Sober Living Stories

Sharing Peaceful Wisdom with the World: J.W. Kicklighter's 22-year Journey

• Jessica Stipanovic • Season 1 • Episode 49

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Wayne Kicklighter shares his 22-year journey of sobriety, from growing up with generational alcoholism to becoming a published author of a daily reflections book called "Peaceful Wisdom: Reflections on God, Life, and Recovery." 

His transformation takes us through early party days, living a double life, hitting rock bottom, and ultimately finding a spiritual path to recovery and genuine self-discovery.

• Noticed alcoholic behavior in his family growing up, particularly his mother, who showed characteristics he later recognized in himself.

• Started drinking and doing drugs as a teenager to escape and fit in, becoming the "center of attention" for bringing party supplies.

• Worked as a bartender, feeding his ego with false security from "drinking buddies" rather than real friends.

• Lived a "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" double life, trying unsuccessfully to balance work with partying.

• Attempted repeatedly to "figure out how to live sober without giving up drinking" before truly surrendering.

• Experienced three phases of recovery: physical healing, mental transformation, and spiritual awakening.

• Found God in recovery after believing his actions were unforgivable and a relationship with God impossible. 

• Wrote "Peaceful Wisdom" after retiring in 2021, sharing reflections from walking his dog and meditating.

• Started a YouTube channel, Peaceful Wisdom - God, Life, and Recovery - YouTube, featuring weekly videos on reflections from his book. 

Find Wayne's book "Peaceful Wisdom: Reflections on God, Life, and Recovery on Amazon or follow his YouTube channel @Peaceful Wiz for weekly reflections.

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Speaker 1:

Hi and welcome to another episode of the Sober Living Stories podcast. Meet Wayne Kicklighter. Today he is going to share his personal story. He has 22 years, clean and sober. He just published a daily reflections book called Peaceful Wisdom Reflections on God, life and Recovery. Welcome, wayne. Welcome to the show today.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1:

You know, if you could just start back as far back as you would like to share with listeners and take us to the present day, it'd be great, okay.

Speaker 2:

Well, since I've been sober now 22 years and as I reflect back on my upbringing, I did notice growing up that aren't there was a lot of drinking on in my family. Mother as I've gotten older it's clear to me was an alcoholic and she was a loving mother. She took really good care of me and my brother, but there was definitely episodes of drinking that I noticed early on. I also feel like some of her characteristics of alcoholism were very clear, like the feeling less than not fitting in, a little bit of depression, maybe even some insecurities going on, and I can really see where some of those characteristics were showing up in my own life. As I got older I started to turn with the alcohol and drugs as a way of escaping and fitting in with my classmates and my friends in the neighborhood. It started out probably with sneaking a cigarette here or there, maybe a beer out of the refrigerator. I loved camping out with the neighborhood boys because we would be getting into mischief at night and I seemed to be kind of the center of attention because I brought the party favors at a very early age. But it continued. It continued as I got older and into high school and then I found myself really latching on to that mischief and that alcohol and party scene more than I did the academic scene. So I started skipping school, I started to venture out and take more and more chances, you know, as an adolescent. And when I got my first driver's license, you know I was hitting the road and I was really reaching out, I guess, to something other than what I had at home and what I had in my day-to-day life, because I liked that escape, I liked that excitement, I liked being kind of, you know, in a danger zone and it brought some attention to me.

Speaker 2:

You know, during those high school years my parents moved away to North Georgia, because I grew up in Florida. Back when I had just turned 18, they had announced that they were moving to North Georgia and I said, well, have a good time because I'm not going. I was a surfer boy and I was living in Daytona Beach and I wanted to keep that scene going because I was having such a good time. I found a job at a bar, of course, like any other good alcohol, being a bartender and waiting tables. It not only helped me in my popularity as a bartender and waiter but it also fed that ego that I had and it kind of gave me that false security that I had a bunch of friends. If I'm honest with myself and as I look back now, they really weren't friends, they were just drinking buddies. They were my party pals. You know I was really connecting this newfound group, you know, as my posse, but they were nothing more than just enablers, they were really my party people.

