Escaping Darkness: From a Troubled Childhood in Coal Country to Achieving Ivy League Dreams

We gotta keep going.

And in the end, well, you have a story to tell.

Today is an interview with John Boyle, the author of Appalachian Kid, a story of his life, a story that's gonna guide today's conversation.

My friends, it's episode 327.

I'm glad you're here.

I look forward to seeing you in the are you ready to flip the script online?

SPEAKER_00: And that's exactly what we do here at grid rate and inspiration.

Turn over 20 minutes of the completely black.

It's a quick inspiration, motivated, encouraged, just renewed.

Talk.

Kevin Love.

SPEAKER_03: John Dad, welcome to the podcast, dude.

It is a pleasure to have you.

SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much, Kevin.

I've been looking forward to this since we talked a month ago.

Yeah.

And uh it's an honor to be on your show.

SPEAKER_03: Oh man.

Yeah, absolutely, dude.

Well, well, John, I'm excited for us to explore kind of this entire kind of life's journey you've been on.

And I would love for you to just kind of take us back in time, put us in the place of childhood.

Where did you grow up?

What was childhood like for you?

Just kind of paint that picture.

And I figured that would be an awesome starting point.

SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.

I would be happy to.

If I get too long-winded, you let me know, Kevin.

Okay.

Uh I grew up in a small mining community in Kingwood, West Virginia.

It's a town of 2,000 people, and it's on the border of uh Maryland and Pennsylvania.

And where I grew up was was just up in the mountains.

It's it's a farming and mining community.

And growing up, it was a beautiful place.

It was a safe place.

It was somewhere where you could go out and you could ride your bike and you know not come home until it was dark.

And I always played outside and with my friends.

And, you know, I love the area and the people.

And and really, I couldn't have asked to grow up in a in a in a better place, Kevin.

But when I was growing up, I didn't know it until I was older.

But I I grew up in a violent home.

You know, when you're a little kid, you don't know how to compare your circumstances with someone else's.

You're just doing the best you can to get from one day to the next.

And maybe that's uh a really high-level summary, but growing up in those circumstances, Kevin, it it gave me a lot of difficulty.

And as I, you know, from my earliest memories until you know, well into elementary school, I really had a lot of difficulty, and it stemmed from violence in the home.

And, you know, it look, this is something that it just isn't isolated to me.

This this is quite common in our society.

And the children who grow up under those circumstances carry the ramifications of those actions with them into adulthood.

And so my childhood was great in many senses, and I have to this day, Kevin, my closest of friends are the ones I grew up with in Preston County, West Virginia.

And so I again I couldn't have asked for better circumstances.

However, there there was a great deal of adversity, especially in childhood and into high school and college.

SPEAKER_03: Yeah.

Now, did you grow up with brothers and sisters?

SPEAKER_01: Yes.

I had three younger sisters, or have three younger sisters rather, and I I was the oldest and the only male.

SPEAKER_03: Okay.

Wow.

You said the, you know, the the thing that, you know, when you're growing up and you're a kid, you don't you don't realize that anything's different about the way you're growing up.

How old were you when you realized, wait a minute, this isn't normal?

SPEAKER_01: Well, I would say first or second grade, maybe third grade in that area, there would be family members who would come to our house and kind of witness some of the treatment, so to speak, ill-advised treatment, really.

And I could tell from the reactions from my aunt, especially that it wasn't kosher.

And so I began to have radar towards that treatment.

And really, when I realized that this wasn't going on in everyone's home was when I when I started to have sleepovers at friends' houses or go to friends' houses after school.

And, you know, I I would hear their parents say little things like, I love you.

You know, th those were things that I didn't hear in my home.

And and I'm not trying to pick on my parents.

That's just the way it was.

And and, you know, the the just the the overall treatment and and what they incurred in their home and what I incurred in mine was quite different.

And that's when I began to see that there was uh something going on in my home that didn't go on in everyone's.

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_03: How did that then impact kind of the rest of your childhood?

SPEAKER_01: Overwhelmingly.

As time went on, Kevin, third and fourth grade became exceedingly difficult for me.

I started to be sent to, you know, the classroom where there were readers that were behind or kids that were behind in math.

It was almost like I was impaired.

And really what was going on, Kevin, I was displaying symptoms of a mental disorder I didn't know I had.

And so I would disassociate with my surroundings at school, especially after something troubling had happened in my home.

And, you know, when when I was disassociating in in school, I was typecast by many of my teachers as being lazy and a daydreamer.

And that really enraged my father because uh he he didn't like laziness, right?

And so I would incur punishment on top of the abuse from my mom for having bad grades and not being able to function in school.

And one played off another, and my grades got worse.

Those actions didn't do any good for me.

And by sixth grade, Kevin, I I almost failed.

I almost failed.

I almost failed sixth grade.

And I remember distinctly, Kevin, going to a parent-teacher conference with both of my parents.

