#458 "You're a Miracle!" The Night That Changed Joe McGivney's Life

I love my AA friends , guys who are addicted to maybe alcohol , drugs , all kinds of different things , and I love it because of the power of Jesus Christ to change hearts , the power of Jesus Christ . Jesus didn't come into our lives for sin management . He gave .

It came in to give us power , power to overcome our brokenness , our addictions and then to become persons of love and that's the end of it . You know , I mean , if it's just information , you can Google information , you might learn information about Jesus and his life or whatever , but it's not until you step into the story .

And this is the most powerful thing when Christ himself comes in , you encounter him and it changes your life . Joe McGivney is a devoted husband to his wife Nicole , proud father to his adult children , allie and Colin . A grateful , recovered alcoholic , a child of God .

He serves as the deputy grand knight for Santa Maria Council 4999 and is an active parishioner at St Patrick Catholic Church in Palms Beach Gardens , florida . So buckle up and get ready for today's episode . I'm grateful to be here with Joe McGivney as my guest today . Joe wrote a very special book your Miracle . It's a book about his personal life . Joe welcome .

He was even Baker-acted , that's , committed to a locked psychiatric ward , and his family was told he would need 24-7 cure the rest of his life . Then , one morning , he woke up completely well . He had to wander through the halls of the institution to find an employee and ask him where am I ? Why am I here ?

Doctors had no explanation for his sudden healing , nor did Joe Until one day , released from treatment and working through the 12 steps towards sobriety , he discovered the secret of his healing and a most surprising and inspiring place . You're a miracle .

My story of alcohol is a miraculous healing , and God's infinite power and love is a thrilling story that follows Joe from the depths of the arrangement to the heights of true and lasting joy , a joy that's open to all of us . Joe , comment on that .

That's a lot to unpack there , brother , so I'm just going to throw it in your cord and take it where you want .

I had no memory of that nine week , that nine week period where I was being transferred from institution to institution .

So , December 30th it was the night before New Year's Eve and we decided , I'm told , that we would go out and celebrate , you know , beat the crowds and we'd go out and have a New Year's Eve dinner on December 30th . Now , leading up to that is an important part of how we got there . December 30th , that was in the heart , you know , the heat of COVID .

And in early March of 2020 , when we had complete COVID lockdown began , I started drinking from the moment I woke up each day until I went to bed or passed out each night and , to put that in perspective , I had created my own little ritual that I and this began .

I think March 8th was the day when my company I worked for shut down , when virtually everything here in Florida shut down and the only exceptions were liquor stores and grocery stores , but anyway .

So at that point , early March , you know my fears , my anxieties just spiraled out of control and I was an alcoholic for all of my life , but I was a highly functioning alcoholic .

But everything just went , you know , and in early March , my way of medicating myself was to I created this little ritual where , at seven in the morning , my wife would leave to go teach at a private school that did not close . Now , soon after she left I got in my car and I found a liquor store that opened at 7 am .

That was near , about 20 minutes from my house . I'd arrive at that liquor store and I would buy three of the little airplane bottles , little mini bottles , over there and I would do all three of those shots in the parking lot at the liquor store and then I would head home .

I had learned through a personal breathalyzer that I had that each shot of vodka would increase my blood alcohol level to.025 . So three shots takes me up to.075 , meaning I can legally drop . I also learned that it took one hour for my body to metabolize each shot . So I'd do three shots at 7 am .

That meant I could do two more at 9 am , two more at 11 am , two more at 1 pm , two more at 3 pm . At 5 pm my wife has now come home from school we would go to the grocery store to get dinner for the night and then I would make a left turn in the liquor store and I would buy three more shots of vodka in two bottles of wine .

So in each day , from the moment I woke up until I went to bed , there was alcohol flowing through my brain and as we marched through COVID I started experiencing some unexplainable vision issues , balance issues , memory issues . Even saw some doctors about that and no one could really figure out what was going on .

