“Coffee and Christ”- Interview With Dale Hutchinson
James Egidio:
Hi, I’m James Egidio, your host of the 99 Relapses Podcast. The podcast that moves you from recovery to discovery through the grace and mercy of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. In episode 13 titled Satan’s Worldly Strategies, And your addiction. I discussed Satan’s Worldly Strategies, and I emphasized in that episode we are not to get caught up in what the world has to offer through politics, entertainment, media, and even educational institutions. These institutions go against sound biblical doctrine in order to distract us and take away from what counts, and that is real relationship with Jesus Christ and especially when it comes to overcoming an addiction. My guest is a retired substance abuse counselor and has 32 years of sobriety under his belt today, he devotes his time to his podcast called Coffee Time Again, where he touts himself as a constitutional conservative. His podcast focuses on conservative ideas and how we need to be more mindful in preserving this great republic of the United States of America and our God-given rights. It is my pleasure and a blessing to introduce my guests to the 99 Relapses podcast, Mr. Dale Hutchinson. Dale, please share with the listeners and viewers of the 99 Relapses podcast, a little bit about your story on addiction and recovery as well as your conversion experience.
Dale Hutchinson:
Okay, gotcha. My name is Dale, of course. I started drinking way back in 1957. I come from a very abusive alcoholic family, so to protect myself and to kill the pain I started drinking right at eight. My parents would always leave alcohol laying around the house in glasses, and I’d just go around and drink it. That was the beginning and it was pretty much that way until my high school years. That’s when I started buying alcohol and drinking on a daily basis. In high school, I was living with my grandmother by that time in, include my hometown, and I was living alone. I was in a little shack next door to my grandmother’s house and it was party time again, that’s where all the high school students came before we came, and that’s before we drank. I drank until 1989 on a daily basis. I had several treatments over the years and none of them really did me any good, because I wasn’t ready and I didn’t have God. I knew God, I loved him, but I wasn’t following it. I was following my own life when I came to in detox that last time in 89, June of 89. I knew something was different because the first thing I said was to this person taking my blood pressures. That’s it. I’m done. And I told people, then it was then I still do occasionally, just to be funny, is God hit me with a two by four while I was unconscious for those 30 hours. I said, that’s it, boy, you’d be done. And I haven’t had a drink or drugs since then, and it’s all because of God reaching down and saying, you’re done.. Now I followed that following God and Jesus pretty much that whole time since then, I really got spiritual and got religious in 2014 it was, and I found a church that just an incredible place. This chiropractor of mine was keep giving. ministrations and ministering to me and praying for me and put me on prayer list and stuff, and inviting me to come to her church for a prayer session, a healing session, prayer session session, what they did every Tuesday night. Finally, I just got so tired of listening to her I did. I went, when I walked in to the north and turned left or turned right to go into the chapel, my left foot hit the carpet, half of my left foot hit the carpet and the Holy Spirit just send it. I could feel it and I still feel it to this day when I go into church. I still feel the Holy Spirit, in me coming to me.
James Egidio:
Did you have to go through any type of treatment program in the past with your addiction to alcohol?
Dale Hutchinson:
Yes. I went through in 70. No, it was 80. My first one was 77. I went through the VA program, which was no program at all, in Grand Junction. Then I went through, in 84, I went to the Colorado State Hospital for three months, which was pretty good treatment, but it didn’t take. Then in the last one I went to was in 89. After I woke up in detox. I says, I need help. I’m done, but I need help. I can’t do this alone but I had Christ on my side, but I also needed 12 step programs too. So I used, for five years, I was pretty consistent with 12 step programs. That’s how it happened. Cause I had, I played, I had God on my side had 12 step programs helping me through the rough spots. That last treatment lasted 28 days or 21 days. Then I went to a halfway house. for 50 days and went to another halfway house after that for another 72 days. And on that one is I ended up being their head cook for a year because before I became a counselor, I was a chef. So I know how to cook. So I spent 28 years in the restaurant business. So I was there cook for a year. And then I, things started just, things were not rigt, they just weren’t feeling good. And. I got the message from God that you need out of the restaurant, you need out of cooking. You need to quit this. That was in 91, and that’s when I became a counselor. I said, okay, you want me out of cooking? And I have no problem with that, but tell me what you want me to do. And he says, I already had, you’ve been doing it. You need to be a counselor, you need to be formal, you need to get educated, get the classes, get the certification, get the legal stuff done. And that’s what he told me, or what I failed, he told me anyway. And so I went into. but the next 24 years doing it, and I loved it. I’d do it again if I could.
