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Summarized, my story begins from adolescence. I chose to consume alcohol; what was always in my home life. Instantly I decided this would be what I espoused because it gave me confidence and helped with being able to interact. It supported many things, although it increased very fast with tolerance and soon indulging into several drugs. For so many years I aimed at finding “functional” addict”, but never came close. Rock bottom was never the end. There was always another bottom that was lower and harder to hit; proving it wouldn’t never stop until I died. Overuse of the word Grace is impossible for me because it is the very means that I was granted to see and tangibly experience and believe in real freedom. God allows me to remember from where he’s brought me and oh am I ever filled with gratitude. And I want to start from the bottom to walk with hurting addicted Men who also want to find freedom. I have created “Breaking Bondage from Addiction.com, to serve others of whom I was for years too long. Numerous unknown times, either by personal choice or usually by court mandate; I went through secular programs to overcome addiction, never once with peace, freedom, or success. Finally with Grace that could never be measured, I encountered a reality that I am forgivable, no matter the infinite chances I’d been given. God really loves us equally as much no matter what we’ve done to know how big shame can be. Shame has no place with a contrite heart and when one becomes ready to let God have control.
https://www.breakingbondagefromaddict… This is my website for adult Men to join my community and find bondage breaking hope from addiction, using my journey of success with a biblical foundation.
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Doug Sweeney
[00:00:00] Welcome to the Wounds of the Faithful Podcast. Brought to you by DSW Ministries. Your host is singer songwriter, speaker and domestic violence advocate, Diana Winkler. She is passionate about helping survivors in the church heal from domestic violence and abuse and trauma. This podcast is not a substitute for professional counseling or qualified medical help. [00:00:26] Now here is Diana. [00:00:33] Hey everybody. Come on in. Welcome, welcome. Glad you’re here, and we have , a great show for you today and I have a guest this week. His name is Doug Sweeney. And oh, we’re gonna learn a little bit more about him in a second. I hope you were blessed by the episode last week with Jesus being an abuse survivor. [00:01:00] Hopefully that you learned something new and you were able to see that Jesus can relate to us as, abuse survivors because he’s gone through many of the same things that you and I have gone. [00:01:14] And so go back and listen to it if you haven’t. So, onto our guest for this week. We have Doug Sweeney. He’s with us this week and he’s gonna talk about his, abusive childhood and, his alcoholic father. And he became an alcoholic. And, all of the consequences of, of that and how he rose out of that, [00:01:44] how he got out of that, the addiction to alcohol and what he’s doing today. And his story is very riveting and. [00:01:57] He really knows how to tell a story. So let [00:02:00] me read a little bit of his bio here. [00:02:03] I have created breaking bondage from addiction.com to serve others of whom I was for years too long. Numerous unknown times, either by personal choice or usually by court mandate. I went through secular programs to overcome addiction, never once with peace, freedom or success. Finally, with grace that could never be measured, [00:02:31] I encountered a reality that I am forgivable. No matter the infinite chances I’d been given, God really loves us equally as much no matter what we’ve done to know how big shame can be. Shame has no place with a contrite heart and when one becomes ready to let God have control [00:02:56] So we’re gonna talk about a lot of different topics today. [00:03:00] You heard forgiveness. We’re gonna talk about, prison and addiction and alcohol and child abuse and, music. A little bit of music, no real triggers. He does not go into graphic detail. But he, has a powerful story to tell. So I won’t delay any further in, introducing you to Doug Sweeney. [00:03:23] So in the midst of all this abuse, what was your relationship with God at that time? Did you have any spiritual education, any kind of. Faith or conscience at that time? [00:03:44] Did you blame God for your father abusing your mother and yourself?[00:04:00] [00:04:04] [00:04:04] All right. [00:04:04] Diana: Please welcome Doug Sweeney to the show. [00:04:07] Thanks so much for coming on today. [00:04:09] Doug : Good evening, Diana. Thank you for having me. I’m, I’m excited about this. Thank you. [00:04:14] Diana: Yeah, I really love to have the guys on show because I do have some male listeners and you definitely have a message for them today and really wanna [00:04:23] help them out there listening. So Doug, set the scene for us. What was your upbringing, your childhood like? [00:04:34] Doug : So, I’m from the southwest area of Ohio. Um, my name is Doug Sweeney and I came on here to, uh, just. Give a little bit of backstory about me, uh, where I’ve been, what, uh, what I went through and what it led me to, and ultimately where I’m at today. [00:04:55] So, um, I grew up in a family of five. My mother and [00:05:00] father were married the entire time. Um, I had two brothers. And although the, uh, the discouraging part about that was. I had a father who, uh, was pretty much a functional alcoholic. He never got in trouble, but uh, he was a very ongoing daily drinker, even work days, and he had as many off days as he had work days. [00:05:30] So, uh, his off days were even heavier drinking. And that led to a lot of, uh, frustration, anger, uh, fighting between my mother and him. Um, and inevitably it went to abuse. So growing up, uh, the abuse was so verbal, so emotional, and a lot of times physical. A lot of times I was worried about my mom, um, because [00:06:00] of some of the things. [00:06:01] The alcohol fighting would, uh, cause and I never felt, uh, felt any real father affection from my dad. He never seemed to be, um, he never