Alex Adams: The Night That Changed Everything

Alex Adams is an Iowa-based entrepreneur, husband to Allison (“Allie”), and dad to two boys, Owen and Mac, whose early years were marked by a fast, reckless lifestyle that started with drinking at 14 and eventually put his marriage, business, and safety at risk; after a pivotal night nearly four years ago when he pulled over on his motorcycle, convinced he wasn’t going to make it home, Alex chose sobriety, began telling the truth, and rebuilt his life one day at a time. In this episode, Alex sits down with host Jeff to talk candidly about what courage really looks like in everyday life, defining it as doing the right thing even when it isn’t the easy thing, and sharing how faith, honesty, and support helped him break addiction, become more present at home, and lead with purpose. Along the way, he reflects on the ripple effects of change, from coaching youth baseball and praying with his team to mentoring others who are struggling, offering a grounded, hopeful conversation about second chances, surrendering control, and becoming the kind of man your kids want to follow.

Thank you for listening! We hope you feel inspired and encouraged by our conversation today. If you did, be sure to share this episode with others.

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See you in the next episode! Be blessed!

Full Transcript

Announcer: Welcome to Courageous by Crossroads Apologetics, a look into what motivates us to step out and courage, and the everyday bravery of men and women like you. In each episode, we hear a personal story of bravery centered around this question: What’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done? And now your host, founder of Crossroads Apologetics, Jeff Johnson.

Jeff Johnson: Hey everybody, it’s Jeff. Welcome back to another edition of the Courageous Crossroads podcast. Alex Adams is next up on the show, and Alex and I don’t run into each other all that often, but from time to time, and every time I see him, I’m always impressed. He’s got a smile on his face, he’s got a lot of energy, he’s always been doing something, going somewhere, and you’re going to find out in this interview where that newfound energy—relatively newfound energy for Alex—comes from, and more importantly, you’re going to hear him answer that question: What’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done? You’re absolutely going to love this next guest, Alex Adams. Here he is.

Jeff Johnson: My guest today is Alex Adams, good friend of mine, buddy that I bumped into every once in a while. Last time I bumped into you was a leading with power conference, wasn’t it?

Alex Adams: Yes sir, love that group of guys.

Jeff Johnson: It’s a great group of guys. Well, I’m so grateful to have you on the program, Alex, so thanks for joining us today.

Alex Adams: Thanks for having me. It’s a pleasure, however, somewhat nervous, listening to your own voice. It’s scary in itself, so I hope I get comforted like you one day.

Jeff Johnson: Well, it’s going to be fantastic. I want to learn what you know and what your mind is on this topic of courage, because I don’t know a lot about you, and I’m looking forward to getting to know you a lot better here, but what I do know is that you are a man of courage. To put yourself into context for our listeners, would you give us a little bit of background? As much as you want to do in a five-minute introduction—born and raised, what you do for a living, family, if that kind of stuff.

Alex Adams: Yeah, well I guess first off, yeah, Alex Adams, and I was born in Austin, Texas in 1988.

Jeff Johnson: Okay, that’s a great town.

Alex Adams: Yeah, it’s a great town, great state, and 88 is a great year, I guess, but man, I’m married to my wonderful wife, Allison Adams, goes by Allie. I have a five-year-old name Mac and a 10-year-old name Owen. Just a fun fact, I wanted to name one of the kids Tank, however she would not let me. I have a dead dog named Tank and I thought it’d be fun to name the kids Tank, but she wasn’t having it.

Jeff Johnson: Your wife said no.

Alex Adams: Yes. My parents moved us here in 92 for safer schools. There’s days I wonder why it’s snowing and cold outside, and those days where I leave the keys in everything I own and really can appreciate them doing that for us.

Jeff Johnson: Well, you said though, for safer schools.

Alex Adams: Yeah, yeah, that was the catalyst to move from Texas to Iowa.

Jeff Johnson: Yeah.

Alex Adams: So they were both from like Strawberry Point, Waterloo area, and moved down to Texas for work and recreation, I think in their 20s. I think it’s a great time and they decided to move back to Iowa for schools and family and probably support system. You know, now that I have kids I can kind of understand that it would be really tough to raise them without grandma around helping out. So yeah, yeah, we’ve been here since 92 and I grew up in Johnston or Grimes, graduated there in ’07. Well, for the years I went. I went up to Iowa Lakes to be a DNR officer and—this is not something I like to brag about, but I guess we’ll get into my story—I’m probably the only guy you know that got kicked out of college before college started.

