Latest / Voices for Voices® / I Lost Everything to Addiction, Then I Found God | Episode 140

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I Lost Everything to Addiction, Then I Found God | Episode 140 · Voices for Voices®

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: I am your host, founder and executive director of Voices for Voices, justin Allen Hayes.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Voices for Voices show is the number one ranked TV show and podcast where people turn to for expert mental health recovery and career advancement intelligence.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Mental health recovery and career advancement intelligence.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Our show is all about teaching you insanely actionable techniques to help you prosper, grow yourself, your self-worth and your personal brand.
• 0:36
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• 0:53
  Speaker 1: As you can see, our show publishes episodes each week that focus on case studies, real-life examples, actionable tips and in-the-trenches reports and interviews from subscribers just like you.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: If that sounds like something that could help you grow personally or professionally, then make sure to join me today by subscribing Today's episode, as all our episodes are very impactful, very, very deep and very relevant to, as we mentioned at the outset, you know the mental health recovery, career advancement and really want to bring those stories to you the video and audio with our show.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: So our guest today in studio is Don Mattis Jr.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: Some may recognize him.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: His brand.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: Part of his brand is called Stoned on Happiness, so not talking about stoned on marijuana and substances, but wanting to be actually so deeply involved with recovery and to be happy.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: As we know, there's so much divisiveness in the world today.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: Don and his good friend, monica came into the Voices for Voices family really a couple years ago and we've stayed in touch.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: We had Don on an episode when we were back in the audio studio and he and Monica are doing great work and just want people to be happy and dovetailing that into recovery.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: As we know, as you know, as our viewers, our listeners, I'm still in active recovery.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: It's not a one day you wake up and it's all healed.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: It's an everyday thing that we have to have to work with and to deal with, and so Don has 38 years plus in sobriety, which is just absolutely amazing.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: So we'll introduce Don and start our conversation.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: Don, thanks for joining us on the show.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: Thank you for all your hard work and your encouragement Absolutely, and I'm very proud of you being sober.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: Thank you For our listeners and our viewers who don't know you.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: Can you go a little bit back at the rewind button in your life, kind of prior to the 38 years of what was going on in Don's life, and then we can work our way, kind of chronologically, a little bit into what will end up being our second episode, which the advocacy and all the great work that you're doing.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: So we can kind of hit it on on two levels.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: So please be so the deal is I was for 17 years I was an alcoholic drug addict.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: Matter of fact, this is alumni school for me, hudson high, and I'm so blessed to be sober on from all the drugs and alcohol and the crazy, foolish things I have done.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: You know how it is you can't make great decisions when you're high and drunk.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: I went to jail, I've been divorced, lost my kid through a custody battle, went through all kinds of trials and tribulations, and I remember when I used to party I'd be so high I'd beg Jesus and say, please, god, I will not drink again.
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: Of course I was lying because I was so desperate.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so you want me to talk about my conversion.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, if you can work your way up to the conversion and that experience.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: I think you were in texas where, yeah so it's a long story, but simply I was married at the time and I was living at country countrywood apartments in houston, texas, on the west side, and I had a little painting business going on.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: I hired this guy named joel and previous to that I uh sent my wife ex-wife or wife at the time, crystal back home to Hudson and I remained down in the one-bedroom apartment and this guy Joel he was a cocaine dealer.
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: I found out.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: He invited me to his party and I was still partying, actively getting high and stoned.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: He goes this will be great if you come over, your wife is gone, I'll set you up for some ladies, I'll set you up with the alcohol and drugs.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: So I went over there and it was a friday and I remember at this moment that there were the drugs.
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: There were the drugs, the coke, the drinks, the ladies, just me and him and my alcoholic mind and drug addict mind goes.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is great.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: You know you could cheat on the old lady and all this and you know, get all your passions.
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: Live the high life with no God in my life at the time.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: So it was really strange.
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: I only drank like a few beers.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: I don't know what happened.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: I really don't understand to this day how I just went there, because I used to drink around the clock.
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: You know how an addicts are.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: We don't have a stop button, so I don't know.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: I said I gotta go home.
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: So I went home.
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: It was like I don't know 11, 12, whatever time it was.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: And I got up the next morning and I remember in the rocking chair I was smoking Marlboro cigarettes.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: Love the smoke that goes with the drugs and alcohol.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: So I was smoking a cigarette in this rocking chair.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: I was rocking back and forth and there was this gold-tinted ashtray I found in the trash and I was smoking and all of a sudden I bent down to put in the ashtray the cigarette and I got back up and it was like the Blessed Mother spoke to me.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: It's like it wasn't her voice.
