God Doesn't Relapse: Addiction Recovery, Enablement, Boundaries, Service, & Faith

Today, I sit down with Matt Grace, author of God Doesn’t Relapse, for a powerful conversation on addiction recovery, faith, family boundaries, and the spiritual transformation that helped him rebuild his life. Mr. Grace shares his story of becoming addicted at a young age, moving from Ritalin to crystal meth, facing arrests, overdoses, broken relationships, and eventually surrendering to God after years of addiction.

In this episode, Mr. Grace explains why addiction does not only affect the addict—it affects the entire family system. We discuss enablement, tough love, emotional hostage-taking, and why parents sometimes “love their kids to death” by preventing them from facing consequences. I also share from my own experience as the son of addiction, including what it means to forgive, protect, set boundaries, and still hope for someone’s recovery without enabling destructive behavior.

Mr. Grace also opens up about his work in addiction recovery, his experience helping families, and why he wrote God Doesn’t Relapse as both a memoir and a resource for families dealing with alcoholism, drug addiction, failure to launch, and broken family dynamics. We talk about the importance of service, volunteer work, accountability, and learning how to stop living as a victim and start living as a survivor.

This conversation also addresses faith, masculinity, pornography, gambling, young men in crisis, and how society often distorts morality while normalizing destructive behaviors. Mr. Grace shares how prayer, service, and a relationship with God helped him find lasting sobriety, while I connect his story to biblical themes of redemption, purpose, spiritual discipline, and hope beyond addiction.

Whether you are struggling with addiction, loving someone through addiction, recovering from family trauma, or searching for faith-based encouragement, this episode offers practical wisdom and spiritual insight. Mr. Grace’s story is a reminder that recovery is possible, boundaries are necessary, service changes lives, and no one is too far gone for redemption.

https://mattgrace.com/

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*Couple O' Nukes LLC and Mr. Whiskey are not licensed medical entities, nor do they take responsibility for any advice or information put forth by guests. Take all advice at your own risk.

Transcript

 Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of Couple O' Nukes. As always, I'm your host, Mr. Whiskey, and I have been working in addiction recovery for a few years now. And during that time, I have come across many individuals working in addiction recovery as well, from professional doctors to authors to recovering addicts themselves. It has been an amazing journey, seeing people as old as their 70s with 30-plus years of addiction achieve sobriety. It has been a true blessing from God to work in this field. And I say all that to preface this conversation with the book title I saw today that was sent to me, was probably one of my favorite book titles. I've read a lot of books from podcast guests and came across, but this title, God Doesn't Relapse, that instantly just hit a place in my heart personally. As the son of addiction, as a m- online minister, you know, I really love that. And so I've been very excited for this conversation. Here with the author, Matt Grace, who is just doing amazing things, and I can't wait to get into this conversation with you. Mr. Grace, could you please tell us a little bit about yourself? Yeah. First, thanks for having me. It's an honor and a pleasure, and my responsibility to give back, to be on podcasts, basically to do anything to try to help people. I've been sober for 21 years. October 3rd, 2004, 6:30 in the morning was when I got on my knees and I surrendered to God and begged Him for help. Now, I didn't start working in the field until about year seven or year eight of my sobriety. I had started volunteering early on, and it really was drilled into me by the men that I respected how important service was and how important volunteer work was. And as someone who grew up on third base and was very spoiled and entitled service work changed my life, and it gave me a fresh perspective on how many people are struggling out there. And al- someone always has it worse than I do, which helps me every day. So, I started out working for a nationally recognized private practice in Michigan, and I would fly people to and from treatment. And then I would be a... spend a one-on-one time with them as their sober mentor, taking them to meetings going to lunch with them, you know, a mixture of sobriety, recovery, and some fun as well. And I... After I worked for this private practice, I started my own practice called Saving Grace, and we primarily worked with high net worth families in Palm Beach Greenwich, Connecticut, New York City, and the Midwest. And the reason why I say that is because, unfortunately, the ancillary services in the addiction space are not covered by insurance. So, you know, you have to pay bills, and that's... We ended up working with families who could afford to pay us. And so, I closed the practice, my business partner and I, because a lot of the families couldn't adhere to very simple boundaries, and they themselves were sicker than the addict that they were related to. And that's really why I wrote my book is to try to reach families to destigmatize alcoholism and drug addiction. You know, my father swept my addiction under the rug and wore rose-colored glasses when everybody was telling him that I had a problem. So I thought by writing this book, A, I would reach a much broader audience than just the wealthy people that I was trying to help, because I believe I was spared to help the- specifically those who are less fortunate than me. That's what really drives me. But I wanna reach families. I wanna teach them how to create boundaries. You don't have to throw someone out right away. I mean, I was... It took my mom 13 years to do that, but you can love someone from a distance. I wanna teach families not to, There's a saying "Families are loving their kids... Parents are loving their kids to death." Mm-hmm. Right? And so my father couldn't get out of his