Jeff Johnson: That’s okay. I want to hear more.

Alex Adams: Pretty wild lifestyle. As we’ll get to learn, I had a lot of fun and I switched from “you only live once and enjoy everything alive” to what you’ll find out now, that there is a lot bigger purpose and work to do with life. But yeah, we can get more into the college unless you want to hear about it now, but I got asked to leave the property before the first day of class. So, I went on from not having a degree and I just went back to entrepreneurship and working. It’s kind of been in my life since the beginning. I had a paper route, then you get into buying and selling cars, and then you get into starting your first business—doing property clean up—and so on and so forth from there. And then your first employee.

But I made a lot of bad choices in there. I mean, some of my business—we’ll get into that—but when I worked in Caseys, I was able to steal booze and sell it to friends. I’d sell cigarettes to underage kids. I’d swipe one thing across the counter and then give them 10 more. You know, at the time it feels like I’m doing the right thing for my friends, but in how many ways am I hurting everybody? I’m taking from a local business that is a family that’s supporting people that work in the state. I’m then giving drugs and alcohol to kids that don’t need it. But at the time it seems like the right thing to do.

And man, I get a little emotional thinking back. I had so much fun while I was doing it, and now I think of how many people that impacted. For instance, two of my best friends growing up that we used to do this with—one OD’d about 10 years ago in the Des Moines area. Man, he was at my house every day. And my second best friend had a house fire a couple years ago and he’s still not mentally recouped; he’s in and out of the hospital. He just, you know, started with alcohol that leads to pot, that leads to cocaine, that leads to meth, and then the rest is history.

And I just—if you think about it, I was one decision away from being right there with him. And now I have two healthy kids and a growing business and I get to meet people like you, and my brother works for me full-time. Like, the blessings are unreal. And the two guys I grew up spending time with are no longer with us—and you never know if they had faith, so I might never get to see them again. That’s just pretty wild to talk about. So that’s where that started. And then now I run and operate a few small businesses. I wouldn’t even say they’re successful, but we’re growing and learning and going through the pains. So that’s where we’re at today.

Jeff Johnson: And you got a smile on your face even while you’re going through the ups and downs, and so that tells the tale right there.

Alex Adams: Oh, it’s wild. Anyone that’s owned a business like yourself, or that’s listening, you know the stresses that go with it. From the outside in, they think you got it all figured out. You got the new truck—I built a house on 10 acres—like, they think you got it all going on. They don’t understand that you have other people’s livelihoods in your hands, you got kids to feed, you got cash flow problems, all the things that go along with it. And I didn’t handle it very well. If you had my wife on here, she’d have a completely different story.

But now I kind of understand that it’s not all my calling—and actually not most of it. So I have a peace with it, that He’s going to do the right thing, and I wake up every day and try to do the next right thing and trust that He’s going to put the plan in place. And so my stress level is way less than it used to be, and I just try to enjoy life.

Jeff Johnson: Okay, well you’re giving us a little bit of a flavor of who it is that we’re talking to. You’re giving the audience a little bit of a sense here, Alex. I’m gonna jump right in with you. I’m just gonna ask the one question: how you would define courage. And then I’ll ask you the big question. How would you define courage? What’s that mean to you?

Alex Adams: You would think I’d have done some research, Jeff! I knew you’re gonna ask this, I should have Googled or AI’d that or something, you know? But courage to me—I guess personal or business—is being able to do the right thing even when it’s not the easy thing. And typically that’s always the answer, actually, whether it’s family or business or friends or, in my case, sobriety. There were a lot of easier options. So to be able to make that call for the bigger picture, I guess, is how I would explain courage. Yeah, if you’re—you know, I’d love to hear your opinion on it.

Jeff Johnson: Well, doing the right thing even when it’s not the easy thing… you know, I like that definition very much, Alex. You know, I wanted to do this podcast because somebody asked me that question, and they asked a couple other people that were sitting around a circle with me that same question too. And when I talked about what courage meant to me and what the most courageous thing I’d ever done was, I learned a little bit more about myself. And then when other people mentioned it too, it started to take on this shape—this whole idea of courage.

And so it’s just a fascinating question for me about what’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done. But you know, sometimes I think about courage as—like it says in the Bible, the story about a guy jumping in the pit on a snowy day to fight against a lion—you know, that’s very obvious courage. Or somebody that—you know, I’m watching the Olympics now—somebody that gets on one of these doggone bobsleds and goes, you know, 80 miles an hour on a sheet of ice. You know, that feels very courageous.

