True Warrior Success: Discovering Faith And Overcoming Addiction With Kevin Parker
Addiction is an illness. It is widespread and can consume an individual even to the point of death. That was almost the case for Kevin Parker. In today’s episode, Kevin joins host Chad Burmeister and opens up about how his drug use drove him to near death and how that experience helped him find his faith and ultimately start his recovery journey. He now uses his experience to help others as a drug interventionist and recovery coach for anyone suffering from addiction. Listen and be inspired by his story of overcoming addiction and finding God when he needed him most.
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True Warrior Success: Discovering Faith And Overcoming Addiction With Kevin Parker
I’m here with Kevin Parker. He was referred to me by one of my great friends and it turns out one of Kevin’s great friends too, Darryll Stinson, Second Chance Athletes. If you don’t know him, you should. It’s a privilege when you have great friends that are at that depth of level then you know their friends are also at that depth. Kevin Parker, welcome to the show.
It’s an absolute pleasure to be on your show. I was looking forward to it. I’m excited to connect with your audience and thank you for having me.
Seeing the images in True Warriors Success, I’ve been thinking about the need for communion for people and what I’m envisioning is a shield with the word communion on it. Community, communion and warrior. I also believe that I’m called by God to be a warrior for him. What does True Warriors Success mean? Tell us a little bit about that.
I truly believe that everybody has a God-given talent, purpose and we all have a warrior inside of us. Unfortunately through life and circumstances, we don’t necessarily unlock that and live to our full potential which is why I created a recovery coaching, life coaching, training and speaking business to help people see their true potential and unlock the true warrior within.
Overcoming Addiction: Recovery is a multifaceted approach. It’s a physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual overhaul of your life. It's looking within and seeing where your character defects are and creating a life that you love to live.
Recovery being a key part of that, I’m sure like all of us may know somebody who had COVID and we also know somebody who’s recovering from something, an addiction of some sort that’s the recovery you’re talking about or what other types of recovery do you work with?
I specialize specifically in drug, alcohol, sex addiction recovery, process addictions and all types of things like that but recovering from anything in life. It can be depression, anxiety, an overwhelming circumstance that you thought that you weren’t going to be able to surpass and giving you the strength to do it on your own is what I specialize in but I have a lot of recovery from alcohol and drug addiction plans.
That certainly expands the net. All of us probably have something we’re recovering from. It’s a lifelong process. This is going to be fun. Let’s go back. I like to rewind on the tape and say, think about when you’re 6, 7 or 8 years old, some of your first memories. Specifically, what do you recall being passionate about when you were younger?
As far as hobbies, I love to climb trees, connect with nature. I was always building some fort, playing sports with my friends, being active, outside and connecting with nature and other people are some of the things that I truly loved as a six-year-old kid.
Which part of the country was this in?
I was in Staten Island, New York when it wasn’t as urban and citylike as it is now. It was a good place to grow up.
I think of forts and the blizzard of 1987 in Colorado when we got 2 or 3 feet of powder and we made the biggest fort in the front yard as we could. We try to build tree forts but that always costs money and we didn’t always get to build those kinds of cool forts.
We had a pretty bad blizzard ourselves in Staten Island in New York in 1995. We had about 2 to 2.5 feet of snow and that igloo fort that we created lasted almost well into the summer because it was so jam-packed with snow.
Sports, hanging out, building adventure, I hear that a lot. If you think about how that relates to what you ended up doing now, is there any line that connects those two things from then to now?
The collaboration takes to overcome a situation when it’s dealing with coaching. Creating something out of nothing, looking at an issue or a problem and creating something beautiful and magical that works, that serves a purpose in our lives. Back then it was making a fort that we can hang out with and enjoy our environment. Now, it’s creating a life that we truly love to live that’s sustainable for whether it’s sobriety, happiness, abundance and success.
