“I don’t want to be 60 years old having the same issues I had when I was 25.”
What an honest and important statement from this week's guest, Brandon Ricks. Because the truth is, too many of us have just resigned ourselves to always being the way we are now. The fight for something different is hard, and so we give up. Brandon, though, finally had enough, and he started the painful but hopeful process of healing.
Brandon is a successful entrepreneur with his own company. He projects strength and competency. But for a long time, behind that exterior was someone who had shut down for so long that he couldn’t feel anything—and didn’t know how to. Porn became one of the ways he coped. So did marijuana, which he used to numb himself when life felt too overwhelming or too painful to face. He even shares the detailed story of the period in his life where he considered ending it all (and what kept him from doing it).
In this conversation, Brandon explains how his numbing behaviors weren’t just random vices but survival strategies—ways to avoid the internal world he’d never been taught to navigate. He talks about the moment the Holy Spirit confronted his hiding, how the collapse of a relationship exposed the fragility of his emotional world, and why counseling became the turning point he didn’t know he needed.
Brandon also unpacks what long-term emotional shutdown does to the mind and body, why addiction thrives in silence and isolation, and why maturity requires discomfort, not avoidance. This episode reminds us that healing begins when we stop numbing and start telling the truth—the truth that Jesus says about us and our situations.
We explore:
—Why Brandon learned to shut down his emotions to survive
—How porn and weed became coping mechanisms rather than “just habits”
—The difference between self-protection and sanctification
—Why the Holy Spirit confronted his hiding
—How a painful breakup forced him to reckon with his inner world
—Why healing requires community, honesty, and discomfort
—The neurological impact of long-term emotional shutdown
—The choice every man faces: hide and numb, or grow and tell the truth
—Why he refuses to be “60 years old with the same issues I had at 25”
Work with Brandon: https://productionmasterminds.com
Follow Jon: @jonseidl
Order Jon's new book, Confessions of a Christian Alcoholic.
Get daily motivation: www.theveritasdaily.com
Support the Show: https://www.jonseidl.com/
Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Life Audio.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Hello, Hello, and welcome to the Confessions of a Christian
Alcoholic podcast. I am your host, John Seidel. This is
your home for real stories, radical vulnerability, and remarkable comebacks.
In the end, this podcast is a place for the desperate,
the downtrodden, the destitute, and especially the drunk.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
But it's also a place of hope and healing.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
I know that firsthand because I'm the Christian who became
an alcoholic, not the other way around. Today I've found
sobriety after decades of struggling. But more importantly than finding sobriety,
I found Jesus.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
My prayer is.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
That as I interview people just like you and just
like me, along with professionals in the fields of trauma,
faith and addiction recovery, you will find the piece that
is available to you through Christ on the other side
of whatever you're going through and whatever addiction that might be.
Because let's face it, we're all addicted to something so welcome,
(01:20):
let's get radically vulnerable as we explore what it looks
like to be on this journey of MESSI sanctification.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
We'll be right back after this, you know.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
One of the more should I say, surprising and yet
encouraging aspects of doing this podcast and just speaking in
general about my story is the amount of people who
have felt the courage to then contact me and say
(01:55):
me too.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
And that is today's guest.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
It's actually someone that I have known for over a decade,
and yet it's someone that I didn't know was struggling
in different yet similar ways to how I was struggling.
And so Brandon Rix is someone who I've enjoyed.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Getting to know.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Met him when we were both working at the same company,
and when I started sharing my own story, him and
I were on the phone. We were talking and he said,
you know, hey, I need to let you know, like
I've struggled in certain areas that are similar to you
as well.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
And I was surprised.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
And got to know, or got to hear his story,
got to hear him talk about what it was like,
what he was going through, and man, it was so similar.
And so I'm excited for you to get to hear
Brandon's story different substance, but very similar. And I think
(03:05):
it will hopefully serve as an encouragement to you to
do exactly what Brandon did, which is to raise your
hand and say hey, me too. There's some tough parts
of his story, right, There's trauma in his past, in
his childhood. There is a point where he got so
broken that he was figuring out what.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
It would look like to end it all and to
leave this world.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
And that dramatic story of talking about what kept him
from doing that will likely bring tears to your eyes.
So I'm excited for you to hear Brandon's story. First
of all, though, I want to encourage you if you
have not picked up the book Confessions of a Christian Alcoholic,
I would be honored if you did. So, you can
go to Christianalcoholic dot com Christian Alcoholic dot com, and
(03:52):
then if you go to the Veritas Daily dot com
if you want to see this podcast, if you want
to see the video vers there's a video version that
is AD free that you can access via the Veritas
Daily dot com. So, without further ado, let's talk with
Brandon Rix and his incredible story. Brandon, thank you so
(04:15):
much for joining the Confessions podcast. I'm gonna start I
don't know, maybe I'm toying with the idea of just
calling it confessions. My wife thinks I should just start
calling it convension confessions because it might be more encompassing,
which your story I think is a little bit more
encompassing than just alcohol.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
But I'm really excited to have you on here.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
I was thinking, and we were talking that man, we've
known each other. I'm trying to think probably since probably
for I mean, yeah, I think it's like ten years. Yeah,
and so that's crazy. So man, thanks for thanks for
being on the show.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Of course, I'm glad you came out with the confessions.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
I was like, woay, is man, I'm walking into a
therapeutic session here, you know.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Hey, that could be you know, maybe you know it's
uh yeah, maybe we call this drinking therapy.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
I don't know, in the good way instead of the
bad way that I used to do.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
But so, you know, I did a little bit of
an introduction, but I would love for you to just
kind of introduce yourself to the audience.
Speaker 4 (05:18):
Yeah, Brandon Ricks, Brandon c Ricks, to be exact, I
originally hail from southern California. That's where I spent most
of my childhood. That I spent a few years Indiana,
and I've lived in Dallas, Texas ever since. You know,
so the majority of My life now has been spent
as a as a textant, and I am married with
(05:38):
three kids. You know, my oldest kids in college, my
youngest is in middle school. I've got one sandwich in
between in high school. So time is flying past. As
a profession I'm a business owner. I run a content
strategy and production think tank called Production Masterminds, and we
do a variety of things to mainly helping people take
creative ideas that are conceptual and bring those ideas into
(06:02):
reality through processes and structure and framework. So that is
what I do professionally. I'm good at bringing ideas to
life and helping creatives figure out how to execute and
implement their creative vision. And personal wise, I play soccer
love still love the game. I play soccer in men's leagues.
(06:22):
I like to work out big into the healthy eating
and lifestyle. And the most importantly, I'm a serving disciple
of the Most High God, a follower of Jesus, and
that is the primary identity that I am proud of.
And the Holy Spirit gives me wisdom and guidance to
live out my faith in a lot of different ways,
(06:44):
and every aspect of my life and my journey has
been a journey of surrender and humility before the Lord.
So that is the longest short of it.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
It's funny that you said, I just can't get over
the fact that you have a child, quote unquote in college.
I mean, like when we first met, I remember that
that child, if you will, like, I don't know, she
was probably what like like ten at the time, you know, or.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
Probably in twelves in something like Tanne.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Yeah, I mean, that's nuts to me that she's in
college now. So anyways, that that makes you feel old.
But uh so, it's interesting. The reason that you and
I are talking today is because probably I don't know,
a month and a month ago, a month and a
half ago, you and I had been kicking around the
idea of a of a project, and so you know,
(07:36):
you're like, hey, let's let's let's you know, get on
the phone.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
And so we get on the phone.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
And what was so funny is I think I at
the at the time, I said, hey, man, I just
need to be honest with you. I'm going through a
lot of change and I'm not sure I can be
as much of a help to you on this on
this project. And really it just the conversation just you know,
you're like funny thing.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Me too, you know. And and then I just kind
of opened up.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
We hadn't talked in a while, and I opened up about,
you know, my story and what the Lord had been
taking me through over the last you know, two years,
And to my surprise, you open up and share about
what the Lord has done in your life for the
last years and it's very similar. Yeah, And so I
think it's so funny that, you know, we start telling
(08:23):
our stories and we think I'm the only one or
think this is weird. I think, especially when it comes
to you know, addiction and substance use.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
And so.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
You start telling me about your own journey on getting clean,
getting sober, giving up substances, and I'm like, man, I.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Gotta have you on. I got to have you on
the podcast talk about that.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
So I would love just you know, and we'll take
some rabbit trails and I'll interrupt and I'll last fallow
ups and stuff, but I would love to kind of
have you take us through your story of realizing, hey,
you know what I'm I'm I'm using some stuff in
order to to escape and this is not good. And
so just bring us back to the beginning of what
that looked like and how you came to that realization.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
Yeah, man, you know it's I don't. I don't think
I think it was.
Speaker 4 (09:10):
I think it was unfolding revelation more so than one
thing or or a moment in time.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
It was more so a string of.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
Inklings from the Holy Spirit that was prompting me to
self evaluate, to self reflect in me a lot of
ignoring those things. Yeah, and seeing where the ignoring of
those things compounded into me feeling worse than the yilt
and the shame compounding, and the embarrassment compounding, and.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
Then the hiding increasing.
Speaker 4 (09:41):
And you know, I think it was a culmination of
those things over the course of several years, honestly.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
And I you know, for me, I don't.
Speaker 4 (09:50):
I don't necessarily use the word addiction in the same
way maybe as others do, because I am It's funny,
I'm a very disciplined person, you know, And I have
the ability to stop things once I reconcile my mind
that it's time to stop. Because I like to say
that I'm rooted in logic and reason, which is the
(10:12):
reason why I think that for those that maybe not
wired that way, addictions and proclivities can be.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
So binding.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
You know.
Speaker 4 (10:26):
I can't imagine for someone that doesn't have the level
of this one that I have, what they're going through,
if they are struggling with a substance or what have you.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
How hard that has to be to sever the ties.
Speaker 4 (10:37):
For me.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Once I commit to doing something, I do it. You know.
Speaker 4 (10:41):
So the process once I resigned in my mind that
I was done, I was done.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
You know, I didn't. I didn't have that.
Speaker 4 (10:49):
The issue for the last several years though, prior to
this point in time was that I really didn't want
to stop, you know. So there was a lot of
starting and stopping, and it was more so, you know,
I have to do this because it's the right thing
to do, not because I want to do it.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
So I would have seasons of sobriety.
Speaker 4 (11:09):
You know, where it would be months on and off
and I would I would say, the place where I
really recognized that there was an issue is when I
saw myself not wanting to live anymore. The thing that
the the the ideas of my mind became darker. My
(11:31):
disposition was always one of dread. I was I didn't
like my life, I didn't like who I was and
I was going through my journals and so just so
you know, I don't know I've told you this, but
I came to Faith in Christ going to my twenty
first birthday, and from that point in time until now,
(11:54):
I've been journaling.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
So I have like twenty years of journal intrigues.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (11:58):
Over Yeah, So two thousand in three, two thousand July fifth,
thousand and three is when I when I came to Faith
in Christ. So now we're at, you know, a little
over twenty years of journals that I have. I mean,
and I have like literally archives of journals.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (12:12):
And every now and then I'll go back and I'll
read them, and I'll go back several years.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
Sometimes I'll go back all the way.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
Sometimes I go back a couple of years, five years,
seven years, depending on what I'm feeling like. And I
recognize I went back about five seven years of journals
and I had the exact same issue. It was, it
was like the exact same struggle that I was complaining about,
the exact same struggle that I was identifying that I
(12:39):
need to stop doing this. If I you know, this year,
I'm gonna stop doing this. And it was this this
overwhelming sense of this is pathetic. You know, how long
are you going to continue to have the same problem
over and over again? You know, at a certain point
like enough is enough?
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Right?
Speaker 4 (12:59):
Like for me, I don't want to be sixty years
old having the same issues that I had when I
was twenty five. Like I there are a lot of
people that are content with that, you know, I meet them,
and I for me, I'm perplexed by that position. Is
how you can still have the same insecurity, still have
the same story, you know, the same victim narrative. You know,
(13:23):
you're telling the same you know issue you had when
you were eighteen, what happened to you as a child.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
It's like, I don't want to be that person personally.
Speaker 4 (13:30):
And again I'm not knocking anybody or looking down anybody
that is in a situation to where they're dealing with
the same thing for three decades.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
But for me, I don't want to be that, you know.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
And it came to a point to where I had
to say, Okay, if I want to accomplish the goals
and aff'ser that I have for my life and I
want to be the person that I want to be,
I'm gonna have to stop being a coward. I'm gonna
have to stop running away, stop running into corners and hiding,
stop trying to avoid and maneuver around these difficult things
(14:03):
in my life that I refused to address. And so
for me, the substances were masking those things. So until
I addressed the issue it was, it was never going
to be a stopping of the substances because I wasn't
addressing the real problem. So I had to allow the
(14:25):
Holy Spirit to mind the deep parts of my soul
and of my person and get very real about what
I was running away from. And once I did that,
that's where freedom came from.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
What what did you find were those things that you
had to root out or that were you know, at.
Speaker 4 (14:45):
The core bitterness, just a level of dissatisfaction. I've always
felt like I was bamboozled by the world and by
my parents and by society around.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
Agitation at this.
Speaker 5 (15:07):
Portrait picture of what adulthood was gonna look like, what
the ideal family situation is gonna look like, what life
is gonna be and the dreams and aspirations, like nobody
just was honest.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
I felt like no one just said, hey, life actually
is really really hard. It's a lot. It's extremely difficult
get ready for it. It's not gonna be fun the
most of the time. You're gonna have to do things
you don't like to do. Everyone painted this picture of
go to college, get a house, get married, have family,
have kids, take vacations, live the life, and then you
(15:44):
get here and you're like, you know, this really sucks.