James Egidio:
What what program did you go through or were you trained under for your counseling?
Dale Hutchinson:
In State of Colorado? At the time, they had DORA, the Department of Regulatory Agencies, which they still had, but you had to phone, they had classes set up and you could take ’em privately if you and pay for ’em. This is, which is what I did. Several companies offered them, so I took them from Arapahoe House. One called the Odyssey one that Denver health, what they call it, Denver Health Medical now. It used to be Denver General. I took classes there, and so I took classes in about three different places. Over the years, I’ve taken close to 700 hours of classes in the 24 years I was a counselor. I’ve taken a lot classes there.
James Egidio:
I take it, that’s a secular program, correct?
Dale Hutchinson:
The counseling is Yes.
James Egidio:
Yeah. The counseling was,
Dale Hutchinson:
oh, the counseling is secular, but I, that doesn’t mean I have to be secular in my treatment when talked about not a lot, but enough about God, that, and how he worked in my life, which I wasn’t supposed to disclose anything, but I did anyway. I did things my way and I was, I considered myself to be very successful and so did my boss at the time but the classes are secular. Yes, absolutely. And the certificate was secular. It was called, I had a level two CAC, which is Certified Addictions Counselor.
James Egidio:
I take it, retired from counseling clients? And how long ago was that?
Dale Hutchinson:
September 15th, 2015.
James Egidio:
Ok, tell the audience and listeners what you’re doing now.
Dale Hutchinson:
Now I am retired and I spend most of my time working on podcasts. I do the podcast, as you said, coffee time again. And it’s on history, on it’s repeating itself and causing this problem still, cuz we didn’t take care of it the first time. Yeah. Basically what I do,
James Egidio:
Yeah you tout yourself as a constitutional conservative. Share a little bit about what a constitutional conservative is.
Dale Hutchinson:
Constitutional conservative is, first of all, we’re strong believers in the Constitution, period. If it says, if it’s in the constitution, then it’s law. If it’s not. And I am a conservative, because I believe in the conservative principles.
James Egidio:
what are the conservative principles of, the United States of America?,
Dale Hutchinson:
let’s follow the Constitution, Period. Just, that’s all we need. We don’t need a whole bunch of, don’t need a stack this high of laws on the SAS Code. Just need a one piece of sheet of paper, You don’t need all this other nonsense. And every time the Supreme Court makes a law, it adds to the constitution. Because Supreme Courts Conservative means we believe in the founding fathers. We believe in their principles. What do they believe in? They believed in freedom. They believed in liberty. It believed in the pursuit of happiness.
James Egidio:
And They settled this country on what?
Dale Hutchinson:
judo Christian principal. I’ll get it out there in a minute. Yeah, you bet. Yeah. And there’s a lot of the Bible, and people don’t realize this, but when they read the In Declaration of Independence, all kinds of Bible quotes in there, Federalist papers, there’s a lot federal, the Federalist papers have a lot of quotes in there from the Bible, as does the constitution.
James Egidio:
Yeah. I don’t like to talk too much about politics on this particular podcast cuz it’s for those that are listening and viewing that it’s based on recovery through the grace and mercy of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. But when I did episode number 13 Satan’s worldly strategies, I had mentioned that of course we’re one nation under God. And my question to you is going back to history and seeing what you’ve seen so far and what’s transpired, and I’m not siding with any political side at all, period. I’m just, I don’t, I just don’t lean on any side at all because they’re, at the end of the day they all have pretty much the same agenda. At least that’s what it seems like to me. But what kind of impact? Today’s political climate have on addiction and recovery?
Dale Hutchinson:
Detrimental. When, and this started with Ronald Reagan. You Okay? Because emptied mental health he got rid of the mental health hospitals. People say addiction and that this is addiction is a physical. Just if you got a cold, you got addiction. It’s the same thing. Not the same thing, but it’s the disease. But the disease is mental disease. Okay. Not physical. So you need to get mental. That’s how I stayed. So most of the time it’s how I stayed sober is because I got out of 12 step programs cuz I was hindering my recovery or so I thought and went into mental health and that’s when I really started accelerating in my recovery because of the mental health. But there’s nothing out there. There’s such a stigmatism on mental health in the America today, and the government is doing absolutely nothing to change it.
