Nick Reed 09.10.26 - Author of the Week

0:00Springfield's talk, one, oh four, one, I'm Nick Reed, author of the week sponsored by ABC Books on North Clinton, Stone, our author Ben Burkwam, the book, Step Into Fear, a Journey from addiction to courage and purpose. Ben an award-winning journalist, commentator, founder of Frontier America, and host of Law and Border on Real America's Voice News. Thank you for being with us this morning. I do appreciate it. And just the title itself suggests somewhat of a motivation for writing the book, but often I do like to start off just laying the groundwork and what prompted you to write Step Into Fear? Well, it was my journey for the last 10 years for the bottom list pit of addiction to the calling that God had in my life and every fear that I had to face along the way. And one clarification, it's Frontline America, not Frontier America. Oh, that's right. Name, Frontier America. Actually, that isn't bad, isn't it? That's good.

1:01But it's, you know, what's interesting is I've wanted to write the book for a long time. I came out of addiction 10 years ago this October in just about a month and almost immediately, I was set back on this path that God had for activism initially and then, you know, I never trained journalists. I just kind of fell into it. I call it show and tell journalism. But along the entire way, everything that I've done significantly in my life, every milestone that's meant anything has had a significant amount of fear associated with it as well. And I constantly have people coming up to me saying, oh, you're fearless, you're fearless. I wish I could do what you do, but I can't imagine going into those places in the jungles and antithlas and all this. And for about a year, I had that really heavy on my heart to write the book to tell my story and to give each chapter a purpose to connect it to a fear that I had to deal with. So that other people out there see that no, it's not that I'm fearless. I'm afraid every day,

2:02almost everything I go into has some level of fear that has to be conquered. And that's the difference. It's not the absence of fear. It's what you do with it. And so the purpose is to, it's kind of twofold, tell my story in a compelling way. So every, almost every chapter has QR codes that you can scan and then watch the videos that I'm talking about in the chapters. So it makes it more interactive. But then also to encourage other people, no matter where you're at, if you're an addict, if you're not, if you're doing what you love and you feel the purpose driven to do, or you're not, you live in a mundane, you know, purposeless life, then this, you hear some just ground ground rules, starting points where you can begin based on my journey that hopefully becomes a motivation to take you to that next level and then beyond. What were you, if we could go back just a bit because the journey from addiction to courage and purpose, obviously such an important one, fascinating one, people can learn from. But where were you

3:04in life when you first became a person that was actively an addict? What was that going, what was going on in your life? Well, I'd say it went through three phases. I was got into drugs and alcohol in high school and I turned my life around. My first year of marriage, I went back to drugs and alcohol and almost lost my marriage. And then 10 years into our marriage, I finished my MBA, I did, we went to Europe and as one celebratory event, I decided, well, I can drink again and you know, it shouldn't be that big of a deal. That started the path and then through a series of events, I had some personal health issues that I monoharie was still deal with it, where I just had exhaustion and it was tired all the time and then I had some personal tragedies in my life that just made it easy to choose that the easy option of self-medicating. So it went from alcohol that nobody knew about. I was hiding it to I had smoked crack once in high school and I remember it was

4:07fun and I ended up in a place where I could get it and I got it and it went from doing it once every few months and I was living a professional life. Like I said, my MBA, I was running a fitness company, I was involved in politics, I was doing all these things and then slowly over the course of four years, I went from doing smoke in every few months to every few weeks to every day and then basically lived a double life for three years and what was crazy about it was you talk about like how did you get there and it wasn't like I just made the choice I was going to be an addict, it was this so erosion of my purpose and my soul and my walk that started at this one point and had I addressed it there, I could have turned it around but the fact that I just I kept it hidden from everyone and that's really the one of the the turning points in the book and the turning point in my life is I kept praying that God would break the chains and set me free but that my wife would find out because I didn't want to hurt her and the night I came clean to my wife and I told her what

