My Life as a Bad Guy Part 2: Drugs and Fitting In

I left Missouri and moved to Highland, IL. I stopped being a bully and picking on kids at this stage. It was the summer before my 7th grade  year when my dad got custody of me and I came back to Illinois. I no longer had to be a bully, but I never fit in. My dad worked overnights, and the first weekend I was left to my own devices I went for a walk. I walked to the movie theater and watched a movie. When it was over, I started walking some more.

I came to the square, and there was a group of kids hanging out. A kid called out to  me, and I walked over to him. He told me he had never seen me and I told him I was new in town. We talked a little more and he walked me over to the group. The age old question was asked, "Is he cool?" He in turn asked me, "Are you cool?" "Yes," was my reply. They asked me if I smoked weed as a joint came around the circle. "Sure," was all I said. As I hit the joint and got stoned for the first time, I found I instantly had friends.

The next night one of them had some alcohol and I got drunk for the first time. I would smoke with that group of kids over the next couple of weeks. On occasion we would go to one of their houses and drink. Once we went to the home of some older kids, ones that were old enough to drive. That was the first time that I snorted cocaine. As soon as I did, I instantly had older friends. I learned that all I had to do was be like the people I was around at the time and they would like me.

Looking back, I became a great actor early. I learned to act however I needed to fit in. I became a social chameleon. If you could spot the coolest person at the party or in the classroom I occupied, that was the person I tried to become. I would act like the stoners when I was in the smoking area at school and the preps when I hung out with the kids with money. I didn't know who I was. I only knew who I wanted to be, and that was anybody but who I was.

I played pick-up basketball and football with the jocks, then sold them weed and pills. I was in student council while I was smoking weed and getting drunk in the smoking area. I volunteered to work the special olympics and was jacked up every weekend. I would date the popular girls and sleep with everyone else. I tried to become all things to all people, and because of that I never got to know who I was. Which was probably a good thing, since I couldn't stand me. I was a fake, a phoney.

I was uncomfortable in my own skin, and I was my own worst critic. I was okay at a lot of things, but I was never great at anything but judging myself. That judgment always was the same, unworthy! I was unworthy of good friends, and I would hurt people that cared about me before they could hurt me. I was only as good as my last fight or the last person I slept with. Once the conquest was over, I was unsatisfied and looking for my next one. I was happy on the outside and dying on the inside.

I  hated life. I would get into a bad mood and go looking for fights. It got to where I was drunk every night, more often stoned than not, frequently on mini-thins/white crosses and occasionally tripping, popping pills, doing rush or snorting cocaine. This started the summer before 7th grade and continued on until my junior year in high school. I got into a lot of trouble and finally moved out of state the summer before my senior year.

BLiR Event Spring 2013: Brainstorming Session

Yesterday was the brainstorming session for the BLiR Spring BREAK event that will be held at New Life Church in March. I went in to the session with several goals for it. The first was to establish the date and time we will be having it. Then next was to talk about music, because we want to have several bands. Then we have the food issue to discuss, because kids need to eat. Next up was entertainment, games and things for the kids to do. Finally, we needed to talk about the money side of it. We need to have giveaways and prizes for games and just for the sheer joy of it!

Here is what we do. We have FREE food, FREE live music and FREE fun stuff to do. We play some games, give stuff away and have a couple of testimonies from people who have struggled with life consuming issues and overcame them. We share hope with those who may be struggling themselves and let them know that a better life exists and where that better life is found. Our aim to is to reach out to those who are hurting and lift them up. Below is what we are doing and what we need to make the event in March successful.

1. The BLiR event will be on the 15th of March from 6-10.
2. We are talking to several singers and bands in the area. 
3. Food we will talk to New Life Church about. We have the men's group that will be doing the grilling. Hopefully between the church and the women's group we can come up with the food. Thinking hot dogs, hamburgers, chips, condiments, sweets stuff, tea and lemonade.
4. We are talking about having several games. The ones for sure will be Minute to Win It, a Paper Rock Scissors Tournament and a Car Bash. 
5. Money is one of the major ones we have to work on.  

