Episode 58 | Jim Ash | Addiction, Rock Bottom, And Redemption

What happens when addiction starts at home?

In Episode 58 of the Rain Brings Growth Podcast, Jim shares the unbelievable true story of how his own father introduced him to meth at just 16 years old during a hunting trip in the Idaho backcountry. What started with alcohol and partying eventually spiraled into meth addiction, drug dealing, homelessness, cartel connections, and losing everything after relapse.

But this episode isn’t just about addiction.

It’s about redemption, recovery, faith, fatherhood, and rebuilding a life after complete destruction.

Jim opens up about:
• Being introduced to meth by his father
• Growing up around alcoholism and addiction
• Losing his marriage, business, vehicles, and home
• Living in hotels and storage units while addicted
• Drug dealing and dangerous connections in the drug world
• Hitting rock bottom and attempting suicide
• The moment faith and God changed his life
• The Boise Rescue Mission recovery program
• Celebrate Recovery and helping others battle addiction
• Staying sober nearly 9 years
• Fatherhood, healing, and breaking generational cycles

This is one of the rawest and most powerful conversations we’ve had on the Rain Brings Growth Podcast.

If you or someone you know struggles with addiction, alcoholism, relapse, depression, or hopelessness, this episode could help somebody.

🎙️ Episode 58 with Jim Ash is available now.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

When I was sixteen, my dad and I and a couple of his friends and his girlfriend went on a hunting trip and we started on our journey up into the mountains and we pulled over and everybody gets out and they're kind of looking around for something hard, like a hard surface, like a book or or something. And the next thing I know, they're dumping white powder on this Bible. When it got to my dad's turn, he cut his line in half and he did half and handed it to me, and I did the other half. And it was like the best feeling I ever had in my whole life.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

Well, Jim, thanks for coming on, man. I appreciate it. I remember we had some coffee and then uh just got to hear your story, and it was it was really incredible. So I wanted to be able to share that with everybody. And you were cool enough to want to share it too.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

So you bet. I'd love to.

SPEAKER_01 1:05

Yeah, man. So uh yeah, you've been you're you run the celebration recovery.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

Celebrate, yeah, celebrate recovery in CUNA. Yeah. I'm the ministry leader there. Um, we've been open for uh this we're on our third year right now. Um prior to that, I was at um helped start the celebrate recovery in Middleton. Um so yeah, yeah. It's going good.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

Yeah, that's cool. And that's kind of like uh a 12-step thing, but more faith-based, more Christian-based, correct?

SPEAKER_00 1:34

Yep. Yep. Instead of uh um it's it's basically the 12 steps um that Alcoholics Anonymous uses um or NA uses. Uh we just uh have Jesus Christ as our savior. Um so yeah, it's basically the same thing. We go through the same exact steps.

SPEAKER_01 1:54

Because the 12 steps they they um they pretty much say like a higher power rather than being specific of Jesus Christ.

SPEAKER_00 2:00

They could you could have your doorknob as your higher power and in those in AA, just whatever you choose to be your higher power, and we choose to use Jesus Christ as our higher power.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

Yeah, I had another guy on here before and he went through AA and he said that it wasn't the same as when he just started believing from a higher power to Jesus Christ, everything changed.

SPEAKER_00 2:20

Yeah, that's and that's kind of how it was for me. I I spent years in AA, mostly forced to be in AA. I love AA, don't get me wrong. I I think it's an amazing program, and our program wouldn't exist if it wasn't for you know uh AA. But um for me, all those years of relapse and and um it was because I I did wasn't following Jesus. Umce that happened, it was just a a game changer for me.

SPEAKER_01 2:49

Yeah, it's huge, man. It's uh it's it's like Jesus is always knocking, but the door is only open from the inside. There's not an out outward uh an out door outside uh an outside handle, you know. Like you have to be the one to open that. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, cool, man. Well, let's get into it. Like, where it's where are you from?

SPEAKER_00 3:06

Uh I grew up uh in north central Idaho. I was born in Grangeville, Idaho. Um, grew up in a little town called Kooski. It's about 600 people. My dad lived there. My parents divorced when I was about five or six, and my mom lived in Orfino, which is about 30 miles away. So I really just bounced back and forth between my parents um about every other year, to be honest. I think a lot of it was for me. I after my parents divorced, I that was how I could manipulate how I wanted to live. You know, I'd go live with my dad because it was a lot freer and he was kind of a wild man. My mom worked for the Idaho Department of Corrections um in Orfino at that time. Um so I'd go to her house when I wanted things to be a little more steady. Um, but I just kind of bounced back and forth between them. Um grew up in the the small town world where it seemed like everybody drank a lot. Um I didn't really the drug scene, I wasn't really in the drug scene yet. Um even even through high school. I mean, I I did drugs in high school. That's where I started, but for the most part, it was just alcohol. Everybody I knew drank. Everything revolved around drinking, even with my, especially uh my dad. My dad was a full-blown alcoholic, owned a bar, was a logger, um, liked to fight. Um, he loved us kids a lot, but he he had his own demons. My mom was, I would say she was probably an alcoholic too, but she was responsible, went to work every day. But all of our vacations, anything that we did, you know, revolved around alcohol. Um so I so by 14 years old, I I was I would say I was definitely an alcoholic by then. Um, would drink every weekend. Um and it affected my school and sports and things like that. Um, when I was 16, um, my dad and I and a couple of his friends and his girlfriend went on a hunting trip um in the backcountry driving, drinking, and I remember we we stopped at one of his friends' house as we were leaving town, and um my dad went in the house, and I didn't really think anything of it. I was just waiting in the pickup, and we left there and we started on our journey up into the mountains, and um we pulled over, and um everybody gets out and they're kind of looking around for something hard, like a hard surface, like a book or or something. And and um the only thing that they found was behind the guy's seat, he found an old Bible, and the next thing I know, they're dumping white powder on this Bible and chopping lines. And I was really in shock. I never knew that my dad did drugs, and um using a Bible to do coke, using a meth. Oh, meth. Yeah, and um, yeah, using a Bible. That didn't even hit me until you know, I tell I became a Christian. I didn't really think anything of that, honestly. Um but he asked or the guy that was chopping the lines asked my dad how many lines to make, and um he told him make five uh four lines and make mine big. And when it got to my dad's turn, he cut his line in half and he did half and handed it to me, and I did the other half, and it was like the best feeling I ever had in my whole life.

SPEAKER_01 6:51

So your dad was the first one to introduce you to meth.

SPEAKER_00 6:54

Yeah. And he, you know, he was he wasn't, he didn't use drugs a lot. He used it to party with, like to keep drinking, kind of thing. Um, I had no clue, and most people that I grew up with didn't have a clue that my dad did drugs, they just thought he was an alcoholic. Um, so that was kind of my first taste, and I was 16. And but I loved it so much. I loved the feeling of it. Um, but my friends didn't use drugs, you know. Um, people I hung out with didn't use drugs. So I didn't really see it again until um after I got out of high school. Um, I I probably did it a handful of times, maybe from 16 until I was out of school. Did your dad ever let you have it again? Uh not with him. Um, I don't I remember other times, like I remember one time waking up. Uh my dad was a pretty popular man where we grew up with, and um especially in the you know, the bar crowd, and and he liked to fight. He was really tough. And I remember one time uh waking up, and I was sleeping in his room, and I and he was single, me and my brother lived there, and and I it was pretty common to have people over at our house really late at night. He'd close the bar and bring people home. And well, I heard people out in the in the kitchen, so I just walked over to the door and and peeked out, and there was like this bale of marijuana sitting on our kitchen table, and they were weighing it out, and I was like, oh my gosh. I I was just shocked. So your dad was also in the and that was probably only a week before uh the first time I used with him. Um so just a whole switch in that area of time then, huh? Yeah, it was. And and um, and we always dad always let us drink with him. You know, he didn't want us out running around drinking, but we could always drink around him. But that, yeah, that whole period of time was just kind of a shock for me. Um I ended up moving to Portland right after high school uh for work. And and once I got over there, I started, you know, hanging out with guys that used and and kind of went down that meth thing. And meth at that time, you know, this was the late 90s, was like it was very potent, way different than it, you know, it was at toward the end of my using career. But um, and I became addicted to meth um probably by 19. I was pretty addicted. I a lot of times I just use it on the I buy some on Friday night, and I'd try to wind down by Sunday and then just drink during the week and then go right back at it. But then eventually it became more and more so you always wanted to carry a buzz, yeah, for sure. Um, yeah, for sure. Um but most of my family didn't know that I used at that time. It wasn't until I was in my probably mid-20s before people uh around me knew that I used a lot of my friends, you know, didn't use it was I I had a kind of a secret friends over here, and then my the ones I you know grew up with over here, and they didn't really know. I think they wondered why I was able to stay up all night and drink with them, but um so yeah, and then it was at that time I I met this this gal in Portland and we got married, and me and her used a lot. We decided to move to Idaho, and um we'd only been married a few months, and I came to Idaho to find work to Boise where my mom was. Um, she had transferred with the Department of Corrections down to Boise and was a warden at the time. And um, so I so I came to Boise and and while I was here looking for work, she um I I just had this feeling something was up with her, and she admitted that she was sleeping with one of my friends.

