ, the testimony of Jesus in everyday people. It doesn't matter if you're like myself and you're working facilities maintenance at a church, making the wheels spin during the week, like Dad, cutting up cars and welding on metal and speaking life to automobiles, or yourself working with people and helping people through their stuff in life. We are all everyday people. We've all got a story and when we encounter Jesus, stuff happens. Things change Absolutely, which is for me. It's so cool getting to host people and hear their life change, because Dad always talks about how you can look at someone's life and when you see the life change, you know they've had a real encounter with God. It's the evidence.
Speaker 1:It's the evidence of Jesus' transformation. If someone says they know Jesus and they met Jesus and they had this encounter with Jesus, but they're still living the same, I would have to question whether they really met Jesus or not.
Speaker 5:Sure, because there's salvation and then there's sanctification, Totally.
Speaker 2:Two different processes, um, but, but basically, man, when he gave this to us, we, uh, we made it our own and did what we wanted to do. For a little bit, we're gonna preach, setting up studio in my bedroom and lighting and all this stuff, man, and it just never did nothing. It went nowhere. Um, it wasn't until god, almost two years years later, in the end of 2022, when we sat down and God was like you're going to start doing what I told you to do and we saw this three-chord strand and it was just. We heard the verse about how a three-chord strand is not easily broken and how God just wants us to sit down and make a safe place for people to share their stories, people to share their stuff, man. So basically, that's what we're going to do today.
Speaker 2:We want to know who Wade is. We want to know where Wade was born, what the house was like growing up, brothers and sisters, mom and dad, was church in the home? Was the Bible just something that collected dust or did you actually see it opened School, man? What was school like for you? What was, uh, your, your friends? Were you bullied? Were you the bully sports? Um, we just want to know who wade is man, and how you grew up, um, because a lot of the people that are going to watch this and going to listen to this, that's the stuff that they're going to relate to you with, yeah, um, and then you know, man working in recovery, um, a lot of the stuff that we are in the process of healing from, um, those hurts, habits and hang-ups, a lot of that stuff comes from childhood traumas, sure, um, so if you, if you want, let the holy spirit lead you in any of that man.
Speaker 2:But I think the coolest thing that we really want to encounter today is, or capture is, your encounter with jesus. Yeah, okay, um, your testimony, uh, some people's is that everyone's is different. Um, the way that god met dad in prison, um, the way that he met me was at teen challenge in 1515 west grand, at that blue altar. Um, I want to know where god met you, man, and how that, that moment or that day when it was god, is real. And then the life change, the transformation afterwards, how things changed in your life, and then I think the coolest thing, man, is at the very end.
Speaker 2:We've actually had people come on and we've asked them. When you hear the people and they share their hopes and their dreams for the future. Do you pray for them? And we have people that are praying for you and we ourselves want to pray for you. And then we want Do you pray for them? We have people that are praying for you, we ourselves want to pray for you, and then we want to have you pray for the ministry. We just kind of close it out like that man, but it's going to be good bro.
Speaker 5:Sounds good man.
Speaker 2:Let me pray real quick, and then we'll get into it.
Speaker 2:Come on, holy Spirit, jesus, god, I pray that you set a coal of fire on my brother this morning or this afternoon. Um, I just thank you for the words that are going to be shared. I thank you, God, that even the young people um are going to find a way to connect to this Lord. Um, I thank you for what you've done in Wade's life. Um, like dad said, god, he's just been the pen in your hand. You have been writing this story and you're just, uh, where you have him now, but, god, there's more ahead. Um. So I thank you for just a vulnerability and openness and just the transparency. God, use every word of this in Jesus name, amen, amen.
Speaker 1:So what was it like growing up, wade brother.
Speaker 5:Well, it was, uh, it was crazy. We're starting out. Welcome to the club, buddy.
Speaker 2:I was born and raised in Las Vegas. Crazy, honestly, we're starting out good. Welcome to the club, buddy.
Speaker 5:I was born and raised in Las Vegas.
Speaker 4:Oh wow.
Speaker 5:So I was born to my dad and my mom. My dad was gone by the time I was about six months old, wow. Okay, and my mom was diagnosed with cancer around that same time.
Speaker 4:Oh dang.
Speaker 5:And I thought she was going to pass. Yeah, her around that same time, oh dang, and I thought she was going to pass. Yeah, so my whole childhood up until the age of 19, when she actually did finally pass away.
Speaker 2:Was just waiting for her to pass.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it was spent in times of joy when she was home, and then a lot of time in sorrow when she was at the hospital.
Speaker 5:Yeah, dang. I think throughout her lifetime she had something like 27 surgeries, dang. She had three rounds of chemo. She had cobalt treatment. In the 70s she actually had a doctor in UCLA, the cancer school, because he was the only one that could treat her particular type of cancer.
Speaker 2:So it was just kind of so back in the 70s when mom had this cancer yeah, okay. So 70s, when mom had this cancer yeah, okay, okay.
Speaker 5:So 70s till she passed in 1990.
Speaker 4:So I was born in 1970.
Speaker 5:So those 19 years of my life were filled with various trips. I mean, as a kid I used to play with the ice water pitchers and little buckets and stuff that you would get from the hospital. Back then you couldn't. As know, back then you couldn't, as a child, you couldn't go into to visit patients. They had uh, you know regulations. They wouldn't let kids in, but the nurses would sneak me in. So I got.
Speaker 2:I spent a lot of time in hospitals um and uh in vegas, in las vegas okay yeah, um so who was watching you? If mom's in the hospital and dad's gone, who are you staying with?
Speaker 5:um, well, I have my. My was had a really good relationship with my dad's sister, my aunt Carol.
Speaker 4:Okay.
Speaker 5:And her children. We actually kind of my cousins, we kind of grew up together, oh wow, and we spent a lot of time. Either they they would live together and we all lived together, or they would live separately and then we would just hang out and go visit. Then I had my grandfather my mom's dad and my grandmother and my mom's mom, but they were both divorced when I was, I think, probably like four or five years old.
Speaker 2:So all the family is in Vegas. You guys are all.
Speaker 5:My mom's side of the family and some very limited contact with my dad's side of the family. My dad was a still is an untreated alcoholic, okay, and back then he was actively using, after he got back out of Vietnam, a story that I've been told was you know, it just really messed him up.
Speaker 2:Messed up a lot of people man. Yeah, it did yeah.
Speaker 5:It did, and you know I would go to visit, like my paternal grandparents, and my dad would somehow find out that I was there and he would come inevitably show up drunk.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 5:And wanting to love on me and kiss on me and he's smelling of that alcohol and just I was embarrassed and ashamed and all kinds of terrible feelings right that I just didn't understand as a child.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 5:And you know he's been incapable of really being a father even into my adult life. So you know that's not a relationship that I pursue.
Speaker 4:I have an open door.
Speaker 5:I would answer the phone for him in a second, but unfortunately the phone doesn't ring on my side. Amen, so.
Speaker 1:You're the only sibling.
Speaker 5:I'm the only biological sibling of my mom and dad. I do have three half-brothers and I had a half-sister who passed about six years ago.
Speaker 1:From your dad's side, yes, from my dad's From various different marriages Do you have relationships with them.
Speaker 5:I used to. I tried, I tried really hard to have a relationship, especially with my two older half-brothers, but they're still finding their way. They've got some unhealed trauma from all the family dynamic.
Speaker 4:It's just not healthy.
Speaker 5:So I've had to set boundaries, come on.
Speaker 1:Boundaries are good, it's hard, so your dad left a wake of messed up kids behind him Chaos man, yeah.
Speaker 2:Alcohol addiction yeah, he did Destroys stuff.
Speaker 5:Unfortunately, you know, I wasn't the one to break that family dynamic you followed.
Speaker 2:Well, now you are man, Now I am. You followed in the footsteps for a minute.
Speaker 4:I did yeah. Yeah, I, I did, yeah, I did what do?
Speaker 2:they say the apple never falls too far from the tree.
Speaker 5:That is the case with me and my
Speaker 1:brother, I can say it's the same with him.
Speaker 5:What was school like? Dealing with all your mom's medical issues. So I don't really remember much of school until my high school years, Because in high school was really the only school that I ever stayed in I went to one high school was really the only school that I ever stayed in.
Speaker 4:I went to one high school.
Speaker 5:We had actually moved and by that time I was driving and I would drive. I think it was about 12 miles to get to my school.
Speaker 1:Still in Vegas. Still in Vegas. I went to.
Speaker 5:Las. Vegas High School.
Speaker 2:Really Okay, right down by. Fremont. Street baby. So growing up in the quote unquote city of sin? Yeah, was that in the 80s, in the 90s?
Speaker 5:70s and 80s.
Speaker 2:I left in 93 when I joined the military, oh, okay.
Speaker 5:But 70s and 80s.
Speaker 2:A teenager in Vegas man.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I mean, it was wild.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're getting.
Speaker 5:It was wild Even my childhood, like I was exposed to everything from a very, very young age. You know, my mom used to have this Polaroid of her and my aunt. They had handed me a joint. And I think I was probably like five years old and they had a picture of me smoking it. Wow, you know.
Speaker 2:It was different back then, man yeah.
Speaker 5:I mean all of that stuff was just part of my history when my mom wasn't sick. Um, you know she would. Uh, she was a cocktail waitress, so then she would have, you know, parties on the you know. First I should restart.
Speaker 5:My mom had me at 16 years old, oh wow so when I was, you know, five, six, seven years old, she was 21 22 right, and so she was just trying to live her life you know, and that's something that I can really appreciate today, and I don't, you know, I've forgiven all my family members for anything yeah, you worked through a lot of healing and a lot of steps, a lot of therapy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, come on, buddy, come on, but uh, when I look at it I'm like wow, she was just a kid herself you know trying to do the best she could so she had cancer when she was a teenager yeah, 16 wow really dang and for 19 yeah, she used to say, so that 19 years is pretty significant to me.
Speaker 5:It holds a lot of power for me the number 19, just the fact that she made it till I was 19 years old because she used to say that I always asked God to keep her alive Long enough to allow me to be able to take care of myself, because she knew that If it wasn't, if she wasn't there Something terrible would have.
Speaker 1:I probably wouldn't be sitting here. So, being 16, you guys, she lived with her parents.
Speaker 5:No, we lived on our own.
Speaker 1:Really at 16? She did waitressing. She lived with her parents. No, we lived on our own. Really At?
Speaker 5:16? She lived on her own. Yeah Dang, she did waitressing At one point. We lived up by Reno, a little small town called Carlin Nevada.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 5:And I remember she was a waitress in a diner and I must have been three, four years old, was there some fibbing to get some places?
Speaker 1:I'm sure four years old. Was there some fibbing to?
Speaker 5:get some places, I'm sure.
Speaker 1:I don't see anybody renting an apartment to a 16-year-old or something. Yeah, I'm sure it's kind of a family trait.
Speaker 4:My grandfather had his mom lie and say he was 18 when he was only 16.
Speaker 2:So he could go on World War II. So it's kind of a family trait.
Speaker 5:But yeah, it was you know we were really close until she had a boyfriend or a man. And then I was always kind of to the side. So I experienced a lot of childhood abandonment.
Speaker 2:Any of the boyfriends ever abuse or anything like that.
Speaker 5:No, I was never really physically abused. I had a lot of emotional abuse, the kind of abandonment trauma. Um, I did have one episode when I was about seven years old with a family member where I was molested.
Speaker 4:Okay.
Speaker 5:Um, but uh, that didn't really. It was a one-time thing and it wasn't something that really carried through for me.
Speaker 5:Yeah, was a one-time thing. It wasn't something that really carried through for me. The trauma of abandonment is something that deeply affected me and it still can affect me today in my relationships. You know, only through the last, let's say, four years of my recovery did I really start working on my codependent traits and that really helped me to be able to accept people and relationships as they are and not have this fear that they're going to leave me.
Speaker 1:Well, your mom was a kid. Yeah, I mean, I had a kid and just I can imagine. I couldn't imagine being 19, 20 years old with a kid and you're still trying to live. You know what I mean and do life and being sick, being sick, I mean just being that kid.
Speaker 2:That would just give me so much trauma.
Speaker 5:I'd just constantly be worried and mom in and out of the hospital and the tree, it's just like yeah yeah, as a kid, you don't really that's a lot you don't really consciously fear that yeah but you know, after the first few times it becomes kind of habit, like it just becomes normal, yeah um, but I did like. When I was a kid, I used to have dreams like that my mom was replaced with a robot or you know that, um that, uh, I was. You know, I couldn't find her you know, like dreams, like that and that really ties into that whole fear abandonment. I just wasn't you know conscious of it, amen any uh sports.
Speaker 2:How was your grades in school, man?
Speaker 5:um, I was a pretty good student I'm I'm always been academically gifted um, I'm lazy, so lazy, or you just procrastinate. Well now I know it's procrastination bingo I recently was diagnosed with adult adhd okay um, but I just could never. I I would never crack a book and I could get b's, you know, yeah, and so it was just an easy street right, I was a season season d's get degrees buddy right. So so, yeah, I was um.
Speaker 1:I never really had to apply myself yeah, okay, you said you only remember high school. What was high school like?