seemed to be proud to be a father. He seemed that we were a disappointment because everything we did was wrong. Everything we. That we, we had to be quiet. We always had to just stay out of the way, and if we did something, we could have did it better or we just completely messed it up. [00:06:38] So as a child developing, that’s what I internalized. I internalized those, those things about myself all that did really was develop a, a mindset. I have failed over and over and over, so I must just be a failure. Therefore, [00:07:00] I won’t talk to nobody. I won’t, uh, make friends. And I didn’t all through school until high school. [00:07:10] I think I never had friends. I never really talked to anybody. [00:07:14] I didn’t feel successful at it, so I was very, Alone, isolated and introverted and internalized everything in my own mind. And my mind was just a war, a battleground of war for so much of my young childhood. I vented with music. Uh, music was my, uh, My best friend. [00:07:39] That was how I expressed myself. [00:07:42] And then before I was 13 or 14, probably 12, 13, the first time I drank, I decided to go ahead and try this thing that I seen causing all the ruckus and unhappiness in our home life. So I [00:08:00] tried it. Instantaneously. It was, uh, it was the remedy, it was the, it was the coping mechanism that I decided I was going to go ahead. [00:08:11] I, I was, I was full fledged into it and I didn’t even have fun. I didn’t do this with somebody else. I, first time I drank, I drank alone. Mm-hmm. And, I, I just looked for every opportunity that I can make for another episode of that again and drinking. And then as soon I drank with friends at school, I would, I would build, uh, build a friendship with what, uh, Uh, the bad crowd or, you know, whatever the nicknames were back then, hoodlums and things like that. [00:08:47] Uh, so all the, bot guys that were getting in trouble were the guys I started hanging out with and that all that did was increase my, um, drinking until I [00:09:00] got to liquor. And then liquor turned into the minor drugs like marijuana and some pills every now and then. Mm-hmm. And I just kept going and going and going. [00:09:12] Um, and then, you know, I get outta school. I graduate from school, I get outta school and I start drinking heavier. Um, I start getting in trouble with the law. I get some DUIs. Things are not really looking good. I, I’m not having any success. I’m getting in more and more trouble, but I’m, I’m a happy person. [00:09:35] I’m not angry. I’m not abusive. I’m not all the things that I saw in my home life. So I just think that all I gotta do is figure out how to make this functional for me to where I don’t get pulled over by driving drunk, because driving drunk was something that I grew up with my. Was under the influence in the car at all times. [00:09:58] The only times [00:10:00] he wasn’t was on his way to work, on his way home from work he was, and every off day he was. It was a normal thing. And back in the eighties, it wasn’t even sought for or looked at as bad as it is today in, in today’s times, and ever since the nineties pretty much. But, uh, It’s, it was, he never, he never faced any penalties for any of his actions. [00:10:29] And I did. And so I was always at war with myself on why couldn’t I do this? Mm-hmm. And eventually, um, driving drunk got me into some serious trouble. I started having some bad accident. And I started getting a lot of DUIs. I was getting close to the point of a felony DUI back in the late nineties. And, uh, it just, it just increased and got worse and worse for me.[00:11:00] [00:11:00] Um, there was no, there was nothing, you know, I would get out the, I would, I went to rehab. I would go into an inpatient rehab. I would go into the I O P, which was the intensive of outpatient. Sometimes I did it on my own to try to figure it out, figure a way out to stop this, and most of the times it was done by the court. [00:11:22] The court would have me going because it was just part of the procedure. It was policies, you know, part of the sentencing that they did. And so I got real familiar with the program and what the secular. Offers were about addiction and, and how they classified addiction as, uh, a disease, an alcoholism, all another ism that we, uh, create in this world. [00:11:51] And I, I, you know, I, I knew it inside out. I, I walked it frontwards, backwards, upside down, and right side up. And I knew [00:12:00] everything about it. I knew everything from the beginning of Bill W in 1930. I knew all the way up until now and there was nothing. I didn’t know about it, but even from the very first time when I was 17, something didn’t set right in my heart because I did not believe that accountability didn’t have to take some precedence in this. [00:12:25] I didn’t believe that I could go into an inpatient rehab for 30 days. Come. And not be accountable to going back to using again because of a disease. Mm-hmm. And so I never really set well with that. I wanted to be true to me and true to my heart, and something didn’t set well with me on that. [00:12:46] So I never took that to heart, but yet I wanted to figure out how to use as much as I could, what I wanted to use, and. Still hold the job, [00:13:00] make my attendance at work, and not get pulled over, or not wreck the car. Those were my big things. Well, I don’t have to tell you that I never had long success at that whatsoever. [00:13:13] Um, I never did. Eventually, I, I was getting busted for, you know, small possessions of harder drugs like, And I was getting small sentences in jail from what cocaine, you know, possession gave me, or um, just foul play from addiction. And then, um, I was getting in more wrecks. And finally what came at the very end was, A long time ago, back, I think it was towards the fall time of oh three, I got in a wreck and, um, I was living with a woman. We were dating. [00:13:59] She had two [00:14:00] children. Um, her ex-husband was a man, uh, who I, I didn’t call a friend, but he was an acquaintance. His son was living in her and my house. We got him ready for school and took him to school every day. It was a good procedure. She was the wrong woman to be with at the time. I know