SPEAKER_01 10:58

So that mom, the warden at the time, was sleeping with one of my friends?

SPEAKER_00 11:02

No, no, no. My ex my wife, my current wife that was still in Portland. And uh, no, that'd be a heck of a Yeah, I was like, what? So, so I I was kind of trying to get my life straight. That's why I'd come to Boise and and that just kind of spun me off the deep end, and and uh then I kind of just traveled around. I went back up North Idaho and I quit the job that I had here and and um just ended up bouncing around. I ended up my uncle lived over in Seattle, so I went over to Seattle and moved in with him, and then there wasn't meth really in Seattle at that time, like it was prior to where I'd been. And I got addicted to cocaine, um, which was even was even a worse addiction, like wanting it all the time.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

Um what was the difference for you between for between meth and cocaine?

SPEAKER_00 12:00

Um the meth or the cocaine was a uh for me, it got me that higher high that I wanted, but it just didn't last as long. Um and I could tell I could I still had a the frame of mind where I didn't want to be doing what I was doing, but um, but I was addicted. And so, but I still had that little bit in me that knew that this wasn't the life that I wanted to live. So I would just again pack up and move and try to move away from it. So I'd move back to to Idaho and it was just a matter of time before I would get back into the drugs. It always to me it thinking back on it, it it always seemed like the alcohol is what would do it. Um, because I I never relapsed on drugs if I was if I wasn't drunk. Um, but the second I would start drinking, you know, it might not have been the first week or the second week, but eventually I'd get drunk enough that I'd get back on the on the drugs, and then at that point it was just on. Um I ended up uh um back in Idaho, met another gal in a bar. Um that's my kids' mom. I have twins that are 20 years old. Um and we ended up uh getting married pretty quickly, and but we drank all the time. So I I kind of stopped using, she's a school teacher, um, or I'd use you know, once a month where she wouldn't know, she never knew that I used until the kids were probably uh four or five years old. Um, but I always kind of had that secret life that that she didn't know about.

SPEAKER_01 13:45

Uh how'd your wife find out that you were using?

SPEAKER_00 13:48

Um she found a light bulb that I was smoking meth out of. Um and and she knew there was something up. She she felt like there was something going on, and then she found a light bulb, and and then you know, we split up for a while and then got back together. And I then one night I was out in the living room, it was like two in the morning, and I was still drinking, and she came out and I was snorting diet pills off of the coffee table. And diet pills, like ephedrin or something. And so then obviously I left and and we ended up getting divorced. We have a really good relationship now. Um, especially well, I'll get to that part later, but we have a good relationship now. We don't talk a lot, but wouldn't we do? It's very civil, and and our kids are amazing.

SPEAKER_01 14:44

What was it like the first time you found out you're gonna be a dad, let alone finding out it was gonna be twins?

SPEAKER_00 14:48

You know, that that was a really hard time of my life. Um, because my kids were born in October, um, and my dad died in December, the end of December. So he he got to meet them when they were born, and we went up and visited him about a couple weeks before he passed away. Um, he was having a hard time and he called me crying, which he'd never done before. And me and my dad stayed close, you know, up until that point. We, you know, we he was an alcoholic and he was trying to quit drinking. He'd gone to rehab a um a couple times and was trying to quit, but he he ended up relapsing. And I I don't know that we know we knew then what we do now about um overdose. I think that he probably overdosed on on drugs. Um he died in the middle, had a heart attack in the middle of the night. Um he was 47, I was 27, and the kids were uh just a few months old. And that's when I kind of really spiraled with with their mom, uh, you know, drinking all the time and and snorting diet pills and um doing meth. And but yeah, so she ends up leaving me and and um you know I'm back to couch surfing and and and uh living the chaos life in the drug world. And and I still wasn't all the way into that world yet, but I that's just when things started to go that way. And I ended up in drug court. I ended up getting arrested on a possession charge uh in Caldwell, and um I went through drug court and or I got into drug court, excuse me, and it was really good. Um I had restitution that I had to pay, so before I could get out of drug court, I had to pay that restitution, and it was quite a bit of money, and um so I ended up being in drug court for almost three years, and I was sober the whole time I was in drug court, and I learned a lot. I was going to AA all the time and um you know was uh chairing meetings and things were just really good. And um, and then I graduated. Um when I when I was in drug court, I had got introduced to celebrate recovery, but I didn't go very much. I didn't have a relationship with God at all yet. Um but drug court keeps you really busy, and I was in Ada County drug court, it's a really tough one, and um they keep you really busy, and and it was what I needed at that time in my life. I learned a lot about addiction um, you know, through the classes I was doing, but I still didn't have a relationship with God at that point. And once I graduated, I ended up meeting this gal um that was in recovery as well while I was in drug court. We ended up getting married right toward the end of my drug court, and um she had a lot of mental health issues too that uh she was battling, and and um so we get married and and we have a house in in Nampa and we're doing pretty good. And she starts drinking again, and I wasn't. Um, but within a few months I had a bad day at work, came home, grabbed a beer out of the fridge, and that night I had an old dealer drop me meth off in my mailbox. Um after just one drink. One one day of drinking, yeah. And uh I I you know I I sponsor a lot of guys now that are battle with drugs and and but still think they can drink. And um I I know that I couldn't, and I don't know anybody that really can. Um when once you start clouding the judgment in your brain, um it it all it takes is a bad day, and you're gonna, you know, relapse. That's what how it was for me anyway. Um and when they say that you start out worse than when you when you stopped, for me that was very true. Um they talk about alcoholism and drug addiction being a progressive disease. Um, it keeps getting worse, even if you're sober. And that's how it was. When I when I relapsed, I was deeper in the chaos of the drug life within weeks than I had ever been. And um this time I knew people from drug court um that had relapsed and now they're in the drug world. So it's it was almost like I had, you know, 10 times more contacts than I ever had. And that's what I I ended up, you know, getting a hold of those people. And pretty quick I lost my job, lost my house, lost our vehicles. And um over what course of time would you say? I would say within six months. Yeah. I had a business, I had a traffic control business uh here in town. My parents had partnered with me and another guy and his parents, and um, once they found out I was using, they didn't want me to be a part of the business anymore and bought me out, and I that money was gone, you know, within a month. And um, so then I I had never really sold drugs at that point, you know, maybe you know, part of a bag to help somebody or whatever, but I wasn't a dealer. And you know, within a few months I was dealing drugs mostly to support my habit. But then it became it almost became an addiction, just like the drug use, um, that just that chaotic life and uh living in hotels, and you know, you'd wake up in the morning, know you have to check out, not have enough money for the next day, so you'd go out and hustle all day long to be able to afford another bag and afford another hotel room. And it was just day after day after day. Um for several years, it was like that.

SPEAKER_01 21:03

At what point did you realize that you needed to start selling drugs or that you wanted to sell drugs?

SPEAKER_00 21:07

I I remember like telling my wife at the time, so now we're on wife number three, um, that that's what I was gonna do. Like, I'm just gonna I'm gonna sell drugs and I'm gonna be the best drug dealer I can be. And um just thinking back on that, it just makes me so sick.

SPEAKER_01 21:28

Was it just meth at that point?

SPEAKER_00 21:30

Well, it started out as meth. Um, I didn't I didn't I don't I never liked marijuana um because it stunk and I always thought cops can smell it and they're gonna search you. So I never never did marijuana. I didn't plus I like to be wide awake. Um but it eventually turned into heroin um and pills. Um fentanyl came right at the right when I kind of got out of uh using uh Um, I'll have nine years sober in a couple weeks. Um, so that's kind of when fentanyl started coming out. Um, I I there's no doubt I'd have been dead by now if it if I was still using. But um, so yeah, the heroin um heroin came, you know, in that period of my life where I would I would just buy it and sell it because I didn't do it. And that that was really the only thing I could make money on. But it was this, it was it was already a dark world that I was living in. But once I inserted heroin, um, it became the darkest point in my life. Like the people that you were around. I was around, yeah. Cause I'll do anything to get high. And um, and it was just sad to see, you know, I th I was just having this conversation last night in one of my groups that I still think about uh the young, you know, 20-year-old guys that were just starting out doing drugs that I had sold drugs to, and and then, you know, I know some of those guys aren't around anymore. Um, and and some of them are in prison. Um, you know, I see I see a few in the recovery rooms um in the valley, but um that still just breaks my heart that I had a part of that.

SPEAKER_01 23:21

Um did they recognize you?