But I also think some mornings, you know, when it’s a little bit cold outside and those sheets are awfully warm and you’re faced with making payroll and you can’t do it, or you’re faced with decisions that you don’t have an answer for at the top of your head… you know, it takes an awful lot of courage just to get out of that bed, you know what I mean? And it’s the same kind of thing. So I see courage in a lot of different ways, and I think your definition of that—doing the right thing even when it’s not the easy thing—is spot on. So that’s right on the money for me.

Alex Adams: And it’s like you said, it’s not always easy. Luckily, I grew up with the right people in my life. I had good parents that wanted the right things for me, showed me the right ways. My grandma was—I’m gonna call it “religious” for lack of better terms—but yeah, had a great relationship with the Lord. And I didn’t recognize it at the time, I had other things to do.

But I had an uncle that was murdered in a drug deal when I was in fifth grade. His name was Jeff. And I got drug out of school, and I didn’t quite understand what was happening at that time. And to peek at this: my grandma, who would help at the church and pray for people at the hospital, would go to the jail and pray over this man that killed her son. And I—we’re talking for years, until he got out. And I’m too young to really understand what’s going on, but there’s no way at this time in my life—or all the way until recent—it would still even be a struggle that I would go pray over somebody that just took my son’s life.

But she had such a strong faith, she had the courage to do that and know what’s for the better of the good, even though people are gonna look at her crazy, right? At the time I didn’t know, but He just drips these things in our life and it didn’t mean anything until 24 years later. But like, I think of my two kids now and I don’t know how I’d react. I don’t want to ever have to think about it. But that’s strong will for somebody to be able to do that. Would you have the courage to do the same thing that she did?

Jeff Johnson: Wow. Okay, well I’m—Alex, I’m jumping right in with you, and then we’re gonna discover some other things along the way. Alex Adams, what’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done?

Alex Adams: Man, I thought this would be a lot easier than it is, Jeff, really did. Oh boy. I would say this is gonna go back to almost four years ago. My life was spiraling out of control. From the outside looking in, I had it all, but I started drinking when I was 14 years old. So I’m 34 at this time and I’m hitting it pretty hard every day. I’d take a client out at lunch, I’d meet another client at three, meet someone for dinner and I, you know, two or three beers each time. And then you get to boarding with the bartender and you’re out till 10 o’clock, 11 o’clock every night.

And I can justify it that it’s business, or I’m networking, or I’m making clients—and I’m leaving my family at home. And my son’s six at this time. So I didn’t get to see my oldest son grow up until he was six years old. You don’t really realize it at the time, but I’m driving home on my motorcycle—we can get more of the story later—but hey, I shouldn’t have been driving on my motorcycle way too drunk. But I couldn’t get home. I’ve made this ride many, many times. I’m on the end of a four-day bender and I had to stop right on Highway 141. And if anyone knows, it’s a four-lane highway between Des Moines and goes to the western side of the state. It’s heavy traffic.

And I stop in the middle of the highway. Something told me, “I’m not gonna make it home.” You just had the feeling like: I can’t keep it in the lanes, I can’t balance, I’m not surviving tonight. So I stopped on the highway, I got off my bike, and I don’t know exactly what happened other than I felt an internal feeling like, “Today’s the end. You’re not making it home.”

Somehow I woke back up in my bed. My bike’s there. I rode home at some point—I don’t recall, I don’t remember making it home. Obviously I did. But the next decision… I just knew I had to stop for my family. So I made the call that day: we’re gonna start being honest with my wife, we’re gonna start being honest with my kids, I’m gonna quit drinking. Which isn’t the only problem, but it was a solution, or however you want to call it. But making the call that day that “it is done”—to me, was the most courageous thing I’ve done.

And it got harder from there. You lose friends. They say you don’t have a problem drinking. It’s hard to support you right away, you know? They come around in the end, but it’s tough to give up everything you’ve known to do the right thing.

Jeff Johnson: Because people wanted you to keep rolling with you and doing what you guys were doing.

Alex Adams: Yeah, 100%. We were living the life. We’re taking trips, we’re spending the evenings, we’re having all the fun—whether it’s boating or motorcycling—doing business when it probably shouldn’t be getting done, and all of the things. And man, life has changed big time since then. But I’m gonna say the word is giving up control or putting your trust in someone else. I knew at that moment that that wasn’t my power. I got home—someone told me I’m not making it home.