I'm not enjoying this at all. Why did y'all lie
to me? Why didn't someone just come out and just say,
it's really not what it's cracked up to be and
it's gonna be very difficult. And I felt like if
people were just honest, I would have had more tools
to prepare myself and I wouldn't have gone to things
(16:06):
to escape because I would have been able to deal
with the challenge.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Is that was part of it. The other part of it.
Speaker 4 (16:13):
Was I recognized that I had a lot of defense
mechanisms that I built up over the years to protect
myself from foolishness, from people's insecurities, from their lives, their deception,
their manipulation. And what I created was this impenetrable wall
(16:34):
that didn't allow me to be vulnerable, that massed all
of my emotions and I literally deleted my ability to
discern how I felt about anything. I translated everything through
the emotion of anger, and I treated people as if.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
They were a burden.
Speaker 4 (16:54):
Now, what it did for me was protect me in
many ways, but what it all I also did, on
the contrary, was keep me from the depth of relationships
because I did not allow anybody to harm me. And
I was a what I would call a perpetual you know,
boundary enforcer.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
You know, anybody that crossed.
Speaker 4 (17:19):
Any iota of a of a boundary of a non
negotiable I would I would smack back against that. So
I built a reputation for being very harsh with my words,
very hardhearted, very crass, very mean. And what I realized
is that I was using that as a means to
(17:39):
protect myself from being hurt, from allowing people access to
my true feelings about certain things. And I started to
move in my life in a very chest like manner
to where people became things that I used in order
to get what I wanted subconsciously, not consciously, not intantly
(18:04):
trying to use people or or positioned myself in a
way that I was thinking, like, I'm gonna use this person,
but it was more so. I prided myself on what
I called the two strikes rule. If you did something
to me twice, I was done with you.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
That was it.
Speaker 4 (18:20):
No hard feelings, I don't dislike you. I just was
gonna have nothing to do with you. And what I
realized is that I cut a lot of people out
because I lacked grace and mercy, I lacked fellow feeling.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
I didn't have a depth of empathy.
Speaker 4 (18:34):
And these substances were a part of helping me make
sure I could disconnect because I would always say, I
don't need you for anything. I don't need anybody for anything.
I'm very much content. I can go to Thailand tomorrow
and I can build new relationships and I'll forget about
whoever was over here, right And I prided myself on that.
(18:57):
But the Holy Spirit revealed to me that you're hiding,
and I don't want you to hide anymore. I don't
need you to protect yourself anymore. I'm gonna protect you.
And so I had to like surrender that, you know,
something that I built a lot of reputation around.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
You know, I was okay with people not liking me.
I was fine with that, you know, And.
Speaker 4 (19:23):
I didn't realize though, that I actually was just hurt myself.
I had a lot of pain and hurt that I
had not reconciled yet. And the Lord said, hey, I'm
not going to advance you into the next station until
you deal with this.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (19:40):
And so once I dealt with that, I realized that
I was masking with substances.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
I was hiding those things.
Speaker 4 (19:47):
And so the first thing was, hey, stop doing these
things so that you can feel again, So that you
can really, really really feel again.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Hm, that's so good. There's a couple of places I
want to take this. I'll start here. That two strikes
are I think is really interesting, right because I think,
you know, most people would say, well, three strikes, but
you're like, no, man, you know, it's like it's like
it's like Peter seventy times seven, Jesus says no, you're
Peter says, forgive seven, and he goes Jesus seventy seven
to seven, and you're like the other way, like usually
(20:19):
give people three strikes. You're like, no, give him two?
Speaker 3 (20:21):
Right?
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Where did where did that come from?
Speaker 4 (20:23):
Do you feel like, you know, I think a lot
of just disappointment in people, you know, I am a
I am a person who lives by the principles of truth, transparency, integrity, character.
I've never been one to sugarcoat since I was a child.
I've always been very much just to the point as
(20:44):
a matter of fact. And what I really, what I recognize,
is that the vast majority of people I encounter on
a daily basis are just not wired that way. And
what I what I realize is that I can't trust
anybody like people don't hold a value to their word.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
They say things and don't do it. There's this inconsistency
between word and deed, action and belief. And I was
this way before I was even a believer, and when
I became a Christian, it was even more so, Like
wait a minute, here, I see a lot. I didn't
grow up in a faith tradition.
Speaker 4 (21:19):
So when I got saved, I went writ into the
scriptures and then I would read, and then I'd go
out in society and I would say, this is not
matching up, you know, And so I just I just
had a natural dislike for people to be quite honest,
I just and over the years, the Lord has had
to soften my heart to help me see people how
(21:41):
he sees them because I just don't like people because
I feel like you're gonna tell me something and you're
not gonna live by it, Whereas for me, if I
tell you something, I mean it like there's not there's
no mincing words with me. You know you're gonna get
what you're gonna get. And so because most people are
(22:03):
not wired like that, I've just I just chose to
ex out most people and keep my circle as small
as I possibly could. And I felt like the two
strikes rule helped me do that because I was able
to cut through the nonsense very easily. Now, the positive
side is that of that when you look at Solomon
(22:24):
right in the in second Kings, when he was a
little child and he was wise, and he made a
decision about the two women of the night right, and
he said cut the baby in half.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
And God was pleased with his wisdom.
Speaker 4 (22:38):
And he goes before the Lord and he asked the
Lord for wisdom, and the Lord grants him wisdom. I
believe that God gave me a level of discernment like that.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
I'm a very good judge of character.
Speaker 4 (22:49):
I can talk to somebody within five minutes and I
already know what they what they believe. I know how
they're gonna come from, and that gift. I use that
as a justification to cut people off and to judge
them for their inconsistencies, as opposed to giving them grace,
(23:11):
recognizing that they're flawed and.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
That and can grow.
Speaker 4 (23:14):
Maybe, yeah, that there's growth there, right, But I didn't
see it. I see it as one of your liability, right,
because if if I bring you in my inner circle
and you don't do something, you say, now you've impacted me.
And and if you've impacted me in a negative way,
I view that as as self sabotaging. And yeah, you're
(23:35):
my enemy, right, because if you're doing something that hinders
my well being on my progression, you're now an enemy.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
And so I'm gonna treat you as an enemy, and
I'm gonna cut you off, right. I'm not gonna allow
you to hurt me. Right.
Speaker 4 (23:48):
That goes back to what I said earlier, that that
is it's you're not going to hurt me. If anyone's
gonna hurt me, it's gonna be me, Right. I am
already causing enough of my own wounds. I'm not allowing
anybody else to cause any pain for me right, So
that's where that to strike mentality kind of came from.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
We'll be right back after this.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
So you know, you talk about kind of this in
a sense for lack of retro progressive revelation, right about
about the status and state of of what you were at.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
What did it look like.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
To to open up to be vulnerable? What I mean
was that like, hey, I'm going to start. You know,
for some people's going to therapy, for some people it's
I don't know whatever, But like, what did that look
like for you turning that turning that page, turning that
corner and doing it differently?
Speaker 4 (24:43):
For those listening that need this encouragement, please go to counseling. Please, Uh,
nothing's wrong with counseling. Man, throughout the years, I've gone
to multiple counselors. Going to counseling doesn't make you crazy.
You need somebody that has an unbiased perspective, that doesn't
know you, they're not in your family circle, to speak
(25:04):
into your life, to hold you accountable, to give your
resources and tools to be better. So, if you are
on the fence about counseling, you have some insecurities, don't
be if you are. If you love yourself, you're go
to counseling. So I just want to give that public
service announcement. So, yes, there's a combination of me throughout
the years going to counseling. But really, I would say,
(25:28):
what it looked like is me just being okay with
not being the lord of my own life, you know,
and truly recognizing that God is my provider. He's the
one that protects me, and I no longer have to
protect myself. I don't need to put up any walls
because if He loves me and He's looking out for me,
(25:51):
then I don't have to be concerned about people hurting me,
you know, and the love that Christ has for me,
I have to be willing to show that same love
to others.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
And so the vulnerability has just come over time.
Speaker 4 (26:09):
It's it's it's there'll be moments where, you know, the
Holy Spirit will just give me a sense of compassion
for somebody that I wouldn't necessarily ordinarily have. You know,
I told my my wife a couple months ago, Man,
I think that I've cried more in the last year
than I have my entire life. You know, things just
(26:29):
broke my heart in ways that it didn't before. But
it was through me going, you know, and I could
mention a lot of things, you know, from my personal
prayer time. I've gone to solid silence and solitude retreats
multiple times, to monasteries where I've you don't talk, you
just you just pray, you read your Bible, you read,
you eat, you go to prayer stuff, you don't speak.
I've done that multiple times. I've gone to counseling, you know,
(26:53):
I've spent a lot of.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
Time in reading and writing.
Speaker 4 (26:56):
I've I've had to take leave of absence from work
to just to get myself together. So it hasn't been
one you know tool. It's been a multitude or a
myriad of different types of tools through a period of
several years that I've used to help me come to
the place where I'm at now.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
So I want to go back when it kind of
comes to this in the sense, this period, this moment
of enlightenment, if you will, I mean, was it literally
just kind of a you know, the Holy Spirit is
(27:35):
just working on your, working on your, working on you,
and then one day or is it in the matter
of a week. And the reason I asked this question
is because I think it can look different for people,
and so, like I said, I want people to see
themselves in your story. I'm just curious how that unfolded.
Speaker 4 (27:53):
I would say that, you know, give us this day
our daily bread, right, this idea of daily sustenance.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
It's it's what can I do today? That's the mentality.
That's where it started from.
Speaker 4 (28:06):
It was like, Okay, I created a huge mountain of
a problem, and the old adage.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
How do you eat an elephant one by at a time?
Speaker 2 (28:16):
Yeap?
Speaker 4 (28:16):
What can I do today to move in the right direction?
And that's where it started from. Lord, give me the
strength for the day, and then from that I would
get the desire to reach certain goals, you know, like okay,
you know what I feel that I need to put
(28:37):
these things down. So you know, if we want to
relate it to substances, right, it has been over two
years since I've consumed any intoxicant, any type of you know,
mint mind altering substance, all right, over two years. And
before that time, I was given a time frame like
(29:04):
it's time to stop. And in my mind I chose
a time to stop, and I was resolved in my
mind that that was it past this time, there's no
more excuses like it's either now or never. I gave
myself that right, and I asked the Holy Spirit and
the Lord to give me the strength to follow through
(29:24):
so that my yes can be yes and my no
can be no. Okay, I did not want to waffle
anymore because in years past I would do the same
kind of thing. I think that I've been doing too much,
let me stop, and then I'd stopped for six months
or five months, back on for five or six months,
and I'd stop for three months and be back on
for six months, and stop for a month and be
back on for three months. I was doing that regularly
(29:45):
all the time, and in this time was like, you
know what, I want to live life. I want to
live life in a way that I can wake up
and just enjoy being. And the only way for me
to get that is if I take this step of
(30:06):
courage and pray the Lord meets me there. So to
answer your question, I know that may not be the
those are listening may not hear an exact, but that's
the thing, it's not an exact. There are some people
I meet that, like, you know, they wake up in
one day and it's like, Okay, I'm stopping everything. For me,
it was more so I had to again. It wasn't
(30:27):
about the things, the substances. It was about my heart
and my mind.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
You know.
Speaker 4 (30:31):
The Apostle Paul says, be no longer conformed to the
pattern of the world, but be transformed by the renewing
of your mind. And then and only then will you
be able to test and approve what God's good, perfect
and pleasing will is. He said in Corinthians that we
take every thought captive, and we make it submit to Christ.
So for me, it was a daily decision to allow
(30:55):
the Holy Spirit to search me, as the Psalma says,
search me a Lord, identify any wicked way in me.
Right Proverbs says that trust in the Lord all your heart,
all your heart, lean out on your own understanding in
all your ways, acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.
So it was me doing that every day. Okay, Lord,
what do you see in me that does not honor you,
(31:17):
that does not glorify you? And the Holy Spirit would
point those things out and say, work on that today.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
It was a daily thing. It wasn't you know.
Speaker 4 (31:26):
The revelation came and then there was the sanctification that
came afterwards.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
Okay, talk about that right, because I think you've the
sanctification part is a huge part of my story. I
think you've talked about this a little bit. I thought
it was interesting and there was something you said earlier
about I can't remember exactly how you said it, but
basically like finally making the Lord of your life. And
I think some people would be like, well, isn't that
what you did when you got saved, when you, you know,
invited the Lord into your life. And I think what
I've tried to do my best to explain to people
(31:55):
is yes, but that's when it starts. It's this process
of making the Lord the lord of your life. So
explain to me what you've come to understand about that
sanctification process throughout.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
This Absolutely, salvation is a decision.
Speaker 4 (32:10):
It is event, a moment in time where you've decided
that Jesus Lord and you acknowledge him as Christ crucified,
and the only payment for.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
Sin and death is through Christ. That is salvation.
Speaker 4 (32:28):
As Romans ten nine said, if I believe my heart
restsed my mouth that Jesus Lord, then you will be saved.
