NRH-CR-March2026

All right, well, this is a very vulnerable situation here, but I am so happy to be here. I'm happy to have, this is my family, and I love each and every one of you. So I guess we're going to get into this. Where do I start? There has been so much in my life that has shaped me and brought me to where I am today. Looking back, I can see God's hand at work, even in the middle of pain, confusion, and circumstance I didn't understand at the time. When I was seven years old, my parents divorced after years of fighting fueled by drugs, alcohol, and dysfunction. My sisters went to live with my mom, and I went with my dad. From that point on, my life was shaped by two different worlds. My dad became my rock. He taught me discipline, responsibility, respect, and most importantly, faith in God. Chores were never optional, hard work was expected, and there was always a Bible nearby. More than anything, he made sure I knew I was loved. No matter what I was doing, he would stop and say, boy, I love you. Looking back, he probably told me that a hundred times a day. Even though my dad provided stability, I often missed my mom. And as a child, I couldn't understand, you can put that first slide up, I put that up there because that's before the world gets to us, that's our innocence. So yeah, okay, even though my dad had stability, I often missed my mom. As a child, I couldn't understand why he tried to protect me from her so much, from the chaos surrounding her life. Whenever I asked, he would say simply, you'll understand when you get older. He never spoke badly about her, and that lesson in grace would stay with me for the rest of my life. As I got older, I spent time with both parents and experienced the contrast between the structure and dysfunction. At that time, the freedom and the lack of rules seemed exciting. But looking back, I can see that my dad was giving me a foundation that would carry me

through some of the darkest seasons of my life. During my freshman year, I tried living with my mom. It didn't last long. After getting into serious trouble at school for taking matters into my own hands when somebody had hurt my little sister, I ended up moving back with my dad. Looking back, it was another reminder that strength without self-control can lead us down the wrong path. I guess we can put up my dad, the next one. This is my dad right here. You'll see the importance of this man here. A few years later, after high school, I got married, had my first child, bought a home, and was working hard to provide for my family. Around that time, I started training in martial arts again. What began as a hobby quickly became a passion and eventually a career. I love the discipline. That's me fighting for one of the titles I have. I love the discipline, competition, and challenge. My dad was my biggest supporter through it all. He encouraged me constantly, helped me attend training camps, and never stopped believing in me. As my career grew, I became completely committed to success. I trained relentlessly, traveled to learn from some of the best athletes in the world, and pushed myself beyond what I thought was possible. Over time, the hard work paid off. I opened my own martial arts academy. I won six world titles. In 2012, I was ranked number one heavyweight in the world in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. I forgot I did that, you guys. I got the tattoo right here. This is my Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt.

I have another one in Muay Thai. I forgot that I won the world tournament. You have to go from city to city. I won Houston, Dallas, Texas Nationals, and then I won the world. I forgot I did that. I was like, golly, dude. But you can see the next one. That's the city of Dallas, the two kids on the right are my boys. The other one's for my nieces and nephews. Another one. Those are my titles. So then came the phone call that changed everything. One morning around three o'clock, my phone rang. It was my uncle. The words that came next are words a son should never ever have to hear, but my dad had passed. My champion was gone. My dad, who had raised me, believed in me, sacrificed for me, and stood in my corner. I'm talking about this guy did everything for me. He called me every morning asking how much protein, what was my carb intake. He'd show up at my job at lunchtime and hand me different supplements. Hey, you got to take this. You got to understand about this. You got to read this. You need to read this book. I was like, all right. I remember one time I had to go to this special training camp because it was a real big deal, but he gave me, his paycheck was a thousand bucks, and he gave me 999. He put a dollar in his pocket. Pocket and he's I said did I can't accept that he said well

He said son I put he put the dollar and he said he said he said I'm not broke I got money, you know, he was He was he was something he was great So, where was I The man who raised me believes in me sacrificed me stood in my corner to read all that the one person could always count on me the man who Has been my rock since even seven years was no longer there What made it even harder was the situation I had already I was already facing at the time I was wearing a neck brace after surgery a severe neck injury while training for a heavyweight title. I Had broken my neck and I lost the use of my arm, which I got back. But yeah, I went through that I didn't that's a very that's a very confusing time in life As it was as if it wasn't enough my doctor just delivered devastating news. My fighting career was over In what felt like an instant everything I built my life around was stripped away. I lost my father I lost my career lost my identity the dreams. I'd spent years chasing the man Chasing and the man who had supported me every step of the way We're both gone. I was completely numb I had to fly to Alaska to bury my dad while trying to process a level of grief and loss I had never experienced before on the outside I did what needed to be done I handled the funeral took care of responsibilities and carry and try to be strong but on the inside something was breaking For most of my life whenever I was facing hardship I fought through it That was what I had always done. I pushed harder. I trained harder I worked harder and I found ways to move forward, but this was different There was no there was no opponent to beat There's no training camp to prepare for no amount of toughness that could fix what was happening what had happened Looking back now I can see that this was the moment my foundation beneath my life began to crack The grief the pain the loss of my father and the loss of my career Created a void in my heart That I didn't know how to feel instead of dealing with pain with pain in a healthy way