Jeff Johnson: But that was the feeling that you had, was that “I’m not making it home.” And that became a catalytic moment for you to say, “I don’t ever want to feel like that again.”

Alex Adams: Yeah, 100%. And you—something happened. You just—it’s hard to explain what—but you knew that was the straw. “I need to make a change for my family, and if I want to be a leader and a father and a husband, I have to do something and let’s do it today.”

Jeff Johnson: How long ago was that?

Alex Adams: Say again?

Jeff Johnson: How long ago was that?

Alex Adams: Almost four years.

Jeff Johnson: So when you look back on it now with four years of education and insight since then, and different kind of living since then, what do you make of that? What do you think that was? Was that God intervening in a moment to shake you up?

Alex Adams: Oh, without a doubt. Can I fast forward just a little bit there?

Jeff Johnson: Sure.

Alex Adams: I think kind of leading into your question—just so we’re on the same page—not that I’m counting, but I go to a program and I keep a counter. We’re at 1,297 days, or three years, six months, or 17 days today.

Jeff Johnson: That’s awesome.

Alex Adams: Not that anyone’s counting! But so after that goal, and thinking back to “I need something in my life to fill this void that alcohol and partying was taking care of for me,” I went to church. And I have an uncle that married my wife and I—which I don’t remember. I remember posing, but I don’t remember my wedding, which is really, really sad. We could get into some other fun facts: I’ve now purchased two wedding rings because of that.

Jeff Johnson: Okay.

Alex Adams: For the same lady! But so I said, “Can you recommend a church? I don’t know where to go, I don’t know what to do.” Essentially, I know what I’m not supposed to be doing, but how do I do it? And he runs a church in Tyler, Texas, and looked up what he thought would be a good church here. And I ended up at Saylorville Creek—which goes to Des Moines Christian schools.

And you walk in and… I don’t know, God does His work, and you just felt at home. Like—it’s embarrassing to say—but I probably hadn’t cried that much in 20 years, you know? I was numb to everything. And my family didn’t go with me. And so I returned. Same thing—you feel like He’s speaking to you, and you go again.

I don’t know, three months in, my wife started going and my kids started going. And I still was really, really struggling with alcohol, like really bad. I wanted to party every day. I was sober, but miserable sober. I still wanted to go. And I was sick of fighting. And they had a Sunday night service and they had a prayer team up front. They say, “Come up and pray.” And I’ve never done anything like that—super uncomfortable, your heart’s beating.

My wife and I walk up and my wife, being the caring person she is, asked for a friend of ours’ mom that has cancer, prayed for them. And I said, “Selfishly, I got to pray for myself, I’m sorry. But I would love to lose the addiction that’s over me. I want to be able to think about something else.” And I woke up the next day, Jeff—never fought it since.

It is—you can’t explain that. You literally can’t explain it. I finally asked out loud with someone else, they prayed over it, and the urge is gone. Like, I can tell you, until you get involved, it’s so hard to believe that happens.

Jeff Johnson: Well, you make a good point right there, because I was just about to say, you tell so many people that “one day it was all I could think of, and I prayed about it, the next day it’s gone.” They say, “Well, good for you, you know, it should be gone and that’s wonderful.” But you know, because you’re the person that it happened to, what a profound shift that is. That it’s absolutely everything. It’s like, I was this person one day and I completely turned into somebody different the next day.

Alex Adams: Yeah. 20 years and six months of that was my life, and all I thought about. And in this period I’ve had jobs, bosses, families—I got married, had two kids—and none of that mattered. Alcohol was more important to me. And then bam, wake up and it’s gone. It’s just kind of surreal.

Jeff Johnson: So that happened to you. You “put the plug in the jug,” as they say, and then it got harder because the tension and the stress of wanting to go back out and use and still party and do the same thing was on you. And then that desire got taken away. Has that been alleviated ever since then? I mean, have you felt like a different person ever since then, or are there still temptations or things that want to draw you back? I mean, that’s a really good question.

Alex Adams: It’s a really good question. I’m gonna say yes, there’s still the “fun” I miss, the loudness I miss, the excitement. I like to go fast, you know? I’ve skydived twice, I like to ride them real fast. I just want to live at speed 100, and that’s built into me, not relative to if I’m on alcohol or not. So I do miss some of that.