Now we look at the needs for the event. We are working on the bands, but if there is a youth groups band from a church in Springfield/Nixa/Ozark area that might play let me know. We will need food, the items listed above. If you would like to donate any food please let me know. The games we will take care of and I have several places to call for the car. If you have a personal contact please let me know. Now we get to the hard stuff.

We need things to have for prizes and giveaways. I would love to have gift cards to local restaurants and coffee shops.  Maybe gift cards for iTunes. We need a couple of big ticket items to give away, such as an XBox 360 Kinect or the new Nintendo Wii U. New CDs, preferably worship music. Also books, from student Bible's to study/inspirational books aimed at youth/young adults. Finally, we need cash for printing flyers, T-Shirts, hats and incidentals. If you can help with any of these things, please contact me. 

Finally, the most important needs for the event to run smoothly and do what it is intended to do. If you have any pastors, youth pastors, high school or college students and/or connections spread the word. Tweet this, Facebook about it, blog about it, copy off the flyers once they are available and put them up where ever you can. Then pray. Pray for this event to be able to reach those who are struggling and that it gives them the hope they need to overcome what they are dealing with in their lives.

Here is the link to the event on Facebook. If you are coming let us know: http://www.facebook.com/events/477488612314182/?fref=ts

Thanks for your support and prayers. We appreciate them!! Below is the promo for the BLiR event we did last Fall:

Great News for "Religious" Parents (Religious People in General)

I am a substance abuse counselor (RASAC II) by vocation and a licensed clinical social worker (LCSW) by degree. Due to both of those being a part of my employment, I have to go to training so that I can keep my credentials. This is about the training that I attended last Friday. It had information on a couple of studies that I had not seen. I then looked up several other studies. I want to share this information with you.

These are several different studies I have come across. The first study is done by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. It was a two year study that they conducted they found a significant difference between children and adults who attended church and those who did not (http://www.casacolumbia.org/templates/PressReleases.aspx?articleid=115&zoneid=48). Let us look at the adults first.

Adults who did not consider religious beliefs important were 3 times likelier to binge drinks, 4 times likelier to use illicit drugs other than marijuana and 6 times likelier to use marijuana. Adults who never attend religious services were found to be 7 times likelier to drink, 5 times likelier to use an illicit drug other than marijuana and 8 times likelier to use marijuana. So what about the children?

Teens who did not consider religious beliefs important were 3 times likelier to binge drink, 4 times likelier to use marijuana and 7 times likelier to use illicit drugs. Teens who never attend religious services were 3 times likelier to use marijuana and binge drink and 4 times likelier to use illicit drugs than teens who attended at least one religious service weekly.

In a study conducted by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) found that 10.1% of individuals who attended fewer than 25 religious services in the past year had used illicit substances in the past month while only 2.9% of individuals who had attended 25 or more services in the past year had. A study of youth done by Indiana University showed that non-religious students were twice as likely to use drugs, alcohol and engage in binge drinking when compared to students that were religious (http://www.indiana.edu/~engs/articles/religion2.htm.)

The researchers studied data gathered through Monitoring the Future, the University of North Carolina's four year nationally representative survey of high school seniors. Among specific findings were that especially religious youths were less likely to smoke, drink and use drugs and more likely to start later and use less if they started at all, he said. They went to bars less often, received fewer traffic tickets, wore seat belts more, took fewer risks and fought less frequently. Shoplifting, other thefts, trespassing and arson also were rarer. "Religious 12th-graders argued with parents less, skipped school less, exercised more, participated more in student government and faced fewer detentions, suspensions and expulsions," Smith said (http://monitoringthefuture.org/).

