Hey friends, welcome back to The Covenant Eyes Podcast, Karen here, and I'm so glad to have you joining us. Make sure that you like and subscribe to the podcast. We love getting your feedback, so make sure you leave us comments or send us an email. All the details are in the show notes. Today's show is going to be a really wonderful conversation with a new friend. His name is John Boyle and he's the author of Appalachian Kid, and it is a book that really showcases the importance of kindness, mentorship, a overcoming adversity, addiction, finding faith, hope, and helping people in need. We're going to love this conversation today together, friends. So let's welcome John to the podcast. Hi, John. Hi, Karen. Thank you so much for having me. It's an honor to be on your podcast. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. And why don't you share with our listeners a little bit about your your history and what led you to a place to write this book? Sure. That's that's easy for me. I am from a very small area, very small town in north central West Virginia. I grew up in a mining community in the middle of nowhere. And, I grew up in a, in a great community, but in a violent home. And I didn't really know it was a violent home when I was. I was a young kid. I started to realize that there were differences between my home and others as I went through grade school. And so, you know, really, I started to experience, symptoms of PTSD at a very young age. I didn't know what I had until I was, in my late 30s. And, really, I struggled a lot as a kid. And so, I almost failed sixth grade. My sixth grade teacher told my parents, and I had a parent teacher conference that I would never make it to college. I almost failed 10th grade, and I really struggled just to focus. I my, it's it's almost like I was disassociating and my brain at school was trying to make sense of the circumstances at home. Not all the time, but more often than not. And so when I got into high school, my, my father had gone to a boarding school when he was in high school, so, I was encouraged to do the same. And really, that was my way out of that situation. And even though, the circumstances changed for me and my day to day routine, my home life became a boarding school and a dormitory and friends versus family, right. And educators versus parents. I really struggled to, to, to to focus, to understand and to be congruent in life, if that makes sense. One day would be good, two days would be bad, two days would be good, three days would be bad. It would just be this roller coaster of up and down. And so what I figured out early in college, which I did make it to college, I went to engineering school at West Virginia University. And, what I found out in college was that alcohol covered up my symptoms. And so I used alcohol for a very long time until I reached the age of 37 and my liver went into failure. And that is when I found God. Or rather, God sent a lifeline to me. And that's where I ultimately, chose to go to rehab and quit drinking. I've been sober for 11 years, and that's where I found out that I had PTSD, and I finally knew what to work on. I was misdiagnosed for over ten years, so I know I, I gave you a lot of information there, but that is it in a nutshell. And believe it or not, after I got sober, I, enrolled in Harvard Business School, as a 38 year old student and, in a family business class. I told my story and my friends after that class encouraged me to write a book. And one friend, Thomas Weiglman, one from Munich, Germany, did not stop encouraging me until I published. And so that is why I'm sitting here talking to you. Wow, that is an incredible story and I'm sorry that you had to go through all of that, but it sounds like in the end, God really had a plan. And oftentimes when we're going through struggles in life, we don't see the end result. But God has been with you the entire journey. You just became aware of it later in your own personal journey. So that's great. That's that's a wow. Thank you for sharing that. Let's talk a little bit about so the book itself, what what is the book about and how, how does it relate to your personal story. Well, that's a that's a great question. The book is a memoir. It's about my life from ages. My earliest memory until 40. I'm 48 now, and, the book is, it's bookended with a story of me volunteering at my hometown high school in Preston County, West Virginia. And my friend has a charity called Building Hope. And that charity goes in to high schools in West Virginia and, the group where they form volunteer groups. But the core group of Building Hope goes around West Virginia, talks to freshman age students about, the impact of bullying, the negative impact of bullying, and really trying to replace bullying with empathy, understanding, right? Seek first to understand and then be understood. Those are Stephen Covey's words and the Seven Habits of Highly Successful People. But that is what Building Hope essentially does. And so I volunteered. It was my first time volunteering at his charity and his charity, by the way, is is nationally acclaimed. He, he holds a, and a distinction, an award from the FBI director for, having that much of an impact in American schools. And so it's, it's moving, what the group has done. And so I, I volunteered at my hometown high school, and I met four freshman age students, and I sat in a small group with them all day. And, I write about, how this day changed the lenses of how I viewed my own life. And so I tell my story, in between the story of volunteering at my hometown high school and, just just to kind of build it out just a little bit. Three of the four students that were in my small group were victims of domestic abuse from either from their parents or loved ones. And, I come from a very poor area. And so, really hope is, a fairy tale to many young people. And, and I, I just did my best, to do what I could in the first half of that day. But in the second half of the day, I started to share my journey, my knowledge of God and, how I was able to, to get out of, of, of my difficulties. And, and I shared my experience of growing up with them and, it's, my, my brief snippet isn't doing the story justice, but, they did more to change the lenses of how I viewed my own life, and I think I was