I’ve seen a few people that I know go through the ins and outs of sobriety. It gets so close and 7.5 months, “I saw an ex-girlfriend, we hung out. She was drinking and so did I,” or those kinds of stories. How do you find that someone who seems far committed to being sober and seven months in that happens? How do you get to the 10- and 20-year marks? What’s the secret?
I wish I can lie to you and tell you that there’s a cookie-cutter answer to that question but there’s not. Recovery in itself is a multifaceted approach. Physical, mental, emotional and spiritual overhaul of your life. It’s looking within and seeing where your character defects are and creating a life that you love to live. The fact that matter is truly happy and content people don’t do drugs. That’s the way that it is. There’s got to be something that’s making you want to use whether you don’t feel you’re enough. You don’t feel comfortable in your own skin or don’t feel loved. It can be a combination of a bunch of different things. If you create a life that you truly love living, there’s no room for addiction.
I set up with their physical approach. Make sure they’re eating healthy, exercising, getting the natural endorphins, serotonin, dopamine that people crave and then I go into their mental and emotional aspects. I make sure that they have spiritual life because all of these components are powerful. The fact of the matter is everybody’s an addict. People say, “I’m not an addict.” Yes, you are because we’re all wired to be addicts of pleasure. That’s the way our brains are created. We’re created to seek dopamine and serotonin, endorphins. It’s because your favorite flavor of pleasure is different than mine doesn’t make you any different on a primal level. I like to try to switch up an unhealthy addiction whether it be drugs or alcohol or something that’s more healthy. It might be working out, eating healthy, serving our community or praising God. All of those things can be addictive in nature.
Overcoming Addiction: Everybody’s an addict. Because we’re all wired to seek pleasure. Just because your favorite flavor of pleasure is different than mine doesn’t make you any different on a primal level.
My drinking habits from 18 or 19 probably a few years before I was supposed to be. For me, I was a pretty shy kid. If I had three beers and I’m out at a party in a field somewhere in the mountains, my talk track improved. At least, I put that in my mind and that worked for me through college and post-college. I almost felt like I was developing my social capability on one scale but if I don’t have alcohol on another scale, I’m going to be two notches below. That’s literally what I told myself and it took a while for me to catch up and go, “I’m actually better socially adept when I have all my senses than when I don’t, when I’m spitting alcohol on somebody and looking an idiot.” I had to internalize and understand all that before I was able to do something about it.
I’m glad that you’re self-reflective and wise enough to realize that you are better sober. When you have your wits together with you, you did it for the specific reason you didn’t feel comfortable in your own skin. You thought that you were better with an additive to it. The fact of the matter is, you’re not. There may be some issues that you might have to deal with anxiety or confidence but those problems are easier faced head-on with a clear sober mind. That’s the facts.
I’m probably ADD or ADHD. I was never diagnosed but I noticed that I’m always have something in my hand whether it’s a paperclip or whatever.
That’s a nice little fidget that works very well. It keeps your mind off the bad things.
Thinking about everybody that I have on this show has had something that they’ve had to face. I like to paint it as at the time it felt like the biggest mountain you had to climb over, go around, go under a tunnel through. Something that you’re comfortable sharing. Having talked with you for a short period. I think you’d be comfortable sharing everything that you’ve experienced in life. What painful memory happened to you or what did you have to experience in life that is now looking back, you’re like, “If I didn’t go through that life wouldn’t be the same.”
I wrote a book on it, Winning Against All Odds: Discovering the True Warrior Within where I share my entire full story with the most impactful moment of my life that I thought had a huge impact that I thought I would never get over. I would never be able to get past was I overdosed on the painkillers that I was prescribed. I ended up in a coma for three weeks. I was supposed to die. I died three times in the hospital. Nothing short of a miracle, I’m still here. I had my last rights read to me and at one point I was supposed to be completely brain dead and lose all four of my limbs. Through the power of prayer and I believe God’s will, I survived but not before losing my left leg. I’m now an amputee. I lost my left leg below the knee but I remember thinking, “What am I going to do for the rest of my life? What job am I going to have? What woman is going to want to marry a man with one leg when there are literally billions walking around with two.” I went on a real depression. I didn’t know how I was going to handle it, what I was going to do, what part of this world belongs to me, where I fit in.
