- Speaker #0
Hello and welcome to Stop Wasting Your Life, the podcast. I'm Ava Heimbach, your host and founder, and today I'm here with my friend Danny Crawford. I actually met Danny when I was visiting some friends in San Diego. My friends went to Point Loma University and he went there also and we just became friends casually through mutual friends and he actually ended up moving to Kawhi and I would see him. and spend time with him when I was also on Kauai. And now that I'm living here, I get to see him a lot. And so I knew that he had a really amazing, beautiful, gnarly story and asked him to come on and share that. And so that's what we're going to talk about today. We're going to talk about Danny's story, his testimony, and how he went from gnarly addicts who had hit the absolute rock bottom to now living this beautiful purposeful life that he loves. So before we begin, we did figure out the giveaway. The giveaway is going to be $500 gift card to wherever you want. I don't know about you guys, but I love a $500 gift card to wherever I want. And honestly, it would probably be to some coffee shop somewhere nearby because I buy coffee every single morning. So $500 gift card. Same way, if you go to the website and find the giveaways tab and click on that, you will find all the ways that you can enter in to win that $500 gift card. So go ahead and check that out. And before I begin, I say this every single episode and I'm going to say it again. There is no right or wrong way to live your life. And the definition of a fulfilling life is unique to each person. I'm not here to tell you how to live your life. I just want to give you ideas, knowledge, inspiration. and other people's stories to help you create a life that you think is beautiful. So let's begin. Welcome to Stop Wasting Your Life, the podcast that helps you break free from a life of self doubt and distraction and inspires you to create a fulfilling and purposeful life. Each week we dive into actionable advice, meaningful conversation, and insightful interviews to empower you to prioritize your well-being pursue your passions and become the best version of yourself. It's time to stop wasting your life and start building one that you are excited to wake up to. Once again, I'm Ava Heimbach, your host and founder. And today I'm here with the Danny Crawford, and this is Stop Wasting Your Life. So Danny, welcome to my little kawaii house. I decorated it. myself and Hannah included and wanted to know what you think of it.
- Speaker #1
It's absolutely beautiful.
- Speaker #0
Thank you. That is the best compliment you could ever give me. But yeah, I'm excited to have you on and I'm just gonna let you take over.
- Speaker #1
Perfect. Thank you, Ava. Yeah, so I am a person in recovery from the substance use disorder. I'm also a believer and follower of Jesus Christ and Prior to becoming those two things, I was severely addicted to chemicals, alcohol, drugs, weed, and vaping. Severely addicted to lust, and I had no spiritual grounding whatsoever. But before we get into that, I'm just going to go all the way to the beginning and talk about what led me to get to that point. So we'll start in my parents' childhood. My dad was born and raised in Van Nuys, California, in the valley right behind downtown LA. And his dad, my grandfather, was a World War II veteran. And he came back from war with some severe PTSD, as you can imagine. He killed a lot of people. He saw a lot of people get killed. And he became a raging alcoholic at a very young age because he was very scarred from all the stuff that he saw in war. So my dad's childhood reflected having a father who was a raging alcoholic. My dad had four siblings, other than it was him and four siblings, and all of them got abused physically, verbally, emotionally. It was a very hard environment for my dad to be in as a kid. And then my grandpa also had trouble with women. He got engaged seven separate times. And five of those times he got remarried. So my dad had five different moms in and out of his life, which makes it hard to have like a stable home environment, obviously. And my dad's real mom. My dad got divorced when he was six years old, so he really didn't have much parental structure in his life after the age of six. So he basically became a very self-sufficient person and just figured out how to survive on his own because he didn't have structure to support him in doing that. And that made my dad just a very hardened, self-sufficient, hard-to-show-love type of person. And so the way that showed in my life is my dad wasn't as gnarly as his dad was to him in a means