Show Transcript

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I obviously have no idea why you clicked on today's episode.

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I have no idea how you're feeling, what you're going through,

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what you're dealing with in life.

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But I want you to know this. Before you hear anything else, I want you to know

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that where you are is not where you have to stay.

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And where you come from, your past, that does not dictate where you go, what your future is.

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I say this because that is the theme of today's episode.

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That is the theme of today's guest, Eric Allen.

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Eric, he grew up in a broken home. He was addicted to drugs.

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He was in jail by 18 years old, bankrupt by 21.

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And yet, look where he is today. He turned it all around. And I want you to realize, so can you.

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So no matter what you're going through in life, I want you to realize that there's always a path forward.

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Sometimes you got to get a little creative. Sometimes you got to do the work, do the hard stuff.

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And sometimes maybe you just need to hear how somebody else did it. You need to be inspired.

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And then maybe you can put things into motion in your own story.

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This is episode 290. This is the story of Eric Allen.

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What's up, my friend, and welcome to Grit, Grace, and Inspiration.

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I am your host, Kevin Lowe. 20 years ago, I awoke from a life-saving surgery

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only to find that I was left completely blind.

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And since that day, I've learned a lot about life, a lot about living, and a lot about myself.

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And here on this podcast, I want to share those insights with you.

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Because, friend, if you are still searching for your purpose,

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still trying to understand why, or still left searching for that next right

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path to take, we'll consider this to be your stepping stone to get you from

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where you are to where you want to be.

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I believe that one of the most difficult things that we'll ever do in this life

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is understanding what our true life's purpose is.

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And equally so is truly understanding what is God's will for our life.

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Today's prayer request is for somebody who's been struggling with that very question.

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What is God's will for his life?

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He's been out of work since December, 2023.

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He sent out over 300 different applications and still it's like nothing will work.

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He's still just hitting a brick wall and he's struggling to understand why.

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Struggling to support his family, right?

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And that's why he asked if we could say a prayer for him.

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As I say, with any prayer requests on this podcast, they can be kept anonymous.

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And that is the case with today's prayer request.

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I just ask that you please help me in praying that God will not only let the perfect,

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most ideal job open up for him, but to also give him perfect clarity and understanding

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of exactly what God's will is for his life.

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That is today's prayer request. It would be amazing to have you joining me in

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praying for this person right now.

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Now, I want to remind you, if you have your own prayer request,

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I would love to feature it here on the podcast.

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I have people listening to this podcast from all over the world,

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and I feel like what an amazing platform to get people praying for something

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that means something close to us.

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So please send your prayer request via text message to 877-749-8178.

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Again, that number is 877-749-8178. you can send your prayer request via text to that number.

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I also have that listed inside of today's show notes in case that's easier for you to jot down that way.

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And with that, my friend, I am beyond excited to welcome you to today's amazing

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interview with none other than Eric Allen.

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I grew up in a place called Kennewick, Washington, Eastern Washington area.

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And I grew up in what I thought was a typical household, man.

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My mom and dad took us to church. I went to Sunday school.

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And though I was the kid that would excuse myself to go to the bathroom and

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I'd have a pocket full of GI Joes and then just play with GI Joes in the bathroom.

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And for some reason, no one ever came to find me. But a whole another story

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there. But we went to Sunday school. I played little league.

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My dad would take my best friend, Dave, who I met in first grade and still my best friend.

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He'd take us out to dumpsters behind big stores and literally throw us in and say, go find treasure.

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And we just would venture into dumpsters and dump sites and see what we could go find.

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And I had a good childhood up until my parents got divorced when I was 11 years old.

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And then when that happened, my mom got together with a man who was physically

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abusive, emotionally abusive, almost immediately.

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I remember there being times where, you know, I would be in the backyard and I'd be playing.

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I'd hear them argue and I'd run over to the bedroom window and I'd look through

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and I'd see him hitting her with a cordless phone when those around and I'd

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call the police and they would show up and my mom would never press charts.

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I never understood that. You know, it was like this rinse and repeat cycle for her over and over.

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You know, we, we would constantly be calling the police. The neighbors would

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always be checking on us. Right.

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And then they did the smart thing. They got pregnant. And in the middle of my

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eighth grade year, they decided to move us from Kennewick, Washington to Stevensville, Montana.

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Now, when we moved there, it was a population of about 1200 people.