Speaker 2:

And that scene just got worse as time went on and then I found myself getting into trouble with drugs and I started finding myself getting in trouble with the law and I started to have little episodes of this moment of clarity that something wasn't right and that my drinking and my drugging was really starting to have an effect on my life and it was a negative effect. It's kind of like and I've heard this said in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous and it really describes me well I feel like I went to a keg party at 16 years old and I didn't leave until I was 38 years old, because I love that feeling. I was the guy that would go to the party and I'm like, let's keep going, we got to go to work tomorrow. It's like, oh, we could. You know we can still get a couple hours sleep. You know, I was the one it was.

Speaker 2:

I was continuing the party even after the party was over and I thought it was cute, I thought it was funny and it was at the time. But when I started becoming a young adult I started to realize that I couldn't do the normal everyday nine to five life and have the party life. But I tried.

Speaker 2:

The true, dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, that I was, I did, I tried. I'm like sure I can do this. I can have a real job and still keep up the party scene. It didn't work. It really didn't work and a series of mishaps and a series of court dates and rehabs.

Speaker 2:

My poor family, they were there for me all along. You know, here I was, you know, a son of a loving family, but yet here I was destroying my life. Now I mentioned my mother was an alcoholic early on. Well, mother got sober. So you know, when I was probably in my mid 20s, my mother had found recovery and so she was already living a more recovery life. And I didn't know what recovery was. I didn't know what an alcoholic was, I just knew that what was happening in my life was becoming more and more destructive.

Speaker 2:

Now, like any good alcoholic, I mean, for me there was a lot of denial because I never really looked at the trouble that I got into as tied directly to the drugs and alcohol. I always looked at it like, oh, I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, or well, I should have been speeding, or I wouldn't have got that DUI, or I shouldn't have went down that road because I should have known better, because that's where the cops hang out. There was all this rationalization going on and minimalization going on and it was my way, I guess subconsciously, to excuse my problem. It really was my own subconscious in denial. So that continued for many years and as I started to get older and I left the bar scene and I was no longer a waiter and a bartender and I went into a real job, I tried to really keep it together and straddle that fence and that's again where that Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde come in, because it really was a way of living a double life. I could be Clark Kent nine to five, you know, and then at night I was the party animal, you know, I was the drunk, you know, or it was really a double life that I was living. Now, of course, at the time I didn't see that and it did take recovery to show me those aspects of my behavior early on. And that's what's really cool about the Rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous and 12 Steps is because for me, when I finally did get sober, I was able to reflect back on that person I was, you know, before I got sober.

Speaker 2:

But to fast forward, jessica, I was able to maintain that double life for a while, but it started to catch up with me and it was starting to become harder to live. You know the double life and unfortunately I'd like to tell you that I chose the normal nine to five life over my drinking and drugging life. But that's not how the story goes. I ended up finding myself losing the jobs and I found myself staying at the bars and hanging with the people that were still partying, and that became my vocal point.

Speaker 2:

And the older I got and the more that I did that, the more my life just kind of spun out of control and I found myself homeless. I found myself, you know, the family had finally exhausted all of their resources and that tough love had to come into play and they stopped enabling me and bailing me out and trying to help me. And I found myself at that turning point in my life where I had to make a decision and I fell to my knees and I prayed out to the God of my understanding. I knew there was a God there somewhere and I asked for his strength and mercy because I had decided I didn't want to live that life anymore. And with that I was able to get back on my feet, find the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, find the rooms of Narcotics Anonymous, and started working on myself from the inside out, one step at a time.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah you said so many great things, double life. That's just exhausting and we think it's normal to just get up, go to work and then, you know, do our life in the evening and such, but it's just so much harder. So what would you say to somebody listening who is maybe experiencing that right now? And when you put that down and start to live honestly, how much easier is that Like, how much more peaceful is that to live authentically? You?

Speaker 2:

Well, what I would tell the listeners and what kept me in and out of the rooms for so long is I was trying to figure a way for me to live sober without giving up drinking. You know, I was trying to figure out how I could pull drugs and alcohol into a recovery program, because it wasn't the drinking and the drugging per se in my own mind, it was the fact that I just hadn't learned how to do both and that I needed to slow down, or I needed to not drink as much, or maybe I could drink but not do drugs, or maybe I could just do it on the weekends. So I would tell the listeners a couple of things. One you can't do both. I tried, unsuccessfully. And number two, I would say stop trying to figure out how to and just surrender to the program and lean into the 12 steps and the way in which the Alcoholics Anonymous program was designed many, many years ago. Because I tried to figure it out. You know, I tried to be unique. I suffered from that uniqueness. You know, maybe that would work for you, but that won't work for me. Or maybe you're an alcoholic, but I'm not really one. I just drank a little too much. I kept trying all these other ways to explain it away, you know, or pretend it away instead of just surrendering to it.