that, and I knew that then. [00:14:25] I honestly did, but I loved her children and I didn’t have children, so it was a, it was a factor that I wanted to embellish in and, be satisfied with, so I stayed with her for them. Most, for most of the reason. And, uh, one night we got into an argument. He happened to be around because his sister and him had just came from the hospital for another incident or ordeal. [00:14:54] And because her and I were having a bad night not getting along him and I [00:15:00] decided to leave and go to a bar. Um, we went to a bar. I, let me be clear in the beginning. I have absolutely no physical memory of this. Mm-hmm. And this has been, this has been almost 20 years, and I never have, and I never will. I’m pretty sure I never will. [00:15:19] God has con pretty much confirmed to me that it, it’s not, it doesn’t need to be physically remembered because I know everything about it. I know I’ve been told, and the evidence has shown me everything but. So we went into, uh, we went to a bar. I, I got upset with her, left and went to a bar. Her and I, or him and I, we had never been out together, but we went out to this bar this night and we closed the bar. [00:15:49] We drank at it for many, many hours. Um, I suppose I was already knowing I was gonna be taking him home because [00:16:00] he went with me and my car to the. And so we stayed until the bar closed. At that time, that was two 30 back in that day. And, uh, shortly after two 30, not very long down the road, we, uh, went off the road at a pretty decent speed with, uh, wet roads and rolled uncontrollably for many roles. [00:16:25] Mm-hmm. Um, we were both ejected from the. He was killed instantly. And I, we, like I said, we were both ejected from the car. We were in different positions than the car was hundreds and hundreds of feet away from it. The car didn’t even look like a car. Um, it had no wheels. The axles were broke off. Uh, it was pretty. [00:16:55] I was care flighted and went to the hospital [00:17:00] and I guess, um, it was very serious. I, I went to the hospital. I was out of conscience. I had no, I was, I was in a coma or just out of conscience for longer than he had already been buried before I had woke. And when I woke up in the hospital, my mother was there to as softly as she could tell me what had happened. [00:17:29] Mm-hmm. Um, at first I just, I thought, no way. Absolutely. That could not have happened. I figured it was a scare tactic because I had already been in these accidents many times. I had already been through the windshield of a. More than once or some window of a car more than once, and I had done a lot of damage in the past. [00:17:55] I had, you know, my stomach pumped, I had, I had alcohol [00:18:00] poisoning. I had so many different incidents in my life. That this was just another one that they’re getting tired of seeing. So they’re gonna scare me a little bit cuz I really didn’t believe this or remember this and I had never been out with this guy. [00:18:17] Why would I be out with this guy? Why would he allow me to drive drunk? That ended up like this. None of this was coming to just imagine not being able to believe this. And still somehow accepted in the hospital. And I’m, I’m massively messed up. I broke my, I shattered my pelvis on all four sides. I, I broke many other things. [00:18:48] I’m dealing with this head injury and I, I’m, I’m also trying to concentrate on why my memory won’t grapple with this. So [00:19:00] I’m in the hospital for almost two months. Um, I even see a state patrol before I get out for a police report, uh, questionnaire type thing. And I know what my past, in my past and I’ve been chained up by cuff to the bed before in a hospital bed from another incident. [00:19:20] So if I’m the really the operator of this car, of this terrible thing that went, that just happened, Then why? Why isn’t there so much evidence that they’re coming at me right now with it? Why aren’t they locking my hand to the bed? Mm-hmm. Why did they finally let me outta the hospital after two months? [00:19:40] Why did they let me out if they had two months? I was in the hospital for just shy of two months if they had that much time to see that for sure that I was this person who was operating the vehicle that caused this horrible. Then why, why did, uh, why wasn’t I indicted yet, or [00:20:00] why, you know? Mm-hmm. So all these things, um, I say all that, just so you can imagine what I’m going through in my mind and in my conscience and in my heart about what I’ve done. [00:20:10] Mm-hmm. Something in my, in the deepest core of our heart, and in the heart of hearts, something tells me that I probably did do it because even though you couldn’t make it out to be a car, it was identified as my car. It, I never let nobody drive my car ever, ever, ever, for no reason, no matter what. If you didn’t wanna ride with me, that was all fine and dandy. [00:20:41] But I wasn’t letting anyone drive my car with me in it. If I, I, I had that kind of obstinacy about me that if, if you say I can’t drive, then no way, period. Just [00:21:00] no way. That wasn’t going to be happening. Um, if it was my car, you could tell me I wasn’t driving your car all day. That’s fine. And you could tell me you’re, you weren’t riding with me, but you, nobody was gonna drive my. [00:21:11] And take my will from that. So when I knew that about me, then something inside me was telling me that I probably was the operator, but I just don’t know why. I can’t remember. And then I’m resorting to my conscience, my God conscience idea of who God is and why he would let this happen. Why would he let this man? [00:21:40] Who had never been given one fraction of the chances at life that I had been given already with addiction. He wasn’t the most upstanding civilian in the world. He didn’t, you know, he didn’t, he wasn’t, um, [00:22:00] He didn’t promote, goodness, he didn’t. He didn’t go out and help third war countries. He wasn’t, he wasn’t the most upstanding citizen in the world, but he hadn’t done a half or even a fraction of what I had done. [00:22:15] I had already been inside prison a couple times. I had already been in county jail, a couple. 