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And we lived on the outskirts of town. So we're further away from any sort of

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police or anything like that should anything happen.

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And they rented this house that was on five acres. It was a beautiful property,

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two big ponds right by the Bitterroot River, you know, lots of room to run around

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and, you know, shoot the BB gun and just get dirty.

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And the problem though, was that house had three bedrooms. So it was one for

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them, it was one for my little brother who's come us old, and then one for my

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younger sister who's four years younger than me.

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And they said, Eric, you get to live in the garage. So I literally had this

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tarp that separated the garage, my bedroom on half, and the truck was able to

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pull into the garage on the other half.

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Now, luckily, my half had the fireplace that would keep me semi-warm in the

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middle of the negative degree nights of Montana in the winter.

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But that's where I stayed. And there would be nights where once that fire would

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go out, 1, 2 a.m., I would be freezing.

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Like I'd wake up and I could see my breath, right? You know,

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that cold out there. There was a moment, though, when I was about 13,

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14 years old, that really changed the trajectory of my life.

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I was home, brushed my teeth one night, and they came home arguing.

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It wasn't anything different than any other night.

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But I remember as I was brushing my teeth, I felt God say, dude,

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you've got to look around the corner to see what's going on.

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And as I peek around the corner, my view was down the hall was to the kitchen,

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to the pantry, to the garage door where my bedroom was at.

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And as I peeked around the corner in the pantry area, this man is on top of

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my mom. Boom, boom, boom.

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And I had 20 seconds of courage in that moment. I walked up and I grabbed a

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cast iron pan out of the cupboard and I swung as hard as I could and I split

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the back of his head open.

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And he turned around and he said, what? And as he did that, I smacked him again in the forehead.

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Again, splitting his forehead open. And blood coming down his face.

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I swung so hard the second time I had fallen over.

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And I remember him standing up over me yelling. my mom jumps up like mama bear,

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punches him five, six times. There's blood splat in the wall.

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I mean, this is a crazy movie scene.

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The police finally show up, take him to jail. My mom doesn't press charges, rinse and repeat.

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And I actually thought I was the hero in that moment, but it wasn't much longer

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after that, that with three months left in my freshman year of high school, I got kicked out.

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I had to go stay with my buddy Forrest and finished the year of my freshman

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year there at Forrest House and moved back to Kennewick to live with my dad.

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Now, my dad, he rented a house for him and I, and he put 20 bucks in the cup.

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That was my lunch money for the week, put hunger man meals in the freezer,

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cereal milk in the house so that I could eat. And then he would go stay with his girlfriend.

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So I would see my dad in passing maybe two or three times a month.

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That led me to get into whatever I wanted because I knew that I couldn't get in trouble.

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Basically, I was getting stoned before school, after school,

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during lunch, me and my group of buddies, we were what you would call the stoner kids, right?

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So we were taking acid and mushrooms and Robitussin, DM, whatever we could get our hands on.

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And when I was 18 years old, as a senior, I actually got arrested for having

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a bong, which is really funny now looking back, it's now legal to have a bong in Kennewick.

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But in 1998, it was not. And I had to go stay the night in jail.

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And I was still a senior in high school. I literally wrote a note to my dad

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saying, hey, stay in Danny's house, right?

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And just left and went and checked myself into jail because I knew he wouldn't call Danny.

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So I checked myself in on Friday, got out on Saturday. But this was an old school

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jail. This is black and white chain gang outfit on bright orange slipper type of jail.

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This was when they would bring the food out. You could see it hot steaming off,

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but you couldn't reach it until it got cold. Then they'd slide it into your cell.

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That was an old school jail, right? And then two weeks after I graduated high

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school, I woke up to a post-it note on the bathroom mirror.

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And it said, you can't comply with house rules. You have 48 hours to get out.

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And so from there, between the age of 18 and 21, I would move 21 times,

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living off of couches here, couches there, basically homeless at that point.

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And one of those moves was to Seattle, Washington. I had $100 in my pocket and

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ended up living with a guy who went by the name of Mr.

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Sexy. He was a regional wrestler. It was the funnest thing ever to live with

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Mr. Sexy, still a good friend of mine today.

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But it was during that time that I was partying and by the time I was 21,

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I was $28,000 in debt and I had. to file bankruptcy.

