Latest / No Time to Waste Podcast - w Marcus Murray / Silencing the Lion of Addiction an interview w Sam & Noel Borgia

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Silencing the Lion of Addiction an interview w Sam & Noel Borgia · No Time to Waste Podcast - w Marcus Murray

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: I just want to welcome you out to an extraordinary uh episode today, to the No Time to Waste Podcast Studio.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm your guide, Marcus Murray.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm so excited about the authors that we have with us this afternoon.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: And it's so incredible because you've heard me talk about their story.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: And it has been so amazing just trying to get an opportunity to actually have them in the studio.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm just uh excited to be able to welcome the world uh to find out about the incredible book, which is called Silence the Lion.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: And this is available wherever books are sold.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: So on Amazon and all of the platforms that you can buy books, and it's so absolutely incredible.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: This book is Waging War on Addiction and Winning, and it's by Noelle Borgia.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it's so incredible.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: You literally need to tell everybody you know to tune in, take a listen to this.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: I believe this book is going to be the game changer for so many people across the country.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: For once and for all, we get an opportunity to learn the mindset, the techniques, and the strategies to actually overcoming addiction.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: With that being said, we're gonna break it on down, but I want to first start by introducing our guests.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: We'll start by talking about Sam.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Sam or Salvatore and Noel Borgia were married in 2015.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: They're uh residents of Michigan.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: They have beautiful daughters, Valentina and Liliana.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: They're a wonderful Christian family, and together they've been able to spend a great deal of time changing the lives of others all around the United States.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: As a wife and mother, Noelle enjoys caring for her family, her household, and homemaking.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: And she's actually a 2003 Wayne State University grad holding a Bachelor's of Arts with a double major in Italian and language literature, as well as international studies.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: In 2024, a graduate of the Oakland Church School of Ministry, Noelle studied piano music for decades.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: She's been a piano and vocal coach instructor, a versatile uh piano and vocalist, an amazing entertainer throughout Metropolitan Detroit and in various parts of the country.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: And inspired by Sam's experience, Noelle and Sam now run an amazing ministry called Shattered Mirror Ministries.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: And together they're working to empower those struggling with substance abuse problems and addictions and to see the same freedom from addiction that Sam has recognized and realized once he identified his true identity in Christ.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm so excited to have them on board.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: I do not want to delay another moment.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I just want to say, welcome, welcome, welcome.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for having us, Marcus.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's our honor and a great privilege.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, we are yes, we are so very, very excited to have you here.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: And what I would like you to do, who wants to begin?
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe we should open by having um who wants to go first.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let's hear about it from you, Sam.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: What was life like?
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: I know your journey, obviously, you know, our listeners are typically those that are over the age of 44, looking at life, trying to figure out where to go from here, realizing that they may have more years behind them than ahead of them, but yet making the decision, I'm going to go through radical transformation, self-development, personal improvement, things of that nature.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: And yet they could be battling with addiction, like so many people.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want to share your story?
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_02: And that's so true, Marcus.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, so many people are battling addiction, maybe in secret, you know, and and trying to hide um the monster that it's turned into.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, maybe it it starts, you know, so innocent.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um, with me, it started with a motorcycle accident.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_02: I was in my young 20s and uh developed a severe pain medicine addiction, which led into uh street drugs and you know, pretty much anything to mask or hide the pain.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um I was a bachelor most of my life until I met Noelle.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um I was 35 years old, and uh I always say God sent me an angel when when I met Noelle.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_02: And um I I truly didn't have plans to ever be married or have a family.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_02: I just thought, you know, for myself, this is it, I'm gonna live a bachelor life, you know.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_02: I always worked a lot, I worked hard, um I've been cooking since I was eleven years old.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_02: So uh when I met Noelle, uh you know, people always say, when you know, you know.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_02: And from the moment I met Noelle, I knew that I wanted her to be my wife, I wanted to make a family, um, I wanted to live the rest of my life with her.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um unfortunately, you know, that addiction lingers on.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_02: You know, there's no no way to just shut it down and put all that behind you when you're so embodied with that addiction, you know, and as much as I tried to hide it and and you know, try to mask it, um, you know, I was used to just living alone for for all my life pretty much.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I moved out when I was seventeen, you know, and uh wasn't wasn't that I I wouldn't say I wasn't ready to have a family, but I I wasn't ready to leave my old life and start the new life.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_02: Even even as much as I wanted to.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_02: Uh addiction would never, you know, let me do that.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_02: And um uh unfortunately that came to a head in in 2018 after, you know, multiple tries and rehabs and inpatient and outpatient and uh psychologist and AA meetings, NA meetings.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_02: I mean I really really tried it all.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um and and it got to a point and this is all in the book, but it got to a point where I I just didn't want to live this way no more.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and I say that not in a good way.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't want to live anymore.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_02: I was ready just to just to call it quits.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_02: Uh didn't want to hurt nobody.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_02: I was tired of lying.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_02: I was tired of living in limbo of who the Lord saw that I was gonna be and who I thought I would never be, you know.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and that's what addiction does to you.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_02: It'll just lie to you, it'll cheat, it'll it'll make you into a person that you don't recognize anymore.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um you'll look in the mirror and you have no idea who's staring back at you.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: So fast forward, I I well before you fast forward, before you fast forward, I have to ask a question.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: There are so many people, there are so many people that are actually stuck in that position where they um feel that that feeling of it sounded like you were talking about a feeling of hopelessness and a feeling of helplessness.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: And there are people that are listening to us right now that are battling that exact same feeling.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: And what the purpose of the podcast is is to remind people that you can, you can overcome, that you're not doomed.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: So when you had those feelings, like there was no reason for living, how were you managing that?