20 times. Mm-hmm. I had already had my stomach pumped. I’ve been inside the hospital more times than most people ever in a lifetime were, go in a hospital. I had already had so many accidents, I had already done so much that he had never even been through. [00:22:40] But to top it all off, and this is the, this is the real central point that I want to hit, is he was a father. I wasn’t even a father. Why would God this? Good God, that is called good. Why would God let a father be [00:23:00] taken to a nine year old boy that lived in the house that I was, that we were renting? Why would this happen like this? [00:23:09] Why wouldn’t it be me? [00:23:11] Diana: You felt a lot of survivor’s guilt, which is really common. How did you overcome that terrible feeling? [00:23:22] Doug : I had already been given so many chances. I had already denied God and said, no, not now. God. I don’t know how many times I had a God conscience. I went to church as a child for three years. My mom tried to keep us in church and, you know, bring some solace with, uh, The hectic chaos at home. [00:23:44] She really did try and I had, and I built my Co God conscience at that church and with my mom and the music that she used to listen to and things like that. So I always had a God conscience, but I didn’t have the right perception of who he was, and I couldn’t deal with him [00:24:00] allowing this man and father to die and not me die. [00:24:07] And not only that, Actually survive and have to feel the guilt from it. None of this, I couldn’t, I couldn’t, I couldn’t deal with it. I, I didn’t know how to deal with it, and I didn’t know what I was gonna do. Most of all, I could not believe that I could possibly be forgivable. So why would I live? Because I can’t be forgivable after this. [00:24:33] And. So I get out of the hospital about two weeks before Christmas. I’m not in good shape at all. I’m, I’m still broken up a lot. I can barely walk. I’m just like, I’m like hobbling around on a crutch. Um, I have no mobility there. I’m still healing a lot. I’m supposed to be going to physical therapy, but I don’t [00:25:00] even go to physical therapy. [00:25:01] I, I can’t live with myself. I can’t, I can’t get back into the routine of life at all from this. And so I just kind of mope around and just barely live for the next two and a half, almost three months. Uh, then they finally came to, uh, where I was living. I was staying with a. A family member and they came with an indictment. [00:25:28] Finally, a grand jury had put together, uh, the evidence to prove, without a shot of a doubt that I was the operator of this vehicle. And they came to, uh, where I was staying and picked me up and took me into the county jail. I went into the county jail and I was just, I, you know, I was expecting it eventually, but I didn’t know how or why, or if I was going to fight it, if I was gonna take it to trial. [00:25:58] I didn’t know anything. I just had [00:26:00] all this going on in my life, in my mind and my conscience, and I didn’t know what to do with myself. So I, you know, I’m in the county jail. I’ve been to a couple arraignment hearing. And then one day in the middle of the week, um, the, the dorm in which the county jail I was in, it was very hectic. [00:26:21] It was very loud, a lot of arguing and fighting and screaming back and forth and everything that I, I, I’m just so repulsed by in the jail system. It’s just chaos. And so an opportunity came up. For a Bible study that, uh, the officer came by and said there was a Bible study and if anyone wanted to go, they needed to line up instantly, like right now. [00:26:46] And I, that’s all I did is I just lined up and I was going to the Bible study to get out of the dorm for an hour, an hour and a half or whatever. And I went to the Bible study and after coming back from the Bible [00:27:00] study, male had been passed. And I wasn’t expecting any mail, but, uh, I had gotten a piece of mail while I was at the Bible study and it was a, and you have to hear what I’m saying is, is that for the two months that I was in the hospital, well little less than two months, probably about a strong five weeks after I woke up, six weeks after I woke. [00:27:29] That time, and then almost three months outside of the hospital before getting picked up, I am just crying out with every fiber in my heart to figure out why I survived. Mm-hmm. How can I be forgivable and what do I do with this? What do I do? It’s not, I’m not worried about prison or jail. I’ve already been in and out of it so many times. [00:27:53] I know how to handle that. I’m not worried about that. I just want to. How this happened, why it happened, the [00:28:00] way it happened, and what, what, what can I do? How can I, what’s going to happen from this happening? And so I came back from this Bible study, I opened this letter, and in the most mysterious, magical way of all I can ever explain, I wish to God this letter still existed, but it doesn’t. [00:28:26] But the, the victim’s mother, the man’s mother who became, who was the victim in my car accident, his mother had wrote me a letter, um, she probably got wind through the county or something that they finally, finally picked me up. For this, uh, charge and she, she wrote me a letter in her most beautiful way ever. [00:28:56] She wrote how she [00:29:00] stood with my mother at the bed, at my bedside, uh, praying for my survival in the hospital after a care flight Had brought me to the hospital one and a half hours after finding out about her only son’s. And I, you know, I can, I can say those words in that way. I could go back and reform them and say ’em in a better way. [00:29:26] But you, nobody will understand what that meant except for to me. Mm-hmm. Because that right there was Christ himself telling me that I was forgivable because she already had forgiveness for me. She forgave me that night, that early morning. She forgave me by standing with my mother, praying for my survival. [00:29:50] When I saw that, that was all I needed. That was all I needed in that moment. Now, I’m not gonna say I, you know, didn’t want more later, [00:30:00] but in that moment I was, I was, I was fully healed. I knew. I, right. Then I knew that I was definitely probably going back to prison and I was