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!!!!!!!!

Exhausted but Blessed

I have had a very busy week. I am promoting the project that I am working on entitled "Better Life in Recovery" and it is nonstop activity. I am in the running for a Pepsi Refresh grant, and am against 223 other projects. I have to be in the top 15 in order to get the grant to finish my project. I started out in 21st but have dropped to 25th. So I have been trying to get the word out.

On Friday I went to Missouri State and talked to a couple of department heads about what we are doing. That night I was at the Randy Bacon Studio on First Friday Art Walk. I was there with my wife and a couple who will be in the documentary. We handed out fliers and discussed the project.

Saturday I emailed every fraternity and sorority at Missouri State, every club and organization that the college has asking them for help. I spent several hours on the computer doing that. Later we got a phone call and started an alliance with a couple of other projects.

Sunday I handed out fliers at church to start the day off. I was there for both services and the pastor mentioned the project at the end of both services, also. Later that night I got the project retweeted by several worship entertainers. Matt Maher was the first. Then Charlie Lowell from Jars of Clay and the Jars of Clay official twitter account. Mike Scheuchzer from Jars of Clay was next. Then I was retweeted by Stephen Mason of Mercy Me followed by fellow bandmate Barry Graul. Chris Huffman of Casting Crowns also retweeted me, followed by Dan Haseltine of Jars of Clay.

Today I talked to David Parnell, the author of "Chasing the Dragon." I am meeting with him tomorrow before he talks at the O'Reilly Center to see if he will give me a couple of minutes to talk to the audience. He seemed very receptive when I spoke to him. 88.3 The Wind posted our information on Facebook and my wife did an interview on KLFC with Keith O'Neil about the project.

That is what we have done, and yet we have dropped 4 spots in the past week to # 25 after starting at 21. I am perplexed, to say the least. If anyone can help me spread the word, I would appreciate it. All that I need are people to text 109546 to 73774 every day for the month of November and tell all of their friends to do the same. If you can help me in any way, please let me know.

Any organization that lends a hand, please let me know so that I can thank you!!

Get Busy Living.....Better Life in Recovery

Of all the movies that have been made, there are a lot of quotes that I really like. My favorite quotable movies when I was a kid were Breakfast Club and as I got older Tombstone. That said, the one quote that really sticks out in my mind is from the movie Shawshank Redemption, and that quote is, "You either got to get busy living, or get busy dying." In my addiction, I was busy dying. Sure, I might not sleep for a week or more at a time, but I never really did anything. I put myself in situations where I hoped that someone would kill me, but they never did. I would have done it myself, but the time that my sister found me passed out in a pool of blood after a botched attempt I promised her that I would never do it again. 

I would keep that promise to her, but I tried to commit suicide by using drugs, alcohol, cars, police and other addicts. I had no real reason to live, and my life went no where. That is a pretty sad place to be, and I could not seem to find my way out of the depths of self-pity and self-loathing that I was stuck in. Then I had my conversion experience, and nothing has been the same since! That is why the quote from Shawshank Redemption really sticks out in my head!


Since I had my conversion, I have gotten busy living. I volunteer at least 10 hours a week. I share my strength, hope and experience with kids and adults when ever I get the chance. It could be one-on-one, it could be at a church, recovery meeting or college class with 500 people. The bottom line is that I share what I have, and I have a life worth living now. That is a wonderful feeling! The longer that I live sober, the more I owe back to the society that I once drained. That is why I am writing this blog today, to talk about what I am doing to improve society.


I am currently working on a documentary called "Better Life in Recovery." It has its own website found at www.betterlifeinrecovery.com  It also has its own Facebook page found at www.facebook.com/pages/Better-Life-In-Recovery/171246616294150 that you can like and follow how the documentary is coming and give both it and those involved with the project your support. 


We are trying something innovative with this documentary. With edgy editing techniques and modern music we will show the tragedy of multiple young adults who have entered into addiction and the tragedy that it has caused in their lives in a format that will keep their interest. We will then showcase how they stepped into recovery and how much better their lives have become since they escaped the clutches of their addictions. This documentary is intended to be taken into junior and high schools, colleges, seminars, trainings, forums, detention centers, churches, youth groups, recovery meetings, rehabilitation centers, film festivals, PTA meetings, etc. 


Any way that we can get the message of recovery to the community, we will do it. This in turn will transition into several more documentaries that will assist us in reaching even more people. The difference between most videos and documentaries and this one is that we will be bringing 1-3 people who were in the documentary to do Question and Answer sessions after the documentary is shown. This will be much more impacting on the viewers. It will not be someone 40 years older than them that has never had an addiction issues. Instead, it will be younger people that they can relate to who have actually lived with addiction, and beat it! 