There's a lot of saved people that refuse to allow
the Holy Spirit to sanctify them. When the disciples asked
Jesus when he was with them, when he said that
he was going to go, they said, well, what are
we going to do, Rabbi? If you're gone, we don't
(32:49):
know how we're going to follow the instructions. He said, well,
I have to go, so the counselor may come, and
the counselor is going to give you the wisdom and
discernment to understand what to do in my name. I
think a lot of people reject the Holy Spirit, right,
they receive the salvation of Jesus, whether they do it
because they want what I call fire insurance. They want
(33:11):
to get out of health. Pass there. They're more afraid
of health, fire and damnation than they actually want to
have a relationship with Jesus. The ris in Christ because
the Holy Spirit is always going to bring attention things
that don't align with Christ. Right, Paul said, you know
what a what a wretched man I am. The things
(33:31):
that I do not want to do I do, and
that which I want to do I do not do.
It is it is this wrestling, right, So this surrender
comes with saying I no longer live, but it's Christ
who lives in me, and you have to make that
decision daily to die to self and say it's not me,
it's you, Lord, You reign supreme in me, okay. But
(33:51):
that process is difficult for people because they still have lusts, wants, desires, proclivities, baggage, bondage.
They have these things that they don't feel like they
can let go of because they've gotten used to them
and they don't see that what God has for them
is greater than what they're holding on to. But once
you reconcile that what I'm giving up is nowhere near
(34:13):
as valuable is what I'm gaining, even though I don't
understand it or I don't feel it, Okay, I believe
it because Christ said so. And the feelings that we have,
especially in America where we are really big on pleasure
and sensations, and you know, this hedonistic kind of worldview
that says I should not have to deny myself anything, right,
(34:37):
and if I deny myself something and something doesn't feel good,
that must not be from God, which is for so
far from the truth.
Speaker 3 (34:44):
So you're never going to be able to allow sanctification
to take place. If you don't also embrace discomfort.
Speaker 4 (34:52):
It is okay to be uncomfortable, It is okay for
things not to feel good.
Speaker 3 (34:57):
Right.
Speaker 4 (34:58):
And once you say okay, things are not gonna feel good,
this brings me back to what my bitterness was about
with when I was younger, is that people just didn't
tell me the truth. You know, once I realized that
life is gonna be hard, Jesus said it, in this
life you will have trouble, but fear not come the
world right, Come to me all who you are, who
(35:18):
are a heavy burden, and I will give you rest
from My burden is easy in my yoga, in my
yoga's life. Right, Like these ideas, these sound like great
poetic things, but we don't recognize how much you need them.
And once you get to this place where you say, okay,
I am willing to submit my ideas, my thoughts, my feelings,
my beliefs, my actions, my worldview, okay, my family, my goals,
(35:43):
my ambitions, all of these things you can have that man,
the sectification accelerates because now the Holy Spirit says, wow,
I can work with that.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
That's a canvas.
Speaker 4 (35:54):
That's an open that's a clean, open vessel that I
can maneuver in and there's not going to be this
constant push and fight when we fight with God, right
and we fight the only spirit the lapers says, Okay,
do what you want. You have free will on the
earth to do what you will with the time you've belidden.
If you don't want my guidance, my cancel counsel, I
(36:15):
will depart from you. That is mean you lost your salvation.
That just means that you're choosing to be stagnant. Okay,
And I just don't want to be stagnant. I want
to when I'm at fifty years old, I don't want
to have the same issues that I did as I
was forty and at sixty. I don't want to look
back and say, at fifty, I have the same issues.
(36:38):
You know, my drive is to is to go over
the Lord and leave nothing on the table. I want
to be able to say, you know what, when I'm
on my deathbed and I'm dying and my loved ones
are around me, I want to be able to look
them in the eye and say, I used all of
my gifts and talents to the best of my ability.
Speaker 3 (36:59):
Right. I don't want to be.
Speaker 4 (37:01):
Saying, oh, man, if I would have just stopped smoking weed,
I could have, you know, if I would have just
stopped drinking alcohol, maybe I could have, you know, if
I had have just laid the pornography down, you know,
And and and that's what that's what God is gonna
be end up saying like He's gonna embrace us as
as those that have salvation, but he's gonna say to us, man,
(37:21):
you know, I wanted to do this with you, but
I couldn't bring you over here because you are just
waiting with these addictions.
Speaker 3 (37:29):
And if I brought you over there, it would have
been worse.
Speaker 4 (37:32):
But if you had have chosen to surrender, I could
have brought you over here, and this opportunity is waiting
for you, but instead you had to be over here
right like, I don't want that to happen to me,
you know. So the you have to love your fellowship
and your relationship with the Lord more than you love
the thing that you're holding on to.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
Yes, Yes, And I think I've talked about that a lot,
which is my sobriety came as a result of finally
putting us in this proper place right when I loved
him more than anything else that's when everything else fell
into order.
Speaker 3 (38:08):
Right.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
You said something I think I'm sitting there thinking about it,
is it's almost like you know we talk about, especially
when it comes to you, for lack of a better term, addictions.
I know, I know you kind of redefine that a
little bit early on, which is fine, But when it
comes to addictions is sobriety really is predicated on humility.
(38:32):
And I think what's interesting about what you said is
it's almost like you had to have the humility to
be hurt and like like to open, like the humility
to say, you know what, it's not all about walling
myself off. It's not all about building up these you know,
these these protections, the two strike rule and whatnot, Like
(38:54):
I'm gonna humble myself enough that guess what, I may
be hurt like from others, but from you know what
you talked about, the discomfort from the Holy Spirit. Like
I'm I'm I'm going to have the humility to be hurt.
And I think that's the first time I really kind
of like put that together that I think that's that's essential.
(39:14):
It's not only the humility to say for all of us, hey,
I can't do this on my own, I need help whatever.
It's also the humility to say, like, you know, these
these these methods and measures of escape that I have
used are going away, and that will that will bring
with it some fear and some hurt and and so
(39:36):
I loved, I loved kind of. I mean you didn't
say in that term, but I think that's what you
were describing, right.
Speaker 4 (39:43):
Yeah, indeed, like you, you have to be okay. And
I I like to use the word vulnerability. Yeah, for
for me, because vulnerability, in my mind previously I equated
to weakness, and so they're there. I had to redefine terms, right,
I had to relearn what it meant to be vulnerable.
(40:07):
And again I look at Christ as the perfect example.
By no measure, was our Messiah weak. Uh.
Speaker 3 (40:15):
He could have he could.
Speaker 4 (40:17):
Have struck anything down, commanded anything around him, he could
have taken by force if he chose, But he chose
to be vulnerable. I mean, the most high God came
to occupy a human vessel, one of the weakest vessels
(40:40):
in creation.
Speaker 3 (40:41):
I mean.
Speaker 4 (40:44):
That takes a level of vulnerability that to.
Speaker 3 (40:49):
Me is unfounded, you know.
Speaker 4 (40:50):
And so if our Messiah can choose to be vulnerable,
and of course you know, there's there's some points of
relation with vulnerability and humility that we can obviously draw there.
But vulnerability, just for me rings volumes because I've never
viewed myself as a weak person. I've always again been
the one to you know, enforce anyone crossing my boundary.
(41:11):
And I got in a lot of fights when I
was younger. You know, I always prided myself like I
didn't start any fights, but I finished every single one
of them, you know, And I was okay with violence.
I was okay with you know, not only I don't
mean just violence and physical, but I mean violence and words.
(41:33):
I mean, I man, I was known for destroying people
with words. Man, I mean I had pep.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
You are like you and I have talked about that
you are a wordsmith, right, like like your vocabulary is,
and I think you even talked about how maybe it
was something in relation with your.
Speaker 4 (41:54):
Dad, my father and my father, yeah, he required me
to read a book a month and write a book
report from the time I was in Yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
Yeah, And so like your vocabulary is, it's like extensive,
which which can be used for good or guess what
would you want to cut people down.
Speaker 1 (42:09):
You a lot of ways to do it.
Speaker 3 (42:11):
Yeah, yeah, and it was bad.
Speaker 4 (42:12):
Like I I I took pride in making people feel
like simpletons, you know. It was it was you said
something that was offensive. Now let me show you what
it sounds like to be really offensive. Like you thought
that you were being offensive. Now I'm going to offend
you to a level that you don't even comprehend, you know.
And I had people you know, come to me you
(42:34):
after years like say like that things that I said
to them, like they couldn't get out of their head
years later, and it and it it really kind of
broke me. It was like wow, like it was it
was like this moment like oh, that's not good, you know,
like I don't want to be known for that. I
don't want to be known for for saying something that
(42:59):
cuts so deep to where like the person has scars
five six years later, you know. So now what's interesting
about that is that on the other side of it,
I have people that will come to me later and say, hey,
you said something to me these years ago and it
and thank you for that, Like it was hard to hear,
(43:20):
but I needed it. So it's you see how the
enemy can use what God intended for good for a
wicked purpose. You know, I have people on both sides
that have told me that things that I've said to
them have created a lot of healing or it it
literally gave them a paradigm shift that has impacted their
next decade of light. And like that is extremely humbling
(43:43):
to hear that, Like wow, okay, okay, God, you want
to use me, And in order for me to be
utilized by you, I'm going to have to surrender all
of these things that I have held in high esteem,
in high regard that really, in the grand scheme of things,
(44:03):
are unimportant if I'm submitted to your will. They're only
important if I still want to live out my own
will for my life. And that's the struggle and the
balance and the war that we have to recognize and
be humble enough, as you said, to admit that we
really don't want what God wants for us. We still
(44:24):
want God to be the cosmic genie. We want to
rub him to have him grant our wishes. And I
don't want God to be my genie. I want God
to be my father and my friend. And when you
love your father and you have a friend, you have
your friend's best interest in mine, and you want to
(44:46):
make your father proud. Many of us just want things
from our father. We want our father to be like,
you know, the affluent dad that you know, he showers
his love by giving gifts.
Speaker 3 (44:58):
I met. I had a lot of friends like that.
Their dads weren't present.
Speaker 4 (45:01):
They were just present with their pocketbooks and they had
a bunch of stuff, but they never saw their dad,
you know. And that's not the kind relationship that God
wants with us. He wants to be a present father.
He wants us to talk to him, He wants to
commune with us, He wants to impart things on us.
Speaker 3 (45:15):
He wants to share, you know.
Speaker 4 (45:17):
But if we don't want to listen, all we want
to have is this one way relationship where we just
giving off a list of like God, do X y
Z for me.
Speaker 3 (45:25):
You know.
Speaker 4 (45:26):
That's that's never going to allow us to have the
type of depth of relationship. And it gives the enemy
a foothold because he knows what to tempts you with.
You see, he knows that that you really don't love him.
He loves yourself more so he can he can tempt
you with selfishness. He can tempt you with addiction, with
things that please you because he knows you love yourself
(45:48):
more than God. Right, once you say I love God
more than myself, it's hard for the enemy to come
with things right that put you at the at the
at the penultimate place right in your life. Right when
you lower your position, the enemy can't say, well, hey,
exalt yourself.
Speaker 3 (46:08):
You say no, no, no, I'm not exalted. May Christ be exalted?
Speaker 4 (46:11):
Right, then the enemy has to flee and find other
clever ways to come to get to you.
Speaker 3 (46:16):
You see.
Speaker 1 (46:17):
So yeah, we'll be right back after this.
Speaker 2 (46:22):
And maybe you've kind of covered this a little bit,
but I want to put the post the questions you
like this, what does it look like? And maybe what
did it look like for you? What does it look
like to be broken?
Speaker 4 (46:39):
I think that people would describe that in many different ways.
We have different idioms that express that. They call it,
you know, getting to the end of yourself, right, they
call it the last resort, right, the last straw. So,
however you want to describe it, I think what it
looks like is coming to the realization that you have
no more answers, that that satisfied, you know, the answers
(47:03):
are all out, and you've come to the end of
your logical mind. Your rational positions no longer apply, your
methodologies are no longer being executed in a way that
looks like success. You're not gaining any pleasure, or the
(47:24):
pleasure that you once were gaining is a microcosm of
what it once was.
Speaker 3 (47:29):
And this is very true with substances.
Speaker 4 (47:31):
Right, You're always trying to chase that first high, and
you no longer have that, it begins to dissipate.
Speaker 3 (47:38):
I call it. In financial terms, they call it the
law of diminishing.
Speaker 4 (47:41):
Returns, to where at a point your investment is no
longer getting the yield that it once was when you
first started investing.
Speaker 3 (47:49):
That's how it was for me with marijuana.
Speaker 4 (47:51):
It was like, Okay, the amount of marijuana I'm smoking
is not doing the job anymore, Like I have to
increase it in order to get the same result. And
even when I do incre I'm still not getting the
same euphoria that I once had when I first began. Right,
and so brokenness looks like this is no longer working,
and now I'm just doing it robotically out of habit
(48:11):
and really out of bondage.
Speaker 3 (48:15):
I'm now a slave to it. That's where brokenness is,
you know.
Speaker 4 (48:19):
So the imagery of someone broken is as I see
someone shackled in chains, neked without anything, without hope, with
with without recourse, without solutions.
Speaker 3 (48:31):
That's brokenness.
Speaker 4 (48:32):
And you know that can look different ways for different
people at different stations in their life. And for me,
that brokenness looked like me at a point one to
kill myself. I was quite literally googling how long does
it take to kill yourself?
Speaker 3 (48:50):
From carbon monoxide in a car?
Speaker 4 (48:52):
And one after I was able to see in my
mind's eye. Now you know, this may be sobering for
those that are listening, but I could visualize myself. And
this is during the pandemic. Actually, during that twenty twenty
everybody experienced a lot. And I was working from home.
When I was at a job that I hated, I
was stuck in my house. I didn't like my life.
(49:15):
I had all kinds of substance addictions. And I was
sitting there googling how long does it take? And I
for like thirty forty five minutes. I was looking at
different articles, different things. That does is it painful?
Speaker 3 (49:28):
You know?