able to help them. But it's a very moving story. And, you know, that that took place about five years ago now. Wow. That's amazing. And I love that you're you're reaching back out into your community and kind of discipling these young people and walking alongside of them. And I think that's so important because each one of us has experience different. Some of us have experienced trauma or abuse or addiction or, you know, we all have our things that we have, and we really do need to be able to share our testimonies and reach out to others. So I'm really excited for people to take a look at the book and get into the story. Let's spend a minute just kind of maybe going into just some of the the specifics in the book that, you know, you were on a journey recovering from addiction to alcohol. And a lot of the listeners of our podcast are also struggling with addictions. Let's talk a little bit about, you know, that path to freedom from addiction and what that looked like for you and how that played out in your life. Sure. So, I grew up in a, my, my parents didn't drink, but I grew up in an Irish family, an Irish Catholic family that loved alcohol. You know, it was it was it was something that, I really didn't see anybody in my family struggle with alcohol myself. I, I saw it as a norm. Right. And so I saw it as some innocuous, drug that, that, that was legal, that didn't really do any harm. Right. And so I used it quite liberally, and I really started drinking more in my early 20s, as I struggled as a, as a young parent, at 28 or 29, when I had my first son, I really started to struggle with flashbacks. I was already dealing with insomnia, but the flashbacks became something that really plagued me, with my first child. It hasn't with my second, but I struggled there, and so I just drank more. And then stress at work, came on top of that. And my my father got sick and I took over the family business, and there was more stress, and I just used alcohol to decompress, to disassociate, to numb. And I became very addicted. At went. When I went to quit caring, I drank every day. And to my recollection, I drank for ten years straight every day. And, sometimes it would be, you know, 5 or 6 drinks, sometimes it would be a fifth of vodka or more. And I, I had an extreme tolerance for it. And so I could drink and drink and drink and it would take me more and more every year just to, to be able to numb that. Right. And I knew when I was doing it it wasn't something that that would last. But, you know, I just kicked down the can down the road to tomorrow, to be honest with you. Where where where I came across, extreme difficulty was I started to turn white. My my skin, it turned really white. And I went to the doctor and I found out I was malnourished and that my liver was not processing vitamins. It was processing alcohol. And I wasn't able to keep food down. I have, a tear in my esophagus. I was in bad shape, and I started trying to quit on my own. Around the time that I got that news, there were some people in my in my life who were saying, you know, you you may want to consider detox or, you may want to consider going to rehab. But to be honest with you, most people didn't know the degree to which I had a problem with alcohol because I was very successful. I ran a, several businesses that did well. I employed many, many people, hundreds of people. I think I employed 650 at the time that I went to rehab. And, you know, it was just something that, you know, people. I wasn't approachable. I really had to hit rock bottom and so rock bottom for me was not being able to keep food down and really, you know, having bloodshot eyes. And when I went to quit drinking every night, I wouldn't make it until seven,

00 in the evening. I would be sweating, you know, I would be trembling. And, I was scared. And at one point I just kind of gave up, you know, I had been trying for maybe a month, and I went to a bar on a Saturday night with a friend of mine, and I was sitting at the bar ordering a drink, and my friend asked me, I was doing. And I told him the truth, and he he said, why don't you come to church with me? And I, I just looked at him. I said, you go to church. You know, this is not a discussion that happens in a bar in Morgantown, West Virginia, on a Saturday night, right? Right. But I started to realize very quickly, and I had a feeling came over me that that this was a lifeline. And so I, I didn't say no. I asked what time, and when I went, I just felt a peace come over me. And so I it was an instantaneous. Right. It was, well, I'm going to go back next Sunday and I'm going to go back next Sunday. And then I started to realize that the life I was living was in conflict with the life that God intended for me. And so I, I again, I was sick, right? I was trying to taper back what I was drinking, but, ultimately I made the decision to go to rehab, and I prayed the night before I left, and I asked God to take the urges away from me that I was done. And that was April 1st, 2014. And the next day when I went to rehab, that was a hard day. But I can tell you that I've never had an urge to drink again from that day forward. And I know that that is a blessing from God and what I've learned. You know, just to wrap up what I'm saying, what I've learned through the whole process is that my whole life has been a miracle. But I had to see that through eyes of faith. I couldn't see that through the life I was living before I chose Jesus over alcohol. And that's essentially the the bottom line. Wow. Oh my goodness. But that that is a really painful story. But, something that I think yeah, I mean, that's that's very painful, but I think it's something that a lot of people can relate to because oftentimes when we're struggling with addiction, you know, you mentioned like you were good at hiding it. Well, like people didn't know you were very successful. And that's the thing is that often our addictions, we we do hide them. Well, we don't we don't make that known to others. But it took a friend sitting in a strange place to invite you to church that started you on this path. It's amazing how God uses people in our lives, I love that. So, as we kind of, direct people back to the book, you know, I really want them to kind of understand what is it that the book hopes to accomplish? So