Speaker 2:

And I had a sponsor one time. Tell me, because you know I went in with this, this ego and this, I know more than you do and you know I'm different. And he just said give it 90 days, wayne, give it 90 days. And if you don't find looking for in these rooms because I knew or he knew, that if I gave it 90 days that something would happen, there would be a transformation in my thinking if I could stay sober long enough. And he was right, maybe I'm not an alcoholic, maybe I am an alcoholic, maybe I'm not. And I would just go back and forth. And he said well, wayne, for someone who's not an alcoholic, you sure do think about it a lot.

Speaker 1:

Right, yeah, you said drugs and know drugs and alcohol for you. Oftentimes I hear people say, well, I'm really, my problem is drugs so I can drink. So what would you speak to do for total abstinence for people who don't understand that part of it, for the true alcoholic?

Speaker 2:

Yeah Well, I've often said I was born an alcoholic but I grew up to be a drug addict because it was in my DNA, you know it was. It was the allergy that the program teaches us that we have an allergy to alcohol. You know, alcohol, it's an allergic reaction. So I had to look at both. Alcohol is a drug, you know it's a mind altering substance, and drugs are mind altering substances. Both are dangerous for Wayne.

Speaker 2:

And the other thing that I had to come to realize, to the realization, is that at the bottom of every drink for me was a bag of dope. Funny, it's like now that you know I'm sober and I look back on these behaviors. It was like if I said, well, I'm just going to lay off the drugs and I'm just going to drink, well, once I got drunk and I crossed over into that drunkness, I wanted to get high, I wanted to buy drugs, I wanted that party to continue. I would revert back to that same 19-year-old guy that says, hey, let's continue the party. Even the next morning I went back to those old behaviors because it was embedded into my DNA, that allergic reaction.

Speaker 1:

You talked about that progression into getting in trouble with the law. You realize it's not really about the drugs and the alcohol in particular. It's about inside your inside alcohol in particular. It's about you know inside your inside. So, yes, take that out and completely abstinent from that, never can safely drink again. However, you are not destined for this like completely miserable life, because there's a complete transformation, like that internal reorganization that you were talking about. Like had to happen within those 90 days, or some people it takes a year, or you know a year, or it's a lifelong process, but when that happens, you learn so much about yourself that you almost wouldn't want to go back, and so can you talk about that. When recovery started to take a hold for you, how did you start to see things differently? What were you seeing differently?

Speaker 2:

Well, there's a physical, there is an emotional or mental and then there's the spiritual. So there's like three phases of recovery. So for me, the first phase was just the physical. I started to physically feel better. I didn't have a headache, I didn't have the jitters, I didn't have this feeling of what did I do last night I hope no one saw me.

Speaker 2:

You know there was a physical healing and then there was the mental, when I started to work with a sponsor and work through the 12 steps and started to look at myself and being in the rooms of the 12 step recovery programs. You know it's a form of changing our thinking. You know we hear in the rooms our stinking thinking. You know I had to change my stinking thinking and the only way to do that is to be more exposed to other recovering alcoholics and drug addicts and also surrounding my steps. So my thinking, and then the bonus prize and all that is, I bumped into God. That was that spiritual awakening that it talks about, that spiritual awakening and finding out that it's not only a God of my understanding but it's a God who understands me. You know, I used to think the God was this judging God and that everything that I did was unforgivable and I would never, never, never be able to have a relationship with a God. But the rooms of recovery taught me that I could, because because I was a drunk and a drug addict didn't mean that I wasn't also a child of God.