Speaker 5:um. So high school was pretty cool yeah honestly, um, we, uh, I went to a really good high school. It's the oldest school in las vegas um, I was really active, I was involved. I didn't play sports to answer your question earlier, um, and we'll go back to that because I have a story around that but, um, I was kind of shy in my freshman and sophomore year. I was a pretty late developer um. So I had a lot of you know insecurities and um kind of a lot of self-esteem issues around that yeah um, and so I was.
Speaker 5:I was kind of a wallflower. I had some close friends that you know small circle, um, and it wasn't about my junior year that I really broke out. Um, and about my junior year is also when I really started drinking yeah, yeah and that really that social lubrication really helped with that.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, always does. Yeah, liquid courage, buddy, talk to girls, it does until it doesn't. Yeah, being in Vegas, because I can imagine being in Vegas in high school, that it's just party central.
Speaker 5:Oh my, yeah, you know what I mean. I mean that's all we knew. Well, let's take it back. It's all I knew. Yeah, because I did have a group of friends, like, especially my senior year, like I was on student council, I was like the artist for the student council, the good kids yeah.
Speaker 5:And I hung out with all the good kids and they'd have like oh, my parents are going out of town this weekend. We're going to play poker, right? Okay, a case of beer. And I walked in the first time with a case of Corona and they all looked at me like I had three heads.
Speaker 4:They were like what are you doing? And I'm like we're going to drink this beer.
Speaker 5:And not only are we going to drink it, but we're going to use this beer funnel and we're going to have fun. And it never occurred to me Shotgun.
Speaker 2:Oh, my God Right.
Speaker 5:Yeah. It never occurred to me that I was drinking alcohol. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Even as a kid man, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:That's how it started for me. You know what I mean. Yeah. That was the first time I went to a party and I had a drink and it came out of my shell.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It was like holy crap, I'm a whole different person, man, I like this person better.
Speaker 5:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1:So anytime we were doing something socially, it was make sure you got alcohol, because I'm coming out, you know what?
Speaker 2:I mean, yeah, crazy bro, and I was always the class clown Like not really the guy that got in trouble class clown, but just kind of like you guys see me today. Like you know me, I'm pretty gregarious.
Speaker 5:You know with, know it's on that. Yeah, the microphone, yeah, um, and I was kind of like that, even without alcohol once I kind of hit my uh purity and I kind of matured and I kind of came into my own and my junior and senior year, um. So I was one of those guys that I had friends in every social group, um, and so I'd hang out with the jocks sometime and I would hang out with the punkers sometime you know, the guys, the student council guys, we're a chameleon, yeah definitely.
Speaker 2:Mass bro. Now I know why. Hang out with them all.
Speaker 4:man, I got this mass for this group, this mass for this group.
Speaker 2:I got this mass for this group. It's real bro.
Speaker 1:That's real man.
Speaker 2:Did you?
Speaker 5:end up graduating bro, that's real man. Did you have graduating? Yeah, yeah, I graduated um and uh, I was um. I didn't know what I was going to do with my life I didn't. I never took like the act or the sat. I didn't figure college was for me okay um, and I was kind of just jerking around playing video games, doing drugs and drinking and a buddy of mine from high school asked me if I was going to join UNLV.
Speaker 4:And.
Speaker 5:I was like I don't think I can, and he said well, you're a native, they'll accept you, and so I applied and I got in.
Speaker 2:UNLV University of Nevada, las Vegas. Running Rebels baby.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, we were actually. I was there when we won the national championship.
Speaker 2:Nice bro. Oh wow, nice yeah 1980. God no that was 90.
Speaker 5:90, 91.
Speaker 4:Okay, okay.
Speaker 5:So I ended up, you know joining this college with no plan like story of my life right.
Speaker 5:Like just geographical move and I went into college and the first week I was there I was walking through the quad and there's all these fraternities outside rushing and what does that mean? Like a hazing no, so they're in, they're trying to recruit new members okay and so I went up to a couple of them and uh, the one, uh, friend from high school, his dad was a chapter advisor for one of the fraternities, and so I was like let's do it yeah so I ended up rushing a fraternity and literally the next four years of my life.
Speaker 5:That's all I did. Was major in that fraternity, wow what does that mean? That means all I did was party with my fraternity boy okay, I didn't. I think in four years I think I got 18 credits.
Speaker 2:Oh geez dude, you really were.
Speaker 1:He was a Rob Hall.
Speaker 2:Eight years. You're in school, buddy Right.
Speaker 1:He got a friend who was in college for like eight years, yeah, yeah, it was. Love you, bro. I was not there for the classes. Let's say that I think he was a raper, he was on his own time man, but he finished he did Okay. So what were you majoring in?
Speaker 5:So originally I went to school. I was an art major. I wanted to be an artist. Actually I wanted to be a cartoonist. Really, You're a good drawer I am. Wow, bro. Well, let's just say I used to be. I don't really practice it much anymore. That's awesome dude.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love art.
Speaker 5:Unfortunately, I had the first class and the instructor was like you all are terrible, you don't. You're not artists, you don't like you think you are. I mean, he just really tore everybody down.
Speaker 4:Yeah. And had fragile self-confidence anyway, and so I just walked out and I never returned to an art class wow, whoa, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5:So I would take a class here, a class there. I tried german once, it was awful no idea like brett kreisner, or whatever his name, is in a russian class and he doesn't know.
Speaker 2:Just no, so you're at this point. You're what? 22, 23.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I would say so Was it just drinking. No, no, no. Whatever's there, let's party my senior year of high school, I got introduced to a guy named Scott and he, we don't have to use names, you're good. His name, because we called him Scotty Rock. So, it was like and he's, he's no longer with us, but but he introduced me to cocaine. Oh nice, and that's like they say in the big book. The moment that I was like I have a ride yeah this was my jam.
Speaker 2:I like this right can drink all night, and so it went from everything was free to.
Speaker 5:You know the story until everything wasn't you know and eventually, honestly, I uh pretty much everything that my mom left after I passed. I took up my nose, wow, I saw I eventually ended up selling my car to him, oh, wow, and of course he never paid me you know it's just like, I'll give you this bag, oh man.
Speaker 2:It was Addiction.
Speaker 5:It was bad. Yeah, it was bad, and I ended up being I was pretty much homeless, yeah, and I was. I didn't know what I was going to do and a fraternity brother that I had gotten really close with had moved away and he actually walked into a bar one night and he was back and his parents had a got him a dorm room and it was a double dorm room but they paid for both beds.
Speaker 5:Yeah, but it was only him in there, but it was only him in there, yeah, and so his parents allowed me to live in that dorm room for a year free wow and that that really I think it went a long way to saving my life come on now big time buddy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, didn't stop us from partying, of course not still in college, right? Yeah?
Speaker 5:but uh, at 93 I woke up one morning after a huge binge in the bender and and I just got that moment of clarity and I was like if I don't leave I'm going to die or I'm going to end up in prison. By that time I was doing some pretty, pretty bad stuff and um, yeah, you ain't working.
Speaker 2:You got to get money, yeah. Oh yeah, I know all about it, buddy.
Speaker 5:And so I woke up my fraternity brothers. I'm going to join the military. You want to come? Because he was in the same boat as me, he's like let's do it Really, so we went right to the recruiter and we were going to go on the Marine Corps.
Speaker 1:But they were gone at lunch.
Speaker 5:Come here, and I signed up that day, wow. I signed up for four years I went and did the ASVAB and then I ended up testing very high on the ASVAB. He's like we want to make you an electrician on airplanes. I was like I don't know anything about electricity. He's like yeah, you do, you just haven't been taught it. And so they sent me to school and I did four years on two carriers. Wow, man, that really.
Speaker 2:Thanks for your service, Wade. Thank you.
Speaker 5:Thank you, that ended my extracurricular drug activity because, I was terrified of getting a dishonorable discharge, but my drinking continued to ramp up. Oh yeah, because that's really what we did.
Speaker 2:That's what we do in there, man. That's how we bond All night long yeah.
Speaker 5:So my drinking was, alcoholically, just ramping up, ramping up, ramping up.
Speaker 2:Single Because I haven't heard nothing about girlfriends or just floozies here and there.
Speaker 5:No, I was not a gentleman in college at all, and I left a lot of wreckage in that area. The one bright spot in that area, though, is I did meet my wife in college.
Speaker 4:Okay.
Speaker 5:I was sitting in the student union and I was actually, for one time in my life, doing homework.
Speaker 4:Like it was the weirdest thing.
Speaker 5:And her sorority sister brought her over. She had just transferred there from CSU, yeah, and she brought her over to introduce me. And I look up and it was a total God thing because I saw her and I was like this is the woman I'm going to marry.
Speaker 4:Wow, whoa.
Speaker 2:I was smitten.
Speaker 5:It was like a light was shining on her. I mean, I can't describe it, wow, and I pursued her.
Speaker 2:A few different guys have said that, man, when they saw their girl, they just were like this is the one, yeah.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it's, it's crazy. I mean I never you know have had that experience prior or again yeah, I haven't had that experience, man.
Speaker 1:I know it. When I saw his mom, yeah, I was like, yep, you're the one.
Speaker 2:She's beautiful, right.
Speaker 5:And the one she's beautiful right and so I pursued her uh, for, because I met her about two years before I left and, um, she wouldn't have anything to do with me we were friends and we both knew that we really cared for each other yeah like she would get mad if I was seeing someone else and I'd get mad if she was dating someone else you think your lifestyle kind of had her hesitant. But don't let her fool you. She's like everyone here in Arizona is like oh, she's so sweet, she's the kindest one.
Speaker 2:We'll get her on. We'll hear all the little dirty secrets you got. I knew.
Speaker 1:But I left Happily college, stays in college, but it doesn't.
Speaker 5:Right, but uh but I left happily, college stays in college.
Speaker 1:But right, so I I left and I went um, you know, uh, into the in the military, and I was in tennessee in a school, yeah and uh.
Speaker 5:Where did you do your basic? At I did basic in san diego, yeah, and then I went to a school in tennessee to learn how to be an electrician and I got a letter one day.
Speaker 5:You know, this was back in the 90s, when we still had mail yeah, and we had a phone bank or at&t phone bank where we would go in and have to use cards to use the phone yeah um, and I got a letter and it was from her wow, and she had actually, because she had graduated and she went to california to work at a restaurant and she had actually called my grandfather because but towards the end, that's who I lived with- my grandfather and she got my address.
Speaker 5:He's like he doesn't have a phone, but here's his address yeah, yeah wrote a letter, wow, and I ran, literally ran out of the barracks and ran to the phone booth and called her and luckily she was home and we haven't been apart since. Wow, yeah we were married 30 years this past May.
Speaker 1:Come on, man. That's good, congratulations. You married while you were in the military.
Speaker 5:Yeah, we got, so we were in Vegas. Sorry, I had an old man brain.
Speaker 2:It's okay.
Speaker 3:We were in Vegas, it happens, brother and I was getting ready to get shipped to Japan.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 5:Because that was my first duty station. I had a two-year duty in Japan.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 5:Okinawa no Yokosuka.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 5:So I was in a smaller town called Atsugi, the base of Atsugi, I think. Okinawa no Yokosuka, yeah. So I was in a smaller town called Atsugi, the base of Atsugi.
Speaker 1:I think Okinawa's, marines, huh.
Speaker 5:Yeah, there's a Marine base there, yeah, yeah, so the plan was that we were going to get married the next year in Colorado with her family and do the big wedding and all that. But the night before I was to leave, she told me she didn't want me to go overseas without being married. You eloped. I said if we're going to do it, we're in Vegas, let's do it the craziest way. And so we went through the drive-thru at the little wedding chapel.
Speaker 2:He went through the drive-thru.
Speaker 4:Nice.
Speaker 2:That's great dude. My grandfather was in the back of his Cadillac as a witness, as a witness was in the back of his catalog as a witness.
Speaker 5:As a witness, and then we had Arby's, albus Maria, arby's for lunch.
Speaker 2:Was it no, albus Maria?
Speaker 5:But come full circle 30 years later. This past weekend I had the privilege of walking my daughter down the aisle.
Speaker 1:Oh, come on In Vegas.
Speaker 5:Wow, and her and her husband had asked us, prior to the big wedding on Saturday, if on Friday they could elope at the White Wedding Chapel to honor us so I got to walk my daughter down the aisle at the White Wedding. Chapel and Elvis did marry me, that's awesome, that's cool.
Speaker 1:What was it like being on an aircraft carrier bro?
Speaker 5:it was amazing. That's cool. Yeah, yeah, that's special, yeah it was pretty neat.
Speaker 1:What was it like being on an aircraft carrier, bro?
Speaker 5:it was amazing. Yeah, it's hard work though. Yeah, dangerous, really dangerous. The flight deck of a carrier is one of the most dangerous places in the world.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, you got jets flying in and stopping on a dime man.
Speaker 5:You got that. You got jets turning exhaust, blow you off the deck. You've got, uh, just propellers that are spinning and you can't see them when they're spinning and you have to intake, you walk by an intake. If you're not far enough away, you get sucked in like there's yeah, it's a lot of I watch those videos, man.