SPEAKER_00 23:23

Yeah, yeah. And a lot a lot of people do now in the in the recovery world, because I'm all over the place when it comes to trying to help people in recovery, but and that's one of the reasons why I do it, because I, you know, I I know it's possible that that we can get out of that hole. Um, but it's also maybe some guilt too, because I feel guilty about getting people addicted to drugs. So I ended up um I had contacts in North Idaho because that's where I grew up, and um I ended up um I was still homeless, but I never had I was never lacking a place to stay at that point because people wanted me around because I always had drugs. But I ended up um transporting drugs back and forth from North Idaho to South Idaho. Um and was, you know, prison gangs and and cartels and things like that is is where I would get my drugs. So I'm hanging around with people that really um would kill me in a heartbeat. Cartels here in Idaho? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:30

Really?

SPEAKER_00 24:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:31

Who wouldn't have thought of that?

SPEAKER_00 24:33

Yeah, they're all over here. Yeah. Wow. And so I was in a living in a dangerous world, and um so I'm transporting back and forth, and and um uh once you're in that point of of that world, you gotta worry about people ripping you off and taking what you have, and and so I was paranoid because I'm high. And um and I'm at a hotel in Nampa, the Super Eight. And uh let me back up for just a second. There's a there was a woman this whole time that that would um send me Facebook messages, and I grew up with her kids in Orfino, and her and her husband used to go into the prison and do prison ministry, and she would message me almost every day. At this point, people knew what I was doing, but she would message me almost every day and tell me she's praying for me, or she'd send me a scripture, and I would I would look at it and I might like just scan it, but I didn't really, I wasn't taking any of it in.

SPEAKER_01 25:39

So this woman was from your childhood?

SPEAKER_00 25:41

Yeah, okay, yeah, and uh her name was Jan. And um, so I'm at the Super 8, and I'm paranoid as all get out. I have a lot of drugs on me. And um, I'm with a a girl and this other guy and his girlfriend, and we're in a hotel, and I'm like peeking out the windows. I'm like what you'd see in the movies, you know, I'm like paranoid. And um, so I do a late checkout because there's like weird stuff going on in the parking lot in my head anyway. And um uh the guy and his girlfriend leave, and uh, the girl's still with me, and we end up going down to the vehicle to leave, and I'm like still freaked out, and I I say, I gotta go back in one more time. So I go back in, and I when I come back out, I see this black SUV driving through the parking lot. And so I kind of ignore it and it drives off. Well, I'm I put something in the back of the vehicle and I start walking to get in the driver's seat, and I hear my name. And I recognized his voice immediately, but I hadn't seen him in like 20 years, um, since high school. But it was Ryan Bonner. Um, and I knew Ryan was a cop in Nampa. And so I turn around, go back, and I talk to him, and and he's in a like a just a at black SUV tinted windows. We start talking about our families and this and that. Well, that's Jan's son. Um and he's a cop for Nampa PD at that time. He worked for he was a liaison for the FBI, and so I'm freaking out inside. Like I'm thinking I'm going down, you know. And I like I said, there's a lot of drugs in the car. And we BS for a while, and and then he's asked me how I'm doing. I'm like, oh, I'm doing really good. I'm me and uh the last ex or the last wife are breaking up, we're getting divorced, things are going really good, and he's like, Okay. And um he said, you know, at the end of the conversation, he's like, Well, Jim, if you need any help, you know, just reach out to me. Like, I don't think things are going all that good for you. And he gives me his card and he writes down Ron Carpenter Jr. on the back of it, and um, he's like, check this guy out, look, uh, listen to some of his podcasts or his uh YouTube's, and he's a pastor. I was like, all right, so I go, I get back in the car and I'm freaked out. And I go drop this girl off and I head to Ontario, rent a hotel room, and I like am freaked. And I stayed there for a couple weeks. Um, I have stuff that is in my vehicle that I'm supposed to deliver that other people have given me money for, but I'm just freaked out because I don't know if that was just a chance meeting or if like he's given me a hint to stop doing what I'm doing, type of thing. And um so I go to this hotel, I stay high for a couple weeks, and I decide that I'm gonna try and get clean. And um I start listening to this Ron Carpenter Jr. while I'm sitting in that hotel room, and I just listen and I watch video after video after video of these sermons. And I would say that I was never um not a believer, like I but there God was never in my life, uh, neither on my mom's side or on my dad's side of the family. Um and so I as I'm listening to this, I just get more open and more open, and and it just it was like the first time that I felt like there was a a Holy Spirit that was trying to to guide me in a direction. And um that was the beginning of it. That was so that was the summer of uh 2015. Um I end up staying in it, but not all the way in it. I'm kind of freaked out. I don't have my connections anymore because I'm I've ripped, you know, I didn't deliver some drugs and staying in the drug world, is that what you're talking about?

SPEAKER_01 29:50

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 29:50

Well, I end up in a in a storage unit in Nampa, 24, 24-7 storage is what it was called, or 24 hour storage. It's over off 11th in Nampa. And uh I'm living in a storage unit. And um at that point, I'm really just like buying and selling things on marketplace and Craigslist to support my habit. Not really selling drugs, I'm kind of out of that at that point. And um it's the winter of Snow Mageddon and it is like really cold outside. And um I'm living in the storage unit and I'm like really wanting to die. Um so I I end up getting some meth and I'm in there and I'm freezing. I have this electric electric cord that goes to an electrical box that's like 150 feet away that runs underneath my door. And I got this hot plate, but it's so cold I couldn't get warm. And I remember thinking, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do as much meth as I can, and I'm just gonna try and kill myself. And um, so I load this needle up with as much meth as I can get in, as strong as I can make it, and I would go to give myself, you know, what I thought would be my final shot, and it froze, and I wasn't it wouldn't come out of the needle. And I I remember just crying out to God, like, Lord, if you're real, just let me die or help me. And um and I hadn't slept for quite a while at that point, but I remember it was just the weirdest thing, like this this warmth came over me, and I fell asleep. Um, and when I woke up, you know, I wasn't froze to death. But that that next morning I walked to the Boise Rescue Mission Lighthouse um in Nampa and I had I had breakfast there. And um, and I just remember how nice everybody was there. Um I didn't I didn't know what was gonna happen in the future, but I didn't think the Boise Rescue Mission had anything to do with my future, but it was it was my first time walking into a homeless shelter. And um so I make it through the winter that uh that next spring I'm I'm still using, I'm trying to work, um, but I'm I'm like half in with the with the Christian thing, um, still homeless, and but I'm I don't want to use anymore. It's not fun, it's like miserable. It's all the only reason I'm doing it is just to stay awake, like to make it through the day. And um I uh I decided that I'm gonna try and go to the Allenbaugh house. I'd been to the Allenbaugh house before. I don't know if you're familiar with the Allenbaugh house, but they're uh it's a free clinic uh detox center in in Boise. And um I'd been there once before um and they helped get me off of drugs. So I so I have my aunt or my cousin come pick me up, and she takes me there. And at that point in my mind, I was all in on getting clean. Um, I just didn't really know how to do it, and I didn't have any money um to go anywhere to like a full rehab. So I go to the Allen Baugh house and and I don't know, day four or day five. You can stay there for a week. And day four, day five, I'm starting to freak out. Like, where am I gonna go? I can't go back to the storage unit, or I'm just gonna get high again. Um there's that that that storage unit had more drug dealers in it than any place I'd ever been.

SPEAKER_01 33:44

They also stayed in there?

SPEAKER_00 33:45

Yeah, it was like a hotel, hotel city uh of in the storage units. Really? It's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 33:51

Is that a common thing? I've never heard of it.