own way. He wasn't a bad guy. He just... He did the best that he could, but it, you know, it was... He wasn't my father, he was my best friend. And I'm trying to teach parents not to be their kids' friends, but to be their parent. And I'll just finish with this, and you can hop back in. The worst thing that you can do for your child is to destroy their ambition, and that's what I saw in my own life and a lot of the other families that I worked with. And it's not just rich people, it's families that just do too much for their kids. And then the, the young men primarily who I worked with, they had something called a failure to launch into adulthood. Mm-hmm. And so I, I said I was 29 years old, but I felt like a little boy. So really, this, this book is about... It's half memoir but half case study. So in between each chapter of my memoir, there's something called an interlude, which is italicized, and there's a lot of case studies, almost like a workbook for families to go through. Hmm. There's a lot to unpack from what you said there, and number one, this is a very relatable conversation, something that resonates not just with me, but with a lot of people. You know, the statistics are always changing. Last I had heard, they said about one in seven people are affected by addiction, and I, I think it's even more than that. I've yet to meet someone who doesn't know someone struggling with addiction. You know, it's become so common and spread, and it's getting worse and worse. But at the same time, on the fortunate side, we see the revitalization, the growing of a lot of new resources to help prevent addiction, to intervene on addiction, and to recover from addiction. So I think that is the flip side to that. What you talk about with enablement, it is huge. You know, we talk a lot on this show about that. It's one of the number one factors behind addiction, which is, you know, people not holding one another accountable and having enablement and mistaking love and enablement. You know, they don't have to be synonymous, and Dr. Brian Luquin, an, a addiction recovery expert who came on the show, he called it in terms of military terms, of being held emotionally hostage by the addict. You know, you are being held emotionally hostage by them, and because of those ties, you know, you're enabling. And you look at, I think one of the great examples is the show My 600-lb Life, right? All those people who are 600 or more pounds, they always have a partner who is feeding them, who is taking them to these places, who is enabling them, and that's what it's about. And we talk about when it comes with that enablement, you mentioned boundaries, which is super important, and people often struggle to find a balance. And I was actually featured in a book where I wrote about a lot of people talk about forgive and forget, and they don't follow that. They actually follow forgive and resent, which is they forgive the person, and they still hold it against them. I talked about forgive and protect, and in that, I break down forgiving and protecting, setting boundaries, and still having a relationship. And I used a personal example of my father, who was an addict, and I used to enable him. I used to be an enabler because I loved him. I wanted to prevent him from feeling the pain and consequences of his actions for his sake, for the sake of those around us, keeping the family together, and at some point, it was really costing myself. It was putting me into danger physically, emotionally, and so I had to set boundaries. And it was very difficult to do but I was able to do it successfully, and I still have a relationship with my father. We still call on the phone. I still go see him. But if he's drinking or doing drugs to a certain degree or at all, I don't see him, and I've had to abandon him on holidays. He-- I've had to cancel my birthday trips to see him. But it's part of that tough love, and I tell you what- When I had to leave him for those holidays, a lot of those times served as wake-up calls where he realized the depth of the actions that he was partaking in. And that's one of the things, when you keep preventing the consequences, keep preventing the pain, then the addict doesn't see a reason to stop what they're doing, right? If they're getting all the benefits of what their addiction is helping them cope with or suppressing or whatever way it's making them feel, and there are no consequences, there's no incentive to stop other than people saying, "You should stop." And so I think we've talked on the show before about letting addicts hit the rock bottom, and sometimes their rock bottom is much further than a normal rock bottom because of the way the addiction captivates them. And so I wanna backtrack to you, Mr. Grace, about you talked about being an addict, about family members enabling you. Again, enablement not being malicious or intentful, but the result of, you know, familiar relationships, societal responsibilities, fill in the blank. What put you into addiction in the first place? So it's important to understand that... Listen, I'm a big... The word trauma today, I think it's overused and misunderstood. I'm a big believer everybody's experienced trauma, not just alcoholics, right? And I did have a lot of trauma in my life, but you also have to look at my family history and the genetic makeup of my family. And if you can, you can Google it and look at ChatGPT, but 40 to 60% of alcoholics have the predisposed gene. And my grandmother was an alcoholic. Her two siblings were an alcoholic. My great-grandfather was an alcoholic. And what happens is sometimes it skips generations, and it's consi- Like, my sisters, for instance, fine. Me the first time that I used anything, it was Ritalin, actually. My best friend, it was the summer it was a June, a beautiful day in the s- in Michigan, and he said, "Hey, get over here." He crushed a pill of Ritalin and said, "Snort this," and I snorted it. That was it. I talk about that being a gift from the gods. The, the amphetamine, I s- I called it amphetamine bliss. And I said to myself, "If I could capture this feeling that I have right now and feel this way every day for the rest of my life, then this is exactly what I've been looking for." And unfortunately, everybody's tolerance