And I remember my sixth grade teacher looking at my parents and saying, This kid will never make it to college, much less graduate.

And so that was my elementary school years, and junior high didn't get any easier.

SPEAKER_03: Wow.

Wow, wow, wow.

During this time in your life that we're we're up to at this point, was there anything?

I mean, we talk about school is is is tough.

We talk about home life is really hard.

Was there anything or anyone, though, that you kind of clung to that maybe got you through it looking back?

SPEAKER_01: That's a great question.

And not to foreshadow the ending of my book, but that is the ending of my book.

The ending of my book, Kevin, is that my life is a miracle and that I didn't realize it when I was a kid, but God put people in my life that gave me enough to get from A to B.

My dad's friend, best friend growing up was a guy named Jeff.

And he used to take me, you know, hunting, he used to take me fishing, you know, we would go camping.

He had some kids, but but younger than me, and before he had children, he spent time with me, and it it really left an impression on me.

I had an aunt who from the youngest years I can remember was always defending me.

And if she saw treatment that I shouldn't be receiving at home, she would be vocal about it.

She was the only one that really spoke up and even to this day, continues to speak up and say it's wrong.

There were others, you know, friends.

My best friend Moose to this day, you know, he used to walk me from class to class in junior high to make sure no one picked on me.

There were so many people that God put in my life that changed it.

And all through my life, there were people that just it just changed the trajectory.

And when I got to high school, Kevin, I didn't say this part, but you know, from from about fifth grade on as a young man, I I just took the approach that when I was hit, I was gonna defend myself.

And that made the reaction from my mother much more vicious.

And to be honest with you, as a child, I really didn't care.

I saw it as no one's gonna protect me, so I'm gonna do it.

And right, wrong, or indifferent, that that's what happened.

And so there became a dynamic in my home where there were altercations constantly, constantly.

And by the time I was 14 or 15, you know, it was happening quite frequent.

And my father pitched the idea that that I could go to a boarding school.

And really that was my way out.

And when I went to that boarding school at 15, I was a sophomore.

And and when I got to that school, I was the best thing that ever happened to me.

You know, I may say that over and over, but there were many good things that happened to me.

And I can't stress that enough.

That this is not this is not a story about those who did me wrong.

This is a story about the goodness of God.

And he placed all these teachers in my world from 15 to 18 that took a kid that almost failed 10th grade again, Kevin, was next to last in my class and just mightily struggling because I didn't have a good educational background.

I was disassociated all through elementary school and much of junior high.

And I'm not making excuses, that's just my journey.

And so there there were many, many teachers there.

My English teacher, my math teacher, my football coach, my Spanish teacher, the head of school.

These people plowed into me and didn't have to, but they did and it changed my life.

SPEAKER_02: Wow.

SPEAKER_01: That that's the essence of mentorship right there.

SPEAKER_03: Yeah, absolutely.

Before kind of moving forward, did your sisters endure the same treatment as you?

SPEAKER_01: You know, Kevin, I don't really write about my sisters in my book.

I do in a few stories about my childhood, just to give the story the proper context.

But, you know, from my vantage point, they certainly had it difficult.

I don't know that they had it as difficult as I did.

But honestly, that that's something that they would have to answer.

I really, you know, I really left the house at 15 and I didn't come back.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: Okay.

SPEAKER_03: So at boarding school, you you spoke about that was really kind of a I would consider a pivotal shift, a positive shift forward.

Were there any other kind of standout moments when you look back at that period in time that you feel like was really pivotal in getting you kind of on the course that you ended up taking that's led to kind of where you are today?

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the the first image that comes into my mind when you ask that is the day that I left West Virginia and went to Salzburg, Pennsylvania.

The name of the boarding school was the Kiske School.

And until this year, it was all male.

And there was a when I pulled up to my when my family pulled up to the uh the dorm to drop me off, there was a man standing outside.

The dorm's name was Clark Hall.

I remember it well.

It was in the fall of 1992, and there was a man standing outside the doors with the Kiske ball cap, and I was the first student to move in the dorm that day.

And just that handoff, Kevin, was so symbolic for me in looking back at it to see a man who was welcoming, who said, We're glad to have you here, and I'm I'm gonna help you get oriented.

And you know, we're looking forward to spending this year with you, just things like that.

It just it just gave me a feeling of I'm welcome.

That man, uh his name's Mark Orsati, and he's still a teacher there.

And when I when I launched my book, did my my book opening in September of 23, I did it at that school, and he showed up and I told that story, Kevin, and I said it to everybody there, and I looked over at him, and he was just, I mean, just crying his eyes out.

SPEAKER_02: Wow.

SPEAKER_01: And it was so cool for me because I don't know that he ever knew that, right?

When you're a mentor, I don't think you know the impact that you have on a child.

And I think to get feedback like that, well, obviously it meant something to him too.

