An Absent Father, An Enabling Mother, and a Teenage Addict...Mike Beach's Story (Part 1)

Mike's Dad was too often away at sea, and Mike's Mom let him get away with too much, but Mike's problems were of his own making, and he owns up to them as he shares his incredible story on today's podcast.  There are so many powerful lessons to ponder as you listen to Mike's story, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!  I'd love to hear what you thought if you'd be willing to shoot me an email at Phil@safehouse-ministries.com!

Transcript

0:00

I would drink, we would drink at work, wow. It was drinking was what we did, and smoking was what we did when we all hung out, but yeah, it was, it's crazy to think, I don't remember nights sometimes how I got home. Waking up at random houses, at the parties that we were at, or it's crazy to think about that. It's a little scary. It's very scary. Was it scary at the time, or you're like, eh, who cares? That's what it, at the time you would laugh about it. You'd get up with your boys afterwards and be like, man, I don't even know where I woke up this morning, man. Wow. Or how, or know what you did the night before? Absolutely. Man, what did I do last night? Or, man, what you did last night? You talked to your other friends. Wow. But yeah, I think about it now and it's almost wow, I'm ashamed of how I was then, but I know the Lord ultimately had the path for me to walk on to where I'm at today. It just it sucks that I had to hurt so many people on that path. Yeah. Burn so many bridges, I. I repaired some of the bridges that I've burnt, but some bridges are unrepairable.

Phil Shuler: 1:03

HellO, and welcome to Renew, Restore, Rejoice, the Safe House Ministries podcast, where we share stories of the power of God to change lives through Safe House Ministries. Safe House Ministries is based out of Columbus, Georgia, and we are a ministry that exists to love and serve people who have been affected by addiction, homelessness, and incarceration. I'm your host, Phil Shuler, the Director of Development for Safe House Ministries here in Columbus, Georgia. Safe House serves over 1, 100 people each month as they transition back into our community. Safe House provides an abundance of services including 213 beds for homeless individuals and families, case management for obtaining job skills and long term employment. Over 300 hot meals every day, free clothing, and so much more. One of the most incredible services that Safe House provides is our free 9 12 month intensive outpatient substance abuse program, which is state licensed, CARF accredited, and has no wait list. Almost 100 percent of individuals staying in our shelters who follow our three phase program become fully employed within a few months. And 68 percent of individuals who stay at least one night with us End up finding work and moving into their own home. Thank you for being with us today and listening to our podcast. We hope you enjoy this week's episode.