of physical abuse and all that. And my dad and my mom have stayed married, so there was no divorce. But it was super hard for my dad to show emotional and verbal love to me. Like my entire childhood, we never said I love you to each other. That just wasn't it just didn't exist because it was weird for us. It's like... We didn't know how to express that. And we did love each other and we knew that we did, but there was this wall up where it was just not, it was not something that we could comfortably say to each other. So that was my dad. My mom's side of the family, she also had some pretty serious trauma. When she was 18 years old, her sister was murdered by a serial killer, Coral Eugene Watts. You can look him up. He's super famous. He was also known as the Sunday morning slasher. That was his nickname because he murdered a ton of women all throughout the mainland of the United States. And he's dead now. He died in prison. But that obviously severely impacted my mother's anxiety. And that happened when she was a senior in high school. So she was also still developing, still figuring out. who she was in life and then to lose a sister to a serial killer that just caused a lot of worry and anxiety and fear in her and then how that reflected in my childhood is my mom was super strict super worried about me all the time and super manipulative and control freakish to ensure what happened to her sister didn't happen to me so i had the angry anger problem dad i had the super anxious mother. And then when I was eight years old, we adopted my little brother, Zane, from Mexico. And when he was three years old, he got diagnosed with autism. So we had quite the array of qualities. And then my part in it is I was just naturally a pumped kid and not a good listener and a bad behavior. Someone who does bad behavior. So our household was just super chaotic as a kid. And as much love as there were, as much. fun things that we did. There was a lot of intense screaming and cussing each other out. And I just remember sometimes feeling just so scared as a kid because I was so young and didn't know how to handle that environment. With all that being said, though, I want to say that my family, my dad, my mom, and my brother are all amazing people. They've completely turned their lives around and I'm not here to bash them at all. I just want to describe exactly what my home was like as a kid because it relates directly to the story that I'm telling you guys and so that's that moving on when I was 13 years old I had my first encounter with death so one of my good friends his dad died of a heart attack in a grocery store he just dropped dead while he was shopping And I remember going to that funeral feeling weird about it just like this is kind of crazy just to lose someone at 13 and that started the path with death and then when I was 15 there was four significant deaths all within a couple months of each other. One of my best friends he died in a car accident driving home from a baseball game and I also spoke at his open casket funeral and I just have this vivid memory of I'm on the podium. Right next to me is his dead body. And then in the front row is his whole family just bawling their eyes out. And I was like, this is so gnarly. And I was 15 years old. So just little stuff like that was contributing to trauma. And then my dad's really close friend committed suicide, like a family friend of mine. And then a separate family friend on my mom's side also committed suicide. And then my aunt died of cancer. All within. a couple months of each other when I was 15. So. I basically got dumped with a lot of hard situations and I did not know how to handle it. So my solution was to surf because I was a surfer in high school, still am to this day. But I would surf a lot and basically do anything that I could to not feel present. And I discovered a couple of things that did a really good job at doing that, which was weed and alcohol and vaping. So. I started vaping when I was 14 years old. I had my first beer when I was 13. I had my first cocktail when I was 14, but it didn't really start speeding up till 15 when those deaths happened. That's when I started smoking a decent amount of weed, started like taking shots and going out to parties and like partying with the older high school people. And I was just heading in that like party direction. And then... Fast forward a little more, 16, it was turning into like every weekend, go to the high school parties, pick up the fifth of vodka, take shots, dance, be the life of the party, be Mr. Social. And the common theme was that like I always acted