So there were many other moments.

Kevin, I I don't want to ramble here, so you cut me off if I am, but you know, my first grade reading, the head of school reads your grades to you.

There's only about 200 students in the school, so it's pretty personable.

And his name was Mr.

Pigeon, and he read my grades to me.

And I, you know, he told me I was last in the class.

And and Kevin, he didn't tear into me.

He didn't tell me that I was going to be nothing but a truck driver and that I was stupid and the things that I used to hear about my grades.

He just said, John, your effort grades are B's.

And if you get them up to A's, you'll be my hero.

He didn't, he didn't land base me over having 60 and 70 percent in certain classes.

And and I'll I'll give you one over.

He didn't do it all year.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: And he just stood beside me, and there were dorm parents.

In in a dorm at Kiske, there are family housing connected to the dorm.

So you're more or less in a family atmosphere, and you have what's called dorm parents, and those dorm parents are teachers.

And one of the men there was a guy named Dr.

Lane, and he taught me how to study.

And my junior year, my football coach really helped me get more prepared in the season before I started school.

I came back with an idea of what I was getting myself into in my first grade reading, my junior year, I made the honor roll for the first time in my life.

And I think it shocked anybody that knew me, but the man that was happiest for me was the guy who taught me how to study, Dr.

Lane.

You know, and he was a man's man, tough, and he gave me a hug when I told him he couldn't have been happier.

And those moments, I can't express how much they meant to me.

SPEAKER_03: Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: And I write about them in my book, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: Yeah, absolutely.

The the power of a mentor, the power of a teacher, the power of somebody just shows a kid that they care.

It's profound.

It is.

And when you grow up like me, it's critical.

Absolutely.

So in sixth grade, you were told you would never graduate, you would never amount to anything.

But obviously, that was wrong.

Talk to me about life continuing out of high school.

What happens?

SPEAKER_01: Well, I graduated high school in the summer before I graduated college or went to college, I'm sorry, in between the summer when I graduated high school and started college, I had worked for my family business, which was in road construction for years at this point.

And I started to realize, I started to consume alcohol, and I started to realize that alcohol covered up some of the symptoms I was having, that I didn't know I had a mental disorder.

I didn't know what was going on with me at this point.

But even through high school and certainly became more pronounced in college, I began to suffer from bounce of insomnia.

I mean bouts of it for weeks and weeks.

I was having flashbacks and uh just, you know, negative memories that were coming into my brain for no apparent reason.

They were being triggered by smells and sights and thoughts, and and I just didn't know anything about them, right?

So I was having difficulty when you peel back the onion or peel back the curtain to my private life that no one was seeing, and I would have chronic muscle tenseness, I was having nightmares, my fight or flight response would get stuck on, and I would feel like there was a bomb threat called in for no reason whatsoever.

And so I really had a lot of difficulty, and what I figured out was that alcohol covered up a lot of these symptoms.

So I began drinking.

And when I went to college, I went to the number one party school in the United States.

I went to West Virginia University, and I went to the School of Engineering.

And so by my fourth day of college, Kevin, I was arrested for driving under the influence.

And it it was really a uh, no pun intended, a sobering moment for me.

And it really got me back on track and made me realize very early that I was becoming someone that I didn't intend to be, and that those actions really blemished the work that I'd done in my life thus far.

And so I I was able to get my focus back on track.

I graduated from the School of Engineering, the civil engineering degree in 1999.

But really I also struggled in college, Kevin.

I I struggled mightily with with the symptoms that I've talked about already.

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: Wow.

I wanted to back up a little bit.

You said something about, I guess that in between high school and college, you you mentioned something about your family's business.

Yes.

So what kind of business was that?

And I guess I I guess that I I kind of failed to ask was during your time in boarding school, what kind of contact and relationship did you keep with your family?

SPEAKER_01: Well, I was much closer with my father than my mother.

My dad was a coal miner.

He was a hardened individual.

And I don't fold him for being that.

Those were his circumstances, and that's just who he was.

And so, especially when I was in junior high, my father didn't like the comments that would come home with my report cards about me being perceived as lazy or a daydreamer.

And so he put me to work at 13.

I began working in a machine shop.

When I was 13, my my family had a mining business.

They had some surface mines and some deep mines, and they mined coal in north central West Virginia.

And so I worked in the machine shop where they rebuilt some of the miners and underground equipment and, you know, really just cleaned the bathroom, cleaned the floors, the dirtiest jobs you can imagine, unhooking hydraulic hoses from roof boulders and miners and shuttle cars and things like that.

And, you know, that was in the late 80s.

And into the early 90s, my family pivoted more into road construction and asphalt paving and things more in the public infrastructure realm.

So through high school, I was working uh putting in water lines and sewer lines.

I worked behind an asphalt paver, and really by the time I got to college, uh, I had worked five or six summers.

And you know, I was very knowledgeable.