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: It's hard to explain.
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: It's like turning on a TV and seeing it happening.
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: She said my son go to the church and get a Most Holy Rosary.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: So I said I was in ecstasy and this was two and a half days before the space shuttle blew up.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: Okay, yeah.
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: So I walked to St John Vianney's church and I don't know, time and space were gone.
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: And I got to the church and there was this priest, this younger priest talking to this older I call them all American grandparents right?
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: And I said I'm going to stay here and wait until he's done talking using some manners, because really I didn't have manners.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: When you're a drug addict, you really don't care about anybody, you just hustle them.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: So at that moment, when I said that, Jesus spoke to me like a commentator in a sense, showed me a three-story house like in a city, with a dark black ground, dark black ground and all of a sudden plowment imploded on itself and Jesus said all at the same moment, like I'm going to rebuild you.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: So I went up to the priest and I said Father, do you have a rosary for a poor soul?
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: He marched me back to the sacristy and gave me a black beaded rosary and that started my journey of recovery.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: Of course I made it home, but I was in ecstasy for two days because on Monday I was at the house when this painting is Dennis garage floor and my brother came over and he was screaming and he was right next to me and it like shook me out, you know like I came back to her it's hilarious.
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: And he goes.
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: Then you hear this space shut up, I go no, I've had this credible event happen, but I didn't share with them.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: But it was extraordinary yeah, I, I mean, it's incredible story to to hear, and I'm sure in the moment, in the moments as it was happening, like I said, time there's no, uh, like feeling at a time that, yeah, this defense are are happening and trying to figure out what that all means.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: And I think that's big for anybody in recovery or not in a relationship in some type of way, that we don't know how things are going to progress in general anyways, but as far as what's next in our life and how that intervention and where that's going to come from, and I think the big thing, what I'm hearing from you is that you were open to it, so, as in those drug and substance abuse times, that this event was able to cut through all that to to you.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: And so there was, you know, almost a part I think there's a part of everybody that wants to be good and be better, not be addicted, and so you were, you're kind of ready.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: I think that's helpful, because I'm asked often about different travels and things we've done at an organization of how did you decide this or why did you decide to do this and why did you decide to start a podcast and then find its way into the TV studio and it's one of those things like, deep down, subconsciously, we, we, we know that when certain things happen, and we might not know what, those things are right, but when they do happen, it's incredible and we're able to, just, you know, take those steps like as, as if you know we, we were ready all along and even no matter how drug or substance filled our mind is, or jaded with a you know politics or what would have you, that when something cuts through to the core, then you start finding kind of your, your true self, which is where I think you you were starting to get to at that point.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: You were at those kind of infant stages, like like I was seven years ago, right, yeah, uh, can you talk a little bit about once that those experiences and feelings happened, how you made your way back to ohio and maybe even touch on the unfortunate circumstance of one of your significant others that happened, and sometimes how us putting ourselves in situations, like I said, we don't care about anything except ourselves at times and when we do that we put other people sometimes at risk.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: We don't know that.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: So maybe if you could touch on that, so my ex-wife's name was Crystal.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: When I met her I met her out in Arizona, in Tucson.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: She was a dancer and I was dealing drugs.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: We were bringing like 30 pounds of weed back to Ohio and dealing it.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: I even flew dope on a commercial jet one time.
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: I have so many stories my brain is going whoa.
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: So this is a healing situation.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: You know, every time you talk about your experience you start seeing who you really are and how far you come.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: Because, like I, was a victim when I was 10.
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: I was sexually abused.
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: So I realized after a period of time why Jesus sent his mother to speak to me, say my son, go to church and get him off the tower of Rosie, because I hated men.
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: You can relate.
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: The man did me wrong and really helped influence my addiction, basically almost destroyed my life.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: So back in the day I used to say I just want to die, so I party so much.
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: So to get back to how I came back to Ohio.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: So I was there for a few weeks and I wrapped it up and I flew home and ironically, at that time Crystal was living with my mother and father here in Hudson, right up the street in Stonebridge Court right in the neighborhood.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: So she, my old man, kicked her out somehow and I had to go back to town, which is where she was brought up, and I didn't have no car and my old man always told me I'm going to help you out, I'll get you established.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: You're married, you have a son, nothing, just totally suffering.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: I was hitchhiking around town looking for jobs, never got the job, so eventually our marriage fell apart.
