My story of rock bottom – part 3

Adam Kasix

After a small-but-mighty series of serendipitous events–

including a late-night pitcher of beer with a red-headed, dread-locked Irish rock musician–I was introduced to someone who was supposed to be able to help me get out of my nursing job and into entrepreneurship.

I wanted to provide a better quality of living for myself, my kids and Nikki too, down the road, even if I wasn’t going to live with them.

While leaving my nursing career may have been the hook that drew me in, it was his challenge to my very manhood that had me rethinking my entire life.

From the moment I met him I was captivated. He spoke with such vibrancy and confidence. And not an ounce of arrogance. Normally, when I had seen someone that appeared super confident they were also forceful in ways, like if you don’t see things their way they look down on you or try to muscle you somehow.

This guy had none of that.

Don Freeze had had a solid career as an engineer at General Motors. He pivoted that into a helluva business as an international consultant with offices around the world. But the stress (and weight of continuous travel) slowly seeped in and Don developed an issue with alcohol. It led to heartbreak.

He had to kneel before his two kids under ten and explain he wouldn’t be living with them any longer. Family life as he and they had known it… was over.

By the time I shook Don’s hand for the first time, he had done well at turning things around. And I wanted him to help me reach my goals.

I had no clue that he was about to spark the most radical change of my life, second only to my relationship with Jesus.

Within a week or so of our introduction, I called him to see if he would mentor me. I explained I wanted to get a business going and leave nursing for good.

I even told him he could hold me accountable. I was sick of not being where I believed I should have been in my life, at that point.

Listening to him, I realized that if I had known how to be where I wanted to be, I would’ve already been there. For me, anything else was an excuse to avoid owning my responsibility.

I was almost 30 and finally admitted I didn’t have life figured out! It was the not knowing that held me back–effort was never my issue–my mentality was.

The following is the part of my first phone conversation with Don that is seared into my memory:

Me: “I want you to mentor me… ”

Don: (through the sound of crunching chips): “Okay… one condition.”

Me: “Name it!”

Don: “I want you to apologize to your wife, ask for her forgiveness and try to save your marriage.”

Pfffffff…

Completely caught off-guard, like with that Irish rock hippie in the bar, I remember thinking, Why does that even matter to him; I’m looking for a f %@!* business mentor?!!”

I remember taking a breath, and with my left thumb began rubbing the plastic emblem embedded in the horn of the steering wheel of my 1999 baby-poop metallic brown Mercury Sable in the driveway of our family home I used to live in…

The same house that a few years earlier was overflowing with warmth, laughter and birthday parties… But had since fallen cold, dark & lonely.

It was the dead of winter. I just sat in the driver’s seat, staring at that empty house against the endless white-blanket-of-a-sky in Michigan’s January.

How in the world did I, did we, get HERE? How did I let this happen?

I exhaled and replied, “Okay, I’m not arguing, but you don’t understand.”

I reminded him of those details many wives tend to find challenging for marriage – habitual affairs, devastating drug addiction & a promise-shattering tragedy of divorce.

“With all due respect, Don, our divorce is finalizing in a couple weeks. I’ve wrecked her. There’s no way she takes me back, even if somehow she’s able to forgive me.”

I was deflated – so disappointed that that was his answer to my entrepreneurial seeking. I guess it’s back to the bottom of the pit I’ve dug… I thought.

His response to my reasonable excuse was the linchpin that connected me to the transformation of a lifetime.

In his warm but firm, emotionally-detached way, while still intermittently crunching on those damn chips, Don hit me with it:

“I’m not asking you to be responsible for her response; I’m asking you to take responsibility as a man.”

With tears welling to the point of spillover, shoulders drooping like a Weeping Willow after a heavy rain… and an I-don’t-see-the-point-of-this shake of my head–sitting there in that dark and lonely place–I said, “Okay… I’ll do it.”

I did not believe there was much point to it.

I just thought that I had caused too much irrevocable damage. I had heard people talk about God restoring things, even raising dead people not named Jesus.

I was about to find out firsthand through witnessing the death and resurrection of our marriage.

On Valentine’s Day of all days, our divorce finalized. (I know, the irony, right?!)

Three weeks later, in early March, I quit all the drugs.

Two months after meeting Don, I was getting strong again, mentally clear, like I was years before, only better.

After several terribly difficult conversations over a few months with the woman I’d been seeing and my now ex-wife, Nikki, I ended the affair that was no longer an affair.

It took me 3 attempts to do what I promised to do, but eventually, I did it. I failed the first two times. But I knew I was changing.

I was so terribly sorry.

It was time to leave the darkness behind and seek life in the light. The life that had been intended from the beginning. It was time to fight for my family and win my now ex wife’s heart back. And the hearts of my son and daughter… if it was even still possible.