However, the “old me” is gone. I mean, I’m not the same person. And people around me probably notice, but the old me is just dead. I didn’t care before. If you ask me, I’ll put it in perspective: Christmas Day years ago, I had some friends that were single and decided, “Hey, we’re gonna go down to Arizona, we’re gonna fly out on Christmas Day, then we’re gonna go up to Steamboat, Colorado, we’re gonna do some timber sledding and come back.” I have children. They do not. “Let’s go.”

I left on Christmas Day, came home nine days later. I mean, we had a blast, but I—all of those people, I didn’t put care or worry that they count on me. You know, to leave your child on Christmas Day? That’s wild. But in the time you’re selfish and that’s all you care about. And now that’s behind me. I took my children—and every night I say I love them way more than one time a day—and my five-year-old will pray before we go to sleep. And it’s just a feeling you can’t replace.

And I coach a baseball team—there are 11U kids—and we pray before and after practice. And this is really, really cool. So we have 11 kids, some of which have parents that are not believers, and that’s okay, you know? But we let all the parents know that we do pray and this is how we’re gonna operate our team. And we as coaches hardly have to pray; the kids want to do it. And like, it’s hard to explain that. Like I said, the old me is gone, the new me is here. I still have plenty of struggles, I really do, but it’s just a different way of living. Life has definitely changed.

Jeff Johnson: And I love what you’re projecting, Alex, because what you’re projecting is somebody who is still a bit stunned that they’re living in this kind of reality because of the habits that you’ve developed over two decades plus. And now you’re a completely different person. You seem like you’re just living in the blessing of all of it. I’m curious, what does your wife think about all this?

Alex Adams: Well, you’ve been through it—it’s not an easy road. If there’s anyone listening that’s married to addicts or been around it, we’re tough people to deal with. We really are. We are selfish, we have addictive personalities, and I’m no different. Mine’s very strong, very addictive personality—it’s all in or all out. And she had to deal with that all those years. And so those memories are there no matter what. So it definitely was a struggle.

And now we’re on the right path and she’s into life groups and church also and surrounds herself with right people. But she can have peace now that I’m gonna make it home, and that the kids are safe, and that she can go do some stuff on her own and not have to worry for the livelihood of her children and me. You know, at the time I thought I cared about her, but obviously I didn’t—and she cared about me, so she was worried about me making it home and I was like, “We’re adults, I’ll make it home,” right?

Now, for her to be able to sleep at night and be like, “My husband’s gonna make it home, my children are as safe as anywhere with him”—she’s relieved and it’s opened up new doors. For excitement, we’re building an ice cream shop together right now. The walls went up this weekend and windows and siding are going on Friday. She’s gonna have her first business and we’re really looking forward to what the future brings—and the kids in the community.

And I don’t know, not to keep talking about myself, but the other day my 11-year-old asked me, “Dad, I’m gonna work for you someday?” And you’ve probably had this question. Everything in me is like, “No, I want you to do better than me!” But he obviously sees something that he would like to be a part of. And to be able to be an example that… wow, kids want to do that? That’s really, really cool. However, I still want him to do better than me, so it makes me struggle to like, want to take him under my wing.

Jeff Johnson: But that’s so special though, to have somebody want to be where you are and want to be doing stuff that you’re doing. And that doesn’t happen when you’re an absentee father, Alex. When you’re taking off on Christmas Day to go bobsledding or whatever with people that are not your family, you don’t get that gift. But when you do show up every day and you’re present, then those gifts just start rolling in. I just think that’s fantastic.

Jeff Johnson: Okay, I got to get into the mud, Alex, because you started this podcast saying that you got kicked out of college before you even started. You better tell that story.

Alex Adams: Oh man, it’s—I get a lot of flak for this one.

Jeff Johnson: Yeah, and you got to name the institution too.

Alex Adams: I was living on my own my senior year, so we’ll start there. I moved out with a good buddy of mine—his parents owned an apartment complex in Grimes. And we’ll just start by saying: when you live on your own in high school, talk about easy life, man. I could call in hungover—they can’t do anything about it. I could not go—who are they gonna call? And they don’t want to see you anymore so they’re gonna pass you; they don’t want you to come back next year.

Jeff Johnson: Like, your parents were okay with you moving out?

Alex Adams: No, I didn’t give them a choice.

Jeff Johnson: You just moved out. Okay. You’re that kid.