I began searching for anything that could help me escape it When I returned from Alaska after burying my dad I was I was broken in ways I didn't know I didn't fully understand Physically, I was recovering from a devastating neck injury and thanks to some incredible surgeons I eventually began regain the use of my arm and Emotionally, I was still falling apart to manage the pain I Relied heavily on prescription pain medication So I was getting it from my neck and then what started as a legitimate need slowly and before that guys I didn't do drugs and alcohol. I wasn't I just that doesn't make sense in my career That doesn't you cannot drink you can't even have a beer like you it just it doesn't you don't can't do it It's it slows your body down but For long Okay. Yeah, we started this slowly became. Okay. So what started as legitimate slowly became something much darker before long I wasn't just taking the doctor's prescription I was finding other ways to get more looking back addiction had already taken a hold of my life and I didn't even realize it I Spent the next several months trying to outrun my grief my pain and the loss of my identity I Moved from place to place throwing myself back into training and surrounding myself with people and environments that allowed me to escape reality On the outside. I still look like someone who had potential and opportunity on the inside. I was lost As my addiction grew so did my willingness to abandon everything that once mattered I walked away from my family and my responsibilities and the values that had been instilled in me as a child The drugs escalated the party escalated and the person I saw in the mirror became someone. I barely recognized. I convinced myself that change the change the scenery would fix the problem, but Wherever I wherever I went my addiction went with me the deeper I fell into the substance abuse the faster my life unraveled Within a short period of time. I lost and I lost nearly everything. I found myself Homeless, I was homeless for five years in the streets of Las Vegas I remember it being so hot in Vegas that I would have to panhandle five dollars so I can get a The best fare there's five bucks you get a 24-hour pass so you can just sit in the air to air conditioning

I did that for years. I Found myself homeless sleeping wherever I could bouncing in and out of jail and living only for the next time The man who had once done a podium won championships and achieved his dreams was Was now living on the streets My family had never stopped trying to save me they called they searched for me and did everything they could to help But addiction had become my master. I avoided The people who love me most because I didn't I didn't want anyone interfering with the life. I had chosen Eventually, I made my way back to Fort Worth thinking I could somehow start over my addiction didn't my addiction doesn't doesn't does not disappear just because because your address changes. Think about that. By that point, my thinking was completely distorted. Desperate for money and consumption, by addiction, I made decisions that I would never have imagined many years earlier. Those choices eventually landed me in prison. The government doesn't like it when you start printing money. They don't. That's not real, that's not okay. You're not supposed to do that. But it was like, I needed money, that's what I started doing. Prison became my reality for years. During that time, I witnessed violence, death, hopelessness, and a despair on a level I had never experienced before. It felt like a life, a living nightmare. The life I had worked so hard to build was gone. My career was gone, my freedom was gone,

my relationships were broken, and for the first time in my life, I was forced to face the reality that everything I had placed in my identity had been stripped away. I had spent years running from pain, but now there was nowhere to run. While I was in prison, I started going to church. For the first time in a long time, I began finding freedom, not just from addiction, but from the chaos in my mind. Through volunteers who faithfully came into prison and shared the love of Jesus, I found and hope you guys, people who, when you guys go in there, there's people that are listening, and it's something when the outsider comes in because they're giving their time. They don't have to be there, and there's a lot, it's hopeless in there. It's living hell. It really is, it is, and it's, that's what, their love that they poured into me is what really started to change. I want to take a moment to thank those volunteers for what they do matters. You may not see the results, but people are listening. I know because I'm one of them. That became a turning point in my life. That mission's real, and it does save.

