God Stories - Brandon Smith - Overcoming Addiction & Reclaiming Family

And I was just crying my eyes out.

And I just remember sitting laying there, just begging Jesus to help me.

And I just was telling him, I can't live like this anymore.

She said, Um, my next conversation with you that day, I'd already taken your debit cards and credit cards.

I'd already taken the keys of your truck.

I was gonna tell you, if this is what you want to do, you're not doing what money we got left.

You need to walk out of this house.

She said, but when you came in from that AA meeting, I could see a physical change in your body.

I knew something happened.

Jesus showed up and answered my drunken prayers from the night before, begging him to help me.

And he showed up at that AA meeting and relieved me of the obsession to drink alcohol.

Because I couldn't understand.

You and I don't really know each other very well, but I have a friend uh named Jason, and he's a friend of yours.

And I was supposed to meet Jason for breakfast one morning, and I think there was another guy that was supposed to come, but that guy canceled, and Jason's like, well, I'm still gonna have breakfast, and then my friend Brandon's gonna come.

And I was like, Yeah, I'll still hang out with you guys.

And so here we are, we're having breakfast together.

And I little did I know that I was uh at you know probably six in the morning about to, you know, hear someone share.

I don't think I was ready for the depth of that morning at first because I was pretty tired.

You know, I didn't think we were gonna talk like, oh wow, we're going, we're going deep into life and God and all kinds of things.

And your story just really it inspired me.

It blew me away.

I I was challenged, but in that, in that, in not in that negative way where you feel beat up on.

I was challenged, like, Lord, you are amazing, and I want to follow you.

I want to have the same mentality, I want to have the same mindset.

And so honestly, it was a gift to me.

It was really a big gift.

And so I want to share it with other people.

And I do tend to go in pretty deep, pretty quick, because sometimes I look at it like you never know how much time you have with that person.

Yeah.

You know, and if I can get some things fired off to them in a short time about, you know, my story, my change, you know, where I was, what happened, where I am now, and how Jesus has led and impacted all that, then that's the goal.

Aaron Ross Powell Well, you come across as someone uh who has told your story quite a few times.

I have, yes.

Where do you usually start?

Like when so when you meet someone and they're like, Oh, Brandon's got a story.

Yeah.

I'm sure you've had I've sure you had friends who have said that.

Like, oh, you gotta hear Brandon.

Where do you usually start in your story?

Trevor Burrus, Jr.

So it and it's kind of ironic.

So it all started like there's two parts to the story.

Okay.

There's the drug addiction and then there's the alcoholism.

Okay.

And I grew up racing motor cars.

So I grew up in a um upper income family.

My dad was upper management with Lockheed.

Okay.

Um That means he was very smart.

Yeah.

My mom and dad owned um daycare centers when we were kids and raised half of Kennesaw.

Okay.

And um but it was very dysfunctional.

My dad had a lot of affairs on my mom.

She stayed with him.

We had I was the middle of three boys.

Okay.

Um we had Playboys on the coffee table, you know.

Um my mom would read a Playboy while we watch Andy Griffith and eat Chef Boy RD Pizza.

You know, so it was like very different?

Yeah.

There were porn videos.

It wasn't Disney, it was porn in the video cabinet.

I mean, it was very, very dysfunctional.

Wow.

And uh walked in on my father one time about to commit suicide with a pistol because of the guilt and shame, you know.

And um he just looked over his shoulder and he said, You need to get out of here.

And I went running and jumped on his back crying, yeah.

How old were you?

I was like five.

Wow, jeez.

Yeah.

And um, but he was later on in life I figured out it was guilt and shame that he just you know, because he wasn't a believer, he wasn't we had a big old Bible on our coffee table, but we didn't go to church.

Yeah.

You know, maybe Easter something every now and then.

Yeah.

But um we ended up in motocross, racing motocross, and uh I became pretty good at it and ended up getting um picked up by Team Cow's hockey on this amateur program they had and went all over the country, you know, east coast, west coast, north, south, uh all over.

Um and I had quit racing, got married, my wife grew up three houses apart, you know, up the upstreet, and her parents like you are not dating one of them Smith boys, right?

Because we were riding dirt bikes up and down the road, popping wheelies, you know, and they're like, Yeah, you are not dating.

That's true.

It's not most not most father's dreams for a uh a motorcycle or a dirt bike daughter, kawasaki trailers coming through there, yeah.

Absolutely.

A promisecle with the speed limit, sir.

Like, yeah, yeah, right.

And um, so um we end up dating.

Uh she was a grade behind me.

She ended up getting pregnant her senior year of high school.

So I'd already graduated.

We're like, you know what, we'll we'll get married.

We'd already been dating.

And um it was a very difficult way to start 18 and 20.

You know, it was very difficult.

Um so a promoter friend of mine invites me to go to South America.

Hey man, you want to go to South America, do this race?

And I was like, uh, I hadn't rode dirt bike in like two years.

Well, we're gonna send you a bike, you know, we get you a bike.

And I was like, okay, so I go.

Motocrossers are all type A personality guys.

I can see that.

Yeah, yep.

Um, I don't know what my buddy's been up to, and we're in Aruba, Cursaw, and um Aruba, Cursaw, and it was another island town there.

Anyway, yeah, everybody's walking around smoking marijuana, you know.

Yeah, yeah.

Guy walks up, hey man.

I was like, I dude, I don't do drugs.

I never touched a drug, I didn't drink.

All I did was train and work out and ride all the time.

And uh one of my buddies that swim me says, You got any cocaine?

And I look at him, I'm like, What?

Yeah, it's escalated.

I was like, dude, I've only seen that on TV.

I'm like 21.

I tried it.

Started a three and a half year addiction for me.

Wow.

From cocaine to meth to heroin and back to meth.

And um Jennifer didn't know, my wife didn't know.

Me and my father had uh we had, I think, seven dump trucks and a couple of tractor trailers, and we were self-employed, you know, and I was very functional.

And uh, but it finally comes to a head.

Uh, she sits me down at my mom and dad's house and she's like, This is not the man I married.

And you're gonna tell us what's going on.

And I was like, I'm a drug addict and I need some help.

My dad went to the bathroom and threw up.

And uh that started, you know, ended up in an IOP program.

I was still great friends with that therapist.

Um, got a job at the Home Depot over here in Woodstock, you know, because I needed structure and accountability.

But, you know, I remember sitting at the kitchen table and I had I told my wife, I was like, I put my I said, I feel like I'm going crazy.

I can't get these thoughts out of my head.

And it was spiritual warfare.

You know, I had all this unrepentant sin in my life, pornography, masturbation, and all this stuff.

And um she said, Well, let's pray about it.

And she was going to the grocery store.

We prayed, she left.

My oldest daughter was two, and I thought, I can't do it, I gotta get high.

I went in the bathroom, I got my stuff out, my wife had left, and I I'm literally getting ready to smoke meth, and I hear.

And I looked out the bottom of the door, and my daughter sticks her little fingers under the door, and she's got her mouth down there.

She says, Daddy, how long are you gonna be in there?

And I looked in the mirror and I thought, What are you doing?

I didn't get high.

That next night, went to Tabernacle Church, Dr.

Harold Hunter's preaching revival, and they preached about the impardonable sin to refuse the Holy Spirit for the last time.