2:16

Good morning. This morning on the podcast. I have someone really special, and of course, I think all of my podcast guests are amazing. But I'm really excited about hearing Mike's story. And this morning I've got Mike Beach. Mike, thank you for being here. You're very welcome. Very welcome. It's been good just sitting here chatting, getting to know you a little bit. Quick question for you, if you had to pick one word that would best describe you, what would that word be? Humbled. Very humbled. That's a good word. So what do you mean when you say that? Just for maybe just going through my life, the way I have, taking things for granted, not being humbled for my life, for the things that have been put forth for me in my past. Taking things for granted and, just where I'm at today. I'm just truly humbled, where I'm at in today, yeah. Yeah. It's, we're blessed, very blessed. We, we I know all of us, even the people that don't acknowledge it. God loves us and he does so much for us. That's a good word. Yeah. So Mike, we'll just take it from the beginning. Okay. If you would share. How your story begins, where you grew up and what early home life was like, and then just as you got older into the teen years. Yeah. I was actually, I was born in a small town on the eastern shore of Virginia called in Nass, otics that fun word to say. Yes, Nass. Yeah. Spelling is even funner, I imagine. My family then we soon after I was born, we moved to Baltimore. My father was in the Navy. We moved to Baltimore, Maryland. My father was in Annapolis. He's in the Navy yeah. I grew up there to pa I was like around eight or nine, and then we moved to Virginia Beach, Virginia. Yeah. Was he an officer? If your dad was an officer? He he was an officer. He ended up being a captain of a sub. Awesome. Yeah okay. And we moved to Virginia Beach where optimally grew up at. I was born in Baltimore. I say I was born in Baltimore just because that's all I really know. Yeah. But I ultimately grew up in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Okay. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah. Good home life growing up. Oh, absolutely. My father was away a lot. Being, he would go out to sea, two times a year. So he was gone six months out the year a lot of times. Wow. So it was just my mom around for me, me and my brother. But we were, we always had a good home life. My mom took care of us the best that she could. Sports was a big thing in our families. She sacrificed a lot by taking us here, there, around the world it seemed and then, yeah. You played a lot of sports growing up. Yes, sir. I played football, basketball, baseball. Okay. Were you the younger brother or the I'm the older. Older two years, sir. Okay. Yep. All right. And then living on the beach, there was always something to do when we weren't sports, yeah. The beach life, quote unquote, just enjoying that, and I always think back now, where, you know then how you take that for granted. Yeah. Living on the beach, that atmosphere, growing up in it, I wish I would've just took that in more, yeah. Then as I got into my teenage years probably about 12, 13, boys will be boys, you start drinking. Yeah. Start drinking. My father wasn't around that much, so it was easy to, it was easier, I would say, to hide things from mother. Yeah. Mother would she caught me a few times, me and my brother a few times, but it would never get, nothing ever got back to my father. She always kept things away from my father. So he wouldn't worry about us when he was away. He was a captain on nuclear sub. The USS Tennessee, so she didn't really want him to worry about home life. Yeah. And so we, mom did as much as she could for us as far as keeping us out of trouble, things of that nature. And we never really got in trouble. We just did what we wanted. Yeah. Yeah. We just did what we wanted and, we didn't have to be home at a certain time. We didn't have chores. We didn't have to do certain things that my friends had to do. So in my friends' eyes, I had the cool mom, I had the place to go to when the life at home was infra hard, they would come to my house. Things of that nature, and looking back at it now I wish we did have a little more structure. Yeah. That freedom gave you a little too much leeway and you started to make some bad choices and Absolutely. 100%, by the time I was 16, 17, I was alcoholic. Wow. A pothead. And at that age you'd think that's just what you do. Going through the weekends, playing sports during the week, and then hitting the house parties on the weekend, on the beach, that's just, we thought that's what at that time it was fun. Yeah. But then you're, you get caught up in addiction without really even knowing you were an addiction, yeah. Did you finish high school? Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. I graduated from Princeton High School in 1993. Okay. Not in a great place. So what happened after high school? I had my daughter I had, I got my girlfriend pregnant when we were seniors in high school. She was actually a junior and I was a senior. Her family was pretty hard on her for getting pregnant. Of course my mom didn't see nothing wrong with it, the enabling mom. I'll help, I tried to join the military. I tried to join the Marines, but they didn't let me go in. They didn't, they told me I couldn't,'cause I had two dependents. I had my daughter and they considered, I wasn't married at the time, but my girlfriend, they considered a dependent because she was the mother. Yeah. So because you were so young and you had those they didn't let you do it? Nope, they just didn't let me join. They said, okay. I didn't know if I could went into another branch. I definitely weren't gonna do the Navy.'cause I saw my father didn't gone. Yeah. Yeah. And I went out a few times with my father for family weekends, and I just didn't. I know, I just didn't like that aspect. Yeah. I like they the marines, so I tried that, but it didn't work out, so I just went to college then. Okay. I went to Johnson and Wales in Williamsburg, Virginia. And I did my four years there, two years business, two years there. Just stay where you guys, you and your girlfriend living together trying to raise you. Yeah, we had our own place by that time. We got married. We were married. We got married as soon as she graduated high school. My mother, I would say I kept my child, her first year of life, but that was actually my mother. Yeah. While, and what's her name? Your daughter? Leanna. Leanna. Okay. Leanna. And she's amazing. Yeah. Awesome. Yep, she's amazing. And I was going to school, we got married as soon as she graduated because that's what you do, yeah. Our, and at least we thought that's what we should have done. We weren't in love with each other, we really shouldn't have got married. We should have, took her time with it. But our families really wanted us to get married. We had a daughter, you're married, you're living together. This is what you do. Her family's Catholic. Yeah. Her family's Cuban. So that's what we did. We had this extravagant wedding, not really knowing that it was really extravagant. We were just going through the motions and then this whole time I'm in my addiction. I'm drinking. At school. I'm drinking on the way home. I'm drinking at home. Wow. And then I was I played sports even after high school. I was a bowl twice a week, a softball, twice a week, flag football on Sundays. Wow. And I didn't So you were, that's a lot of time away from home, just even though you're not on a boat there, you or a sub. That's right. I didn't put forth effort into the marriage because I wanted to do what I wanted to do. Ultimately after 12 years of marriage 12 years. Yeah. We went, we 12 years of marriage. Yep. And we got divorced. She, she left me, she'd had enough. She had enough, we didn't, we did it. We, it wasn't a bad divorce. After the divorce, it got bad because fighting over the Yeah. The kids, she moved. How many total did Two. Two, okay. We have my son, we have my son four years later. Michael, he's a junior. Okay. Yeah. God bless him too. Right now he's out at sea. Oh. He's in the Navy. He's a sonar tech on a sub. Oh yeah. He's on a fast attack sub, so he goes out six months at a time. Yeah. So we have, I hardly have any contact with him at all. Unless he comes above the water or that's a touching subject with me because we just don't have contact with him that much no more. And he just had a baby. So I have four grand babies. Wow. Yep. Four. Yep. Yep. Four girls. Wow. What a blessing. Very much and my daughter, she's married to a he's a chief now in the Navy. Navy just stays in the family. Yeah. That's it, so yeah. So I've never had to worry about my children. Yeah. Like my mom had to worry about me. I think the Lord, I'd never had to worry about my, they both on a good path. Children, they were on a very good path. And I don't know what I would do if I would've done anything, if they were, if my son was taking the path that I was on, yeah. Because after I was, after I got divorced, that just gave me more time to go deeper into my addiction. Ah, feeling sorry for myself. My kids lived thousands of miles away, so your wife had gotten full custody of the kids? I gave her, yep. Yep. When we did that, when we got divorced, I gave her full custody. Is that because you recognized that you just weren't I could not raise my kid. I could not be a part of my kid's life. I was not in the place. I was drinking all the time. I was smoking weed all the time. I was doing the things that I wanted to do, so I was being very selfish at that time. I gave my wife full custody and she moved to Miami to be with her family, and I'm in Virginia. Wow. So you were neglectful and absent. Were you ever violent or anything? No. Other than that, no. No. Never that I, I just, you just weren't there and you didn't, I just weren't there, they just felt they probably felt like maybe you just didn't care. Like you're Absolutely, I wouldn't, I would've thought that, I would've thought that and repercussions from those times. I, I have to deal with it now, where my kids are older, my daughter's 32, my son's 26. I have four grand babies. And the three repercussions of me being absent, being selfish when they were kids in their teenage years I feel it now because as much as I want to be a part of their lives, like how my mother was a part of their lives, they it is just not