SPEAKER_00 33:52

It is there. Um, yeah, I think so, but most places don't let you like, you know, they'll let you hang out there during the day, but not all night. Um but so I'm I'm in the in the Allenbaugh house, and one day I'm walking across the kitchen living area, and there's a paper on the ground, and I pick it up, and it's an application to the Boise Rescue Mission New Life program. And I didn't really think anything of it. I just set it on a table. Go sit down, and and as I'm sitting there, there's a TV up on the wall, and um Reverend Roscoe from the Boise Rescue Mission is on a commercial. And at that point, I I just kind of closed my eyes and I'm like, okay, God is trying to tell me something. And so I filled the application out to the rescue mission uh program. At that point, I just thought it's a place that I can go and I'm not gonna be outside, and maybe I can stay sober for longer than you know a few days. And the man that that received the application from the at the at the Boise Rescue Mission had worked with my mom at the Department of Corrections for like 20 years. So he knew her and he knew about me. Um I didn't know who he was, but um so he accepted me into the program. And um so when I left the Allenbaugh house, I didn't have to go back to the the storage units. I I got a ride from the Allenbaugh house straight to the Boise Rescue Mission, and um and that was the beginning of like my whole new life. Um, you know, I remember walking through the doors the first time and just how inviting everybody was, and it reminded me of the the first time I'd been there, how nice they were, and and the there were some guys in the program. The program at the lighthouse that that time wasn't very big, um, like it is down in Boise, but um I just remember how inviting those guys were that were in the program, and they kind of it was a weekend, so there wasn't a lot of staff there, and they kind of showed me where my bed was and and got me food and and um it was just they were just really inviting. It I'll never forget how for the first time in a long time I felt like people wanted me to be around them. And um then I you know I started the program and the program's not it's not easy. I don't know what the statistics are on the people that start but don't finish. I know they're not real high, but the statistics on the people that finish the program that that that continue on in life and do good things is very high. Um their success rate on on their graduates is amazing. Um the but you do a lot of work around the mission, you know, a lot of service work, a lot of uh drug and alcohol classes, and then discipleship. They've you know they've you got Bible studies and and people pastors from the outside come in and and do stuff. You can't leave and you can't work. Um you know, they get four different phases. That first phase is kind of a a blackout where you don't have contact with anybody, and then and then you might have an hour where you can leave with another programmer that's in a later stage than you. And um I remember it it got tough once, and I was only a couple months in, and I like the same guy that got me into the program, um he was one of my counselors, and and I told him, you know, I think I'm gonna leave. I've got I've got some pretty good time of sobriety under me. Uh, you know, I need to get out there and get a job and support my kids and pay my bills and you know, be an adult. And he's and he just kind of looks at me and he starts laughing and he's like, Jim, when is the last time that you did any of those things? Do you let's pick up the phone right now and let's call your kids, um, people you owe money to, and let's ask them if they would rather you stay here and finish this program or if if they'd rather you go out and get a job. And it that hit me. It's like uh and it was a little embarrassing, but it he was right. For you know, most of my life I hadn't done any of those things. My kids are like uh 12 or 13 at this point, and um actually they're they're about 11. And um my daughter's talking to me. My son doesn't want anything to do with me. Um, but me and my daughter are you know making contact and she's come and seen me a couple times. Um the ex-wife is talking to me. She she was really good through this whole thing. Um, she wanted me to be around the kids, but she never wanted me to be around the kids when I was high. So um, but she always wanted the kids to be a part of my life or me to be a part of their life, and um so grateful for that. But so I locked into the program and and locked into the discipleship part of it, probably the most. I've read the Bible um all the way through, plus you know, a lot more uh while I was in that program. And it um I remember the very first time besides that time in the storage unit where I felt the Holy Spirit. At that time I didn't have any clue that's what the what it was, but I remember being I was reading this book by Francis Chan, and he and in there, and I'm in group in this classroom, but I'm reading this book and and it it says in there um the same Jesus Christ uh who died on the cross. Um the same Holy Spirit um that that was with Jesus Christ when he died on the cross is the same Holy Spirit that's in you right now, and it hit me like and that's that's when I felt the overwhelming uh love of the Holy Spirit. And um the the program was just really good. While I was in there, I like I said earlier, I I'd gone to Celebrate Recovery before, but I'd never um I never really it was just another group. I I was always wondered why people were happy about being in a group on a Friday night and not in a bar. But um, so the very first night I'm there was a Friday night, and we go to Ten Mile Christian Church for Celebrate Recovery, and um and we went every week. So for a year, every week I went to Celebrate Recovery. I was able to go through the steps um while I was there. Um the way that Celebrate Recovery does the steps is you meet once a week. There's like 26 or 27 lessons. Um so it takes you basically a year to go through the steps. So while I'm at the at the mission going through the new life program, at the same time I'm at Celebrate Recovery going through the steps. And it was just perfect the way that worked out. Um, I ended up graduating the the the mission program. How long did that take? Uh about a year. Okay. Yeah. Um I I was able to start working, I think. Um, I still lived at the mission. Um it still had I had a few classes to do still, but I was able to start working, I think, after nine months. Um got a really good job right after you know, while I was in there. But um they uh after I graduated the program, uh they have transitional housing. There's apartments on uh the boulevard here in Nampa, and then they got a bunch in Boise too. But um, so I moved into the transitional housing apartments, was living on my own for the first time. And um yeah, life was really good. And and you know, I remember getting my first car and and but the rescue mission was with me through every step of of all of that. Um I love the rescue mission so much and what they do for for people without government funding, without, you know, it's all it's all donation based. And um, you know, I still am plugged in with the mission. I try to help out there as you know whenever I can, or if they need me. Tomorrow I'll be on the radio at 7 30 with Kevin Miller at Walmart there in Nampa. Um, but yeah, they and if I ever need anything, all I gotta do is call them. It's like it's almost like you, you know, graduate in a college and you always have a place to go back to. And I don't know. I I really appreciate them. And while so while I was there, um I uh I attended Ten Mile Christian and one of the pastors there, Nick Duffle, he um he invited me to come to his home group at his house. So um I got to know Nick really well and and his family really well. And Nick ended up becoming a pastor out in uh Middleton, and we would send messages back and forth. He's like, Yeah, I really think we should start a celebrate recovery out here. And I'm still attending CR, but I'm not in any kind of ministry lead. And I end up getting uh I buy a motor home and end up renting a piece of land from a guy out in Caldwell right next to Middleton. So I end up starting to go to church where Nick's at, and and he has a staff member that wants to start a CR. And so we do it. We start a CR in in Middleton and um started it from scratch. So we had to walk those people through the steps before we can start, and um so that's kind of where my ministry leader leader started was in at the Middleton Celebrate Recovery. Um, and I was there for uh almost three years, and then I met this amazing woman um that lived in cuna um we became faceboards somebody that we were mutual friends with on facebook said you guys should you guys should meet and um and then if i think she sent me a message and she says i didn't respond right away but um a few months later we start dating and um and she's an amazing amazing woman of god um she grew up you know going to baptist school and she's never been in this part of the the crazy chaos world that I was a part of she's never even seen drugs before um so we end up dating um end up uh I end up moving out to Cuna and we get married and um and then the church that I was attending in Cuna wanted to start a celebrate recovery and I was still traveling back and forth to Middleton twice a week um and that was a lot so I always told her though until God tells me that that chapter's closed I gotta keep doing it and then when that opportunity came to where we could start a celebrate recovery in Cuna I think that was when God told me that chapter closed so that's when we started the one in CUNA and we've been we just celebrated our two year anniversary um which is really cool um and uh we just keep plugging away that's awesome man what was it like when you first got out of the of that program the mission the Boise Mission and you were on your own how did you avoid the temptation or any kind of did you have any kind of temptation or would you already worked past that I think I think from the time that I gave myself to Jesus he's at the mission he has taken any urge to use away um I don't put myself around uh drugs obviously um I'm around alcohol if I go to a function and people are drinking but I never it never crosses my mind is man I wish I could have one of those um so that part has been taken away it used to be really hard especially driving around certain parts of Nampa or driving over on Vista and Boise um I would get that just that gut ache uh feeling now I drive it and I don't even think about it um but but I so I avoided those areas completely I just wouldn't go there um so it's it's not that been as hard as as I would think it was but I I owe all that to Jesus because I think he's he took that urge to use away now I still have issues um with dreams like it used to be a couple times a week right now it's like three four times a week I I dream of of using uh math I don't I don't think about or don't I don't dream about drinking it's mostly about drug use or the chaos world that I lived in like it it'll just be like an anxious dream um and I've been really praying hard about uh about that and for God to take that away I I talked about this in group last night it's like I I don't know if maybe it's God using that to to remind me I don't know but it's definitely that's that's probably the only uh maybe PTSD part of of it that I have um but it's been pretty easy and and a lot of it I think is because I stayed the same things that I was doing in the mission um I'm doing nine years later. I still go to meetings every week um I still help other alcoholics and drug addicts and I still talk about my story um because I think it not only helps other people but it helps me stay grounded in recovery.

SPEAKER_01 48:02

Yeah I think that once you help someone else go through something it holds uh it also holds you accountable you know absolutely I think about that kind of like with my own fitness area of like I need to make sure that I'm still doing good if I'm gonna be helping others I have to set that example or um just anything. I mean even with like being a parent like we have to make sure that we're holding that line yes because we have people watching us at that point you know yeah yeah yeah nobody wants to go work out with a big old fat guy. Right yeah yeah exactly so you just kind of like need to hold that but um that's amazing man it sounds like you had such a such an amazing life I mean it makes sense in reverse obviously but going forward you're like what in the world is going on yeah you know that's that's just the paradox of life unfortunately is that you never know like how long this hurt is gonna last or or whatever you know like I was kind of thinking about that I've been doing a lot of stairs lately for for the show that I'm in and and right now I'm doing 60 minutes and it's like it's not so bad that I know it's gonna stop at 60 minutes but if my coach were to just tell me like get on the stairs and go till I tell you to stop and he knows it's 60 minutes but I don't know and I'm just like man this sucks this sucks this sucks and it's like it's just those times in life where you don't know how long this is going to last that it just is like is this worth it?