Then came December 30th , so Nicole and I went to dinner that night . We came home and at one point she went upstairs and went to bed . I was down on the living room sofa drinking as usual .

I had my phone in my hand and I was able to call Nicole and she had her phone on , thankfully and I told her Nicole , please come help me , something's wrong . And she somehow then managed to get me off of the living room floor . I couldn't walk , I wasn't making sense , I was speaking in gibberish .

She got me to the car , raced me to a hospital where they took me , checked me in it was the heat of COVID , so she couldn't even go into the hospital with me . They put me in a wheelchair , picked me up from the car and my nine-week odyssey began .

That first hospital realized very quickly that I hadn't had a stroke , which was the first fear , but that I was . You know , something bad was going on . I ultimately was put into the intensive care unit while they medically detoxed me , and for those there were some very touch-and-go moments during that period where I nearly died , but after a couple of days .

I kept getting worse , so I was transferred to another hospital and then ultimately ending up at a locked psych ward in West Palm Beach St Mary's Hospital . And that's when they figured out what my diagnosis was , which is something called Corsikov psychosis . I have 100 people with that diagnosis .

20 of those 100 will die and I nearly got there , thankfully , nicole . Had she not gotten me to the hospital that night , I probably would have died on my living room floor . So that leaves 80 out of 100 .

That's drift into this neurological condition , again called Corsikov psychosis , better known as wet brain , and the structures of the brain rewire and you enter the psychotic state which you will never come back from , and that's where I was .

So at the end of the stay at that locked psych ward , nicole was told you know he will be this way for the rest of his life and you have to figure out what you're going to do with him , because we're going to discharge him and at the time I was psychotic . I was hallucinating . I didn't know who Nicole or anybody was .

I was often violent and restrained and they were getting ready to send me home with my 90 pound life .

And they checked , they transferred me from the psych ward to that facility , they put me to bed and the following morning I woke up completely healed , with no medical deficits , no psychological deficits , no physical deficits . I was normal . So wait and out . So what was ?

So I wandered off into the hallway and was able to find one of the staff members and I said where , where am I ? He's like well , you're , you're at the retreat . Did we're a treatment facility , joe ? Don't you remember ? So no , I said why am I here ? And he said be because of your drinking .

So soon , you know , over the come next few days , I figure out , figure out what's going on . I also got a little bit of a taste . You know a people telling me that what had happened to me was somewhat miraculous , that there that was . What it happened to me was not normal To recover the way I did . So I'm in this treatment facility .

I know I'm there for my drinking . And I know one thing I know my wife , nicole , is Someone I need to get home to as soon as possible , because I know she's not gonna be happy with this and I'm planning on getting out of there as quickly as I can to try to Turn my way back into her . Good graces that didn't happen .

About a week and a half into that stay there was a scheduled phone call with my therapist and Nicole and me . Again , it's COVID . Nicole can't come into this facility .

And she says well , joe , when you get out , talk to your aunt Jerry , she'll fill in the details . But when you get out and we go home , I'm gone . I've already packed everything . I've already spoken to a lawyer . She said I just can't do this anymore . And the there was trying to cut the phone off . He said , nicole , let's hit the pause button .

And she's interrupted him and said there . He said , you know , let's have another call . And she said there won't be no other call . She hung up , wow . And in that moment Was the first time in my life I ever felt completely broken . You know this woman I adored and loved .

She truly was the love of my life and she and I had looked and I burned that to the ground . So , rather than for the first time ever , I accepted the fact that I might have a real problem . They'll call . So the therapist looks me in the eyes as Joe , I'm so sorry .

He said there's an AA meeting starting in five minutes and you really need to go to it and the a meetings were option . But and I had a couple words for him and they weren't let's dance . I'm sitting there solving , I'm crying , I'm broken , he goes . Joe , you have to go any course to me to go , and I did so . I entered the room .