Speaker 4:It's pretty crazy bro that one that's famous of the guy getting sucked in.
Speaker 1:That was the actually the aircraft I worked on really wow, yeah, the ea6b prowler or them dudes getting caught by the cables. Oh yeah, that's terrible. I've seen a cable.
Speaker 5:I saw a cable snap.
Speaker 1:Really yeah, but I was far enough away that it wasn't in danger.
Speaker 5:What was the craziest thing you saw when you were on one Okay, so on an aircraft carrier. I don't know if you guys can see this at home, but the front of the aircraft carrier is kind of angled. It has two because it has two sets of catapults, and so that area right where the two come together, we called it the crotch.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 5:And so our bird was parked on the forward cat and we were right there on the crotch, and so basically, the landing zone is coming right at us.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 5:And this F-14 came in for a landing and caught the wire. And when he caught the wire, when he landed, his right rear strut snapped off, so his right rear wheel snapped off. Yeah, threw it in a pitch so yeah, and when they land on a carrier, they're at full throttle.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Because they have to be able to take off again if they don't catch the wire.
Speaker 5:So here's an aircraft that's at full throttle. This landing gear snapped off and it is now coming down the deck at our aircraft oh, went to a barrel roll, yeah, this wow not the plane, but the, the wheel.
Speaker 5:Oh, the wheel, the big yeah holy crap so it's like bouncing and coming at us. Me and my buddy are up on the back of this jet working on uh, something that's crazy, dude we're like this thing's gonna hit us yeah and at the last moment it went to the side and went off the ship and this jet, the when. When the wheel snapped, the pilot ejected, so now we have a jet on the deck with nobody in it at full throttle holding on by this cable and it had tilted off to the side of the into the walkway yeah and a grape, a fuel min, a deckhand jumped up in the jet and and secured it, turned it off, wow, and so the airplane was able to be saved, wow that's crazy.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's a good story, buddy.
Speaker 4:I just got a whole bunch of adrenaline on the edge of my seat.
Speaker 2:I'm like dude. That's crazy man.
Speaker 1:I tried to join the military brother. They wouldn't let me.
Speaker 5:No.
Speaker 1:Because I had gotten in some trouble when I was a kid. Yeah, you know, what I mean and the only reason. I graduated high school because I'm only two years younger than you, Right? So in wanted to get into the military. And. I go down there and they tell me oh, you can't take it, dude.
Speaker 5:Oh, that's too bad. I had to get a waiver.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so did.
Speaker 2:I.
Speaker 1:They told me I could have left, came back act like I'd never been there before and not tell them that part and they said you'll get, Don't tell him, you said that Because the recruiting officer is like hey, let's go for a walk, right?
Speaker 1:So he takes me out of the building. We walk around the back of the building. He's like hey, look man, you know what I mean. Come back, go see the other guy. I've never seen you, I've never met you, I don't know who you are. Right, leave that part out. He says I'm 17, 18 years old. I'm thinking I don't want to be in trouble with Uncle Sam. Right, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4:I'm like I'm good bro.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but that was my whole life plan was to go to the military. So once that happened, man boop.
Speaker 5:Yeah. Yeah, I had to get a waiver because I had an assault charge. Oh yeah, I got in a fight and kid press charges. Yeah, threatened to kill my teacher in high school.
Speaker 2:You gotta get a waiver to come in here, boy, I got the other than honorable discharge too. Bud, a real winner. Let me tell you about some great choices I made. Jesus, don't sell cocaine on base.
Speaker 5:Don't use cocaine, not a good look oh man so you did your whole four years I did four yeah, I would have done more, but the it was hard because we were married and by that time it's hard on a woman.
Speaker 2:Bro, being a being a military wife is very hard on the women. It's almost like because they, they, they lose their purpose, they lose their friends, they, they lose half their household. They lose pretty much themselves because they're moved over to a base that they don't know. Nobody Did you guys live on base.
Speaker 5:They wouldn't have. Let me bring her. Really oh wow, so I did two years in Japan. In Japan, they won't let you bring your spouse unless you're an E5.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I hadn't made that no, yeah, you were too new private even though I was older, because I didn't go until I was 23 yeah um, they had that rule because, you know, 18 year olds don't know how to manage money yeah yeah, but at 23 I didn't either so um, and they give you a lot of it yeah, I'm 50 and I still yeah same, so we got a group for that guys the uh checkbook what the hell is that?
Speaker 5:but yeah, they budget, they kept me away from her for two years, and so then, the last year that I had on my contract, I called my for my orders to switch um squadrons, and the detailer told me that, oh, I have the perfect squadron for you. It's out of would be island washington. They just got back from a six-month cruise, so you won't be going to see the entire time that you're. You have your remaining year.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 5:So I was like perfect. I told my wife I'm going to take these orders Once I get there. Give me a couple weeks to get situated and I'll move you and Alex up, because that's my daughter.
Speaker 4:Alex.
Speaker 5:And we'll move up there and we'll just get an apartment and for the next year we'll be able to live there. I walked into the shop and the first class said don't unpack your sea bag. I said what are you talking about? He said we leave for a six-month cruise in three days.
Speaker 1:Oh geez.
Speaker 2:So the detailer lied and he put me right out at sea for another six months and I had to call my wife and say I'm sorry but you can't come because I'm gone six months months, and the very thing that she was afraid of, the very thing she dealt with for the first few years in the military, was you leaving and you guys not being married and together, and it ended up even happening after getting married.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so your first two and a half years of marriage.
Speaker 5:You were gone, you were gone yeah, well, the first, the whole three years of our marriage because after I got back for six months, I was like I only have six months left. I'm not going to bring you guys up for six months.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 5:So I applied for an early out. I got a three-month early out, so we had two years and nine months basically separated, except for when I would have leave or she would come to visit.
Speaker 4:Was that hard for her? Oh yeah, oh, come to visit, was that?
Speaker 5:hard for her. Oh, yeah, yeah yeah, it was really hard yeah, dang man hard for you too, I'm sure, man yeah I mean, you know, I think it was harder for her because you know you're with the guys yeah you're with the brothers, you're drinking and she got a kid. You know um, you're out floating now to see, and you know you're landing in these ports, like you know thailand you're really not thinking about the wife and getting home.
Speaker 2:Look at that pretty thing.
Speaker 1:So, it was an adventure. Yeah Well, thank you for your service, brother. I appreciate that. Thank you, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Always make a point, man, to thank our veterans, because a lot of them came back, man, and didn't get thanked. Yeah, yeah, for sure, our veterans, because a lot of them came back, man, and didn't get thanked.
Speaker 1:Yeah you know they just yeah, I got three, three people in my family that served in the military my dad, two of my brothers so I I totally get it bro.
Speaker 5:Yeah, we're a big military family as well my grandfather, my, my father, um, my, uh, my brothers were both marine. My half brothers were both marines. I was navy and I think my son's going into the Air Force. Come on now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I get it now. I mean, I've always got it, but I get it now. Why people, when they meet family of people who serve and they say, hey, thank you for your sacrifices, because it is, it's a dual sacrifice, man, you know, not just the person who's enlisted, but the family that has to go three years without being together. You know what I mean. It's. It's hard on everybody, brother. Yeah, it was um a lot of people, a lot of marriages. Don't make it, bro. It's I mean.
Speaker 5:I, I like to say in my testimony uh, it's through, only through the grace of God and and a little codependency that we're still together, Right.
Speaker 1:That's the only reason why Amen, amen. So what did you do when you get?
Speaker 5:back. So my wife met somebody. She works for Enterprise. I'm sorry, I don't know if I'm allowed to say name no, you're good.
Speaker 1:Sure story brother, you tell it she works for Enterprise Rent-A-Car.
Speaker 5:She's been there 29 years. But at the time she was working at the rental desk and this guy came in and was renting a car. And it turns out he was ex-Navy and he was a director for a fire alarm company yeah. So she saw his military ID and they got to talking and she said, oh, my husband's getting ready to get out. And he asked her what I did and she told him he goes. Here's my card, have him call me. So I literally had a job waiting for me when I got out.
Speaker 2:Wow, dude, so literally had a job waiting for me. Wow, dude. So how old are you at this point? Uh, 27, they're 27 years old man, and I have not really heard much of anything about church or god or religion or jesus yeah yeah, and that's.
Speaker 5:He says yeah yeah yeah so I didn't grow up in a religious family. Yeah, none of us went to church, and it wasn't until I was about 12 years old that my mom did find a small church. Yeah, and we both were saved at that church.
Speaker 4:Okay, yeah.
Speaker 5:Okay, and we went. I went to youth group. I did all that, you know, we went. I went to youth group. I did all that, you know, had got my fire insurance, but I didn't really have a relationship with the Lord and then, when she passed, I walked away from her. I would never return to church. I didn't pray, I didn't commune with him. I was angry blaming him?
Speaker 2:yeah, maybe a little bit.
Speaker 5:I don't even know if it was conscious blaming, I just was like I'm done with that yeah, I gotta do all this on my own. I've had to do it on my own my whole life. Yeah, that's just where I'm at right. Okay, and so when?
Speaker 1:all you know is your own ability. It's what you tend to lean on, that's all you know. Yeah, you know that was the same way I mean I didn't grow up in church, yeah all I knew was me, and I know I can do this and let's do it.
Speaker 5:You know so yeah, I mean when you're constantly left alone and having to figure things out, for I mean when I was. I can remember being just old enough to stand on my tiptoes and be able to reach the stove and turn it on yeah I'd be home alone because my mom was working swing shift as a cocktail waitress yeah and I would be making tv dinners come on pot pies and watching tv at, you know, five, six years old yeah yeah, that's you know.
Speaker 1:I was pretty self-sufficient gotta eat, man, yeah, yeah. When you're self-sufficient, what do you need? A cot for, right? I already know how to. I can take care of myself right, I mean right right. Yeah, I didn't eat until I was at a crossroad.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Like trauma or drama.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's like I'm either going this way for life or I need something else, and I found luckily he found me that way.
Speaker 5:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 5:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:So I get out in 97 and we I'm working, she's working and we end up You're going you get out and you're in colorado, okay, yeah, I heard you say something about washington from colorado, so when I was overseas, I had had her move home come on um, so she'd be with her family, smart stuff like that yeah, um, and so we, I went transition to out and I went to colorado because I'm not gonna raise my family in vegas so I saw I know what that did for me. It's a good place to be from.
Speaker 5:And we in 99, we had our son and about that time she had a really good friend who is a believer and was kind of inviting us to church and kind of reaching her hand out. And you know, I thought I think the kids need to be raised in church, I'll go for them. And so we started going to this church.
Speaker 2:Which one?
Speaker 5:It was Grace Church in Parker.
Speaker 2:Colorado. There's a Pastor, benny Perez. I don't know who's the pastor right now Up in Vegas, colorado.
Speaker 5:There's a pastor, benny Perez, I don't know. Okay, the pastor at our at, at at our time, um ended up being, uh, having some personal issues and and actually was a national like news person from some of his own personal struggles Um but when we were going um, we really, you know, it was a great community.
Speaker 4:Um.
Speaker 5:But, quite honestly, I sat there and I was like I just felt awful. I didn't want to be there. I felt like a hypocrite. I was being convicted. But you know, finally one day I was just like I'm not going to make excuses to not come, but I'm just not going to go anymore. You and the kids can go, but I'm not going. Wow, and my wife was like okay, and so she kept going. Yeah.
Speaker 2:There and so she kept going yeah, there's a lot of women that bring their kids to church, bro, and their husbands don't come. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5:And we did that for a few years and then I was like out golfing with a guy from work and we were done golfing. He asked me if I'd ever read a book series called Left Behind. Good series Tim LaHaye and I was like no, but I was a voracious reader and I was like, what's it about? And so he tells me and I'm like okay, cool and so, by the time I was through the second book, I recommitted my life to christ he's like I don't want to experience.
Speaker 2:I'm not getting left behind in armageddon, Right, right right.
Speaker 5:So it was a real like. It's what it was. It was out of fear and there still was no relationship and I would perform. You know, I was in the men's ministry. We were in couples, you know young marrieds groups. We held Bible studies at our house, but I haven't had any life change yeah I was still partying in my basement with all the guys, like it just wasn't. Yeah, I wasn't a good guy, you know, I had well, you did have.
Speaker 2:You did have some life change. I'm hearing you're doing bible studies at your house. You're in life groups, so your life is changing. But you had that hidden life that god hadn't sanctified yet I don't know.
Speaker 1:Okay, I think it was more performance going through the motions.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah, okay, I think it was more of a like we talked about from like high school you can play church and not have have salvation and life change, brother, yeah, oh, yeah, just because you're playing church doesn't mean does life change right, it was more of a role I was playing exactly kind of a of a character I was playing. How was?
Speaker 1:your marriage when you got back.
Speaker 5:Difficult.
Speaker 1:Did it take a little time to?
Speaker 5:Yeah, it took a little time to adjust and, quite honestly, our marriage has had a lot of ups and downs, some of it due to my alcoholism, my addiction, the ism, you know, and some of it because of her codependency and her control issues.