there, and me and my daughter had a talk actually just last week about it, she's very proud of me where I'm at in life now. She's she always known I could be where I'm at in life right now. Yeah. But she said if I was to get a phone call that you robbed a bank tomorrow, I wouldn't be surprised, and that hits hard because, we talked. They were growing up I would talk to'em on the phone once a month. Yeah. Things of that nature. So it was just easier as they got older to not talk to each other, so then as they got older, it'd be months, not just once a month, but months before we spoke. And my daughter went a few years without talking to me. Wow. Because of her issues with me. Yeah. We, we re we have reconciled we've gone to therapy, but the absent the abstinence from their lives, like I was it's, it doesn't, it's not an issue with them Now if I don't call them or if they don't call me. Yeah. It hurts me dearly. It breaks my heart. I cry all the time about it. But who's to blame? I'm the one to blame for it. I can't be upset with them because my daughter won't pick up the phone because my son won't pick up the phone. I can't be mad at them for that. That'd be very selfish of me still if I was to be mad. I understand it. Yeah. I get it now. Yeah. And no matter what I do now, all I can do is just pray that one day that. I will be accepted into their lives. My daughter is amazing. She'll pick up my phone call every time, no matter what. I get to talk to my grandkids every day if I wanted to FaceTime them. And it's nice that they know my voice, that they know, they, they know me. They think I'm funny. They, they, it's amazing. But I just miss'em because they're on the west coast. Yeah. So even if I wanted to be in their everyday life I just, it's, it is hard when it comes to my kids. Yeah. Yeah. I'm dealing with the repercussions even as my kids are, as adults, as far as not being a part of their everyday life. Yeah. Yeah. When you and your wife got divorced and they moved away you started just dropping off the cliff? Oh, yeah. Into the darkness even more. I was drinking probably a case of beer day, if not more. And, smoking weed just came with it. I never got into the hard drugs, thank the lord, because, who knows what would've happened, I'm not saying I never tried hard drugs, but that just wasn't my forte. Yeah. So what, so during that time of your life what was it like? Were you crime and just, or what, like what did that period look like? Party. Yeah, party working, partying so you were able to stay functional and have a job and still Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I got to a point where I could drink and the hangovers were gone. The I would drink, we would drink at work, wow. It was drinking was what we did, and smoking was what we did when we all hung out, but yeah, it was, it's crazy to think, I don't remember nights sometimes how I got home. Waking up at random houses, at the parties that we were at, or it's crazy to think about that. It's a little scary. It's very scary. Was it scary at the time, or you're like, eh, who cares? That's what it, at the time you would laugh about it. You'd get up with your boys afterwards and be like, man, I don't even know where I woke up this morning, man. Wow. Or how, or know what you did the night before? Absolutely. Man, what did I do last night? Or, man, what you did last night? You talked to your other friends. Wow. But yeah, I think about it now and it's almost wow, I'm ashamed of how I was then, but I know the Lord ultimately had the path for me to walk on to where I'm at today. It just it sucks that I had to hurt so many people on that path. Yeah. Burn so many bridges, I. I repaired some of the bridges that I've burnt, but some bridges are unrepairable. Yeah. Wow. Is your mom still alive? No, sir. Actually, she let's see, in 2019, 2015, I was diagnosed with the Telar cancer stage three for cancer. And I used that as an excuse to, to drink more. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. It was just wow. To do drugs. And I ultimately my family had enough on me. A mother had enough on me the one person who had my back at all times. My father has been, he was way done with me before then. Wow. So even when I got sick, I didn't have really anybody in my corner because of how I lived my life. And the friends that who I felt were my friends, we committed a burglary so I got sent to RA for that. Wow. I should have been sent to prison, but the Lord had different, was that your first entry into some serious crime? Yes. Or had you done things Yes. You just never had gotten caught before? Yeah. Yeah. That's it. Okay. I that was around that time, two, 2015. That was, I committed my crime in 2019. I actually signed a five 10 to five the night before I went to court. And then when I went to court, the judge, it was like, I'm not gonna send him to prison. What's prison gonna do for him? He's gonna come out the same person if not more addicted to drugs. He asked me if I wanted to change my life, I told him, absolutely I did. I'm tired of it, the repetitiveness of Yeah. Just the life I was living was sickening. So he goes, all right. He goes I'm gonna send you to a r sat, which I had