You Think You High but You're Really Getting Low

I was listening to LeCrae’s song Blow Your High yesterday and there is part of his chorus that always catches my ear because of its’ truth, “You think you high but you really getting low.” Every time I hear that I am reminded of my own past, and the reality of addiction. I loved the way it felt when I first used, but by the end I hated it so much but could not quit. When I first used, bad things in life had happened to me. By the end, I was the bad thing that had happened to other people.

My first use was with a group of kids, and I instantly felt a connection to them. It was incredible. I had never really felt like I belonged anywhere and suddenly I was part of a group. All of the painful things I had been through and all the stress I felt instantly melted away.  I had always heard how horrible drugs were in school, and I knew that they had lied to me the first time I tried them.

Drugs were not horrible. In fact, they were quite the opposite. For once, I did not have to put up walls to hide my feelings from others. I could let them see how I really felt. I laughed, I lived and I loved constantly. I was using drugs, and the more I used the better I felt. The better I felt, the more social I became.  I was the life of the party, the center of attention. It felt great and I loved it.

At this point in my life, I was flying high. I was in Junior High and then High School, using to escape my past and create a new reality. I was having fun, acting crazy outside of school and doing pretty well inside of it. I was happy, but only because I was not dealing with life’s problems. In addiction things are often not as they appear.

I went from a stoner in junior high while I was living in Highland to a partying prep when I moved to Eldorado for high school. My junior year I began to get into trouble, drinking too much liquor and smoking too much marijuana. I moved to Hollister for my senior year and was introduced to methamphetamine. It was by far the best thing I had ever done.

To this day, I have never felt anything that compares to the rush I got from doing meth. It was AWESOME!!!! It made me feel so great. I felt so great that I wanted that feeling all of the time. In my previous addiction I would sometimes skip classes so that I could get high. I would get drunk every weekend, several times. But I still had a semblance of a life. With meth, everything faded but the drug.

In my previous use, I vandalized and swiped money and credit cards from my dad. I kept my grades up and I was a prep at school. With meth, I dropped out of school and started stealing so that I could afford to continue using. From there I started dealing meth and marijuana so that I could continue to use meth.

I was in and out of jail 15 or 20 times. I eventually wound up in prison, where I turned 21. I was on probation, parole, in jail or in prison from 17 until I was 29. I hurt people I considered friends: physically, emotionally, psychologically, sexually and spiritually. I stole from people, a lot. I introduced people to methamphetamine and the drug lifestyle. Many of those people are either in prison or dead.

Mister social, with tons of friends at the parties every night, ended up unconscious in a pool full of my own blood after slashing my wrists. Luckily, someone found me before it was too late. The guy who always had parties at his house, ended up all alone locked up in his room with a  needle in his arm while everyone else partied because I didn’t want them to know I was shooting up. Then I only started hanging out with other people who shot up.  

I was no longer doing drugs, the drugs were doing me. I was no longer using to have fun, I was using just to feel less bad. That is the lie many who have never struggled with addiction believe, that we use because we are having fun and life is amazing. The truth is, we often start using to escape life and end up addicted because we can no longer function without it.

I needed drugs to get out of bed. I needed drugs to think. I was sluggish; operating at less than 50 percent and when I used it would lift me to 75 percent. I never felt great, I always felt bad. Using allowed me to feel less bad. Depression that I had once been able to escape and numb from returned and was even worse. Not feeling like I fit in was replaced by social acceptance and that in turn was replaced by paranoia and lack of trust for everybody.

What had started out as freeing in the end became my prison! LeCrae’s lyrics remind me of a saying I heard once at an NA meeting, “Drugs gave me wings, then they took my sky away.” That was the reality of drugs. I have seen that occur not only in my life, but in the lives of countless others. We continually make choices that we swore we would never make and cross lines we never imagined we would cross.

In order to avoid this, don’t use. If you are using, stop. Although this is easier said than done, it is not only  a possibility but a reality if you apply the 5 Pillars of Recovery to your life:

1.       Higher Power: Find something that gives you hope, validation, forgiveness and more. I found that through Jesus Christ, others have found it through the fellowship. Find something bigger than you!

2.       Meetings: Find a community of people who have struggled as you are struggling and have overcome it. This is another great place to gain strength, experience and hope. Some use AA, NA, Celebrate Recovery, Rational Recovery, small groups or an amalgam of the above.

3.       12 Steps: Find a game plan that will help you live your life better. I have found both the 12 Steps and the book of James have been great advice on how to remain sober while building a great foundation for my life as long as I apply them in my life and then follow them daily.