Speaker 2:Bro, 30 years, y'all have been through some stuff Him. What? 26 years, 27 years, y'all guys that have been decades with the same person, man, y'all been through some stuff, man. And the fact that you guys have made it this far, that in itself is all to the glory of god, man, because just I don't know, but these ladies are special women that stay with you, two boys for this long amen to that. Y'all are blessed. What did we say when we were drinking and doing drugs.
Speaker 1:I ain't no quitter quitters for I didn't say it but we um, we struggled yeah, you know um
Speaker 5:we, uh, I, I had to hide things a lot in our marriage because of her um own stuff, and it was a long time before I ever felt like I could be myself.
Speaker 4:Amen.
Speaker 5:It really wasn't until we both started recovery that that happened for us. And so.
Speaker 1:I love the fact that you guys didn't just give up. Yeah, it was close it seems nowadays so many people just call it quits instead of putting in the work and going through recovery and all this other stuff. You know what I? Mean Right. And it's just I don't know. I get excited when I see people like, like yourself, you've been married 30 years. Yeah, we got issues. Most people, most marriages do.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:But we're going to stick it out and we're going to work through it and we're going to figure this out. You know what I mean? I love that bro.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I mean, I don't know. A lot of it was fear. Yeah, you know a fear of that abandonment, and so you know, for whatever reason that trauma response worked out for us. Amen, but now, today, our marriage is completely different Amen, that's good bro.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you're playing church going through the motions.
Speaker 5:Playing church.
Speaker 1:No real life change. No real life change, just kind of putting on the mask yep. Wife's on the mask is your wife having true transformation.
Speaker 2:That's what I was gonna ask. What about her?
Speaker 1:yeah, because she's going transforming, yeah wow, she's got a relationship with the lord are, you are, you can, you can you look back and and realize, and and and see that oh my goodness, yes they convict you at all um. Was she bringing it home? I'm actually grateful for it, yeah. I'm actually grateful for it, because some people see their wives begin to change and they get mad.
Speaker 5:They get, bitter bro, they get bitter or they get convicted and want.
Speaker 1:Well, how come I'm not having that? You know what I mean.
Speaker 5:Yeah, no, I mean, maybe in the moved here to Arizona we were at a point where we actually at one point got in this big fight in our garage and we actually talked about divorce.
Speaker 4:Wow.
Speaker 5:So we were hanging on by a thread.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 5:So it wasn't something that I was conscious, that I was upset with her about. But to be honest, like when she would go to church or do whatever she needed to do.
Speaker 4:It was a reprieve for me because then I could do something I wanted to do. You didn't have to hide, I didn't have to hide, right, I didn't have to hide.
Speaker 5:And that was something that her and I have had to work through in our recovery and in our amends process. It's good man On both sides you know, but I wasn't experiencing any real life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the hiding part's difficult, brother. Yeah, when you're trying to hide what you're doing and you're trying to hide your addictions and you're trying to hide the stuff that you don't want her to know, it's hard, bro. Yeah, it's taxing, dude, it's exhausting.
Speaker 5:It wasn't even like I wasn't hiding any drug use or anything like that. I mean, I had a separate credit card and I would jack it up because I wanted to buy things that she wouldn't allow. Let me, yeah, you know, um, so financial stuff was pretty hard, yeah, and then it was things as simple as, like you know, I'm not I'm not 110 pounds. Right and like I'm like I want a candy bar when we see the gas, he's all hiding candy bars and she loves you, wade I'm
Speaker 2:the same way, bud, but they're sweet tarts, right, and she would get like I would get the look.
Speaker 5:Yeah, and I just got to the point where I'm like I don't even want to feel this shame anymore. So I'm just going to.
Speaker 2:That's all it takes from a woman is just a look.
Speaker 1:Put it in my pocket and then you know, eat it at home when no one's around or whatever you know. So I'm glad you said that, bro, because my wife likes her chocolate, he likes her candy, and I'm not I'm not a sweet eater, right, and I'll give her a hard time, bro. Oh man, and you just saying that part right there, it convicted me, dude, because I you know dad can be mean with it.
Speaker 2:Do you really need that Butterfinger? It's like like I'll go to the store and she's like you, give me candy bar.
Speaker 1:I'm like you can't do that for you, man.
Speaker 2:I'm not helping you hurt yourself.
Speaker 1:You said the shame part and it never dawned on me that my wife may be feeling that when I do that and I'm like, and I just now I'm like you gotta stop.
Speaker 5:Thanks for saying thanks, wade. That really got me, dude. Appreciate you, buddy. Yeah, yeah, it was bro. So we had this crazy, you know I'm.
Speaker 4:We had the typical alcoholic codependent pattern, right I'm trying to control and she's trying to control, I'm gonna change him and then the more she tries, to control the more out of control I get right, and it was just this terrible mixture.
Speaker 5:Yeah, and we're both so broken and hurt in previous relationships and in fear of abandonment one another yeah and that's kind of the glue that held us together for a lot of years was like that. That craziness yeah yeah, that fear I, I'm. I thank god that it did because she's my best friend she's the person I want to wake up with for the rest of my life, every day and.
Speaker 5:I'm grateful for the 30 years that I have done that but it was difficult at times one of the biggest gratitudes that I have is that she works a recovery program herself, because that has allowed me to finally be who.
Speaker 1:I am Come on.
Speaker 5:Without feeling this need to have a mask or be something that even I believe that she wants.
Speaker 1:Were you guys doing that in Colorado, or did that start in Arizona?
Speaker 5:No, recovery didn't start until seven years ago.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what brought you guys to Arizona?
Speaker 5:Enterprise. Oh, she brought you guys to Arizona Enterprise. Oh, she got offered a promotion and we were both so miserable. We looked at it and we're like let's do it Change, Yep.
Speaker 2:What are you doing for work? Geographic move right. What were you doing for work?
Speaker 5:I was a facilities manager for a manufactured housing communities.
Speaker 4:Nice.
Speaker 5:So I ran after I did Fire Alarm. I did that for only for two years, and then I did facilities management for 20. Nice dude. Running a warehouse no running commercial and at that time it was the only residential I ever did but mostly running big commercial and retail properties Running millions of square feet at a time. Maintaining them or just renting them both yeah yeah, yeah, I um, I didn't do any renting, I just did the um, I was the maintenance chief, yeah, yeah so I keeping it going, man, making sure everything's working that's what we do here, yeah, making sure it's all good man yeah, so when you?
Speaker 1:so when she got that opera down here, it was easy for you to to move yeah, I'm like I can work anywhere.
Speaker 5:Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1:So those jobs, are just everywhere, yeah, yeah yeah, and it was really.
Speaker 5:Uh, you know it was a geographic move on our part, right like we need something to change yeah but it actually was really beneficial because when we got here see, I've never been the kind of drinker that drinks alone- yeah. Okay.
Speaker 2:I'm the binge type alcoholic yeah.
Speaker 5:Right, I'm the party guy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, so you're not waking up first thing in the morning and pulling that bottle?
Speaker 5:out. No, that's not my type of alcoholism.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Okay, so when we we didn't know anyone, no friends, no friends. Yeah, I didn't drink for a year, wow dude.
Speaker 1:And I didn't miss it. Yeah, you know? Yeah, I didn't miss it at all.
Speaker 5:That's crazy and we had. We found a church because we were by that. We were.
Speaker 2:Where'd you move to when you moved here?
Speaker 5:Let me go back. Okay, before we left Colorado, I got to tell this story because it's a really cool God moment.
Speaker 5:We had left that Grace Church and towards the end I had actually started to develop a relationship and I actually started to really have some change some sanctification happening and actually having a relationship with the Lord, and my daughter was going to a youth group at the smaller church by our house and my wife and I were both like, hey, I'm feeling this way and she was feeling this way, that we were both supposed to leave, but we didn't talk to each other about it. We were kind of like unsure of what this feeling was.
Speaker 1:We didn't know it was the.
Speaker 5:Holy.
Speaker 4:Spirit at the time right.
Speaker 5:And so finally we had a conversation and we were like, oh my gosh, me too. Um. So we ended up said let's try this small church. So we went and we loved it, yeah, and the pastor there, um, pastor john, he uh ended up being from arizona, nice, and so when we were moving here, we asked him hey, do you have any recommendations for some churches? And he said, well, you can attend the one I started and it was Sun Valley, wow, wow. And so that was God all the way back then, working our both of our eventual surrender.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 5:And you know, when you look back on it, that's just miraculous yeah you know that little yeah nudge that's so, cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah it's funny how god that was the little church.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was the little church in cal in colorado. Yeah, wow yeah, I love how, god knows what we need what we need here yeah, ahead of time, we're here, yeah, you know what I mean and we don't see it, but it's so cool bro.
Speaker 5:Yeah. I love how God operates man. And so we moved here and we did try several small churches. We actually went for a few times in it's Tom Carlini.
Speaker 4:Yeah. We went into his home a couple times when I think was just starting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Life Church. Life Church.
Speaker 5:And then we're like it's just not we need something bigger for us. We felt weirded out because we just weren't. We're new and it was very charismatic and so we were like, let's give this one a try. And we went and Kurt Warner was giving his sermon.
Speaker 3:We were like this is a church for us. Bring him in.
Speaker 2:Whatever will bring him in, Whatever will bring him in, and then we were both like well maybe we should come back next week and see what it's really like. And that was 2007,. 2008?.
Speaker 5:Yeah, 2008.
Speaker 2:Oh, oh, the cardinals were 2007. Cardinals were really good.
Speaker 5:Right there we started and then, yeah, they were good. And then in 2008, um is when I really got plugged in to that church which campus? Uh, gilbert, yeah, okay, the main one yeah, um, I got really active with, um, uh, some of of the men in leadership. They had a group called Foundations. I got really discipled by a lot of those men who at the time you know I called them heavy hitters, big Jesus, deep pockets, right.
Speaker 5:They were like really in the spirit pockets right, like they were like really in the spirit, yeah, um, and so I learned a lot and I uh was, uh, fortunate to kind of have some stuff from my past that I started to feel convicted about. Oh wow, and so I went to the pastor and I was like I don't know what to do.
Speaker 5:Yeah, because for the first time in our history of our marriage, it's good, yeah, and I don't want to upset that yeah but I'm feeling like I'm supposed to confess yeah and so he walked me through that, and walked me through that confession, and, and then I ended up confessing wow, wow and we walked through that pain and this was prior to recovery.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so this was even prior to recovery. Oh, you're working the steps, but prior to Wow, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5:And so it was funny because I tried to get out of it.
Speaker 2:Don't we all man Get out? I think God told me to do that, don't we all?
Speaker 5:man get out of here, thank god telling you to do this? We were sitting in a room one night and I just told her you know I'm really sorry for everything that I've put you through in the past. I promise you I'm not going to do that again. I'm really sorry and I was telling her and she stopped me and she said it's okay, I know. And I was telling her and she stopped me and she said it's OK, I know, and I was like you do. She's like yeah, I forgive you. And.
Speaker 5:I was like wow, wow, thank you God, wow, cool. And then, two days later, I was in the shower and she comes in and she's crying and she says is there anything? I don't know, oh, man, oh. And so I just turned the water off, got out of the shower, sat down in the bed and told her yeah, and I'll never, ever be able to forget the cry that came from her. Yeah, from that, yeah, and we spent um that was a wailing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's real bro.
Speaker 5:And man. We spent time separate in the same house. We didn't separate outside of the house, but we separated for a time and then, you know, she was able to work through it. Through some therapy and through with God. And prayer. And she offered me forgiveness, Wow bro and yeah, it was. It's nice because there's no secrets in our marriage. Yeah Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but to see that pain that's, it stays with me. It does, bro.
Speaker 5:I don't live with it like every day, but I can recall it. Oh yeah, you know, oh yeah, and it's a good reminder that I don't want to put her through that.
Speaker 4:No, yeah, even though I have.
Speaker 5:Yeah, in different ways.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I think as men, we don't ever intentionally go out of our way to try to be hurtful.
Speaker 2:But unfortunately we're bound. We're a little rough, we're bound to this flesh. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And it has a mind of its own.
Speaker 2:And we end up finding ourselves in peculiar situations and people get hurt you know, I mean yeah, especially, as you know, as men were at least it wasn't my experience I wasn't taught how to be wow bingo right I wasn't taught you know, makes the world how to fight those battles
Speaker 5:I think, with god on my side.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5:And so it was a lot of mistakes. Yeah, a lot of mistakes, yeah.
Speaker 2:Were you able to, because it's the kids came. What it was 2004, and then 2007?
Speaker 5:2005 my daughter was born, and then 2009. I'm sorry, 1995 my daughter was born, oh, and then 99.
Speaker 2:And then 99, yeah, so the kids are 10 and and so they're still younger. Yeah, once you guys moved to arizona and you tried the churches, the kids are going to the churches yep, the kids were.
Speaker 5:They were going to the churches, even in colorado okay, um, and loving it, I love it. They both they both are believers, they both have a relationship with Christ. That's the one thing that I can say we did right and I did right. And you know my daughter, the man she just married, he's a believer, he has a relationship with.