Okay, I gave my life to Jesus, and for the first time in years, I felt like I had a purpose again. After I got out, I started attending church and joining Celebrate Recovery, the same ministry I'm speaking at today. As I continued my recovery, walk with God, I moved, well, I moved my mom in with me. I moved out, I seen where she was living. I got a nice place. It was the first time in my life that I had ever been sober and able to really get to know her. I really didn't know my mom. And I just remember my dad never letting me go see her, and when I did, and I go, man, she would fill my ears full of lies about my dad, like, it's crazy, like, and all he would tell me was, you'll understand when you get older. He'd never say nothing about her, it's crazy to see that he, how many people wanted to say, well, tell them the truth, well, hey, this is really what's going on, but he shielded me from that, and then, it's crazy. Okay, after I got out. Okay, as an adult, I started seeing things I never understood as a child.

Okay, I learned that my mom had been involved in a lifestyle centered around drugs and criminal activity for most of her life. She's been high for 40 years. What was, it was confusing, was that my, from the outside, everything looked normal. She had a good career, she has a computer science degree, a nice home, she lives really, yeah, nice home, hosted family gatherings, and seemed to have everything together, but behind closed doors, there was a lot of dysfunction that I never fully understood. The first time I began to understand why my mom had protected me the way he did, growing up, I heard a lot of negative things about him, but he never spoke badly about my mom, not once. As I got older and started putting the pieces together, I realized what an incredible example of grace and character my dad had been. He wasn't trying to keep me from my mom, he was trying to protect me. Looking back now, I have an even greater appreciation for the sacrifice he made and the foundation he gave. A few months of living with my mom, I went, I met a woman on a Christian dating site from the beginning, we both wanted the same thing, a relationship centered on God. We started attending church together, serving together, and honestly, life was better than it ever had been.

A life centered with God is amazing. There's nothing, nothing that compares to a relationship with God first. That's real. For the first time, I felt peace. We were walking with God, there was a purpose in my life, there was joy and peace and only the Holy Spirit can give. I started bringing her to celebrate recovery, but she never really felt like she fit in there. Eventually we stopped going. That was the thing. We've got to make sure everybody feels welcome. Little by little we started drifting. First it was the drinking, then New Year's came and we convinced ourselves that a little cocaine wouldn't hurt. But before long that turns into dope and meth and over the next few months of my life, it was like two and a half, three months, months my life unraveled faster than I can imagine. My girlfriend had, she'd never been in that world before and she didn't understand how destructive addiction could be or how quickly it can take and control your life. Looking back I started noticing things weren't right. I was working during the day while she stays at home with my mom and when I came home something didn't feel right. My mom is, she's, she pushes a lot of drugs, a lot, pounds of it and she said she's a pimp. It's weird. The more times passed the more concerned I became. There was nothing happening that didn't make sense. There was gaps in memory, strange situations and behaviors I couldn't explain. Eventually I discovered things that confirmed my worst fears. My girlfriend had been manipulated, exploited and pulled into a dangerous environment that neither of us fully understood at the time. When I finally confronted her she admitted things had been happening behind my back for months. What started as this suspicion turned into a heartbreaking reality. The suspicion had become far more dangerous than either of us had realized. Everything came to a head one night when, when men showed up at the house looking

for her and it became clear that her safety was at risk. They had guns, they wanted her Mercedes. It was, it was bad. I just, I guess I'm kind of fearless because I just don't care about a gun but that's not a good thing guys. At that moment I knew I had to act. I confronted, I contacted her family and together we got her out of Texas, out of Texas and back to New York where she would, she would be safe. At that point I felt completely broken. The woman I loved was gone. Our relationship with my mom was shattered and betrayal. Was that your mother? That's the one person in the world that's supposed to love you, you know? But God loves you more, that's for sure. I found myself once again facing the consequences of addiction and the chaos that comes with it. It had spent years trying to rebuild my life and it now felt like everything was falling apart over again. I realized two things. First, I had, I had been betrayed. Second, if I, if I wanted any chance at the life God had for me, drugs could never be a part of my story again and that's truth. I reached out for help and began showing up to church. I got sober by going to the very top and just sitting, sitting there and listening to Rick and our church and that was, that was tough. Just by myself, no support group, like I did, I was coming to Subway Recovery, I'll get to that, but I just, that's, I just forced myself to come to here and go to church. That's, that's what I did. So I reached out for help, beginning, showing up to church, Subway Recovery and counseling, which this church has awesome counseling for those of you who need it. It's available and it works. Some days I sat in the back just trying to survive withdrawals and emotional pain, but I, but I kept showing up. Little by little, God started changing my life. The woman I had met as a Christian dating site, she never gave up on, she never gave up on me either. While I was rebuilding my life in Texas, she was doing the same in New York. We both committed ourselves fully to God. We spent out, we spent our days studying scripture, praying together, attending church and surrounding ourselves with the healthy community for the first time in my life. I stopped trying to fulfill the emptiness with success, money or drugs and started allowing God to fill it. Now guys, when we're, I'm talking about every, nothing was about anything but God.