And he says, Do you want your candle to be blown out for the last time?

And it was like it was me and him, man.

I'm like, I go down front, get saved, drug addiction's gone, temptation, all that stuff's gone, except the sexual sin.

So everything rocks along good, you know, everything's like cruising.

You're you're you're better.

You know what I mean?

You're like, I mean, yeah, not as bad as I was, right?

Not as good as I could be.

Right.

Right.

And uh ended up working at Home Depot for a while, got ended up getting fired from there for safety violations, something dumb.

Went to work for my father-in-law in the concrete business.

Worked for them for three years.

I kept telling them, I was like, we need to do this, get into this other scope of work, and they didn't want to do it.

And so I turned in my notice and I went and did it myself.

And that was twenty, oh man, twenty-seven years ago.

Okay, I think.

So, but still, uh everything's good, but like I I don't have a consistent prayer life.

We're going to church, you know, most Sundays.

We're going to Sunday school.

Um, but there was not this like complete surrender and giving in and telling God because I was always scared of going wherever you want me to go.

Whatever you want me to do.

Because I was afraid I was going to end up in a grass hut in Africa or something like that.

Right, right, right.

Yeah.

You're like, I I don't know if I can trust God with my life fully.

Yeah.

I mean I can trust just some of it.

Right, right.

But he'll he'll make me do something I don't want to do.

You did save me from drugs, and I and I so I know you can do some stuff.

Right.

I just don't know how much you can do and how good you can do it.

Right.

Right, right.

And I have a you have a plan for your life.

You know, that's the other thing.

It's like I know Trump has a plan.

I I have a plan and I kind of like my plan.

And I have a dream.

And you know, I'm afraid you're gonna mess with it, and the reality is he probably will to some degree, right?

And you and we think we're controlling this.

Right.

And we're not controlling it.

That's true.

So uh, but at this point, I have uh and it all started with pornography.

I've I've moved from pornography to affairs now.

Okay.

Massage parlors, escorts, uh, friends' spouses.

You know, just I had become what I hated most of my father.

My late 20s and early 30s, I'd pull him from these women's houses for my mom.

She stayed with him, she never divorced him or anything.

And um swore I never, never.

And that was exactly what I had become.

And um, so we rock along, con everything's going pretty well.

Um 2008, 2009 hit, economy crashes.

We lay off um like 25, 26 people or so, and I start drinking.

And uh I actually went to Texas selling roofing door to door for Hurricane Ike on a hundred percent sales commission job, caught my mortgage up two days before they auctioned my house off.

Wow.

My wife's calling me, real estate agents are riding by the house, you know.

Um, so it's very stressful.

And um, but I had all this baggage that I had not or I had chosen not to deal with.

You know, the sex, the pornography, and um rock along, I've become an alcoholic, uh, 2008, 2009, and then we move into 2020.

So this goes on for a decade.

Yeah, a decade, yep, ten, eleven years.

Yep.

And um, and it progressively gets worse.

Right.

Right.

Starts out, drinks at the pool with friends, you know, but because of my prior drug addiction, it was pretty easy for me to become an alcoholic.

Yeah, you can kind of go hard into that.

It's like, yep.

And then it becomes, you know, drinking at dinner, and then it's drinking at lunch and dinner, and then it's drinking seven days a week, and you know, uh you're looking forward now.

You're planning everything around drinking, you know, uh taking it with me, hiding it, and all that stuff.

Um but uh 2020 hits, and and I'm drinking on antidepressants too.

Let me And I don't I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to do that.

Yeah, now you've up the ante, right?

Causes psychotic episodes.

Okay.

Right.

Um I disappeared to Florida one time, nobody could find me for a week.

I wouldn't return calls, wouldn't return text.

Um man my wife and my daughter, my oldest daughter, track they knew where I was staying, drove from Cartersville to Orlando to get me.

And I wouldn't let them track my locations, you know, because of everything I was doing.

But I could see there.

And I when they got close, I left.

And I went and hit across the street.

And when I saw them go in the hotel, and I saw them leave.

And I left.

And when they got far enough away, I went back and I drank for two more days.

And my brother and another friend of ours uh drove down there and got me.

I threw up from Orlando to Cartersville for my alcohol poisoning.

I was literally trying to drink myself to death, guilt and shame.

I knew what I was doing.

There's no way Jesus can use me or love me or want me.

Because I knew what I was doing.

But I wasn't willing to quit.

Right.

It wasn't that bad.

Right.

So we get home, they have an intervention.

My family, you know, everybody shows up at the house.

They knew I was crazy.

I had this crazy streak in me, and you know, because of every you know, the the drugs, I was the the antidepressants and the drinking and stuff.

And so they're like, look, we're not here to tell you what to do.

Right.

We're worried about you.

We love you.

Is there anything we can do to help you?

I was like, Well, you know.

I don't know, I need to think about it.

I wasn't done.

I wasn't done.

So um we take off, we go to uh a couple weeks later, we go to Deloniga with um some of our neighbors.

Go to the wineries, you know.

And I wasn't feeling good that Friday, and I was like, you know, my stomach's upset.

I'm not gonna I'm not gonna drink.

I told my wife said, I'm not gonna drink.

I had a drink at dinner.

I said, but I'm not gonna drink at the wineries, I'm just gonna eat the bougie food, you know.

So I didn't.

We get back to the hotel room Saturday or Friday night.

Or Saturday night, sorry.

And um, I wake up, it's like somebody's shining a flashlight in my eyes, and I'm like, man, what's going on?

And I see my wife walk in the bathroom, and I said, Hey, and she turns around and looks at me, and she just walks into the bathroom, and I'm like, all right, and I look and she's in the bed next to me.

I look back up, and all these people start coming out of the bathroom.

I'm talking as real as you're sitting here.

Monkeys, midgets, clowns, white people, black people, I mean monkeys climbing up ceiling, and I was hallucinating from the withdrawals.

And that went on for nine hours.

She was scared to death.

And uh but that wasn't enough.

I had to I had to go get some more, right?

Didn't had breakfast or lunch, I couldn't even hold a spoon to eat, you know, shaking so bad.

And um had to drink some more.

And finally, it was around March of 2020.

I've been in the bed all day drunk.

I think it was a Saturday.

My wife gets our pastor on the phone, James Griffin, a phenomenal man.

Yeah, he is Cross Point City Church.

He's my he's my he's my bro.

No, I've I've I don't know James well.

I've uh we've met a couple times, had lunch together once, um, and then I've kind of followed from afar because obviously my friend Will is on staff there.

That's right.

Yeah and just a phenomenal pastor, phenomenal church, and uh nothing but respect for that guy.

Yes, and he um he came alongside of us, you know, and and I didn't know at the time, but Jennifer, she comes into the bedroom, she pulls the covers off of me, and you know, this is March 2020.

And she's like, We're not doing this.

And I was drunk.

I said, um, all right.

She goes, uh, what would you do if this was me?

I said, I'd take you to rehab.

Little did I know behind the scenes they had already been making all these phone calls to find a facility.

Right.

They had talked to Troy Haas at HopeQuest.

Yep.

And um Troy what?

HopeQuest is like, he can come, but he needs to go to detox first because of the amount of alcohol he's drinking.

So they get it all situated.