We will be in the Pepsi Refresh project as of November 1st. That means that as of November 1st we will need as many people voting for our project every day as possible. We do not yet have our voting instructions. We  will be able to put those as well as a flyer that you can copy off on our site at www.betterlifeinrecovery.com/page3.php when we get it. This page contains instructions on ways that you can help us and the flyer that will be available to be printed off is on the bottom right hand of this page. I ask that you share this blog with all of your friends that you have on Facebook and by email and twitter, like the Facebook page and share it with everyone also. We need as many voters helping us as possible. 


Help us make this project a reality so that thousands of adolescents and young adults can stop being busy dying and instead get busy living!!!!!

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!!

Goals for 2012

These are the goals that I will accomplish by the end of next year. I am unsure how I will accomplish them, but I know that I will. I have the drive and ambition and a lot of great people in my life. Here they are and I will keep you updated as they progress.


Goals for the next 14 months
1. Win the Pepsi Refresh Grant                                                                                                                 Voting starts November 1st and we will let you know how to vote and have a flyer you can copy off and put up and hand out on the website http://www.betterlifeinrecovery.com/ as soon as we get the information on the 1st
2. Complete Documentary "Better Life in Recovery"                                                                                 We have shot the first person for the documentary and are in the process of finding more people to interview. I am checking on some that would be perfect but there may be a conflict of interest that has to be looked at.
3. Complete writing Spiritual Spackle and have it published                                                                       I have about 60 pages written so far. That  is about 8 chapters, but I still have 12 or so chapters to go. I am getting the chapters out to several people to read for feedback.
4. Have shown documentary to several test audiences and gotten feedback
5. Begin motivational/inspirational speaking at least once a month
6. Raise enough money to fund 1st year of "Better Life in Recovery" in 2013
7. Have at least 50 engagements set up for 2013
8. Begin filming second documentary of parents who have had children in addiction, some who have recovered and others who passed away while still in their addiction
9. Start a nonprofit ie 501(c)3

I do have some needs that people can help me with.
1. If you are an attorney and would like to volunteer some of your time to help us the beginning of next year with the forming of the nonprofit, let me know.
2. If you are a grant writer I could really use your help next year also. Let me know if you would like to help out because I know that is a daunting and time consuming process.
3. I still need volunteers for the documentary. Right now my big need is 18-25 year olds in recovery who would be willing to go in front of the camera and share their strength, experience and hope.
4. I will also need help orchestrating fundraisers, getting items donated for silent auctions and getting organizations to pay for advertising. I could use help with that and may try to work with the college on getting an intern for the nonprofit once it is formed.
5. If you would like me to come speak at your church, recovery center, homeless shelter, small group, forum, college or elsewhere in your community contact me and we will set something up.

This blog will be reposted as progress is made on the goals and as more needs either arise or are filled.

Documentary Update - Please Like and Share New Facebook Page

I know that I have been on this documentary kick the past week, and that kick is going to continue. Tomorrow I will have a new blog up that will address something other than the documentary. The truth is, this documentary is vitally important to those who are struggling with the consequences of life. I know that this documentary and the way it will be presented are going to really help some people who are in pain. We want them to be able to work through that pain and come out victorious!

Those who are already in their self-destructive behaviors may find the hope and faith that they need to find their way out of them. Those who are not yet engaging in those behaviors and are only thinking of them will find that they are not alone and that they do not have to go down that road, and what will happen if they do. I do not want victims or survivors, I want thrivers. I share the difference between those three roles in my blog entitled Spiritual Spackle (read it here: http://spiritualspackle.blogspot.com/2011/08/spackle-theory.html)

The purpose of my blog today is for you to share the new Facebook group that I have started entitled Better Life in Recovery. I would like for you to join this group and get this group out to as many people as you can. You can find it here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Better-Life-In-Recovery/171246616294150

Share this group with others. This is of vital importance to the new documentary. The Facebook group  will soon be connected to the new website with the same name at www.betterlifeinrecovery.com. The reason this is so important for people to be part of this group is that when voting starts for the Pepsi Refresh grant on November 1st this will have all of the voting information on it. People will be able to go here and get information on how to vote, where to vote and the name of the project.

We will need  thousands of people giving us their votes every day in the month of November in order for us to win. This will allow us to get the documentary shot quicker and begin presenting it sooner than if we do not get the grant and have to fund everything out of our own pocket. I cannot stress this enough, PLEASE LIKE THE FACEBOOK GROUP "BETTER LIFE IN RECOVERY" AND GET AS MANY OF YOUR FACEBOOK FRIENDS TO LIKE IT ALSO SO THAT MORE PEOPLE WILL SEE THE VOTING INFORMATION WHEN IT IS POSTED. THAT WAY WE CAN INCREASE THE PROBABILITY OF OUR WINNING THE GRANT IN NOVEMBER AND CAN BEGIN TALKING TO OUR YOUTH EARLIER!!!! WE ARE TRYING TO SAVE LIVES HERE AND YOUR HELP IS VITAL!!!! THANK YOU!