Speaker 2 (49:29):
How?
Speaker 3 (49:29):
You know all these different things. What happens? You know?
Do you feel it? You know?
Speaker 4 (49:37):
And I stepped back from the computer for a second,
and I said to myself, what am I doing? But
the only reason why I thought that is because I
could see in my mind's eye myself walking through the
steps of it. And then I saw my wife and
(49:58):
my kids coming home to find me dead in the car,
and that imagery broke me.
Speaker 3 (50:09):
The pain.
Speaker 4 (50:19):
That I could see and the devastation that I could
see on my kid's face after coming home from school,
ready to see their follow to find me dead in
the car was too much. It was too much, and
I said I need help. I have a problem. I
(50:44):
need help.
Speaker 3 (50:45):
And immediately I called Human Resources HR.
Speaker 4 (50:51):
And I said I need to talk with somebody now,
and I took a leave.
Speaker 3 (50:58):
I didn't go to work for like two months. I
went to a monastery, to a silence and solid to
a treat and I sat every day and I re
gathered myself. I went to counseling because I was so foggy.
I couldn't see I could I couldn't see clearly anymore.
(51:21):
I didn't know who I was anymore. I didn't know
what I wanted anymore.
Speaker 4 (51:25):
And I was able to regain that little by little,
little by little, every day going on walks, journaling, reading,
listening to the Holy Spirit, going to counseling.
Speaker 3 (51:37):
And I recognized that.
Speaker 4 (51:40):
I didn't like myself anymore. I didn't like myself, I
didn't like my life, and I had to regain that joy.
Speaker 3 (51:49):
And the substances were a part of that.
Speaker 4 (51:50):
As you know, psychologically, when you when you are using things,
it alters your brain chemistry, you know, and it's especially
your your dopamine receptors and these kinds of things, things
that allow you to experience joy. You you you literally
fried those things, you know, And so the substance has
(52:14):
become the joy it replaces. So so so life becomes mundane.
Every everything becomes a bird, you know, uh, And you
no longer find any sense of of of pleasure or
fulfillment from just being. And I knew that I needed
that and the only way that I was going to
get that was from God.
Speaker 2 (52:36):
First of all, thank you just for being. So you know,
we talked a little bit about you talk about vulnerability,
and I appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (52:43):
You know, it's a chapter of my book, right. So
it's like, man, I.
Speaker 2 (52:48):
Thank you for for telling your story and and telling
it so well. I'm curious we didn't. We really kind
of skipped over this just because the conversation got so good.
But what did your substance use look like?
Speaker 4 (53:02):
Oh man, you know, uh uh, I wasn't a big
alcohol I was definitely a big marijuana guy for sure.
So alcohol wasn't wasn't for me, but yeah, but you know,
marijuana was was big alcohol and spurts, pornography, some narcotic use,
(53:26):
you know, here and there sprinkled in.
Speaker 3 (53:31):
You know.
Speaker 4 (53:31):
I'll I'll reserve that the exact names of those things,
you know, for the purpose of.
Speaker 1 (53:37):
We don't have to name them, you know, I'll just.
Speaker 4 (53:41):
Say, you know, living in affluence and living in the
in the suburbs, you have access to.
Speaker 3 (53:49):
Luxury substances. You know, call it that right, high networth.
Speaker 4 (53:53):
There's a lot of high net worth people, a lot
of middle class, upper middle class individuals that are are
living every day on drugs that other people can't afford,
you know, and it's very easy to find those things
that your local bars, you know. Uh. You ever, if
you ever wonder why somebody can drink from five p m.
(54:15):
Till two am because they're probably offsetting that with something else.
There's there's there's there's an up and and down or
down or combination that's happening there, you know, So you
can conclude what you want from that. But what I
will say is that you know, the enemy will pull
you into the dolgence and the depths of despair and
(54:36):
bring you to places where you never thought you would go,
and and and and be.
Speaker 3 (54:42):
A and and also to what ends up happening is that.
Speaker 4 (54:45):
When you are in those kind of living, those kind
of lifestyles, you you you end up ironically running into
people that have access to things that you never thought
you would have access to, even when you're not looking
for it, right. And so that's what kind of happened
to me, is that in these places where it's like,
you know, I'm not even looking for something, but I'm
in places where I shouldn't be, right, someone offers something, Oh, sure,
(55:07):
I think I'll try that, right, That's fine, And then
before you for knowing a try comes into no regular behavior,
you know, And so you know, I would say it
was a combination of things that allowed me to escape,
you know, I would say marijuana and sexual morality, where
the penultimate though, those were the two that I escaped
(55:27):
to most frequently, you know, because unfortunately I had things
that happened to when I was a child, sexual perversions
that happened to me when I was a child.
Speaker 3 (55:39):
Those things have stuck.
Speaker 4 (55:41):
With me for years, and I've what I find is
that the victims of sexual abuse either go in two ways.
They either are repulsed by sex or they become very
infatuated by it. And I was infatuated by it. So,
you know, my level of sexual morality before I was
married was very, very high. And what's the problem is
(56:03):
when you get married, doesn't go away, you know, if
you don't if you don't want to deal with it.
So now you have all this suppressed sexual morality and
the only way to manifest if you don't want to
commit adultery is to use pornography. Right, and then pornography
and substance abuse tend to go hand in hand, you know,
because if you're in an altered state, you're weak, you're
(56:25):
more prone to influence.
Speaker 3 (56:27):
Right.
Speaker 4 (56:27):
You see drunk people, the things they say and things
they do they don't do when they're sober, Right, you're
more prone to influence you're more prone to to take
risks and to do things with your body that you
would not do if you were a sober state. Right,
So when I'm in a state now, it's a lot
easier to be tempted to hear a voice.
Speaker 3 (56:48):
Hey, you should go google this. Wont you go watch this? Right?
Speaker 4 (56:52):
Stand up at two three o'clock in the morning, you know,
in a certain state, right, enjoying the high, Well, now
you're vulnerable for other types of influence, right, So that's
how it spirals out of control.
Speaker 2 (57:07):
So I want to end with this question. And if
it's a poor question, you can tell me. You're a
very honest guy. But you know, I think I'd be
remiss if I didn't if I didn't give you the
opportunity to answer it, and that assists, you know, is
there anything that you would like the audience to know,
(57:28):
a white audience or an African American audience, about addiction,
about substance use, about anything that you experienced that is
different within the African American community, anything that we should
know as me as a white person. But anything that
if there's even you know, if there's someone of color
(57:51):
that is listening to this, that you would like them
to know.
Speaker 3 (57:56):
Yeah, I mean there's a big stigma.
Speaker 4 (57:57):
I mean I would say, first of all, you know,
addiction has no discrimination, you know, it doesn't give a crap,
but ethnic groups or you know, identifying markers of race
or culture.
Speaker 3 (58:10):
So it's across the board.
Speaker 4 (58:12):
But I do think that, uh, there's a very odd
stigma within Afords in the communities about counseling and therapy
that doesn't exist within other communities. And it could be
just not it could just be even a socio economic divide,
you know this. The same could be true maybe among
poor quote unquote whites. You know that I don't. I
(58:34):
don't know what those numbers are. You know, it probably
is just a socio economic thing. I think that people
middle class and up tend to be more prone to
be open to counseling, whereas you know, what I have
found amongst afortis in the people in the in the
Americas and in North America, is that they tend to
look at counseling and therapy as as either somebody being
(58:57):
in your business. You know, you don't you don't want you,
you don't want nobody in your business. Right, Uh, it's
it's weak, right, I'm fine, what's that gonna do?
Speaker 3 (59:06):
You know, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (59:07):
I don't need nobody talk to kind of a thing
like you do see a lot of that, you know,
I say that in my own family dynamic where you
got people that in my family that it's like you
would benefit from going to a counselor. But it's like
I don't need a counsel I'm fine. It's like wall Habbits,
you're not fine. You know, you're not You're not fine.
Or they have a stigma about counseling. And I think
this is across the board. I don't think this is
as anything to with with with ethnicity, but people have
(59:28):
a stigma across the board that if I admit that
I need a counselor or something's wrong with me, you know,
And I think that you got to you gotta get
rid of that, you know, wise counsel. The problem said that,
you know the the the a companion of fools suffers harm.
(59:49):
But those who sit in the council the rise were
wise right. So you should always look for wise counsel always.
You need someone to hold you accountable, You need someone
to tell you about yourself.
Speaker 3 (01:00:00):
You know.
Speaker 4 (01:00:00):
It is again I said it earlier in the interview,
like it's a it's a it's the coward's way out
to resist accountability or to run away from accountability. You know,
you're just showing you that you're a coward, that you
that you don't have the courage to have somebody tell
you about yourself. And and if you want to grow
(01:00:22):
and be better you somebody has to be able to
speak into your life and tell you that you're screwing up,
you're making bad decisions. If you continue on this trajectory,
it's going to result in X, Like you need someone
to tell you the hard truth in love. And you know,
I don't think you should go to every counselor. I
don't think a Christian should be going to see a
(01:00:42):
non Christian counselor period ever, So if you're a Christian
listening to this, do not ever go see a counselor
is not a Christian, because they're not going to be
able to give you advice from your worldview. Go get
a Christian counselor that's going to be able to speak
truth from you, clinical truth, of course, but they're going
to be to infuse the understanding of the word because
(01:01:03):
at the end of the day. The word is what's
going to transform you, you know, not a man. Uh yeah.
The counselor is not the savior Jesus the savior. The
counselor is a conduit for wisdom, right because yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:01:17):
Yeah, because you can't see.
Speaker 4 (01:01:18):
So I would say for those that are struggling in addiction,
if you feel like you're in bondage, first you gotta
admit that you got a problem. Stop pretending you don't.
Stop minimizing and being dismissive and you know, acting like
us not a big deal. If you're doing something every
single week, multiple times, you know a week, you got
a problem. Okay, I don't care if you're drinking you know,
(01:01:42):
some wine every night or beer every night, or or
you can't go to de Bay without having sugar or
cake or like that, any kind of dependency that's not
dependency on God.
Speaker 3 (01:01:52):
You are playing with addiction, period. Yeah, and you need
to address it, you know, so right.
Speaker 1 (01:02:00):
I'm I'm reminded.
Speaker 2 (01:02:01):
I think you know you said this just just a
second ago, is is I'm reminded of when you said
the need that we have, this need for people to
help us see things. I'm reminded of the Ethiopian Unich right,
that says, how will I How will I know if
no one shows me?
Speaker 3 (01:02:16):
Right?
Speaker 2 (01:02:16):
And and I think what we need is maybe maybe
if we we can realize we have an issue.
Speaker 3 (01:02:24):
Right.
Speaker 2 (01:02:24):
And this is not to say that, you know, some
people can't be miraculously healed and like that's not to
discount that, but I think what is so helpful and
beneficial and what dare I say most of us need
is we need someone to show us the way, someone
to outside of ourselves just say hey, this right, you
can do this. This is a good thing. You know,
here are some tools. And I think that's biblical right
(01:02:48):
with the Ethiopian Unich Brandon, I just want to I
just want to really affirm it's it's it's It's been
great to see your transformation. I think it's funny that
we both kind of under on this transfervation and I
just want to thank you for your vulnerability and your
your willingness to talk about it. Man, I really appreciate that. Hey,
(01:03:09):
if anyone is in the need for some maybe of
your services, especially in the Dallas for Worth area, where't they.
Speaker 4 (01:03:15):
Go, Yeah, you can go to Productionmasterminds dot com. Also
project Maasterminds dot com.
Speaker 3 (01:03:21):
You know either one.
Speaker 4 (01:03:23):
I have a iteration of production Masterminds that just focus
on project management, creative project management, digital project management, nonprofit
project management. Production Masterminds is all inclusive production consulting, content strategy,
YouTube channel growth, all all of that film and TV
pitch decks, and then connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm
easy to find Brandon c Rix. And then if you
(01:03:45):
are interested in my writing my thoughts, you can also
find me on substack. I have a publication called Finding
My Way and I address a lot of these kind
of hard to talk about issues, so substance, Finding my Way,
those are all the places you can find me.
Speaker 3 (01:04:03):
Man.
Speaker 1 (01:04:04):
I love you, thank you for joining us. I can't
wait to talk again.
Speaker 3 (01:04:08):
Absolutely, brother.
Speaker 2 (01:04:12):
You know, one of the things I love about what
people referred to as the recovery community is the common
ground that we find because here's here's the interesting thing.
When Brandon and I worked together, we didn't always see
eye to eye on everything. There were sometimes that we
butted heads, and you know, we repaired that those aspects
(01:04:33):
of the relationship a long time ago. But I continue
to see how God, you know, basically uses our brokenness
to bring us together, and so I feel closer to
Brandon than I've ever felt because in the end, he
and I both see the need for a savior. We
(01:04:53):
both see how desperate we are, and any differences that
we had or were have just really start to fade
when we realize that, man, we are just two broken
people that need humility, that need Jesus. And I think,
you know, I wonder if you're listening to this podcast
(01:05:15):
and you're part of that quote unquote recovery community, chances
are you've seen that same thing, right. There's nothing like
sitting in a circle of chairs of people who have
struggled like you have, and even though there are differences,
you see how similar you are and really, in the end,
this is this is why it's important as well when
I say we're all addicted to something, right is I
think I think one of the ways that revival can
(01:05:39):
happen in the church is through the recovery community, because
we see how desperate we are for Jesus. And if
we all really do embrace what I say, that we're
all addicted to something and don't look at people like,
oh man, well he struggles with that, I'm good, right
then I think it ushers in a humility that leads
(01:06:04):
to revival because we just have to grasp to Jesus,
grasp for Jesus.