I realized that no matter what your circumstances are, you can always turn your biggest weakness into your biggest strength. Either you’re having a good day, a good experience or a difficult experience, that’s created to fine-tune, mold and strengthen you in a way that you don’t even know. What I can say to everybody out there is no matter what you’re dealing with, know there’s a rhyme, reason, purpose or something of value that you can pull from that experience that can help you grow, expand you and make you a better person. You might not be able to see it now but 10 or 20 years from now, you’re going to be able to see the value from every experience in your life.
My son went through a burn accident. 2nd and 3rd degree burns to the face and hands because he was cooking. You go to the hospital and it’s parallels because he was in there for three weeks. He didn’t go to the other side three times as you did but his mom and I did. Just seeing your son in the level of pain and suffering, “Is his hands going to be okay?” He even thought, “Am I going to lose three fingers in this?” What was neat is he went into it and he thought he was going to lose it. He was like, “It’s just fingers.” This was the day after it happened and his other perspective was, “I’m so glad this happened to me because now nobody else in our family ever has to deal with this.” You’re like, “How did he get that level of perspective in life to be able to face something at the moment that it’s all going to be okay and it’s here for a reason?” That’s pretty neat.
Another friend of mine in the Antarctic, Mike Pierce. His wife fell 100 feet off of a cliff in Boulder before they got married. Broke a lot of bones and barely made it. I’m probably exaggerating but it was close to 100 feet and you think, “No way.” He now seeks the moments that are difficult for most people. He trained in a freezer for months and he went and ran a 100-mile ultra-marathon in Alaska or at the north pole so he could come out the other side with that new divine wisdom. If you’re reading this, you read someone who lost their leg and they made it through. At the time you weren’t thinking, “This is awesome. Bring it on. I’m going to learn some stuff from this.” Imagine if you knew that going in and you could have that mindset that whatever comes at you, “Bring it because I can deal with it.” You got there through a lot of work in a lot of years but powerful how is that?
It’s truly amazing. I feel like when God can turn your mess into your message, strengthen and bolden you in a way that you have never seen possible. It’s a beautiful thing.
Thinking about that, how long ago was the accident?
Many years ago.
How has that now looking back? You go, “It’s what was meant to be.” How do you turn that into your message?
It was the greatest thing that could have ever happened to me because not only did it give me an experience where I was able to see what I was truly made of but it also got me off of drugs. It was my rock bottom that gave me the chance to say, “I think you had enough. You should stop doing that stuff because it’s not good for you.” I have a constant reminder every time I put on my leg that that is not a good decision to make. Also, I’ve been able to connect with thousands of people over the last few years, help people overcome addiction, challenges and obstacles in their lives, strengthen and inspire them through speaking engagements, going to schools, talking to the kids and writing my book, working one-on-one with coaching clients of all walks of life all over the country.
It’s been amazing that people can take my struggle and the pain that I’ve dealt with in my life and use it in their lives to move in the right direction. I always say if I could change one life, help one family from going through what I went through, I put my whole family through. Every single thing I went through was all worth it. It’s been way over more than one person I’ve affected over the years. It’s been a true blessing to be able to make such an impact in this world and help so many people. I’m truly grateful that I can do that. I’m so thankful that it happened.
Overcoming Addiction: Try to switch up an unhealthy addiction, whether it be drugs or alcohol, for something that's healthier, like working out or eating healthy or serving your community or praising God.
Putting those two things in the same sentence, the worst thing is the best thing. If you look in the Bible, that’s very true over again. If you look at basketball, a bad three free-throws shooter becomes the best. It plays over again.
He who exalts himself will be humbled and he who is humbled will be exalted. I truly believe that it took me a big humbling to find my purpose in this world and be able to add value to all the people.