4.       Sponsor/Mentor: Find someone whose life you would like to have in 5 years and ask them to help you get there. If you are working the 12 steps, find someone who has applied them to their lives successfully and have them help you work through them.

5.       Accountability Partners: Put people in your life that will support your future goals and hold you accountable. They have permission to call you out and to support you, through the good and the bad and they are not afraid to do it.

So in closing, although drugs and alcohol may make you feel great at first, for many there are negative consequences down the road. When those occur, there is a solution that can help you get your life back on track and the 5 Pillars of Recovery are a great place to start. I have never seen someone who was actively engaging in all 5 who went back out and stayed there! Never forget, there is a better life in recovery!

From Dealing Dope to Dealing Hope - 10 Keys for Positive Growth

There are days when I look back at my addiction with fear; there are days I look back at my addiction with wonder. There are seldom days that I don’t look back, though. I used to think that I should be able to move beyond my past, and that one day I would never have to think about it again. I was wrong.

Gratitude some days comes from me casting a gaze to what was. I need no ghost to take me there. It was not so very long ago that I struggled with the consequences of being born into a world that was teeming with evil. At least, that was how the world appeared to me. I don’t feel that way today, but I certainly did 5 years ago and here is why.

The evil in my life was everywhere. The babysitter who is one of my very first memories but never talked about until my late 30’s. My grandfather, the most malicious people I ever met. Methamphetamine, which escalated from lines on the weekends to intravenous multiple times daily just to function and feel “almost” normal. Alcohol, which I could argue was legal yet it still consumed my life in a very short period of time and led me to many a blacked out misadventure. Mostly it was me; I generated the evil  in my life. 

 I graduated from one level of evil to the next as my experiences drained every last vestige of hope. Once hope is gone, there is no purpose but to pursue that which helps you escape reality and numb your senses. I found succor in more. More drugs, more alcohol, more money, more violence, more power and pathological dating. I went from probation to scared straight to house arrest to prison. I had a life that was about as far down the rabbit hole as you can go and still come back on the other side. In fact, I don’t know if I would call it a life. How I functioned was not living but merely existing, holding onto sanity in spurts.

My hopelessness reached abysmal depths. My depression, anxiety and paranoia culminated in being found unconscious in a pool of blood with both wrists slashed. I overdosed 3 times in one year alone. I have died more times than I can count on one hand. How bad was it really? At times I would stay in jail for a week or two when I had the money to bond out because it was less stressful than my life.

I knew one thing: Live sucked then you died and ceased to exist. People talk about hell like it is something to be afraid of. I have lived through hell and if when I died I went to hell that was a destination. At least hell is something. I was scared of there being nothing. Nothingness is scary. Combine that with knowing that there were no real consequences for my actions and you have a recipe for disaster. As an agnostic, I lived for the now because tomorrow did not matter in the grand scheme of things.

I smacked more bottoms than a high school principal in the 70’s, yet nothing was enough to change how I was living my life.  Then the impossible happened. I reached a bottom that I could not escape. My father’s suicide coupled with not being allowed to see my son led me to talk to a coworker that was always positive no matter what. After several invites to join him and his family at church his wife finally conned me into going with a promise of barbecue after the service.

Over time, various things softened my heart during my time at their church. I heard a song called Cry Out to Jesus by a Christian band called Third Day that talked about addiction in the song. I met Christians who didn’t judge me but loved on me in Celebrate Recovery. I started reading the writings of Paul and saw how much alike we were. Then a foxhole prayer combined with the song I’m Not Who I Was by Brandon Heath resulted in my turning my life to Christ.

That was 5 years ago, and I have found a litany of things that now fill me with hope. Just as evil entered my past in many packages, so has the hope I have today. Hope comes in the form of the Bible, which I found was full of advice that makes my life better if I follow it. I have a relationship with my son’s mother and have my son almost half the time. I have a wife and a daughter that are amazing. I have friends that actually care about me staying clean and sober which they show by supporting and encouraging me.

So, what are the secrets to my success? I found 5 Pillars that changed my life:

1.       God – I found that my God had a name and multiple forms: Jesus and the Holy Spirit. I had tried to use the amorphous higher power and found no hope to live a better life or courage to make complete changes that way. It may work for some, but it did not work for me. I would find periods of sobriety but my character defects were still present. I would dry drunk (dry bag) it for a month or two but always go back. With the Holy Spirit as my guide and Jesus as my aspiration I soon found making the right choices became easier and easier.

