Baseball Legend Darryl Strawberry on His Fall, Recovery, and Ministry of Hope

Voiceover 00:00:01.760 - 00:00:04.720 The addiction podcast Point of no return. Joanie Sigal 00:00:13.760 - 00:00:19.200 Darryl Strawberry, thank you for being on our podcast again. We appreciate you being here. Darryl Strawberry 00:00:20.160 - 00:00:24.320 Well, thanks for having me.

I appreciate you guys having me on your podcast again. Joanie Sigal 00:00:24.800 - 00:00:51.660 You're wonderful. Now everybody knows you as a baseball player. I mean, you are probably one of the most popular baseball players in the country, country retired baseball players.

But tell us just a little bit of the kind of the, the part of your life where you had a substance abuse problem and how you got better and what you're doing now, but give us a little bit of the background as to why you're even here talking to us today. Darryl Strawberry 00:00:52.140 - 00:02:47.320 Well, I think the most important thing that people need to know that most people start out early with some type of addiction problem. And I started out when I was 14, smoking marijuana, thinking no big deal, drinking Coke 45, no big deal. And most of the time it's because of the, the deep pain that's going on on the inside.

Something is broken, something's wrong. And a lot of us try to escape and try to drown ourselves with what some type of substance make us not feel so we don't have to feel. What we really need to deal with is what's going on on the inside most of the time. And then it just gets deeper and deeper and you just go from one place to the next and you know, it leads you down a road that you never think that you would ever find yourself in.

And that's the midst of addiction, which is very hard to get out of. I'm no different than anybody else. Anybody that has a substance abuse problem needs to get help and kind of need to allow to other people to help them so they're able to surrender to the fact that they can be well. And it's a process.

It's a long process. It's not overnight process. It's something that you have to work on and you have to work on the real pain that's going on deep down inside of yourself. I always say, always say addiction.

Everybody know that there is a problem there. But I think most people don't realize anyone that get caught up in the vicious cycle of addiction, it's always that behavior that keeps you there. And it's not, it's not until you change that behavior of what's going on, then you're able to be well and go on and live a different life. Joanie Sigal 00:02:47.560 - 00:03:06.760 Exactly.

And for a lot of people that we've talked to, the addiction, the use of the drugs is actually the solution to a problem that is underlying that which is Similar to what you're saying, Darryl, how did the. How did this addiction affect your career? Was it going on while you were still playing baseball, and how did it affect that? Darryl Strawberry 00:03:07.800 - 00:04:07.620 It had.

Eventually, it affects your career at some point. You know, the drinking, the drugging, taking amphetamines, whatever it may be, is all going to catch up with you physically, emotionally. It's going to catch up with you mentally. It's going to catch up with you at some point, and you're just going to collapse and you're going to fall apart, no matter how strong you are.

Because I was, like, big and strong athlete, you know, being able to do all these great things out there, but it starts to slow you down and you start to take a different direction. And I think that's how it started to affect me more than anything on all sides that I talked about is all a part of what addiction will do to you. It's there, you know, to destroy you more than anything. And I think a lot of times people think they can handle it, and that's not the case.

Eventually, at some point, it's going to either kill you or send you to a psych ward or. Or you're gonna. You're gonna get clean, you're gonna get. Joanie Sigal 00:04:07.620 - 00:04:11.500 Sold or spend the rest of your life in prison or get clean, as you say.

Yeah. Darryl Strawberry 00:04:11.740 - 00:04:12.300 Yeah. Joanie Sigal 00:04:12.540 - 00:04:27.620 When did you just. When did you.

What was your point of no return where you said, I'm gonna get clean and I'm gonna beat this? I think we've heard the story from Tracy's viewpoint, your wife, but tell us what happened from your viewpoint. Darryl Strawberry 00:04:27.620 - 00:05:58.740 Well, it was. It was.

It was her helping me letting people help you. And I think that's the most important thing, is people helping people. One that find recovery, usually go back and try to help somebody else and try to show them the way. In love and compassion, you don't have to tolerate the behavior of a person, but you still have to love people.

And I think that's what we fail to realize a lot of times when people are struggling with addiction. That's why me and Tracy have probably been so good at helping so many people. We don't tolerate the behavior, but we. We love them still and bring great compassion to them because we understand the struggle.

So I went through this long struggle, and she was the answer for me. Helping me, guiding me, pulling me out of places and telling me that, you know, my life is worth more than what I'm doing. And finally, you know, I surrender to that. You have to come to the place where you have to surrender to it, too.

If you don't surrender to it, you're going to keep running. And I. I was running for a long time with her, and she had to let go and let me go. And so I can eventually figure it out, and I did.