Speaker 1 (01:06:10):
So I love I love Brandon's story.
Speaker 2 (01:06:13):
I hope that it ministered to you today as it
continues to minister to me as I listened back to
it again, I just want to say thank you. We
are I think this week we will hit one hundred
thousand downloads of this podcast and it's only been around
since May. That's that's insane, that's incredible, and it's not
(01:06:37):
a testament to me, it's a testament to God. And
I think just how much we all do need this
message of recovery and desperation. So thank you, thank you.
I do not take it lightly. As always, please visit
our partner Life Audio dot com. They make this podcast
possible and have helped me get the word out and
(01:06:58):
I am so grateful to them. And there are so
many other great podcasts like Boughton Beloved from our friend
Kirbye Kelly, who is on the podcast. She has a
podcast through Life Audio. So visit lifeaudio dot com and
check out some of the other great podcasts. Love you all,
We'll talk to you next week,
Life Audio.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Hello, Hello, and welcome to the Confessions of a Christian
Alcoholic podcast. I am your host, John Seidel. This is
your home for real stories, radical vulnerability, and remarkable comebacks.
In the end, this podcast is a place for the desperate,
the downtrodden, the destitute, and especially the drunk.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
But it's also a place of hope and healing.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
I know that firsthand because I'm the Christian who became
an alcoholic, not the other way around. Today I've found
sobriety after decades of struggling. But more importantly than finding sobriety,
I found Jesus.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
My prayer is.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
That as I interview people just like you and just
like me, along with professionals in the fields of trauma,
faith and addiction recovery, you will find the piece that
is available to you through Christ on the other side
of whatever you're going through and whatever addiction that might be.
Because let's face it, we're all addicted to something so welcome,
(01:20):
let's get radically vulnerable as we explore what it looks
like to be on this journey of MESSI sanctification.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
We'll be right back after this, you know.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
One of the more should I say, surprising and yet
encouraging aspects of doing this podcast and just speaking in
general about my story is the amount of people who
have felt the courage to then contact me and say
(01:55):
me too.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
And that is today's guest.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
It's actually someone that I have known for over a decade,
and yet it's someone that I didn't know was struggling
in different yet similar ways to how I was struggling.
And so Brandon Rix is someone who I've enjoyed.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Getting to know.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Met him when we were both working at the same company,
and when I started sharing my own story, him and
I were on the phone. We were talking and he said,
you know, hey, I need to let you know, like
I've struggled in certain areas that are similar to you
as well.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
And I was surprised.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
And got to know, or got to hear his story,
got to hear him talk about what it was like,
what he was going through, and man, it was so similar.
And so I'm excited for you to get to hear
Brandon's story different substance, but very similar. And I think
(03:05):
it will hopefully serve as an encouragement to you to
do exactly what Brandon did, which is to raise your
hand and say hey, me too. There's some tough parts
of his story, right, There's trauma in his past, in
his childhood. There is a point where he got so
broken that he was figuring out what.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
It would look like to end it all and to
leave this world.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
And that dramatic story of talking about what kept him
from doing that will likely bring tears to your eyes.
So I'm excited for you to hear Brandon's story. First
of all, though, I want to encourage you if you
have not picked up the book Confessions of a Christian Alcoholic,
I would be honored if you did. So, you can
go to Christianalcoholic dot com Christian Alcoholic dot com, and
(03:52):
then if you go to the Veritas Daily dot com
if you want to see this podcast, if you want
to see the video vers there's a video version that
is AD free that you can access via the Veritas
Daily dot com. So, without further ado, let's talk with
Brandon Rix and his incredible story. Brandon, thank you so
(04:15):
much for joining the Confessions podcast. I'm gonna start I
don't know, maybe I'm toying with the idea of just
calling it confessions. My wife thinks I should just start
calling it convension confessions because it might be more encompassing,
which your story I think is a little bit more
encompassing than just alcohol.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
But I'm really excited to have you on here.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
I was thinking, and we were talking that man, we've
known each other. I'm trying to think probably since probably
for I mean, yeah, I think it's like ten years. Yeah,
and so that's crazy. So man, thanks for thanks for
being on the show.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Of course, I'm glad you came out with the confessions.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
I was like, woay, is man, I'm walking into a
therapeutic session here, you know.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Hey, that could be you know, maybe you know it's
uh yeah, maybe we call this drinking therapy.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
I don't know, in the good way instead of the
bad way that I used to do.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
But so, you know, I did a little bit of
an introduction, but I would love for you to just
kind of introduce yourself to the audience.
Speaker 4 (05:18):
Yeah, Brandon Ricks, Brandon c Ricks, to be exact, I
originally hail from southern California. That's where I spent most
of my childhood. That I spent a few years Indiana,
and I've lived in Dallas, Texas ever since. You know,
so the majority of My life now has been spent
as a as a textant, and I am married with
(05:38):
three kids. You know, my oldest kids in college, my
youngest is in middle school. I've got one sandwich in
between in high school. So time is flying past. As
a profession I'm a business owner. I run a content
strategy and production think tank called Production Masterminds, and we
do a variety of things to mainly helping people take
creative ideas that are conceptual and bring those ideas into
(06:02):
reality through processes and structure and framework. So that is
what I do professionally. I'm good at bringing ideas to
life and helping creatives figure out how to execute and
implement their creative vision. And personal wise, I play soccer
love still love the game. I play soccer in men's leagues.
(06:22):
I like to work out big into the healthy eating
and lifestyle. And the most importantly, I'm a serving disciple
of the Most High God, a follower of Jesus, and
that is the primary identity that I am proud of.
And the Holy Spirit gives me wisdom and guidance to
live out my faith in a lot of different ways,
(06:44):
and every aspect of my life and my journey has
been a journey of surrender and humility before the Lord.
So that is the longest short of it.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
It's funny that you said, I just can't get over
the fact that you have a child, quote unquote in college.
I mean, like when we first met, I remember that
that child, if you will, like, I don't know, she
was probably what like like ten at the time, you know, or.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
Probably in twelves in something like Tanne.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Yeah, I mean, that's nuts to me that she's in
college now. So anyways, that that makes you feel old.
But uh so, it's interesting. The reason that you and
I are talking today is because probably I don't know,
a month and a month ago, a month and a
half ago, you and I had been kicking around the
idea of a of a project, and so you know,
(07:36):
you're like, hey, let's let's let's you know, get on
the phone.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
And so we get on the phone.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
And what was so funny is I think I at
the at the time, I said, hey, man, I just
need to be honest with you. I'm going through a
lot of change and I'm not sure I can be
as much of a help to you on this on
this project. And really it just the conversation just you know,
you're like funny thing.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Me too, you know. And and then I just kind
of opened up.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
We hadn't talked in a while, and I opened up about,
you know, my story and what the Lord had been
taking me through over the last you know, two years,
And to my surprise, you open up and share about
what the Lord has done in your life for the
last years and it's very similar. Yeah, And so I
think it's so funny that, you know, we start telling
(08:23):
our stories and we think I'm the only one or
think this is weird. I think, especially when it comes
to you know, addiction and substance use.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
And so.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
You start telling me about your own journey on getting clean,
getting sober, giving up substances, and I'm like, man, I.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Gotta have you on. I got to have you on
the podcast talk about that.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
So I would love just you know, and we'll take
some rabbit trails and I'll interrupt and I'll last fallow
ups and stuff, but I would love to kind of
have you take us through your story of realizing, hey,
you know what I'm I'm I'm using some stuff in
order to to escape and this is not good. And
so just bring us back to the beginning of what
that looked like and how you came to that realization.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
Yeah, man, you know it's I don't. I don't think
I think it was.
Speaker 4 (09:10):
I think it was unfolding revelation more so than one
thing or or a moment in time.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
It was more so a string of.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
Inklings from the Holy Spirit that was prompting me to
self evaluate, to self reflect in me a lot of
ignoring those things. Yeah, and seeing where the ignoring of
those things compounded into me feeling worse than the yilt
and the shame compounding, and the embarrassment compounding, and.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
Then the hiding increasing.
Speaker 4 (09:41):
And you know, I think it was a culmination of
those things over the course of several years, honestly.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
And I you know, for me, I don't.
Speaker 4 (09:50):
I don't necessarily use the word addiction in the same
way maybe as others do, because I am It's funny,
I'm a very disciplined person, you know, And I have
the ability to stop things once I reconcile my mind
that it's time to stop. Because I like to say
that I'm rooted in logic and reason, which is the
(10:12):
reason why I think that for those that maybe not
wired that way, addictions and proclivities can be.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
So binding.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
You know.
Speaker 4 (10:26):
I can't imagine for someone that doesn't have the level
of this one that I have, what they're going through,
if they are struggling with a substance or what have you.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
How hard that has to be to sever the ties.
Speaker 4 (10:37):
For me.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Once I commit to doing something, I do it. You know.
Speaker 4 (10:41):
So the process once I resigned in my mind that
I was done, I was done.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
You know, I didn't. I didn't have that.
Speaker 4 (10:49):
The issue for the last several years though, prior to
this point in time was that I really didn't want
to stop, you know. So there was a lot of
starting and stopping, and it was more so, you know,
I have to do this because it's the right thing
to do, not because I want to do it.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
So I would have seasons of sobriety.
Speaker 4 (11:09):
You know, where it would be months on and off
and I would I would say, the place where I
really recognized that there was an issue is when I
saw myself not wanting to live anymore. The thing that
the the the ideas of my mind became darker. My
(11:31):
disposition was always one of dread. I was I didn't
like my life, I didn't like who I was and
I was going through my journals and so just so
you know, I don't know I've told you this, but
I came to Faith in Christ going to my twenty
first birthday, and from that point in time until now,
(11:54):
I've been journaling.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
So I have like twenty years of journal intrigues.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (11:58):
Over Yeah, So two thousand in three, two thousand July fifth,
thousand and three is when I when I came to Faith
in Christ. So now we're at, you know, a little
over twenty years of journals that I have. I mean,
and I have like literally archives of journals.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (12:12):
And every now and then I'll go back and I'll
read them, and I'll go back several years.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
Sometimes I'll go back all the way.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
Sometimes I go back a couple of years, five years,
seven years, depending on what I'm feeling like. And I
recognize I went back about five seven years of journals
and I had the exact same issue. It was, it
was like the exact same struggle that I was complaining about,
the exact same struggle that I was identifying that I
(12:39):
need to stop doing this. If I you know, this year,
I'm gonna stop doing this. And it was this this
overwhelming sense of this is pathetic. You know, how long
are you going to continue to have the same problem
over and over again? You know, at a certain point
like enough is enough?
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Right?
Speaker 4 (12:59):
Like for me, I don't want to be sixty years
old having the same issues that I had when I
was twenty five. Like I there are a lot of
people that are content with that, you know, I meet them,
and I for me, I'm perplexed by that position. Is
how you can still have the same insecurity, still have
the same story, you know, the same victim narrative. You know,
(13:23):
you're telling the same you know issue you had when
you were eighteen, what happened to you as a child.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
It's like, I don't want to be that person personally.
Speaker 4 (13:30):
And again I'm not knocking anybody or looking down anybody
that is in a situation to where they're dealing with
the same thing for three decades.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
But for me, I don't want to be that, you know.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
And it came to a point to where I had
to say, Okay, if I want to accomplish the goals
and aff'ser that I have for my life and I
want to be the person that I want to be,
I'm gonna have to stop being a coward. I'm gonna
have to stop running away, stop running into corners and hiding,
stop trying to avoid and maneuver around these difficult things
(14:03):
in my life that I refused to address. And so
for me, the substances were masking those things. So until
I addressed the issue it was, it was never going
to be a stopping of the substances because I wasn't
addressing the real problem. So I had to allow the
(14:25):
Holy Spirit to mind the deep parts of my soul
and of my person and get very real about what
I was running away from. And once I did that,
that's where freedom came from.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
What what did you find were those things that you
had to root out or that were you know, at.
Speaker 4 (14:45):
The core bitterness, just a level of dissatisfaction. I've always
felt like I was bamboozled by the world and by
my parents and by society around.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
Agitation at this.
Speaker 5 (15:07):
Portrait picture of what adulthood was gonna look like, what
the ideal family situation is gonna look like, what life
is gonna be and the dreams and aspirations, like nobody
just was honest.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
I felt like no one just said, hey, life actually
is really really hard. It's a lot. It's extremely difficult
get ready for it. It's not gonna be fun the
most of the time. You're gonna have to do things
you don't like to do. Everyone painted this picture of
go to college, get a house, get married, have family,
have kids, take vacations, live the life, and then you
(15:44):
get here and you're like, you know, this really sucks.
I'm not enjoying this at all. Why did y'all lie
to me? Why didn't someone just come out and just say,
it's really not what it's cracked up to be and
it's gonna be very difficult. And I felt like if
people were just honest, I would have had more tools
to prepare myself and I wouldn't have gone to things
(16:06):
to escape because I would have been able to deal
with the challenge.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Is that was part of it. The other part of it.
Speaker 4 (16:13):
Was I recognized that I had a lot of defense
mechanisms that I built up over the years to protect
myself from foolishness, from people's insecurities, from their lives, their deception,
their manipulation. And what I created was this impenetrable wall
(16:34):
that didn't allow me to be vulnerable, that massed all
of my emotions and I literally deleted my ability to
discern how I felt about anything. I translated everything through
the emotion of anger, and I treated people as if.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
They were a burden.