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I would end up landing a job with Universal Records, which was a dream job of

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mine to work in the music industry.

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I lied to get the job because I had to be in college.

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I wasn't in college. I just went and paid for a course, took my receipt to Universal,

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said, yeah, I'm in college.

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And I got in, but I got in the door and I was just the mailroom guy.

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I was tracking sales, all this stuff and posters, you know, being involved as much as I could.

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But that gave me free concerts two to three nights a week and had an open tab.

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So I got to live a rock star lifestyle without being a rock star, hanging out backstage.

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And then my one year anniversary came and I got laid off because of a thing

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called Napster. If people remember Napster, it absolutely killed the music industry.

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Yup. And I was the guy at the bottom of the totem pole along with 15 other people

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in that office that all got laid off at that time.

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And I started working at Starbucks as a night manager. And one night,

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you know, basically as that night manager, I was basically getting off work.

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I'd go to the grocery store, grab a six pack of beer, go to Hollywood video,

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grab my favorite movie on a DVD, go back to my ghetto apartment there and rent

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in Washington across the street from where Jimi Hendrix is buried.

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And I would drink myself to sleep every night. It was rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat.

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And then one night though, while working at Starbucks, a girl walked in and

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said, Hey, we've got a cool college age about night down there at church. Would you want to go?

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Now I'm depressed. I have no friends. And she was absolutely gorgeous.

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Yep. What time do I need to be there?

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And I went to that church event and it was at that event that I realized that

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God had been protecting me my entire life.

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All the stupid things that I'd done that should have killed me.

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I was still alive. I'm 44 today. I've never had a stitch. I've never broken a bone.

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I've been protected by God, but I wasn't ready to give up my worldly desires.

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But a month later, it was Easter 2004. And I woke up after a night of partying,

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surrounded by 15 other dudes in my buddy's basement.

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And they're all passed out. And I remember waking up going, man,

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I just felt God saying, dude, you're going to go down a path that's going to

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end your life real quick if you don't start making some changes.

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And so in that moment, for me, I gave my life to Christ right then and there. And I quit.

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Cold turkey, drugs, drinking cigarettes, everything in that moment.

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And I called that girl up and I got her voicemail. I said, hey,

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happy Easter. Thanks for inviting me to church. Maybe I'll see you at the store sometime.

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And 11 months later, we were married and we've been married for 19 years now.

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Oh my gosh.

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Wow. Wow. Wow. Okay. So that is one heck of a story so far.

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We might have to unpack some of those things, but I'm happy to go back to where we were.

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I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Like that was one heck of a cliff notes version.

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Wow. Wow. Wow. So backing up with the whole thing with, with your mom,

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with the stepdad and stuff, was he ever abusive to any of you or the other like siblings? Yeah.

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Great question. Never to me. I don't know if he was to siblings.

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I'm not, I'm not sure. I never witnessed it myself.

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I wouldn't put it past him, but for me, I never, I never saw it or,

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or he was not abusive to me.

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Okay. Verbally abusive. Most definitely. Yes. I don't know about physically. Yes.

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Understandable. Yeah. When when you had to leave and you went to live with your

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dad, did you like the way you made that sound?

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I couldn't help but feel sorry for you. This kid who moved back with your dad

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and then your dad really wasn't around.

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Yeah. Was it was that hard on you?

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It was interesting because I think at the time, I didn't really see it as a

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bad thing because I was just so wanted to do my own thing.

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I wanted to go out and party and get stoned all the time.

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And that was our drug of choice, my group. We would just get stoned all the

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time. We had a shed in the back of the house that we rented.

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And that became the Cheech and Chong smoke sack, basically.

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We were always getting stoned in there. And so at the time, I didn't realize

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or think about it. Like, why is dad not here so much?

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Like, I just knew that he was out. That was just normal life for me.

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And I remember one time my dad asking me if I was on drugs or was doing drugs.

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And I said, no, I was probably stoned at the time.

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And never, it came up, it never came up again.

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Never got asked, never got told about drugs. Never. I mean, I remember the DARE

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program in school, right?

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But never by my parents, right? Right. And my dad, you know,

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he struggled with that stuff in earlier in my life as well, which I later found out.

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But at that time, I believe that he was sober at the time. And but he just chose

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to, you know, spend time with his girlfriend over his kid.