So into college, I was a crew supervisor and a surveyor and and even a project engineer towards the end.

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: Now, when you would end up graduating, would you go back and work with the family business after graduating college, or would you pursue a different career path?

SPEAKER_01: I did pursue all the options that I could find in the late 90s for engineers.

There wasn't a robust market hiring.

And really my closest job I was I was offered was in Washington, D.C.

And being a kid from the country and and I went to boarding school in the country.

I just didn't see myself in a city at that time in my life.

So I turned those offers down and I went to work for my family.

I was offered a job right out of college and I did that.

Wow.

SPEAKER_03: How long would you end up working there?

SPEAKER_01: So I I don't remember how old I was when I graduated college.

I'm just gonna guess I was 22.

I worked there until I was 40.

Oh wow.

Yeah.

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: Now did you during this time I guess I I I I when I hear this, I guess it it it's such a shock because it's like boarding school.

You you got away from that.

And then after Graduating college, you kind of went back to hometown.

Did you have much of a relationship with your mother?

No.

No.

SPEAKER_01: I did not.

SPEAKER_03: Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: I did not, Kevin.

And I really, because of the interactions at my earliest ages, I would say I never really had a relationship with her, even as a child.

Yeah.

I always kind of saw myself as having one parent.

One parent was involved in my life.

He wasn't perfect, but no one is, Kevin.

And I believe he tried.

I think he tried as as much as he knew how to navigate that situation.

But my dad was an all-business guy, Kevin, and he was gone a lot in my childhood for work.

He traveled a good bit.

And, you know, when I got the chance to go travel with him for work, things were better for me than they were at home.

And so really it, you know, in my early 20s, I wasn't putting all the pieces together as to how much my childhood would affect my adult life.

And I knew I was dealing with symptoms and problems, but I didn't know what they stemmed from.

Right.

So I was just doing my best.

And I knew that business inside and out.

And it made a lot of sense for me because I could go into my family's business and really be have an accelerated career, if that makes sense.

Yeah, no, absolutely.

SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.

You spoke a little bit ago, a little bit about the drinking.

And you you told us in college right up right after the start, getting caught uh drinking and driving.

Yeah.

After college, you're in this career.

How would alcohol kind of impact the rest of your story?

SPEAKER_01: In every way possible, Kevin.

I was someone in my 20s.

I would say maybe the term is binge drinking.

I don't know if that was exactly it, but I drank to numb myself.

I drank to numb my mind.

I drank to not have the thoughts that I would have when I was sober.

I now know those as flashbacks.

But, you know, when I drank heavily, I didn't have nightmares.

I didn't have flashbacks.

I didn't have poor thoughts.

Even my my fight or flight response wouldn't get stuck on.

So I saw alcohol as giving me a break.

And so I didn't necessarily drink every night in my 20s, but I would go out on the weekends, Kevin, and I I would have more than anyone around me.

Let's put it that way.

You know, if if people around me were having four or five, I'd be at 10 when we left, right?

Yeah.

10 drinks versus four or five or everybody else.

And I wasn't someone, at least I don't think I was, that acted out of line.

I I didn't get in trouble again.

But the damage I was doing was to myself.

And if I could, I'll just explain a little bit more.

As I got into my mid to late 20s, I met my first wife.

And when we got married and she started living with me every day, she could start to see that there was something wrong with me that had not been diagnosed.

And she was one of the first ones in my life who started to say, hey, let's go and get you help and let's figure out what's going on.

And I did.

I knew there was something going on, and I didn't want to deal with it.

And I certainly didn't want to drink every weekend to have to get through it.

Unfortunately, I was misdiagnosed for about 10 years.

And so I believe I started walking in the door at 26 or 27 to psychologists, to my family doctor, to therapists.

And I was trying to get help.

And I was diagnosed with I was having medication and prescriptions given to me for all these things I didn't have depression, anxiety.

These were not the root causes.

And really, Kevin, what happened there was there were a lot of disguised presentations where I would go in and say, hey, I'm having this problem.

I wasn't putting all the symptoms together and saying, hey, there's a breadth of issues here and I need treatment.

What is the diagnosis?

What's wrong?

And I just didn't know anything about it.

And I was just trying to navigate the best I could.

So I tried the medication route for several years and it just didn't move the needle.

And I was just being prescribed larger and larger doses because my body was becoming used to what I was given.

And it wasn't moving the needle.

And so I was so frustrated by my early 30s that I stopped taking medication and I started drinking every day.

And that's where things went haywire.

SPEAKER_03: Yeah.

37, I know from notes is a pivotal year.

What happened at the age of 37?

SPEAKER_01: Can I back up just a bit?

I want to say one thing before we go to 37.

Absolutely.

Um I was when I was 29, on top of all these personal issues I was having, on top of my first wife being pregnant with our first son.

My father got sick and he had a heart attack, and he basically called me one day and said, Hey, I need you to come to the hospital.