Speaker 4 (16:54):
Now, what it did for me was protect me in
many ways, but what it all I also did, on
the contrary, was keep me from the depth of relationships
because I did not allow anybody to harm me. And
I was a what I would call a perpetual you know,
boundary enforcer.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
You know, anybody that crossed.
Speaker 4 (17:19):
Any iota of a of a boundary of a non
negotiable I would I would smack back against that. So
I built a reputation for being very harsh with my words,
very hardhearted, very crass, very mean. And what I realized
is that I was using that as a means to
(17:39):
protect myself from being hurt, from allowing people access to
my true feelings about certain things. And I started to
move in my life in a very chest like manner
to where people became things that I used in order
to get what I wanted subconsciously, not consciously, not intantly
(18:04):
trying to use people or or positioned myself in a
way that I was thinking, like, I'm gonna use this person,
but it was more so. I prided myself on what
I called the two strikes rule. If you did something
to me twice, I was done with you.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
That was it.
Speaker 4 (18:20):
No hard feelings, I don't dislike you. I just was
gonna have nothing to do with you. And what I
realized is that I cut a lot of people out
because I lacked grace and mercy, I lacked fellow feeling.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
I didn't have a depth of empathy.
Speaker 4 (18:34):
And these substances were a part of helping me make
sure I could disconnect because I would always say, I
don't need you for anything. I don't need anybody for anything.
I'm very much content. I can go to Thailand tomorrow
and I can build new relationships and I'll forget about
whoever was over here, right And I prided myself on that.
(18:57):
But the Holy Spirit revealed to me that you're hiding,
and I don't want you to hide anymore. I don't
need you to protect yourself anymore. I'm gonna protect you.
And so I had to like surrender that, you know,
something that I built a lot of reputation around.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
You know, I was okay with people not liking me.
I was fine with that, you know, And.
Speaker 4 (19:23):
I didn't realize though, that I actually was just hurt myself.
I had a lot of pain and hurt that I
had not reconciled yet. And the Lord said, hey, I'm
not going to advance you into the next station until
you deal with this.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (19:40):
And so once I dealt with that, I realized that
I was masking with substances.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
I was hiding those things.
Speaker 4 (19:47):
And so the first thing was, hey, stop doing these
things so that you can feel again, So that you
can really, really really feel again.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Hm, that's so good. There's a couple of places I
want to take this. I'll start here. That two strikes
are I think is really interesting, right because I think,
you know, most people would say, well, three strikes, but
you're like, no, man, you know, it's like it's like
it's like Peter seventy times seven, Jesus says no, you're
Peter says, forgive seven, and he goes Jesus seventy seven
to seven, and you're like the other way, like usually
(20:19):
give people three strikes. You're like, no, give him two?
Speaker 3 (20:21):
Right?
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Where did where did that come from?
Speaker 4 (20:23):
Do you feel like, you know, I think a lot
of just disappointment in people, you know, I am a
I am a person who lives by the principles of truth, transparency, integrity, character.
I've never been one to sugarcoat since I was a child.
I've always been very much just to the point as
(20:44):
a matter of fact. And what I really, what I recognize,
is that the vast majority of people I encounter on
a daily basis are just not wired that way. And
what I what I realize is that I can't trust
anybody like people don't hold a value to their word.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
They say things and don't do it. There's this inconsistency
between word and deed, action and belief. And I was
this way before I was even a believer, and when
I became a Christian, it was even more so, Like
wait a minute, here, I see a lot. I didn't
grow up in a faith tradition.
Speaker 4 (21:19):
So when I got saved, I went writ into the
scriptures and then I would read, and then I'd go
out in society and I would say, this is not
matching up, you know, And so I just I just
had a natural dislike for people to be quite honest,
I just and over the years, the Lord has had
to soften my heart to help me see people how
(21:41):
he sees them because I just don't like people because
I feel like you're gonna tell me something and you're
not gonna live by it, Whereas for me, if I
tell you something, I mean it like there's not there's
no mincing words with me. You know you're gonna get
what you're gonna get. And so because most people are
(22:03):
not wired like that, I've just I just chose to
ex out most people and keep my circle as small
as I possibly could. And I felt like the two
strikes rule helped me do that because I was able
to cut through the nonsense very easily. Now, the positive
side is that of that when you look at Solomon
(22:24):
right in the in second Kings, when he was a
little child and he was wise, and he made a
decision about the two women of the night right, and
he said cut the baby in half.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
And God was pleased with his wisdom.
Speaker 4 (22:38):
And he goes before the Lord and he asked the
Lord for wisdom, and the Lord grants him wisdom. I
believe that God gave me a level of discernment like that.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
I'm a very good judge of character.
Speaker 4 (22:49):
I can talk to somebody within five minutes and I
already know what they what they believe. I know how
they're gonna come from, and that gift. I use that
as a justification to cut people off and to judge
them for their inconsistencies, as opposed to giving them grace,
(23:11):
recognizing that they're flawed and.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
That and can grow.
Speaker 4 (23:14):
Maybe, yeah, that there's growth there, right, But I didn't
see it. I see it as one of your liability, right,
because if if I bring you in my inner circle
and you don't do something, you say, now you've impacted me.
And and if you've impacted me in a negative way,
I view that as as self sabotaging. And yeah, you're
(23:35):
my enemy, right, because if you're doing something that hinders
my well being on my progression, you're now an enemy.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
And so I'm gonna treat you as an enemy, and
I'm gonna cut you off, right. I'm not gonna allow
you to hurt me. Right.
Speaker 4 (23:48):
That goes back to what I said earlier, that that
is it's you're not going to hurt me. If anyone's
gonna hurt me, it's gonna be me, Right. I am
already causing enough of my own wounds. I'm not allowing
anybody else to cause any pain for me right, So
that's where that to strike mentality kind of came from.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
We'll be right back after this.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
So you know, you talk about kind of this in
a sense for lack of retro progressive revelation, right about
about the status and state of of what you were at.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
What did it look like.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
To to open up to be vulnerable? What I mean
was that like, hey, I'm going to start. You know,
for some people's going to therapy, for some people it's
I don't know whatever, But like, what did that look
like for you turning that turning that page, turning that
corner and doing it differently?
Speaker 4 (24:43):
For those listening that need this encouragement, please go to counseling. Please, Uh,
nothing's wrong with counseling. Man, throughout the years, I've gone
to multiple counselors. Going to counseling doesn't make you crazy.
You need somebody that has an unbiased perspective, that doesn't
know you, they're not in your family circle, to speak
(25:04):
into your life, to hold you accountable, to give your
resources and tools to be better. So, if you are
on the fence about counseling, you have some insecurities, don't
be if you are. If you love yourself, you're go
to counseling. So I just want to give that public
service announcement. So, yes, there's a combination of me throughout
the years going to counseling. But really, I would say,
(25:28):
what it looked like is me just being okay with
not being the lord of my own life, you know,
and truly recognizing that God is my provider. He's the
one that protects me, and I no longer have to
protect myself. I don't need to put up any walls
because if He loves me and He's looking out for me,
(25:51):
then I don't have to be concerned about people hurting me,
you know, and the love that Christ has for me,
I have to be willing to show that same love
to others.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
And so the vulnerability has just come over time.
Speaker 4 (26:09):
It's it's it's there'll be moments where, you know, the
Holy Spirit will just give me a sense of compassion
for somebody that I wouldn't necessarily ordinarily have. You know,
I told my my wife a couple months ago, Man,
I think that I've cried more in the last year
than I have my entire life. You know, things just
(26:29):
broke my heart in ways that it didn't before. But
it was through me going, you know, and I could
mention a lot of things, you know, from my personal
prayer time. I've gone to solid silence and solitude retreats
multiple times, to monasteries where I've you don't talk, you
just you just pray, you read your Bible, you read,
you eat, you go to prayer stuff, you don't speak.
I've done that multiple times. I've gone to counseling, you know,
(26:53):
I've spent a lot of.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
Time in reading and writing.
Speaker 4 (26:56):
I've I've had to take leave of absence from work
to just to get myself together. So it hasn't been
one you know tool. It's been a multitude or a
myriad of different types of tools through a period of
several years that I've used to help me come to
the place where I'm at now.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
So I want to go back when it kind of
comes to this in the sense, this period, this moment
of enlightenment, if you will, I mean, was it literally
just kind of a you know, the Holy Spirit is
(27:35):
just working on your, working on your, working on you,
and then one day or is it in the matter
of a week. And the reason I asked this question
is because I think it can look different for people,
and so, like I said, I want people to see
themselves in your story. I'm just curious how that unfolded.
Speaker 4 (27:53):
I would say that, you know, give us this day
our daily bread, right, this idea of daily sustenance.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
It's it's what can I do today? That's the mentality.
That's where it started from.
Speaker 4 (28:06):
It was like, Okay, I created a huge mountain of
a problem, and the old adage.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
How do you eat an elephant one by at a time?
Speaker 2 (28:16):
Yeap?
Speaker 4 (28:16):
What can I do today to move in the right direction?
And that's where it started from. Lord, give me the
strength for the day, and then from that I would
get the desire to reach certain goals, you know, like okay,
you know what I feel that I need to put
(28:37):
these things down. So you know, if we want to
relate it to substances, right, it has been over two
years since I've consumed any intoxicant, any type of you know,
mint mind altering substance, all right, over two years. And
before that time, I was given a time frame like
(29:04):
it's time to stop. And in my mind I chose
a time to stop, and I was resolved in my
mind that that was it past this time, there's no
more excuses like it's either now or never. I gave
myself that right, and I asked the Holy Spirit and
the Lord to give me the strength to follow through
(29:24):
so that my yes can be yes and my no
can be no. Okay, I did not want to waffle
anymore because in years past I would do the same
kind of thing. I think that I've been doing too much,
let me stop, and then I'd stopped for six months
or five months, back on for five or six months,
and I'd stop for three months and be back on
for six months, and stop for a month and be
back on for three months. I was doing that regularly
(29:45):
all the time, and in this time was like, you
know what, I want to live life. I want to
live life in a way that I can wake up
and just enjoy being. And the only way for me
to get that is if I take this step of
(30:06):
courage and pray the Lord meets me there. So to
answer your question, I know that may not be the
those are listening may not hear an exact, but that's
the thing, it's not an exact. There are some people
I meet that, like, you know, they wake up in
one day and it's like, Okay, I'm stopping everything. For me,
it was more so I had to again. It wasn't
(30:27):
about the things, the substances. It was about my heart
and my mind.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
You know.
Speaker 4 (30:31):
The Apostle Paul says, be no longer conformed to the
pattern of the world, but be transformed by the renewing
of your mind. And then and only then will you
be able to test and approve what God's good, perfect
and pleasing will is. He said in Corinthians that we
take every thought captive, and we make it submit to Christ.
So for me, it was a daily decision to allow
(30:55):
the Holy Spirit to search me, as the Psalma says,
search me a Lord, identify any wicked way in me.
Right Proverbs says that trust in the Lord all your heart,
all your heart, lean out on your own understanding in
all your ways, acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.
So it was me doing that every day. Okay, Lord,
what do you see in me that does not honor you,
(31:17):
that does not glorify you? And the Holy Spirit would
point those things out and say, work on that today.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
It was a daily thing. It wasn't you know.
Speaker 4 (31:26):
The revelation came and then there was the sanctification that
came afterwards.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
Okay, talk about that right, because I think you've the
sanctification part is a huge part of my story. I
think you've talked about this a little bit. I thought
it was interesting and there was something you said earlier
about I can't remember exactly how you said it, but
basically like finally making the Lord of your life. And
I think some people would be like, well, isn't that
what you did when you got saved, when you, you know,
invited the Lord into your life. And I think what
I've tried to do my best to explain to people
(31:55):
is yes, but that's when it starts. It's this process
of making the Lord the lord of your life. So
explain to me what you've come to understand about that
sanctification process throughout.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
This Absolutely, salvation is a decision.
Speaker 4 (32:10):
It is event, a moment in time where you've decided
that Jesus Lord and you acknowledge him as Christ crucified,
and the only payment for.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
Sin and death is through Christ. That is salvation.
Speaker 4 (32:28):
As Romans ten nine said, if I believe my heart
restsed my mouth that Jesus Lord, then you will be saved.
There's a lot of saved people that refuse to allow
the Holy Spirit to sanctify them. When the disciples asked
Jesus when he was with them, when he said that
he was going to go, they said, well, what are
we going to do, Rabbi? If you're gone, we don't
(32:49):
know how we're going to follow the instructions. He said, well,
I have to go, so the counselor may come, and
the counselor is going to give you the wisdom and
discernment to understand what to do in my name. I
think a lot of people reject the Holy Spirit, right,
they receive the salvation of Jesus, whether they do it
because they want what I call fire insurance. They want
(33:11):
to get out of health. Pass there. They're more afraid
of health, fire and damnation than they actually want to
have a relationship with Jesus. The ris in Christ because
the Holy Spirit is always going to bring attention things
that don't align with Christ. Right, Paul said, you know
what a what a wretched man I am. The things
(33:31):
that I do not want to do I do, and
that which I want to do I do not do.
It is it is this wrestling, right, So this surrender
comes with saying I no longer live, but it's Christ
who lives in me, and you have to make that
decision daily to die to self and say it's not me,
it's you, Lord, You reign supreme in me, okay. But
(33:51):
that process is difficult for people because they still have lusts, wants, desires, proclivities, baggage, bondage.