probably going for longer than I’ve ever been because this was more of a serious crime that I’ve ever had. [00:30:17] Mm-hmm. And, but I also knew that I was going to pick that God’s word up and go, go into prison the way it is in prison and walk with God. I knew from that moment because he spoke to me personally in that letter, he proved to me that I’m forgiv. And when I knew that, when I, when I, when I, when I knew that I was, I was so much better. [00:30:44] I was so much better. I ended up, um, even when I went to court, she was in my, on my side in the court. She had nothing condemning or demeaning to say about me whatsoever. [00:31:00] She, she, she knew that I had a. She knew that this wasn’t my first time. She knew all these things, but she also knew that her own son made his free will choice to ride with me, that I didn’t make him ride, and she just prayed for me. [00:31:19] And she knew. She knew that a light had flickered in my face and in my li in my. Mm-hmm. And she, she, and she, and she just, she had nothing, you know, to condemn me with. So when I went to court, the, the case, uh, became a little, it was started out with an F two, a felony, two, aggravated vehicle or homicide. Um, it then dropped down to an F three, same name of the charge. [00:31:48] The charge didn’t, the name didn’t drop, but the degree of the felony dropped to an F three. I faced five years at that point, and I got four, [00:32:00] and I had another small charge on top of it that got me 10 months. So four years and 10 months rather. Mm-hmm. And, uh, the whole thing I did was I, I decided, you know, after reading that letter that I already knew what prison was like and I knew that I was going in there. [00:32:21] Head up and follow Christ and and, and be a baby. I was a baby in Christ and I didn’t know, I didn’t know what that was gonna be like, but I knew how personal he was to me when he forgave, when he showed me that I was forgivable and that was all I needed to know. He gave me more than I needed to walk with him. [00:32:42] And when I went in, I wasn’t in for less than two months. And, uh, between the reception center and the parent institution that I went to, and the very first teaching that he gave me was that I [00:33:00] had to forgive because, so it was, it was just so beautiful how it worked out because he showed me in the county jail that I was forgiv. [00:33:12] And then the next major teaching, next vital principle that I had to learn is what? That I had to forgive. And I had no one, not anyone in the world or any, and I’ve lived in many states at that time. I hadn’t lived in that many states, but I have. I lived in a lot of places and been around a lot of crowds of people, but I didn’t have any forgiveness to give anybody. [00:33:37] I didn’t have unforgiveness for anybody except for my. And so it was clear to me who I owed, who I owed forgiveness. And when he gave that to me, when he delivered that acknowledgement to my heart, it was, it was so clear that unbelievable. Like [00:34:00] he, he finessed my heart to know this, that it had to be done. [00:34:04] I didn’t know how I was gonna, And then I collaborated with some, uh, other men in the prison that I was with who, who had. Gave their life to Christ and were walking in with the church and, and a Christian brother Fellowship. I gravitated towards guys like this and I was, you know, asking How do I do this? [00:34:24] And mm-hmm. And, and in the beginning it was just an amazing step that my heart knew that I had to, whether or not I ha, you know, I, I eventually made some action steps toward. I called him, I wrote him a letter. I didn’t get any of the replies that are flesh or are cardinal way. Once, like I didn’t get him sobbing like, oh, I’m so sorry. [00:34:47] No, he didn’t even know what he was forgive for. He really didn’t. But that and you know, a little piece of that was frustrating at the time. It didn’t matter [00:35:00] because what mattered is that God knew that I knew that he, that I needed to know that I had to do it because it was me. That it was freeing. It was me that was becoming loose from the captivity. [00:35:14] I was captive the whole time that I wasn’t forgiving him. And you know, scripture tells us to forgive as we’ve been forgiven, but it’s far more than just a text in, in scripture. There’s true healing in that, and he always knew there was. And so when I did that, or when my heart knew I had to do that and I did make whatever action steps I could towards it. [00:35:39] I just was able to start right then and go strong throughout my entire turn. I didn’t fall once. I mean, of course there was rocky roads and things like that, but I grew closer and closer and closer. I, I had a, I had a great job and one of the best jobs in the [00:36:00] camp that I was in. I went to Sunday service. [00:36:03] I went to Bible studies throughout the week. I had outside prison. Kairo Prison Ministries. Um, and I, I took a Jewish customs, a Bible college class. I just stayed busy. I stayed busy in God’s word, and I stayed busy with God’s children who also followed Christ. Mm-hmm. And that’s where I grew. And, I say this every time and I’ll, I’ll keep saying, But I had never been in a higher security prison than I had at that time. [00:36:38] And when people, when you hear that, some people say, oh, that must have been horrible. Yeah, it was actually better. It was better because I was in with people that were, most of them were never getting out because they were doing life bits. It was better to do. People do time with people like that, who want a piece, who [00:37:00] wants civility, who want calmness than it is in one of them, uh, medium or uh, minimum camps where it’s just a bunch of chaos all the time. [00:37:11] So I was blessed to be where I was and, and where I was going with that was in that four years and 10 months, I was freer more free than I had ever been anywhere p prior to that in my life because I had, true relationship, I had relationship with my mom. I, and my mom was with me the whole time. [00:37:35] I wrote, Uh, the lady who forgave me the whole time, we still to this day, just in January of this year, we had a phone call. I still say and talk contact with her. Things have just