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: So after the Blessed Mother spoke to me, I used to be angry with Jesus and the Blessed Mother going why did you take me out of my comfort zone?
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: I was totally comfortable Destroying myself, really living in misery, but through this suffering in the catholic church, as we teach, as teaches, suffering is great merit, and I realized over the years, suffering is a great merit because it shows you who you are and how god builds virtue in your suffering and brings you to virtue and holiness.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: So I don't know if that answers your question.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and again, you were open to continuing those positive ways.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: Yes, and there were people, and sometimes I think and it's unfortunate where sometimes different members of the family or colleagues or people that are associates we think they're there to help us and they're there for us, but they're really only there when substances and different things are there and you take that away and it's like I'm trying to do the right thing, at least get on my way.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: And to really be in that situation is hard, and I think that speaks to how your sobriety started, because it's as we know, it's not like if there's a broken leg and you have surgery and then once it's healed, it's healed.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: These are things that you and I and others are dealing with every single day, of being potentially put in situations that could throw us back into previous habits, and that in itself is hard work.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: So you had that drive for substances and then now you're started on the path, now you have that drive to do good, and how can you?
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: Uh, you know the time we have on earth, we know it's, it's finite, it's, it's going to end at some point any minute.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: And so how?
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: How can we help ourselves to survive?
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: Uh, and then how can we potentially help help others, uh.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: Where do you think that came from?
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: For you, for you, just as that progression.
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: I think back in the day when I was really young, god gave me a special heart, I guess Because I always reached out to the deaf, the blind in my neighborhood.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: I grew up on the west side of Cleveland part of my life, so I always had affinity, compassion, empathy for other people, but the way I treated myself was totally a nightmare.
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: You know it's like contrast, is like black and white, like wow.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: But I always love, love people.
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: I love learning from people.
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: I have a great attitude about people.
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: I can learn from anybody and there's a lot of people that came in my life that God will send in your recovery.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: And there's a lot of people that came in my life that God will send in your recovery Unexpectedly.
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: It could be a little situation where you talk to a kid and God speaks right through them to keep you encouraged Because no matter if I'm 38 years sober, I still need courage to continue on, because it's a hard, terminal illness.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: You could switch off in one second and I could be totally high and lose all that sobriety.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: And I've met many people on the journey that have 20 years, 25 years, but I think the suffering to get back to that helped me grow in virtue and gave me the strength that I needed, that Jesus knew I would need down the road for 38 years and I have suffered a lot of tragedy, like everybody else has a cross to carry, and all our crosses are different sizes and shapes, but we do need that support.
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: If we don't have the support, like my best friend Monica, or meetings, or praying my rosary or going to the mass confession once a week, I don't know man, I'd be crazier than when I was.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: I might be back out there Because you know, my ex-wife was brutally murdered.
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: All right, crystal ended up on a bad road becoming a prostitute and she was out in Tucson.
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: She went back to Tucson, she ended up getting picked up and I won't go into the details right now.
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: Wow, I still am affected by that day Because I believe once you love somebody, no matter if you get married to another woman, you're always going to love them at that time and moment in time.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: That God gave me to have her, because we were both the same age, a day apart in birth, seventh and eighth but it's still.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: I think about her often.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: I pray for her soul every day.
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: And how tragic.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: And that's just one example of as you said.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: It's traumatic and like recovery.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: Those situations, those feelings pop up at different times and sometimes we don't know why am I feeling like this, why am I in this rut?
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: And then we might think about different situations, and then we might look to society or to the internet and say why, is this going on?
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: Why am I feeling this way?
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: To the internet and say why is this going on, why am I feeling this way?
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: And we're looking for some type of validation because, in a way, we don't wanna deal with it, we don't wanna be in.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: Oh, I can't have you know.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: Post-traumatic stress syndrome or it's really post-traumatic stress disease and not, you know, change the terminology, because it is a disease and at certain times and we just wrapped up, you know, the fourth of july recently um, fireworks and and that can uh with veterans or you don't have to be a veteran, uh, but it can affect people and oh yeah, and take them back to those, those, those times and and I know, even for me, the last year being in Ukraine just a little bit, and having felt and experienced, you know, the air raid, sirens and and the missiles uh being, uh, being shot down and intercepted, that I, I physically, and you know I heard those with my own ears.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: So, in a way, I, I was taken back just a little bit and that just made me think of all the people who, you know, maybe have been in those you know war-like situations, whether it's overseas or whether it's things that we've dealt with and continue to deal with, and it's not a one-size-fits-all of oh, this worked for me, so this is going to work for you.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Let's talk.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: Just, we're getting towards the end of our time for this episode.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: Everybody watching, listening.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: Tune in next week.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: Let's talk, just, we're getting towards the end of our time for this episode.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: Yes, everybody watching listening tune in next week for part two of our conversation with Don.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: But maybe we can kind of tease the next episode of how gesture for Jesus, stone on happiness for Jesus, stoned on happiness.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: How that came to be just from a thought in your head and just thinking of ways, because it's from, I mean, we think of like a marketing and branding of you know, let's try to do something that's different because we all at some point have different struggles along the way.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: So how do we cut through?