In another study conducted by Byron R. Johnson, Director and Distinguished Senior Fellow, Center for Research on Religion and Urban Civil Society, University of Pennsylvania, and Adjunct Fellow, Center for Civic Innovation, Manhattan Institute of 1,087 youth ages 11 to 17 (http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/cr_12.htm), he arrives at a number of important findings:

• Religious low-income urban teenagers are much less likely to take illicit drugs than otherwise comparable teenagers living in the same high-poverty neighborhoods.
• Highly religious youth living in poor urban neighborhoods are less likely to use illicit drugs than non-religious youth living in middle-class suburban neighborhoods.
• The degree to which being religious reduces a youth’s probability of using illicit drugs increases the older a teenager becomes.
• Youth who have good family relations, do well in school, have non-drug-using friends, and possess anti-drug attitudes are even less likely to use illicit drugs when they are also religious.
• The effect of religious commitment in cutting illicit drug use among poor urban teenagers is statistically significant for all categories of illicit drugs including hard drugs.

In closing, I want to say that I too have found this to be true. I was an addict in and out of jail and prison when I was Agnostic. I have not so much as gotten a traffic ticket since I was saved. I was hopeless, and without hope I began using and eventually became mired in addiction. This blog looks at research that shows that the non-religious use drugs and alcohol at much higher rates than the religious (if you look up these same studies you will find that they also commit crimes and commit suicide at higher rates, also). I have been told by many atheists and agnostics that my son would be better off raised without religion, and that I was stupid for feeling otherwise. "God is just a worthless fairy tale that you are better off not buying into," several have told me. For some reason, that just did not sound right to me. Guess what? It wasn't.

I now have statistically significant research that supports me sharing my faith and raising my son to have a relationship with a Higher Power. Raising my son in the church will give him a better chance to live drug-free/sober, not commit suicide and stay out of prison than if  he does not attend. For me as a father, that is huge. Besides, my son is deserves that chance!!

Thank You......The Journey Has Only Just Begun

This summer I was in the middle of a bike ride with my wife Julie when I had an epiphany. I was listening to Chris Tomlin on my ipod when I suddenly was told what to do. There was a voice that spoke in my head, and it said that I needed to make a documentary and help children/teens learn about the dangers of addiction and the power of recovery. That will give me the opportunity to get into schools and colleges with a message of hope.
That was why we competed for a Pepsi Refresh grant last month. We reached as high as 21st in the voting, but we never reached the top 15 like we needed to in order to win. 31st out of 224 is not bad considering we did not do a lot of preparation ahead of time. There were two ways that people could vote, online and through text. We had many people who were taking time out of their busy lives to vote for us daily.

I want to say thanks to all of the people who voted for the Better Life in Recovery project on line. I know that it was an investment of your time that you made, and I want you to know how much it is appreciated. We learned a lot from the experience, and will be better equipped next year if we again decide to compete for a Pepsi Refresh grant (which I know we will).

My thanks go out to all of the people who voted, and the people who helped me come up with ways to reach more people. The Rotary Club and David Parnell were nice enough to let me talk to a group that they were hosting at Drury University. Thanks to the Randy Bacon Studio for letting us set up a table there. Steve Donaldson, who is dealing with a lot currently with his son having a stroke (please pray for his son Bryant and the Donaldson family for healing, strength and understanding) helped me brainstorm. Dan Prater at Drury was also a big help.

In the media I would like to thank KLFC radio for the on air interview, in particular Keith O'Neal for his help there. KOLR 10 news team, in particular Joy Robertson who got the ball rolling. At KY 3 new I would like to thank Maria Neider and Dustin Hodges. I would also like to thank Linda Leicht for the amazing article that she wrote in the Newleader for the project.