I came up to the hospital.

He was sitting outside in his truck and he was upset, and he told me what happened that night.

And he just looked at me and said, You're in charge.

Good luck.

So at 29, I took over the family business.

I was the company's president, and I didn't know what I was getting myself into there.

Right.

So there was a lot going on when I was in my 30s.

I was running a company and I had the intelligence to do so and the technical know-how, but really the emotional intelligence in in me was lacking.

So I I was also coping with that with alcohol.

I was coping stress with alcohol.

I was coping my symptoms with alcohol, and I was drinking every day.

I was not late for work.

I was highly functional.

Our company went from having 80 employees to around 600.

And it was, it was a it was a true blessing.

And I loved every minute of it.

But, you know, in my personal life after I got home, I was I mired in difficulty.

And I was, you know, in some nights I was just sitting in a dark room trying to reset my brain.

And even alcohol wasn't working.

So when I was 37, to answer your question, I started to turn, my skin started to turn sheet white.

And I I really started to get scared.

I stopped being able to keep food down.

And I went to the doctor and I said, What is wrong?

And got some tests run.

Test came back and said that my liver was failing and it wasn't processing vitamins.

And if I continued this route, I'm a dead man.

And so I began to realize that I had to quit now.

And when I went to quit, Kevin, I couldn't.

Yeah.

I couldn't do it on my own.

SPEAKER_03: Wow.

SPEAKER_01: How long would you try to quit?

Well, I tried for about a month on my own, somewhere in there.

And I would say every night I'm going to stop.

And I couldn't make it through I I I couldn't make it until 6 30, 7 o'clock in the evening.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Wow.

SPEAKER_03: Wow.

So what was the turning point?

How how did you stop?

SPEAKER_01: That's an excellent question.

And I believe it's just it's one of the best parts of my book.

And I I write about it in chapter nine.

And it's a book about my dr it's a chapter about my drinking problem.

I had a at this point I'm serving on boards of companies, and I had a board meeting in Las Vegas.

And so I was in Las Vegas about a month after I needed to quit.

And you know, I'm at Las Vegas isn't doing me any favors.

And so I get on a plane and I'm having this conversation with myself.

I'm not drinking today.

I'm not drinking tomorrow.

It's not going to happen.

I'm done.

And so, Kevin, I didn't even make it to when the flight landed in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

I didn't.

I was with a coworker, he drove me home.

And I'm just as far from being able to quit as possible.

So that weekend, I went to a bar with a friend.

And we went to downtown Morgantown and was at a bar that I always went to, and I was very comfortable, but I'm upset.

And my friend could see that.

And this is someone that I'd known from a long time from my hometown.

And he looks at me and he says, How are you doing?

And I looked at him and I said, Not good.

And he said, Well, what's going on?

So we talked for a little bit.

I don't get into every detail, but Kevin he looked at me and he said, Why don't you come to church with me?

And I'm like, What?

You go to church?

That was my response, right?

It wasn't no.

It was I was kind of caught off guard.

And this this was something that I had not heard ever discussed in a bar at midnight.

And I I began to have this feeling come over me.

And I I began to realize that this was a lifeline.

And so in a couple moments, I looked at him.

After I asked him if he went to church, I didn't know.

And I just said, what time?

And then when Sunday came around, I went to church.

And it was a great experience.

And I just felt peace come over me.

And so that didn't make me quit, but I went back the next Sunday, right?

I'm I'm really struggling here.

I'm sheet white.

I'm not keeping down food.

My eyes are bloodshot at this point.

And I can't quit drinking.

My body's craving it.

I'm not making it to past seven o'clock in the evening, but I am cutting back when I'm drinking.

And so I went back the next Sunday and the next Sunday.

And very soon I began to realize that my life and the way I'm living it is in conflict with what God wants for my life.

And so I agreed.

I had a sister who was telling me that I should consider going to detox or rehab.

And I walked in her office and I just said, you know, I agree.

I need to do this.

If I don't, I'm not going to be around for my son.

And that was not an acceptable outcome for me.

I didn't want to do anything bad to him.

I'd had a very hard childhood and I didn't want him to have that same one.

And so I chose to go away and get help.

Wow.

You had never been to church before this.

Well, I I wouldn't say that.

I grew up Catholic and I'm not Catholic now.

Really, I kind of separated myself from the Catholic Church in my early 20s.

And for the difficulties that I've already talked about, you know, it was it was hard for me to understand why God would let me go through this as a child.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: And I don't think I was ever purposefully mad at him, but I was very, very frustrated.

And I just felt that there were people that church was meant for, and there was people that it wasn't meant for, and I was in the latter category.

Yeah.

And that's a terrible way to look at it.

It is, but I'm being honest with you.

I didn't have any faith life in my later 20s, in my early 30s.

I might have prayed every once in a while for things that I wanted.