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: You know that, those experiences, and you know everybody's got the megaphone and microphone.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: Now, with social media and able to, you know it's just who's got the bigger microphone and megaphone at a given time, right, the bigger microphone and megaphone at a given time, right, uh.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: So if you could just, you know, briefly talk about how, just in your mind, uh, that came, came to be.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: And then our next episode we'll talk more about.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: Uh, you know that advocacy that you're doing, uh, since that, uh, that that shift, positive shift, you know, kind of, look at, it's like the second step.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: So the first step was getting sober and and that, and then continuing on, it's like, okay, what else can I do so?
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: here's the deal.
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: God works in mysterious ways, right?
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: So I always pray and basically talk to god all day long.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: It's prayer and I go what do you want me to do next?
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: You put me on this journey, you helped me suffer through homelessness, living in a van for you been through all these crazy experiences and I go.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: What's next?
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: He works through hats.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: One day I went to Mark's years ago when the Cavs were jamming at the.
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: What is that place?
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: The Coliseum?
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: No, the Q, oh yeah.
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: So I went there and I bought this Uncle Sam hat, okay, and eventually it led me to be Uncle Sam at the Q.
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: Ah See, and God was preparing me to handle media and getting pictures from all over the world, people taking pictures.
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: I'll show you a picture next session.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: Then, on my birthday I think it was 10 or 12 years ago or maybe a little less a girl named Susie, I knew from high school, gave me this hat for my birthday and I decided to wear pins and I came up with Stone on Happiness, because the stone, the church is built on a rock, which is Peter.
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: So you stand on the stone with the church, the rock, right.
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: So all my recovery is with the Catholic Church, the sacramental life.
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: So I just started adding pins and then I don't know really how everything came out of Jester for Jesus, because Jester for Jesus is a fool, like in the courts.
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: Back in the medieval times the Jester was a confidant of the king and queen, but he entertained people.
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: But my life, I love giving happiness to people.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: I just love bringing joy to the world, because we need it now and forever.
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: And affirmation is the key.
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: We must affirm each other and be not afraid, and if you're drinking or getting high, ask God, ask Jesus to help you out of that situation, and I'm telling you he will.
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: Maybe not today, but maybe tomorrow, and it will happen.
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: In such a strange moment You'll wake up like a sunny day at the beach.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think the key is be open for that.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: We don't know when those moments, how they're going to happen, how they're going to come into our lives and what those next steps are, happen, how they're going to come into our lives and what those next steps are.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: And that's one thing I've learned.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: Kind of the rock bottom for me is I had to accept that there were things with me mentally that I was going to have to deal with the rest of my life and it took, you know, 37 years to.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: Obviously, when we're growing up, we don't know exactly what's going on.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: It took until age 37 to say, okay, I can't do everything myself, google can't tell me what to do.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: I need help.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: And I need to go to that extra step in if that means taking medication and not drinking, which is where I was.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: Where was my comfort zone to get to the point that we step out of our comfort zone and then we realize, wow, I have all this energy, I have all this time.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: What should I do with it?
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: And to your point of, at a young age, you were helping people, and whether it was, you know once this week and then a month or two later.
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: But when those moments came, you were there and you didn't even think twice oh, should I open this door, or should I hope this person crosses the street?
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: Whatever that may be?
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: But when you're in that situation, those things, you were accepting that and saying, okay, I'm just going to do it, I'm not going to think and I think that's the beautiful part of where you and I are at yes, we're trying to use force multipliers like this.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: This show that this organization, your organization, your branding, to uplift as many people as as possible.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: So, don, thank you for joining us on oh, thank you so much yeah glad to have you.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: Yes, thank you for joining us, our viewers, our listeners, and be sure to tune in next week for part two of our conversation with Don.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: So until next time.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: I am Justin Allen Hayes, founder and executive director of Voices for Voices, and please be a voice for you or somebody in need.