5:09was happening and I said she had known something was up but she didn't know everything she had thought maybe I was drinking again she had no idea about the crack and the night I came clean to her I felt the Lord say you kept praying she wouldn't know when she's the only one that needs you your chains are broke and you're set free and there's a verse in Peter says husband's on your wife's lest your prayers be hindered and I live that I live that experience of literally being set free and it was just because I I went from being in the dark hiding my sin in my lie to bring it out to the light and and being accountable for it and 10 years ago today I was set free from both alcohol crack tobacco everything in an instant and I've been free ever since and that so my and not that everyone's journey's going to be the same not that everyone's going to battle the same things but it's I feel like well it's it's such an important pivotal port in my life just that honoring my wife that was what did it for me that's what ended up breaking it and really I would say the biggest

6:11difference was taking what I had hidden in the dark and and shining light on it that you know right that's what turned my life around we're talking with Ben Burkwam the book step in a fear of journey from addiction, Accurge and Purpose I think people well if they've not gone through addiction or they have uncertain capacity you have these these visuals in your mind you have the person that well it's obvious you can tell this is somebody that is having real addictions and you have what people I think will refer to as functionally addicted like you know that they have an addiction to substance and and but they manage still to get up and go to work but it sounds like I mean no one knew were you was there anyone in your life that when you exposed I guess your your secret that was like oh yeah we kind of figured or or and how were you able to keep it that secret given the severity of it while continuing to function so successfully

7:12in in so many other ways well yeah so it was clear to some people that I was not the same man that I was I write a story in the book about it where my wife came to me and it was one of the mornings where she was going off to work and I had already had it in my mind and actually later on I learned about the the the term process addiction I was I was as much addicted to the process the risk of getting away with it and and going to get the high as I was the high itself and so I if I as soon as I went down that road I would end up in you know just I I couldn't get out of the the the whole process but as soon as I learned to turn it off as soon as I learned to cut it off it was it was broken inside of me and for my wife one of the things that really it broke me and I I tell the story of the book is she came to me she was going to work one day and she came up and said then what happened to you you know you used to have so much initiative you used to have you

8:15you knew what you were doing and now you just don't do anything and I I was sitting on the couch and I kind of flippantly said oh it's nothing I'm just tired I made some excuse but inside I broke and it was I knew she knew but too often and people I worked with I knew they knew something was off but it's a lot easier just to brush it aside or say you know make some excuse and say no they're fine then to actually have to deal with it I mean it's hard to go to somebody and say hey you smoke and crack you seem to be off of it you know it's a lot easier to say oh they're probably just having a bad day oh and and then all of a sudden it becomes a consistent you know well they just have bad days and and that's where I would encourage people to talk to them to push them because that my wife telling me that it wasn't for another couple months that I actually can't clean on everything but I that was one of the catalysts that was set me in a place where I said okay I have to I have to either decide because I was at a place where I was either going to end up in prison or dead and and it's thank god god turn my life around and literally in an instant and that's my

9:19encouragement when I talk to people who I wrote the book is to encourage people no matter how lost you feel no matter how bad you feel that as soon as you turn it around as soon as you are set free like god still has a purpose where you need to set you back on that pack and I want to just briefly mention here is we talk with our author of the week Ben Bergkwan book again step into fear of journey from addiction to courage and purpose I don't know that we even really mentioned though you write about it in your book what it was that you were doing for a living you weren't some nine to five guy well I kind of was so I was running a fitness company for a time and then I had gotten into synthetic grass through the sports turf industry and and so I was I was working I was working a you know a job but I had a lot of flexibility in it as well and so it was one of those things that I could hide slowly I could kind of feed it in and and it happened slowly over time so wasn't like I went from not an addict to a raging addict it was I went from not an addict to doing something I shouldn't be doing and then it became more and more

10:23regular to the point where the last few months I you know I I racked up thousands of dollars in debt I was like I said I was really just not living a functional life I really wasn't working although I would like you know pretend and and play the part but it was at a point where it was it was coming to a head and and you can only hide it for so long and thankfully I turned it around you know before I like I said I ended up in prison or dead which were the prospects that I thought I was heading towards well and then the last two questions and they're very very well maybe someone listening right now that finds themselves in to some degree and in the similar situation that you were in leading the double life because of some form of addiction and that they hear you and maybe they even understand and believe the concept that that they're they are redeemable but they don't know how to start they don't know what to do so my first question is what would you