2.       The Bible and the 12 Steps – I tried the 12 steps and worked through them several times. Spirituality always evaded me. With this life being all there was, I could never wrap my head around why I would want to hurt and struggle and the motivation for altruism completely escaped me. With the Bible and the promises it contained became real to me, all the pieces fell into place and altruism became second nature.

3.       Sponsor/Mentor – I had a sponsor to work through the 12 steps. He was a great guy and I appreciate the time we had together. The sole reason for his existence was to stay sober and do service work for his group. I outgrew that attitude. I wanted to make an impact in my  community and hopefully the entire country eventually. My life became about so much more than my past addiction and I needed someone who had accomplished the things I wanted to accomplish. I could not find that person at a meeting so I found a mentor instead of a sponsor.

4.       Celebrate Recovery – I had tried other groups, and there is a lot to be said for them. I still attend the groups that will remain anonymous sometimes because you can get positive stuff from them. I needed more. I craved a place that reeked of recovery instead of sobriety. I yearned for less chaos and more structure. I needed to see that we could completely change ourselves. I found that in Celebrate Recovery. Who knew you didn’t have to cuss to be in recovery?

5.       Accountability Partners – I found that I had to surround myself with positive people if I wanted to remain positive and that I could have friends that had never done drugs or committed crimes and still have great relationships with them after they knew about my past. I found these people in Celebrate Recovery at first and now I have expanded that circle. It was a relief to have friends that I was not constantly worried about relapsing or getting me caught up in their still chaos filled worlds. They were able to walk beside me and share their strength, experience and hope with me while I shared mine with them. I learned how to have a give and take relationship instead of give or take relationships.

To my original list I have several addendums:

1.       Prayer/Meditation – There are times when life is kicking my butt. I have found that when that happens I need a time out, so I would pray. I found the more I pray, the less things in life beat me up so I started praying more and it has made my life a lot less complicated and a lot more positive. Instead of praying for myself, I pray for others and only ask God to let me be His hands and feet and that I act a little more like Jesus each day.

2.       Gratitude List – I like to wake up in the morning and think of 3 things that I am grateful for. I wake up with more than enough time to do my morning rituals so I am not rushed and my thoughts are on things I am grateful for.  As I continue on with my morning, making coffee and breakfast, I play those 3 things over and over in my head. I have found that this starts my day of on the right foot and it carries into the rest of my day.

3.       Journaling – I will spend a couple of minutes each night recording my highs and lows for the day. This is helpful because I can vent some of my frustrations and record some of my successes consistently. Then I can look over my journal every few months and see the trends, if I have started any bad habits and the success I am having in reaching my goals. From day to day changes and trends are hard to identify but looking over several months they are much easier to identify.

4.       Community Service – I don’t mean something your judge ordered you to do. This is not setting up chairs for meetings or making coffee. That is service work, which is also important but not what I mean. I mean giving back to the communities we live in. Go and feed the homeless or do a couple shifts ringing bells for the Salvation Army. Take food to families at the Ronald McDonald House or volunteer at Habitat for Humanity. Walk, jog or run in charity 5K’s. Altruism is one of the most important acts of recovery. We become a positive cog in the machine we once tried to sabotage.

5.       Extracurricular Activities – I joined a men’s softball league. I started working out at the gym. I went bowling, enjoyed float trips and started taking long bicycle rides. I learned how to have fun clean and sober. I found that I could enjoy myself without drugs and alcohol. I gained more friends and the free time I had which had led to relapse in the past instead led me to building stronger supports, additional interventions and a bolder lifestyle.

I believe that if I can change my life after 20 plus years of addiction and destructive lifestyles, where my hurts habits and hang-ups outweighed my strengths, than so can you. I attempted multiple ways to obtain sobriety to always have it wilt away and never come to fruition. I know that the 10 things I have listed above are vital to a changed lifestyle, and I encourage you to apply them to your life. Give it a month. It will change your life. I know it changed mine!

The Beverly Hillbillies and My Faith

I am sure that this is a confusing title for a blog. After all, what could the Beverly Hillbillies possibly have to do with my faith? Did the show lead me to God, or did it help me get saved? No, it did not, nor did I learn anything about my faith from watching the show. That said, there are similarities between me and other Christians in the church and the Clampett family and the socialites in Beverly Hills.