Like we did, we did morning Bible studies, deep mind Bible studies, like FaceTime. We had books that we were doing. She was in counseling and rehab. I was in counseling here, CR. Like we put, like our conversations was nothing but God and that's just what we, that's just what we focused on. Eventually I moved to New York to be with her. Together we started a business, became active in our church and spend our time serving others. Life was finally moving in the right direction. Then unexpectedly Texas required me to return. We were, we were forced to pack up our home and our business but our entire life moved back to Fort Worth on a very short notice. Financially and emotionally it was overwhelming because it's hard to move an entire house in 28 days. I remember talking to Hector during that season. Is he here? Hector? Okay. He told me, trust God and give him the opportunity to show you what he can do. Yeah, and he moves. For the first time in my life, instead of trying to control everything myself, I chose to do, for the first time in my life, instead of trying to control everything myself, I chose to do exactly that, give it to God. When we got back to Texas, we had to start over once again. We were rebuilding our business for the third time in the new market. Most people would tell you, that's almost impossible. We had started Texas, Buffalo, New York, and then back here. They would almost tell you it was impossible to be successful, but God has brought us far too, but God has brought us too far to leave us there. Through it all, Faith stood beside me. She wasn't just my girlfriend at the time. She was my partner in every season of The Word.

We shared the same dreams and the same commitment to follow God wherever he led us. She learned the remodeling business right alongside me, whether it was demolition, moving material, mixing mortar, or helping on the job site, she was all in. Every morning, she would put on her boots and would head out together and build a future. She did. She put on her ponytail and put on her boots in New York, and that's what we're doing, and we did that. That's what we did. We woke up, we do the Word of God, go bless others with our business, and come back and watch Christian television. When we returned to the, okay, so every morning, yep. When we returned to the hills and celebrate recovery, our church family lovingly challenged us. They reminded us that if we were serious about honoring God, then we need to make sure our relationship is right before him. Two months later, at the Sun Seekers Bible Study Retreat, we got married. Oh! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo!

Woo! Woo! Yep. Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Rather than just restore our relationship, He gave us our purpose. Today, Faith serves as an Open Share Leader in Celebrated Recovery, leads the Greeter Ministry and CR, serves on the Greeting Team at church, and is on the Baptism Team. I am currently,

in my second step study, serving as an Open Share leader. I'm a leader on the Red Team for the Greeters for our church, it's the hills is where I go. Together, we also lead a monthly homeless outreach ministry in downtown Fort Worth, along with church members, Celebrate Recovery members, and community volunteers. If you guys ever wanna serve, once a month, get with us, come down, it's amazing to bless others and bless each other. Doing selfless acts is really where I find a lot of power in God. Is stop thinking about me and think about other people with my mind, my thoughts, my attention, my time. And by God's grace, our business has flourished. What began as another fresh start has become something we never imagined. This year, our company was honored as Fort Worth Magazine's 2026 Editor's Choice Renovator Remodeler of the Year. That was cool.

That was cool. That was cool. That was cool. That was cool. That was cool. That was cool. That was cool. But if you had asked me years ago about success, what does it look like, I would have talked about championship belts, rankings, titles, and accomplishments. Today, my answer is completely different. Success is waking up sober. Success is having a relationship with Jesus. Success is being the best husband I can be to my wife. Success is serving others instead of serving myself. And success is knowing that no matter how far I fall, or God's grace reaches further. My story is proof that God can restore what addiction destroys, heal what trauma breaks, and even redeem even the darkest chapters of a person's life. If he can do it for me, he can do it for anyone. As it says in 2 Corinthians 5, 17, therefore if anyone in Christ,

the new creation has become, the old is gone and the new is here. And here we come. Huh? And the one verse that perfectly describes my journey is Joel 2.25, I will repay you for the years that the locusts have eaten. It's real, can't deny that. For a long time, I thought I had ruined my life beyond repair, but God has spent years restoring what was lost, not because I deserve it, but because that's who he is. And for that, all glory belongs to Jesus Christ. All right!