and, like you said, their bottom or their story is a bit different, but I started at 16, and by 18 I was a full-blown crystal meth addict. So I had graduated from Ritalin to meth, and that was just... That almost killed me very quickly Right. I, I know we've talked about the genetic prepositions. And I know for me personally, my father has always harped on me saying, "You know, Mr. Whiskey, you can never drink because, you know, I was an addict," and then he'll name all these family members. And so was there any teaching in your household like, "Hey, son, we have this family history. You should be cautious"? Was there any, like, warning to you? No, because my father, nobody on his side of the family had any issues. And ironically neither of my parents ever drank or used drugs. Mm. And so my mom, there wasn't a warning because my grandmother was a functional alcoholic, so she started... She didn't start drinking till 5:00, hence there's a nasty vodka brand called 5:00 Vodka. It's, it's one of the low-grade vodkas out there. But so she was... She just became muted, right? So, so alcohol does things to to s- to people's personalities, right? There's a distinct change in personality. Right. I get mean and violent. Some people become happy and jovial. Other people become sullen and withdrawn. My grandmother was the type who became sullen and withdrawn and just stopped speaking. Mm. Oh- But I found that out later. For me, what's most interesting, and obviously this is anything we should teach our children, is that if someone invites you over and just says, "Hey, snort this," we should say, "Wait a minute," you know, "What is this? Let me look it up first." I mean, you talk about no hesitation. You kinda just did it. And I don't know if you still remember kinda what was going through your head, where you were like, "All right. I trust my friend, so we're gonna do this," or do you remember that kinda thought process at all? Yeah, so there were oth- there was a... Th- this was the pre-party before the party. Oh, okay. And so it was all of my... I call them the, the rogues... rogues' gallery of trust fund delinquents. So I knew that these other kids had... Most, most of the other kids at this pre-party were more advanced than I was, so a lot of the people that night were, had taken acid, LSD. And my friend... You know, it wasn't even, it wasn't peer pressure. It was just curiosity. Mm. I, because... Now, maybe it's because I'm ADHD and I took a lot of risks in my, in my life and got in... I had a lot of behavioral issues and faced a lot of serious, I was expelled from two preschools. I was I misbehaved in school. I was a cruel kid. And I think that there's probably a link to my, the risks that I took. But it wasn't, nobody was saying, "Hey, do this. You're not gonna be cool if you don't do this." It just kinda was just, just happened instantly. Right? It, it wasn't even planned. It was just- Right ... he's, "Here, do, just do this." And, and that set me off to the races. Mm. And then you talked about by 18 being, you know, a full-blown addict. During those teenage years, how are you getting access to these drugs? Well, so Adderall is the big one now, but when I was in high school, kids were prescribed... A lot of students at my school were prescribed Ritalin. Mm. And so there were kids who would just sell it and not take it. Okay. And, or there were kids... I went to a private school, and there was this area where everybody would leave their backpack. And I would go through kids' backpacks to take the Ritalin- Wow ... if, if I couldn't find someone to sell it to me. But yeah, the, the... So a lot of times the kids who didn't like the way they made it, made it feel made, make them feel, would sell me the Ritalin and then take that money and buy weed. Mm. So, and it's still even with Oxies, when Oxies first came out the first person who started selling me Oxy would take it from his mom, who was a cancer patient. Wow. So, right? There's, there's always gonna, unfortunately, be someone willing to sell something. But crystal meth did not, I didn't experience that until my freshman year in college. So it was Ritalin until I graduated, and then when I moved out west, that's when I... Meth just completely rocked me. Okay. And again, you know, we don't share these processes so that you can go replicate them, but so you have a little awareness around how this stuff happens. And one of the most shocking episodes I actually had on this podcast was, it's titled something like, She Was Her Son's Drug Dealer and Didn't Know. And basically, this woman who was addicted, her son would go into her room and steal some of her drugs, and became addicted from just the drugs she had in the house. And so, like you said, it- That's common ... people get it, people get it from a lot of different places. And it's very unfortunate that we have, you know, these teenagers, these high schoolers, these college students and adults enabling one another you know, to make a profit. But of course, you know, drugs and alcohol have been a huge profit and financially driven business for a long time. And, you know, I think that what we need to focus on is more prevention. We have a lot of intervention and recovery, but I think we're not hitting the prevention properly, you know, hitting the children and teenagers in the right mindset for this stuff. And unfortunately, that's a hard process to go about, right? Because we have programs in all the schools and high schools. I think for me it was called D.A.R.E., which was what? Drug and Alcohol, or whatever it is. Yeah, unfortunately, D.A.R.E. D.A.R.E., they, it was 100, several hundred million dollar program, and what they found was that it, it, it caused more interest and so kids went out and tried drugs. Yeah, and that's just one example of- Right ... many other programs that they have tried and stuff. So it's really hard to do the prevention, and I, I think, you know, it comes down to also what they're being taught at home, and I think what I'd love to see more is more scriptural influence in every home. There's a lot of choices that I've made that if I had been more grounded in the teaching and wisdom of the Bible, I wouldn't have done, and there's plenty of scripture against drunkenness and, you