James Egidio:
Yeah. It, to me, it seems and I stress this a lot, is that. The 12 step programs had at the very beginning in the inception of them, they were all Bible based at the beginning. But what’s happened, I think, and I mentioned this quite a bit, is that they’ve strayed away from God and Godly principles. Now it’s a higher power. It’s all based on some higher power. So anybody can pick and choose whatever they wanna idolatrize rather than keep it focused on Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior for salvation and for recovery. And I think that’s where we fall short. But I also see a system that is a revolving door on the secular side when it comes to addiction and recovery. It’s like there’s, it’s this huge business. it is, it’s become this huge business of getting people into rehab centers and the pharmaceutical drugs to help ward off addictions and so on and so forth, that it’s an atrocity, I think, and it’s probably the worst epidemic and pandemic throughout the world. And the, I think the approaches for addiction and recovery is not there if. outside of faith, if it’s outside of biblical principles, intended consequences that are just being doled out deliberately for the almighty dollar, I think is what it is what it comes down to.
Dale Hutchinson:
Yeah. Back in the eighties and nineties and early two thousands, when I was practicing here in Denver at first. there was a treatment center on that practically every corner. Now, they don’t exist anymore. There’s very few of ’em. And they’re all secular. They’re all for profit. That’s all they care about. I talked, I have several friends who are still in the recovery business and they’re getting out of it because they can’t, they’re just saying, this is not good. Instead of saying you have. understand it about God and say we need a master’s degree. You need a bachelor’s degree to get number one, you need a master’s degree. In level two, make it to level three. You almost need a PhD. Right. Which is the way it was set up in Colorado was pill counseling takes a drug to know a drug.
James Egidio:
Yeah. And a lot of people don’t want to talk about addiction. And I mentioned too that addiction is not just alcohol and drugs. If we all take a step back and really examine ourselves personally, we’re all addicted to something. It could be coffee. I love coffee. Yeah. It could be a. it’s pornography, drugs, alcohol, food the list goes on and on. And, even a lot of behavioral addictions and the way we think, and this of course all leads to sin. the way to overcome the sin is repentance. Asking for forgiveness. but also learning and digging your heels into biblical principles. based on that recovery process and humbling yourselves and shedding that pride and that ego that we all have as humans, which is part of our sin nature to get overcome these things. Yeah. I think we live in such calamity right now that everybody’s got their heads down in their phones. that’s The only way to get through it is that way.
Dale Hutchinson:
The only way to get through it is with God. That’s, you’ve got to have God in your life and you’ve got to stop the addiction. You’ve gotta stop the use. So you can’t do it with chemicals. You can’t substitute drugs. Cause when you substitute drugs or if they give you Narcan to stop alcoholism or, but Naltrexone, which is another drug for addiction to stop it, you’re just substituting drugs. You’re gonna get addicted. That’s, the story of methadone.
James Egidio:
I do. But you can go ahead and tell me some more
Dale Hutchinson:
methadone was started in New York City as a cure for the heroin addicts. And the original goal was really good use, God, they had faith-based treatment centers back then, short-term use of methadone to get you off the hill and long enough to get the drop the withdrawal symptoms, which are I’ve been on heroin and it’s, the withdrawal symptoms are horrendous. Then put ’em back out in public, back out in society as useful productive society members. That got corrupted of course, cuz politicians said, oh, look at all the money we can be making. So they stopped it. Now they do the maintenance methadone method. So they’re addicted to, they get off the heroin. Okay. But they’re addicted to methadone, which is a synthetic heroin, which is the same thing. So you know the history of treatments. They used to use what they call sanitariums. Back in the old days, back when Bill Wilson was getting, he was sent to Sanitarium and they didn’t do treatment. They just dried you out and sent you back out on the street. Got you. Through your dts. But when Bill W started walking with AA, I’ve done some research on it. I’m not gonna do a podcast on it, but I did some research on 12 step programs and he started. actually 12 Step wasn’t a 12 step program. It was a six step program, and it started in the 1700’s. And it became, morphed into the Oxford Group, which morphed into 12 step programs. And that BW brought it up to 12. It said we’re, we need help. We need more than six, we need 12 steps. So we both six steps into 12 steps for AA. So they’ve had 12 steps treatment program since the 1700 Early revolutionary days.