no idea what that was at the time. What is that? It's like a residential. It's like your li you're in prison, but you're residential treat treatment, substance abuse treatment. Is that what it stands for? Yeah. It's something to that nature. But you're in prison, it's run by the state. You're, you've got cos around you, you're in prison, but it's not prison. You're going through treatment. Yeah. And to get clean and break free of the addictions to get Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And my mother I realized the damage I had done to my mom, at that time, all I had was really my mom, and she was done with me as far as helping me out and they on me. She couldn't do it no more. I was a financial burden. I was an emotional burden. I was just, any kind of a burden you can come up with. I, that's what I was to my family and it just took a toll. So when I got to RA, my mom was like, listen, this is it, this is a chance to change your life, to do what you need to do to come out a better person. So I was sentenced to RA and then I was sentenced after RAI had to complete a year and a half way house. Wow. Question when your mom spoke that to you did you receive that at the time or did you That time I did. Yeah, because she told me that many a times before, but that time it hit hard because it finally, you let it hit your heart. Absolutely. Because my, my, they were getting older, I was in my forties, my mom was in her sixties. My, my dad was in his seventies, want them to go on Yeah. Worrying about me. So was that the beginning of the change then you left? That was definitely the beginning. That, that was an end of my addiction, but it was the beginning of the end. Yeah.'cause you accepted that you needed to make some changes. Yeah. I couldn't do it on my own. Yeah. I needed help. I, I wasn't as tough as I made myself out to be. Okay. The persona that I've done. So how long was the AAP program? Nine months. And then after that, you said you went to a halfway house? Yep. I was, I came to the Grace House. Okay. So that's how you connected to Safe House Ministries? Yep. That's how I, yep. And what, when was that, that you came to the chapter? 2000. April of 2021. Okay. All right. And I did great there. I hit the ground running. I got a job my first day there. I was doing really good. I was saving money up. Man, it was, I was doing really good. My family started to come back around. Awesome. My, my kids were come back around. They allowed me and my grandkids like, because pop's not drunk. He's not, we don't know what he's gonna say, but now they trust, I was, Hey, I was one of them. You don't know what I was gonna say at any given time. Oh, wow. But then after I got there in April, my mom I went to my mom's house for her birthday, which her birthday is July 2nd. So we always had July 4th cookout. And that week after that she caught Covid and three weeks later she was gone. Wow. Yeah, she was gone. You were still staying at the Grace House at that time? Yep. Yep. Wow. And where were, where did she live at the time? Where was she lived? In Camden County. Okay. It's Kingsland, Georgia. Okay. Probably about 20 minutes from Jacksonville, Florida. We lived right on the state line on the coast. So you, that probably hit you hard'cause you felt like you're in a better place. You're building, rebuilding the relationships. And now all of a sudden I questioned a lot of things and, I had my little fight with the Lord at that time, my mom never really gotta see me sober. She saw you though, at the, to, to make you were, she, I'm sure she saw that you were really making changes. She, it was four months there, so she saw I was making an attempt one heck of an attempt. Yeah. But she never got to see me being, she never got to see me now. Yeah. So I went back to drinking and I was such a manipulator that I could hide it from the Grace House, even though they gave you random urine screens there. I could, I manipulate the crap out of that. I knew when they were giving them, I knew when I couldn't drink. I knew when I could drink. An addiction is powerful that you're able to do that. But the Grace House was amazing, especially at that time when my mom passed. Chaplain, pastor Eric Chuck they did everything in their power to get me. It's five hours away. I had to go back home. I went back home when my mom passed, it was Covid, so they gave me a special viewing with her by myself. I went home for that. Then I came back. I I had to go back two weeks later, three weeks later for my mom's funeral because my, she gave my father Covid. So we didn't know if he was even gonna make it. Wow. But he pulled through, so she passed away the end of July. And we didn't have her, our, she didn't, we didn't bury her until August 17th. Wow. So that was hard. That was a hard time, and even, and afterwards I got, when I came back from that I didn't like where I was working at, so I quit there. Didn't care. But then I got the job at the Black Cow, managing the restaurant. I was managing one of the most popular restaurants in Columbus. Yeah. And I'm thankful for Denise, but I was still in my addiction, I was drinking, still hiding it. I was hiding it from the, yeah. I was hiding it. I