When it come to churches there were several that were very helpful. I would like to thank my church, New Life, for all of their help. They allowed me to talk to the congregation several times as well as set up in the auditorium. I would like to thank Ridgecrest Baptist Church for all of their help. They also made their congregation aware and also helped us get a table at Randy Bacon Studio during the artwalk and at Ozark Technical Community College. Finally, I want to send a huge thank you to Life Fellowship, who heard about our need for a place to have the Pepsi Refresh Grant Kickoff and offered us their church as a place to have it if we could not find a place. I also want to thank the OTC and MSU Baptist Student Association for letting me talk to all of their students and encouraging them to vote.

I know that I am missing people, but thanks to everyone so much. It was nice to feel that there was support for what we did. I would talk to people just to find out that they had already heard from an email from a professor at MSU who sent out a mass email or at the OTC Student Government Association meeting. That was also very encouraging. This all leads me to the next part of my blog.

I will be starting a nonprofit organization before the end of the year. We will have many more needs as this progresses. The immediate need is volunteers. I need a couple of people who feel passionately as I do about children and young adults abusing drugs and alcohol. I need to find several people who are willing to be board members within the next two weeks. They will be unpaid positions that will will meet once a year unless there are major concerns as well as attend several fundraisers yearly and help with fundraising and spreading the word to all about what we are doing. It will be a three year committment that will be both highly rewarding and extremely appreciated.

We will also need people who have various trainings. We will need some help from an attorney at times as well as an accountant. If you are a grant writer, we will definitely need that help. We will also need talented graphic designers to create logos as well as advertisements, promotional posters and DVD covers. If you have a superb knowledge of online technology, we could use your help making the website more visually appealing and user friendly. With Facebook and other social mediums we need the visually appeal that will bring people to it also. If that is your area of expertise please donate some of your time to us.

We will also need people who have various abilities and positions. If you are a business owner we could use gift certificates for door prizes as well as catering at some of our fundraisers. If you own a resort or hotel a couple of rooms and/or boat rentals to auction off would be amazing. If you do massage therapy, paintings, sculptures, horseback riding lessons, etc that would be amazing to let us have some of your time or work to auction off. If you have a band it would be awesome if you would volunteer a set or two so that we could have you play at fundraisers and silent auctions.  If you are a writer please feel free to share essays and blogs that would go well within the arena of substance abuse you can contribute them also. Gift baskets would also be a huge help.

Politicians, pastors, youth ministers, teachers, principals, school counselors, substance abuse counselors, administrators, parents and professors we need you too!! We are here to help you and you can help us by fundraising to bring us to your community and by word of mouth. We need you to speak up to your congregations, student bodies, parents and constituents.

Authors, actors and musicians if you would donate signed books, DVDs and CDs that we could auction off that would be a huge help. Give us a night and play a fundraiser concert for us or let us auction off people having dinner with you while you are in town. Let us speak at one of your concerts or give us a shout out in an interview or acknowledgements. You will especially have the networks that we need to reach many. Please tweet, blog, Facebook and share what we are doing and how people can get in contact with us!!  

We will also need people with large networks of people and/or general knowledge. I will need others to be volunteers and help us with fundraising and gathering donations. If you know of any grants that might help, please let me know. If you are in recovery or know someone who is and would be interested in sharing your testimony, please let us know.

Finally, tell all of your friends about what we are doing. Like the Facebook page, follow me on twitter (davidstoeckersr) and Google+ and read my regular blogs. Share about our project on your blogs and Facebook pages, tweet about it, Google+ it, etc. We will need that word of mouth to help us in all of our endeavors. There will be contribution levels that will be listed on our site after we become a nonprofit. Feel free to make tax deductible donations as soon as the first of the year begins. Mostly, please lift us up in prayer so that we might be the hands and feet of Christ and be able to do his will through this nonprofit.

We will also allow you to suggest churches, junior highs, high schools, colleges, seminars, recovery & rehabilitation centers, youth groups, community events, trainings, etc for us to come and talk at. We will list the expenses that are needed to get to each place and will give people the ability to contribute to bringing either me or the entire documentary and several of the youth in it to speak.