11:23tell those people and then the the last question what would you tell people who have someone that in their in their life like that but but perhaps they were like your wife or a coworker they don't know how to approach it they don't want to go up and say hey are you smoking crack or whatever the addiction is how would you suggest what steps should they take towards helping someone that might be an addiction well first to the addict I would say your life has purpose it's not too far gone and I will promise you this this is one of the lives I used to feel from the devil all the time was that life is going to be boring somehow these the crazy thing about addiction and drugs is they're fun and they trick you into believing that that that that you need that in order to have fun in life that's an absolute lie immediately after I turned my life around I actually realized what fun was again I'd been living in hell and then all of a sudden now I'm back to actually enjoying life again so two things to the addict I would say you're not too far gone you can turn it around and life

12:29is infinitely better when you do that and in order to do that you have to be honest you have to go to the people that you love the most and you have to tell them what you're going through that's the way you break it the fastest the devil wants you to stay in bondage he wants to keep you in the dark as soon as you bring it to the light that's what sets you free and the people that are dealing with it that you feel like something's up first you got to love them but you got to love them enough to be honest with them you got to cut them off if you if you're given money to somebody that you know is wasting it on drugs or wasting it just wasting it in general stop doing that you got sometimes love is is given a spanking too and so it's it's a twofold approach there too it's love them and same thing ask God how do I deal with this person and be honest with them look something it took my wife saying that something's up she had to confront me and then later on she found a bottle of alcohol that I had replaced with water and that night was when I claimed to her but had she not done that had she continued to make excuses for me I would have continued down that path and and who knows

13:29if I'd even be here today our author thank you so much Ben Berkwam the book again step into fear a journey from addiction to courage and purpose our author the week sponsored by ABC Books on North Glendstone for Springfield's talk 1041 I'm Nick Reed it's Springfield Symphony time and I realized as we were walking in studio I hadn't seen you in a bit like so I guess it's a new season yes we are kicking off the new season this weekend first off how have you been been great we've been busy all summer getting prepared for the season and exciting to bring it to all of our fans and family out here I've noted this before probably every time you are in for a new season that you don't really you don't have an off season not too much no you're you're still working you're still what is it I guess planning for the upcoming season yeah absolutely it's kind of it's an all year round thing while we're very busy playing all our shows in the fall and the spring and the winter and then but we're also planning the next season at the same time so even though we're not playing much during the summer we're preparing all for to get everybody to the next season

14:35I know we had you into announce this season but let's go over it again shall we and then we'll talk about tomorrow's performance as well absolutely so as I'm Saturday's performance sorry that's all right so yeah so our season is called American icons so our wonderful music director Kyle Wiley Pickett as always has a fun theme to go with every season and since we're in the you know 250th celebration of our nation we wanted to kind of go celebrate what makes America special by focusing on composers or music that celebrates the voices of American history landscapes around American history and so it's really just going to be a great celebration of America and we're excited to bring it all to the stage um the not this performance with the October format performance I suspect is going already I'm sure it would have been a sold out show but the timing of it certainly is going to make it more popular yeah absolutely so we did unfortunately lose our wonderful global icon

15:39dolly pardon but we are very excited that we had already planned to do the show that she created called dolly partens threads my songs and symphony which is the orchestration of all of her big major works we'll have a wonderful guest artist performing in a band accompanying along with the orchestra and it's actually narrated by dolly herself through a video screen and so it really just kind of it's called threads because it weaves together from life from how she started in a very small town you know back backwards kind of home in small town Tennessee and then made it to you know the limelight the stage and became the woman we know she was yeah so I guess that I'm sure it would sell out anyhow but it's going to be particularly poignant yeah there are some tickets so we have seen tickets are going quickly right now so it's a great time to you know in her memory just well her great hits and having her narrated yes that that'll I think be a draw for a lot of

16:41people also yeah it's it's a really beautiful show we're excited to bring it big apple yes so this Saturday is our opening called the big apple so it's all focused on major composers from New York so your Copeland your Gershwin your Bernstein so a lot of big hits that you know from movies from I mean we'll help you playing American in Paris which everybody loves I think I haven't had anybody who doesn't like that work and then we also have a really cool contemporary piece that is performed by our principal wind instrument players so you know our flute or clarinet or bassoon and someone else I'm forgetting oh my gosh but you know so it's going to be a really cool piece that focuses on and presents you know our talent and we have in this ring filled symphony explain season passes yes so you can always get season tickets you can get them through Hammond's Hall we have a full season where you get all eight concerts so it does not include the dolly part and show that one is sold separately or you feed just like viewer just a classical guru