The Beverly Hillbillies was a “fish out of water” show. It was about a dirt poor family from the sticks that became rich instantly. They moved to Beverly Hills where they were around other rich people. Because of where they were from and how they acted various things happened. They were sometimes looked down upon They  frequently did not understand the conversations that occurred around them. They were frequently misunderstood by those they lived around. They did not understand a lot of the things they observed, and when people would try to become their friends there was often issues that occurred.

At least in the show, this was always met with laughter and applause. In real life, this is not the case. Instead of laughter and applause there are often bridges burned and greater divides created that separate and hurt one side or the other. Are you still wondering what this has to do with my faith?

I was Agnostic for most of my life.  It started in the 5^th grade, when I decided that God could not be true because of all of the abuse that I was subjected to and the hypocrisy I saw from those who professed to be Christians (mostly my parents). How could a God that cared about me allow this to happen? It continued through my life as I struggled with various addictions and mental health issues while going in and out of jail and prison. It ended when I turned my life over to God at 37.

When it comes to living my life Christ-like, I was definitely the polar opposite. I was a soldier for Satan for probably 2 decades of my life, as I dealt drugs and played a part in the manufacturing of methamphetamine. I had a different lifestyle, used different language and sought after goals that were completely different from Christians. But, after struggling for over 20 years with addictions/anger/depression/PTSD, I gave my life to God and everything instantly changed.

Like the Clampetts, I went from being poor to rich overnight. In my case it was not financially, it was spiritually. I then started going to church, and a lot of the things that came out of my mouth were not understood or alienated some people from me. I would talk about my addiction and prison, because that is what my life previously had consisted of. I think of the dirt that the Clampetts sometimes had on their boots that caused others to turn their noses up in disdain, except my dirt was on my soul.

The Clampetts had Mr Drysdale, who had lived a much different life and had different interests always there to tell them what they need. He was all about the money, which was important to him and he felt should be important to Jed. Today we have the “seeker-friendly” church reaching out to the lost, trying to give me what l already knew. I came to the church for something different, not something comfortable. Change happens not from the ordinary and known but the extraordinary and unknown!

I call it as I see it. I found that there are many who don’t, and much like Jethro I get confused when I see sin called something else. I see sin as black and white. I seldom see shades of gray. Do not get me wrong, I still sin. That said, I try to work on my shortcomings and I still see what I did as sin. Here are a couple of examples that I see often:

1.       How can you look down on someone who is watching pornography or using drugs/alcohol when you have a gluttony issue? Addiction is addiction, no matter how you slice it. Just because yours may be more socially acceptable does not mean that God sees them any differently.

2.       Here all I really have is the name of a book, “50 Shades of Grey.” Have you read it? I had a friend tell me that she had read the book. When I asked her if she was okay with her husband watching pornography she told me that was sick. She was offended when I told her there was no difference between watching it and reading it.

3.       Greed, the “name it claim it” creed and the “prosperity gospel” seem very close to the same thing, although people keep telling me they are different. Some people have a lot of money. There is nothing wrong with that. Other people shaft friends, spend little time with family or ignore the Holy Spirit’s voice because they are busy chasing wants not needs. That is greed, and that is wrong.

Because of these examples as well as many more, I am the fish out of water much like the Clampetts. I try to understand what I am seeing, but I interpret people’s actions instead of just listening to their words and get confused. I am used to taking things at face value, which is what I did in the world I used to live in. Back then it was life and death, so you had to learn how to read people and the best way to do that was by their actions.

Now that I am in a battle for my eternal soul, it seems to even more important that I prepare myself to be successful and here are the 5 Pillars I have found to do that:

1.       God/Jesus/Holy Spirit - This is where I found my hope, faith and strength. Without hope and faith, change is impossible. If I don’t have hope that it can change and the faith to pursue change, I am stuck right where I was. Recovery programs refer to a Higher Power, but “there is no High like the Most High!” (This was stolen from Mike Rogers new church in Springfield, MO)

2.       Bible – I say the book of James in particular, which is a great guide to help you live a better life. In recovery they talk about the 12 steps, in life I say there is no better game plan for living your life than the Bible!

3.       Mentor - Find someone who is living the life you would like to live, and ask them to help guide you there. In recovery programs, t hey call this a sponsor. Someone who is living t heir lives sober that has worked through the 12 steps to guide you through the 12 steps. In my walk, I would find someone that is walking the Christian walk I want to walk that can, with the help of the Bible, guide me to an improved walk.

4.       Accountability Partners – These are people with similar goals to yours that can encourage and support you while you encourage and support them. The best way to see if they have similar goals is by fruit inspecting, or gauging them by their words and their works.