like everything was fine and that I was like happy. And I was so easily able to put on this face like nothing was wrong, but the whole time. I just had so much pain inside that I could never address and so it just kept getting worse and worse. Senior year is when it started getting really gnarly because we would party after school on school nights. So we'd get out of fifth period, we'd go to the liquor store, get four locos, go to my friend's house, start bumping the ox, drinking four loco, go out, do god knows what, and then we'd have like surf practice in the morning and I remember waking up in the morning going to surf practice and being drunk still and thinking like I think I have a problem right like this is probably not a normal behavior but then what we do as addicts is we like to rationalize and justify so in my head I'd be like well I'm going to college soon like I'm probably just preparing and practicing for college and so that that was the justification that kept that behavior going Also, my senior year of high school, three separate times, I had friends go to the hospital with blood alcohol contents around 0.35, which is like pretty much on the brink of death. And I was the common denominator in all three occurrences. So I'm just trying to give you all like a firm foundation of how gnarly it was. It's not a boasting thing. It's not a pride thing. It's just like, this is how bad it was. And. So that was high school and then it was time for college so I started applying to schools. I got into San Diego State University and I got into Point Loma Nazarene University. Got into a couple other schools but those were like the two schools that I was going to choose from and I felt like this I didn't really know it was God at the time but I felt this conviction of like Point Loma is probably the smarter option right. I kind of knew that in the back of my head. But because of just this overwhelming temptation to go to a big party school and like experience Greek life, I ended up deciding San Diego State. And so I go to San Diego State. I'm a freshman in college and I immediately rush a fraternity. I get into the fraternity Phi Kappa Psi. I pledged that whole first semester. And basically what happened is Everything that I was doing in high school just multiplied by 100 and my ego also multiplied by 100 because when you're in a fraternity, you feel this sense of entitlement. So I started doing hard drugs my freshman year. I started doing cocaine. And real quick, before I say this, like in high school, I remember saying I would never do hard drugs. I was like, there's no way I'll never like I'll only smoke weed. I'll only drink, but I would never do hard drugs. which goes to show like when people say it's the gateway it literally is but that's a whole separate tangent so i started doing cocaine i started doing some heavier ones like mbma ketamine xanax and i would drink while i was doing all of these things and basically i just got so depressed and so anxious all the time that i needed substances to feel normal like i could not function without having something in my body and it got to that point freshman year so then sophomore year I move into the fraternity house and I was already depressed, already having bad mental health, super addicted to substances. And I had a whole year ahead of me of living in a fraternity house, which is the worst place you could possibly be if you're struggling with those things. And basically everything just completely spiraled out of control throughout that year. I was also really struggling with lust and with addiction to hookups and women. And I was just damaging myself over and over again. And my pride and ego would reflect this idea that what I was doing was making me feel better about myself. And that I was like looking cool among the guys. But deep down in my heart, I was just burning myself. And I would mask that pain with more drinking and more drugs. And it was just this vicious cycle, sophomore year. And then at the end of that year. So summer 2021, I went to a music festival called Hard Summer. It's in San Bernardino, California. And I was really just struggling in life. I was addicted to substances. I was depressed, like I said, suicidal at this point, having suicidal ideation. And I go to this music festival and the first day I drank half a fifth of tequila. I took multiple points of molly, did ketamine and cocaine at the same time, and just raved all night.
- Speaker #0
Was there a part of you that drank so much and took so many drugs because you kind of had hit this point where you were like, I don't even care if I die?