James Egidio:
Yeah. And, getting back to, going to God through your recovery and through that process, Addiction is multi-layered. It’s I just did a four-part series on the addicted brain and we work off what’s called the limbic system. And the neocortex and the limbic system is that fight, flight, or freeze response that when our neocortex, which stores the memory of past events. It could be, relationship you had with a parent or, just it’s. A memory of something that had happened. Trauma, physical, mental or sexual that manifests itself in that memory bank. And then it gets the substance or the addiction becomes the anesthetic to numb that pain. you’ve probably heard the, phrase, I drink to numb the pain, So you can fill in the blank on that. Yeah. Or whatever your, whatever your addiction is. addiction’s very complex, but yet as complex as it is, the answer is right in the Bible. It’s right in the word. Yep. And. there’s a God out there that loves us. Jesus Christ loves us. and he’s the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. And he’s there for us and we have to just, pursue him. We have to pursue him build that relationship and stay tethered to the word everyday. And that’s the only way that anybody can get through their addiction is that way.
Dale Hutchinson:
In First Corinthians? First Corinthians one of my favorite books in the Bible. Paul talks about brokenness and God and so that’s was just one of my favorite books in the Bibles. Paul’s talking about it. Sure. And it talks about it in the Old Testament as well. Being drunks got nothing but problem. You were talking about the Limbic system and the other systems of the Brain. I also believe that part of the addiction processes is mostly layer, like you said, and part of those, one of those layers goes into our little Brain as well.
James Egidio:
Yeah, that’s why I was mentioning in episode 13 about Satan’s worldly strategies. These things outside become distractions. The politics, the entertainment these are all distractions. And when we’re distracted like that and we have our heads in our phones and we’re looking at social media, and that’s an addiction too. Yes. Video games are an addiction. Yes. These are all addictions, are all distractions. And they take away from what we’re really supposed to be putting our, focusing our eye on, which is Jesus. And I think it’s getting, it’s gotten worse. It’s gonna get worse before it gets better because I think this is all done deliberately, absolutely. Yeah. It’s like my next question to you is cuz you’re a history buff with your podcast and my question is, how does history affect today’s world?
Dale Hutchinson:
It’s affecting it because it’s repeating itself. You’ve heard the phrase, I’m sure it’s only gonna on taxes. It’s only gonna affect the, which it’ll never go above any other, say 10% or never. It’s just, it’s not true. But at 10% make it easy for the math. Back in 1916, before he ever became president while he was running, he got a President Wilson got an amendment to the constitution. Abraham Lincoln and one other person tried to get a graduated income tax to support the country and it was shut down by the Supreme Court. So Wilson being the type of guy he was, who was just nasty man got a constitutional amendment to allow for a graduated income tax. And what he said is it will only affect the rich. It will never go above seven percent That was in 1917. Where is it now? And who is it affecting? What are they say? What are they? What are the, what are they saying? And you write about the Republicans and the Democrats, both parties. There’s not a paper shredder difference between the two.
James Egidio:
No. No,
Dale Hutchinson:
there’s not. There’s exactly the same. They’re in it for the money. They’re not in it, they don’t know God.
James Egidio:
I’m glad you said that because. That’s what this was all leading up to. You actually hit the nail right on the head. So that was what I wanted to mention is that we’re, we’ve taken God so far out of everything, and that gets to our political climate today with going after the First Amendment and shutting down churches during Covid. I personally feel it was a attack, an indirect attack on Christianity. You trying into it? Yeah. I read an article last year where one of the liberal outlets wrote an article saying that Christianity is white supremacy. They basically equated it to white supremacy. Okay. So that’s where they’re, that’s how low the mainstream media has. gotten. Like I said, the media when I opened up this episode and. Satan’s worldly strategies because to say something like that is, is totally inaccurate. Completely inaccurate. because Christianity is about love. It’s about redemption. It’s about salvation. Love is what it’s about. It’s about love. Yes. And. Yeah, this is where we’ve gone. This is where this has, this country’s gone when it comes to these institutions.
Dale Hutchinson:
Yeah. I did a podcast on education a while back, a year ago, so I don’t remember exactly when it was. And one of the things that I mentioned is they taken God out of schools, and I said, you need to put the Bibles back in the schools. Even if you just put it in the library and let people read it, the students read it on their own. That’s the beginning. Cuz once they took Bibles outta school, they’re tearing down all the statues.
James Egidio:
And indoctrinating kids on transsexualism and drag queens. You’ll allow a drag queens at school. Yeah. But you won’t. Or you’ll approve of homosexuality. But God forbid you wanna bring, God into the school, it’s, you can’t do it.