It was in our cap , the cafeteria of the facility . There was 40 to 50 people there and it was my first ever . A in every a meeting begins with part of the opening of it is reading the 12 steps , and Step number three says we made the decision to turn our will in our lives over to the care of God . Some like this sound here .

By the way , I was a cradle Catholic , so I knew about God . I had a moral compass , but I had stepped away from my faith for my church , from my church , years prior .

The only time I was in a church was for a wedding or a funeral , and and now , you know , I turn my back , not because I was angry with the church or angry with God , I I just didn't see what was in it for me . I was really selfish and really flawed and I didn't again , selfishly , see how I benefit , would benefit from practicing my faith .

I remember there were times thinking this , what you just said for sure , and then other you know , and then also thinking , you know , the church is changing too , so so maybe there's really no truth in the church anyway , so I might as well just go live my life . You know it was .

It's something how that happens , almost just apathy , right , we just start walking away and that's it .

They had a speaker which is common today meetings who shared his story of how he had burned his life to the ground and , through working through the 12 steps of a with a sponsor , how everything he had been rebuilt , he had been transformed as a human being and I saw , I could see the joy in his , on his face and in his eyes and I said I want to be

like that guy showing . Now I realize that the key to it all lies within God . But now I'm a little terrified because , again , I had turned my back on him years ago . And what would he want to do with someone like me , someone who was his flawed and selfish and an addict and an alcoholic ? And you know , I came to learn that .

You know , over time , obviously I'm just the guy that I think Christ loves to say right .

And so that's why I love to talk to guys like you , joe , friends of mine , that that have gone through these , these , these Incredible lives and turned around by the power of God coming into their life . You know , we need these witnesses today , joe , we need books like yours , we need stories like yours , especially for young people .

Young people need to hear these stories because it , you know , they're told it's . You know , god is like like a , like a , like a fairy tale . God is like some some weird ghost story and it's not tangible .

And of course , you know , until you step into the story , you know God's always knocking and in our heart , you know , we , we've turned that off , we've we've turned off that voice . And here you are confronting this , this God of mercy and love , and and you think about the humility of God .

And now you , you know , aa guys , buddies of mine that were in AA , or Aaron AA , said you know , humility is one of the steps , right , and . And so you think , well , how can I be humble and you think you know God is humble enough to come to Joe and Jack , you know , can I not be a little humble here ?

And she shook her head and she said Joe , you don't got this . You're an alcoholic . You need to figure out what you're gonna do . But I can tell your stubborn .

So I'm gonna challenge you to make two promises , not 32 one when you get home tomorrow , immediately figure out where to get to an AA meeting and within 24 hours you need to go to your first day meeting in the real world and you need to start looking for a sponsor . So I said , okay , I promise I can myself that I can do that .

The other thing she said is , joe , when you also , when you get home , open your laptop , log in Before you start answering emails and anything else , google in all caps surrender prayer In up a pot . She turned she , you know , turned her computer in Monitor to face me .

She googled in surrender prayer in all caps and found this very long , beautiful , black and white , just white paper , black type surrender prayer .

That is a Catholic prayer and how she knew I was Catholic , I know I , so I get home that night , or that afternoon rather , and I kept that promise and I printed off that prayer and she had also said to me Joe , you'll , over time , this , this prayer , will change your life and it and it did .

And I came to , I started going to a meetings , I found a sponsor . I've learned and realized that the whole key to recovery is Surrendering . I , like I will every single day and over a period of a few months I transformed and my relationship with God real , and one of the things we start doing in a a is realizing that we have to serve other .

It's part of how we stay sober and I do that frequently now by speaking in treatment centers and so on . But back at that time I was Still somewhat new and I've been sober for maybe a four or five months now and I decided and by the way I had got , I found my way back to the Catholic Church .

But I finally mustard up the courage to go to the Catholic Church , finally mustard up the courage to walk into a Catholic Church .