This question is almost hard for me to ask because I think the word wrong but I’ll ask it anyway and we can go from there. What would you like to accomplish that would change everything for you? When I talk to people like yourself, you’re already in the zone. It’s hard to say, “If I could only do this,” and a lot of people are always chasing the next ring. When I talked to people like you it’s like, “I’m already in the lane.” There’s got to be something that’s out there that, “If this happened, that would be amazing.”
If I die right now, my life would be complete but I am always searching for more goals to make a bigger impact. I’m truly trying to impact a million people in this world. However, I can do that whether it be speaking to different audiences, saving people’s lives, getting them off for drugs or saying something, one word, one phrase that changes and impacts somebody’s life is truly what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to get onto bigger stages in front of more people. Connect with people on a more intimate level, on a deeper level and trying to make an impact on this world because there are so many beautiful things in this world. There are also a lot of things that go on in this world that I don’t agree with. I wish I can change and make an impact.
I pray each and every single day that I can make that impact that God uses me for his will and helps people with the struggles that they’re dealing with. It could take one word. It could take a smile. You don’t understand the impact you have on people. It could be walking right past somebody that’s having a horrible day, just smiling at them. You have no idea what impact you have. I’m trying to impact as many people and my goal is one million at this point. Maybe in ten years, it might be 50 million, you never know.
God put us on this conversation because I’m launching an app called 77Pray.com and it’s the same goal. I want a million subscribers. The intention of it is waking up in the morning, click a box, “Did I pray?” It could be 30 seconds. I’m not giving you directions on how to pray, there might be some ideas but did you pray? Then did you read a Bible verse? It will be randomized, comes into the app every day. You check a box, “Did I invite someone to the app every day, post it on Facebook, LinkedIn or an SMS?” It’s like, “Kevin, I’ve been thinking about you. You should check this app out.” It’s basically free. It’s $1 a month. It’s going to be for charities, raising money for people in need and then pray at the end of the day.
There are two other capabilities. Crowdsourcing difficult decisions. You can post out, “I got to decide. Am I moving to the mountains or staying in Denver? I have a problem I’m facing, can you please pray for me?” You’ll be able to know how many people prayed for you. What I haven’t told anybody is that I want to put modules into the app because now as we start growing to 10,000, 50,000 and 100,000 people. There are going to be people who have certain situations they’re dealing with. The things that you do from a coaching perspective, there’s another task box and it’s already built into the app. We can say, “Make sure to do this.” Maybe it’s, “Be grateful. Twelve steps, gratefulness and prayer.” You could build the twelve steps into the app or some of the True Warrior Success pieces that you build but now it gets delivered through an app and we both have the same singular mission of one million people who both come from the same place. There might be out there to build out some warrior module.
A lot of people ask, “What would you tell your twenty-year-old self?” That one would be pretty obvious so let me do a different thought experiment. You may never have heard this one. Imagine you go out to your lawn right now or a big park and there’s this huge bird that’s there. It’s lifesize. You can jump on it. It’s totally safe. You jump on it and it takes you twenty years into the future. You go to wherever that is whether it’s the same house you’re in now or somewhere. You go find yourself in the world twenty years from now. You get off this big, huge bird and go knock on the door and meet your future self in twenty years. Now, take it all in.
What’s it smell like, what’s it looks like, what do you look like and you shake your own hand and say something to yourself. You’re like, “Good to see you.” You’ve talked for 5 to 10 minutes. You’re about to leave, exchange pleasantries, you go back get on the bird and you come back to here and now. I run that experiment once a week because if you vision out that future state talking to yourself, you can impact the here and now. I took you through the fast-forward accelerated version. Did you see something there where you’re like, “That was different,” or what did you say to yourself or anything that came to mind in that exercise?