SPEAKER_00 49:17

Uh-huh I I agree I I think about too when I was younger I always just wanted to be happy so I would do things to make me happy um whether it be drugs or women or or alcohol and now I I was just telling my wife this the other night now it's like I just want peace like peace makes me happy not being in in chaos makes me happy I don't have to like search for things to make me happy I just need to be in the moment. Yeah and uh and thank God I I and when I say my wife is a saint she is truly a saint and um she grounds me and and I'm so grateful for her and she's got two three wonderful kids that uh are just like mine and um so we have five kids together two grandkids um so it's a lot of fun um in that world I worry about my kids you know because they their mom enjoyed alcohol and their dad's an addict and so but I I just got to give that to God. I worry I I think I worry more about the things I worry about most now is just salvation for my kids that they know Jesus and they don't have to go down the same road that I went down or the road that I see so many people go down um and have to hit bottom before they realize that there's a God that loves them and and um that that's a fear that you know I I have I pray about a lot as I just I want them to I want them to be in heaven um one you know one day with me. So what's the best way for a parent to get their kids to believe in Christ with their heart and not just because they're being told to I I wish I knew the answer to that because um I think we all we can do is give them the tools um to make that decision on their own. And um I think you know I I know too many people that were forced to go to either church or Christian school or whatever that now have nothing to do with God because they were you know had to go to church three times a week. I think we just give them those tools and let them make that decision. But it's it's not easy. Me and my wife talk about it all the time but I think everybody has to I know for me I had to go my own road uh for me to realize it um but the thing that was lacking for me was I knew nothing about God. I remember I I had a a neighbor that was a pastor um when we lived in town and and my dad owned a bar and was a partier so they looked across the fence at us and thought oh my gosh and we looked across the fence at them that thought oh those are the Bible thumpers and um but I remember uh they had like this family come one time we lived right by the river and this boy kind of cornered me over in the park when I didn't have any friends or family around and asked me if I'd ever been saved before and that was probably my first uh interaction with somebody uh that was Christian and I was interested and I listened to him and he did a sinner's prayer with me but I had no clue what it was um I wish that my parents had given me those tools um I don't know that I would have taken them but I wish they would have given them to me um I I I thank God for Ryan Bonner and his mom um his mom ended up she came to my graduation at the Boise Rescue Mission it was at Tim Law Christian she came all the way down from Morfino she had cancer um and she passed away from that cancer um but she came all the way down um she was the only person I had there my family wasn't talking to me yet um she stood on stage with me um and she was so proud of me um for for finding Jesus and for and getting sober and and Ryan and I talk to this day he's still a cop for Nampo P he doesn't work with the drug task force anymore but um he's a patrol cop with Nampo PD um and we still talk um if he you know and I we've never honestly talked about were you there just by happenstance or were you there to give a warning I feel like he was probably there uh God put him there to give me a warning it wasn't anything else um but yeah he's a great dude and a godly man and if it wasn't for him who knows how much longer I would have been astray um God just puts people in places uh at certain times for certain people and I try to remember that as I as I do my walk every day you know I I'm really busy with work I'm really busy with kids I'm really busy with recovery but I I have to remind myself that God is putting me in a restaurant to talk to this person or putting me there for somebody to talk to me um I I feel like he uses us all the time to do that kind of stuff we just rarely see it and uh so I I I have to make a conscious effort to remember to stay open to that because I think we can do powerful things for God. We can be his hands and feet if we allow that to happen. After you had those couple first experiences with the Holy Spirit what do you think got you closer where you could listen to that and hear hear that more clearly was it just being more in the word and when you actually read the Bible absolutely thrown the back and absolutely and um I'm a news junkie like bad it's probably my addiction these days but I have to if if I'm listening to podcasts with godly men on it or um I'm picking up my Bible doing my devotions that brings me closer to the Holy Spirit I can feel him more if I you know and and you know he's showing me signs and wonders throughout the day but if I'm not doing those things I don't see those signs and wonders I don't see those people that that uh I'm supposed to interact with um so it's a it's a hard balance when we get busy in life I you know I I will say I I was probably in more tune with the Holy Spirit that first couple years um of sobriety because I was so buried in the Bible um as life's gotten busier I think like I said I have to make that conscious effort to stay in tune um and it's it's really shouldn't be an effort um it should be the first thing that I want to do is is have that morning devotion but it's not always easy. You know I think the other part for me is being around people in recovery that are fresh off the street um whether it be in the mission or or at Celebrate recovery um when somebody comes in for the first time it reminds me how much work uh um it takes to to stay sober and to do what God wants us to do. It's not it's not always easy.

SPEAKER_01 56:44

Yeah. Those people that are fresh off the street how do you get them to be open to Jesus Christ?

SPEAKER_00 56:50

Um that's uh I wish I I wish I had a success a high success rate. Um you know it's I I I try to give them tools just like I would my kids um be open to phone calls be open to help them you know I have a guy that just texts me for a ride to go do a UA and I can tell usually the person that's like I was that needs to escape from the immediate danger or circumstance that they're in versus the person that really truly wants to get sober. And I I still feel like they're both important to to disciple um but most of them aren't gonna most of them aren't ready yet I don't think do you think they're not ready because they haven't hit a true rock bottom yeah yeah yeah and I you know I because I I I try to get people to go into that program at the Boise Rescue Mission and I've gotten a lot of people I got my own brother in there who I'll talk about in a second but um that um they go in and they were like me that time that I told my counselor I wanted to leave um because they want to go work or they want to you know they have other things they have to do when in reality the most important for the the the most important thing for them to do is to find a relationship with God and to take care of themselves. Because we can't take care of anybody if we're messed up. And um so that part that part's hard to try to convince somebody to do that. It's hard to convince somebody to take a year off of work but I've made more money in the nine years that I've been sober than I did in the previous 30 um all put together. So sacrifice at the beginning is way worth it in the end.

SPEAKER_01 58:50

That's gotta be especially for uh your salvation yeah well that's also got to be a hard theory for a drug user to use because they're always chasing that short term gratification. Exactly so to say no this is going to be like a long term thing they're they're just looking for that quick fix that quick high that quick money for sure and so the for them that it's hard to even fathom this is going to take a year.

SPEAKER_00 59:12

It's it's really easy for the ones that are on rock bottom though. And you and I can tell those people when I see them. What's those usually like they've lost their kids in custody or like what's usually something that's they've lost it all yeah they've lost it all and they don't want I think sorry drug court helped me in this one way too is I had a counselor tell me you're never gonna have fun after you go through these classes you're never going to have fun when you get high again and I didn't really think anything of it at the time but they were right once you know what it does to your body what it's doing to your family what it's doing to your friends and unless you have zero conscious at all it's not fun anymore. So and I can tell when I when I meet those people that they're only doing it because they're addicted to it. They're not doing it because it's fun.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:07

Yeah. What was one of the most impactful things that you learned during drug court did they ever talk about like overdoses and what that does to your family or like people people that drug court um the most important thing I learned was accountability because if you lie at all um or you use at all you're gonna get caught um drug courts a lot of people say it's really easy you just got to not do drugs.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:32