Speaker 5:Christ. So it's nice to see that. I just had lunch with my son yesterday and we were talking about generational sin and I said you know, you have an opportunity to break it even further than I do so choose wisely yeah.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's good. So your kids are like what in their 20s now?
Speaker 5:Yeah, 25 and 29. Wow, my daughter's the oldest Dang.
Speaker 2:You raised adults bud. Good job, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5:I raised kids Some days I wasn't so sure. Yeah, I raised kids Some days I wasn't so sure I raised kids.
Speaker 1:Shut up Dad, that's true. You know what I mean. I'm maturing man. I'm growing Just the addiction. You're a late bloomer bud.
Speaker 2:The drugs and the alcohol and the lifestyle man it just destroyed for years.
Speaker 1:You had parents who didn't know what the hell they were doing bud yeah.
Speaker 5:But, I'll tell you the truth. It is true what Joel promises, right.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, I will restore. Here's the locusts I've eaten, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5:Because I'm experiencing it in my life right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what year did you guys start to celebrate recovery? So, who started first?
Speaker 5:My wife, really my wife.
Speaker 1:Really.
Speaker 5:Yeah, so that gets us into like kind of the end.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's go into your recovery journey, bro, and where you're at now, yeah, Well, we're up to that point ain't we.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, do we miss anything? No, no, no, no.
Speaker 5:So, in between what we're getting into now and the time when we had that confession moment, my wife and I served faithfully. We, my wife and I, served faithfully. We actually led the marriage ministry at Sun Valley and we mentored couples Wow.
Speaker 5:In premarital sessions. We had couples that worked under us, that we trained, that I trained. Wow, I became a facilitator for a premarital program. Wow, we had a thriving ministry and it really God nudged me to try a new direction. I had previously used my GI Bill to finish my bachelor's degree. That's something that I wanted to do. But now he was calling me to something higher and he put it on my heart to go to get my master's degree in counseling.
Speaker 5:Come on and so I did Wow, I went to Liberty University. Liberty Liberty Modified. I did Wow, I went to Liberty University.
Speaker 2:Liberty. I did a modified distance schedule. Yeah.
Speaker 5:And I graduated in 2014.
Speaker 4:Come on man.
Speaker 5:And that's what I've been working as, as a trauma therapist, ever since. Wow, but in 2014,. That was the high of 2014. Yeah, but 2014 started a series of really terrible lows. In 2014, I lost my grandfather in august. He actually died on my birthday I got the call on my birthday, wow um
Speaker 2:the one who you were really close with?
Speaker 5:yeah, he was basically my dad um or your male, yeah, yeah we had a strange relationship for about the last seven months because he was starting to get really bad Alzheimer's and he wouldn't take help for it and he would get really ugly and mean. So I had to set boundaries with him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because it can hurt yeah.
Speaker 5:And so I got a call. I had just talked to him the week before. It was the first time I spoke to him in like seven months and he told me he wasn't doing well and he wanted to move here, and so I said okay, I'm going to start, I'm going to find you a place. I was looking, I interviewed places. A week later I get the call wow, they found him deceased in a welfare. Oh wow. So I was devastated. I was a lot of guilt, yeah beating myself Beating myself up.
Speaker 5:It's my fault, all of that, yeah.
Speaker 2:Because you didn't get him out of the situation and because I didn't do it sooner.
Speaker 5:Oh man, I didn't have more time. Yeah, all of these things, right, ah. And then in the end, about a month later, I was working one night and I was doing my internship. I did child therapy and so I was playing a game with a kid on the floor and I got up to leave. I was the last one and my right foot, I tripped over something in the hallway and I turned around there's nothing there. I was like that's weird, and so I lock up and I go in. At the time I drove a Jeep and I get in my Jeep and I started up and I realized I can't pull my foot off the accelerator.
Speaker 2:Wow, oh, you're a key oh wow, because I had in 2010,.
Speaker 5:I had back surgery because I hurt my back really bad in the Navy, but the discs had gone.
Speaker 4:Wow.
Speaker 5:And so I had to have spinal fusion at the end of 2014. Wow, so that was. September.
Speaker 2:Spinal fusion yeah, l5 and s1 lower vertebrae fused. So that was, you got like metal in there and oh, wow bro, god can heal and remove all that stuff. Dude.
Speaker 5:Yeah bro, we got a good god, I believe he can, but I believe sometimes his answer is no. Yeah, amen, right, um, and so I had a three-month recovery of that. Heavy opiates wow big time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, started really enjoying them, yeah oh yeah, yeah, I'll take you to funny land real quick, bud. Yeah, is that the first time you had started to struggle with downers?
Speaker 5:um no, and for me they're not downers.
Speaker 1:It's the weirdest thing they have multiple effects on people I am euphoric when I'm on them. Oh yeah, oh wow I know people that did heroin. They'd fall out. I knew other people that did heroin. They looked like they were on meth. Yeah, you know what I mean. So it's different.
Speaker 5:For everyone but um ended the prescriptions. It was fine, Got through it. And in December, so it's September. Right, Get through. I'm released from everything in December. In December I went to a dermatologist visit because I had this little thing on my face and my supervisor at the time was like you should go get that checked out. So I was like all right. So I went in, went in and they're like we're gonna look at your face. I was like can you just do a whole check while I'm here?
Speaker 5:you know, I've I'm light skin freckled, I've been sunburned you know terribly, probably a good thing to check yeah, so they check this. They're like, oh, it's nothing. And uh, then they're doing a full body check. The lady's chatting with me, we're talking and you know she gets around to my back and she just stops and goes oh, and I was like oh what does that mean? Yeah, she goes well. I don't want to worry you, but I think this is melanoma. She's like I going to have the doctor come in. We're going to do a biopsy right now.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 5:And I was like, okay, what's melanoma? Yeah, she's like, well, it's cancer, but it's like the kind we have to work on right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So, I was like okay.
Speaker 5:Was it like a skin? Probably about the size of a quarter.
Speaker 4:Really and um.
Speaker 5:So they took the biopsy and I got a call from the surgeon, from the dermatologist, at eight, eight o'clock that night. It's like a week before Christmas.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 5:And he's like, and we were going to Colorado that year.
Speaker 4:Oh man.
Speaker 5:And he's like um call the surgeon tomorrow. It's uh, it is um positive for melanoma and we need to get you in surgery immediately, wow, um jesus and I was like, okay, he's like I go, can I go to colorado? And then can we do it after the first year he goes he goes you need to do it now or you could lose your life. Wow, like it's serious. Yeah, um, and so I was like okay, so I sent the family to colorado and I um went to the surgeon consult.
Speaker 5:And then he's like, okay, we're going to do it next week, and we did it the day after we got back from Colorado.
Speaker 2:Wow, so you were able to go to Colorado.
Speaker 5:I was able to go, but I had to stay for the consult to get the surgery scheduled, and so then I had that and I had this big surgery on my back, and so I heal up from that.
Speaker 1:Just out of curiosity, what did that look like? The melanoma?
Speaker 5:It was just this big, like discolored black and different colors red. All right Like rough edges Like they're not smooth edges. Yeah, If you haven't gotten to a dermatologist, I highly recommend it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I've been to one. I highly recommend it.
Speaker 5:You smooth edges? Yeah, if you haven't gotten to dermatologist, I highly recommend it. Yeah, I highly recommend it. You know um it. It saved my life. Honestly, and take care of yourself people.
Speaker 1:That's right. Get your doctor to visits in. I just started doing mine regularly. Good job, buddy, better late than never.
Speaker 2:It's important they would make fun of me.
Speaker 1:Man, I'm getting, I'm going and getting all my doctors if I, if I don't feel like I need a doctor, why the hell am I going?
Speaker 2:to go to a doctor.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 4:So I never did Preventative care.
Speaker 1:And then that was a year ago I got diagnosed with high blood pressure.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:And so now my doctor's like when was the last visit? I'm like, dude, you got to stay on top of this. I'm like, oh man, you know what I mean. So now I got one on the 16th for my annual visit.
Speaker 5:Good, I'm glad, so I'm learning how so I had that, yeah, we get through New Year's. I'm working again 2009.
Speaker 2:We're in.
Speaker 5:This is 2015.
Speaker 2:Oh gee, sorry bud. I'm bad with dates, bro, it's okay. I'm bad with dates, bro, it's okay. I have a lot of dates in my cell 2015.
Speaker 1:No issue coming off the oipoids.
Speaker 5:Nope, I got through them again.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 5:Liked them a little bit more this time. Any refills.
Speaker 2:As many as I could get. We got to watch this one.
Speaker 5:Then I was seeing a naturopathic doctor at the time and they switched my blood pressure meds. And so it was February of 2015 and I'm like, hey, my blood pressure is not doing well with this. Can we switch the meds?
Speaker 5:and so she's like, yeah, because the one that I was on also made me cough all the time and so she told me, don't take them tonight or don't take them today and then in the morning take the new one, like cool. So I went to work and I came home and I'm sitting on my recliner and my laptop out and I'm trying to do a note from the day from a client and I can't transpose what I'm thinking to my keyboard. I can't write it wow and I tell my wife. I said I think there's something wrong. Can you get my blood pressure cuff?
Speaker 5:because I just didn't feel good yeah so we take my blood pressure and it was 220 over 180, good lord, and so holy jesus I call my naturopath and I'm like what do I do? And she says well, take your old meds. And so I did. And she's like call me in an hour. So I did, took my blood pressure again 220 over 180. Did not come down at all.
Speaker 2:For an hour. For over an hour, and so I was like what do I do, man, you're freaking out, what do I do?
Speaker 5:And and so I was like what do I do, Freaking out, what do I do? And she goes. Well, try to get some sleep, oh my.
Speaker 2:God, I've seen how it makes you See what it's like in the morning. How are you supposed to go to sleep in that state?
Speaker 5:I don't know You're all freaking. I did. I woke up the next morning still 220.
Speaker 2:I think it was over 190, 190 this time.
Speaker 5:Oh my god, bro. And so I call her and I'm like it's still the same. What do I need to do? And she's like well, take your old med again. Like so it would have been a double dose yeah, so I was like okay, so I did it, and then I went to work. I drove myself to work wow and I walked into my therapy office and my supervisor at the time she saved my life.
Speaker 2:She was a registered nurse as well, and she as soon as you walked in she saw she's like dude, she goes what's going on?
Speaker 5:Those are words. And I told her and she goes. I want you to do this. I want you to go in your office. I want you to lie on the couch on your right side and lay there until I come get you. I'm going to drive you to the hospital. I said, well, I drove, I can drive myself.
Speaker 5:She's you cannot drive yourself um, and so we went to the hospital. She dropped me up, we called, she called my wife and had my wife meet us there. And you know, prior to this I had started going to a cardiologist when I was 40 because it runs in my family. Uh, my, my, my paternal grandfather passed away in his 40s from a massive heart attack. So I was trying to be proactive and everything was always normal yeah so I'm in the er and it's not getting any better.
Speaker 5:And by this time this whole left side, this whole arm, everything's just numb, oh wow it feels like it's. It's not even numb, like when your foot goes to sleep.
Speaker 2:It just feels like it's not there.
Speaker 5:Yeah, oh god and uh and they do all these battery of tests and everything comes back normal what in the world?
Speaker 2:stress test like everything normal I can't feel my arm, nothing, it's not normal, yeah and that's exactly what I said, because they were going to discharge me.
Speaker 5:What the hell, and I like. Is there anything else we can do, because we have pretty good insurance and I want to make sure we exhaust every option because this isn't right. And they said well, we can do a dye test, but I don't think the doctor's going to order it because all your other tests are normal. So you tell them to order it because my insurance will cover it.
Speaker 5:And so they did, and so they did, and at the time we didn't know if it was anything serious or not. So my wife was like I have a hair appointment and I was like go right, go, do that, take care of yourself. And I'm like laying in bed watching TV. And they come in and the doctor sits on the side of the bed and grabs my hand.
Speaker 2:Oh.
Speaker 5:God, this isn't good. And like we're going to move you to the icu, like you have a 90 block in your left coronary artery and an 80 block in the right. The widow maker, wow, she's like. You're actually like we don't know how you're still here wow um, and so they took me to icu.
Speaker 5:the next day I had the left side done, four, I had three stents put in that one, and and then the day after that I had the right side done. I had a stent put in that one. Wow, and then that led to, you know, months of cardiac rehab and all of that Dang bro. So I'm oh, I'm not done. This is the. This is the most insanity.
Speaker 1:Like God had to get my attention. You're only two years older than me and I'm dealing with high blood pressure, so, yeah, I'm like good Lord. Yeah, you go get a check, yeah.
Speaker 5:But you know, I think that's what God had to use to really get a hold of me. Wow.
Speaker 2:God uses two things in life to get his kids bro. He uses the love of God and he uses the fear of God and with me I had grown up in fear with my father fear was not something that god was gonna.
Speaker 2:I actually had to experience his love. Yeah, his love allowed me to come and it sounds like from your story, bro, you're sharing about how the fear of the lord really it was kind of your awakening and now all this, this health stuff and these health scares, like you said, man, god's's really showing, making you see the importance of life.
Speaker 5:I guess I think what the purpose was for me to finally acknowledge that he's in charge. Wow, not me, oh, because Come on, buddy. Even though I had a relationship with him.