They have these things that they don't feel like they
can let go of because they've gotten used to them
and they don't see that what God has for them
is greater than what they're holding on to. But once
you reconcile that what I'm giving up is nowhere near
(34:13):
as valuable is what I'm gaining, even though I don't
understand it or I don't feel it, Okay, I believe
it because Christ said so. And the feelings that we have,
especially in America where we are really big on pleasure
and sensations, and you know, this hedonistic kind of worldview
that says I should not have to deny myself anything, right,
(34:37):
and if I deny myself something and something doesn't feel good,
that must not be from God, which is for so
far from the truth.
Speaker 3 (34:44):
So you're never going to be able to allow sanctification
to take place. If you don't also embrace discomfort.
Speaker 4 (34:52):
It is okay to be uncomfortable, It is okay for
things not to feel good.
Speaker 3 (34:57):
Right.
Speaker 4 (34:58):
And once you say okay, things are not gonna feel good,
this brings me back to what my bitterness was about
with when I was younger, is that people just didn't
tell me the truth. You know, once I realized that
life is gonna be hard, Jesus said it, in this
life you will have trouble, but fear not come the
world right, Come to me all who you are, who
(35:18):
are a heavy burden, and I will give you rest
from My burden is easy in my yoga, in my
yoga's life. Right, Like these ideas, these sound like great
poetic things, but we don't recognize how much you need them.
And once you get to this place where you say, okay,
I am willing to submit my ideas, my thoughts, my feelings,
my beliefs, my actions, my worldview, okay, my family, my goals,
(35:43):
my ambitions, all of these things you can have that man,
the sectification accelerates because now the Holy Spirit says, wow,
I can work with that.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
That's a canvas.
Speaker 4 (35:54):
That's an open that's a clean, open vessel that I
can maneuver in and there's not going to be this
constant push and fight when we fight with God, right
and we fight the only spirit the lapers says, Okay,
do what you want. You have free will on the
earth to do what you will with the time you've belidden.
If you don't want my guidance, my cancel counsel, I
(36:15):
will depart from you. That is mean you lost your salvation.
That just means that you're choosing to be stagnant. Okay,
And I just don't want to be stagnant. I want
to when I'm at fifty years old, I don't want
to have the same issues that I did as I
was forty and at sixty. I don't want to look
back and say, at fifty, I have the same issues.
(36:38):
You know, my drive is to is to go over
the Lord and leave nothing on the table. I want
to be able to say, you know what, when I'm
on my deathbed and I'm dying and my loved ones
are around me, I want to be able to look
them in the eye and say, I used all of
my gifts and talents to the best of my ability.
Speaker 3 (36:59):
Right. I don't want to be.
Speaker 4 (37:01):
Saying, oh, man, if I would have just stopped smoking weed,
I could have, you know, if I would have just
stopped drinking alcohol, maybe I could have, you know, if
I had have just laid the pornography down, you know,
And and and that's what that's what God is gonna
be end up saying like He's gonna embrace us as
as those that have salvation, but he's gonna say to us, man,
(37:21):
you know, I wanted to do this with you, but
I couldn't bring you over here because you are just
waiting with these addictions.
Speaker 3 (37:29):
And if I brought you over there, it would have
been worse.
Speaker 4 (37:32):
But if you had have chosen to surrender, I could
have brought you over here, and this opportunity is waiting
for you, but instead you had to be over here
right like, I don't want that to happen to me,
you know. So the you have to love your fellowship
and your relationship with the Lord more than you love
the thing that you're holding on to.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
Yes, Yes, And I think I've talked about that a lot,
which is my sobriety came as a result of finally
putting us in this proper place right when I loved
him more than anything else that's when everything else fell
into order.
Speaker 3 (38:08):
Right.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
You said something I think I'm sitting there thinking about it,
is it's almost like you know we talk about, especially
when it comes to you, for lack of a better term, addictions.
I know, I know you kind of redefine that a
little bit early on, which is fine, But when it
comes to addictions is sobriety really is predicated on humility.
(38:32):
And I think what's interesting about what you said is
it's almost like you had to have the humility to
be hurt and like like to open, like the humility
to say, you know what, it's not all about walling
myself off. It's not all about building up these you know,
these these protections, the two strike rule and whatnot, Like
(38:54):
I'm gonna humble myself enough that guess what, I may
be hurt like from others, but from you know what
you talked about, the discomfort from the Holy Spirit. Like
I'm I'm I'm going to have the humility to be hurt.
And I think that's the first time I really kind
of like put that together that I think that's that's essential.
(39:14):
It's not only the humility to say for all of us, hey,
I can't do this on my own, I need help whatever.
It's also the humility to say, like, you know, these
these these methods and measures of escape that I have
used are going away, and that will that will bring
with it some fear and some hurt and and so
(39:36):
I loved, I loved kind of. I mean you didn't
say in that term, but I think that's what you
were describing, right.
Speaker 4 (39:43):
Yeah, indeed, like you, you have to be okay. And
I I like to use the word vulnerability. Yeah, for
for me, because vulnerability, in my mind previously I equated
to weakness, and so they're there. I had to redefine terms, right,
I had to relearn what it meant to be vulnerable.
(40:07):
And again I look at Christ as the perfect example.
By no measure, was our Messiah weak. Uh.
Speaker 3 (40:15):
He could have he could.
Speaker 4 (40:17):
Have struck anything down, commanded anything around him, he could
have taken by force if he chose, But he chose
to be vulnerable. I mean, the most high God came
to occupy a human vessel, one of the weakest vessels
(40:40):
in creation.
Speaker 3 (40:41):
I mean.
Speaker 4 (40:44):
That takes a level of vulnerability that to.
Speaker 3 (40:49):
Me is unfounded, you know.
Speaker 4 (40:50):
And so if our Messiah can choose to be vulnerable,
and of course you know, there's there's some points of
relation with vulnerability and humility that we can obviously draw there.
But vulnerability, just for me rings volumes because I've never
viewed myself as a weak person. I've always again been
the one to you know, enforce anyone crossing my boundary.
(41:11):
And I got in a lot of fights when I
was younger. You know, I always prided myself like I
didn't start any fights, but I finished every single one
of them, you know, And I was okay with violence.
I was okay with you know, not only I don't
mean just violence and physical, but I mean violence and words.
(41:33):
I mean, I man, I was known for destroying people
with words. Man, I mean I had pep.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
You are like you and I have talked about that
you are a wordsmith, right, like like your vocabulary is,
and I think you even talked about how maybe it
was something in relation with your.
Speaker 4 (41:54):
Dad, my father and my father, yeah, he required me
to read a book a month and write a book
report from the time I was in Yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
Yeah, And so like your vocabulary is, it's like extensive,
which which can be used for good or guess what
would you want to cut people down.
Speaker 1 (42:09):
You a lot of ways to do it.
Speaker 3 (42:11):
Yeah, yeah, and it was bad.
Speaker 4 (42:12):
Like I I I took pride in making people feel
like simpletons, you know. It was it was you said
something that was offensive. Now let me show you what
it sounds like to be really offensive. Like you thought
that you were being offensive. Now I'm going to offend
you to a level that you don't even comprehend, you know.
And I had people you know, come to me you
(42:34):
after years like say like that things that I said
to them, like they couldn't get out of their head
years later, and it and it it really kind of
broke me. It was like wow, like it was it
was like this moment like oh, that's not good, you know,
like I don't want to be known for that. I
don't want to be known for for saying something that
(42:59):
cuts so deep to where like the person has scars
five six years later, you know. So now what's interesting
about that is that on the other side of it,
I have people that will come to me later and say, hey,
you said something to me these years ago and it
and thank you for that, Like it was hard to hear,
(43:20):
but I needed it. So it's you see how the
enemy can use what God intended for good for a
wicked purpose. You know, I have people on both sides
that have told me that things that I've said to
them have created a lot of healing or it it
literally gave them a paradigm shift that has impacted their
next decade of light. And like that is extremely humbling
(43:43):
to hear that, Like wow, okay, okay, God, you want
to use me, And in order for me to be
utilized by you, I'm going to have to surrender all
of these things that I have held in high esteem,
in high regard that really, in the grand scheme of things,
(44:03):
are unimportant if I'm submitted to your will. They're only
important if I still want to live out my own
will for my life. And that's the struggle and the
balance and the war that we have to recognize and
be humble enough, as you said, to admit that we
really don't want what God wants for us. We still
(44:24):
want God to be the cosmic genie. We want to
rub him to have him grant our wishes. And I
don't want God to be my genie. I want God
to be my father and my friend. And when you
love your father and you have a friend, you have
your friend's best interest in mine, and you want to
(44:46):
make your father proud. Many of us just want things
from our father. We want our father to be like,
you know, the affluent dad that you know, he showers
his love by giving gifts.
Speaker 3 (44:58):
I met. I had a lot of friends like that.
Their dads weren't present.
Speaker 4 (45:01):
They were just present with their pocketbooks and they had
a bunch of stuff, but they never saw their dad,
you know. And that's not the kind relationship that God
wants with us. He wants to be a present father.
He wants us to talk to him, He wants to
commune with us, He wants to impart things on us.
Speaker 3 (45:15):
He wants to share, you know.
Speaker 4 (45:17):
But if we don't want to listen, all we want
to have is this one way relationship where we just
giving off a list of like God, do X y
Z for me.
Speaker 3 (45:25):
You know.
Speaker 4 (45:26):
That's that's never going to allow us to have the
type of depth of relationship. And it gives the enemy
a foothold because he knows what to tempts you with.
You see, he knows that that you really don't love him.
He loves yourself more so he can he can tempt
you with selfishness. He can tempt you with addiction, with
things that please you because he knows you love yourself
(45:48):
more than God. Right, once you say I love God
more than myself, it's hard for the enemy to come
with things right that put you at the at the
at the penultimate place right in your life. Right when
you lower your position, the enemy can't say, well, hey,
exalt yourself.
Speaker 3 (46:08):
You say no, no, no, I'm not exalted. May Christ be exalted?
Speaker 4 (46:11):
Right, then the enemy has to flee and find other
clever ways to come to get to you.
Speaker 3 (46:16):
You see.
Speaker 1 (46:17):
So yeah, we'll be right back after this.
Speaker 2 (46:22):
And maybe you've kind of covered this a little bit,
but I want to put the post the questions you
like this, what does it look like? And maybe what
did it look like for you? What does it look
like to be broken?
Speaker 4 (46:39):
I think that people would describe that in many different ways.
We have different idioms that express that. They call it,
you know, getting to the end of yourself, right, they
call it the last resort, right, the last straw. So,
however you want to describe it, I think what it
looks like is coming to the realization that you have
no more answers, that that satisfied, you know, the answers
(47:03):
are all out, and you've come to the end of
your logical mind. Your rational positions no longer apply, your
methodologies are no longer being executed in a way that
looks like success. You're not gaining any pleasure, or the
(47:24):
pleasure that you once were gaining is a microcosm of
what it once was.
Speaker 3 (47:29):
And this is very true with substances.
Speaker 4 (47:31):
Right, You're always trying to chase that first high, and
you no longer have that, it begins to dissipate.
Speaker 3 (47:38):
I call it. In financial terms, they call it the
law of diminishing.
Speaker 4 (47:41):
Returns, to where at a point your investment is no
longer getting the yield that it once was when you
first started investing.
Speaker 3 (47:49):
That's how it was for me with marijuana.
Speaker 4 (47:51):
It was like, Okay, the amount of marijuana I'm smoking
is not doing the job anymore, Like I have to
increase it in order to get the same result. And
even when I do incre I'm still not getting the
same euphoria that I once had when I first began. Right,
and so brokenness looks like this is no longer working,
and now I'm just doing it robotically out of habit
(48:11):
and really out of bondage.
Speaker 3 (48:15):
I'm now a slave to it. That's where brokenness is,
you know.
Speaker 4 (48:19):
So the imagery of someone broken is as I see
someone shackled in chains, neked without anything, without hope, with
with without recourse, without solutions.
Speaker 3 (48:31):
That's brokenness.
Speaker 4 (48:32):
And you know that can look different ways for different
people at different stations in their life. And for me,
that brokenness looked like me at a point one to
kill myself. I was quite literally googling how long does
it take to kill yourself?
Speaker 3 (48:50):
From carbon monoxide in a car?
Speaker 4 (48:52):
And one after I was able to see in my
mind's eye. Now you know, this may be sobering for
those that are listening, but I could visualize myself. And
this is during the pandemic. Actually, during that twenty twenty
everybody experienced a lot. And I was working from home.
When I was at a job that I hated, I
was stuck in my house. I didn't like my life.
(49:15):
I had all kinds of substance addictions. And I was
sitting there googling how long does it take? And I
for like thirty forty five minutes. I was looking at
different articles, different things. That does is it painful?
Speaker 3 (49:28):
You know?
Speaker 2 (49:29):
How?
Speaker 3 (49:29):
You know all these different things. What happens? You know?
Do you feel it? You know?
Speaker 4 (49:37):
And I stepped back from the computer for a second,
and I said to myself, what am I doing? But
the only reason why I thought that is because I
could see in my mind's eye myself walking through the
steps of it. And then I saw my wife and
(49:58):
my kids coming home to find me dead in the car,
and that imagery broke me.
Speaker 3 (50:09):
The pain.
Speaker 4 (50:19):
That I could see and the devastation that I could
see on my kid's face after coming home from school,
ready to see their follow to find me dead in
the car was too much. It was too much, and
I said I need help. I have a problem. I
(50:44):
need help.
Speaker 3 (50:45):
And immediately I called Human Resources HR.
Speaker 4 (50:51):
And I said I need to talk with somebody now,
and I took a leave.
Speaker 3 (50:58):
I didn't go to work for like two months. I
went to a monastery, to a silence and solid to
a treat and I sat every day and I re
gathered myself. I went to counseling because I was so foggy.