Speaker 2:

And I found that in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous also a child of God. And I found that in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. You know, there's a saying that says I ran so far from God that I ran into him in the rooms of AA, and it's so true I bumped right into him. It's like oh, there you are, you know, and he was sitting there going. Well, it's about time you got here. I've been waiting for you. So your question about what happened and what did I find in recovery? It's that I found who I was and that shy, insecure, broken boy so early on in life, for whatever reason, who felt like he didn't fit in with anybody or any place or anything, started to realize that this guy wasn't so bad after all and I started to dig into those 12 steps and started to get to know myself once and for all. I had covered myself up for so long with alcohol and drugs.

Speaker 1:

I didn't know who I was. Yeah, covered up is a good way to put it. You know, covered up, it's so true. And I don't know if you know well Sandy Beach. You know he's a speaker who's since passed, but he used to say you know, spirituality is a process of removal, not addition. So you said covered them up. You know it's like when we get in there, you start working on yourself, start removing all those false ideas and beliefs or things that you tacked on or along the way, you know, to get to who you truly are. So that's such a good way to put it.

Speaker 2:

Yes, absolutely.

Speaker 1:

So what would you say to someone who's listening, who you know they're about to come in? We're talking here today about the 12-step recovery, and a lot of people get well through 12 steps and some don't. They try other things. One of the greatest things that I love about 12-step recovery is that you can come from any background or faith and you're welcome, and they leave that space for you to realize who God is to you, and even people that haven't had any history of knowing who God is come in and learn how to pray and get into a relationship with Him, if that's how it goes for them. So what would you say if someone didn't have a relationship with God and was about to walk in? How does that go with the steps?

Speaker 2:

And that's a good question and I love in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous and I don't know exactly how it's quoted, but it says you know, if you can't explain electricity or how physics work and how the ins and outs of electrons, then how can you begin to explain God? It's funny how we try to explain God in some humanistic way and he's much bigger than that. I was too busy trying to put God into Wayne's little box of understanding instead of just letting God be God and Wayne be Wayne, because God doesn't need me to supervise him and he certainly doesn't need to listen to me either. And I found early on when I stopped trying to manage God and just accept that he exists. God doesn't have to listen to me. So I stopped trying to dictate the rules to God.

Speaker 2:

And when I did that? Because the gifts of this program it is peace and it is serenity and it is love and it is that calmness that we feel in these rooms, and those are all gifts of the program, but they're also gifts that come from God. I would just say show up, lean into the process and you're suddenly will show up, because that's what happened to me. God showed up in my life suddenly, not when I was ready, not when I wanted him to, but when he was ready.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so you've written this book A Peaceful Wisdom Reflections on God, life and Recovery. So what prompted you? Did you always want to write a book? Or was this just something that came out of 22 years you wanting to share? So could you talk about that process and what it's about?

Speaker 2:

I had the colorful life, needless to say, and they had seen me kind of destroy my life and then rebuild it again, and then destroy my life and then rebuild it again. I retired in 2021 and I moved to North Georgia from Florida and I got a standard poodle dog and I built a house because the gifts of the program allowed me to stay sober long enough that I could rebuild my life again from the ground up and save a little money and build a little retirement for myself. And then these long walks in the morning with my dog and meditating with God, I started to be inspired to write a reflections book, kind of what the program teaches us one day at a time, and I called my book Peaceful Wisdom Reflections on God, life and Recovery, because my reflections started to become more than just my recovery reflections. They started to become reflections of my life, lessons learned, things I learned from my family, things that I learned from great managers in my career. They started to become lessons I learned on my own by bumping my head a few, too many times and the reflections on God.

Speaker 2:

So God, life and recovery became my inspiration to write the book. So I sat down here in my dining room and I started with one reflection at a time. So that's really what inspired me was just that spirit of peace in my life and looking back over my journey and putting it on paper, and that was a really good healing for me too, because Peaceful Wisdom is a daily reflections book, but when you read the book, you see that it's really my life story about. Yeah, instead of writing a story of my life, I wrote a reflections book that told the story of my life one reflection at a time, and I used God, life and recovery as my backdrop to tell that story.

Speaker 1:

I love that. One of the best ways to start my morning is to read a reflection, a daily reflection or a devotional. Where can they buy Peaceful Wisdom, Reflections on God, Life and Recovery?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so they can find it on Amazon. And if you search Peaceful Wisdom in the search bar or my author name, jw Kicklighter, I go by Wayne, but my full name is James Wayne Kicklighter, so the author name is JW Kicklighter. Peaceful Wisdom. In the search bar you might even find it under meditations or reflections on amazoncom.