5.       Church/Small Groups – This is the place where you gather with a group of people who have similar goals and gain hope/faith/strength. In recovery they talk about 12 step meetings, in life I talk about small groups which are set up with a specific topic!

What Is Recovery?

What is recovery?

That is a question that is open to interpretation and circumstance. Medically it mean being on the mend from surgery or an accident. A computer repairman would say it is getting back lost files on a computer. In this case, we are looking at addictive lifestyles. What is recovery from an addictive lifestyle look like?

To answer this, I decided to ask people who had lived addictive lifestyles to tell me what they considered to be part of their addictions. Here is the list they came up with: the use of drugs/alcohol/food/cutting to numb and escape past and present issues, Theft/stealing/shoplifting, Anger/Violence, Dishonesty, Casual Sex, Pornography, the inability to speak without using vulgarity, Greed/Love of Money, Egotism, Being inconsiderate to others due to focusing only on self/Selfishness, Lack of accountability, Only having Friends and hangouts that encouraged addictions, Focusing on the negative and Lack of Hope.

Today we will define recovery as the opposite of addiction. So in order to be in recovery, we need to get rid of the things in our lives that enabled and encouraged our addiction. Here is how we do those things:

1.       Face our current problems and work through our past issues either through counseling, step work and/or processing it out so we no longer have them as a reason to use.

2.       Stop taking things that are not yours. First we need to get and keep employment, then we can create a budget that we follow and save for the things we need.

3.       Realize that anger solves nothing and violence will only end up with us right back into trouble. An old saying says, “Never get into an argument with an idiot. It makes it hard for people to tell the difference between you.” That means that when we resort to anger we make ourselves look bad to those around us. Finally, violence only leads to more violence and violence never works out well. Ghandi said it best, “An eye for an eye leaves everyone blind.”

4.       I lied so much that I began to believe my own lies. Lying was second nature in my addiction. In recovery, we have to be honest or we will never escape our addiction. Honesty allows me to hold myself accountable. We will look at the importance of that in #10 below.

5.       Research shows that promiscuity is an indicator of relapse. We really need to stay out of relationships for a while. We tend to focus on the other person when we get into new relationships, and we need to be focusing on ourselves. We also tend to find people who treat us as we feel about ourselves. Until we like ourselves we have no business in a relationship. Finally, a lot of the time we find our self-esteem based on our conquests. We need to find positive accomplishments to build our self-esteem and self-confidence.

6.       Pornography can lead to dehumanization, victimization and intense emotional reactions that can lead us to places we should not go.

7.       If using vulgarity was a major part of our addictive and criminal lifestyle, losing the negative language will help us separate further from our past lifestyles. It also makes us look like we have a larger vocabulary when we don’t have to resort to cuss words.

8.       Greed and money are a huge motivator for many a criminal. We need to remind ourselves of the difference between needs and wants and realize that we do not have to have wants in order to be happy. The happiest people are not those who have the most, but those who make the most of what they have.

9.       Egotism and selfishness go together. The world in not just about us, for we are merely 1 out of over 7 billion people. If the beginning of our step-work/sobriety is very selfish in nature, that is just to set us up for the 12^th step/rest of our lives. After all, recovery is very altruistic.

10.   In our addiction very little was our fault. We could justify everything we did by shifting blame. In our recovery we realize that the only way we can make changes is by realizing that we are responsible for our feelings, thoughts and actions. If it is someone else’s fault I can do nothing about that. I can only change that which I control. If I am not accountable for my actions they will never change!

11.   Change your playmates and play grounds. This is so important. If I live in the mud it is hard to stay clean. AA says “if you hang around the barbershop long enough you are going to get a hair cut” while my Big Book (the Bible) says, “You cannot put new wine in an old wine skin.” Our using and criminal friends may not mean us harm, but they make it difficult if not impossible to change.

12.   We need to shift focus, looking at the positives today can bring instead of the negatives in our past. One of my clients the other day said, “I like my new friends. They always talk about the present and the future. All of my old friends used to only talk about the past.” You cannot change yesterday, but you can sure change today. Focus on the present and you will build a successful future.

13.   I was stuck in my addiction because I had no hope for anything better. I began to find hope in speaker meetings and testimonies, hearing other people who had similar struggles share how they had found sobriety. That hope was increased 10 fold when I got saved and realized that this life is nothing but a short introduction to a book of happiness that will stretch forever.