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so you were married at that time?
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, uh I got married in uh well in 2015.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_02: And uh during that whole time, um I was on basically a a masking drug, you know.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_02: Uh uh doctors prescribed me a drug called Suboxan, which uh basically lets you live your life, you know, uh without having to basically go into withdrawal, you know, and it's for a short term thing.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_02: And uh the the thing is with that is nothing's short term.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_02: That developed, you know, I I was probably on that medicine for five years, and the nature of that beast was way worse than the original addiction that I had.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_02: So you're just basically trading one thing for, you know, uh even even worse uh addiction and you don't realize it.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_02: And unfortunately there's a lot of people out there right now that are on that and think that that's okay and that's just their life, and that's that's exactly what the doctors told me.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_02: They said, you know, just like a diabetic, you have to take medicine every single day.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_02: And it wasn't until uh Noelle and I, you know, we we decided, hey, this this medicine is not good for me.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_02: I live in a fog, like nothing's real to me, and I wanted to get off.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_02: And that started the snowball of you know, the whole the whole hospital thing for me and and you know, eventually to attempted suicide because it was just so bad and it was like uh you know I mean we talk about being in chains and being in bondage.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: I mean that's exactly how it feels.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_02: I mean you're just in your own prison cell and there's nothing that you can do about it.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: And Noelle, how were you navigating during that period?
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: And what what uh how could you see through that?
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: What just take us back?
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: Well, like Sam said, when I initially met him, you know, I was um a divorced young mother with two children.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: So I was looking, you know, for a fresh start.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: And Sam actually just showed up at my door one day.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: So we kind of felt like there was some divine intervention involved, you know, it was the middle of a snowstorm.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: And um, when we did start our relationship very slowly, um one of our the first things we did was go to church.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: So uh, you know, I knew that Sam wasn't quite as far along in his walk of faith as I was, but he just had this beautiful childlike faith to discover what the Lord had in store for us.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: So over the course of 10 months, we met, we were engaged and we were married 10 months later.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: And the thing is, is that we thought we were building our marriage and our foundation on the word of God and what he had in store for us.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: And we were so anxious to see his plan for us flourish, you know.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: But it became evident rather quickly.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, even as early as the honeymoon, that there's something wasn't quite adding up with Sam.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I didn't really know anything about his past.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: He didn't really disclose anything to me other than he had been in a motorcycle accident and I knew he took this little pill called Savoxin, but I didn't know about any sort of addiction or anything.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: All I knew was that he had pain after he came home from work at the end of the day.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so fast forward over the course of two and a half years, um, it just was like a snowball effect.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: You know, at first, I mean, he his personality was different.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: Like the person that I thought I was married and the person that he very quickly became, they were so far removed from each other that you couldn't even reconcile that they were the same person.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like I just kept asking myself, like, who did I even marry?
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: Do I even know the person I'm marrying?