become so much better from one travesty turned into so many more blessings. There was so much more healing from that. [00:38:00] Um, there’s, and so that’s what I’ve done, uh, when I got out. [00:38:07] When I got out, it was in, uh, the heart of the recession. It was about almost 15 years ago, and it has been a lot of, uh, ups and downs since then. But one thing I found throughout this whole time is that, When I g, when I regularly go to church and I involve myself in the church and I do service work, I do all those things as much as I did when I drink. [00:38:38] You know what I mean? Mm-hmm. When I drink, I drink heavy. I consumed a lot, so when I go to church, I go to church to see what I can do in the church. I go to a counseling, discipleship training, or I’ll, I’ll go to, uh, small. We have small community groups Every week I do all these other things. I wanna [00:39:00] affiliate, I’ll bake for a women’s ministry that’s trying to help women who are. [00:39:08] Working jobs that are horribly worldly. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, every, every little thing I can do, this is what I do now, and I, I feel good when I do these things because I have my wits about me. I have my conscience, I have something to remember and I have God’s love. I have so much to talk about with God’s love His. [00:39:37] It is never, never ending. It’s just never ending. No. [00:39:41] Diana: Amen. Your story is so powerful and just the way that you were telling your story just sucked us all in, you know? And I’m sure that you are not alone. I am certain that there are guys out there and even [00:40:00] gals listening that can relate to what you have brilliantly told us about your journey and, gonna ask a few [00:40:11] follow up questions. I didn’t wanna interrupt you. You were on a roll and, I didn’t wanna break your concentration. I mentioned before we started that I’m a musician and you talked about music I know. [00:40:25] And how it was a lifeline to you. I wanted you to, Talk a little bit more about that. Were you, a musician, like you played an instrument? Or did you like to listen to music? [00:40:38] Doug : I really wished I could play lots of instruments. I’ve always wanted to be able to, I, I love the piano, I really do. [00:40:46] But, uh, I love a little bit about everything, about all instruments. I truly. But, uh, I never played nothing. I never settled myself with enough time to do so. I just listened. I just took things to heart and it [00:41:00] was my way of, venting or whatever. I didn’t have anyone to talk to. [00:41:03] I don’t know if I, I was clear on this. The way my home life was, I wanted my parents to divorce. You know, in the eighties, divorce was like a fad. It was getting so big and so everybody was doing it. Mm-hmm. And I remember kids at school really going through the muck and the mire and, a hard time in life because of their, you know, their. [00:41:29] But me on the contrary, I, I was praying for my mom and dad to divorce. I kept asking my mom, can we just, can you just leave him? And, but my mom, her home life growing up, her childhood was so much worse. It was just so much worse. And she, she was accepting. She was more accepting and not going to relinquish even what we. [00:41:57] Because she grew up with far worse than [00:42:00] what we were dealing with or what that time was like. And so she would never, give up, give that up. And, you know, she’s been gone for several years now, but I, since she’s been gone, I’ve grieved in different ways for her. I didn’t get to grieve at the time that she did pass because life was really messed up. [00:42:20] I was living in another, And I, it was an instant thing where I had to fly back and then fly right back there. So I, but in all these years, she’s been going for almost 12 years now and I’ve been learning so many re so many things about why she wouldn’t leave him and. Why we went through what we went through and seeing purpose and a little bit of everything. [00:42:48] And I never understood any of that. You know, back in my young days I didn’t really understand a lot of that. But so with, increase of age and years passing [00:43:00] by, I’m, I’m learning these things. So I forget where I was going with that. [00:43:05] Diana: Oh, we were talking about music. And yeah. Stuff. But, did you have particular kind that you liked that, that was helpful to you? [00:43:14] Doug : Well before? Yeah. I don’t even like to compare what I listen to now to what I used to listen to, what I used to be. I’ve always had an older mindset, you know, I’m 47 years old, but I, I feel like I should be almost 60 or 67 because. I’m more to that generation. I like old things. Yeah. I’ve always been that. [00:43:37] Even when I was young, I was like that. When I was young and dumb, it was a lot of old rock, uh, classic rock, stuff like that. But now I, I, I just, I only listened to Christian music. I only listened. But the variety is wide and op, wide open, contemporary to mm-hmm. Southern gospel, uh, [00:44:00] quartet music. [00:44:01] I’m so open. Uh, it’s like you can’t ask me what my favorite color is or my favorite food. I like everything. I really, yeah, I really do. [00:44:13] Diana: It’s a great gift that God’s given us is music. Yeah, the different Oh yeah. Sounds that we get and yeah, of course. I definitely have my favorite genres, but I have a very eclectic palette as well. [00:44:29] And my parents, they listen to a lot of different variety of stuff growing up. And so I grew up with a lot of the old stuff, like you said, and. I’m that way today, I predominantly like to do Christian music, but I am definitely, trying new things and music I’ve found as a huge healer. [00:44:53] It is. It reaches in places where you, you can’t be reached any other way. You can be reached [00:45:00] through music and God has done that for me. [00:45:03] Doug : I firmly believe scripture reveals to us that there will be music in our eternity. There really will. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And I think there always has been. [00:45:15] I really do. Absolutely. When we read the Psalms and we, and, you know, there’s, there’s music. Music has always existed. Mm-hmm. [00:45:24] Diana: Yeah, I can’t wait. I can’t wait to hear. But the heavenly choirs are like, and, and praising the Lord when we’re up there. No, uh, one thing you didn’t mention in your story, or maybe you didn’t get to that part yet, was, did you ever get married? [00:45:41] Doug : I never got married and I never had children. It’s kind of, it’s very odd. Uh, but right now I am. Definitely in love for real, uh, in, in ways that, uh, are incomparable to anything, any [00:46:00] relationship I’ve had in the past and I am with my partner, uh, is in full support of what I am setting out to do. Yeah, and we are going through premarital counseling right now with our church and hopefully it won’t be too long. [00:46:16] We haven’t set a date, we. My name got engaged yet, but, uh, we definitely know we want each other. She’s never been married and I’ve never been married and neither of us have had children, so. Mm-hmm. [00:46:30] Diana: And both did you guys meet church? [00:46:33] Doug : We met at a company that she’s been with for many years. [00:46:37] It was, uh, right after Covid. It was a job that I first picked up right after the covid started calming down. It was a very temporary job. It was in between jobs. It was that job to, to another one. And then I, so I met her there and I started taking her to my church and then we moved, [00:47:00] uh, where I moved down here to where she lives. [00:47:04] And we started, I went out, we both went out together and found a, uh, non-denominational church in our local area. And we love our church. We love our church so much. It’s not enormous. It’s not a big fancy church, but it’s got three campuses. It’s Christ and it’s all about unearned favor and unmerited grace. [00:47:27] And it is beautiful. And she comes from a Catholic background, but she is actually walking with me in this. And she is learning so much that she has never learned before. And it’s exciting. It really is. And like I said, we’re right now going to premarital counseling really. And yeah, so we, we want to do everything as, as. [00:47:53] The best way we can because we’ve not, neither one of us have ever done it. And we both have the same mindset as [00:48:00] once forever. It’s not mm-hmm. Not like the population we live in. You know what I mean? [00:48:05] Diana: Well, that’s good. You’re, like trying to do it the right way and I don’t hear very many people doing premarital counseling anymore. [00:48:15] I think it’s really helpful because you learn like communication skills. Your thought patterns and your partner’s thought patterns and, your past and melding them together and what not to do, and how to resolve conflict without drinking, you know, that kind of thing, or yelling. So a hats off to you guys. [00:48:40] I definitely wish you the best. Thank you, really hard to find a church that’s healthy and that you’re really, growing in. So I’m glad for you in that as well. [00:48:52] Doug : Yeah, the differences are definitely there. Like I said, my life, my childhood, Crazy, [00:49:00] chaos, painful, shameful, um, embarrassing. She had none of that. And then the life that I lived from that was full acceleration towards, um, death and hell and, and chaotic to no end. I. If, if I were to sit and give you the graphics of some of my, life stories, it would be horrible. [00:49:28] It would be sad. It would be like, how could you keep doing that? And, all that. Now she knows this about me, but she also knows who I am now from that, and she’s accepting, and so she reinforces me to do what I’m doing. She promotes. She’s, kind of enthralled by it. She encourages me cuz at times I’m new. I haven’t mentioned this yet, but, so I’ve become able to, have a website [00:50:00] built, and I’ve been working on for almost 10 months now. [00:50:04] It’s just recently launched. It’s called Breaking Bondage from Addiction and. What it is, it’s a small online business that I’m dedicated to empowering while leading men out of substance Abu addiction. And through this journey, find the freedom that God has always had for him. Um, so what I’m doing, this is a website that I want to start and build a community. [00:50:37] It’s a website that I have, a curriculum and I have content, and I have bonus content, and I have so many other things that I have plans with. But I want to build a community of men who know that they’re in addiction. They have been in an addiction, or even some men. [00:51:00] Who are strong, heavy users that don’t think they’re in addiction, but they kind of think they might be or they’re just not sure. [00:51:07] I just want, I wanna I, and I also want to be clear, and if you go on my website, you’re going to see a video that you can play, and I want to be clear. Way is not for everybody, and I know that, and I don’t want somebody who thinks it’s not for them. I want you to, mm-hmm. At least think it’s possibly for you or that you want to try anyways, just to see if it’s for you. [00:51:36] But I’m not going to do anything that the program and the secular organization that. [00:51:44] that. Yeah, your insurance is drained from Yeah, all the, 12 steps, the na, the aa, the, I can’t even remember all the names that [00:52:00] they have for ’em. addiction in essence is idolatry. And idolatry is anything or anyone that captures the heart, mind, and affections. More than God himself. And that can go off into anything that can go off into shoe buying every other day that can go off into needing to be the best at your job or whatever. [00:52:29] And and so alcohol and drugs is the addiction that I want to help men be freed from. And I want to take them through a journey that I. And the very first two principles to this curriculum. I’m, I keep saying the very first two, but I, I don’t know if I’m dead set on that or not, but I know they gotta be somewhere in the beginning was identifying the bondages. [00:52:54] Mm-hmm. Bondage in essence is a mastery. Uh, it’s a state of being [00:53:00] bound. It’s an enslavement. I was enslaved to embarrassment, to shame. To low self-esteem, to zero confidence. I had no courage. I had no direction. I had my mom who loved me, but everything that my father told me every day of my life, no matter what day of the week it was, all the way up until age 