know, the associated ailments of addiction. But even then, you know, how we receive the word and how we implement it as children is not always effective. And then from there, you talk about by 18 being fully blown addict and struggling with that. How long did this continue? Did it continue to get progressively worse? Like, what did the next few years kind of shape out to be, especially during your time in college? So I'll expedite this just because I don't want it to be one big drunkalog. Right. So from 16 to 29, I went to treatment three times, had several arrests wrecked cars, wrecked relationships, wrecked job opportunities. I was a TV reporter for ABC on air. I was drunk and high every day on television- Wow ... as a street reporter. I OD'd in the newsroom in front of all my coworkers- Wow in So- in South Texas, which is, in the summer is 120 degrees so they thought I had heatstroke. But I- Hmm ... burned every bridge in my life, and w- you know, you talked about pain, and pain is necessary. Pain was the only... Pain is the greatest motivator to change, and I welcomed the pain because you know, if someone's just gonna keep buying me drugs and alcohol, like my parent, my father was enabling me, and he was just an open, open-ended ATM machine. You know, I had to experience deep-rooted spiritual pain to want to be in a position to accept help from another man, right? So I had to put my ego aside, and I had to admit that I, I was a pretty bad manager of my own life and I needed new management, right? And that manager is God. Hmm. Right. Now, you talk about... So did your father give you the money knowing what you were going to do with it, or you talked kind of like, it sounded like he was in denial of your actions, which I think is very common because as a parent, you don't wanna think that your child is an addict because, one, a lot of us will take it as a reflection on us. What did we do, do wrong? You know, why is our child addicted? Or, you know, is there something inherently wrong with our child? So obviously, a lot of parents live in denial of their addiction. What was kind of the scenario with your father? So parents don't know who their children are. Hmm. I agree with that for sure. That, that just... Let's just start there, right? And my father didn't know who I was. You know, like I said, he, you know, he introduced me to a life of prostitution and gambling at a young age- Mm. And so I said, I was 16 when he introduced me to prostitution, and I said, "That's the night that he ceased being my father and became my best friend." Agreed. Agreed. So my father looked, my father looked, and I just posted something on social media that got 1.3 million views w- about my father buying me a prostitute. I think we're, I think maybe, hopefully you'll agree with this, I think we're fighting for the soul of our nation for young men. 100%. Because, listen, I, I don't blame my father. You know, these, these conversations in my book is not an indictment of his failure. It's a testament to what happens when you turn the other cheek and love someone too much. Right? That's the way that I phrase it, because I want people to understand that I don't resent him. He did the best he could, but he was severely flawed. Most of the comments I got from these men were, "Your father's a legend. Your father's a hero. You're gay. How ungrateful, you're an ungrateful son. My father hit me, so therefore my father was a better father because he didn't hit me and he got me that woman." I was just taken aback by where we are as a nation, a society, and as, as a human race. Mm-hmm. And I'm not, I'm not the anti-gambling and prostitution and strip club I'm not the anti spokesperson. But I don't think it's something that you should introduce to your children. So I actually- It's not r- it doesn't sound like rocket science, right? Right. It sounds pretty basic, but unfortunately- Right ... what is true morality and morality is very twisted by society, and I'll give you an example. I posted not too long ago about anti-human trafficking, posting about human trafficking prevention and awareness, and es- essentially, the woman was talking about how much human trafficking labor is used to make coffee and, you know, the enablement of those companies to keep doing so because of the purchase of the goods, and how many churches unknowingly sell coffee made by human trafficking labor. And so she was talking about churches- Using, you know, ethically sourced coffee, and maybe even having a sign to promote it to bring about awareness, 'cause awareness is the first step in prevention. And I had men in the comment section saying, "You know, we- real men in the church would tear that sign down. You know, go make daddy a cup of coffee," because basically pro-human trafficking comments. And anytime I post anything faith-based, I get a- attacked, and I've had a lot of toxic males attack me for different talks I've had on male sexual assault prevention and awareness and, you know, talking about biblical masculinity. And one good example, you talked about people praising and complimenting your father. I've spoken a lot about grooming when it comes to young males, because a lot of times young men are taken advantage of by older women, but we always praise this as a good thing. You know, there's this common idea that if you're sexually assaulted by a woman as a man, well, that's a good thing. You're winning. Like you said, terms like legendary, hero, or, you know, if you're not gonna play Pass the Controller, I wish I had that. And so we've talked about that, about how, you know, like men, young men who are being taken advantage of by older women, it's always like, oh, if you, if you attracted an older woman, you know, you're winning in life, even if it's unwanted, unconsensual, or whatever it may be. And so I, I completely understand what your point is, you know. We have such a degrading and immoral society that pushes stripping, that pushes prostitution, that we... I mean, you look at social media, the sexualization has gone so much, and we see people wanting to partake of that with their children because, you know, some of them are marking it as an initiation of manhood. You know, some fathers like f- for example, for, for yours perhaps, like in that