And she's Jennifer's like, Well, you're gonna have to go to detox first.

I said, Okay.

That's fine.

And she had addressed me, I couldn't even hardly put my clothes on.

So she's on the phone answering questions with the lady to check me in at detox, and I knew she was occupied for a minute, so I thought, well, if I'm going to detox, I'm gonna be good and drunk when I go.

So I go out to my truck, turn up a bottle of vodka, come back in.

We try to keep answering questions, and my wife's like, I don't know what happened.

Like he was somewhat fine a second ago, and she had no idea.

I went out to the truck and just guzzled like a cup and a half or two of vodka just straight, you know.

And uh, so I made the dog ride with us.

My daughter-in-law, or my daughter and my son-in-law rode with us.

And we're cruising down there, we get down there, it's on the south side of Atlanta, and um I wake up, they check me in, I don't remember, they strip search you and all this stuff, and I don't remember any of it.

But I wake up next morning, you know, and I look up and there's a camera in the corner of my room, and I'm like, Where am I at?

Yeah, that felt real.

I'm like, somebody stole my wallet, somebody stole my phone.

You couldn't remember how you got there.

Uh-uh.

Wow.

And I'm like, my my clothes and all were dumped out on the bed, the other bed.

And I'm like, what?

Somebody took my luggage and I opened the door and I look out down the hallway and I'm like.

I mean, it's a it's a medical facility.

Right, right.

I mean it's like it was like the shining or something.

Yeah, yeah, you feel like you're in a horror movie.

And I'm like, okay, so I start walking around.

I'm the only guy up at six o'clock at detox.

And uh guy's like, I passed a guy in the hallway, he's like, You good?

I was like, Yep.

I said, Where am I at?

He said, You're at Atlanta Detox Center.

I said, Yeah.

All right.

So I'm going back to bed.

So I went and got back in bed.

And uh anyway, I did 10 days there.

Uh it must have been a rough ten days.

It was.

Yeah.

Uh but they do a medical detox because more people die from stopping drinking than they do from drinking.

Yeah, because your body, I mean, it's it's the unfortunate reality is a good thing.

Heart attacks, seizures, and strokes.

Yeah, you need it.

So they're able to kind of wean you.

Medicate you, yeah.

Yeah.

And uh I did a that year I did an Easter egg hunt in a hospital gown inside of a building, so it was really exciting.

Did you find any eggs?

I did find some eggs.

Okay, cool.

Yeah.

But it was successful.

It was hum it was uh humbling.

It was very humbling.

I mean, we're joking about it now, but that's a that's yeah, that's a low point.

And I'm able to hold have some phone calls with my my wife and stuff, you know.

Um so get out of there, and I'm like, okay, my wife coming to get me, and they're like, uh, no, we're delivering you to Hope Quest.

So it's like, do not pass go.

We stop at the quick trip, and I'm like, can I go inside to use restroom?

And they're like, No, you stay in the car.

I'm like, oh Lord.

So get to Hope Quest.

But I still hadn't bought in, right?

I still had not given in.

I I was like, actually, I remember talking to some of the guys there.

I'm like, well, when I get out of here, I'll, you know, I'll probably drink some, but I'm gonna back it down.

And the other guy's like, Are you crazy?

You know, we're in here, right?

And um, so I'm in there, it's a 12-week program, and about a week, I think about a weekend, um, my wife gets an anonymous letter in the mail revealing all of the affairs I had had.

And you're and you're gone at this point, like you're not in the house or anything like that.

So yeah, I'm at Hope Quest.

You have no idea that this happened.

Oh, sorry.

Yeah, and um my therapist, I go to a session from with my therapist at Hope Quest, and she's like, Is there anything you want to share with me about your sex life?

I was like, Nope.

She said, There's nothing you want to share with me from when you were younger or anything.

I said, She asked me if I wanted to.

I'm like, no.

Right.

There's nothing I want to share.

She's like, Your wife got this letter in the mail.

And I read it.

And uh this lady like ripped me up one side and down the other.

And it was all true.

All right.

It was every bit of it.

So I stand up and I'm like, You call my wife, and you tell her to drop the paperwork.

I said, You take this program and you shove it.

I'm out of here.

Hold on, we need to talk, we need to talk.

I said, I'm past talking.

I'm headed up to the house at Hope Quest and packing my stuff.

Walk out on the front porch, and two male therapists walk up on the front porch, and I looked at both of them, I said, I don't know what you two make a year, but I promise you it ain't worth what's about to happen to you, don't get out of my way.

And they were like, have at it.

I hump it up side of 92 to the quick trip, borrow some phones, get a ride home, and um of course my wife and then when I get home act surprised, but it was like DEF CON 4.

You know, Hope Quest is like he's left.

He's probably coming home.

And uh then I called my mom, so then my mom's, you know, he's coming home.

You know, everybody was scared, you know.

And uh so I walk in with my wife and I start packing my stuff.

I'm like, I'm just throwing clothes.

In a bag and stuff, and she's like, What are you doing?

I was like, I'm out, I'm out.

And she's she's you know crying, this is not fair.

This is not fair, Brandon.

And um follows me out the sidewalk.

I'm headed to the car, and uh, this is the alcoholic brain.

I'm like, I'm going to Key West and I'm gonna be a bartender.

That's what I thought I was gonna go do.

Still live in paradise.

Yeah, go live in paradise, and I'll be able to control my drinking.

It'll be great.

Yes, it'll be great.

I never have to think about my wife and kids ever again.

Yeah.

And um we get to my car and she stands between me and the car.

She's like, This is not fair.

And I looked at her and I said, What's not fair?

How are we ever supposed to have a relationship again?

How are we ever supposed to be intimate again?

And you know what you know about me.

She goes, It's not fair because I never considered divorce.

The word never crossed my mind.

God can restore our marriage, but you have to get better.

And I was like, Well, that didn't work out like I thought it was going to.

I mean, she's not.

Yeah, you were almost you were almost so convinced that she was going to reject you that you might as well just reject her and everyone first so that you can be in control of it.

Because in your mind, the concept of her ever forgiving or taking you back, that's done now.

It was so far from So you might as well do it.

So I'll beat you to it.

Yep.

You don't have to do it, I'll do it for you.

Yeah.

Because really that's what I wanted, because that was the easy way.

Yeah.

For me.

Absolutely.

I wouldn't have to deal with any of my stuff.

I can just keep going like I'm going.

And you already had guilt and shame.

Lots of it.

What's more, right, at that point in time.

Yeah, you're like, and there was another couple, Kevin and Sunshine Black.

We'd known them for twenty eight years or so.

They'd been in Sunday school and stuff like that, and they were sitting on the couch when I got there.

And I looked at Kevin and I just looked at him, I was crying, you know, I said, I messed up.

And he goes, You sure did.

Yeah.

He didn't go, man, it's gonna be okay.

It's gonna he just said, You sure did.

Bad.

And so I go back to Hope Quest.

They let me back in.

Well, actually, so I didn't spend the night at home that night.

I told my wife, I said, I'll go stay.

We have a houseboat at the lake.

I said, I'll go stay at the houseboat.

That way I could drink.

And um, so I did.

I went to the liquor store, bought me a bottle of vodka, and I got just plastered.

And then Hope Quest is like, we'll take him back, but he's got to pass a urine test and stuff.