once you're once a reader goes through the book, what is it that they'll walk away with? Well, I think, I think the context is in the eye of the beholder. And so if someone's not struggled with alcohol themselves or, child abuse, I think the story is, is, you know, the the value of overcoming adversity and not quitting. Right? If someone is struggle with child abuse, maybe it is that the take away is is more about there is hope and what hope really is and I talk a lot about hope in my book and we can unpack that if you want, to someone who's drinking, or has a problem with alcohol, I think the message is one of, there is a path that works. And look, you know, I was hooked, and I tried everything out there that I could do, to quit drinking on my own. And it was not possible. I absolutely needed my higher power. And, I tried everything before that, and it didn't work, so, so I, you know, I think that the book, shows the importance of mentorship as well. So to someone who has overcome their difficulties, maybe they see my book in a different lens. But, my, not not to give everything in my book away, but, at the end of my book, I share a story of when I graduated from Harvard University and the, my class speaker, a guy named Chris, had been homeless in his life. And it was so moving because this guy was older than me, right? I'm 40 and I'm graduating, and he's he's probably got me by 10 or 15 years, and he was, he was a homeless vet, who had served in the Marine Corps and, was one of the, one of the one of the soldiers who was hurt in the Lebanon bombing barracks in 1981. And he just got up and talked about it. And he, he he didn't talk about himself at all care. And he only talked about the people who had helped him get from A to B. That's it. And and, you know, helping people was already something that's ingrained to you when you grow up in West Virginia because there's there's not a lot of hope there and there's a lot of poverty. And so you, you learn to help each other because no one else is coming in to do that in many cases. Right. So, you know, just, just I just I felt strongly about ending my book by crediting the people who had helped me along the way. And so I it it showcases the essence of mentorship, from a mentee who whose life was changed, who had no hope, who was told he would never succeed, never make it to college. I was never going to be anything if I listened to other people. But the people who invested in me changed the trajectory of my life, and I credit them, you know, in the ending. So that's beautiful. Those are my I love yeah, I love that. And I love how you really, are sharing you know, our need for community and one another ness. That's a very biblical concept. Like, we can't do this alone. And I just feel that that is an important message that somebody can take away. Well, John, how do people get their hands on a copy of the book so that they can begin a journey on that? So my book, Appalachian Kid can be found on Amazon. It's available in hardback, paperback, Kindle. And there's an audio book. Just type in my name, John P. Boyle. And, Appalachian Kid and it will come right up. And, I can also be found on, on LinkedIn. John P. Boyle, and, I have a website, AppalachianKid.com, which has some endorsements from people who've read my book. And, it's got a little snippet about my life story and, and the synopsis of the book. Awesome. Well, we'll put links in our show notes so that all of our guests can take a look at that and get a copy for themselves. John, in closing, you know, what is a message of closing that you want to offer to our listeners who maybe are struggling because a lot of our listeners are struggling with pornography addiction specifically. But, you know, they're struggling. Maybe they're overcoming, maybe they're on a path to try to figure out how to become, you know, a mentor to others. Maybe they've made it through the other side like you have, and they want to find a way to get back. Can you offer them some hope or some wisdom in our closing messages today? Absolutely. Struggles are common. We all have them. Some have them to a greater degree than others. Right. So I've got two, two snippets I'll give you. The first is, is a boxing analogy, right? In boxing you don't you don't, you don't lose. If you get knocked down, you lose if you stay down. So my first message is, if you're struggling in any way, you have to get up and fight. You have to. That's the first requirement. And secondly, when you when you talk about hope, just quickly, the world sees hope as wishful thinking. If if you care and if you were to get the dictionary out and old school right, or Google it, you'll see a definition that essentially has a lot of words, but it's just wishful thinking. I hope you have a good day. I hope my job works out on down the line. Right. But there's a lesser known, definition of hope that can be found in the Bible and essentially the definition in the Bible says that hope. Hope is a confident expectation that God's promises will come to pass. Hebrews 11 says that faith is being sure of what you hope for and being certain of what you do not see. And that hope is present day faith projected into the future. And when you rely on God's promises, they will come to pass. Absolutely beautiful. Thank you so much, John. Well, to all of our listeners, make sure you check out the link in the show notes. Get a copy of John's book, Appalachian Kid. I think it is a beautiful story that is going to touch your heart and move you, and hopefully it will be a blessing to you in your life and share it with your friends and family as well. That need to to hear that message. John, it has been an honor getting to know you today, and thank you for, pouring your story, your testimony into this book so that it could be shared with the world. I think that is so important. As Christians, we must get our testimonies out there, because really, it is the works of God in our life and it can help and touch so many other people. So I'm just so grateful for you taking the time to to come on our show today and share the message. Thank you so much for having me, Karen. I enjoyed my. Time. You good. Thank you so much. And to all of our listeners, please tune in to the next episode. We'll talk to you again real soon. Take care. God bless.