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Yeah. Wow. Now, during this time, I mean, you're a teenager,

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you're partying, you're doing drugs.

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Did you still, though, continue to go to school?

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I did. Yeah. So I never was one to skip school.

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I got detention one time for being late too many times to class,

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but I never skipped school.

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I had a photography class, which I loved because it was just super easy.

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But I remember when a good album was going to drop, because I've always loved music.

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When a good album would drop, I would skip that class like, oh,

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I'm going to go out and take pictures on the campus.

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And then I would jump in my car and go grab, buy the CD at the store and then race back.

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Right. That was the only time that I really missed school, you know,

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but yeah, I still went to school. I barely graduated. I had a 2.8 GPA.

00:15:47.493 --> 00:15:50.993

I didn't really pay attention to too many classes except one.

00:15:51.393 --> 00:15:55.113

And that one class I think has helped me throughout my entire life.

00:15:55.513 --> 00:15:57.933

It was sports and entertainment marketing.

00:15:58.373 --> 00:16:04.433

And the guy that was the teacher was an amazing man. And I took his class,

00:16:04.453 --> 00:16:06.213

sports entertainment one and two.

00:16:06.533 --> 00:16:10.353

And then I took an entrepreneurship class that he taught my senior year.

00:16:10.753 --> 00:16:13.893

And those, that was the only class I ever paid attention to.

00:16:13.953 --> 00:16:16.873

We got to go on field trips and hang out backstage at like, you know,

00:16:16.873 --> 00:16:19.553

concerts and sporting events and learn how the marketing things work.

00:16:19.693 --> 00:16:22.033

That was the only one I was excited about everything else. I was like,

00:16:22.073 --> 00:16:23.013

yeah, whatever, you know?

00:16:23.233 --> 00:16:25.873

And so, yeah, I still went to school, but I just barely passed.

00:16:26.733 --> 00:16:31.993

Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Very interesting. Those, the class that you just talked about that.

00:16:32.593 --> 00:16:35.873

That's something that I've never heard of, of other, you know,

00:16:35.893 --> 00:16:39.953

schools offering and how perfect for you. Yeah.

00:16:40.293 --> 00:16:44.573

Loved it. And it was, it was part of DECA, you know, it's kind of like FFA,

00:16:44.693 --> 00:16:47.493

but DECA was more, I don't even remember what it stands for now,

00:16:47.553 --> 00:16:51.833

but it was more like how to start a business and what things do you do on taxes

00:16:51.833 --> 00:16:54.433

and, and things like that. So I enjoyed that class.

00:16:54.553 --> 00:16:57.953

I've just always been intrigued by that. And so it was fun to be a part of that

00:16:57.953 --> 00:17:01.713

and and you know talk about how much does the super bowl ads for the super bowl

00:17:01.713 --> 00:17:04.413

this year you know that year and you know things like that and looking back

00:17:04.413 --> 00:17:10.073

i like it was like a million dollars to do a super bowl ad now it's like you know 10 times much right.

00:17:12.833 --> 00:17:20.013

Absolutely absolutely when you talked about being asked to by by that girl who

00:17:20.013 --> 00:17:24.673

would become your wife yeah when you when asked about going to church besides

00:17:24.673 --> 00:17:28.293

for the fact that it was a pretty girl. Yeah. Did you, did you,

00:17:29.442 --> 00:17:33.322

I mean, you said when you were a kid, you went to church, but do you feel like

00:17:33.322 --> 00:17:37.082

at that point, you really knew much about God at all?

00:17:37.322 --> 00:17:41.302

My grandma, who turns 90 this year, this amazing woman of Christ,

00:17:41.442 --> 00:17:45.142

here she is at almost 90 trying to memorize over 100 verses.

00:17:45.262 --> 00:17:49.162

She's been doing this for years, and she has 54 grandkids, great grandkids,

00:17:49.202 --> 00:17:51.542

and great grandkids that she prays for by name every day.

00:17:51.702 --> 00:17:58.962

And I believe that her prayers for me since I was a kid has really kept me in the right place.

00:17:59.202 --> 00:18:02.422

Even though I was lost for a long time, I always knew who God was.

00:18:02.502 --> 00:18:06.302

I knew who Jesus was, but I hadn't really read the Bible.

00:18:06.462 --> 00:18:11.302

I hadn't really gone to church and learned or paid attention since I was a kid.

00:18:11