case of getting your son a prostitute, "Well, I'm just r- raising my son to be a man," or, "I'm teaching him about, you know, real masculinity or manhood." Yeah, and he comes from that old school of thought. Right. Right, and unfortunately, we see that nowadays in other terms, in other, you know, social media equivalents with sexualization and whatever it may be. You know, prior to prostitution or, or rather a more subtle version was some fathers would get their sons Playboy magazines, or nowadays it might be, "Hey, son, I'm getting you a subscription to an OnlyFans, whichever one you want." You know, unfortunately, we see that, and it's really just a passing down of values and ideas that are being shaped by society rather than scripture. And so I, I think unfortunately when it comes to social media, we see that reinforcement of those ideas in the comment sections. You know, we see people defending it and praising it and then speaking against you, and so it, it's really sad to see that decline. You know, we... I, I just... I put it at two ends of a spectrum. We have some people trying to make men women. We have some people making men very toxic, aggressive, and abusive people, and not that middle part, and that middle part is what scripture lays out of biblical masculinity, where it's a balance Of both feminine and masculine characteristics to make a, a ideal man who lives a righteous life and serves other people. And so when you talk about your, your father, what is your relationship with him now, if at all? Or like did you ever confront him at some point? No. You see, that's the power of the power of the program that I got sober in. As I've said, I've seen... Because service changed my life, and that's one of the themes in my book, of how important service and volunteer work is. Real quick before I get to that, I wanted to say that there's a crisis in this country for young men. And gambling, the sports apps have, are, is wiping out an entire youth. And also porn. Like, Yeah ... not just pornography, but OnlyFans. And so I also talk about that because it's not drugs and alcohol, it's gambling and pornography, which are just as, can be just as destructive. But and actually, if you go to a more four out of five, four out of five suicides are young men. So and it's not that I don't wanna help women, but getting back to my father, he died. When he died, I had 11 years of sobriety. And so one of the things that he finally could do was to pull back the reins of financial help. And, you know, when my mom said, "If you're gonna use, get out of my house," and my dad, you know, everybody kind of got together and said, "We're done with your BS." And so when they started to hold me accountable, then I started to, to heal. And I'm all about I'm not a victim, I'm a survivor. I think it's very important to distinguish the fact today that everybody says, "Well, you gotta deal with trauma." Well, but I manipulated my trauma. I used the trauma that I had in my life to keep my parents at bay from trying to corral my addiction. And so I, I, because my parents got divorced, I w- the one time that they got together I started hitting below the belt and attacking my mom because I knew that my dad would join in, or I was appealing to his, to his anger of how she left the family. And so you can be... If, if they're not experienced, right, like addiction professionals are, then it's easy to manipulate your way through and say, "Oh, well, I've, I've ha- you know, you left the family. I have all this, this, this trauma in my life because you left, Dad. You left me." But the minute I started- Hmm ... I looked in the mirror and became a, a, and just took accountability for my actions, that's when I started to grow. So, I realized that my father did the best that he could, and, you know, that was good enough for me because- You know, he wasn't malicious in his intent. I think intent is important. Right. I realize that he did the best he could with what the tools that he had to be a father, whi- which was not many. Mm. Right? Like, he... My house was the party house. He tried to make me get a job, and I would go to the club and play golf. You know, he, he tried to, barely tried to put in boundaries or measures to hold me accountable as a, as a kid, right? There was, there were, there was a blurred line of who was the father and who was the friend. And so my book is really trying to help families not destroy their kids' ambition, help them to launch into an adult life, into a functional adult life. See, see, happiness is a byproduct of good living, right? You're not always gonna be happy every day, but you can be functioning in society, right? And there's a lot of men who have a failure to launch because they're living at home and there's no direction and there's no game plan. And so I'm trying to inspire families to make tough decisions, create boundaries, and help their kids become adults. I agree. I feel like we've seen a huge rise in, you know, soft parenting, in parents letting children stay with them long after they should be, like you mentioned, launched and on their own. And, you know, they think that it's in love, and it definitely is done with love, but that, that doesn't mean it's the best thing for them. And y- we've talked a little bit about you writing this book, and I wanna get into the inspiration behind that, but I wanna backtrack. You mentioned in the very beginning the moment you, you know, surrendered to God. Mm. What, what kinda pushed you in that direction to surrender to God? Was he, like, a, did you incorporate him to your life prior to that? Did someone kinda preach the word to you? What led you to God? So it's, it's interesting, and I'll, I'll just, this is important for the, for the story. I was raised as a conservative Jewish person. Mm. And I've been to Israel nine times. I was bar mitzvah'd in Israel. We followed Moses' journey through the desert on camels. Wow. My, my dad has been to Israel. And this is not political whatsoever, so I'm, I'm not get- I have no, you know, offici- anybody who's listening, this is not me supporting Israel. I'm just talking about how I grew up and what was, what was taught to me, right? I didn't have a choice for that. And I went to a religious school. And, you know, when