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: And very shortly thereafter that, like Sam described, you know, it was way beyond the Savoxin that he was taking there was alcohol involved, and then it turned into pills, um, disappearances until it finally came about two years into our marriage that he was actively using heroin, um, crack, cocaine, and it just continued to spiral there.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: Now, all along we went to church, and I could see inside of Sam's being that he didn't want to hurt us this way.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: And he, I knew that he could sense that he wasn't the person that he wanted to be, and this wasn't the person, the man that he promised to me.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: But he just, it just seemed like he didn't know quite how to get there.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: So he was just like continually spinning his wheels.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: We would take a few steps forward and a few steps back, and you know, he'd go to church, and then the next day he'd be in bed for two days or withdrawing or whatever.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but all along he was chasing after the Lord, and I was chasing after the Lord.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: But the closer it seemed that he got to, you know, aligning his life with what the Lord had in store for him, it just seemed like the enemy just would not let that happen until, like I said, it finally came to a point um in March of 2018 when he tried to end his life.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um But I just all that time I believed that this was not the plan that God had for us.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: I stood on my faith, I prayed, and I just kept saying, you know, Lord, this this can't be the end of it.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: You you have to do something.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: And now by this time, you know, things had come out, like you said, uh, Sam, that he had tried all these uh rehab programs.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, dozens of rehab programs, you know, inpatient, outpatient, psychiatrist, every group meeting, church meeting.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: He had gotten baptized, but then it came out.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: He had criminal history, he had felonies, he had gone to boot camps, he went to jail.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: And all this time I'm thinking to myself, okay, I have no idea who I man, uh who the man I'm married to.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: You know, he hasn't been truthful to me about a single thing at any point along the way.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I just keep, it's just like bombs that just kept going off in our life.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: But I don't know what it was.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: I believe that the Lord just planted this seed of love inside of me because there really, I mean, from the outside, there really there was nothing, I hate to say it, but there was nothing to love about him.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: It was just, it became almost like a liability.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what's he gonna bring into our life now to destroy it?
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: But I still felt this conviction that the Lord sent me this man, he brought us together, he is going to see this relationship through, he is going to allow us to uh flourish and prosper.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: But as it kind of wound down towards the end, where it eventually happened that um Sam overdosed, and then three months later, um, he tried to end his own life with a massive overdose, it just the prospect kept getting slimmer and slimmer.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yet still, I believed until you know when he woke up in the hospital, um, basically he had died several times.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: They had to revive him, and he had a 5% chance to live.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: Now, by this time, go ahead, go ahead, Martin.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: No, I was gonna ask.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: So during all of this, yes, um, people that know you in the community, and we've talked about this, absolutely no one knew the magnitude of what you were going through.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: And through it all, as um a wife, and I and I've been married 31 years, and I know what a Proverbs 31 woman, I know what that means.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: She she builds her house up and she doesn't tear it down.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm wondering what was the mindset because there are people that are listening in, that are battling with things, and the moment something is bad or something is wrong or something seems out of place, they're ready to abandon the ship.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: What was it that caused you to see more than what your eyes were revealing?
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: I just think it's like I said, as a result of this seed that the Lord planted so deeply inside of me to, and I've always been like, you know, we're Italian, we're kind of loud.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: My parents always raised me to be this strong woman.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, looking back, a lot of people would, you know, kind of said, well, you know, why didn't you reach out for help?
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we could have helped you through it.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: But, you know, when you're navigating something so catastrophic, when you're in that dark pit of despair, I almost felt like, and and I describe it in the book, you know, to bring other people into the into the fire with you is almost like, you know, they're gonna get burned too.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: So I just kept saying, I'm just gonna wait on you, Lord.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I literally, that my only trust and my only hope was in him.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: But then now that I look back at it, I really feel like maybe that was part of the miracle.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like I didn't put my hope in anything else because I knew as the time went on, all these little things that we tried that I got my hopes up, they were just crushed instantly.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we were back right where we started.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: Our only hope and our only resort was the Lord.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I and I do say this that I feel like if you ever come to a place or a season in your life, when you get to the point where there are no other options, there's nothing the world offers is going to work.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: When you get to that place where you can say, Lord, if you don't do this, if you don't heal him, he's going to die.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: If you get to that point where he's your only resort, I truly feel like that's how faith is birthed.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: Because, you know, to know that uh it's just I I don't understand, I don't know how else to describe it, but I really feel like it unlocks a level of faith in you to see beyond what is in in front of your eyes.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I'm saying?