I couldn't see I could I couldn't see clearly anymore.
(51:21):
I didn't know who I was anymore. I didn't know
what I wanted anymore.
Speaker 4 (51:25):
And I was able to regain that little by little,
little by little, every day going on walks, journaling, reading,
listening to the Holy Spirit, going to counseling.
Speaker 3 (51:37):
And I recognized that.
Speaker 4 (51:40):
I didn't like myself anymore. I didn't like myself, I
didn't like my life, and I had to regain that joy.
Speaker 3 (51:49):
And the substances were a part of that.
Speaker 4 (51:50):
As you know, psychologically, when you when you are using things,
it alters your brain chemistry, you know, and it's especially
your your dopamine receptors and these kinds of things, things
that allow you to experience joy. You you you literally
fried those things, you know, And so the substance has
(52:14):
become the joy it replaces. So so so life becomes mundane.
Every everything becomes a bird, you know, uh, And you
no longer find any sense of of of pleasure or
fulfillment from just being. And I knew that I needed
that and the only way that I was going to
get that was from God.
Speaker 2 (52:36):
First of all, thank you just for being. So you know,
we talked a little bit about you talk about vulnerability,
and I appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (52:43):
You know, it's a chapter of my book, right. So
it's like, man, I.
Speaker 2 (52:48):
Thank you for for telling your story and and telling
it so well. I'm curious we didn't. We really kind
of skipped over this just because the conversation got so good.
But what did your substance use look like?
Speaker 4 (53:02):
Oh man, you know, uh uh, I wasn't a big
alcohol I was definitely a big marijuana guy for sure.
So alcohol wasn't wasn't for me, but yeah, but you know,
marijuana was was big alcohol and spurts, pornography, some narcotic use,
(53:26):
you know, here and there sprinkled in.
Speaker 3 (53:31):
You know.
Speaker 4 (53:31):
I'll I'll reserve that the exact names of those things,
you know, for the purpose of.
Speaker 1 (53:37):
We don't have to name them, you know, I'll just.
Speaker 4 (53:41):
Say, you know, living in affluence and living in the
in the suburbs, you have access to.
Speaker 3 (53:49):
Luxury substances. You know, call it that right, high networth.
Speaker 4 (53:53):
There's a lot of high net worth people, a lot
of middle class, upper middle class individuals that are are
living every day on drugs that other people can't afford,
you know, and it's very easy to find those things
that your local bars, you know. Uh. You ever, if
you ever wonder why somebody can drink from five p m.
(54:15):
Till two am because they're probably offsetting that with something else.
There's there's there's there's an up and and down or
down or combination that's happening there, you know, So you
can conclude what you want from that. But what I
will say is that you know, the enemy will pull
you into the dolgence and the depths of despair and
(54:36):
bring you to places where you never thought you would go,
and and and and be.
Speaker 3 (54:42):
A and and also to what ends up happening is that.
Speaker 4 (54:45):
When you are in those kind of living, those kind
of lifestyles, you you you end up ironically running into
people that have access to things that you never thought
you would have access to, even when you're not looking
for it, right. And so that's what kind of happened
to me, is that in these places where it's like,
you know, I'm not even looking for something, but I'm
in places where I shouldn't be, right, someone offers something, Oh, sure,
(55:07):
I think I'll try that, right, That's fine, And then
before you for knowing a try comes into no regular behavior,
you know, And so you know, I would say it
was a combination of things that allowed me to escape,
you know, I would say marijuana and sexual morality, where
the penultimate though, those were the two that I escaped
(55:27):
to most frequently, you know, because unfortunately I had things
that happened to when I was a child, sexual perversions
that happened to me when I was a child.
Speaker 3 (55:39):
Those things have stuck.
Speaker 4 (55:41):
With me for years, and I've what I find is
that the victims of sexual abuse either go in two ways.
They either are repulsed by sex or they become very
infatuated by it. And I was infatuated by it. So,
you know, my level of sexual morality before I was
married was very, very high. And what's the problem is
(56:03):
when you get married, doesn't go away, you know, if
you don't if you don't want to deal with it.
So now you have all this suppressed sexual morality and
the only way to manifest if you don't want to
commit adultery is to use pornography. Right, and then pornography
and substance abuse tend to go hand in hand, you know,
because if you're in an altered state, you're weak, you're
(56:25):
more prone to influence.
Speaker 3 (56:27):
Right.
Speaker 4 (56:27):
You see drunk people, the things they say and things
they do they don't do when they're sober, Right, you're
more prone to influence you're more prone to to take
risks and to do things with your body that you
would not do if you were a sober state. Right,
So when I'm in a state now, it's a lot
easier to be tempted to hear a voice.
Speaker 3 (56:48):
Hey, you should go google this. Wont you go watch this? Right?
Speaker 4 (56:52):
Stand up at two three o'clock in the morning, you know,
in a certain state, right, enjoying the high, Well, now
you're vulnerable for other types of influence, right, So that's
how it spirals out of control.
Speaker 2 (57:07):
So I want to end with this question. And if
it's a poor question, you can tell me. You're a
very honest guy. But you know, I think I'd be
remiss if I didn't if I didn't give you the
opportunity to answer it, and that assists, you know, is
there anything that you would like the audience to know,
(57:28):
a white audience or an African American audience, about addiction,
about substance use, about anything that you experienced that is
different within the African American community, anything that we should
know as me as a white person. But anything that
if there's even you know, if there's someone of color
(57:51):
that is listening to this, that you would like them
to know.
Speaker 3 (57:56):
Yeah, I mean there's a big stigma.
Speaker 4 (57:57):
I mean I would say, first of all, you know,
addiction has no discrimination, you know, it doesn't give a crap,
but ethnic groups or you know, identifying markers of race
or culture.
Speaker 3 (58:10):
So it's across the board.
Speaker 4 (58:12):
But I do think that, uh, there's a very odd
stigma within Afords in the communities about counseling and therapy
that doesn't exist within other communities. And it could be
just not it could just be even a socio economic divide,
you know this. The same could be true maybe among
poor quote unquote whites. You know that I don't. I
(58:34):
don't know what those numbers are. You know, it probably
is just a socio economic thing. I think that people
middle class and up tend to be more prone to
be open to counseling, whereas you know, what I have
found amongst afortis in the people in the in the
Americas and in North America, is that they tend to
look at counseling and therapy as as either somebody being
(58:57):
in your business. You know, you don't you don't want you,
you don't want nobody in your business. Right, Uh, it's
it's weak, right, I'm fine, what's that gonna do?
Speaker 3 (59:06):
You know, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (59:07):
I don't need nobody talk to kind of a thing
like you do see a lot of that, you know,
I say that in my own family dynamic where you
got people that in my family that it's like you
would benefit from going to a counselor. But it's like
I don't need a counsel I'm fine. It's like wall Habbits,
you're not fine. You know, you're not You're not fine.
Or they have a stigma about counseling. And I think
this is across the board. I don't think this is
as anything to with with with ethnicity, but people have
(59:28):
a stigma across the board that if I admit that
I need a counselor or something's wrong with me, you know,
And I think that you got to you gotta get
rid of that, you know, wise counsel. The problem said that,
you know the the the a companion of fools suffers harm.
(59:49):
But those who sit in the council the rise were
wise right. So you should always look for wise counsel always.
You need someone to hold you accountable, You need someone
to tell you about yourself.
Speaker 3 (01:00:00):
You know.
Speaker 4 (01:00:00):
It is again I said it earlier in the interview,
like it's a it's a it's the coward's way out
to resist accountability or to run away from accountability. You know,
you're just showing you that you're a coward, that you
that you don't have the courage to have somebody tell
you about yourself. And and if you want to grow
(01:00:22):
and be better you somebody has to be able to
speak into your life and tell you that you're screwing up,
you're making bad decisions. If you continue on this trajectory,
it's going to result in X, Like you need someone
to tell you the hard truth in love. And you know,
I don't think you should go to every counselor. I
don't think a Christian should be going to see a
(01:00:42):
non Christian counselor period ever, So if you're a Christian
listening to this, do not ever go see a counselor
is not a Christian, because they're not going to be
able to give you advice from your worldview. Go get
a Christian counselor that's going to be able to speak
truth from you, clinical truth, of course, but they're going
to be to infuse the understanding of the word because
(01:01:03):
at the end of the day. The word is what's
going to transform you, you know, not a man. Uh yeah.
The counselor is not the savior Jesus the savior. The
counselor is a conduit for wisdom, right because yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:01:17):
Yeah, because you can't see.
Speaker 4 (01:01:18):
So I would say for those that are struggling in addiction,
if you feel like you're in bondage, first you gotta
admit that you got a problem. Stop pretending you don't.
Stop minimizing and being dismissive and you know, acting like
us not a big deal. If you're doing something every
single week, multiple times, you know a week, you got
a problem. Okay, I don't care if you're drinking you know,
(01:01:42):
some wine every night or beer every night, or or
you can't go to de Bay without having sugar or
cake or like that, any kind of dependency that's not
dependency on God.
Speaker 3 (01:01:52):
You are playing with addiction, period. Yeah, and you need
to address it, you know, so right.
Speaker 1 (01:02:00):
I'm I'm reminded.
Speaker 2 (01:02:01):
I think you know you said this just just a
second ago, is is I'm reminded of when you said
the need that we have, this need for people to
help us see things. I'm reminded of the Ethiopian Unich right,
that says, how will I How will I know if
no one shows me?
Speaker 3 (01:02:16):
Right?
Speaker 2 (01:02:16):
And and I think what we need is maybe maybe
if we we can realize we have an issue.
Speaker 3 (01:02:24):
Right.
Speaker 2 (01:02:24):
And this is not to say that, you know, some
people can't be miraculously healed and like that's not to
discount that, but I think what is so helpful and
beneficial and what dare I say most of us need
is we need someone to show us the way, someone
to outside of ourselves just say hey, this right, you
can do this. This is a good thing. You know,
here are some tools. And I think that's biblical right
(01:02:48):
with the Ethiopian Unich Brandon, I just want to I
just want to really affirm it's it's it's It's been
great to see your transformation. I think it's funny that
we both kind of under on this transfervation and I
just want to thank you for your vulnerability and your
your willingness to talk about it. Man, I really appreciate that. Hey,
(01:03:09):
if anyone is in the need for some maybe of
your services, especially in the Dallas for Worth area, where't they.
Speaker 4 (01:03:15):
Go, Yeah, you can go to Productionmasterminds dot com. Also
project Maasterminds dot com.
Speaker 3 (01:03:21):
You know either one.
Speaker 4 (01:03:23):
I have a iteration of production Masterminds that just focus
on project management, creative project management, digital project management, nonprofit
project management. Production Masterminds is all inclusive production consulting, content strategy,
YouTube channel growth, all all of that film and TV
pitch decks, and then connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm
easy to find Brandon c Rix. And then if you
(01:03:45):
are interested in my writing my thoughts, you can also
find me on substack. I have a publication called Finding
My Way and I address a lot of these kind
of hard to talk about issues, so substance, Finding my Way,
those are all the places you can find me.
Speaker 3 (01:04:03):
Man.
Speaker 1 (01:04:04):
I love you, thank you for joining us. I can't
wait to talk again.
Speaker 3 (01:04:08):
Absolutely, brother.
Speaker 2 (01:04:12):
You know, one of the things I love about what
people referred to as the recovery community is the common
ground that we find because here's here's the interesting thing.
When Brandon and I worked together, we didn't always see
eye to eye on everything. There were sometimes that we
butted heads, and you know, we repaired that those aspects
(01:04:33):
of the relationship a long time ago. But I continue
to see how God, you know, basically uses our brokenness
to bring us together, and so I feel closer to
Brandon than I've ever felt because in the end, he
and I both see the need for a savior. We
(01:04:53):
both see how desperate we are, and any differences that
we had or were have just really start to fade
when we realize that, man, we are just two broken
people that need humility, that need Jesus. And I think,
you know, I wonder if you're listening to this podcast
(01:05:15):
and you're part of that quote unquote recovery community, chances
are you've seen that same thing, right. There's nothing like
sitting in a circle of chairs of people who have
struggled like you have, and even though there are differences,
you see how similar you are and really, in the end,
this is this is why it's important as well when
I say we're all addicted to something, right is I
think I think one of the ways that revival can
(01:05:39):
happen in the church is through the recovery community, because
we see how desperate we are for Jesus. And if
we all really do embrace what I say, that we're
all addicted to something and don't look at people like,
oh man, well he struggles with that, I'm good, right
then I think it ushers in a humility that leads
(01:06:04):
to revival because we just have to grasp to Jesus,
grasp for Jesus.
Speaker 1 (01:06:10):
So I love I love Brandon's story.
Speaker 2 (01:06:13):
I hope that it ministered to you today as it
continues to minister to me as I listened back to
it again, I just want to say thank you. We
are I think this week we will hit one hundred
thousand downloads of this podcast and it's only been around
since May. That's that's insane, that's incredible, and it's not
(01:06:37):
a testament to me, it's a testament to God. And
I think just how much we all do need this
message of recovery and desperation. So thank you, thank you.
I do not take it lightly. As always, please visit
our partner Life Audio dot com. They make this podcast
possible and have helped me get the word out and
(01:06:58):
I am so grateful to them. And there are so
many other great podcasts like Boughton Beloved from our friend
Kirbye Kelly, who is on the podcast. She has a
podcast through Life Audio. So visit lifeaudio dot com and
check out some of the other great podcasts. Love you all,
We'll talk to you next week,
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