And I'm like, oh snap.

So then I'm telling my wife, and it's the continued from my wife and it was the continuous anxiety that I put them in of fear of.

So I tell my wife on the way to Hope Quest, I'm like, I drank last night.

Now her and my daughter are concerned, are they even gonna let me take me back?

So they're literally sitting across the street from Hope Quest, waiting on the urine test to come back, praying the whole time, crying and praying that I get to go back.

And they let me back.

Okay.

One of the guys that's in there with me says, Man, you don't think your wife just told you all that, do you?

So that you would come back here and she could get your divorce situated while she's here?

I mean, while she while she knows you're here.

Now I am.

And I'm like, man, I said, I don't think she would do that.

Yeah.

He says, the writing's on the wall, if you ask me, I mean, look what you put her through.

Oh wow.

You know, and I'm sober like twenty days.

I'm I'm drinking a handle of Tito's a day on antidepressants, right?

I'm not emotionally stable.

Right.

And man, I mull that over for like three hours.

And I'm just thinking, this is over.

Yeah.

When you get out of here, you're just this is over.

And um, we were in class, and I said, I need to go to the bathroom.

They're like, he's like, okay.

Patrick, he was the facilitator, he let me go to the bathroom.

And uh went straight up to my room, and Robin Williams had committed suicide.

Yeah, yeah.

And that's where I got the idea of how I was gonna hang myself.

So I take my belt out of my shorts, I put it around my neck, and I pick myself up, and I cinch it up on the doorknob, and I'm putting myself picking myself up, picking myself up because it's stretching, you know, and I'm letting myself off, and I'm hanging there, and I'm looking at the window at the end of the wall, and I remember my fingers were going numb, and I wasn't gonna be able to hold myself up anymore.

And I tied it up and more.

And I remember everything was tingling, I was starting to black out, and the last thing I remember is my feet kicking my flip-flops off, and I was unconscious.

Wow.

And I woke up in the Florida belt still around my neck.

And I thought, man, I had to take it off.

I might I wanted to do that.

And um I thought, I gotta start telling the truth.

Nobody found me.

Right.

Because they're literally unconscious for seconds.

Right.

I it was March, I shaved my I my neck was kind of jacked up, you know, so I shaved it real dry with so I'd had like a razor burn, you know.

Yeah, yeah.

And I had a hoodie on, you know, and stuff.

The next morning, every morning you check in with a nurse, she gives you your meds, and um I said uh, have you any thoughts of hurting yourself?

And I thought, well, here comes the honesty part.

Yeah, but I said you just decided I gotta start telling the truth.

And I said, um, I said, I have.

She said, Have you done anything?

And I just looked away and I was like, She goes, Have you done anything?

And I just went, I couldn't talk.

She goes, Brandon, talk to me.

And I finally told her.

And I said, um I said, if I see the cops or an ambulance come down that driveway, I'm out of here.

And I put my foot up, I said, I even got my running shoes on.

And I'd already mapped it out.

I was going to run up through the woods, come to the quick trip, right?

I'd map this thing out.

My therapist was off that day.

So then I'm in group, and uh Adam works at HopeQuest, he's a friend of mine too now, comes in the classroom.

He's like, hey Brandon, uh, Katie would like to have a session with you.

I said, I thought she was off today.

He says, She is, she wanted to come in and see you.

I was like, hmm, that's a little strange.

He goes, I'm gonna walk with you.

And then I thought, hmm.

That's strange too.

Yeah.

Her office is upstairs.

And uh, so we get up there and start talking.

And uh next I know a sheriff opens the door, peeks his head in, and I looked at him and I looked at her, I said, Are you kidding me?

And she made him close the door, and I said, I'll jump out of the window.

And I take off to the corner of the room.

I'm gonna jump out of the second story window onto the lower roof, and then off that roof, and then run up through the woods, quick trip.

I mean, how crazy is that?

Right.

Right.

I run to the window, I unlock the window, and then I see two sheriffs, there's four sheriff cars out there, and I see two sheriffs walk off the porch, and I thought, I turn around, I said, let's get this started.

So I walk over there, and sheriff's like, go to the bottom of the steps, they handcuff me, frisk me, you know.

And of course, I'm sp spouting, you know, uh profanities at everybody.

Um, telling them all, shove it, you know.

As I'm like I'm the one being walked out and handcuffed, right?

Right.

How much sense does this make?

No, but I mean fighting for control wherever you can get it, right?

Yeah.

So um put me in a police car, take me up to um Northside Canton, put me in this room, not much bigger than this.

There's nothing in it, and uh strip search me in front of you know uh two young technician girls, probably mid-twenties, a female doctor, a male doctor, two sheriffs, and a security guard.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Stripped down behind.

And he's like, take it all off.

And I'm like, oh my gosh.

It was humiliating.

Yeah.

Um so then they put me, uh lay in the hospital bed for like eight hours while they figure out where they're gonna send me.

And uh then about 11, 12 o'clock at night, they walk us back through the hospital in paper gowns and socks with these mesh little underwear things on.

And uh basically go around 285 dropping yourself at the side wards, where different side cards.

Yeah.

Because this is all connected to your suicide attempt.

Yeah.

Yep.

And the and the reason being is if someone's suicidal, you can't necessarily trust what they'll do, that's right.

How they'll go.

I mean, it can be violent, it can include other people.

Trevor Burrus, Jr.

And I little did I know, but like like you become property of the state when that happens.

Like you don't you can't leave.

Your rights are doing.

It's not like there this is for your own good.

And if you need to make it a good idea, any control?

It's gone.

It's gone.

Right.

Yeah.

And um so we arrive.

Well, the kid in front of me on the bus, you know, he's like, Where are you going?

I said, I'm going to Lakeview.

He goes, Yeah, I've been there for.

I'm like, okay.

And he's like, Don't take the medication.

I'm like, what?

He's like, they're gonna try to give you a bunch of medicine, don't take it.

And I'm thinking, okay, this dude's crazy.

Like, he's going to his second one.

We get there and it's full-on barbed wire cage fence, you know.

Um during my check-in, I'm in a room with a couch and a desk and a chair.

Everything's bolted to the floor, you know.

No lamps with cords, no plastic trash bags.

I mean, it's like you're in the you're in the psych ward.

And I get checked in and and it was just um it was a horrible experience.

It was horrible.

You hear people upstairs screaming and sliding furniture around, you know, all through the night.

And when we went up through that floor, man, they're like drooling all over themselves, you know.

But the next morning they called me up to this window to take medication.

They got a p bowl, a little cup full of medication, and um and I refused to take it.

And uh then they try to give me a nicotine patch.

I was like, I don't dip chew smoke.

Every day they try to give me the same medications.

You know, it's crazy.

Um but I did my 10 days there, and then I get a cab ride home.

And uh so cab ride, they bring me back home.

Then we have a meeting at Hope Quest a couple days later, my wife and I with Troy's team, and um they're like, you know, we can't we can't take him back.

We can't offer offer him the care I needed that he needed.

So then I started having that the fear of missing out.

You know, I've messed up this opportunity.

And there were people like Ashes to Glory as a foundation.

Man, they they sponsored me and um gave me a uh a grant,$12,500.

Wow.

Crosspoint City Church, our church paid for part of my rehab.