you, when you grow up with one sect of people, then you, you really don't know about other ideas. And so I had been in and out of Alcoholics Anonymous for quite some time, and I had heard time and time again- Have you ever tried getting on your knees to pray and ask for help? And that's not something that I was comfortable with because of the old ideas and the indoctrination that I had that Jews don't kneel. And so I just- it wa- it was the perfect storm. I had deep-rooted spiritual pain. Pills, booze, alcohol, drugs was killing me, and I had burned every bridge in my life. I w- I was ready to kill myself. So I went to a meeting, another one, and it was a group of men, and what I say is that I had to... A lot of people don't wanna hear the truth about where they are and who they are, and so one of the things I said is that I fired all the yes men in my life, including myself, and I started listening to the people who had long-term sobriety. And once again, they said, "Have you tried getting on your knees and ask God for help?" Well, that's why I mention my sobriety date, October 3rd, 2004, 6:30 in the morning. I got on my knees in the living room and I said, "God, if you don't show yourself, I'm gonna kill myself." I had an AR-15 rifle next to me, and the room lit up for 25 minutes, and there was a, a powerful sensation that came over me, and the obsession to use drugs and alcohol was lifted instantaneously. Hmm. And so one of the things that I say that I'm trying not to... This is, I guess, more of a Catholic or I know, 'cause there's been a lot of people of faith who are interested in my message because one of the things I say is that when I felt the presence of God, I realized that I wasn't chosen for my religion. I was chosen to be of service and to, and to help other people. Hmm. Because most of my... I've, I've, I'm a- a lot, a lot of my childhood friends are dead. Wow. And I believe I was spared to, to be of service to those who are struggling, specifically, and this came in later, as a, as a man who grew up in a bubble and who, who grew up in privilege. I don't think people understand what's going on in the rest of the world. I think a lot of, a lot of us have lost perspective, including me. Yeah. And every time I go to serve... I, I live in a suburb of Detroit. Detroit's a, it's a very blue collar, rough town outside of the suburbs, and I see people who are trying to recover who are felons, who don't have parents, they don't have family, they don't have insurance, they don't have a driver's license. Face tattoos, neck tattoos. I call them in my book the forgotten ones because these are the men that society has brushed aside. Yeah. These are... That, that, that is my true... Now, I'll help anybody, whether you have a lot of money or you don't, but that's what really drives me and motivates me because everything was given to me. And when I got on my knees and I realized that I was given a five hundred chances, service is my way of showing God and proving to God, please know that I, I want you to see that I am worthy for sparing me. And so- So getting on my knees, the, the whole point is that I used to think, "Well, what is that gonna do?" Right? And I never tell anybody how to pray. I strongly suggest what worked for me is, and the people who I, the men and women who I respect, not- and some of them don't hit their knees, but a lot of the people sober 30, 40 years, in service, volunteer work, give you the shirt off their back, they're not a, they're not a victim, they're a survivor. These are the people who got, get on their knees and ask God for sobriety every day and how to be of ser- maximum service to God and how to, just how to be a better person and how to, how to be of service. And that's what changed my life. I mean, but I will say if anybody's listening or the, the people who are listening you don't have to have a white light spiritual experience like I did, right? Most people do not see a white light. But I am trying to reach the agnostics and the atheists as well, because I think that they are truly lost. And so my message to them is pretty simple, and it was the way it was sent to me. You don't need, you don't need $100,000 to build a relationship with God, meaning you don't have to go to a high-end facility, and you don't need a spiritual experience to make a pot of coffee. And what that means- Mm-hmm ... is that I, I believe that if you're really struggling with God, service can be your higher power. If you just start to get out of yourself and be of service to someone else, you will build upon those experiences. And if you want self-esteem, you have to start doing esteemable things. I agree 100%. And what I wanna get into is who would most benefit from reading your book? Obviously, you talked about writing it to be of service and to help people, to spread awa- awareness, to create prevention and intervention. Who should really read it? Family, parents or spouses or any family member, grandparents who have a hard time... Listen, as you know, I, I held my family hostage. It was a disaster. You know that. I wouldn't show up. I would steal. I would pawn. I would lie. I would... Wasted people's time, wasted people's money. Families have a right to live a nice life, and you can love someone from a distance. So, so I'm hoping that families will look at the case studies that I've had, and I want to, I just want them to be able to set healthy boundaries. That doesn't mean you have to kick them out and never speak to them again. But you have to create boundaries, and you have to draw a line in the sand and stick to it like my family did. That's why I... One of the reasons why I got well. Now, I'm also trying to help addicts and alcoholics, specifically those maybe who don't have a lot of resources, right? The, the, the treatment center industry is a behemoth multi, multi, multi-billion dollar industry. Now, I'm, because of my health insurance and financial situation, I was able to go to the high dollar facilities back when your insurance would pay for everything. It's a completely different story now. I am trying to meach- reach men and women who don't have a lot of resources, and there's one story that comes to mind. When I was 19 I went to a Narcotics Anonymous meeting. I was the