I certainly wasn't praying for, hey God, use me for something good.

Hey, God, what do you want me to do today?

It was completely selfish if I did pray.

And I wasn't going to church.

Very little, if at all.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: And so this particular church that I was invited to was a non-denominational Christian church.

It just so happens to be the largest one in West Virginia.

And uh it's a wonderful organization with wonderful pastors, and they changed my life, Kevin.

Wow.

Completely changed it.

Well, we both know that God and Jesus did that, right?

But but they were the catalyst.

And they were so welcoming and so kind and invited me as I was.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: And accepted, right?

Yeah.

That's discipleship.

SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.

What was your experience like at the rehab facility?

Or I'm not sure the the correct term for it, but that's what I call it, Kevin.

Okay, okay, good.

SPEAKER_01: I've heard it called a clinic before, but so I I prayed, I guess selfishly, right?

I prayed the night before I left for rehab.

And I just said, God, I'm done with this.

Please help me.

Please help me get over the hump.

Please take the urges away.

The morning I left.

I got on the plane and I was shaking.

I was in bad shape.

And when I landed, went straight to the rehab clinic and uh it was in Florida.

There that day I was diagnosed with complex post-traumatic stress disorder.

I was also diagnosed with uh alcohol use disorder.

And I was given a tranquilizer to help me.

Basically, the tranquilizer in rehab, it helps you detox, it tricks your mind into thinking that you have alcohol, but actually it's a replicate.

And so once I was given that tranquilizer, I slept for about 14 hours and woke up sober for the first time in over 10 years.

Wow.

And dude, it hurt.

Barlaid 10 years worth of hangovers into one day, and yeah, it was a tough one.

But I got through it.

And the urges were gone the next day.

SPEAKER_02: Really?

SPEAKER_01: I've never had an urge to drink again.

Really?

Absolutely.

God took those urges away.

Wow.

Absolutely.

I can I can sit here and say, yeah, I was given a tranquilizer and it helped, but God took the urges away.

I've not drank since that day.

That was April 1st, 2017.

Wow.

2014.

I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_03: Wow.

That's that's absolutely remarkable.

And it is absolutely.

Absolutely.

How did your life look different and does it still look different today without alcohol?

SPEAKER_01: Very much so.

The immediate things that I saw changed were the obvious ones.

Like, well, I've got a bunch more free time now because I'm not sitting around drinking or going to bars.

And boy, I have a lot more money in my checkbook, right?

Because I'm not buying alcohol.

But but those are superficial answers, right?

The real change happened in parenting.

The real change happened in me starting to seek who God wanted me to be and what he wanted me to do.

I grew much more as a Christian in rehab and outside of rehab.

And I grew a lot personally in my understanding of my disorder, in understanding the things that I needed to change, and in mending some of the damage that I'd done as an alcoholic, right?

I didn't do a lot of damage to others.

Most of it was to myself.

And that had to be repaired too.

And so it took a lot of time to heal.

And I got help as I needed it.

I read a ton.

I started reading the Bible every day.

And I could give you 10 or 12 more examples of things that happened in my career and personal life that just, I mean, it's it's unfathomable for me coming from where I have to be a part of of what I ended up doing after I got sober and God coming into my life.

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_03: What I love about your story, though, is that's that's not the end.

Because you and in uh obviously there's a lot of that you can fill in the gaps as needed, but you would actually decide to go back to school.

SPEAKER_01: I did.

Uh about a year after I got sober.

I'm all about education.

I believe I I'm gonna strive to get better and be the best version of myself until the day I die.

And I've always been big into education, and I was a part of a group called YPO, which stands for Young Presidents Organization.

And it's really a networking and learning organization for young presidents and CEOs who need polishing.

And so I was on a trip, an educational trip, and uh I was one of the only people in in the group who didn't drink.

And so there was a happy hour event, and I was on the beach reading a book instead of standing around a bar.

And a guy rolls up to me on a beach in a wheelchair.

I'd never seen that before.

And he rolls up and he says, What do you read?

So I answer him and we start talking.

And he asks me what I do and and what my past has been like.

And so I'm talking to this guy, kind of wondering, you know, where he's gone with this.

And he looks at me and he says, Have you ever thought about going to Harvard Business School?

And I looked at him, Kevin, and I just started busting out laughing.

I'm like, there's no way that place is letting me in.

And he just looked at me and very nicely said, Do you like this island?

I said, Yeah, man, it's a beautiful island.

He said, That's nice.

Because I own it.

And I I'm gonna give you a piece of advice and I hope you listen to me.

He said, My name's David V.

Johnson.

I'm from Detroit, Michigan.

And I think you're an excellent candidate to go to this program that I went to.

And if you apply online, you can put my name at the bottom.

And he said his name again.

I had never met that man before, that moment, and I've never talked to him since.

But I took his advice.

I applied, and I got in like three weeks later.