Um You know, and when Jennifer, when they were trying to get me to go to detox, I remember like my self-worth was so little.

When she got me on the phone with James Griffin, he was like, um, you know, hey bro, man, I love you.

Will you please go to detox?

And I just remember telling him, I said, I said, God don't want me.

James, I said, I'm damaged goods and God does not want me.

And he was like, Listen to me, bro, please.

Will you please go?

And I ended up going, you know.

But that just puts into perspective like my self-value.

Yeah, you are the lowest point.

Oh man, it's just brutal.

And uh so they won't take me back.

Um we we get with a hold of my old therapy, my therapist from my drug addiction, my early 20s, and I still see him to this day.

But nowadays, like our care therapy sessions are at Korean barbecue on Barrett Parkway every other, every other Monday.

Okay, right.

There's worse places to have therapy sessions.

Right, right.

He's just a great friend.

Yeah.

And um so he's like, look, we're gonna do an IOP program and meetings, AA meetings, that's what worked the first time, you know, all this stuff.

I was like, okay, all right.

So that's what we're gonna do.

Well, my family's tracking my location at this time, and then I'm thinking, surely I got this under control by now.

Right.

So I go hide my phone in the flower bed at the at Woodstock Outlet right next to the quick trip, and I drive down to the liquor store and I get me a bottle of vodka, and I'm like, okay, tomorrow morning I'm gonna try this and I'm gonna prove to myself that I can do this.

Because everybody starts drinking at 5 a.m.

Yeah.

So I start off to the races, you know, I wreck my truck.

This goes on for two days, and finally I'm at um I'm at a gas station near our house, and I'm sending out the text, you know, to my family.

I'm such a horrible person.

You guys deserve better than me.

I don't even need to be here.

You know, all this self-pity waller stuff.

And I had my sunroof open, and the stars in the sky, the contrast was almost like animated.

It was so it was so dark, but then the stars were so bright, and and I was just crying my eyes out.

And I just remember sitting laying there just begging Jesus to help me.

And I just was telling him, I can't live like this anymore.

And I passed out.

My wife comes, pulls me out of my truck, takes me home, I pee into bed.

All our kids have moved out.

You know, so we're in this big house.

And I go, I sit in my she's on the phone, right?

So she's walking around on the phone, she's not saying a word to me, I'm not saying a word to her.

She's done.

She was that was it.

She told my daughter when she they tracked me down through my Apple Watch.

And she told my oldest daughter, she goes, I'm gonna go get him.

This is it.

And uh I go sit in my oldest daughter's bedroom, and I watch my neighbor across the street, Josh Brock, he puts his two little girls in the truck, and I thought, man, he lives a normal life.

I walk in the laundry room, my wife's on the phone, she and she's got this scowl on her face, you know.

Where do you think you're going?

I said, I guess if there's ever a better time to go to an AA meeting, it's now.

She just looked kinda at the floor for a minute and she goes, Okay.

She wouldn't let me take my 2500.

She gave me the keys to Pocahontas, which is our dog car.

It's a 2004 Toyota Sequoia.

Okay.

With 400,000 miles on it.

That's the car the dogs are allowed to ride in.

All right, yeah.

So you're driving.

At that point, I'm taking whatever.

Well, you probably don't want to have the nicest car at AA anyway.

Right.

Right.

Yeah.

It's not.

Now what was funny?

Two days before I was gonna go to an AA meeting.

And so I rode by in town.

I wanted to see what kind of people are out there at this clubhouse, right?

Because that they got problems.

So I do a ride by, and there's a guy named Walt sitting out front.

I end up becoming great friends of Walt.

He died with 40 plus years sober.

Wow.

And uh and when I went by the first couple days, I was in my truck, my 2500.

So man to man sees the diesel truck, right?

He sees me go by.

But I don't go in.

I'm not I'm not there yet.

So then the next day, I go through the parking lot, right?

It's a really small parking lot.

And Walt sitting out front.

He goes, Hey, it's okay, you can come in.

And I'm like, Oh my god, they know I'm an alcoholic.

He's like, whoa.

I didn't go in.

I left.

It's like a little kid who's like trying to get up the nerve to go ask the kid in the neighborhood to play for the first time.

And then you know, he's like, Oh, walk by, ring the door.

Yeah.

So then I drink for two days, then I go back to AA.

Okay.

And uh so she gives me the keys and I go.

And um, there's only a handful of us there because we're coming out of COVID, you know.

And I'll never forget, I open the door and there's a little lady named Phyllis.

And as soon as I open the door to the clubhouse and you step down, she goes, Can I have a hug?

And I was like, This lady's crazy.

And she's the sweetest lady I still talk to her to this day.

I go in there and a guy named Richard reads how it works.

No matter where you go in the world, they all start the same.

They read how it works, the twelve traditions and the promises.

And he reads how it works, and when he says, Those who do not recover are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves.

I looked at Richard and I was like, What?

I go home, I walk in the laundry room from the garage, my wife's standing there, and I look at her, I'm like, I know what I gotta do.

She out quiet, I said, I know what I gotta do.

Come here, come here, come here, come here, come, come in the kitchen.

Here, stand at the bar.

I get the big book out.

I start reading to her how it works.

I'm like, come here, just sit at the table.

She sits at the table, I start reading to her how it works out of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous.

I'm like, this is what I gotta do.

I still reco vodka, I'm still hungover.

And she just goes, Okay.

Right.

Okay.

Three months later, I'm still sober.

And she goes, Do you remember that day?

I said, I do.

She said, Um, my next conversation with you that day.

I'd already taken your debit cards and credit cards, I'd already taken the keys of your truck.

I was gonna tell you, if this is what you want to do, you're not doing it in our truck.

And I'd ruined us financially.

And you're not doing what money we got left.

You need to walk out of this house.

She said, but when you came in from that AA meeting, I could see a physical change in your body.

And I knew something happened.

And Jesus showed up and answered my drunken prayers from the night before, begging him to help me.

And he showed up at that AA meeting and relieved me of the obsession to drink alcohol.

Because I could not stop.

I could not stop.

And you go, man, that's a great story.

That's the end.

No, it's not the end.

Right.

It's the beginning.

So then I become a reader, right?

I start reading these books.

I read books all the time.

I never read.

Last book I read was Paul Revere in the seventh grade.

And I start reading every day, every morning.

And so I'd hear, I went to a, I did a meeting every day for a year.

Old guy named Biker Mike, sitting out front.

I go to the Saturday meeting, and I'm like, told my wife I can't cut the grass, I gotta go to this meeting.

He's like, What'd you say?

Everybody's hanging out out front, you know.

It's the meeting before the meeting, smoking cigarettes out front, you know.

It's probably a lot of cigarettes and a lot of coffee being drunk at a meeting.

Yeah.

And sometimes alcohol.

We end up having to give those people rides home because they show up drunk to AA meetings, you know.

Yeah.

But they're getting that they're there.

They're there.

That's my point.

Yeah.

It's happening to the case.

It's like church, man.

Sometimes people go, I can't believe that person's in church.

And you're like, well, where else should they be?

Yeah, I'm thankful to Jesus.

It's like, I'm on.

I'm the same way.

I need it as much as anybody does.

Sometimes I have weeks where I'll write the message and I'm like, oh God, like, I don't want to give this message.