only white person, 'cause it was in the city of Detroit, which is predominantly Black. And I remember, this will always sit with me even though I didn't get sober for another 10 years. This man said, "Because I have a relationship with God, I am now able to ride my bike past the crack houses and liquor stores where I used to get high on my way to church." Hmm. Right? So, and I want people to really hear what I'm saying. Most people just can't pick up and leave, right? They're living paycheck to paycheck. They're living in a city surrounded by prostitution, gambling, drugs, alcohol, the whole thing. There's a lot of people who recover in their backyard. And the two things that I attest to that, one is service, and the other is God. I think that's a really relevant example, not just physically with our geographical location, but with our feed and algorithm as well, you know? And with that, though, we do have the power to shape that. We do have the power to get rid of the, quote, "virtual," you know, stores of, of, of liquor and sex and drugs, whatever it may be. But also just if you are struggling to rebuild the feed, you know, we have a, in Greek it's called sophronismos, the spirit of self-control that God gave us to turn off the app or to delete it or to lock it out, and I think that's one of the hardest parts is I talk about inundation. We are being inundated, bombarded on all sides from mainstream media to social media to just our societal events to indulge in a lot of things that are destroying us. You know, I talk about, and you and I won't get into it in this conversation, but I've had plenty of conversations about the spread of the vape and vaping and fentanyl- Hmm ... and the rise of that, you know? The access to those resources and how drugs are being spread through different means and how we keep rebranding smoking into some different form or medium to, you know, kind of be like, hey, it's, it's, you know, not as bad. We always try to make it not as bad. We always justify, right? The industry is going to do that for profit. And then we as addicts, I talk a lot on the show about justification and denial, about how we can always justify our actions. You know, I've dealt with a lot of addicts who every holiday was an excuse to drink or do drugs. Every party was an excuse to drink or do drugs, whatever it is. And so I think it's really important that you, like you mentioned, we can, even in the midst of this environment, be prepared and controlled, you know, and we're always going to face some kind of temptation, you know, and even people I've had interviewed people who knew addicts who had been sober for. In fact, my dad always questioned me about this. He goes, son, I go to AA and there's this guy. He's 70 years old and he's been sober for 20 years. Why is he still going there? And I said, dad, probably because he understands himself and he knows that he needs to go there to help fight against the temptations that maybe for him, that is one of his methods, a healthy method of resisting this. For some people, it might be service. For some people, it might be developing a new hobby to fill in empty time where your mind wanders, whatever it may be. And I think it's really important that we develop these practices so that even when you're put into that situation, right, some addicts I've spent time with, they'll go to a party and up to a certain level of drinks, they're fine. But if there's too many bottles around, they leave. But if there's only one or two people drinking, they can stay. I think analyzing our limits and knowing what kind of environments we can thrive in is really important. But at the end of the day, ultimately being able to resist any environment, as you said. And so to help us with that, I always ask any faith based guest on the show, if you could share one Bible quote from the heart right now, what would it be? And it doesn't have to be addiction related, just whatever the spirit puts on you. Well, I'll tell you, this is, it's a New Testament prayer. It is our father. And so you have to understand that when you're, when I grew up as a Jewish person or a kid in day school, they don't, we don't read the New Testament. We only read the Old Testament. So when I went to Alcoholics Anonymous for the first time and I heard that prayer, listen, this is why it's so important to be open to other ideas. Because at the end of a meeting, usually, well, before COVID, you would hold hands and say they are father at many meetings. And I would, because I would use this as an excuse, I'd say, oh, well, that's, see, that's a Christian prayer. That's a New Testament. That prayer is out of the New Testament. But that prayer. I, I say it proudly, and... 'cause what, what, what, God's not gonna love me because I'm saying, saying a prayer, holding hands with other people who are all trying to, to get well like I am, right? You have to be able to be honest with yourself. Do I not like the prayer because I think it's rooted in Christianity, or am I just trying to look for a way to drink? Very- Mm ... very important distinction, right? Because you can talk your way out of any program. So I love the Our Father, but I also like the San- the Saint Francis prayer. Are you familiar with that one? The Lord make me an instrument of your peace? Yes. Yeah, so I, I went to... It's been a long time, but I I was raised Catholic. I'm no longer Catholic, but I went to a Catholic school where that prayer was said every day. And- See, I never, I had never heard that before. Yeah, and for me, you know, even though I'm not Catholic, it's, it's still a pretty good prayer. You know, it's, How would I describe it? It's, it's two sides. You know, every- everything that it goes that, that it speaks against, it, it heals against, if that makes sense. Mm-hmm. Yes. It's a dichotomy of good and, and e- not evil- Right ... but... And I'll tell you because that's why I'm so big on faith and God, is that I... And, and so just so you know, my book is not about Matt, just about Matt Grace. I share other people's incredible stories of how their faith saved them through the worst consequences. And I'll- one person in particular who introduced me to that prayer, he had to bury his wife and son in the same year, and at his son's funeral, he