was drinking it. I was and a leave. I left there because I got fired.'cause I was stealing alcohol. Oh. I was getting off late at night and I would take me a bottle of liquor home at night. Wow. And know, and eventually that caught up with me and I got fired for it. I was doing really good then. I, making good money. Had a house downtown by the Co Cola Museum. So you were, you had graduated or gotten out of the Freedom House or the Grace House by that time. Yep. And then, yep. Living on your own. Managing. And then you just, addiction pulled you back into the addiction. I went down that rabbit hole again, back smoking weed again. I was, wow. And I was mad at myself for getting back, being, getting back to where I was. And it was just a rabbit hole I couldn't pull myself out of. And I was on probation. And I ended up popping dirty on a urine screen for marijuana. And they put me in a DRC program that was a pop dirty in August, beginning of August of last year. And then then you still living on your own, just going through the DCI was my own, but my my probation officer said, you couldn't work. You couldn't work. So I didn't know what to do. Then I was gonna be homeless because of my addiction. Yeah. My addiction was actually gonna make me homeless because I have nobody, all I had was myself. So I knew only one thing to do is just try to reach out to the Grace House, which I didn't know was the Freedom House. Yeah. It had changed at that point, by that point. Yes, sir. And but towards my end of time at Grace House, Jamie Lee had come in over there and her, she would come into my restaurant. Sometimes I would, my case manager Matt would come in, so they all knew me. Yeah. Downtown, the restaurant, we still kept connections that way. God bless'em. So when I called 2 1 1 to get put on the waiting list, they told me it was gonna be about two and a half months, three months before I could get in there. And. I was like, man, this is reality now. This is, I'm gonna be on the street. Yeah. So I prayed and prayed, and I got a phone call a couple days later. It was like two days later, and it was it was a female voice. And she said Mike, I said, yes ma'am. And she was she goes, how you doing? By that time, I knew it was Jamie. I said it was no, even for me, even lie to her, I'm not doing very well. She goes, are you okay? I said, no. And I remember her saying, she goes, just come home. Wow. Yeah. She said, just come home. And I just sat there and cried. I think she might even cried and Oh wow. She told me what I had to do to get to come, to get in there. And I think I was there probably two days later, three days later. Wow. So just welcomed with love and acceptance to the Freedom House is, yeah. Not even saying what, how Through Freedom House took me in and saved my life. Wow. There's no other way to put it. No other way to put it. What an incredible journey Mike has described so far. And next week we'll pick up where he begins to share how he. It becomes truly transformed his time at the Grace House, which then had become the Freedom House, the men's shelter for Safe House, just how the Lord really got ahold of his heart and the amazing things that God did to get him on the path to victory to where he is today. So you're gonna want to come back next week to hear that, but I just think of how. Amazing and incredible. Mike's story was from the beginning, I think, of the lessons that are there, the enabling mother, the absent father. I think if you have listened to this week's podcast and heard the story of Mike and how he shared. How he just got so off track at such a young age. If you're a parent, I hope that this might make you really think about the way that you parent your children about being present in their lives to begin with, about creating a structure and boundaries and. Guardrails and just simply not letting them do certain things, not letting them go certain places, not letting them have certain friends. Just really putting up those guardrails to protect them I hope that you enjoyed this week's podcast. I know I did, and I know for sure that if you come back next week, you'll enjoy the rest of Mike's story and just the amazing lessons that he shares that he has learned along the path to victory. God bless you this week and I look forward to being back with you again next week.

Phil Shuler: 25:55

We look forward to being with you again next week as we share another testimony about the power and the goodness of God to change lives through Safe House Ministries. if you are someone listening to this podcast that loves to hear these stories of the great things that God is doing in changing people's lives for the better, and if you would like to be a part of that work, please reach out to us You can reach us at 2101 Hamilton Road, Columbus, Georgia, 31,904. You can call us at seven oh six three two two. 3 7, 7 3, or you can email us at info@safehouse-ministries.com.

Microphone (Samson Q2U Microphone)-2: 26:33

Thank you so much for being with us this week for the renew restore and rejoice podcast of safe house ministries, we pray that God will bless you this week. And we look forward to having you back with us again next week for a new episode.