Again, I just want to send out a huge thanks of appreciation to all who have helped so far and everyone that is going to help in the future. The website is http://www.betterlifeinrecovery.com/ and my email is david.stoecker@gmail.com I truly look forward to answering any questions and seeing all of the blessings that you can bring to the project so that we can reach our youth and give them a better shot at living incredible lives. I also look forward to getting the opportunity to work with all of you and bring the incredible message of recovery to all that I can. THANK YOU!!!!!!!!

5,000 Views and Better Life in Recovery

Yesterday I hit 5,000 views on Spiritual Spackle. That means that 5,000 pages have been read on here. To me that is amazing, considering I just started the site in  several months ago. I wanted a site that would be able to speak to both addicts, those in recovery and Christians. Due to that I have written mostly about my Christian experiences and the things that have kept me sober. I have also shared rough drafts of some of the chapters that will eventually make up the book with the same name as the website, Spiritual Spackle.

One of the most exciting statistics for my site is that I have had visitors to it from 42 different countries. Some of them I expected since they are English speaking, and some of them I had to look up to see where they were. I have been blessed to be able to share the power of Christ and the hope of recovery to people on the opposite side of the globe. That is such an amazing feeling, to know that what you have written is interesting to people who live in places you have never even heard of.

Over the course of the past few months, I have been shown what it is that the Holy Spirit is leading me to do. That mission is to bring the dangers of addiction to our countries youth and hopefully, based on my website, to the youth of many countries around the world. It all starts with the documentary that will hopefully be funded by the Pepsi Refresh grant that voting starts on November 1st. I would like to refer everyone to the site http://www.betterlifeinrecovery.com/page3.php to find out how you can help us win the grant and complete the documentary.

For more if you would like to help and live in the southwest Missouri area we are having a kicking off party at the KY3 community room on November 1st from 6-9. Please let me know if you are coming by email or facebook and I hope to see you there. Wow, I have had 5,000 people interested in reading what God is leading me to write. That is awesome!!

Documentary Update

The end of next week or beginning of the week after that we will be finding out if our project is one of the 1,500 projects that Pepsi pulls randomly for people to vote on. If they do, then you will probably be sick soon of hearing me ask for votes starting in November from the beginning to the end of the month. The top 10 vote getters in our category will get $25,000. That will allow us to actually pay for the documentary with the grant and have it finished by the middle of next year instead of having to pay for it all out of our own pocket. For those of you who do not know about the project, read all about it here: http://spiritualspackle.blogspot.com/p/documentaries.html

Will soon be looking to start a 501(c)(3) soon after we get the grant that will enable us to start fundraising and looking for grants that will allow us to hopefully begin touring the country in 2013, with the hope of touring Missouri in 2012 with the documentary. We will also immediately begin shooting our next documentary after we complete the first one. The second one will be parents who have had children, and some who have lost children, to drugs and/or alcohol.

As always, I am excited about the opportunity to empower both our youth and this countries parents with the knowledge they need in a format that will keep their attention from people that they can relate to to make more positive choices. The percentage of youth and young adults who suffer from the disease of addiction or the root cause of addiction who are not addicted yet (whether it be food, drugs, alcohol, sex, anger, depression, self-loathing, etc) continues to increase. This will particularly continue to be a problem as long as our economy and job market are as poor as they are currently.

We have already approached several people who have agreed to interview for the documentary. We are really in need of both males and females who are well spoken and in their late teens and early to mid-twenties who have gone through addiction to either drugs, alcohol or food and are currently in recovery. If that defines you and you would be interested in giving me an hour or two of your time on camera, leave me a comment or email me.

We also have contacted several places about possible shooting there. One is the Randy Bacon Studio and the other is the Creamery Art Center. They both have the ambiance that my editor/camera operator/wife is looking for. We will continue to look for locations that would lend to the stories that our documentary will tell. Where we film will be based a lot on the grant. We will use the area that donates us space if we do not get the grant from Pepsi and mention them prominently in our credits. If you have a great place and would be willing to let us tape their let me know!