Speaker 2:You were still doing what you wanted to do.
Speaker 5:But he wasn't really my lord, my lord man, so he had to stop me yeah right and yeah, so I get done with that. And then my foot dropped again oh no and it turns out one of the pins in the surgery went was pushing on the nerve, so I had to have another back surgery oh dang and so after all and I had other stuff too it was a little more minor. But after all of this stuff, like by the end of it, I was completely 100 hooked on opiates yeah and I was doing everything in my power to to get them I didn't know.
Speaker 5:I was too scared to go down to. Like me, you know yeah, you know yeah so I I went to the only dealer I knew, which was the doctor's.
Speaker 2:This is your first time in addiction addiction.
Speaker 5:In that type of addiction.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 5:And so I started hurting myself on purpose.
Speaker 2:Wow, like breaking bones and snapping.
Speaker 5:Not to that extent. Well, a little.
Speaker 3:You'll hear in a second just how crazy my crazy is.
Speaker 5:Give me some for the pain, you'll hear just how crazy my crazy is, um, but uh, no, like I'm, because I'm on such heavy blood thinners because of my stents that I've smashed my hand in a car door and then it'd swell up. Yeah, admit me overnight. And then they pump you full of stuff and then get a prescription to take home, or you know what have you? Yeah, um, and the insanity, right is that I didn't see it. I couldn't see that I was doing anything wrong.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5:I just I knew I didn't want to feel the way I felt anymore.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 5:And I was miserable, and it was. It really went back to that loss of my grandfather.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 5:I was in such despair that I just couldn't face it. Yeah, I was in such despair that I just couldn't face it. And instead of having and not having the relationship where I could just turn it over to father, I did what I could to survive. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That's why a lot of people end up in addiction, brother, they don't want to deal with the shame and the guilt and all the things they got. They rather just numb it out.
Speaker 2:It's hard to trust God. Yeah, it's hard to really trust him, man, and let him just kind of.
Speaker 1:Especially when you're used to doing it all on yourself.
Speaker 4:Yeah, dude yeah.
Speaker 1:Self-sufficiency.
Speaker 2:It's our default mode.
Speaker 4:I mean, we get in a situation.
Speaker 1:Instead of leaning into God, we go back to what we know to do.
Speaker 5:Right, I can fix it. Yeah, right, yeah. And so I actually had talks with my wife during this time and I was like I think I'm addicted. I'm like I think I need help.
Speaker 2:This is a couple years. Yeah Down 15, 16.
Speaker 5:So this is 2015 to 2017.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 5:Okay, and during that time, you know, I would have those talks with her and she's like no, it's fine, you know you're able to. You're able to stop when you need to and she's in denial yeah um, and so I'm trying to kind of be honest as as honest as I can at the time. Yeah, yeah and she's like and then I'd be like, okay, well, screw it codependency.
Speaker 5:I'm gonna get more right um, and so it all came to a head in, uh, on July 26, 2017 or June, I'm sorry, june 26, 2017 my son turned 18 on June 24th and our relationship during those years also was really strained yeah um, I was in active addiction. I wasn't, I wasn't present, I was hard to be around it was hard for him to watch me yeah it's hard for him to watch me almost die and have been in and out of all these hospitals. He was hurting. I would all of the things. Wow bro.
Speaker 5:And I had this really kind of difficult relationship with my son because I grew up always wanting a father and so when I had a son I kind of, in this weird way, transposed all that need onto him, Like I'm going to have this perfect relationship with my child, that's gonna make up for me not having a dad yeah so put a lot of expectation on him a lot of, a lot of need to fulfill my needs yeah right, which is the exact opposite of what it should be right, yeah, um, and so for his 18th birthday, I'd always thought like, oh, we're gonna throw him this big party and it's gonna be like.
Speaker 5:He's gonna be like I love you, dad, right? He didn't even want to be in the house for the party wow for his birthday wow, and I was in my selfishness and self-centered.
Speaker 5:I was devastated right, I couldn't see how much my wife was hurting. I couldn't see how much he was hurting. It was all about me. Yeah and dang dude, I was so hurt by it. I was like it was the final straw for me. And so I wasn't. And I want to clarify this it was not his actions that was the final straw for me yeah. It was my own selfishness.
Speaker 2:Your expectations? Yeah, because he did nothing wrong.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah and.
Speaker 5:I really want to clarify that, because I'm going to send this down to listen. Yeah.
Speaker 2:It was really want to clarify that because I'm going to send this damn to listen. Yeah, it was. It was in your, in your mind, bro. Yeah, you had this. This can't be this big thing. When it wasn't this big thing.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it was for some, whatever reason, that was the final domino, the fall yeah um, and so I woke up that monday morning, the 26th, and I loaded my weapon wow I put one whip, one round into it because I didn't want anybody to find a loaded gun and I drove to a hospital parking lot because I didn't want anybody that wasn't medical personnel to find me.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 5:And then I sat in my car for six hours and fought the devil trying not to kill myself. Wow, what the heck. It felt like I was being controlled.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and.
Speaker 5:I would fight it. And then I was like no, and I turned my phone location off. I turned my phone off my wife's freaking out, she doesn't know where I am. I told her I lost my job that day. I called my job and told them I quit. So it was just I was gone.
Speaker 2:I had the plan. Yeah, you were checking out.
Speaker 5:And so I sat in that hospital parking lot for six hours and I knew that if I broke a bone, they wouldn't be able to save my life because of my blood. Yeah, um, and so I didn't. In my delusional thinking, I thought well, at least it'll be okay because they'll be able to have an open casket yeah so I didn't do it in the head, but what I did was eventually I I put it right on top of the femur well damn wow and um, I mean literally where the wound is.
Speaker 5:You can feel the bone right underneath it and only by the grace of god that it didn't hit it. Wow, and I drove my car because immediately as soon as I did it, I I woke up and I was like that was a bad idea.
Speaker 5:Wow just shot yourself and I drove to the doors of the hospital parking lot in the er and I made it into the between the sliding door and the second sliding door and there was wheelchairs there and I passed out into the wheelchair wow and they got me, and they got me, rushed me back, and by the time they got me back that couple of minutes, my blood pressure was already only 70 over 20 dang, I had almost bled out, wow um, and so I ended up having three weeks in. They had to medevac me over to chandler regional because it's a level one trauma center yeah um, and I had three weeks in the hospital.
Speaker 5:The first two, my wife says I was conscious, but I don't remember them because I was heavily heavily, heavily doped up. And the third week when I woke up, just like the big book says right, I couldn't recall the memory or moment of suffering from a week ago, wow. I was great.
Speaker 4:I was high again.
Speaker 5:I felt great, I was like ordering a pizza to the room I was partying. I couldn't see that no one was showing up to see how I was. Wow, I couldn't see that my son couldn't, couldn't come. I couldn't see that my wife didn't want to be there more than a couple minutes.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I was just lost in my addiction.
Speaker 5:Yeah, and so I got out and my wife had been attending CR.
Speaker 4:Wow.
Speaker 5:And also Al-Anon.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 5:And she came. So I was out a week and at the end of that week, because all I did that week was I laid at home and just ate my pills, and by that time I was just eating them. But I started sniffing too. It gets quicker.
Speaker 5:And that Friday, that last Friday, she, as she was leaving for work, she came and she handed me a list of rehabs and she said it's either this or us, but we, I'm not doing this anymore. Wow, she had, she had gotten to her bottom, yeah, and had that, that surrender, where she surrendered me and was able to set some boundaries with me. And so, in my insanity, in my disease, I looked at all our finances that day. I looked at how am I going to split this marriage up Because she can't?
Speaker 4:tell me what to do. I'm fine.
Speaker 5:And then God gave me another moment of clarity in my life where I realized what are you doing? You're going to throw away at this time? Was it 2017? So 24 years of marriage over this Wow.
Speaker 5:And so I called the rehabs and I set up a tour for them on Saturdays and we went to two and toured them, and then on Sunday that day, the next day, we came home and my son and I got in this big fight and I said some awful things to him. Wow, and my wife did the typical you go downstairs, you stay up here and she's up there trying to comfort him and he had a part.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 5:You know, I'm not blaming the victim or anything.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I said some really hurtful things.
Speaker 5:Yeah, and I realized I gotta leave. Yeah, I need to do this now. Yeah, and so I went and packed a bag and when she came down, I was supposed to go in the next day and I said you just need to take me now and I'm done, and that was my bottom come on and the miraculous thing is I mean I had been.
Speaker 5:You're talking like huge amounts of opiates, huge amounts and I had been through withdrawals many times during this whole rollercoaster. The moment I said I'm done, you got delivered. I put it in.
Speaker 2:God's hands. I said I'm done, you got delivered.
Speaker 5:I put it in God's hands. I was delivered.
Speaker 2:Delivered.
Speaker 5:I didn't have one, one um whatchamacallit. Yeah, dt bro.
Speaker 2:Yeah, one withdrawal symptom, yeah.
Speaker 5:I didn't even have any. I didn't have any uh like biological symptoms.
Speaker 4:Wow.
Speaker 2:I slept well in rehab.
Speaker 5:Yeah, you know, I started I was introduced to the 12 Steps there. What rehab did you go to? I went to the River Source, okay Down in. Calcigran, wow, arizona City actually. Yeah, and I got a sponsor, I started working the Steps, I started to connect with God on a deeper level than I ever had before. I actually began to really understand the relationship with him. My life changed.
Speaker 4:I had this kind of two-step dance, going with it my whole life. Who knew.
Speaker 5:All it took was me to say okay.
Speaker 1:He was there. When you look back and reflect on that, I can see you getting emotional man. Um damn, I mean you just like I don't know bro, I've been, I've been pretty bad in addiction, never got to a place like that, you know. I mean yeah, um, yeah, that's deep bro, yeah it's um sick and tired of
Speaker 5:hurting the people around you.
Speaker 1:It is bro, it is, it really is yeah. I don't want to side with that fact any day no that's one of the first things I think about a miracle you're lucky that the opioids didn't get you and that that bullet didn't get you you know what I mean it's. It's only by the grace of God, brother.
Speaker 5:Oh, that's it and then. So I knew.
Speaker 1:Because that addiction is different than other addictions bro. Oh my gosh man, Usually there's only a couple ways out of that, and that's death or prison. You know, what I mean Very rarely do you? See somebody come out of an opioid addiction kind of I don't want to use the word, I don't know what, I think it was naturally. Yeah, you know what I mean. Uh, usually it ends up in prison where you can still have your opioids or your obd or your d and die.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean so the fact that you came out of it just naturally, without having to go those ways, it's only by the grace of god, brother oh yeah, it's only by the grace of God, brother.
Speaker 5:Oh yeah, it's not something I would side up once I would committed. Once I surrendered, I grabbed hold of recovery with both hands. Yeah, it was the thing I've been missing my entire life. It's the only place where I've ever felt accepted and loved and normal. Right, yeah, among the broken people. Yeah, felt accepted and loved and normal.
Speaker 4:Right yeah.
Speaker 2:Among the broken people yeah.
Speaker 5:And and only through my wife having her own recovery Do I have that feeling at home. Yeah, Right Um man and uh, it's been, it's been amazing yeah.
Speaker 4:You know, I, I.
Speaker 5:I went through the steps, steps um with my first sponsor and I attended the first year that I was in recovery. I 2018 2000, yeah, 2017 to 2018 okay um, I, I had we, we were fortunate enough to have the ability that I didn't have to work, yeah, and I solely focused on recovery. So I did 30 days inpatient.
Speaker 2:I did 90 meetings in 30 days um php I did three months of iop.
Speaker 5:Then I started doing, you know, outpatient therapy with just my therapist and um, I went to that first year I did way more than 90, 90, ready idy. I did one to two meetings almost daily Wow.
Speaker 2:It works. If you work it, man, with very few exceptions. Yeah Right, you were getting what you needed at that time. Yeah, that's what you needed.
Speaker 5:God put a bunch of men in my life that are sober, that work the program, and I clung on to them. Wow Right, that's good.
Speaker 2:I spent every day with them.
Speaker 5:Yeah, that's good, and it's what I needed. Yeah, you know, I began to forgive myself, I began to love myself. Through the process I began to have that, like I said, that walk with the Lord that I have today.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 5:You know, which isn't perfect. So those of you that are out there listening, right.
Speaker 1:We're talking about perfection here.
Speaker 4:Right, we're still human. I scrub daily, right.
Speaker 5:And I believe it or not, I still take my wool back pretty much daily too. But it was that piece that the word is serenity. And I had never experienced that, and so, like any good addict, i'm'm gonna go after it as hard as I can, because I like the effect it produces yep right, just like I did with drugs and alcohol yeah, me and ratty tell people all the time man, as hard as we went to chase a drug, we need to be that hard chasing jesus.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it can't be no we get saved and just want to sit in a chair dude do something right, right, yeah, no, that's true I think it takes a I think it takes revelation, uh, from the lord to understand the depths of what we've been given.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know and what's the verse? Say he who has been forgiven much forgives much. Right, you know what I mean, right?