This is what the documentary is about:

Documentary Update - Almost November

So, yesterday I went to my email and saw the most beautiful thing:

Hi David!

Congratulations! Your Pepsi Refresh Project idea Inform YOUTH of addiction's DANGER and recovery's POWER through FILM!! has been randomly selected for review out of all the submissions we received this month.

You’re one step closer to getting your idea out there! But before your idea can be posted for public voting, we need to review it to make sure it meets the Pepsi Refresh Project’s Official Application Guidelines. If it doesn’t meet all requirements, it won’t be posted. On the first day of next month, we’ll let you know if your idea has been approved and will be up for voting. After that, you would begin promoting your idea for a chance to receive a Pepsi Refresh Project Grant!

Thanks for participating in the Pepsi Refresh Project. Keep at it! It’s because of you, your votes and your participation that we’ve made a difference in refreshing the world.

 
Instead it will contain personal stories of those who have waged war with addictions, from drugs to alcohol to food, and came out victorious. It will not glorify or show pictures, but instead contain stories that will show the cost of addiction and how innocently it can start yet how horrific it can become. Since this is what it contains, it should be okayed for one of the projects that get voted on in November. 

I am so ready for the month of November. On November 1st the voting will start and by the end of November we need to be one of the top (I am shooting for top 5) vote getters in the $25,000 category. The top 15 get awarded the $25,000 grant that will enable them to begin their project. I would love to get this grant as it will enable this documentary to get shot and be available for us to begin showing it in schools, colleges, detention centers and other various community venues. 

Here is what I need from you:

1. Come November 1st be prepared to vote daily the entire month for this project 
2. Inform your friends and family so that they can vote also
3. Try to get the word out to your schools and colleges to your fellow students, professors and teachers(if you need flyers they will be posted the first day of November on http://www.betterlifeinrecovery.com/ [which will not be up for several weeks from today] once we are in for sure)
4. Talk to your college departments and see if you can post the flyers on the billboard and don't forget to share it with your professors and fellow students (see flyer information on 3)
5. Get the word out at your job to coworkers (at lunch, breaks, staffings, etc. see flyer information on 3)
6. Get the word out at your church (see flyer information on 3 and if you are in Southern Missouri we will talk to your church ourselves if you would like)
7. Get the word out to your youth group (see flyer information on 3 and if you are in Southern Missouri we will talk to your youth group ourselves if you would like)
8. Share it with your Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, Celebrate Recovery, Living Free, Addicts Victorious, Alcoholics Victorious or other Recovery Group (see flyer information on 3 and if you are in Southern Missouri we will talk to your recovery group ourselves if you would like)
9. Get the word out to your small group (see flyer information on 3 and if you are in Southern Missouri we will talk to your church ourselves if you would like)
10. Put a copy of the flyer up in your break room at work
11. Talk about voting to your peers at school, whether you are in junior high, high school or college (this documentary is for you)
12. If you know a DJ, share the information with them to talk about on the radio and you can get them in contact with me if they would like to interview me on the air if in Southwest Missouri
13. Put the information up on your blog or share my blogs about the project on a daily basis
14. Put the information up on your Facebook, MySpace, or other social networks and tweet about it (Shoot, now I have to get a twitter account and I swore I would not do that)
15. Remind everyone you know daily by email, text, social network or tweet to vote daily the entire month of November!!!!
16. Do not forget that there is also a video that will be up on the site and is already under documentaries on this site that is a one minute synopsis of what we are doing and why it is both different and needed

Thank you very much for the buy in and help on this. It is and will be appreciated more than you will ever know. We will have a new site up just for this project in the next couple of weeks at http://www.betterlifeinrecovery.com/ that you will be able to visit. It will have the link to vote and the information on the 1st of November as well as the flyer you can put up and hand out as soon as we find out that we have been approved after the final review process. 

AGAIN, THANK YOU IN ADVANCE. I KNOW THAT WITH YOUR HELP WE CAN AND WILL COME OUT VICTORIOUS AND THROUGH THE SHOWING OF THIS VIDEO SO CAN MANY WHO ARE ALREADY USING AND THOSE WHO HAVE YET TO BEGIN!!!!!! If you have any questions or would be interested in either helping us or sharing your story, let me know!

I could not have been happier! This means that out of all the grant ideas that Pepsi received ours was one of the 1,500 that was randomly selected. It will now go through a final  review to insure that it does not go against any of the policies that they have for their grants. It cannot promote any particular religion, glorify drugs or alcohol, contain images of drugs or alcohol, promote a political party, contain nudity or profanity. There are also some other policies that they have to review also. Our documentary project, entitled "Better Life In Recovery" does none of that. 

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!!!