Once she let me go, then I realized that she probably was the best situation for my life and. And I needed to do something different. And that's when I went into action and started doing something different. I started to involve myself in new groups and different things and get away from the old people, places and things.

Joanie Sigal 00:05:59.460 - 00:06:23.620 I think that's awesome. And I think that little thing that you just said is so much good advice for people when they finally decide they want to get clean and sober. You can't go back to the same environment and be with the same people and hang out with the same people and think that you're going to get a different result. It's that thing of, like, you can't do the same thing and think you're going to get a different result, you know?

Darryl Strawberry 00:06:24.650 - 00:07:20.070 Well, you're truly not. I mean, you're not going to get a different result. It's still there. The same thing that you left are the same people doing the same thing.

And if you keep looking for a different result in that place, it's never going to happen. You're going to have to find a new group of friends, those that are walking in recovery, those that are walking on a spiritual journey, because recovery has two parts of it, and you have to have that spiritual awakening on the inside of you to help you. And a lot of times people think, well, that's not important. Yes, it is.

Because if it's. If you don't get that part of just being clean, it's just. Just going to be clean. You're going to be clean and sober, but you're still going to have these behaviors.

And I think the whole thing about me is I needed to change all these behaviors that I had inside of me to keep me well. And I think that was truly important for me to have that spiritual awakening. Joanie Sigal 00:07:20.460 - 00:07:26.940 I. I agree, and I applaud you for being clean and sober.

How long have you been clean and sober, Darryl? Darryl Strawberry 00:07:27.100 - 00:07:47.340 I'm about 22 years right now. My wife's about 25. She was way ahead of me, and she never gave up on me, so I was a little bit behind.

But, you know, I saw the light through her. And you. You can always see the light shining through somebody else that loves you, like I said, and she loved me. Through that process and helped me get on the other side of life.

Joanie Sigal 00:07:47.420 - 00:08:23.800 Well, I love that. And I can definitely see the light in her. She is such an amazing person, and very well done on staying clean and sober. And you've hit the nail on the head a couple times that I think a lot of people don't understand about addiction.

It's physical, it's mental, it's emotional, it's spiritual, and you have to address all of that. And I think so often people who have never suffered from any form of substance abuse or addiction, they don't understand that. They don't understand that sometimes you cannot physically just go, okay, I'm going to stop today. Some people can, but oftentimes it's.

Oftentimes they can't. Darryl Strawberry 00:08:24.040 - 00:08:40.040 So majority won't. Yeah, majority won't. Just because of, you know, physically they stopped.

Majority will continue to go back to it, to the habits, until they, like, enter into all these other different things that they need to deal with. That's. That's broken on the inside. Joanie Sigal 00:08:40.200 - 00:08:47.720 Exactly.

Darryl, how did you get. What are you doing now? Tell us about your ministry. And how did you and Tracy get into that?

How did that get started? Darryl Strawberry 00:08:48.200 - 00:10:00.490 It was just a calling. I think it was there for a very long time when I just finally answered the call and. And we started at the bottom and we stayed in our lane and we just kind of allowed God to use us the way he wanted to use our story.

Your story is very powerful to help somebody else. And then it became ministry. We got into a full time, and I was called to be evangelist, she was called to be a pastor. And we just started working on a separate callings and.

And doing, you know, what it was, and we. We dove into the principles and we started applying them to our life and living a different way. And, you know, we got into church and stayed in church and didn't leave, and. And it just kind of just blew up.

It became a whole, whole different thing. Became a ministry, a ministry of faith, a ministry of love, a ministry of healing, and a ministry of hope more than anything. Bringing hope to others and. And something that we always wanted to do because we know the fact from where we came from through addiction and that if you do surrender, you never know what's on the other side of surrendering.

Joanie Sigal 00:10:00.810 - 00:10:12.570 I think that's huge. And that's the whole purpose for this podcast, is hope. So you and Tracy, you go all over the country, right? Do you go into churches or where is it you go when you go to a new city?

Darryl Strawberry 00:10:13.450 - 00:11:41.950 I go Just about everywhere. I'm called to all, all type of events, you know, for kids, for fca, Fellowship of Christian Athletes, for churches, for communities with addiction problems. I go into those to speak to the kids, to encourage the kids to never get started on this journey of it's just marijuana or it's just vaping. You know, I said once you get habits, it's hard to break those habits because they lead, that lead you down the road to other things and then you can't get out.

And we saw that with so many kids when we had two treatment centers down in Florida. It was just heartbreaking to see so many kids addicted to the hard drugs, opiates and the heroin and for them to lose their life. We just realized that we were in the right place at the right time for those five years to help so many young people and try to give them that spiritual awakening that they needed in their life because the addiction had the grips on. It was such an epidemic at that time.