So in closing, recovery is reversing all of the things that enabled and/or encouraged our past lifestyle. If we are to make positive changes in our lives that are permanent, we need to make holistic changes in our lives. There are 5 Pillars to doing this:

1.       Higher Power (God) – If our best thinking got us in trouble and we have not been able to change on our own; we need to find something greater than us that gives us hope, compassion, acceptance and love.

2.       Sponsor (Mentor) – Find someone whose life you want in 5 years, ask them how they got it and then work with them using a plan (see #3 below) to obtain it

3.       12 Steps (The Bible I recommend James) -  Find a plan that will get you where you want to be and put it into motion in your life

4.       Meetings (Small Groups) – Find a sense of community where people with similar goals that genuinely care about you(see #5 below) discuss how they are improving their lives and apply what you learn while sharing with them

5.       Accountability Partners – Find people that you are in contact with often who are living their lives well that can encourage and help you live your life well

BLiR Spring Bash in T-Minus 56 Hours

BLiR Spring Bash is this Friday, the 15th starting at 6 and ending at 10. It will be a very fun, free night. Only cost is if you want to buy an event T-Shirt for $10 to help  us offset the cost of the event. Here is the link for the event page on Facebook. Letting us know you are coming registers you to win a free T-Shirt http://www.facebook.com/pages/Better-Life-In-Recovery/171246616294150?ref=hl#!/events/477488612314182/

So, I am getting ready to put together the final message I will be sharing at the end of the event. I am pretty excited about everything that we have gotten for the event. My hope is that we have the  people there to take advantage of all we have to offer. Here is a list of what we have to offer. We are still awaiting two acts that I will be calling soon to see if they are going to come. In fact, I think I will call them now! Be right back..............

So, I texted one and called the other. We shall see what happens. Personally, I don't think that we need  much more. Here is what we have going on so far. We have multiple games planned that we are going to play. Some of them will be for fun and some for free stuff. Really, most winners will get stuff. We have lots of stuff to give away: tacos, t-shirts, student Bibles, devotionals, study Bibles, CD's, bumpercar tickets at Incredible Pizza and a Nintendo Wii-U! I have not even gotten to play with the new Nintendo and I am giving 2 of them away on Friday.

Now on to the really fun stuff. We have Jeff Cvitak, who is a 6th Degree Black Belt doing a demonstration. I imagine he will make breaking things look really easy and I will try it and break my hand. We will have the DWI googles, so that people can get an idea of why they should never drink and drive! Then there is music by Kelsey Snapp, Kayleigh Amstutz and the Legacy. Amazing teenagers with tons of talent and you get to hear them free!!! Then we have the speakers: Ellie Hagen, Darin Mendez and David Stoecker. Should be an amazing night!

So, what can you do besides hear FREE music, eat FREE food, play FREE games, win FREE prizes and hear a positive message? Help us spread the word. Tell your parents, your kids, your friends, your youth group,  your pastor, your youth pastor, your best friend, your worst enemy.......you get the point. Invite everybody you know. We don't want to have fun by ourselves, we want to share the fun and get a message of hope and confidence to all who attend.

What better way to have fun and spread the power of recovery and Christ than through this event. Hearing these stories will make your faith stronger or maybe move you towards finding Christ. If not, than you will hear the 5 Pillars that everyone, from Christian to Atheist, can use to improve their lives and step away from depression, anxiety, anger and other emotions that lead us to picking up negative habits.

Here is our gratitude list:
Incredible Pizza Company: pizza and some free ride tickets 
Coca-Cola of the Ozarks: soda and energy drinks 
Rural Compassion: bottled water and Little Debbies The Nintendo Wii-U's have been provided by
Alternative Opportunities, Inc.: Nintendo Wii-U
New Life Church: location, clean-up and a Nintendo Wii-U
Henry's Towing in Nixa: Car for the Car Bash
Josh and Sabrina Hernandez: Donation for T-Shirt give away
Mardels: Bible's, Student Books and CDs to Give Away
Ryan Garrett: Study Bibles and Devotionals for give aways
Taco Bell: Free Taco coupons
OTC Print Shop: Best prices in town
Kelsey Snapp: Musical Talent
Kayleigh Amstutz:  Musical Talent
The Legacy: Musical Talent
Ellie Hagen: Speaker
Darin Mendez: Speaker
Jeff Cvitak: Ninja
Jessie Schlemper: MC for the Event
Michael Dube: Video Camera Wizard
Susan Highley: Guidance