I had heard it said that “if you’re still breathing, God ain’t done with you yet.” Okay, then here we go!

On a beautiful sunny spring Sunday in April, I called Nikki to ask her if I could share some things… in person.

She cautiously allowed it.

I drove to the house our young family started in, just south of Detroit. By that time, Nikki lived there by herself with our two small kids.

She apprehensively allowed me the space, not sure what I was up to. After all, she’s seen and heard the I’m-sorry-song-and-dance before, not to mention all the lies.

I expressed the things in my heart through tears born from my soul. For the first time in our life together, up to that point, I offered a real apology. Whether she’d accept wasn’t up to me. The apology was.

Later she told me it was the first time in ten years she knew the tears were real… honest.

I told her of the things I believed God had put on my heart. I told her of the promises I had already been delivering on (including quitting drugs), and the work I knew I still had to do.

Since I had no regular address other than that baby-poop brown Sable, I asked if I could stay there at the house and crash on the couch.

I promised to be of value to them, like helping with dishes and caring for Adasyn who wasn’t a year old yet.

I assured her I was not looking for sex or anything from her. Well, except one thing.

I laid my request before her,

“Nik, all I’m asking, is for you to trust God… and watch me.”

Up to that point in our life, I hadn’t been very good at backing up my words with actions and she knew that all too well. So for me to simply ask her to watch me prove my promises in practical everyday ways, I’m sure shocked her more than she let on.

Somewhat stunned, confused, and doubtful, she said, “Okay.” She had zero expectation in her tone, understandably.

That Sunday in April was day one of a journey that continues to take the two of us higher and closer to the fulfillment of our purpose in this life.

Nikki would see who God had intended me to be from the beginning. We began discussing getting married, again.

Later that same year, in October, on a crispy-breeze, warm & sunny fall afternoon, in a quaint ceremony, along the Ohio River in Louisville, Kentucky we got married again. And wouldn’t you know, by the same man who wisely challenged me to be the man I claimed I was in my wedding vows years before.

Our first born, Gavin, was our ring bearer 😉

This December will mark 22 years since our original wedding in 2001.

Not only did I get my life back, I got back what made it matter, my bride (and new “two-time” wife) and my babies… and ultimately, my relationship with my Creator.

In Don, I had met someone who taught me that with different thinking, I could get different results. I had never even considered ideas like that.

He told me, “Your thinking has produced your life. If you want to change your life, you have to change your thinking.” Change your thinking, change your life. That made sense to me.

I knew I had made a mess of things doing it my way. I knew I hated what I’d produced… who I’d become. But I also knew, deep down inside, that wasn’t truly me.

My heart and soul cried for one thing but by my thinking and actions, I produced the opposite. I was my own enemy and didn’t realize it.

Even though our conditioning isn’t our “fault”, it is our responsibility to change it if we don’t like the results we’re getting in life.

I had to stop blaming – others, situations, or “the system”.

I was at the beginning of stepping into the power that I was created to produce–my journey of becoming who I was born to be.

Are you ready to step into your power?

Have you felt like you have been blaming others for your situation and realized you were in control?

Have you recently realized that your conditioning has played a part in the current state of your life?

Do you feel stuck where you are and do not see a way to change it? Do you think you are too far gone to turn it around?

Drugs?
Infidelity?
Divorce?
Career collapse?
Bankruptcy?
(I have more)

One man’s belief in me helped me CHANGE EVERYTHING.

I have helped many people go from a life or situation they dread, to a life they are stoked they get to LIVE.

I help people just like you live on THEIR terms.

And I think if you’re still reading, you have a hope, of some kind. Gently, directly, I ask you, what are you waiting for?

There is such a thing as too late. As an RN, I saw people die all the time suffocating in their own regret–their family forever enduring the pain of what could have been, especially when it comes to fractured relationships and busted homes.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

Are you ready to step into YOUR power and begin YOUR journey of becoming who YOU were meant to be?

Give me 45 minutes and I’ll show you a clear path to the power you know is inside and the life that’s yours to live,

Adam

Don believed in me.

Greg let me believe in him.

Will you let me believe in you?

read about Steve and Marqueeta’s journey

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About the Author

Adam Kasix receives insights that fuse the supernatural and the super practical. This happens on a multi-weekly basis. He writes most of them down. He publishes some of them here.

Adam believes in the family home, in its various forms. As part of his mission to take back the home, he helps Guy become a man, by confronting his beast so life can open up for him … And sleep can be awesome again.

Adam hosts the Instigator Freed’em! Podcast. He’s really into his two-time wife, Nikki (and her hips). After 22 years raising kids, he’s still obsessed with being a better dad. And Jesus is ruling more of his heart than ever before.

“… I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep …”

Click here to learn more

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