- Speaker #1
Exactly. You just said it perfectly, Ava. So I was suicidal, but I didn't have the courage to like shoot myself in the head or use a rope. So my plan was to drink and use drugs in a suicidal way. And then one day, like, I would just die. And so I'll get into that in a sec. So I wake up the next morning. I slept on a trampoline that night. And I remember waking up in the morning. And the first thing I thought was just, I'm going to be one of those stories where someone has a traumatic childhood, drinks and uses drugs, and then dies doing it. Like, that's how I thought my life was going to end that day. And so... I did the same exact thing on day two of the music festival. I drank half a fifth of tequila, took molly, took ketamine, did cocaine, and did the same thing two days in a row. And then my brain was obviously really fried. I was really struggling after that because my brain was scrambled eggs, right? And so I go back to San Diego and school was about to start and it was after COVID, so it was going back. to in-person school and I basically knew that I either had to get it together or I was not going to be able to go back to school because I was too gnarly at this point and I wasn't able to get it together. So the next two or three weeks I basically partied just about every night and slowly but surely my brain like literally stopped working. This is when it's called the alcohol and drug induced psychosis. That's the scientific term for what happened to my brain. And it's defined as basically a loss of touch with reality. And you experience like delusional thoughts, hallucinations. You quite literally have no idea what's happening. And you don't know who you are. You don't know like what is going on in your life. And that happened to me as a direct result. of my drug use and alcohol use and sleep deprivation too because I wasn't I wasn't sleeping a lot during those two weeks and so I'll touch I'll touch on what that was like it was obviously really freaking gnarly so I don't really remember like exactly how it started or exactly what the process was the whole thing in my memory vault is just like kind of one big blur but I do have some memories and I can kind of piece together what happened. So basically I was fine. I went from being like mentally there to like very quickly not being there mentally. And what that looked like is I was giving a speech at our fraternity house. I just remembered I was giving a speech at our fraternity house about like the coming social events and trying to get everyone hyped on what we're doing. Basically, I gave a five-minute speech that made no sense whatsoever. It was just complete nonsense. Everyone's looking at me like, this guy's lost his mind. What's happening right now? Then I went to the gym after that, and I totally remember this. I was there for 15 minutes. I look at my friend and I say, hey bro, I've been here for a few hours. I got to go home. And so my friends, they're like freaking out. They're like, okay, he's clearly, something's wrong with his brain. So they follow me home, take me home. And then I showed up to my friend's house that night, unannounced, didn't say anything, brought my DJ board and I was just mixing the DJ board, not talking to anyone. And anytime they tried to come up to me to talk to me, I would just snap in anger. And so I was very like unreceptive to what was happening. And I guess like what that felt like, because I remember what it felt like. I just felt like super scared and super isolated. And I kind of knew that something was wrong with me, but I didn't know like what to do or how to handle it. So it progressively kept getting worse. Also, I wasn't even staying sober while I was in psychosis. I was still drinking, still smoking weed. So it was making the psychosis worse. And I. it got really, really bad. So it got so bad to the point that my roommates had to call my parents and say, Hey, your son has been partying for two years straight and he's completely lost his mind and like, he needs serious help. That's literally what the phone call was like. And so my parents, they're like shocked because they didn't, they didn't even know I was doing hard drugs. They knew I smoked weed and drank because they caught me in high school, but they were super surprised. And so. My dad comes down to our house in San Diego. And also keep in mind, like when fraternity guys are telling you you have a problem, you have a serious problem because fraternity guys also have problems. Anyways, my dad comes down to our house and I basically convinced him that I was just sleep deprived and that I was going to be okay. I was like, I just need sleep. I'm good. Like, and I didn't want to be in trouble. Like I didn't want to give up everything that I was doing at SDSU. So I sent him back home and my roommates were like, that's not a good idea. And so my dad goes back home and then five days later, they call my uncle and they're like, he still needs help. It's like the same thing's happening. So my uncle comes down, he picks me up. This is where it's super gnarly. This was like the peak of the psychosis. So he gets to our house and I don't know who he is. And this is someone who I've spent like... 22 years of my life with at this point. Didn't even recognize him. And I remember what the delusion I was thinking in my head was that I was getting kidnapped. That's what I was thinking. And so he takes me home to my house in Redondo Beach. And then my parents are there. And I walk in. And I barely remember any of this. But they've told me what happened. So I walk in the house. And they just said I had no idea. who they were or where I was at my own parents. Right. So I always say that the, the lowest possible place you can be in life is when you don't know the person who gave you life to work with, which was my mom. Right. Um, so I'd hit, I'd hit rock bottom, uh, the alcohol and drugs and, and partying and pride and ego and lust took me to a place that was so dark that I had quite literally lost everything except my physical life. So