We have had several people who have contacted us and have volunteered the use of their music if we give them mention in the credits. It is amazing to see how people will volunteer things to you when they hear the cause and know how many people it could impact. My wife and I are both blessed to have some amazing people in our lives.  If you are a musician and you own your own music and would like to contribute it to see if it would fit in the documentary let me know!

In closing, stay tuned to find out more. Furthermore, if you have any fund raising ideas or hear of any grants that would benefit us, please let me know. I will keep everybody up to date on when we will begin accepting donations of cash (after we form the 501 so they are tax deductible) and letting you donate items for our silent auctions and other fundraisers. I guess basically this is just a taste of what is to come once the documentary is actually in production in order to hopefully raise the funding to be able to take it and some of the cast to places to show the documentary and answer questions from the viewers year round.

MORE TO COME, TRUST THAT!!!

The Documentary

My wife and I will soon begin an industrious adventure that will start this year in September. It will be the shooting of our first in a series of 3 documentaries that will look at substance abuse/alcoholism. The documentary that we will begin with will contain interviews with 10 people who are now clean and sober. It will contain first person testimonials of those who have waged war with addiction and have found a better life without drugs and alcohol. Those interviewed will consist of both males and females who are in their teens and early twenties. There will be a couple of interviewees who will be older, and have suffered more dire consequences from their addiction and now have extended sobriety.

The documentary will address how the interviewees were raised in order to show the diversity of backgrounds that they came from, both financially and in regards to parenting and school activities. We will then look at the first time that alcohol or drugs were used. They will describe how they felt when they first used, and what the substance did for and to them. Then we will delve into how their use progressed and why. Next we will transition into how intense their use got to and what their rock bottom, or low point was. From there we will discuss what motivated them to get sober, and if a relapse occurred. If a relapse was present, we will discuss the mitigating circumstances as well as the force of the relapse and what got them back into sobriety. Finally, the subjects will discuss what the most important parts of their continued sobriety have been, what helped them transition into recovery and what they have gotten positive from recovery that they had either lost or never had.

The main function of this documentary is to hopefully be a tool to use with not only those who are in addiction in rehabilitation centers/prisons/jails/juvenile detention/outpatient treatment, but also to those who are not yet using or in trouble with the law. It will be a great documentary to show in junior high, high school and college venues as part of forums, conferences, training and drug prevention/education programs. Our hope is that this documentary will hopefully be an eye opener and encourage those who view it to engage in open discussion, question/answer sessions and maybe even encourage those who see it that are using to quit or seek help.

This documentary has several primary purposes. The first of those is to inform adolescents and young adults about the inherent risks that using drugs and alcohol pose. The second is to let those watching know that they are not alone in the problems, pressures and hurts that they feel. We want them to know that there are many people who suffer from various consequences of life ranging from sexual/physical/emotional abuse to depression and not feeling that they fit in. Finally, it is made to encourage those watching by showing that there is life after addiction and that recovery is not only possible, it is rewarding.

There has been a new page added to the Spiritual Spackle blogsite. On that page we will be keeping you updated about this project in the comments section. We are looking at several funding opportunities currently. If anyone knows of any grants or foundations that might be helpful, please let us know. We may be calling on you to help with the project, so please keep checking this page out to see how the documentary is coming as far as shooting and editing as we prepare it. Our goal is have the documentary finished by the end of next year.

We will also let you know what the future documentaries are about and how they are coming as we get to them. Right now the focus is on this one, and it will be the focus for a while. I imagine that I will be working on my book in the living room and my wife will be editing in the office next to me for many months to come. I am super excited! Any comments of encouragement, offers of support and/or feedback will be appreciated. There will also be several contests that we will have as we work on this project. STAY TUNED FOR MORE!!!!!!!!!!