That's not really true. They're testing you in in honesty and things like that. I remember I was maybe a month into drug court and I um green cards are the cards that you get signed when you go to an AA meeting and I was on 90 meetings in 90 days and I you know it wasn't easy. I I made minimum wage I worked at McDonald's at the mall back then I lived in a little studio apartment in Boise that I I don't remember paid $700 a month for or whatever but and child support took half my money so I made like $2.50 an hour. But there they're no excuse program like you will be on time for your drug test or you'll go to jail. Well I forged my green card and got caught and they threw me in jail for I think two weeks and were debating on whether to kick me out of the program or not. And I was looking at three to five years in prison at that point. So I really wanted to stay and so I learned my lesson pretty quick like I'm not gonna lie and um I knew I couldn't use there because I'd seen too many people get in trouble for using so I had made up in my mind that I wasn't going to use until I got out of drug court. Uh never in my mind did I think I was going to be sober forever. That was probably the difference between drug court and and the mission program. I had made the decision that I didn't want to I couldn't use ever again there I made the decision that I couldn't use while I was in that program. I think the hardest thing that I've dealt with since being sober though is um is the fentanyl crisis um you know all the people that I used to use with that got into to uh opiates um a lot of them are dead um my own brother um he became addicted to pain pills when we were in our 20s he had a good life he had a wife and two kids and and had a back injury got addicted to um oxies and and then smoked a lot of marijuana um became very paranoid i he's one of those people that he'd smoke marijuana and just get paranoid and ends up he ends up homeless too on the streets up in Spokane and Lewiston um and after I got sober I got him into the new life program at the Boise Rescue Mission and he he had excuses why he couldn't finish it ends up homeless in Boise um he ends up in Grangeville same place you know I ended up getting in trouble toward the end of my drug use but he ends up there and I wrote the judge a letter and said you know you saved my life by allowing me to do this program at the Boyce Rescue Mission instead of having to go back up there and face consequences and um I'm asking you to make my brother go to a program. And so he sentenced him to the Union Gospel mission in um in Spokane or in Seattle and I I sent him up money for a bus ticket the sheriff's office took him to the bus station he got on the bus and he never went to the mission um he ended up on the streets of Seattle and um in 2022 November 2nd of 2022 um he overdosed on um fentanyl in Seattle and I got a phone call that evening um he was still alive they'd got him back alive but he was in ICU and um so my mom and I flew over and um they did the cooling of the body and trying to do all this stuff to see if he had any brain activity and he didn't so um we decided to um they used um his body parts for other people and we decided to let him go and um I didn't have much information on where where he was living or anything like that. And he had some things in his pocket. I remember walking out onto the and I knew fentanyl was bad it was bad here but it was really bad there. And I walked out onto the like the parking garage and I'm overlooking the city of Seattle and I can see the football stadium and the baseball stadium and the beautiful sound and then I looked down along the freeway and it was just squalor like two feet of trash and people digging through the trash and people shooting up and smoking pills and it was awful. One of the things in his pocket was a it was a card for like daily work and um it was the same address as where he died at or as where the host or where the ambulance picked him up at um so I think he was doing day daily work. He was probably there it was like four in the morning he was probably there waiting for it to start um smoked some pills um he still had them all in his pocket um when I got his clothes back um after he passed away I drove back here my mom flew and I drove and And um they gave me all his bags of clothing and stuff, and I just threw it in the back of the pickup. And I and I ended up getting pulled over in Washington for speeding and didn't think anything of it. I get home and I first thing I did was I took the bags and I went over to the garbage can and I opened it up and it's just filled with uh drugs like foils and you know pins to s and I'd gotten pulled over in Washington with all this stuff on me and I didn't even know it.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:33

Um that would have been a fun one to explain.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:35

Oh my gosh, thank God. And um, but yeah, he was he was full blown. And then since you know, before that and after that, I can't count how many funerals I've gone to. One of them was a guy from the Boise Rescue Mission program I was in, I graduated with. He died from a fentanyl overdose. Wonderful family he had. Um, he had a good job. He was a chef here in Nampa, and um he that was a really hard funeral to go to, too. I ran into his dad at the Christmas banquet for the rescue mission, and and I went up and gave him a hug, and he just bawled, you know, and it was his youngest son. And um, but watching what that's done, it it's done nothing but renew my um want to help people get off of drugs. Um especially fentanyl, it just is killing so many people. It's gotten a little bit better the last you know couple years, but it's still really bad. Um, and one of the things that celebrate recovery started is a uh a fentanyl um liaison for for handing out, um, you know, we hand out the Narcan. I have cases of Narcan that I that I can give out to people. And you know, I some states are different. I don't I don't want to be the the person that says it's okay to here take all these items so that when you're using you can save yourself. But I use it more to give to people that are walking down the street that see somebody overdosing. Um the harm reduction part of it's a little hard for me to grasp. Um, I don't think it's okay for us to tell people to go, you can use and this will help save you when you're using, versus you know, giving the public, you know, I pack fentanyl everywhere I go. Um so that if it, you know Narcan? Yeah, Narcan. I'm sorry, they said fentanyl. Yeah. Narcan everywhere I go. Definitely not fentanyl. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:41

What do you think about those areas though that they are like handing out the the needles and those different things like that, so they can be, I don't know, they they're trying to stop the spread of different diseases. Or I understand like the Narcan, that makes sense for sure, but like I think it's horrible.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:56

And even test strips, so you can test your drugs to make sure they're okay to do.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:01

Like so they're not laced with fentanyl or something.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:03

Yeah. Um, I hand out test strips all the time, but I hand them out to parents. Like if you find something in somebody's bedroom and you want to find out if it's drugs or not, here's some test strips so you can do that. Um, I don't hand them out to drug addicts. Um, I I don't I've always I am a drug addict, was an active drug addict. Um I'm gonna manipulate um and I'm gonna lie and I'm gonna steal and I'm gonna destroy everybody around me to get what I want. So I do not give them money. I don't give them, you know, I'll give them food, um, I'll give them a ride to some place that's gonna help them, but I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna give them anything that helps them in their in their drug use. And I think, you know, giving giving a drug addict money on the on the or an alcoholic money on the side of the street, I think is horrible. If you want to give money, go give it to the Boise Rescue Mission, give it to uh a group that's gonna actually help people, not help kill them.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:03

You know, I I remember at at the mission too, I remember the first guy that I've seen die of a fentanyl overdose. Uh, it was on uh Thanksgiving morning. We were doing breakfast, and I was given at the mission every morning before uh breakfast, they uh a programmer or somebody from the public will come and and just do a small um sermon type thing in the morning. And um I was doing it, and this guy comes in, and they can wait outside or they can come in and listen. Um, but you can't start eating until we're done. And this guy comes in and he's he's really kind of rude and and he was annoying me because I'm trying to talk, and and he's like mixing his coffee and making a lot of noise, and and then he like says that the F word as loud as you can say it, and I'm like, what is going on? And then he just falls over and dies. Oh my gosh. And um the ambulance comes and um they put this machine on him like that does chest compressions, yeah. And the next thing I know, the crowd comes in and they're like stepping over him to go get breakfast. It's like nothing's even going on, and I was just in shock. And it made me at that time realize, especially after he after we found out he was dead, because they hauled him away, that the world just keeps going, whether you're here or not. And it came me like a different perspective of and then it also showed me that the people that are in that world don't care about you what at all. I mean, the other drug addicts that were coming in to go get some food that morning stepped right over you to go get what they wanted while you were dying. And um, and it is sad, and that's that's the truth, especially in the drug world. You know, you think you might have friends, um, but none of them care about you. You have no friends in that world. Um, but when you come to the rescue mission or or you come in to celebrate recovery and you meet those people, those are gonna be your true friends. Um, you know, I I know guys that'll would drive. If I called somebody and said, hey, I need a ride to Northern California right now, I got friends that would do it in a heartbeat, wouldn't even ask a question. But um in that other world, they've that that doesn't exist. You want to think it does, because I think people that are addicted to drugs, um, they really a lot of them just want friends. They want people to love them. And so they seek that. And and in that world, those people are gonna destroy you. They're gonna take everything you have and they're gonna destroy you.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:58

Do you guys do ever do anything for like the prison work?

SPEAKER_00 1:13:01

Uh we have um we have a celebrate recovery that's out at the prison. Um, I think uh um Ten Mile Christian Um does a pris prison ministry. I don't know if they still do celebrate recovery, but there was somebody that uh is starting celebrate recovery at the prison, yeah. Yeah, and I know they do it in Cottonwood too. Um for for the writers, yeah. People on writers. Yeah. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:25

Yeah. Do you do you know how long after your brother was sent up to Seattle that he had overdosed?

SPEAKER_00 1:13:32

Um, it was probably about four months.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:35

Oh, so he'd been up there a minute?

SPEAKER_00 1:13:36

Yeah, yeah. He called me, and I have some guilt here too. You know, he called me before my wife and I had gotten married. We were living in separate houses still, and and um he called me from Spokane because when he left Grangeville, he had to go to Spokane, it was a layover there, and then straight to Seattle. And when he called me from Spokane, I knew he was high. I knew it. And the house that I lived in at the time, I my calls would get um lost. He borrowed a phone phone from somebody in Walmart, and he wanted me to Walmart him some money, and I wouldn't send him any money, and he was mad at me and hung up on me, or or we got disconnected. And then I never heard from him again after that. Um I uh you know, for a while I I've worked through a lot of this, but I felt guilty that I sent him to the drug capital, the fentanyl capital of the world to go get clean. Um, because I knew he couldn't come to Boise again because he'd kind of ruined his welcome at that when he left. But um, and I'd heard good things about the Union Gospel mission there. I just didn't realize the drug fentanyl issue was so bad there. But I I don't I have no control over that. He's a hard one.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:54