that was pretty heavy. And so I was there at home for, let's see, about five days. I kind of, I slept, I got my bearings back and then it clicked. I was like, I started realizing what was happening. I was like, oh my goodness, like I just lost my mind. And here I'm at home. And I really wanted to go back to San Diego because my pride and ego were still like fraternity, sorority, like it's all starting up. I need to be there. And somehow I convinced my family. and my roommates to let me go back. I don't know how after that happened you think it's like no way he's going back but that just shows like the manipulation and determination of an addict to get what they want is like I was able to talk them into letting me come back to that house and I made a contract with my family and with my roommates that I would stay sober for 30 days. I would go to church, go to AA and go to therapy and basically like do the work that I needed to do to recover. And I get back down there to San Diego and right away I started drinking and smoking weed again and partying. And so my roommates were like, at first they were just like, frick, like this isn't a good idea. But they weren't, I don't think they're concerned quite yet because the psychosis was like gone at this point. I was pretty much like back to normal and then About nine days later, it took about nine days, just the overload of chemicals in my brain. Once again, it started happening again. And it wasn't as severe as the first episode where I didn't recognize my family, but it was still. I was clearly having trouble again, right? And my roommates were fed up with me. They were like, dude, for a month straight, we've been telling you, you need help. And like, you need to go to rehab. Like you're completely messed up. Right. And I was so defiant. Like I could just like my response to that was to just flip them off. Like, I don't want, I don't want help. I don't need help. Like it's the ego is just, it was just too big. And on September 9th, 2021. I partied all night that night and it was six in the morning. I hadn't gone to bed yet. I was still up. I was in my bedroom at SDSU and I basically was planning on how I was going to end my life. I was like, I can't do this anymore. Like this is just too much. I'm too addicted to chemicals. My mind is too messed up. I'm too depressed. I'm too anxious. Like I want off this earth. And And as I was thinking that, this girl that I was... Pretty good friends with at SDSU. She texted me and said, Hey, I heard that you're struggling super hard. I haven't seen you in a while. Can I come over to your house right now at six in the morning? And I was like, you need to come right now. Like I need serious help. And so for the first time in my life, I said those words, like I need help. And that to me. was finally swallowing my pride, swallowing my ego, and surrendering. It's like, Danny can't do this on his own anymore. Danny can't figure this whole thing out on his own. He needs help. And so I waved the white flag. I surrendered. She picked me up. We talked for a little bit at my house, got in her car, and then she took me to the only place because she was scared. I was still freaking crazy, and she didn't know what to do with me. So she took me to the psych ward because that's the only place she knew where to go. And I was there for eight hours. I remember walking into this place and seeing the bar shut behind me. And just like, even though I was so delusional and out of it, like I realized what was happening. And I was like, this is not good. Like I just got locked up in an institution. And I remember seeing some people in there. that were just so freaking gnarly. Like they looked like too past the point of no return to make a comeback. And I remember feeling like inspired, like if these people are in here, maybe it's not as bad as them. And maybe like I do have a chance to get out of here. And so I met with this doctor and I remember going into the meeting, I was thinking in my head, I'm like, I just have to make sure whatever I say right now, it's like. It's not going to keep me in here because I need to get out of here. So he asked me a few questions. I told him I'd been smoking a bunch of weed, drinking a bunch of alcohol, not sleeping. And that's why like I'm having these behaviors. But like other than that, I don't suffer with like severe mental illness to that extent. So like I don't need to be here. I just need to go to rehab. And that's exactly what they did. They released me. I was only there for eight hours and they were like, he needs to go straight to rehab. So that girl, she drove me to detox in Newport Beach, California. And I slept for three days straight. I literally slept for three days straight. Like, I'm not even kidding you. I did not do a single thing at that detox except sleep because my brain was so tired, right? And it needed all the recovery it could get. And so after detox, I was driven to my inpatient rehab in San Clemente. And I was there for 30 days, 30 days with no phone. And in the beginning, I was super over it. Didn't want to be there. I was having severe FOMO of SDSU, and I just wanted to get out of there. And it took about a week for me to finally realize, hey, you're in here for a reason. You need to take it seriously. It's time to step up to the plate, do the work, and recover. And I started taking, like... really detailed notes in class. I started participating, asking questions. All the classes were about addiction, the psychology behind addiction, about trauma, about everything that goes into like why you get into these behaviors. So I started learning a ton about myself basically. That's also when I got introduced to AA and the 12 steps of AA. And in those 12 steps, it talks about higher power, God a lot, right? And Up until this point in my life, I was raised in the church, so I had like a background knowledge of Jesus and who he was, but I didn't. really ever completely receive it. And even though like I would do the things as a kid, I'd go to go to church, go to Sunday school.