Speaker 5:And sometimes we we still have the scales, even though we may be in recovery or maybe we be maybe, you know, following Jesus, um, but we still have those skills. We still have secrets. I think the secrets keep the scales on Until you truly surrender, like everything you know. When I surrendered, when I went into rehab and I surrendered in rehab, I was ready to lose my family. I was ready to lose everything. Yeah, if that's what was necessary. Yeah, that's surrender.
Speaker 4:Yeah, right.
Speaker 5:Yeah, because my way doesn't work. Yeah, you know, yeah, and I knew and trusted the Lord enough even at that time that I knew that he will restore what I have screwed up. Yeah. Right, yeah, I just have to trust him in the process.
Speaker 1:I think that's where a lot of us miss out on is the is that we still try to cling to things without fully surrendering. It's a partial surrender. You know what I mean? Yeah. God. I'll surrender this to you, but I'm gonna hold this, I'm gonna, you know, you can have this area, but don't touch my family, or you know what I mean? And it's it's in that complete fullness of if you, if you got to take it all and you're all I have, then I'm good as long as I got you.
Speaker 5:You know, I mean yeah, and, and coming through this miracle, because it's really the only word for what happened when I shot myself yeah. It was divine intervention.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 5:I now. I knew even in that moment, that first moments in rehab, that I was here for a purpose.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 5:And so not only did I work that first year of recovery, but I continue to work my recovery that way. You know I don't. I'm not saying I attend a meeting every day, but I work the meetings that I go to.
Speaker 4:I serve yeah Right the meetings that I go to.
Speaker 5:I'm active.
Speaker 4:Yeah, right.
Speaker 5:I reach my hand out. You know the responsibility prayer of AA says when anyone anywhere reaches out for help, I always want the hand of AA to be there yeah. For that responsible and I believe that I just did a. I had the privilege of doing a 12 step call to a hospital the other day and it was. It was the first time I had been kind of back in that intensive like I was in and it. It was really like a God moment.
Speaker 1:I was like wow thank you, lord, you brought me out of here.
Speaker 5:And I get those moments all the time in working with folks that I sponsor.
Speaker 1:Come on now Serving stuff like that I tell people all the time that I meet them in recovery I'm like, whatever you're coming out of, be prepared to go back.
Speaker 5:Oh, you're going to go back in it.
Speaker 1:God's going to take you back to help pull somebody else out of that. That's right, because now you have the way to do it.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean the know-how. I know how to do this, I did this, let me show you.
Speaker 1:Let me show you and I don't care if it's sexual abuse, alcohol, drugs, whatever it is that God is bringing you out of. Be ready to go back, man.
Speaker 5:Right, there's a reason I go to jails and prisons, and stuff like that. You know what I mean and that's important that we do our own work, that we do this internal healing process. Not only do we commit to Christ and we give him all that, but if necessary, we do our therapy we do our trauma work we do these type of things so that we can be healthy enough and we can be insulated when we go back into those places right because that's what, that's what God calls us to be right he doesn't tell us to isolate yeah, he says be insulated.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, but I want you in those dark places you got to go with people I like, because I got to say I got my radical jesus. Encounter is 2014 and team challenge and I meet jesus dude and my whole life changes. They even he's like dude, you're different, bro. And so I was 15, I go out to California, 16, I'm out there, 17, I'm out there and I come back and I started drinking and drinking and then I it ends up. I start beating myself up and I messed up God and I go back into my addiction. And it's only by the grace of god man, yeah, that I was able to to make it out the other side, but him kicking me out and telling me dude, you gotta go bro. He was even coming here having talks with pastor dave. He knows what he's doing is stupid, what the heck's he doing? And pastor, just, you just gotta let him do what he's doing. Man Right, and I, I, I didn't. I was in self-destruction and self-sabotage, but the Lord used that mess to break me Right, I hadn't been broken.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I my teen challenge, the men's homes in California speak life and and Coming Back and the ministry out in Pastor Bill. We were just doing the stuff Right. We were doing it, but there was nobody that was with us doing it. We were still living alone in our lives. It was just us and our family. We weren't in community, we weren't in life groups, we didn't have people. Now we have people that we can go back into those situations with around us. Yeah, but that's why I'm so thankful for for you, for, like you're saying, being insulated, it's the community.
Speaker 5:Yeah, you can't live life alone, yeah no, no, we can't, at least I can't, no, I can't.
Speaker 1:What is it step 11 that says uh, you who are led by stairs, should you know somebody? Slips and fall you should restore them gently, but be, careful that you don't fall too.
Speaker 5:You know what I mean. Yeah, yeah, it's very true, right? I have never felt more a part of more that I have a family.
Speaker 2:Come on bro.
Speaker 5:Than I ever have, since I've been in recovery Come on bro Than I ever have since.
Speaker 4:I've been in recovery. Come on.
Speaker 5:And what that has allowed me to understand and part of my own personal journey in healing is now because I have this feeling of belonging and acceptance, I can actually begin to see God as Father.
Speaker 4:Come on, that's so good.
Speaker 5:Because, prior to all of this, I did not connect with him as father at all there's a question that sometimes is asked is right who do you most identify with right God, father Jesus or the Holy Spirit? Yeah and it was for me, it would never have been God, because we see, we see God. We have this relationship with God based upon the lens of our own experience with our earthly family.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yes, sir, right yeah.
Speaker 5:And that's why I love. I think the guys in the 30s that wrote the big book really knew what they were doing, and sometimes people what I'll call religious people get really upset when you talk about the big book because it's like that's not Jesus. If you ever read it. Jesus is all through the big book. That's just a little bonus for you.
Speaker 4:You should pick it up and read it.
Speaker 5:But when they use the words a God of my own understanding. That is such a profound statement.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 5:Because what most of us don't realize is that we all have a God of our own understanding. Yeah, his name might be the same for you I and Rowdy right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, but it's Jesus right, but our understandings are all different, but our understanding of him is completely different.
Speaker 5:Completely, and that's based upon our human experience.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's based upon our human experience. Yeah, the lens is through. See through life.
Speaker 5:Yeah, and perspective.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we have this.
Speaker 1:I have this men's group that I meet with on Thursday nights and we've been stuck in Galatians four and it talks about the adoption and the sonship Right, and what I'm finding is we spent like two weeks talking about this and what I'm finding is is that if you relate that to a real life adoption in life right, right, you can adopt a young man and have him be your son, but unless he, unless his heart is really transforming to accepting you as father, the dynamic is never really going to work. You know what I mean? Yeah, so we have to have this heart transformation to where we can see god as father and accept him as father and allow him to have the authority and the position of being father to father us. Yeah, we can be adopted sons to God and build rebellious and be all these different things and never really experienced the promises of God.
Speaker 5:Right, we can be prodigals.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it's not until we say our heart shifts and we're like surrendered father Right, you know, I mean, there really is a hard ships and we're like surrendered father, right, you know I mean. There really is a heart position where we're father right, you know what I mean. And it's not until that moment when that adoption and the sonship, the inheritance that we have, with the promises that god has given us, becomes reality sure and in my experience, just my experience, yeah the only way that for that to happen for me was was through this path of pain.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, come on baby.
Speaker 5:And I and I mentioned prodigals just a minute ago, but but that's, I think that's very just a great visual. I keep that in mind all the time for myself, because the one who got it at the end was not the one who lived the high life the whole time.
Speaker 4:Yeah, right, yeah.
Speaker 5:And the father didn't love either of them differently.
Speaker 1:No, right no.
Speaker 5:But that transformation that you're speaking of only came from the pain that the prodigal son experienced.
Speaker 1:Whether it was self-inflicted or not. His was self-inflicted, like mine, like ours, yeah.
Speaker 2:That's really good.
Speaker 1:Wade.
Speaker 2:That's really good, buddy.
Speaker 1:That's beautiful.
Speaker 2:So recovery journey, man, we've got your all the craziness shooting yourself in the leg. Man, god, your wife, man, she is a, she's a soldier, soldier, bro, she's definitely your ride or die man she is.
Speaker 5:Yeah, you're, you're blessed there, my road dog um share with us.
Speaker 2:Man what? Because you're still young, bro, your dad's age, man? You guys got another 20, 30 years on this planet. The guys call for ministry. We don't retire boys, we refire in our next season so what's god putting in your heart, man, what's in your spirit, bro?
Speaker 5:um. So currently we're in kind of a little bit of a different phase of life. You know, we're empty nesters for the first time, um, and so that's been a little bit of a an adjustment. It's been fun, um, but it's an adjustment, and we're also coming to the kind of the end of especially, uh, maybe my wife's career at enterprise and, and so there's going to be life change coming there, so we're not really sure what that's going to look like. Um, my business is, uh, is doing well, god providing I keep being able to help those in need and pain, and so I'm going to continue to do that. Just recently, I have a business partner that I own a group practice with, and we were licensed by the state of Arizona as a DHS facility this year and our goal is to open up an intensive outpatient for adolescent mental health Come on man and we want to serve adolescents, helping the younger.
Speaker 2:Yes, man.
Speaker 5:Not co-occurring, because there's tons of stuff for substance use in the Valley, but we see a need for a true, just mental health focus.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 5:Along with having groups for like social skills come on. It's really good man out of their, out of the computers, out of their phones, off the screens in the tvs, yeah, in the life learn how to to have conversations in in person come on and how to actually it's really good.
Speaker 2:Socialize, uh, in the next generation, the, the younger one, I've heard, uh, the, what is it? This?
Speaker 5:there's a lot man, but it's all in their minds, yeah, and so that's really good that you're well since since 2020, there's been an what I consider to be an epidemic of loneliness not only in adolescence, but across the board in in adults as well yeah um. People are struggling yeah you know. So I find it a real privilege to be able to have that called upon my life, where I can sit with folks and help them.
Speaker 1:Help them. I think the dilemma that you're talking about is this fact that we can connect with anybody sitting at home on our phones, on our computers, all these different things but we never really have what we're doing right now, right, a face-to-face conversation, where you can sit in your room and be talking to 30 people on a video game, but you look around and nobody's there, you're, all alone in the dark, even though you're communicating with 30 different people.
Speaker 1:You know I mean, and I think the reality is you're going to see more of that coming, because these kids are going to grow up to be adults and eventually have to go work and provide for themselves and they're going to feel so awkward and out of place because they spent the last five years in front of a tv in front of a screen. No, you know what I mean. And I have a daughter that's 22 and she's learning that right now.
Speaker 5:Yeah, even schooling, like even I'm I do.
Speaker 2:Oh the homeschool, bro. Well that but.
Speaker 5:I also provide telehealth for some clients, but I won't do it with clients that are new.
Speaker 2:Yeah For the simple fact you want to see them I want to meet them. Yeah, I want to have this interaction with me.
Speaker 5:That's good, bro, come on, that's good Because I can get you to someone that would be a better fit. That's so good.
Speaker 2:That's kind of like our pastor bro. He's like if this ain't for you, we'll help you find one.
Speaker 5:That is man. That's real good, buddy, because I can't be the guy for everybody, yeah.
Speaker 4:God has certain open palms bud with me open palms.
Speaker 5:Sometimes it's I bring someone in and it's not a good fit. Yeah, come on. So um, I think you know that telehealth thing is also kind of dangerous yeah for me yeah because, people are lying fib and tell stories and make things up.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah, yeah and you know it's it's just difficult. So there's that I have the privilege right now of serving as the Arizona Mental Health Ambassador. So what that means is I get to go to these various CRs and help them get a mental health ministry or an ambassador for their own CR going.
Speaker 2:Come on man.
Speaker 5:We're having actual mental health groups that are focused on mental health and it's a it is a big push within the CR community from national to get this done. I got at, you guys know, at this past year summit. I got to be on a panel, I got to be with the national team.
Speaker 2:The head honchos, the big dogs. It was really great with the national team. The head honchos, the big dogs.
Speaker 5:It was really great. It was uh, it was not only uh um, a, really a really good affirmation for me that I'm doing what God wants me to do but it was also really nice to to really they really welcomed me because I was the new guy.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 5:And um, and I felt really welcomed and loved and you know we all communicate still and you know reach out and do all that, and it's just been a privilege.
Speaker 1:When you say you have mental health groups, what are you talking about?
Speaker 5:Okay, so at—.
Speaker 1:Say, we had somebody at RCR who's really struggling with mental health issues and they need a different type of environment or different type of setting to help them. What would that look like for them? Is that what you're talking about? Kind of?
Speaker 5:Kind of so within CRs that have multiple groups. Right, if you have large enough CR to have multiple groups. We, like at the CRI I attend, we have a group that's specifically general issues, slash mental health.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5:So it's for folks that don't really maybe they don't identify as an addict, or they don't really feel they're codependent, or they don't have anger or sexual integrity issues, but they're struggling with anxiety or depression it's a room where they can go in and they can share that. And it was with like-minded people, with folks just like we do it, folks that are going to help you chop wood and carry water Right, yeah, folks that are going to help you chop wood and carry water.
Speaker 5:It's good man and it's a safe environment. Our goal is not just for CRs to have groups. That's kind of a secondary that's great if it can happen but that's not really the main goal of having a mental health awareness within Celebrate Recovery. The main goal is to have that mental health awareness so that we as leaders and as folks that are facilitating groups and running groups that we're making in a safe environment for someone that does have mental health struggles to come.