That's a hard one with family members when they're on drugs. I have uh a brother, he's clean now, but back when he used to live with me back in like 2021 area. He had a he had a couple issues inside the house, and he had gotten two DOIs within a month, and and um just he ended up stealing some pills at one point from us, and there was just too many things that added up, and I was just like, hey man, I can't have you around my kids anymore, you know. And I felt it's a hard, it's a hard situation because I literally just had to kick my brother out on the streets, he didn't have anywhere to go. He lived in his car for a while. I would call him up and he would just I was just like, Hey, how you doing? Just make sure you're alive, kicking, whatever. And he's like, Yeah, I'm just living in my car at a Walmart parking lot. And I'm like, Well, I'm glad it's summer, you know, roll your windows down or something. Like, just checking on you. Um, and he ended up getting really addicted to heroin that summer, and then he lived under this, under the bridges and and all these things, and I it like crushed me. You could just see, you could just see it in his face. We I seen him at Thanksgiving that year, and he was with this new hood rat chick, and they were just both on heroin together really bad. And everybody knew it. It was like nobody was talking about it though. Like, um, and him and I we were still on bad terms, so we weren't really talking even at the the dinner table there, and and uh then that summer he then he was living in Utah for a little while and then ended up coming back up to Idaho, I guess, for a little bit just to paint. He was on like a painter's crew or something, but he was getting strung out, and he ended up him and his chick ended up getting arrested, and it was for an unrelated charge. It was like breaking and entering or something. It wasn't the drug charge, but he ended up doing some time um just in jail. They gave him like a I can't remember exactly what the sentence was that he gave him, but later on we ended up reconciling and stuff, and and he told me like that was the best thing you could have ever let me do was like hit rock bottom. And I just like I remember that was such a hard time for me, and I felt guilt, especially seeing him like on Ada County and and um just being like I remember dropping him off like at the Casablanca downtown Boise or whatever, you know, and you just know that spot's like Yeah, you know, I was just trying to help him out, and uh you know, he he ended up actually leaving his phone in my car when I dropped him off. So I was already halfway back to Napa and I and my mom calls me and it's like your brother left his phone in your car, he can check it see, and and so it was, and it was unlocked, so I'm looking through it and I'm just seeing like all the drug activity, and like at that point, like his his chick was like prostituting herself out and like just for drug money and everything, and I was like really sad just to see how dark things had gotten. And um, but he had to hit rock bottom, like and and then he did some time and ended up you know finally getting getting his life back together, but like he had to just hit that rock bottom. And I see too many parents that are just too many parents and family members in general, but just will always be bailing out their kids and not letting them hit rock bottom or like I I feel bad for my mom.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:06

My mom made that decision with me that especially once I was in the mission, she never thought that I was gonna finish. She she prayed that I would, but she never thought that I would. But she made the decision, I think, with the help of that counselor that I had, because she you know she knew him, that she was just gonna be hands-off, and she was hands-off um until I graduated the program. Like like I there might have been a phone call or two, but we didn't she did not did not want to. She'd been lied to, stolen from, and and uh for so many times and so many years that she uh uh didn't want anything to do with me until I figured it out. And and it worked that worked for me. So she was doing the same thing with my brother. Um you know, I've uh I've said it a few times, but uh addicts manipulate and lie, and my brother was really good at that, and so she was gonna go that same route that she did with me, and now she's got a lot of guilt and she you know because of you know him dying, but but I don't that is the only that's the way I feel about it. I think we need to love them. But if if loving, if if uh giving them money and and all this other thing is is hindering it, that's not love. I mean if it's if it's if it's prolonging their addiction by giving them money, that's not love. Um so I I think we need to love people through their their recovery or their addiction, but but we can't be feeding into it. Um and I and I think that's where a lot, you're right, a lot of parents go wrong that way. Um tough love, I think, is what a lot of people call it. And I it from my experience, that's the only thing that works. Um they have to they have to figure it out themselves. They cannot have people bailing them out every time because um it just prolongs it. And then what ends up happening when you prolong it is they die.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:18

Um and I think jail is amazing for um for helping people hit rock bottom. It was for me um a few times. Um, but I I think that is what I see. Most people that are in recovery that stay in it, they did a long stand in jail. I know I'm not talking years, but long enough to get them their head cleared out and and um you know figuring things out. Or uh or a long-term recovery program where it's a year or better. I know like the Renaissance Ranch, um, that's uh like a year-long program. That one is really good. Um these ones where you go for 30 days, really that's just to get your get you detoxed. Um but it's recovery is uh for me, it's a lifelong journey. Um, and I've and I've pounded that in my head. Um, because it's I may not feel like using, but my recovery, my long-term recovery is help helping other people. So um I'm gonna do that forever. And by doing that, it just helps me stay sober longer.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:29

Yeah. Yeah, there's a great quote that I've heard, and it's like when the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change, then you'll change.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:35

And like that's the thing, is if you're always getting bailed out of these situations, then you know that it's not really that painful. Yeah. You know, because it's like, yeah, like, yeah, I'll I'll just go get money from someone else, or you know, very manipulative and you can get the things you need. But like once you're cut off, that becomes your rock bottom. That becomes like no one's coming to help me. I have to save myself at this point.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:55

Yeah, there's nothing more humbling than um being in the mission without a single cent. Um and depending on them to feed you, house you, uh, clothes. Like I didn't even have clothes. I had z nothing when I got there. And um, and then to look at my life now is just mind-blowing to me. I never thought that I would, you know, I have an amazing job. Um, I have an amazing wife. I'm able to give back to the community. Um, I never thought that'd be possible. And um, and it and I don't think it would continue to be possible if I didn't have a relationship with God, and that's where I I I I keep going back to is like Jesus is He He was with me that whole entire time without me even knowing it. Now looking back, like you said earlier, looking back, it all makes sense, but in that in that time it none of it made sense. Um I I I think about my dad all the time. My dad's a huge part of my story. I love my dad. Um, I don't want it to be portrayed like he didn't love us, he did. I think, and I think we hear this a lot too, is our parents did the best they could with what they knew. And um, you know, I really I I really miss my dad. Um, I think about him a lot. I always tell my wife that because I love the taste of beer, that when I get to heaven, I'm convinced that Jesus is gonna allow me to have a beer because in heaven there's no sin. So so I won't be able to get drunk. But um, so that's another one of my things is when I get to heaven, I'll have a beer. I don't need one here, but um, I look forward to seeing my dad again and and um and my mom, she's wonderful. She lives in Lake Havasu, and she'll be up here in a few weeks to spend a month. And um, I'm really grateful for her. And I'm grateful that she was strong enough to push back and not give in. Because that I think at that point, and you're so weak that and you're still a manipulator that if I was able to grasp any kind of straw, I would have done that, and that would have hindered what God had planned for me. So I think is as as we help people, we need to stay strong and not step in the way of what God has planned for that person. Because sometimes when you think we're helping, we're we're actually stepping in the way.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:22

Yeah, absolutely. How long did it take for you and your mom to rebuild your relationship?

SPEAKER_00 1:24:26

Um you know, a couple years probably. I don't I I think she wondered if it, you know, she'd seen me, yeah. She'd seen me really good after drug court and in drug court where I was sober and she trusted me again. Um, but it was a few years. Um, you know, and I think it's all back now, especially after we went through with what we went through with my brother. Um I lost a cousin uh too to to fentanyl overdose just uh not too long after my brother. Um it was a heart attack in his 20s, but I'm pretty sure the drugs were probably involved the way in drinking. Um and most of my cousins are um alcoholics. Um it's still it still runs rampant in my family, but um, all I can do is is just keep walking the way that I walk and hopefully it'll rub off on some of them. Um my kids, I um, you know, my 20-year-olds, I don't ever see pictures of them out drinking and partying and things like that. So uh I think they're doing good. Um so yeah. We actually have a teen program that we started at Celebrate Recovery in in uh CUNA. Not all of them have it, but we have a program where we walk them through the steps just like um the adults. They have a curriculum that they run through. Um and uh, you know, most most if the parents are coming to celebrate recovery, there's usually some kind of damage to your kids too. So we encourage them to bring their kids. Um our young kids go through something similar, not as intense, obviously, but um are but we try to run them through the same kind of lessons that we run through as we go through the through the steps, um, so that when they leave and they're driving home, if say the lesson was on um forgiveness, the kids have talked about forgiveness as well as the parents.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:30

So as a dad and a recovered alcoholic and drug user yourself, what advice would you give to other parents that are parents of teenagers or anything that would be going through these temptations to get them to not go down that life?

SPEAKER_00 1:26:43

Um consequences. I mean, I bet I bet if you called your local sh Ada County deputy and said, Hey, I want you to talk to my kids about this, or or I know lots of drug addicts that'll talk about it. I know lots of police officers that'll talk about it. I I don't think that we need to scare them straight, but but they need to see what what happened. Yeah, there's a whole other world out there that most of the public doesn't know about. That like I talked about that hotel world. There is a thousand people in this in this valley that wake up in a hotel room without knowing what they're gonna do that next night, that go out and hustle and steal and and sell drugs to come back to that hotel again or another hotel at night. Um, take your kids to the mission, um, have them serve dinner, um, have them talk to the people. You can go out and and sit next to the the people that are the homeless people that are there and and eat with them. Um that that I think our kids and the public need to see that other side of the world that happens right here underneath their nose, right in this valley. Um we're lucky that uh that they don't allow You know, tents in the streets here and it's been a fight. Um, the Boise Rescue Mission has taken it all the way up to the Supreme Court with um if there's beds or the Boise City Boise, whatever it was, if there's beds available at a facility in Boise, you're not allowed to camp on the street. So they make sure there's always a bed available. And that's why our why we don't have tents and in Boise um or Napa. So, but taking them and you know, going and and serving, I think serving is a huge, huge deal. It shows um your kids um how fortunate they may be. Um, it shows them the other part of of society that maybe they don't want to go down that road because that's where they're gonna end up. Because all drug addicts and alcoholics end up in jail, um, in hospital or or dead. Um, and that's a fact. I mean, you have you have alcoholics that that may be able to maintain, but once you go over that edge, um, you're either gonna die, you're gonna be in jail, um, or you're gonna be in prison.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:08

Do you see a lot more men than women going through this addiction?