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: Because that's it.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: I trust in you, Lord, my hand's in your hand, and and I and I know you got me.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: That is so incredible.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: And now what has transpired as a result of this by just sharing your story, yes, it's it's it's it's actually changing lives all around the United States and in different parts of the world.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we had the opportunity, Ladonna and I, to be at your book signing.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, and we were able to see the lives of people that you guys have touched and the impact that it's had, just them hearing about the breakthrough that you've experienced.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: And and so share with us a little about um what's been the most incredible thing on this journey since you wrote this amazing book called Silence the Lion.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to ask you some questions about this book.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: But what's been the most amazing thing that has happened since the book has been written?
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, well, you know, I never a lot of times people have these goals, and even on your podcast, I know you encourage people to follow their passions.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: There's no time to waste.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: But um, being an author or writing a book was never something on my bucket list, not never something I even dreamed of.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: But as I went through ministry school, um I had shared a brief testimony with the class, like a three-page paper.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, we just have been continually sharing our story all along.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: And people have been so blown away and their faith has been so increased by what the Lord has done in our lives, and it helps to see what he is capable and able and wants to do in their lives.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I just had this sensation, you know, from the Holy Spirit, I believe, write the book, write the book.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: So that was our main concern and what the Lord assigned me was write the book and get it into as many hands as possible.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: From there, you know, everybody wants, you know, is writing books nowadays and self-publishing or indie publishing, whatever their route is.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: But miraculously, with no platform, no following, you know, no background in writing, I got a traditional publishing contract with this book assigned to publicists that has booked us interviews, TV, radio podcasts all around the world.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I've not, I've always, I've often shied away from social media just because I don't like, you know, to put myself out there in the spotlight, but I've realized what a blessing it has been, even like for you, Marcus, with this podcast.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: The Lord gives us this, all this technology at our disposal.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: And once he got me on that trajectory, we're able to share what the Lord has done in to the four corners of the earth, right?
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: So we're sending books out, we're we're sending physical copies to prisons.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: We just got the e-version of our book on um over one million prisoner tablets in 1200 jails across the country.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: So it's just been like all I did was say, yes, Lord, I'm gonna write the book, I'm gonna share our story.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: And now, you know, it's in the we're in the process of sowing the seeds out there and waiting for the harvest, you know, because we just published in August.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: But it's just been everything, every step along the journey has been nothing short of miraculous.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: What is amazing about this book, Silence the Lion, and I'm going to actually let's see if I can show the book this way one moment.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'll put it right here so that it's a little easier to see it.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: But what's amazing about this book is it's not a little book, it's a it's a very detailed breakdown.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: And how many pages are in this book?
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I think like 309.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: And what is amazing about it, the thing that actually blew my socks off as I was watching and reading is that this particular book it chronicles all the details of the entire journal.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: And then it tells the breakthrough that you experienced at the end as a result of defeating the lion of addiction.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: So would you share with our listeners just some of the transformative blessings?
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: Because I notice as I'm looking at Sam, Sam, you actually are in a very fancy outfit.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: You don't look like a guy that God has given life multiple times, uh, that that battled with any type of addiction.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna tell the viewers what you're like 21 years old.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: How old are you?
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: You're 46 years old, and after the the the win of battling and silencing this lion, what did God do for you?
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, look, uh, our God is the ultimate restorer.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, as soon as I I gave it all to God, and I, you know, I started just not using the Lord as the last resort, just using him as as for everything.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_02: He's my first resort.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_02: Go to him for everything.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_02: I got a little problem here, I go to the Lord, you know.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_02: And as soon as I started doing that and and following the path that he had already laid out for me, it was it was just up to me.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_02: And that's that's pretty much for everybody.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_02: I I'm you know, I'm just a guy that you know went through went through a lot, and at this point, I'm just uh I'm sharing my scars to help others heal.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_02: And I feel like I feel like you know, we're all meant to do something in life, you know.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_02: We we all have a special gift.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I'm I'm a chef, you know, I love to be around food.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_02: It is a very high demanding, high stress job, but I it's like a different person now, you know.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_02: When the last last eight years when I've been, you know, in the position that I'm in now, which you know the the Lord opens the doors, you know, and I went from cooking, you know, in in a little hot kitchen and working 78 hours a week to being a corporate executive chef overseeing multiple properties and multiple chefs.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: Amazing, you know, and do you know what that tells us?
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: That actually bears truth to one of the tenets of our podcast, which is that God uses every hurt, every, as you mentioned, every scar, every blemish, every bruise, every setback, every tragedy, every thing that God has allowed to happen in our lives.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: He uses all of that for not just his glory, but ultimately for our benefit.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: So, what you have now been able to do, you and Noelle, you've been able to take a journey of most people couldn't have handled it, right?