Speaker 2:That's good man.
Speaker 5:Right. We're using the right language. We're not using shaming statements Right.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because it's good Believe it or not.
Speaker 5:We can sit here and love on one another, like, oh you, oh great, I'm an addict, right? But someone comes in and says you know, I'm bipolar.
Speaker 2:The room stops oh, I have borderline personality disorder, right like people are like right I always tell, I always tell them you're in the right group, bud, but there could still be that stigma, right, and then we're learning that how valuable language is when it comes to mental health.
Speaker 5:Come on man um, we want to be using affirming language, right yeah we want to be good we want to be using a language um, that's uh, builds up, yeah, that encourages yeah amen so I love that speak life I love that so yeah, and so um last year, I made the decision to get certified as a mental health first aid facilitator.
Speaker 5:And so one of the services that I'm doing for CRs in the Valley is for those that they have in leadership roles, if they desire to have that mental health first aid certificate, which is just like you would get a CPR certificate from Red Cross. It's good for two years, you get to use it for your personal thing, you put it on your resume. But I'm providing trainings. I've done. I did three, uh, last year for uh our celebrate recoveries or church staff um for free, that's good.
Speaker 5:Um so, and the only cost is what the cost of the class is which I think. So that's kind of one of the ways that I give back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm noticing, particularly in our CR, that a lot more people are identifying with mental health issues. You know what I mean, even ones that are addicts and all these other things are starting to identify, identify mental health.
Speaker 2:They're talking about their medications and they're bringing it more out.
Speaker 1:It's like yay, it's a safe place for these guys. For me. I'm like I don't know what you're going through.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this guy, this dude's a different breed bro.
Speaker 1:I try to connect the best I can, but in my mind I'm like I don't know what that's like.
Speaker 2:Don't put people who are struggling with mental health or death around this guy. I'm too blunt, he's a little rough dude.
Speaker 3:I don't mean to be, I don't mean to be, but I'm also honest with he's like dude, they're going
Speaker 2:to be with Jesus, be happy. It's like wait, I don't get it.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean and it's just. But I so my household, I have people that I love that struggle with anxiety and things like that.
Speaker 5:It's real.
Speaker 2:And at first it was like I don't really get it.
Speaker 1:You know right what the hell are you talking about. You know, I mean. And so now I'm starting to to understand a little more, because I'm allowing my mind to acknowledge that that is a reality for some people right, no, I don't get it.
Speaker 1:You know I mean, and so I'm learning how to choose my words, because sometimes I can say things bluntly that with that are meant with love and great intentions, but they're perceived as hurtful. You know I mean, so I'm learning how to not just be so blunt. You know I mean, and it's a, it's a challenge for me, brother, because I always want to be honest. You know I mean, but I also have to learn how to be honest and love. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:So it's like you can be honest, but in a loving way, that's not, you know, I mean and I'll be honest with you. I've crushed my daughter a couple times, being honest and wasn't trying to be mean, but I was just trying to be honest with her sure and just broke her, it comes back around that you know you really hurt her.
Speaker 1:I'm like I don't, I didn't mean to, you know, I mean I was just you know. So I'm learning how to speak truth in love and not be so just like yeah, I mean, I think that's a valuable thing to learn it is because it's real. It's a reality sure whether I get it or understand it doesn't, doesn't make it less of a reality, right? You know what I mean, right?
Speaker 5:and then you know maybe a good way to understand that I try to help people that have loved ones that I work with that maybe have questions um for you and I like we have the ism yeah right, like whether it's drug, ism alcoholism? Whatever we have the ism right and because that ism like, it creates not only mental but physical symptoms yeah, yeah the phenomenal craving obsession obsession yeah. And for others they have also have brains that need a little help, like ours.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 5:They just have different isms. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I made it come to one of your classes so I could understand it a little better. Because I want to, I really do. The crazy thing is, there's men in our group that I absolutely love, like brothers who struggle with mental health, and I'm like, yeah, I can't really you know what I mean. So I'm trying to relate, but I can't you know what I mean.
Speaker 5:Our biology is so bizarre. Yeah, it is Our brain is designed to keep us safe.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 5:Our subconscious. All it wants to do is keep us safe.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 5:Right, so it constantly looks for things that perceive as a threat. Yeah, but the problem is, when you look for something, you find it, oh yeah, so if I'm always feeling abandoned, fear of abandonment, and I'm always going to find things that remind me of being abandoned amen, right amen and if I'm anxious, right, my brain is going to latch on to everything that makes me anxious, because it's trying to keep me safe from it.
Speaker 4:It's like like spotting all the tigers. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5:So it really takes understanding that you can train your brain.
Speaker 2:Come on, buddy, neuroplasticity. Yeah, yeah, it's possible.
Speaker 5:You can. You can get through it, but there's distress in the getting through it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5:But at the end of the day, that distress is what builds our resiliency and it makes things less painful.
Speaker 4:Come on.
Speaker 1:That's good.
Speaker 2:It's really good Wade that's good. You helped a lot of people today, buddy. You helped marriages, you helped people in their mental health, bro, I think you helped some parents. I think you helped some husbands.
Speaker 1:This is a good one, buddy. Let your wife eat chocolate if she wants chocolate. Don't be a jackass and say something stupid.
Speaker 2:I didn't say it, he did.
Speaker 1:You want to pray for him, buddy, I love strong brother and I love out loud and sometimes my loving out loud is not perceived in the best way.
Speaker 5:I try to ask myself this all the time. It doesn't always work, because sometimes my mouth is faster than my brain, but I always try to ask myself like is this going to bring healing?
Speaker 1:or hurt Amen.
Speaker 5:Even if it's truth is it going to bring healing or hurt my brain.
Speaker 1:the mouth is like this yeah, mine too. It's hard sometimes and I I'm getting better. Where I catch myself, I get. Then they're like what I'm like? No, I'm not saying that.
Speaker 5:Oh you have no idea the fear that I feel sometimes when I get up and I'm like giving a teaching or hosting a CR or something something and I will have the most inappropriate thing pop into my head.
Speaker 2:I'm not saying that.
Speaker 5:Please, Scott, don't let that come out of my mouth.
Speaker 1:Yeah, God is good man. Thanks brother, I really appreciate you, man.
Speaker 5:I appreciate being on here I really thank you guys. I love what you're doing. I'm really grateful to be a part of it.
Speaker 1:Thanks, man, thank you for asking me. Of course, brother, we, of course, brother, we love you, man, and I think we're getting to a point in our CR where it might be time to have you come back around again and share. Yeah, anytime.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he was in the beginning of 23, and I think there's a one year between you coming back.
Speaker 5:Anytime you guys need anything.
Speaker 2:Cool man, I'm always open.
Speaker 5:Even if you want to do teaching or you have someone that bows out or anything like that, there you go, bud bows out, or anything like that. I got, I got. You don't want to teach, no more.
Speaker 1:I I.
Speaker 2:I set up a the teaching schedule. Our teaching team's growing man. That's awesome. Yeah, we got seven teachers, so that's amazing.
Speaker 5:Yeah, really cool. Anything, any questions, any questions about the mental health stuff.
Speaker 1:you know, roddy, you know 10 minutes, um no but we had I've seen a testimony in 10 minutes. I did this, I did this teaching man done and I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be completely honest and and and up front man, that day I just wasn't feeling it right. I didn't pray, I didn't come prepared, I didn't do any of the things that I should have done. I just came with the lesson. I read the lesson. Yeah, it took me 10 minutes.
Speaker 2:I'm out getting. He's out running around. He's a host.
Speaker 3:For the kids and the guy has to run and go get him.
Speaker 1:He's like dude, he's praying already, and so I get done and they're like, dude, that was the fastest. And I'm like, oh, dang it. So the next one I did.
Speaker 2:It was his best one ever. I prayed, I prepared, I actually took the lesson and wrote it myself.
Speaker 5:So I had it in my way and it went 20 something minutes and people were like dude.
Speaker 1:That was our third best lesson we've ever had. So now I know I come in just to read a lesson and that's what you're going to get. If I prepare and I pray and I seek God, you're going to get a good lesson, good lesson.
Speaker 5:Praise God, it's the difference between getting a degree and an education. Absolutely, absolutely Come on buddy.
Speaker 1:Let me pray for you, brother.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely Jesus. Thank you.
Speaker 1:God.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Lord.
Speaker 1:Father, god, we just God. I just first want to praise you, god, and just lift up your holy name, up your holy name. I give you so much honor and glory because you are god, creator of heaven and earth, lord, and we just thank you that you are god and we are not god and father, I just I praise your name for weight, god. I thank you, lord, that um and your son is an amazing man, god, and I thank you, lord, just for um allowing the things that transpired in his life to transpire. God, because in those things, uh, his character and everything that he is today was shaped and informed through those trials and those tribulations. God and Lord, I thank you that, even though he took a time, god, in his life where he was addicted and thought shooting himself in the leg was the best idea, god, that you were there in it, that you protected him and saved him, god, because you were not done with them. Thank you, lord. And so, father, I just I lift them up to you today. God, lord, I thank you for his practice, I thank you for his desire to want to counsel especially young adolescent children who are struggling with social anxiety, social separation. God and I know this is going to be something that's going to be needed, uh, and it probably needed now, god, but it's really going to be needed soon. God is as we continue down this path of of people with phones and computers, god, and separation from people, lord. So I just pray favor and blessings over that, god. I pray that he will lack no patience, um, that everything's going to run smooth, god, and I thank you for just his heart and his desire. God, I thank you for a good partner. I pray, lord, god, that they just work together smoothly and correctly. God, but most of all, god, I thank you for him and his wife. I thank you for their continued working in their marriage, god, because marriage is not something that you just say yes one day and you just go through life on cruise control. God, there's intentionality, there's hurts, there's habits, there's things that need to be worked out, god, but I thank you for the strength to work it out together. Lord, I thank you that, as they find themselves in this place, god, of being empty nesters, god, I pray for this new fire to be kindled. God, this new love affair to be kindled between them.
Speaker 1:God, I pray that they begin to see each other in a different light. God, that they begin to have conversations, god, that are just a fervent, and produce just good fruit in their marriage. God, and I thank you, lord, just for the time that they're going to have together. I pray, lord, god, that they encourage one another, that they lift one another up. God, that their words towards each other are always affirming and encouraging. God, I just thank you for everything you're doing. I just pray, god, just for Zeddy. They're coming into the season where she's going to be retiring and things are going to be different. They're going to have to shape, lord, the landscape of what they're doing. I pray for fresh vision, god. I pray for fresh vision to see what this next season is going to look like. God.
Speaker 4:I pray that they begin to seek you and ask you.
Speaker 1:God what it's going to look like and give them direction, god, so that they'll have a path to travel God. Thank you, god, because you are a God of intentionality. You are a God of direction, god. So I pray that you lay this out for them, god, and I know, without a doubt, that they'll be faithful to follow. Whatever it is you're having them going to do this next season, god, but let them not walk into it without some kind of direction, god. So I pray that you speak clearly to them through the power of your Holy Spirit, god, that they know what their next steps are going to be, and I pray that, as they step, god, that you bless and anoint each and every step that they take together. Father, god, we love you. We praise you in Jesus' name, amen.
Speaker 2:Amen. Hey, wade, can you do us a favor, man, Can you pray for? Speak Life, Absolutely. Pray for me and Dad, man, and it's whatever God's going to do with this thing, buddy.
Speaker 5:Absolutely. I'm honored, father God, thank you. Thank you for the opportunity that was provided by these men in their obedience. Lord, I pray that you would just continue to bless them, lord.
Speaker 5:I pray that you would continue to bless their walk, their own personal journeys and also their family journeys, lord, and that their circle of influence would continue to grow so that your light and your love can be just spread throughout everything that they're doing. Thank you that we have a place like this, that we can hear these stories of your love of recovery and we can cry and laugh.
Speaker 4:We can be real.
Speaker 5:We can be authentic. Thank you, lord, so good, and I just want to thank you, lord, for giving me the opportunity to do this with them, um, and I just can pray these continued blessings upon them and and speak life az, your son jesus name amen, amen, man, wait again.
Speaker 2:Like dad said, I just really have to say thank you, bro, for coming in. Yeah, I'm sharing your story with us, with the world. Man, um, you, you're. I don't know where you're listening or where you're watching. Well, if you're watching, it's youtube. Um, do me a favor, man. Click the bell uh for the notifications for the channel. Subscribe to the channel.
Speaker 1:You'll get all the uh upcoming episodes that are going to be released somebody, man, share the video man it helps Share the video, man, it helps us.
Speaker 2:If you could, please go and leave a comment, even if you just type the word Jesus, Jesus, it just helps with all the algorithms and stuff in the back, you yourself. If you want to come on, speak Life AZ and share your testimony, you can reach out through social media Instagram, facebook, twitter, x, sorry, whatever, but until out through social media instagram, facebook, twitter, uh, x, sorry, whatever. Um, but until next time we're going to continue to speak life az. God bless you, jesus.