You know , how dare you walk away from the church , walk , who do you think you are to suddenly come back , you know , without you know any , I guess , any morality , you know , yeah , I don't know why I was afraid , but I was afraid , mm-hmm .

But at the end of that first mass I felt like I was home again and Only a few weeks after I'd started going back to mass , the priest , father Don , here at St Patrick's Church , st Peter's Church in Jupiter , florida , did a homily that ended with heaven , not the good heaven .

I don't want to go too deeply into it because it's part of the beauty of the step , but the first time I went back to confession I happened to get a priest that had written is doctoral thesis on a hit . Wow and when I started sharing my story .

So anyway , we then now at this point , so I'm , I'm serving others and I decided to join the Knights of Columbia . Why ? Because it was founded by my relative , less than Michael McGibbon .

Okay , okay , so I decided to join the Knights and the Saturday morning after I joined the Knights I have a phone call with my aunt , jerry , now going back . She was the nurse and the advocate who was helping through my medical care and translating to my family Immediately after we got out .

We started this tradition of a Saturday morning for phone call and basically in the beginning she was just checking on , hoping that I was , you know , following the path , and I said to her Jerry , I joined , I ended up joining the Knights of Columbus this week and she starts crying , like I thought you'd be happy to hear this .

She said , joey , when you were down for that count , when you thought you weren't gonna make it , when you were , you know , hospitalized , I was praying to anyone would listen , great to God . I prayed to Jesus , I prayed to Mary , I Prayed to our relatives . She goes , but I was fervently praying the problem .

The man who was one miracle away from sainthood , the man who was unidentified two months before I went down for the count the same priest that was one of his very first ministries when he got his parish assignment was to start a emperance society because he was serving Irish Catholic drunk .

And now he comes in to save your life , my friend .

You know , I always tell people when I'm speaking to them and they've had these miraculous things happen in their life or some encounter with God that's so profound that if you don't write them down , if you don't journal it , somehow 10 years later , 15 to 20 years later , you'll think it didn't happen .

You know we have these encounters with God on a quasi-regular basis , but sometimes the major encounter is that pivotal point that you had . You know you wake up and something happened , and when you realize that God has stepped into the story with you , or if you finally open yourself up to him , that's such a powerful experience .

But if we can keep that and we latch on to that , that's a story that takes us to the rest of our life here on earth . But I think too many people don't put it down . They don't understand the power of that and the gift that was given to them .

And does she like the new Joe ?

Nicole had never been baptized , even though her parents were Catholic . She started going to church with me and I didn't push her . But after a few months of that she turned to me one day during mass . It said I want to be Catholic . So she went through our CIA .

I went through it with her as her sponsor and At the last Easter vigil I finally now have my beautiful Catholic wife .

Now , you know what a witness that you and Nicole are to them . You know , stepping into the story again , kind of looting to what I said earlier , joe , this is what young people need . You know witnesses . You know you can't just proclaim God to young people .

I don't think today , now you can proclaim his word through you and your witnessing , and you're proclaiming his word . You know this is the power , this is what did it . But you know , like Pope Paul the sixth said , what the world needs now are witnesses more than anything else , witnesses to this story to say this story is real , this story has power .

And , just like Jesus said in one John , you know he he turns to those apostles of John the Baptist who are following him , joe , and he says what do you see ? What are you looking for ? What do you seek ? Common , seek , common , see . And that's finally what we do in our lives , isn't it .

We , we're seeking something , we're broken , we're in a fallen world , but instead of normalizing the fall , we hear that voice huh , what , joe ? Who are you ? What ?

That that that one get tears me up every time I read it , because God , you know , is is Lawn and sinful , as I was Called by my name . And you begin and I am his .

So if you go to Joe McGivney calm , you'll find a link to some of those videos , and the other one I would ask you to put there too Is father McGivney Dot or father be given me that or in that there as well , you'll find all the information about the cause for his sanctum .