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: What you went through, Noelle, the majority of people could not handle that.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: And they would not have been able to carry that load.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: You were actually selected because you can see that God knew you had the ability to carry the load so that the story of the transformation could be told.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: Now I believe everyone listening and everyone that tunes in, we all have an obligation to get this book into the hands of people that need it.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: We can't take this lightly.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know what happens, there is a saying that when we know better, we do better.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: Now, now I just want your feedback, Noelle, on this concept because you guys are familiar with AA and you're familiar with the big book.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: AA actually made um the understanding of addiction, they made it valid.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: They actually validated the concept that addiction is actually a challenge.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's a real thing, it's not just a choice that people are making.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: But in this book and through Shattered Mirror Ministries, what you guys have done is you've gone a step further and you did not stop at people just being identified as addicts.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: You're you're taking them through the process of deliverance, and that is what's so amazing.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: As I'm sitting here and I'm talking to people every single day about transformation and and restarting their lives and becoming all that God has given them to be.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: And and but but there are people that are still trapped because they're dealing with addictions, not merely, not only rather drug addiction.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: Some people are dealing with pornography addiction, um, uh social media addiction, food addiction.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: They're dealing with um all other kinds of vices, and they're addicted and they don't know how what to do.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: And do they have the um same feelings of shame and uh personal disappointment and um different things like that?
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: Is that the same or is it something different?
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely, Marcus, and and you're so right, the Lord doesn't waste anything at all.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um I've been so blessed, and I have open door policies, so everybody in my marketplace knows that they can come talk to me about anything.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_02: And I get that a lot.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm gonna tell you right now, there is no difference between drug addiction, pornography addiction, gambling addiction, food addiction.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_02: It all does the same thing.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_02: It destroys who you are, it instruc it destroys you to the core and changes the way you think, the way you talk, the way you look at things, the way that you love, the way that you hurt.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_02: I mean it changes everything about you.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_02: That's an addiction.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_02: So there there's no difference.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_02: Uh in in my eyes, and I've been through it all, um because I see the pain in people's eyes.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_02: I see the pain when they just can't put their phone down and they can't stop looking at their pornography, even though they have a beautiful marriage, kids, beautiful job.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_02: It it cuts you to your core and it changes who you are.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_02: So that in my eyes, there's no difference.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, people can downplay things, you know, but if it if it stops you from being who you're supposed to be, and it puts you in bondage and it puts you in in in shackles, that's an addiction.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: So in reality, each and every person, we've all been called to do something.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: And just because we're over the age of 44 and beyond, it doesn't mean that you've missed it.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: As we're seeing right now through your lives, Noelle, we're seeing that God is not a God where you're uh being forced to start over.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: He just puts you in a position so that you can start again, that you can actually the God will pick up the pieces of the shattered mirror, right?
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: He'll actually put those pieces back together and he'll use it for his glory as evidenced by what he's doing in your life.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: So for the listeners, the people that are feeling like whatever the addiction is they're dealing with is so great, they don't know how to break out of it.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: And they've been, some people have been told that once you're this, they put a label on them.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: This is how you identify yourself.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, my name is John, and I am a recovering pornography addict, or I'm a recovering food addict, or whatever it may be.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: Is that so you're saying that it is possible to be freed, totally delivered, so that you can now be identified by your purpose versus your pain?
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_01: That's what we like to say.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know, a label may be what explains you, but it's not what defines you.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_01: And we don't like to attach any labels to our names that the Lord didn't write for us because, you know, addiction or whatever it is, pornography addiction, sexual addiction, you know, drug addiction, alcohol addiction, it may be something that you struggle with, but it's not who you are.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: But if you can, that's kind of the significance of the cover of our book, what you have in your hand.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: So the lion on the cover represents Satan embodied in the form of addiction.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: So when you are struggling with these addictions, you look at yourself in the mirror and you only see the lion staring back at you because it strips all the parts of your identity identity away that you have held true about yourself.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: So, like when Sam, you know, would look in the mirror when he was struggling with addiction, he would look at himself and say, I'm a failure, I'm an addict, I'm a junkie, I'm a criminal, I'm never gonna get clean.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: And eventually I'm better off dead, you know.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: And then me, as the loved one of the addict, you you begin to question, why doesn't my husband love me?
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: Am I not pretty enough?