I see myself in a place of connectedness. I definitely would not be living in New York City. I would be out in nature and living life on my terms because life is not about the rat race, making $1 million dollars or being super successful. It’s making an impact and experiencing life. I see myself working a few hours a week, nothing crazy like that but pouring into other people. In the last few years, I’ve gotten spiritual and I’ve connected with my God. I want to be able to give back, disciple and be able to make my life a difference because I truly believe that I was saved for a reason. It’s not about my will or purpose. It’s about his and being able to connect and fulfill whatever that might be. When I look into the future and I see where I am, I’m happy. I feel like I grow each and every single day and where I envisioned myself, my life was and I’m going to be. I know that everything is going to be okay and it’s going to be exactly what I’m supposed to be. I’m very happy with that future in our lives.
What role does faith play in your journey? Thinking about when you were a kid, did you go to church? Talk us through how faith became part of your day in the life of?
Growing up I had no faith. My father was Catholic. My mother was not practicing Protestantism. I never was baptized or went to church and had no knowledge of anything. I would identify myself as agnostic growing up. I didn’t believe in anything. If there was something out there, “Prove it to me.” Unfortunately, this left a void in my heart that I was filling with synthetic things, fleeting pleasures of this world whether it was alcohol, gambling, sex or any pleasure I can get my hands on. What I’ve learned in my life is that humans are created to worship. No matter what we worship, it’s going to consume us. If you worship money, you’ll never have enough money. If you worship being good-looking, you’ll never be good-looking enough. If you worship fame, you’ll never be famous enough. If you worship God, it’s all abundant. It’s omnipotent, omnipresent and if there’s abundant, it can never be taken away from you because it’s not of this world.
When I was doing my heavy addiction, I didn’t have anything to worship besides fame, fortune and all these things leading to pleasures of this world. I was never satisfied, contented and there was a huge void in my heart. Not until I went through my experience of dying in the hospital and being saved, not of my strength but of his. I went on this eight-year journey to figure out who God was for me. I went to Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, Native American, New Age spirituality. I tasted the rainbow. I tried every single thing. Although there were components of it that were great and made sense, there was always something missing. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. I didn’t understand why but I was yearning and searching until I walked into a Christian Church one day and heard the gospel for the first time. I started profusely crying and a part of my heart that I never experienced in my life opened up. That’s when I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and savior about a few years ago. It was an experience. It was the most real thing I ever experienced because the tearing of the flesh and spirit was such a profound experience. My life was getting split into two.
It’s all the things that weren’t serving me and were serving me whether I knew it or not. I couldn’t hang out with the same people or listen to the same music. I was so convicted in my heart and my soul to do certain things that I knew it wasn’t all of me. I knew it was the holy spirit because I would’ve never made these decisions with myself. It was not of my life, doing or will. No matter how stubborn I was and how much I dragged my feet, I had this overwhelming conviction to live a specific way. I’m two years in and I’m still struggling with a lot of things but I feel so much more peaceful because I have this entity or spirit that is guiding, navigating and convicting me to live a certain way.
It’s such as gentle spirit that when I fall, it dust me up, gets me back up and puts me back in the right direction. If I’m feeling stubborn or I want to do things my way, it’s like, “Try it your way.” It never seems to work out and never seems to be as pleasurable as I thought it would be when I concocted it in my mind. As I move closer and further into my faith, I realized that the more I submit, the more I receive, the more my life kinds to blossom into a beautiful thing. I’m so grateful that I’ve walked the walk that I’ve been walking and continue to walk. I hope I can share that with somebody and anybody because it’s a beautiful thing.
Someone sent me this Bible verse the other day and it fits here. Malachi 3:10, “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse.” Often, I think of tide as 10% but think of the tide that’s you also contributing 10% of your time, talents and treasures. It’s not about your treasures. It’s about your time, “That there may be food in my house,” meaning God’s house. He doesn’t usually want to be tested but he says, “Test me on this as the Lord almighty and see if I will not throw open the flood gates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be enough room to store it.” When you talk about seeking pleasure, there was a third-party study that came out during COVID. It said, “People who have faith are 2 to 3 times more content and happier in life than people who don’t.”