SPEAKER_00 1:29:13

Um Yeah, I would say the for the worst part of the addiction, because I think the women um I do think the women have a few more opportunities to get help than than some men. Um you know, once you get into the the the the lighthouse or the city light that the rescue mission runs is an amazing, amazing program um for kids and women. Uh you can have your kids live with you um in that program. Um so there are more opportunities, I think, for for women. I think the single men sometimes are the last ones that that society wants to help, which is understandable. I mean, when you have when children are involved. Um but the rescue mission now has a um a facility where it was a nursing home. It's called Next Step, um, where they'll actually bring a family unit back together um in one facility. So men and women and children can live together again. And that was lacking here, it's never been um available in Idaho. Um and they just opened that facility last year and it's been really good. Um was an old nursing home they turned into a um a bunch of different apartments. Okay. Nice.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:33

So on the off chance that somebody's watching this, scrolling on TikTok, and they're in the middle of their um recovery or they want to start recovery and they're high right now. Like, what's a good place for them to start? They don't have a church or anything, they just they don't believe in God right now, but they want to get clean. Like, what's a good thing for them to just start?

SPEAKER_00 1:30:51

Um, I would start by going to meetings, whether it be AA, NA, or celebrate recovery. Um, get plugged in. There's there's gonna be people that are that are gonna plug you into other places, whether it be church. Um, I think church is is like number one. It's a best place to get community, um, to serve, um, to be around people that um are like-minded, Christ-minded. Um, so yeah, definitely those things. Um, and there's a celebrate recovery almost every night in the valley, um, Monday through Saturday. There's a celebrate recovery almost every night. So um, yeah, get plugged in um or reach out. You know, in those places you're gonna find sponsors and they're gonna help you. Um if you're in full-blown addiction um and you need to get clean, call the Allen Baugh House. Um, a friend of mine or a guy that I know who's become a friend um reached out to me a couple months ago. He went through the Allen Baugh house, ended up going to a rehab, and he's a couple months clean right now. Um they're they're an amazing resource. You have to be in Ada County to use the Allen Baugh house. If you're homeless, just tell them you're homeless in Ada County, uh, whether you're over here in Cannon County or not. Tell them you're homeless in Ada County and they'll get you in. And um, it's a safe place to medically detox. There's nurses there. Uh Terry Riley runs it. Um I've I've gone I went through there twice. Um and uh it is really amazing um that you can you can be the doors are locked, people can't come in. Um you can leave when you want, but um it's just a safe place to get clean medically. They'll help you sleep and and uh monitor you, especially when you're coming off of opiates or alcohol. Um you need to be in a safe place where you're not gonna die. So um yeah, those places. And uh, you know, you can reach me at um uh celebrate recovery cuna at gmail.com um or just message the message you and and they can give my phone number. Yeah, awesome.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:03

What's next for you, man?

SPEAKER_00 1:33:05

Um my kids, we have kids that are like all in on um livestock shows. We show sheep uh at livestock shows. We're gone like every other weekend somewhere in the West Coast or uh in the west. So we're doing that. Um got a couple more years of that left, and then I don't know. I'm just gonna keep doing what I've done um for nine years and stay sober and um and then do whatever I can to make my kids help my kids be successful. Um I got a daughter that's gonna be a teacher uh that's going to college right now, so that's cool. Um yeah, I'm I'm really blessed. I I seek nothing more than what God is already giving me, honestly. Um I think we all would like more money or or you know, more things, but yeah, honestly, I have everything I need right now. I just uh you know for years I was like, I've I've got all this stuff. I don't uh how am I gonna keep it? This you know, the first few years of sobriety, like I'm waiting for the walls to crash down. And um, I don't, I don't, that's not a very fun life to live. So I'm good.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:28

Yeah, I think once you could start living for godly things and not worldly things, you're chasing the right things at that point. You're not because it's it's it's it's an interesting thing because there's always things that you say, once I get this, it's gonna make me happy. And then you get that thing and you're like, oh, I want more. Yeah. So he's like, you're just gonna keep chasing. It's like the dog chasing a car. It's like, what do you what's he gonna do once he gets it? You know, he's yeah, it's and it's good. I think it's good though to keep wanting more because you're gonna be aspiring to do other do other things, but just make sure that it's Christ-centered and it's a servant mindset rather than what you can do for yourself. Like if you want to help 10 people and then you want to help a hundred people, like keep keep going.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:08

But I one day I hope to open sub uh sober living houses. Um and we we actually started a business, um, New Life Transitional, named after the New Life program. Um, but then housing prices like skyrocketed. So we've kept the name, but we haven't we haven't dove into that yet. But that's that is once our kids are gone. Um, my wife and I both have a passion to do that and have it at Christ centered transitional living uh place. So um that's on our on our uh horizon. Um we just need God to show us what to do. Yeah, just trust God was playing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:48

All right, man. We'll just leave it with what's your favorite scripture?

SPEAKER_00 1:35:51

Uh Jeremiah uh uh 333, uh come to me and I'll show you great and mighty things which you do not know. Um and that's the truth. Like since I've became a Christian, he just keeps showing me more and more and more things about him and about my life um and about this world that I had no understanding of.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:20

That's amazing that you said that because I was watching a video this morning and it said that it was like a mom, and she's like she was saying that her dad taught her that that was Jesus' phone number, it was Jeremiah 33, 3, and it was like, call call onto me or something. Maybe it's a different trick.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:35

Call into me and I'll show you great and mighty things that you didn't know.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:37

Yeah, and that's hilarious that you just said that because that's like crazy. It's funny because I've and I've started uh I've started a new thing that I'm gonna do every day, but I post on my story on my Facebook that I'm reading the Bible at 3 33 in the morning every day. That's so it's just it's funny.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:53

You know, uh one thing that and I don't know, I don't understand the Holy Spirit completely at all. But uh when I first became a Christian, I was like, God, just show me some things so I know you're real. And um, and he would, he would, and it's it's weird to even talk about, but like license plate numbers with triple numbers or quadruple numbers, or or like I would pray at a at a stop like God, show me a sign. I I just want I want it to fill you right now. And then I open up and this, and I have a picture of it on my Facebook, this truck turning onto the freeway with this trailer on it that says Jesus saves. Huge billboard. Here's your sign. Here's your sign. And um I remember at one point, God was showing me so much, especially that first year when I was in the mission. It was like I had to pray, Lord, you're showing me too much. I think I'm going crazy. Now I'm praying, Lord, I want to go, I want to go back to that first year. Show me. Um so yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:53

Well, when Vanessa was on here, we were talking about angel numbers because I was talking to her about like I see 11s everywhere, like 11s, 22s, 33s. And she was saying that she was going through the same thing a lot after her sister had passed away. Yeah, and she was seeing all these different things, and then her her nephew or something told her about angel numbers and just these repeating numbers. And so it's amazing, like just how that works.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:15

It is amazing, and I think I think also part of it is um when we focus on things, right? Certain things, we're gonna see them, and but that's but that doesn't take God out of the situation, right? Like um, my wife and I at 1111, if we happen to look at our phone and it's 1111, we always send each other a heart or a kiss or whatever, and it's almost daily, like, and we're not consciously waiting for it to turn 1111, right? But um, I I think I think uh he loves us so much um and he wants to communicate with us so much, we're just so busy that we don't see it, and he he wants us to do those things, yeah. Um the more that I'm in tune with him, the better my day is, and um the the cooler things that he shows me.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:06

Yeah, yeah. I love that. Yeah, my favorite, my favorite pastor online to listen to is Joby Martin at 1122 church.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:12

So oh, right on. Yeah, I'll have to check that out.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:15

Yeah, well, thanks for coming on, man. I really appreciate it. I love your story, and I'm sure it's gonna impact many, and and uh we'll just send this out everywhere we can because I mean if you could save one person from any drug overdose or or anything that they could change their life. You never know who that person could change generationally, and that's what I'm really big on is just changing those generational curses. So amen. I appreciate you sharing your story and just being completely open. So thank you. Appreciate it. Amen.