18, and even beyond I, I had no. [00:53:34] So my bondage was, my state of being found was no worth. I internalized that and I had, I was unavailable, uh, to succeed at anything because I had, it had been in my, communicated to me so long and so, So in order for me to feel better about that, I resorted to [00:54:00] the wrong choice of alcohol. [00:54:02] So the addiction was built from how I felt, I suppressed how I felt with the alcohol. The alcohol got larger and larger and more and more. Creating the addiction. So identifying the bondages and working through those, likewise and almost right there at the exact same time. I think the second one has to be forgiveness and seeing yourself as forgiven. [00:54:29] Um, I’m willing to safely believe in my heart of hearts that there’s probably not an active addict anywhere around that doesn’t. Some form of unforgiveness. Mm-hmm. Someone is, I, I’ve never met, I’ve been in many states in many places, in many jails, in many hospitals, and I’ve been around alcoholics for many years and I don’t remember ever meeting one alcoholic that [00:55:00] never, that was free from any type of unforgiveness. [00:55:05] There’s somebody has always got some unforgiveness and we have to figure that. And it’s hard. It’s hard, but when your heart finds it out and, and there’s true healing, like I said, it’s not just text and scripture. There’s a meaning behind that. Mm-hmm. It’s true, true healing. And when you can be healed and freed from that, you have nowhere but up to go. [00:55:31] And that’s what I want to do. I wanna welcome men, who wanted to just give it a try and, make a small investment to themselves and, and see what I offer. Can be helpful to see if a community of like-minded people can help each other. And see where service and doing things and being that that iron that sharpens another iron can be [00:56:00] gratifying in your own confidence, in your own self-esteem. [00:56:02] Diana: This is, a valuable service that you provide walking alongside people that have, are going through the same things that you went through. [00:56:15] And you have to have community when you are getting out of this stuff or you’re not gonna make it if you don’t have community. Uh, right as you said, you have to be accountable to somebody. Some people like AA or Narcan on or whatever, but you have to have community. And we do this with, abuse survivors. [00:56:41] I have a community, mending the soul, and we meet, in small groups. And, I am not a shrink or a psychiatrist or a therapist, but I have been through what they have gone through. Right. And we walk alongside of them and we bond very [00:57:00] heavily because Right. A therapist has a different role than, somebody’s walking alongside you and getting you through that tough time of how am I gonna survive, outside of prison or without liquor, or without my addictions, or fill in the blank. [00:57:17] Right? Right, right. Tell the folks, where they can find your website again and, Any closing thoughts you wanna tell the guys today? [00:57:30] Doug : so my website is all together, all lowercase, breaking bondage from addiction dot com and, I have a free PDF on there, a reference for Unchanging Hope that you can click to download. [00:57:46] I also have a personal video on there because I have a lot of text in my website. I have a lot of my, my story, my about page, other landing pages. There’s a lot of texts and I know, Just [00:58:00] sobering up or just coming out of, consumption of drugs and alcohol that a lot of literature is not comfortable. [00:58:08] So I just implore you to watch my video. It’s about three minutes long, I think. Three or four minutes maybe. And, most of all, I want to ask or just if you have any interest. If you have no interest. Listen to anything I’m saying, but if you have any interest, I want to ask that you’ll schedule a free Zoom call that I’m not even going to bound by time. [00:58:32] I’ll talk with you as long as you want. I have like a 14 plus hour window open, probably six and a half days a week. So you just schedule a call with me and you can ask me anything you want. You can find out what we plan to, what I plan to offer. And you can tell me what you want and see what I can build. [00:58:53] But, I also know that. There’s a lot of shame that comes from addiction. I think if I were to [00:59:00] open myself up to the world about all the things that I did in my addiction, I would still be shameful. Even though I’ve been forgiven, even though I have lived so, so much better since then. [00:59:13] I would still be shame ashamed by it. So I understand what that’s like and therefore, As I say that, I also want you to know that I am open to one-on-one. I want to do one-on-one until you’re comfortable. Eventually, I would like everybody in a community, and I believe I will probably have a community and some one-on-one, so that’s gonna be fine. [00:59:37] I just want to build your trust. I want to know that I can deliver what you. And therefore, that’s my desire. I know that God himself has saved me from. Unrealistic things in my life more times than I can ever put a number on. [01:00:00] And this has been my opportunity to see where this goes. And he is the successor of all of it, not me. [01:00:08] I’m just his tool. I’m just his instrument. And that’s where that is. So, If you, are interested. Thank you. Thank you for your interest and just follow through. Schedule a call with me. [01:00:21] Diana: Love it. This has been awesome. So glad you came on the show and shared your powerful story, and I hope you’ll keep in touch and send me a wedding picture. [01:00:34] Doug : Yeah, that would be nice. Absolutely. I’m sure there’ll be more than I can imagine. [01:00:41] Diana: And, God bless you in your journey from here. [01:00:44] Doug : Amen. Yes. Thank you so much, Diana. [01:00:48] Diana: Thanks for being on the show. [01:00:50] Thank you for listening to the Wounds of the Faithful Podcast. If this episode has been helpful to you, please hit the subscribe button and tell [01:01:00] a friend. You could connect with us at DSW Ministries dot org where you’ll find our blog, along with our Facebook, Twitter, and our YouTube channel Lakes. Hope to see you next week.