Overcoming Addiction: Humans are created to worship, and no matter what we worship, it’s going to consume us.
You hear the flood gates of hell before where it’s like, “Unleash the flood gates of hell.” You don’t hear quite often, “Test me on this one. I’m going to give you the flood gates of heaven.” That’s what I feel that you, Darryll and I’m living in. I frankly think that’s one of the side benefits of this COVID crud is that there are a lot more people who have woken up. You talk about being woke. Now you woke to God and that’s a good thing to wake to. It’s fabulous having you on the show. There’s one more question. Your mission. We talked about impacting a million people, is that the mission or what would you say is your mission in life from here on forward?
Ultimately, it’s impacting one million people but it’s being able to have that influence or clout. I want to bring people to God because all the glory from my life goes to God. I should not be here. I don’t belong here. I should’ve died three times or more times than I can even imagine before that one experience but I owe every single breath to him. I’m trying to expand his kingdom, grow in the Lord and be able to share that with more people than I can imagine because I don’t have the impact that I can at this point but I know down the road when I continue to grow and change people’s lives and help them break free from the chains of addiction and take an overhaul of their life and change people’s lives on an intimate and on a macro level. I’ll be able to fulfill that wish.
The craziest thing about this conversation is that when I went to Elevation Church in North Carolina, I would walk out and I literally would say, “You could cut off my right leg and I still feel the power of God. It wouldn’t matter.” Now talking to you, someone who’s experienced it and gone through the gauntlet, I got the chills and I heard the ringing in my ear. When that happens, I’m like, “That’s God’s power and the holy spirit.” Thank you for sharing your message with the world because you can. If you lose your right or left leg, you still can make it to the other side. You’ve shown that that’s true and it’s possible.
Everybody, we’ve been talking to Kevin Parker, his website is TrueWarriorSuccess.com. His phone number’s listed right there (917) 200-3922. If you’re struggling with addiction, it doesn’t have to be drugs or alcohol, it could be an addiction to anything. We all know what we face and it doesn’t matter what it is. If it’s impacting your health, marriage, friends or ability to function properly in this world, Kevin is your guy. Give him a call. I’m sure you’d do a session to talk through. No strings attached.
I love to see if it’s a good fit on both ends because I won’t take a client if I don’t think I can help them. There are so many addictions out there. There are internet addictions, gambling, pornography addiction, sex addiction. There are so many different addictions out there that are destroying people’s lives. Video game addiction for kids. That’s a huge thing. People don’t realize the impact that this has on their lives. I’m here to help. Reach out. I would love to hear from you.
Kevin, thank you for being on the show. This has been an amazing conversation. I’ll catch you on the episode. Kevin, thank you for your time, testimony and mission.
Thank you for having me. Have a great day.
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About Kevin Parker
Kevin Parker travels the country and the world helping men and women personally and professionally find their true warrior within and overcome obstacles of any size. His never-ending journey of learning new techniques and strategies so that he can pass them along to his clients is what makes him, and his clients win against all odds in this crazy game we call life.
As a young adult Kevin dealt with major depression, anxiety, and heavy drug addiction. For almost a decade it ran rampant through his life until he was lying in a coma for a month due to an overdose. After dying three times in the hospital, being read his last rights, and waking up to a dismal reality of multi-organ failure and the potential future of being left completely brain dead and losing all four limbs, he realized he needed to make a drastic change. After 4 months of praying, fighting and never giving up he walked out that hospital with just one missing leg and a new found purpose and appreciation for life.
Kevin Parker was born and raised in New York, NY and now resides in Staten Island, NY. Kevin Graduated from the College of Staten Island with a major in Psychology. Kevin holds certifications in Recovery Coaching, Drug Interventions, Family Coaching, Sober Companionship, Nutritional Coaching, Fitness, and Neuroscience through The Addictions Academy and for the past Five years Kevin has been working in the self-development and recovery fields.