I'm terrible at this.

And I it's like, yeah, that's why I have you preparing it all week long.

And it's like a humbling experience every week.

But anyway, yeah, so you're there.

Biker Mike.

Biker Mike.

I know uh I don't know if I know Biker Mike, but I've known Biker Mike types at least today.

Yeah.

Ponytail.

I'm about to say I can pretty much picture the between the eyes conversation.

Like 50% of his life was done in prison.

Yeah.

He's not afraid of anything.

Yeah.

And uh he looks over his shoulder and goes, What'd you say?

I said, I told my wife, I can't cut the grass, I got to go to this meeting.

And he stood up and he turned around, he put his finger in my face.

And I'm about six months sober at the time, you know.

And he puts his finger right up in my face.

He goes, Let me tell you something.

You get to come to this meeting.

You get to cut that grass.

And you get to go home to that lovely wife of yours, Brandon, because there's men that don't get to.

And it changed a lot of perspective for me on a lot of different things.

And I have shared it with countless people of you get to.

You know, you don't have to do.

You get everything we do, and it's so cliche.

It's a blessing from God.

It's a but it truly is.

Yeah.

Every day I wake up, it is truly a blessing from God.

And I don't want to waste.

I told Jennifer the other night, I was like, I only have so many breaths in me.

And they're predetermined.

God knows what they are.

So I'm not going to waste them sleeping in till 10, 11 o'clock in the morning.

Because I'm up at 5 a.m., right?

My mom and dad, my mom said when I was a kid.

That my friend's parents wouldn't let me spend the night.

They were like, he can come play, but he can't spend the night.

He gets up to her.

I remember laying in bed like, when are these people getting up?

I'm ready to go ride some bicycles, you know?

Ready to go.

So journey starts where I'm getting sober.

So you get to.

And I remember being impacted by that.

And every time we've talked, I think that's come up.

It's like you get to.

That's your perspective.

I I get to be here, I get to do this.

And a lot of people need that.

I mean, it's amazing how often we do get we have a job.

A job is a blessing.

And we're like, I have to go to work.

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: You know, and maybe maybe somebody self-employed hears this because this is one of the you know my whole role, because we're self-employed, we own a commercial concrete company.

I mean, we haven't talked about this, but like like you you run a really successful business.

Yes.

It's a God story in and of itself.

We may not have time to get into all of that, but the reality is God has worked in your business this time, He's worked in your business, and your son works for you, and your business has exploded, and it's it's and it's hard work, man.

It is.

I mean, yeah.

And and I hate doing estimates because I'm really probably in a role I don't need to be in, but it works for now, but we're experiencing this exponential growth.

So I go, I don't have to do estimates.

I get to do estimates.

You know, which generate the income, which generates all this other stuff that I get to do.

Right.

Right.

So um anyway, so we're we're cruising along, sobriety's rocking along, and I hear these old timers in my AA group.

First thing I do is I hit my knees.

First thing I do is I get on my knees in the morning.

I roll out of bed on my knees, and I'm thinking, I don't even know if these guys believe in Jesus or not, right?

They just may believe in a higher power.

I believe in Jesus, and I'm not on my knees in a posture of submission to the Lord, a ton of God, if this is what you want me to do, you said you would send the Holy Spirit to me.

You gotta help me because I can't do this.

I'm out of my league here.

So we sell our house and we go move to our houseboat.

And um, we made$200,000 off our house.

So we moved to our houseboat.

I start getting up and getting on my knees.

Business is struggling.

I mean, I'd almost run it in the ground from millions down to like$600,000 a year.

Yeah.

And uh we're literally sitting in the living room one night.

Now, my plan was to take the$200,000, put it in the business and use it, and then put it back before my wife ever knew anything happened.

Right.

And she was looking at that that's your that's your personal We're gonna buy some land with this.

Right.

This is what you've got left, basically.

Basically, we've sold our house, we got a houseboat and$200,000 in a failing business.

And um, we hired my son, he comes off the pipeline pipeline, comes work for us.

About a month in, my wife's like, we can't afford to pay.

Well, we're gonna do something.

I'm like, in my mind, I'm thinking, no, we're not, we're not doing that.

So I start moving the money and in a small business, it goes quick, 50,000 out of whack, four times and it's gone.

But I start getting up on my knees and I start writing my prayers out.

I've never put pen to paper.

I start writing, and it's amazing.

I can go back now and look, six years sober, at all the prayers I had that have been answered.

You know, the prayers of buying 40 acres, the prayers of the financing for the 40 acres, all that stuff.

And it's all come to fruition.

Yeah, but back then it would have seemed like impossible.

So um sitting in the living room, my wife looks at me, she goes, Where's the money?

And I'm like, I said, Do what?

She said, Where's all the money?

I said, I'll put it in the business.

There's twelve thousand dollars left.

She goes, Well, there's no money in the business.

I said, I know I've spent it.

Trying to just keep everything going.

Because we had no credit cards, no line of credit, no accounts.

And um She was I mean, it was the conversation of multiple marriage counseling sessions where she's like literally over top of my chair, you know, when are you putting it back?

Right.

How are you putting it back?

I'm crying, she's crying, just all this, you know, that goes on for a year.

I was just gonna say your wife's incredible.

Dude, like you need to have her on a podcast.

Yeah.

I'm done.

We're gonna have to have a whole separate episode.

And you know what, and it's funny, or it's not funny.

Um because she's not a pushover.

It's not like this is not a situation where she's a very strong.

Yeah.

But yet, I mean you're you're you're finding new ways to uh to push the limit.

Yeah.

You're creative.

So um So about a year into it, and she's like, um I told her I was like, you know, we were in therapy, and I was like, you know, we're gonna I'm gonna put the money back.

I'm gonna find a way, I'm gonna find a way.

And uh we end up buying 40 acres.

We were doing six hundred and twenty-four thousand dollars a year at that point.

As a business.

As a business, which is not much for a concrete company.

No, because it's uh overhead's crazy high.

Crazy high.

Yeah.

And we had these people wanting to buy into us.

We worked on it for a year, and um, they were a bigger concrete company, and came down to it, they wanted 70-30, and I ghosted on my mic, and that's when I moved our money in.

And um, but um we bought the land.

We ended up at like 1.2 million that year, and then we ended up at like 2.3 million, and then 3.7 million, and then four, you know.

Yeah.

I signed a contract last week for 1.25, the week before that, 980, the week before that 800, you know, it's all Jesus.

Yeah.

Give more than we've ever given.

Yeah.

Make more than we've ever made.

I, you know, used to hear, and I and I I think about this often.

You used to hear you, people go, especially some little old ladies, you know, you can't outgive God.

Right.

And I used to think, lady, that might work for you.

That don't work for me.

Right.

I gotta hang on to every dime I get.

But when I finally just started holding it like this, yeah, be open-handed.

Right.

I hold it like this, and my my bowl fills up, and he's like, You don't need anymore.

Right.

Hold it like this.

And Yeah, and if you hold it like this, then there's nowhere to put anything, right?

James Griffin would always preach about giving generously.

You know, give generously, give generously.

And for the first time, you know, I'm walked out of Hope Quest in handcuffs, telling everybody to shove it.

I volunteer there.

We're financial contributors there.

I get to, you know, I got to go back and make my amends with all those people.