17:46like the traditional stuff you can get a classical pass which is five concerts and then we have a pops if you like those big hits you like our Christmas show our production with St. Louis Ballet and then in April we have a really cool guest artist Steve lippia coming into sing all of our favorite classic crooner songs it's going to be a great pop season but they're all going to be great and I bring this up every year when we talk about season passes because oftentimes people I imagine like well I can't plan that far out I don't know that I'll be able to use all of them if there is a performance that you are not able to attend as a season pass holder then you can gift those correct you know if you aren't able to come and have a season pass you know give it to a friend we love having new people come into to the hall and get introduced to our music or if you have just a friend who just loves classical music and does it have a season pass be like hey here's my ticket come join us and we love that when people do that. Is there behind the baton for Saturdays?

18:48So we do have behind the baton that's tonight at 5.30 at first in Calvary you'll get to hear from Kyle and I think some of our principal wind musicians who will be there kind of discussing you know everything about being a musician with the Springfield Symphony and how they got to where they were today. No ticket required for that. No ticket required it's completely free. Season passes or the Saturday performance people want tickets the good old fashioned way stop by wanting to carry during the day it's open. Call a website as well. Yeah absolutely you can always go online to Springfield mo symphony.org or hamenshall.com and then we can just give the box office a call or go visit. That mean might actually save some money if you do that so that's always nice. So we encourage everybody to come come out and support the symphony. What's great to see? Yes it's great to have everything's going well it sounds like it's going to be incredible season and I suspect October we will chat with you again next month already. I know.

19:50Caitlin Pack Springfield Symphony Springfields talk 101 I'm Nick Reed. Tomorrow there of course will be a lot of discussion 25 years September 11th and it is for a lot of us it is it's a it's a perspective that is new in this sense. Like a lot of you I was I was a young adult but an adult nonetheless when the terrorist attack occurred. So I remember it remember like you going through the emotions the confusion one of the memories I have was of course you know I worked radio stations and joblin at the time and it was just we just put up whatever we had a relationship I think I think

20:50our relationship was with KOAM the CBS affiliate in that market and so we just put them up live all the networks they were they were going live anyhow that was the one we had an affiliation with so we just put that up on all the music stations I mean everywhere all stations it's just what you found everywhere and there there was a lot of unknowns you look at it in retrospect and and you know what happened but when you're in the midst of it you you don't know what's going to happen next it was clear that there were multiple pronged attacks that were occurring were there more if I remember correctly whether it was in coordination with that or otherwise there was a plot that I believe was thwarted to really hit Los Angeles in a significant way as well my mind's a little fuzzy on that but that's what time does and I remember at one point just walking outside with a couple of other people and and it was that that day and someone noted that they saw

21:56and you could see it was a clear day that day and joblin was early an airplane flying above and they noted well how was that happening I thought everything was grounded and we realized or we would learn perhaps after the fact that it was Air Force one it was heading towards I believe Nebraska whatever Air Force base if I recall they were trying to keep bush away from DC bush insisted on going to DC but secret service was like no we don't we don't know what's that that's the last place our priority is keeping you alive and we and he was very insistent he wanted to be there if anything to demonstrate that we're not going to be pushed off our footing here where we're the we're going to continue as we would and as a demonstration of strength you're not going to even come close to dislodging us from our resolve and and bush felt that part of that would be him being

22:57in DC but at least for a period of time they're they they overwrote them the secret service like no that is not happening so I think it was Nebraska but I just I remember that it was it was a really interesting moment to be in the middle of all of that going on now I don't mean in the middle of the actual attack but just the coverage and the confusion and the not knowing what was going on and whether there was another wave that was coming and the skies being silent but for that one plane and the recognition that right up there at that moment is the president of the United States trying to to figure out what is going on what happens next it was a surreal surreal and so what I have a recognition and an appreciation of is that there are there's a significant portion of the population that has no memory of it because they weren't alive and and I equate that to