Alex Adams: Okay, I’m the kid that thought I’m on top of the world and if you didn’t want to be there with me, that’s your problem. But so that sets the stage. So I think I could really—my senior year, I went from 9:00 to 9:40 if I showed up to class. Middle—I don’t know, we’ll call it end of my senior year—we have a pretty big party. It gets caught, the cops come, half the football team’s there. I’m arrested. My friend’s dad that owns the complex there—as you can imagine, it’s a crapshoot.

And I never go to school the next week, whenever I decided I wanted to attend again. I don’t remember how long it was until I went back. The athletic director—I’ll use his name, heck, he don’t know. His son’s a professional baseball player now, Tony Watson. His dad was our athletic director and he was not very thrilled with me, chewing me out about all these athletes that couldn’t play in the next game because I got them caught. As he should.

Jeff Johnson: That’s right.

Alex Adams: But at the time I’m like, “Man, these guys are football players, I can’t hold them down! I didn’t put the booze in their mouth!” You don’t realize how many people you’re entitling until it’s after the case. But so from there, I decided I’m gonna try to make a little bit of a difference and I signed up for Iowa Lakes Community College in Estherville to be a DNR officer. I love being outside. I wanted to be water patrol—mainly because girls in bikinis, I think. I’m not really sure. Booze on the lake and women, I think that’s what I was after. I don’t really know.

But I made it up there. Since I moved out, my parents wouldn’t help finance school, obviously, so I had to go get a job. So I went up two weeks early, got a job at Kum & Go next to the college, and I’m just living life like normal. I don’t know how to word it, but I’m still partying just like I was. They have a dry campus—fun fact I learned the hard way. They found out since I’m the only kid on campus, I’m easy to pay attention to. They found alcohol in my dorm room, gave me my first warning. I don’t care, I’m above the law, so I keep drinking, whatever.

I went home for whatever the holiday was this time and I had a motorcycle. My dorm room is ground level—it’s like an old motel. They’re really, really high quality dorm rooms up at the old Iowa Lakes in the motel building! So I put my motorcycle in my dorm room, went home for the weekend, and they called: “Man, you gotta get this motorcycle out!” “Yeah, that’s your problem, man, I’m too good for you.” And the rest was history. They found booze in my room again, the motorcycle’s in there—it was a fire hazard—so they moved it out themselves, kicked me out. I never made it to the first day of class.

But here’s where the blessing comes in looking back: they reimbursed me any funds that had been given for tuition and housing, so it cost me no money, and it led me to where I’m at today. Not that being a DNR officer couldn’t have been where I needed to be, but it’s not how the world changed and I got led down a path that I did keep going to rock bottom before I could make my changes. But yeah, I got kicked out of college before—I never made it to one day.

Jeff Johnson: So I’m uneducated! Alex, that’s amazing. And it doesn’t surprise me if that’s your trajectory, you know? And you’re using and you’re so immersed in that kind of selfishness and that kind of base behavior, it doesn’t surprise me one bit. You know, there’s all these little things that happen along the way. But praise God that you ended up hitting your bottom and that that bottom wasn’t fatal for somebody else or for you, and that you ended up being able to put the plug in the jug. So your kids don’t really—they don’t know different?

Alex Adams: No. They still know—you know, they talk about beer because I’ll drink some near-beer. But my youngest one has not been around it; he was too young to know. Like, I don’t even know if I was in the room when he was born. I don’t think I was, which is sad. He’s a COVID kid and I was hard into it. I’m not sure. But my oldest one was six when I quit, so he got to see it. He may notice the difference about how often I’m there versus not now—taking him to school, putting him to bed.

But I believe, hopefully, I caught it before it was life-altering to them. You know, they see people—I’m gonna say drink too much because we still have heavy drinking in the families—and now they know that I don’t, or will ask why people are being funnier or “Why’d that guy say the story 15 times?”

Jeff Johnson: Yeah, yeah.

Alex Adams: And without getting really into it, I want them to be aware.

Jeff Johnson: Right, right.

Alex Adams: So I explained to them why. I’m pretty open with it. And you just—you hope you’re setting the example that they can make the right decisions, because they got me in them, and that’s scary.

Jeff Johnson: What do your parents think about your sobriety? What’s your relationship with them like?

Alex Adams: Really good. My mom is gonna get frustrated when my podcast releases, Jeff, because I share a little story and I guess I’ll share it with you. My parents—my dad would work two jobs if he had to. Drove a concrete truck the majority of my life and semi, so we didn’t make it to much of my sporting events, which at the time he had to do—he had to do it. We didn’t have a bunch of money. If we had traveling teams, I’d have to ride with other families. But my mom would be at all of it, she really would.