was pushing his wife in a wheelchair. She had full-blown dementia. She didn't know where he wa- where she was, and I'm looking at this man who just buried his son, and he's taking care of his wife who doesn't know where she is. And I said, "Why don't you put her in a home?" And he said, "Because that's my wife, and I owe her for all the years of our bad marriage as me drinking and not showing up and just not being committed to marriage." And he's... Just his character through the toughest times, he said that he leaned on the Saint Francis prayer, and he leaned on his relationship with his, with his higher power, God. And so think of, think about burying your wife and son in the same year, or your son being brutally murdered or you get terminal cancer, or you experience financial ruin. What I found is that the people who believed in something, you can either live in fear or live in faith, and the people who got through those dark hours, they leaned on their faith. I agree 100% because I actually speak all the time about, you know, when times are going difficult through hardships and lamentations, you can curse God and, and ask why this is happening and abandon God and just try to figure out on your own. And, and what you've done really is you've cut off the only thing that could probably save you from whatever situation it is. I feel like, you know, you're taking away the only source of rest, peace, and power that you have. And, you know, if G- if God is real and, and, you know, all this hardship is happening then you need to understand that fighting with him is only gonna make it worse, right? And I think it's really important to... And again, one of the most difficult things to do is surrender in those times, especially of hardship and lamentation. But we've seen throughout the theological unity between the Old Testament and the New Testament, the overlapping theme of redemption and of hardship becoming a catalyst for good. Not that God removes darkness, but sends light into darkness, and that light into darkness might be someone such as yourself, Mr. Grace, about gaining sobriety and then spreading a message of prevention and awareness in a way that you couldn't if you had been. That's not to say that God allows sin to happen just to make good things, but the fact that whatever is evil or against us can be used for good, and that God will use everything against us for good as it is written in Genesis. When, you know, Joseph's brothers find him in Egypt and he's in a position of power, they fear for their lives that he's gonna exi- extract revenge. But what he says to them is this, and I'll paraphrase it here, "What you all intended for evil, God intended for good for the saving and blessing of many that is happening now." And so I'd like to remind everyone, wherever you are, if you're in the midst of addiction, if you're recovered, your value isn't in the addiction. Your value is in what God deems you as, which is a beloved child and a servant of him that is going to do great work. And so never feel too irredeemable. You know, it's always about there is great redemption and purpose beyond whatever it is. Maybe it's addiction, maybe it's some other sinful vice in your life or something that you've done. Just always keep in mind that there is great redemption and purpose afterward. You know, Matt Grace is one of many people I've interviewed who are shining examples of that. You know, and, and the idea of course is that if, if he did it, you can do it too, whether your situation is not as bad as his or is worse than his. Like I've mentioned, I've interviewed people who dealt with addiction for just a few years, and some who ha- dealt it, with it for 30 years, and so it's never too late. We talked about loving and boundaries, and one thing I throw in there also is hope. Hoping in the addict's recovery. And that doesn't mean you have to really like them or enable what they're doing, but you can still hope in them And give them encouragement and give them that encouragement that they need because a lot of them don't have that self-worth or that encouragement that they need or that hope in themselves. And again, you can do that from a safe distance. Now, Mr. Grace, we've had an excellent conversation covering a lot of different facets of this topic. I think it's really important that anyone listening, if they wanna check out your book, we're gonna have it in the description below to check out along with your website, which has a whole bunch of information. But as we close up here, what would be your final message for everyone to take away? Yeah. If I can make it, anybody can make it. I was the least likable person out of all of my friend group. I was a mean-spirited, cruel kid that because my spirit was broken from a young age, and I, I didn't know that I needed God until I became an adult. But my message is to be nice to each other, to be of service. If you're struggling today, let's say you have five days of sobriety, go help someone with one day. I don't care if it's AA, NA, Dharma Recovery, SMART Recovery. Whatever it is you're doing, there's someone else who is also struggling. If you can just go to a soup kitchen or get some type of service-based position anywhere, I truly believe that it will fill your spirit. I agree 100%. You know, when we often talk about service, people instantly think about a global mission to a, you know, a Third World nation. It doesn't have to be with that. Start local. There are so many local impacts that need to be made that people are overlooking because they're so focused on the global issues. We're so wrapped in around the world that we have lost sight of the local, and it doesn't even have to be faith-based. There's plenty of opportunities for nonprofits and charity work without any religious intermingling if, if that's not what you want right now, that you can be a service of. So I highly recommend that you look around your town and find out. There's plenty of forums online. Now there's more online information about where and how you can help than ever before. Mr. Grace, thank you for what you're doing. Thank you for all the impact that you're making and for your time today. I really appreciate it, and I hope to see continued success in your future. Thank you.