24:01me as a kid or or even today reading about learning about knowing about Pearl Harbor it was something that was massively significant emotionally impacting to people who lived through it but to someone that was born well after it obviously you know it it was a history note I mean a significant one at that and so I recognize the emotional connection to 9-11 being alive when that happened and my emotional disconnect from a Pearl Harbor because although I understood the significance and no of it I didn't have that emotional impact of being there when it happened and so I recognize that there's that disconnect for people who weren't alive during 9-11 and unfortunately we live in an era in which increasingly schools either ignore it and

25:01and oftentimes for ideological purposes downplay the terrorism factor and instead just essentially play it off as oh it was just a really bad thing that happened I mean those are the exact words that Ilan Omar the Democrat Congresswoman who apparently married her own brother had a one point referenced it is some bad people did something bad you know just a like it's just one of those things as opposed to driving home the point that it was a purposefully done attack in order to try and topple the values of the West it was ideologically driven by individuals who had a perspective of what their law their ultimate law should rule over the world and the United States was a western ideologically driven nation that was an obstacle to that and so this was an attempt to really drive a stake through the heart of American exceptionalism and unfortunately that's just not

26:07the sort of thing that's taught me longer and you hear it downplayed and whether it's through words or actions there's this battle going on right now in New York City between family members of those who lost their lives on 9-11 and maimedani maimedani the mayor who insists on being there at this commemorative moment on 9-11 in which the bell is wrong and there is the reading of the names of all the victims of 9-11 and his position as a mayor I'm going to do it the family members of those who lost their lives don't want him there because of his sympathy towards terrorism his refusal to acknowledge 9-11 for what it was the event recently in which he I mean I guess you could back up when he chose his top advisor as mayor he picked a now kaita attorney somebody who was you know who chose to defend those who carried out terrorist attacks

27:20on the western world and decided that he wanted that person to be one of his top advisors and then at a signing ceremony just days ago up on stage with him it was a signing ceremony some sort of recognition of 9-11 and he chose to have that individual on stage with him and then gifted to him the pin in which he signed it gifted it to the al-kaita attorney that's deliberate that that you are signaling which side you're on by doing that now some people they may make the claim that well you know he's an attorney and attorney is always represent bad people and and you know

28:22maim donny that doesn't mean that's why maim donny likes him because of his allegiance in certain capacities to uh Islamic extremist and uh you know and and he is his top advisor so uh I guess it kind of makes sense to have him up there but that's a that's in the most generous offerings in a vacuum you know you just try to take the ideological bent out of it if I'm at some sort of signing ceremony and and I am commemorating you know let's just say Oklahoma City bombing would you have on stage with you someone that was an attorney for Timothymic Vey or an attorney for people that were part of the same um you know domestic organization

29:24as Timothy an ally of Timothy McVey what would would you decide of all the people at a signing ceremony honoring the victims of of the Oklahoma City bombing that you're going to have a Timothy McVey and then give Timothy McVey's attorney the pen you use to sign it you wouldn't do that not if you're a decent human being and you know this is the thing about what maim donny is doing people can argue well he's mayor and attorneys oftentimes represent bad people and sometimes people pick chiefs of staffs that maybe have defended bad people in the past but you know you can't really you got to separate that out and well you know it's signing ceremonies you have your top people there like I said that's a vacuum any decent person would recognize if they really truly cared about

30:28the victims the impact that that would have it's ironic that you hold a signing ceremony that is presented as all about the victims yet you do something that you know the family members of the victims are appalled by that doesn't add up and it demonstrates priorities it demonstrates alliances and it demonstrates someone who either is a sociopath and has the inability to recognize how inappropriate that is or someone who's doing it deliberately to send a signal and a message as to which side he's really on and as mayor went tomorrow his insistence on defying the family members of the victims which I'd say their victims that they are victims of 9-11 if you had a family member die in those terrorist

31:33attacks and you two are a victim if you really cared had just the slightest bit of humanity and those people said we don't want you here even if they were wrong a decent human being would respect that a decent human being wouldn't say well I'm mayor so I can do what I want even if he has the right to do it even if it is traditional that the mayor of New York City is there some people recognize the ceremonies that are put forth at ground zero a 9-11 as a humanitarian event the behavior of man dot man done in all of this is in no way shape or form humanitarian

32:36and I would say even if they are wrong if the whole ceremony is about recognizing and respecting and honoring the victims of 9-11 define them to their faces publicly probably is not the best way to honor them