And then I had to figure out like I really wasn't expecting to get in.

Then I had to figure out how I was going to do my job and go to Boston to go to school.

And so I figured that out.

And I went.

And in 2017, at 40 years old, I graduated from Harvard University.

SPEAKER_02: Wow.

SPEAKER_03: It's incredible.

Wow.

More incredible than a kid who in sixth grade was told he'd never even graduate high school.

More incredible than that is the fact of the power of Jesus Christ to put you in that position on that beach reading a book.

And then that man, right at the right time, right in the right place, all was made.

And it was all part of the plan.

And that is magical, my friend.

SPEAKER_01: It is.

It's so good.

And it it made for such an awesome story that, you know, I I really I sat in my basement for two years and made sure that I explained it in the best way possible.

Because if he'll do that for me, he'll do it for the people listening to your call.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03: So you've graduated once, you know, with engineering degree.

Now you graduate at 40 years old from Harvard Business School.

Where does writing a book fit into this whole puzzle?

SPEAKER_01: Well, there was one step in between this.

So between my second and third year at Harvard, because of my difficulties with post-traumatic stress disorder and my frustration with just trying to navigate a family business and having that disorder.

My dad came back into the business and we were at odds on several things.

And when we would be at odds, sometimes he would get elevated.

And once he got elevated, it put me in a bad place.

And there was only so much I could take of that.

And at this point in my late 30s, I wasn't drinking and I'm not getting that that drug to take the edge off.

And I just couldn't deal with it anymore.

And I resigned my I resigned my position as CEO a few months before my third year at Harvard.

And so, you know, after after I graduated, I started to seek opportunities elsewhere.

And I found a company in uh Charlotte-based bridge building company, and they do a lot of work in South Carolina and Georgia.

I found an opportunity there as a chief operating officer.

And so in my last year at Harvard, I was at a company called United Infrastructure Group, and I'm still there today.

But when after about a year of being in the Charlotte area, uh my oldest son, who was 11, really needed a dad closer than being home every other weekend.

And so I chose to move back for my son's benefit and really just help him get to where he needs to get.

And so I kind of furloughed my own career to do that.

And then the pandemic hit.

And when the pandemic hit, then I had the time.

I stopped being able to be a board member on several positions that I had, paying positions, because I have asthma and I was scared to get on a plane.

And right, wrong, or indifferent, that grounded me.

And I was at home, and I'm not someone, Kevin, who sits around and does nothing.

And I just I just kept feeling this calling to write a book.

And years previous to that feeling and that calling, I had some Harvard classmates, one in particular, Thomas Wiegelmann, Dr.

Thomas Wiegelmann from Munich, Germany, who just kept hounding.

Me.

You've got to write a book, John.

You've got to tell your story.

And I told a really brief version of my story in a family business class in Boston in my first year.

And, you know, I was encouraged by many people to write a book about it because it's just an interesting story that you don't hear really at all, I don't think, in in books and in business class.

And, you know, family businesses are tough, but most family members will not talk about it because they don't want to make the other family members mad.

And so for that very reason, I didn't want to write a book.

And so I'd had a friend or two hounding me for a couple years.

And when the pandemic hit to make a long story short, that's when things changed and I started seriously considering it and getting underway.

SPEAKER_03: Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

So it's one thing to decide you're gonna write a book.

It's a whole other thing to actually write a book and uh and publish it.

How was that process for you, especially the fact of you had to force yourself to go back, I'm sure, to a lot of memories that were hard.

Yes.

What was it like for you to be able to make it through all of that and and come up with this finished product, this this amazing book that you would be comfortable then sharing with the world?

SPEAKER_01: It was a long journey and it was as difficult as you can imagine, especially the parts about going back to childhood and admitting, right, that you went through this to yourself and to others.

And then the thought of it being public and well, there's no more secrets in your life, that's overwhelming when you first start the journey.

And don't forget now that I've never taken a writing class in my life.

Never.

I I hadn't had any type of writing training other than what I had at Kiskey Prep School in the early 90s.

And past 12th grade, I'd never really written a paper again.

I went to engineering school because I didn't want to.

I was dead set in my thoughts that I'm an engineer and not a writer.

So it was hard for me to get off base from that.

And even though I'm not a writer, I love to read.

And I would say, especially after I quit drinking, I would read all the time.

Some nights I would read a whole book from start to finish because it kept my mind focused on something and kept me out of trouble.

So why not do it?

Right?

And you learn from reading.

So I I knew what what a reader wanted in a book, or at least I thought I did, but being able to transcribe that to sitting uh with a laptop on your lap and writing doesn't necessarily translate.

And so really I had to write a whole first draft the whole way through the book and throw it away before I really knew how to write a book that could take a reader up and down in the joys and pitfalls of my life and make it engaging and keep people reading and, you know, tell stories with inside within facts of what had happened in my life to make it a journey that people could engage with and relate to.