- Speaker #0
pray right like i never felt like i had a true deep understanding of who jesus was but here i was in aa and they were talking about god and i just remembered from my childhood like how i felt in church and and i came to the understanding that god might be real in rehab i was like okay i pretty much just lost almost lost my life because of my ego and pride and because of how Danny and his self-will wants to live this life. So I'm going to, I'm going to go out on a whim and I'm going to assume that God's real. That's, that's how I felt in rehab. I wasn't ready to believe in Jesus. I wasn't ready to believe in the Bible, but I was able to recognize that there is a power greater than myself in this life. And for me, it kind of started off as being like the universe, the ocean, And. the sun, the moon, nature, like there's so many things that are bigger than Danny and that helped me to start to do the work in AA. But the key part about AA and the 12 steps is that if you don't do them, like you're pretty much going to relapse because there's so much things that you have to address about yourself or you'll be too uncomfortable to stay sober. So in rehab, I did not work those 12 steps. I would like. go to meetings, I would try, I would try, I wasn't doing my best, but I would try to do my best, right? And after four months of sobriety, so I graduated rehab after three months. And then after four months of sobriety, I relapsed on alcohol because I didn't do the work that I needed to do to stay sober. And thankfully, I never returned to hard drugs, kind of because I knew like if I do hard drugs again, like I. I'm gonna die right so I haven't done hard drugs since 2021 before I went to rehab but I did relapse on alcohol it was it was new year's eve going into 2022 I went down to SDSU to visit my friends for new years and it it just happened like in a split second like one second I was sober the next second I was like 15 drinks in throwing up on someone's driveway like literally the first night that's how quickly it happened and that's what happens when you relapse like It goes right back to where it was and that's that's the craziest part about this disease. And so that started me off on two years, two more years of drinking alcohol. I was back at home because I was taking a gap year between SDSU and where I was going to go to college next. I was still figuring that out. And then in April of 2022, I decided I was going to transfer to Point Loma. Nazarene University. Didn't really know anyone, but I just knew that a small private Christian college would be like probably the safest bet for me to finish school. And so my whole first year there, I still drank, I still partied, I still was battling pride and lust and going out to the bars and still part of the hookup culture. And then my senior year, I really started to get impacted by the people that were Christians at Loma. So I was around a lot of friends who they just had this peace and this joy to them that was so noticeable everywhere they went. They were just happy and joyful and, and didn't look like they're carrying any shame. And I knew I didn't have whatever they had. I did not have it. And I didn't feel that way. I don't think it looked like I felt that way. I was missing something. And the more that I hung out with these people, the more I saw what they had, I realized what I was missing was Jesus. And so my senior year at Loma, I really became open to the concept that Jesus could be real. And so I started going to Bible studies, started reading the word of God. I started praying specifically to Jesus to like heal me from my past and like help me with the shame that I still carry and slowly but surely I just started feeling this peace that I couldn't pinpoint. I'm like, why or how did I go from someone who was on the brink of hell to like feeling relatively comfortable in my own skin now? And what I realized is Jesus was changing my life. So let's see, I went to a Christian camp that spring of my senior year. And I'll rewind a little bit. Before that Christian camp, one month before, it was February 25th, 2024, and I was back at home in Los Angeles, and I went on a super gnarly two-day bender with my childhood friends, and it was just drinking, you know, we were just going out to the bars and drinking, and we we daged the next day after that first night, and partied pretty much for like 48 hours straight, and I woke up that day, February 25th, 2024. in my childhood bed and I just remember waking up with like the most anguish, the most anxiety, the most, the worst I've ever felt in my life, even more so than when I did drugs. It was literally, I'd never felt so horrible in my entire life. And I get up out of my bed, walk to my carpet, and I look up at the ceiling of my room and I just say, God, I surrender. I surrender everything to you and That was February 25th, 2024. So that was 599 days ago. I haven't had a sip of alcohol since that moment. And that was the very start of