My the you know, they do celebrate recovery or um sorry, night of freedom.

Yeah when so and um Adriana was one of the lead clinicians and or over everybody, and I'm walked out in handcuffs and she's going, Brandon, we gotta make sure you're okay, and I tell her to F off, you know.

We go to celebrate recovery or freedom, but and I'm the first one, she's the first person I see.

Yeah.

And I walk in, I just start crying.

She goes, Brandon.

I said, Adrana.

I said, Um, I got sober.

She goes, honey, I see that.

You know, so then I got to go back and make my other amends with other people there, and then I got to become a contributor.

And then now I'm in a small group with Troy and Melissa, you know.

Yeah.

I bring walking free to my church.

I get to lead all these men for freedom from pornography.

But going back to the story, so we're we're we're coming along, we're a year in sober, we're sitting at the kitchen table, and Jennifer says, I can't move forward.

I need disclosure.

And I'm like, oh man.

She needed to know who it was, how it started, how long it lasted, how it ended.

No details, but she wanted to know that.

So our church offers a Thursday night service, and that's one of the reasons we go to Thursday night service is because some of those women I had affairs with go to Sunday service.

Yeah.

Right?

And that's a big it's just a big it's just not good.

Um so we're sitting at the kitchen table, and I said, Uh, when do you want it?

And she said, Right now.

We're supposed to do it with our therapist.

Talk about it on my side, talk about her side, then we come together.

And uh I said, uh Okay.

All right, so let me go use the restroom.

I went in the bathroom, flipped the toilet seat down.

I just sat on the toilet and prayed.

And I was like, Well, isn't that cool though?

But I mean, years before you would have gone and drank.

Yeah, 100%.

Right?

So now you go and you pray.

Yeah.

Totally got it.

Because we still need things.

We we don't, I mean, a lot of drinking and drugs, it's like the recognition that I'm not self-sufficient.

Yes.

I don't have enough in me to do this.

So you drink yourself or you use pornography, use whatever just to like take the edge off.

And that's that, but there's a truth in that, yeah, we are not self-sufficient.

Like we don't have enough strength.

But for you, now it's like, all right, I'll be right back.

And instead of drinking to prepare you, you go and you pray.

Yeah.

And I and I've and I've become consistent in my prayer life.

I've you know, I've been able to get up at 5 a.m.

every morning, have coffee, oatmeal, read, pray, you know, get on my knees in a posture of submission to the Lord.

And um I sit on that toilet seat and I just had to literally make myself okay with we're either we're either getting a divorce or we're staying married.

And I go back in there and we're talking, and literally, we're in our little kitchenette, windows are right there, and the sun shines through and hits the floor.

My mom and my aunt owned daycare centers when we were kids.

And it hit the floor and it triggered a memory for me because I was sober, my mind could start operating.

You know, you're a year in.

The chronic alcoholic is three to five years for your brain to fully recover.

And but I and I literally felt like I was getting smarter, yeah, the more I quit drinking.

Yeah.

And uh and it clicked, and I remember being sexually abused at my aunt's daycare center by a man when I was six for about a year.

And it hit me like that, dude.

And we were able to talk about you know some of that, but I was able to start trauma therapy to deal with that stuff.

And so, you know, I get kicked out of Hope Quest and everything about six months after that, so I'm sober about six months.

One of their resources was Faithful and True in Eden Prairie, Minnesota.

And they deal with pornography addiction, sexual addiction, sex abuse victims, guilt and shame, all that stuff.

Yep.

And I um I had just bought a new truck and I was scared to do it, you know.

And I I told my wife, I paid for the men's intensive.

I said, I'm gonna I'm gonna go out to Minnesota and do this.

And she's like, okay.

She goes, Are you gonna fly into St.

Paul and then get a rental car?

I was like, Nope.

I said, I'm driving.

She goes, You're driving to Minnesota?

I said, Yep.

I said I'm taking back roads 1800 miles.

Took off and it's like it was me and Jesus.

Yeah.

He's in that seat.

And we just started this journey, dude.

I saw Dave Portnoy do a pizza review in Chicago, so I drove to Chicago to have Deep Dish Pizza because I never had Deep Dish Pizza.

How was it?

It was great.

Yeah.

And um, but I got to go in there and I got to deal with all my stuff.

You know, I got to map all this out and figure out why I was behaving the way I was.

When I did, when we were able to lay all this stuff out, it all made sense.

Yeah.

It made the drug addiction made sense, the alcoholism made sense, the sexual addiction made sense.

It also made it so much easier to stop.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because now I understand why I'm doing these things.

Yeah, I mean, and that's the reality.

Like, uh, you know, uh porn addiction's been part of my story as well.

And it's tough because and I had a 10-year period of sobriety and then I had a relapse, which really threw me.

Oh man.

You know what I mean?

Because guilt and chain and yeah, all that coming out.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

And you know, I got introduced to pornography when I was in the third grade.

Well, if any if anyone, if I ever found out a third grader had been exposed to pornography, I wouldn't be mad at them.

No.

I would my heart would break for it.

Yeah.

I'd be like, oh Yeah, it's not their fault.

No.

I mean, I for me, I was at a friend's house and he's just like, hey, you want to see something cool?

Yep.

That was it.

Yep.

You know, I didn't know.

And so the point is though, like when you you still you're still responsible for your sin.

You're responsible for your your actions, right?

But you're not it can it can simultaneously be like it originally at least it wasn't your fault, but it is your responsibility.

It is your responsibility, that's right.

And so there has to be some like self-forgiveness that takes place in order for that.

It's just part of the journey.

You have to recognize they were, especially when you're abused.

I mean, you you were things were awakened in you when they shouldn't have been.

Yes.

And that's it's horrific, man.

It's like I share to deal with that.

I share with some of these men in walking free that we lead.

It's like, you know, you're not necessarily responsible for your first thought, but you are for your second one and what you do with it.

That's right.

You know.

Um I try to encourage them that, you know, take those thoughts captive.

And yeah, take them captive.

Mark Mark Laser, I don't know if you know him.

He he did faith he broke wrote a he's got these books.

They're about this big.

Yeah.

And uh it's called Take Every Thought Captive.

Yeah.

And uh I'll I'll send it to you, but they're short reads, good reads.

But um I was able to go out there and start dealing with that baggage.

And you know what, to this day, that so that was I was sober maybe a year and a half at that point.

I'm six years sober June 2nd.

To this day, I get to go to Hope Quest on Thursdays and do my therapy and my counseling and and continue to walk through this stuff.

You get to.

I get to.

I get to.

And you know what?

Sometimes that stuff's hard.

Yeah.

You know?

I mean, it's hard.

Sometimes I leave there like I'm like emotionally exhausted.

Like I go home, I tell Jennifer, I gotta, I'm not a nap taker.

I'm like, I gotta lay down for a minute.

Like I'm I'm like shot.

But I get to, right?

And and I look at it, go, man, it's um investing into my life, it's investing into my children's lives, it's investing into my grandchildren now.

Yeah.

You know, I got two girls, four and two, and just had our first grandson.

He's seven weeks old.

He's Brandon Key Smith III, who would have thought six years ago somebody wanna name your kid after me.

There you go.

And uh they're calling him BT, you know.

I like that.