And so, you know, the one good thing I have had in my in my life is growing up in West Virginia and storytelling is something that happens in the country and it's an art form.

And so, you know, this like recognition of having an inner voice and telling a story in a unique way is what really in the second draft made my book what it is.

And the one thing that I didn't know when I was writing was I didn't know where I was going to end the book.

And so what gave me so much difficulty in the first draft was I wasn't writing a book with the end in mind.

And that's what I realized in in the second draft that I didn't get in the first.

When you write with an end in mind, every story, every chapter has purpose and builds to to your ending.

And and it just gives it the right context.

And and I wanted to write a book too, Kevin, that took people up and down, it made people laugh and cry because some of the subjects of my life are very sad.

And not everybody just wants to read a sad book and only be sad.

And so I tried to have fun with it, and that helped me get through the difficulty of writing the sad parts.

SPEAKER_03: Yeah.

Yeah.

Upon completion of your book, what has been the feedback you've gotten from strangers and and even people you know, family members?

SPEAKER_01: Oh, it's been it's been overwhelming.

It it's been so good.

It's been so encouraging.

I think this is my 15th podcast, Kevin.

Not only during the publishing and people reading and getting back to me and saying, hey, I loved your book, or you know, the some of the best compliments I've had is I had one woman who emailed me at like 6 a.m.

and she said, Hey, I got your book yesterday and I picked it up and I opened a few pages and I couldn't put it down.

I read the whole thing last night.

I'm just going to bed right now at 6 a.m.

You did a wonderful.

I'm like, I didn't, Kevin, I didn't think anybody'd buy it.

I gotta be honest with you.

I didn't think anybody'd publish it.

And and this is like just being short-sighted, right?

Because God had a plan and and I'm like kind of fighting it the whole way.

Like, God, you know, I I really don't want to write this book.

I really don't want to talk about these things.

And what's the purpose?

It's already done, right?

And now I know, right, that God is using my story for good.

And he's using my story to bring people closer to him, and he's using it to help people.

And I'm flattered and honored by that.

And a a lot of the feedback I've gotten, I've gotten feedback from alcoholics who are trying to quit or have already quit and are trying to stay sober.

I've gotten feedback from people who have struggled with the same upbringing as a child in a violent home that I have.

And some of these people are are well known, right?

Two of them United States senators.

And it it it's just it's been incredible to hear people just open up to me and share their own difficulty and their own journey, and to hear thank you from people like that for saying I I haven't felt like I could tell my story because of the retribution I would receive from my family and what it might do to fracture it.

But I'm so thankful that you told yours.

I've had uh I'll say one more thing and I'll be quiet.

I've had colleagues on boards, boards of directors, as recently as a few months ago tell me, hey, I I I read your book, I loved it, and I I I bought three more copies and I gave them to my children because I want them to see one, what can happen when you get off track in your life, but two, the goodness of God.

And it's just, and what an honor.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: I I can't say it another way.

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_03: Please remind us the name of your book and where somebody can find your book who's excited enough to read it because I mean, my goodness, you've sold us on it like nobody's business.

So where can where can we find it?

SPEAKER_01: Man, thank you.

Thank you.

This has been awesome.

For your listeners, my book, the name of my book is Appalachian Kid.

Appalachian Kid.

And it can be found on Amazon.

There's hardback, there's paperback copy, there's a Kindle copy, and there's also an audiobook.

And if you type in my name, John Boyle, Appalachian Kid, it will pop up and you can buy it there.

I also have a website, AppalachianKid.com, and it there's a little bio of me, and there's some endorsements that I received when I first published my book.

And there's also a synopsis of the book itself, which gives the reader just a nutshell of what they'll be reading.

But of course, anybody that listens to your show is going to know more than the synopsis would tell them.

And I'm also on LinkedIn, John P.

Boyle.

Amazing.

SPEAKER_03: John, I will be positive that everything is is in the uh episode show notes for anybody interested.

That please just check out the show notes for today's episode for easy access.

John, man, I want to thank you so much today for for sharing your story, for taking us really on this journey.

And I want to say that I'm so happy for you in the place that you are today, what you have overcome.

Life hasn't been easy.

But I look at you and I think what an amazing testimony you are to the power of God.

SPEAKER_01: Amen, brother.

Amen.

I couldn't have said it better.

Thank you so much for having me.

It's it's an honor, and I I really hope this brings value to your listeners.

It's been a great podcast.

Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.

Absolutely.

For you listening today, I hope as always that you've enjoyed our conversation with John as much as I have.

Such an amazing guy with such a heartfelt story to share.

I hope that something said today can be an impact to you in your life.

If something did resonate, if something made you think of somebody in your life, please share today's episode with them.

That would be amazing.

And don't forget to check out the show notes for all of the links to find John's book.

Until next time, I'm Kevin Ball.

And of course, this is Brit Grace and Inspiration.