But I started by—you heard of Stevie C’s in Grimes? It’s a bar uptown in Grimes, been there for years and years. Well, my mom spends a lot of time in there, and I would ride my bike up there, have a Mountain Dew, cashews, chicken nuggets, then ride to baseball practice. Now, at the time I thought it was the coolest thing ever. I mean, we would do this day after day after day… Now looking back, I mean, that might be where I got comfortable in the bar setting and it looks normal. I share that story when they recorded, and when my mom hears it she’s probably gonna, you know, take it to heart because it’s honest and true. And I love her and I love my dad more than anything and I wouldn’t be here without them. They do a lot of really good things for me, but that’s a hard truth. And so they’re very proud, to answer your question, by the way. They never thought their kids would be where they’re at today—surpassed what they were doing.

Jeff Johnson: And what kind of siblings?

Alex Adams: I have one brother. He is 41—sorry, I just gave up a mystery age—he’s four years older than me.

Jeff Johnson: He’s what, four? What’s his opinion of what you’re doing with your life?

Alex Adams: I mean, I don’t want to take up your whole day, Jeff, but he couldn’t be more proud. He was the older brother that got sent because I wouldn’t listen to my parents, right? But I would listen to Scott. So when I was rebellious to my parents or gave them the middle finger, Scott would have to come and rescue. And I don’t know that I listened to him real well either, but better than mom and dad. And he just grew up on a more straight and narrow and could discern right from wrong earlier, so he was a good example and always trying to save me. I just did a really good job of not listening.

But now he currently works with me full-time and has for a few years now. And he’s now purchased into one of the entities and got to quit his corporate job—not that I’m hating on corporate, but he had the corporate handcuffs on for years—and now he gets to enjoy life and be at all his kids’ sporting events all the time. And we love working together; it’s really been a blessing. It’s crazy to see it all come together.

Jeff Johnson: What would have happened, Alex, if you hadn’t that one night? If you hadn’t stepped off of that motorcycle and had that thought about “I’m not gonna make it home,” and then you wake up the next morning and you’re shaking to your bones so you know that you got to hang it up? What would have happened if you just kept going?

Alex Adams: I probably wouldn’t be here talking to you about it. I mean physically. But even if I did make it, I would have kept going down the path. And the scary thought is… so, we were in the divorce conversations and all the things go through your head. If you’re talking about losing your wife, then you start to think about losing your kids, then you think about separating everything—then your families and your parents. And you love your in-laws. Man, what a dark place to be in.

You know, at the time it seems like, “Oh man, she just is mean to me all the time, she’s always mad,” because you think you’re doing the right thing. But looking back, if—I mean, I don’t even know if it would have been another few months. Let’s just say it was another three months and she would have been gone. And my kids wouldn’t be here. None of us—the four of us—wouldn’t know Jesus at all. Like, the impact is crazy. The 11 kids on the baseball team wouldn’t get to pray before practice.

It’s wild to think how He works and His timing is not always our timing. Like, some people can get told to make a change and that they need it and can do it—if you would have told me two days before that that I needed God, or your wife’s important, or your kids need you, there’s no way I’d have listened to you. Zero chance.

Jeff Johnson: Too selfish, too wrapped up in doing what you’re doing and scratching where it itched and all that stuff.

Alex Adams: Yeah, and it happens so fast. That was 14 and it seemed like a harmless habit. It really does seem harmless and…

Jeff Johnson: “I’m not trying to hurt anybody, I’m just having fun.”

Alex Adams: That’s exactly right. And I would have pledged that over and over and over again.

Jeff Johnson: Okay, so how many days do you have since that morning now? Your little app told you 1,297, I think it was.

Alex Adams: 1,297.

Jeff Johnson: Okay, so you got 1,297 days’ worth of clarity. You still had some ups and downs; you’ve had some “life happen” to you in those almost 1,300 days. When you sit back now and ponder the blessing that you received, why do you think God’s got you here? What do you think God’s purpose is for you?

Alex Adams: Wow. I pray for this every night because I’m a man and I feel like I need control, even though we say we’re fully surrendered—and I do believe that He has all the power and we are surrendered—but I still pray every night that I’ll get a vision, I’ll get a dream, I’ll get something that shows what I’m supposed to be doing for Him. I really want the answer.