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not, I'm not young enough, I'm not good enough.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_01: That's what the enemy likes, all the lies the the enemy likes to uh write over your life and define you as.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: And even our ministry, shattered mirror ministries, represents destroying the image the enemy has sold you and seeing yourself as a child of God.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: Because what would happen if you allowed God to define you, if you were able to lift your vision to see the way he defined you, to see yourself, you know, like he sees you, you know, what would that look like in your role as a parent, as a child, as a coworker, as an employee, as a boss?
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: It gives you a higher perspective and a higher lens to view yourself through, the lens of scripture, a biblical perspective.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: And it allows you, it gives you power and authority to rewrite everything you thought you knew about yourself and defy all the odds of the world.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's just when you are able to tap into that raised expectation and that higher vision and that bold faith, that's how healing and deliverance are birthed.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_01: That's what we truly believe.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: And that's kind of our motto is you know, people will tell you that you have to spend a lifetime in recovery, but that has not been the case for us.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like once we aligned ourselves, once Sam aligned himself with what the Lord's vision and plan and purpose for his life was, it was like he'll describe, like a smooth shot straight to the top, like getting on a newly paved highway, hand street.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: Now, not to say that you're not going to have problems and things along the way, but you know who you can go to.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: But it's not stretching recovery out as this label and oh, I'm an addict, and 25 years later, I'm still an addict.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_01: That's not what we saw.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_01: The Lord, I don't believe, wants you to spend the rest of your life in recovering from whatever substance you are.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_01: And we know that all addictions are basically the antithesis of your of your podcast.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_01: No time to waste, Marcus, right?
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: Addictions are the thief of time because they want you to get in that vortex where all your time is spent, all of your energy is spent on feeding that addiction and not being able to fulfill what God's purpose is for your life.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, that is so good.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: My goodness.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: You that's a mic drop moment right there.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: So the purpose of the addiction is to keep you so off purpose, yes, so off focus and off-tast to just keep you distracted.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, exactly.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: That is incredible.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: I have to ask you, Noelle, where can, for example, we own a company and we when we went to your book signing, we had to buy a case of the books because it just made sense.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: It it absolutely made sense.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: You you know when you've been put in a position of influence, you have to have the tools to share with people that need to be freed.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: And when we heard the details of Sam's journey and the power in this book and how it connects to journaling, you actually journal journaled the whole history of the whole experience.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: I said to my wife Ladonna, I said, Babe, we've got to get a case of these books.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody needs to have one.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: So if there are companies that want to purchase books, how do they make a purchase?
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: Because I believe if we think about this, look at our highest producing and highest most productive employees.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: If we take a look at them, everybody is connected to someone that is struggling with addiction.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: And as a result of that connection, it actually impairs their productivity.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: So if we could put the tool in everyone's hand, then now they would have the equipment necessary to destroy the lion of addiction.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: So, how can a company get some of these books?
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I need to know.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then how can the rest of us get books?
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you can go to our website, www.shattered mirror ministries.com, and it has links to all the ways that you can purchase books.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's available on Amazon, Barnes and Numble, wherever books are sold.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_01: But actually, through the ministry, um, we have ministry pricing.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_01: So if a company would choose to make a donation, we are a 501c3 nonprofit, fully tax exempt, and we'd be happy to ship a case of books anywhere in the US or the world, actually.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, that is so beautiful.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: And then um I I just I never even got to any of the questions.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: I actually sent you probably 15 questions that that we wanted to ask you, but the story is so compelling, you're gonna have to come back to answer some questions.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, we will, we will have to be at work this time.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sorry about the background noise for your for your listeners.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: No, absolutely perfect.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_00: It just shows us that God has taken you to amazing places.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and this is only the beginning.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I just want you two to know that you are the embodiment of what we're talking about each and every day.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: You did not let anything define you.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_00: You made a decision that you would allow whatever had happened in your life to become a testimony of God's greatness, and now you're living on purpose.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so proud of your transformation and so proud of the inspiration that you've shared with us all.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: So, we're going to close by acknowledging our sponsor, uh, CareMichigan, that is a Michigan-based company that specializes in assisting those that have been severely injured in motor vehicle accidents.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_00: So, if you or anyone you know has been severely injured in an accident, please reach out to CareMichigan and let them know that you heard about them on the No Time to Waste podcast.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_00: You can reach them at www.caremichigan.com.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: And as usual, what we say to you each and every day that we end the podcast, make certain to go forward and seize the day.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Noelle, and thank you, Sam.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for having us, Marcus.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_02: Marcus, thank you for everything you do, man.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_02: We love you.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, you're the best.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.