what the next year and a half would be like, which I'll dive into right now. So one month later, I go to a Christian camp in the mountains of Big Bear and I was basically surrounded by a bunch of Jesus freaks and I was like very new to the idea of Jesus so I was like what are these people on like this is insane and I just still didn't get it I was like this is this is crazy right like I kind of feel like one of those crazy Christians trying to like you know you know how it is and we were in a worship night and it was like one o'clock in the morning and I just remember I was like opening myself up to worship I was like I'm just going to try it out. So I started singing. Started holding my hands up and all of a sudden, like, this is going to sound crazy, but the only way I can describe it is it was like the Holy Spirit came down from heaven and just took a sword and cut my heart open. And like every single person I've harmed, every horrible deed I've done to myself or others, every time I've talked negatively about God. All the damage that I caused in my life and the lives of others, it just flashed before my eyes at hyper speed. It was like a flood of memories of just how bad of a person I'd been my whole life. And it was so intense that the only reaction I could have was just a ball. And I cried for probably two hours straight, just sobbing, because I had encountered the Holy Spirit. And it was super powerful. And so from that moment, I knew that God was real. But not only that, I knew for me, Jesus was real and the Holy Spirit is real. And the way that I was living was the complete opposite of how God wants us to live. And my life showed that. That's why I ended up in rehab. That's why I ended up in psychosis. That's why I did all these horrible things to my body was because I was not following the God that loves me so much. And he's already told me what to do. And I was too defiant to follow him. So the next day, I decided that I was going to get baptized. And I decided that I was going to completely give myself to Jesus publicly and never look back. And so the next day, I got baptized. And ever since that day, it's just been an uphill journey with God. I have read the entire Bible cover to cover with very small portions that I've haven't read yet so almost the entire bible i pray every day to jesus and i ask him to help me to get through this day sober and to help people and to not return to old behaviors i have a very heavy conviction about the way i treat people now so like i can't i can't do something bad to someone without feeling horrible about it whereas before it was like that wasn't the case like i I could, I could. be a part of hookup culture and like my pride and ego would mask how I felt. Right. So I'm very sensitive to like how I treat people now. And I guess like what, what living with Jesus has been like is I'm surrounded by a community of people who love me for who I am. They support my sobriety. They don't encourage me into bad behavior. I've been able to work with mentors who have just shown me that this is the best way, the best path to live this life. I'm 100% certain without a shadow of doubt that I will be sober for the rest of my life. guaranteed there's no lurking notion in my mind that it will ever relapse on anything. And that's directly because of Jesus. Like in second Timothy, it says, God doesn't give us a spirit of fear, timidity, but he gives us a spirit of power, love, and self-discipline. And once you receive that, you gain a godly confidence that you're never going to return to the behaviors that were trying to kill you. And yeah, looking at my leg right now, it's funny. It says Romans 8, 6, and I have that tattooed on my leg. It means a mind governed by the flesh is death, but a mind governed by the spirit is life and peace. And that Bible verse perfectly describes my journey with God. A mind governed by the flesh is death. So when Danny controlled his life, I almost died. A mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. When I gave my life to Jesus, my life is blessed and full of peace now. So that was a lot. I know that was a ton of information, but basically, long story short, is my life just absolutely sucked before I found God. And although my life isn't perfect now and it's not stress-free. And it's not like sunshine and rainbows every day. It is a million times better than it used to be. And it's just because of God. So I guess to anyone listening, I would just want to encourage you that no matter how far gone you are in life, no matter how low you are in the hole where the light's fading and you can't find a way out and you seem hopeless, just know that I survived the brink of death. the brink of hell and made a miraculous recovery simply by surrendering my life to God. And it's really, truly that simple. There's a lot of hard action that you have to take, but the first step of surrendering to God is that's all you have to do. You have to give up. The Bible says, if