And um, but I get to.

I get to, yeah.

I get to see him last night, I get to be a part of that.

And um Jennifer, uh apprenticed under Melissa Haas, she's teaches um Journey for Women, which is women of sexual betrayal, husbands that had affairs or sexual addiction, pornography addiction.

You know, and truth being told, it's I forget what the last Barna study was, but it's like 90 plus percent of men's struggle.

And that's the 90 plus that are willing to talk about it.

It's it's so ubiquitous, it's everywhere.

It's it's uh it's I mean, it's and it's unfortunate because there I just there's never been a time where it's so available.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's like in these men, like I lead these men, we had 28 men at Cross Point that we're in different groups, and one of the first nights will matter.

We go in there and they're all like this.

Yep.

Oh my god.

Some of them were in there because they want to be, someone were in there because their wives told them to be.

Yeah, it's an ultimatum.

Save their marriage.

And um, I break the ice with them and go, look, guys, we're just a bunch of guys that like to watch porn and masturbate.

That don't work anymore, though.

And I'm gonna show you a way when you start to understand it, and it's gonna be a lot easier for you to stop.

Yeah.

And the easiest way to kill something is don't feed it.

That's right.

You know?

So we're gonna quit feeding this.

And um, and a lot of those men have been able to make drastic changes in their marriage.

That's awesome.

And I get to.

And I look back and I go, man, had had none of this happened in my life, I wouldn't get to be in this position to help men.

Yeah.

You know?

And in our business and the growth of our business, we're gonna do some recovery things on our property.

And because what we found was there was all this help for me, the addict, alcoholic, sex addict, but not from my wife.

Yeah, your wife was having to be strong and she's out there kind of just Yeah.

And we're gonna we're gonna offer that, you know.

That's awesome.

Because we found ways that helped.

And and you know, if we can just all she shared her story at our church not long ago, and I sent it to you.

Yeah, it was it was awesome by the way.

She pointed everything to the Lord.

Yeah.

You see how she's like, hey, God's like, look, Brandon's messed up, but you got problems too.

Focus on me.

I mean, who does that?

You know, she puts the Lord first, and it just um our marriage has never been better.

It took me till I was 47 years old to figure out what emotional intimacy was.

And men were like, you know, I want to have sex, I want to Let me tell you something.

You connect with the emotional intimacy, the sex comes with it.

Right.

Right?

And it ain't, you know, it just it just you figure out how it all is supposed to work.

Yeah, absolutely.

Right.

And you take this corruption part out of it, and it's just a lot better.

You know.

I'm so happy for you, man.

Well, thank you.

And I, you know, I'm I I consider you that's gonna be a lifelong friendship, and I'm thankful Jason introduced us.

Yeah, me too.

You know, I knew it sitting across from me.

I was like, I uh it's a weird thing to be a pastor.

This happens to me all the time.

Like you're a pastor and you're supposed to be the one that's like the furthest spiritually and the most excited spiritually and and the most focused on God.

You know, God's the number one priority, and everything else is a distant second, and that's not how I'm just like, I mean, man, I get uh kind of like you, I have a very obsessive personality.

It's part of what makes you successful, is you can just lock in and just go, go, go, go, go and outwork other people, but then that other part of you can't shut off.

That's right.

And sometimes God isn't what you go to.

And so I remember being convicted sitting across the table from you, but in a good way.

Like I was like, man, God, I needed this.

I needed a sermon this morning.

Yeah.

I remember you texted me like the next day or something.

And it was like, and for me, it's like, man, it makes me go, keep sharing the story.

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

Keep sharing the story.

I'm excited that other people are gonna hear it because you know, for me, I a couple quick takeaways.

Obviously, the get to thing is really cool, and I think a lot of people are impecced by that.

I love the fact, I think I mentioned this to you another time because you said it again, that God answered your drunken prayers.

Yeah.

That even a drunken prayer is a prayer, and God listens.

Yes.

And I think there's something so powerful about that idea because, you know, like a lot of people, you don't have much to give God, and you can give God a half-hearted prayer, you can give him a drunken prayer, you can give him a desperate prayer, you can give him a, you know, I I I sat with a a man and we have a prayer room.

Um after the service, people can go get prayed for.

And and if they want to just go be by themselves during the service, they can pray by themselves.

We have a team afterwards.

Well, this guy came to the church a week ago and wanted to pray, and we went in there, and man, he just yelled at God and was angry at God.

And um he didn't get struck by lightning.

Yeah, yeah.

But he could have, you know, and then and if God chose to, he'd be like, well, he did say some things they should, you know.

Yeah, yeah.

But even I'm like, God's and I I just had this sense, and I told him, like, I really felt like keep the conversation going.

Because God even listens to your angry prayers.

And so I just hope people listening to you.

And God got angry.

Yeah.

You know, God got angry.

Anger's not a anger's not a sin.

Yeah, yeah.

People get feel guilty about getting angry.

Right.

I'm talking to a lady on the phone.

She's her boyfriend died four years ago at the motocross track.

She was there, he got landed on and died instantly.

And he was a mutual friend.

And I knew him.

Not well, but I knew him.

And uh She's been drinking ever since.

Yeah.

She's got multiple friends that have reached out to me to help her out.

Yeah.

And um and I get to share with it.

So, of course, the first thing I it's funny because like I've never I got a great friend of mine, Marcus Gregory, he owns Greyco.

We do a lot of work for him.

He's young, my oldest daughter's young age, he's younger than me, he's like 32.

But he has encouraged me so much in my life to be bold.

And like, I have no problem going when I'm getting on the phone with somebody like that.

I go, You believe in Jesus?

They're like, Yeah, yeah.

Do you believe in the Jesus that came to this earth and walked and died on a cross for your sins and rose three days?

Like, do you believe in that Jesus?

Yes.

And I've been able to ask people that boldly and and go, and if you don't, I'm gonna help you figure out who he is right now and I'm gonna share it with you.

And um I ask her, I'm like, You believe in Jesus?

That's a tough one right now, Brandon.

Because I'm still mad.

I'm gonna say, that's okay.

It's okay to be mad.

Yeah.

Because we don't understand.

Yeah, no, absolutely.

You know, and uh but I was able to encourage her to get, you know, she I got her in an AA group with a bunch of ladies, and um she went to her first meeting, she's been sober nine or twenty days now.

You know, so but I get to.

Yeah.

Because if I wasn't sober and I hadn't done this work, I wouldn't get to.

Yeah, you know?

And so yeah, I mean, like you get to and and pray.

Because again, even your low point drunken, you know, whatever prayer is.

Isn't it ironic to it?

Isn't it ironic that like that's where I'm at?

I know where I'm at, and you know the last thing you can do is go to the Lord.

Yeah.

Like your last resort, if you're taking your last breath and you're going under, go to the Lord.

Praise God, man.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

Well, thank you for sharing your story.

Thank you.

And uh, and I look forward to meeting your wife in person and just shaking her hand and all that.

I mean, what what a gift you have there.

She's a rock.

She is.

Um, and and it's because of her faith.

I know that.

And I got to listen to her story.

I'm just really grateful for this, man.

This is gonna help a lot of people and again, inspiring and challenging and fun.

Thank you, Joe.

So, dude, thank you.

Appreciate it.

Appreciate you, man.

Thank you.