Speaker 1:

But you know it takes a certain person to go through all of that and then decide to share it with the world. You know you're sharing your insides with other people, because I think there's a lot of value in that, where people can learn from or just grab some of that wisdom or that spirituality that you have, that they may not have yet or just, you know, accent theirs out. So I love the idea of a reflections book. I think that that's great. I can't wait to read it. I'm definitely going to purchase it. I'm going to put it in the show notes and I'll put the link right to the Amazon link. So if anybody would like to purchase it, who's listening? Just go into the show notes and click on that, and I'd love to have you on again like futuristically. Are you planning to write any other books, or is this maybe something that you just did one time?

Speaker 2:

Well, I am thinking about another book Now. This one, as you know, called Peaceful Wisdom, really talks about the peaceful, calm, serene life of a recovering alcoholic. But my next life may be getting more into the raw details. I'm going to call it reckless living. So that'll be the next life where we get a little bit more behind the scenes. Maybe that's the book my nephews wanted me to write all along.

Speaker 1:

They'll have two, though. They'll have two versions. Yeah, no, that's good. Everybody likes to see behind the scenes at what happened. It's amazing how many different lives we've actually lived, right.

Speaker 2:

Exactly, and there's a reflection in the book that talks about nine lives. You know, and I really feel like for myself, I lived more than those nine lives. You know, I've surpassed a cat at this time. I've lived more lives than they have. By the mercy and grace of a higher power and a God of my understanding, you know, I've been able to kind of survive those dangerous years, if you will Sure, you know so I had to protect myself from me. I mean, that's who God has been protecting me from is myself, you know, with my own self destruction. Now, the other place, jessica, they can find me is I started a YouTube channel and it's at Peaceful Wiz U-I-Z. Oh, great, oh.

Speaker 1:

I love that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I'm doing a weekly video and I'm taking reflections out of the book each week, or a topic out of the book, and then we talk about that during the YouTube. It's more of a pre-recorded message kind of as I see it, kind of my own interpretation. Folks can dial in to YouTube on at PeacefulWiz if they want to look at some of the previous videos.

Speaker 1:

Great, great. I'll put that down there as well, so they can reach you that way.

Speaker 2:

Great.

Speaker 1:

Well, I thank you so much for coming on. 22 years clean and sober is such an accomplishment and it seems like your life has been completely changed. And congratulations on your book, on getting it out there, and would you have one piece of wisdom to leave somebody who's trying to get this right.

Speaker 2:

I'm glad you asked that question because I thought about it before this call or the podcast. I thought about it that get used to not knowing Because you know for so long I wanted to know the answers and I wanted to know the outcome and what happens at the end. So, instead of trying to figure out all of those answers, just surrender to not knowing and just know that it does. Oh, I love that Not knowing how it works, just knowing that it does. So that would be my advice.

Speaker 1:

I love that. Yeah, it really delays you. I got caught up on trying to figure things out for a long time, making timelines and when did this happen and when did that happen and why? And I love that advice, it's perfect.

Speaker 2:

Right, and why is the sponsor telling me to do this? Or why do I have to read that paragraph telling me to do this? Or why, why do I have to read that paragraph? And why do I need to go to 90 meetings in 90 days? You know all of those suggestions and I always tried to figure out why, why, why, why, why. And really all I needed to do is just do it. You know, there a friend of mine says you know, we've heard this in the rooms, let go and let God. You've heard that before.

Speaker 1:

Yes, absolutely.

Speaker 2:

She says let go or be dragged.

Speaker 1:

Definitely, heard that before. So if you don't let, go.

Speaker 2:

he's going to drag you there one way or another, so let go?

Speaker 1:

Exactly, you know. It reminded me just. Lastly, you know for a lot of people and I think it says it in the book of Alcoholics Anonymous that it's a spiritual answer and a program of action. So you talked about the spiritual answer and then you said don't ask why, just do. And I think if you put that action behind it, people are going to have incredible results, regardless of what way they want to come in. So yeah, once again, I thank you so much for being here and I really congratulate you on your book and you have a really powerful message.

Speaker 2:

Well, thank.