And we just wanted them to realize that you're going to have to surrender to all of it. You can't just go and come into treatment and then you want to walk out of treatment with Suboxone all the time and think you're going to be clean. It doesn't work. You know, we, we, you have to understand, you got to come to a place where you don't take anything if you really want to stay on the journey of being sober and clean.

Joanie Sigal 00:11:42.110 - 00:12:15.770 Yep. And thank you because so often we have taken flack when, you know, we talk about, you know, Kratom or Suboxone or anything like that. And really our goal on the podcast is for everyone to be clean and sober, not taking some other substance to substitute for another substance. Again, that's like we talked about, that's like doing the same thing basically and thinking you're going to get a different result.

You're just substituting one substance for another and that's never going to work. What kind of reaction do you get when you talk to the kids? What do they say to you? Darryl Strawberry 00:12:16.570 - 00:13:20.690 Well, I get great reaction from the kids because honesty is everything.

And when you're truthful to them, they listen. If you're sugar coating things to kids, you can't fool them today because their IQs are off the chart. They're so smart because of the Internet and social media, but they know when a person is sincere, they know when a person is real and they know when a person has, has been through something and they have a great deal of respect for that. Because it's not about putting fear into them.

It's about putting reality into them and letting them know it doesn't matter where you come from, you can live behind the community gates. You can be successful as an athlete like I was, and it can happen to you. And that's what I think. Kids have a lot of respect for someone that has been to the top and hit bottom and got back up.

And I tried to help them avoid those circumstances of their life by being open to them. With the conversations that I have with. Joanie Sigal 00:13:20.690 - 00:13:32.090 Him, I think that's huge. And you are.

You know, you are transforming lives, you and Tracy, both, in what you do. Darryl, tell us about your new book, Another Life. Is that the right name? Darryl Strawberry 00:13:32.970 - 00:13:33.770 Another Life.

Joanie Sigal 00:13:33.930 - 00:13:34.410 Okay. Darryl Strawberry 00:13:34.650 - 00:14:47.600 It's just what people don't realize is when you get clean or sober from addiction, you can have another life. You continue to work on your life. You just don't stop there.

You work on your life to go back, to be able to give back to others. And I think that's what Another Life is all about. It's about me traveling in this nation. I even go into prisons all over the place that do ministry.

And like I said before, I go to hospitals to see sick patients and sick inmates and stuff like that. And. And just to encourage people that you can have a different life just because you were once in a vicious cycle of darkness. There's a light that's brighter on the other side.

And don't ever give up, don't ever quit, because you never know what type of miracle you can be for. For somebody else. And that's all I am today, just a miracle for somebody else. You know, God has turned me into.

From a mess to a message, and to bring a miracle to other people and say, hey, here, you can experience this, too, in your life. You can experience the freedom that you've been looking for. Joanie Sigal 00:14:47.840 - 00:14:56.080 I just love that you've gone from. From a mess to a message.

I like that. And you are taking your son with you on some of your trips, is that correct? Darryl Strawberry 00:14:56.710 - 00:15:38.200 I'm taking him because I want him to experience this life of ministry, of who his father is, not what I've accomplished as an athlete, because at the end of the day, that will be meaningless. It won't mean anything.

And the legacy I want to be able to live. Live my life and leave for my kids is that faith is more important than what you accomplish here from an earthly standpoint, because we're all going to accomplish things here. But. But at the end of the day, if you don't have any faith in, any belief in God inside of yourself.

What does it all mean at the end of the day? And that's what I try to encourage my kids. I don't preach to them, but I just live it. Joanie Sigal 00:15:38.520 - 00:15:49.720 I love it.

I absolutely love that. Darryl, I don't have any more questions for you. I appreciate you so much being here. Is there anything you'd like to just share with our audience before I let you go?

Darryl Strawberry 00:15:50.310 - 00:16:21.920 Well, I just want to let anybody know that's out there suffering and stuck in addiction, that you can be set free. But you have to do the work. You have to get into action, and you have to let people help you so your life can be transformed and you can become the person that God has always created you to be. Addiction is just illness that keeps you in bondage and don't allow you to be who you are.

Look at me. I'm set free. My wife is set free. And it's a wonderful thing when you can get to that place.

Joanie Sigal 00:16:22.320 - 00:16:35.280 I love it. Darryl, thank you so much. And your book's on Amazon. We'll put a link in the show notes.

And I cannot thank you enough for taking the time. I know how busy you are, and I think your story is gonna resonate with so many people. So thank you. Darryl Strawberry 00:16:35.760 - 00:16:44.400 Well, thanks for having me, because this is always important when it comes to suffering with addiction.

Because I was once lost, but now I've been found.