But what I’m learning is I’m thriving in the journey. Wake up the next day, do the next right thing, take care of someone, give, be of service—and He’ll do the plan. As much as I want the plan… because I want it more than anybody, like I literally pray for it every single night. I think He knows if I have the plan, I’m gonna ruin it. I really do. I watched what you could do with your life the last 20 years, Alex, and it’s terrible. So how about you live tomorrow, you don’t drink tomorrow, you help somebody tomorrow, and I’ll make sure you get to where you need to go.

And that is really, really difficult for me, but I am learning that it is the journey and the people you help and where it goes. And I’m gonna give you two examples. Just in this short amount of time that I feel like I haven’t really made an impact… you know, sometimes we get envy, and you’re not supposed to have envy as Christians. Let’s just use your business and your podcast as an example. You see how many people you get to touch and you’re like, “Man, that’s awesome. I want to be doing that. I haven’t touched anybody in that way.”

You think… I was at Saylorville Creek, we’ll just call it a year ago. A lady comes up—I serve there now, I would go in the morning, set chairs up, hold the doors open. We’re a movable church until this spring; we got a building going up in Grimes. But she gives me a hug, says thank you, and I’m like, “What?” She says, “You remember me?” I’m like, “Not exactly.” She got her son hooked up with me a year prior through church, knew I was sober and how to do it. And on that Sunday, her son hit a year of sobriety. He goes to church. She was in tears thanking me, and I don’t feel like I did anything, but I showed him some hope just by my story and I got him connected and the rest is history.

And I’m gonna throw another friend under the bus—this just happened this week, so it’s fresh. I won’t use his name, but he’s a really good friend, his kid’s on our baseball team. And he calls me, and he’s been drinking too much, making choices that aren’t the best for his family, and he’s running the business. And he says—we meet for coffee—he goes, “I know what I’m not supposed to be doing. I know what not to do, but I don’t know what to do.” And I felt honored and privileged that he asked me, because I don’t have it figured out. I’m leaning on people like yourself and Mark Riley and all the other ventures in my life and faith—Scott Dykes, Jeff Wilson—and I’m going that direction.

And he leaned on me to figure out what to do, which made me feel like, alright, we are setting the example. But here’s how God works: a gentleman comes in and sits down next to us. I know who he is, Chad doesn’t know who he is. Comes up and says hi before he leaves—he’s the pastor of the Granger Church that’s building a brand new facility right down the road from a friend of mine. Well, you can’t tell me that’s a coincidence.

Jeff Johnson: Yeah, it’s not. You could go to coffee a thousand times over again and the pastor is not going to sit down right beside you and then introduce himself.

Alex Adams: And so he asked what to do, and my answer to him was: say yes. He’ll put a nudge on you—say yes. Something got me to go into church a day, something got me to quit that next day, and you just have to be able to say yes and not be in control. Long answer, Jeff, I apologize.

Jeff Johnson: No, that’s good. No, that’s good, Alex. So God’s really got you, as far as your purpose is concerned. It’s really just one day at a time and ministering to the people, loving on the people that He puts in front of you. You just—you strive, really, Alex, as somebody who is, like I said before, still living in the amazement of a changed life. And I think that that’s such a special thing and such a wonderful thing and such a beautiful gift, and you wear it really well, Alex.

Alex Adams: Well, I appreciate it. Is there a way to ever not grow out of that?

Jeff Johnson: Right? You just stay close to the Lord. That’s what I would say, just if you’re wanting my opinion on that—just stay close to the Lord and it just gets bigger and better and more amazing and more fascinating as you go. Whenever you take your will back, at least I found, that’s when things start to kind of curl in on themselves and, you know, it starts to get less interesting. But yeah, I just… I hope we can help the young boys that are going to be men around us not have to go through what some of us have gone through.

Alex Adams: I need it.

Jeff Johnson: That’s right. We’ll try to put them in the right places and give them the right example and yeah, let God take you from there. Alex, thanks for being so transparent with us this morning and thanks for letting us know that they don’t let motorcycles in the dorm rooms at Iowa Lakes Community College—and that’s a fact!

Alex Adams: You’ll never be invited back there! I don’t think you’ll see me on the alumni roster, Jeff.

Jeff Johnson: Alex Adams, man of great courage. Thank you for sharing with us today, brother.

Alex Adams: Hey, thank you so much for having me, and looking forward to see you get here.

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