you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will find it. So all you have to do is surrender to God. And you're going to find the peace that you were always looking for. A couple of verses that have really helped me in my recovery have been Romans 8.1, which is there is no longer any condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Condemnation is another way of saying condemned, guilt, shame. It's saying that when you believe in Jesus, when you believe that the sacrifice was paid for the bad person that you have been, then you don't have to carry the weight of shame or guilt anymore because Jesus took it for you on the cross. And learning that has completely changed everything because I carried so much shame in the beginning of my sobriety that I've now relinquished to God. And it's like a weight off your shoulders, right? You just feel better. Another, let's see if I can think of one more, Romans 8, 28. God makes all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. So back in 2021, when I was going through all this, all my friends, all my family, they were worried, they were scared, they were concerned. They had no idea what was going to happen to me. And then four years later, everyone knows exactly why that happened to me because God used the worst part of my life for good, right? And that's just what God He does incredible things all the time and he just surpasses our understanding. So a lot of times we have to just sit back in humility and recognize God's sovereignness and just know that if we turn our lives over to him, good things will happen to us. It's a guarantee. And that's exactly what's happened to me.
- Speaker #1
If someone were to come to you and say, Danny, like, I feel like I don't have a purpose. Like, how do I find my purpose? What does living a purposeful life look like? What would you say to them?
- Speaker #0
If you try to find your purpose in anything of this world, whether it be money or social status or fame or sex or addictions or work. If you try to find your purpose in any of those things, you're never going to find your purpose because all of those things are going to go away, including us, including ourselves, right? Like our life is not infinite. You can't find purpose in fleeting things. The only thing, and this is just my opinion, the only thing you can find true purpose in is the one thing that will never change or go away, God. And so if you're struggling to find your purpose in life and you're just chasing it in the world, consider giving your life to God. You won't know exactly how that's going to happen. You won't know exactly how that's going to look, how you're going to find your purpose with God. But God's going to show you when he knows you're ready. And so for me, I'll share a little bit about what I'm doing now. I work at a nonprofit on Kauai and I work with at-risk youth who are starting to drink and use drugs at a young age. And we teach them and educate them on the 12 steps of recovery and teach them about God. So. For me, that's like a full circle moment of purpose from where I was in 2021, using my darkness to help other kids stay in the light. I've also applied to two different grad schools, and I've gotten accepted into two different grad schools to pursue a degree in counseling psychology. And that's another example of God showing me my purpose once I relinquished control to Him. Because these are things that... Before I got sober, before I gave my will to God, I didn't even think that these things would be happening. If someone told me I was going to be working with at-risk youth four years ago, I would have thought they were out of their minds. So, yeah, find your purpose in the rock. The only thing that won't ever go away and you will find it and you will feel fulfilled. But if you chase it in the world, you're going to end up with anxiety and depression and stress because you're going to be chasing something that's always going to go away.
- Speaker #1
Well, thank you again, Danny, for coming and sharing your story. I know I've definitely heard it, but not to that much depth. And I think it's crazy and amazing and beautiful at the same time. And that concludes our episode. I really hope you guys enjoyed it. And go ahead, check out that giveaway. Remember, go to our website, www.stopwastingyourlifepodcast.com. Click on the giveaways tab and there you will find all the ways to enter and to win that $500 gift card to anywhere you want. Again, I would probably spend it at a coffee shop, but to each their own, you get to choose. And I'll talk to you guys next week. Thanks for listening to today's episode of Stop Wasting Your Life. We hope that you are feeling motivated to take charge of your future and start living with purpose, intention, and authenticity. If you enjoyed today's conversation, be sure to leave us a good review, give us a follow, and subscribe to our newsletter. For more information, go to www.stopwastingyourlifepodcast.com, and we will see you next week.