Dale Hutchinson:
Nope. I’m a firm, I’m a firm believer that Bibles need to be in schools. yeah. To kindergarten to have it written a admit language that they can understand or be read to in language that they can comprehend it. Kindergarten, all the way through PhD classes, that, that God needs to be taught and he ne and part of of the, it’s my firm. Belief. Belief. And I believe I don’t have a whole lot of evidence to support it. That the United Nations, the AU and the EU all three of them. American African Union, the European Union and the UN all trying to come down with one world government socialist in nature. It’s a long term. It’s not something they’re gonna do overnight it’s already taking ’em a hundred years better than a hundred years to get to where they’re at now. But they’ll keep going. And then you can see, if you look at what President Roosevelt before Wilson, FDR, Lyndon Johnson, Barack Obama and now Biden. You can see how they’re setting each one’s doing their part to set it up. it’s an absolute, in fact, my podcast brings that up. When I get it done, I won’t be doing it here. We, I’m gonna start working on it tomorrow. As a matter of fact, editing it, getting it properly English and stuff de all that nonsense. That has to be done. But I’m going to do it because it’s just, I think it is so critical. and that’s the reason I suggest people read agenda 21 from Glenn Back. It’s fiction. Maybe. Yeah. Maybe people were talking about those contrails across, they’re all over the place.
James Egidio:
Yeah. There’s, this is, and then they’ll use the name conspiracy theory. but it’s not conspiracy. This is stuff that’s happening right in front of us. And I guess the term is cognitive dissonance. Yeah. For most people, they don’t wanna believe it. They don’t wanna believe that the, that this is where we’re at and this is where things are gonna be going. I guess when they said the new normal back in 2020, this is part of that new normal that they wanna reset Yeah, it’s really sad. And again, it comes down to one thing, and that is getting back into your faith, taking a step back, taking a deep breath, and looking at your life and examine your life through the eyes of God, through God, through the Bible. Through biblical principles. Because, and that’s why they want to do away with the Christianity and family and faith, because those are the two strong pillars. Of a society that can’t be swayed. When people stand firm in their family and in their faith, it’s hard to break that wall down. It’s hard to break it down. You know what I mean? It is. That’s, yeah. And that’s what they’re after. That’s what they want. That’s exactly why they’re slowly eating away at, in different areas, through entertainment, through politics, through the, media. Through all this stuff. Through all this stuff.
Dale Hutchinson:
Those five podcasts that I did were on the Bill of Rights and how they were being attacked, beginning with, cause the first thing that, totalitarian the, The first thing I talked to about a totalitarian government does is take away your guns. Second thing they take away is your religion.
James Egidio:
right, that’s what I said.
Dale Hutchinson:
The First and second amendments are really, and all of them, not just the first and second, but all 10 of them are attacked.
James Egidio:
Yeah. And I tell people that, I said the only two things that are keeping this country glued together right now is that we are the Bible and this, and in this order, the Bible and guns. That’s it. Without that. And if you look at every communist regime, Stalin, and you look at Carl Marx and all these people that’s what they wanted to take away from people was their religion, their faith their faith in God. And even I think Carl Marx said it, he said religion is the opiate of the masses.
Dale Hutchinson:
He did say that is a quote from Karl Marx.
James Egidio:
and even the churches are guilty of this. And I mentioned this in this, in that podcast episode too, I mentioned that the the churches are compromising and conforming to the, some of the worldly ways too.
Dale Hutchinson:
Oh yeah. It is sickening.
James Egidio:
Yeah. And that was, that’s in scripture. It’s in scripture where it talks about the churches in the. and it’s just they’re not preaching the gospels, they’re not sticking to repentance, they’re not sticking to, sin and saying, calling things for what they are. Like I said, they’re compromising and yeah, it’s a bad direction for churches to go into. I know in this day and age
Dale Hutchinson:
I’m not exactly battling my church, but I. getting my point across attempting to get my point across. Cause my church is a very liberal church.
James Egidio:
Yeah. Yeah. So I,
Dale Hutchinson:
they talk a lot about our priest. She I have a woman priest cause I’m an Episcopalian. Yeah. And she’s very liberal. She’s a wonderful lady, but she’s very liberal. So we have, her and I have had some decent discussions about this. Yeah. Not angry discussions or anything. my point of view versus her point of view on things.
James Egidio:
Yeah. I think some of the Episcopalian churches even allow gay deacons.
Dale Hutchinson:
We have a gay, we have gay bishops.
James Egidio:
Oh wow.
Dale Hutchinson:
Yeah. Yeah.
James Egidio:
That’s complete blasphemy.
Dale Hutchinson:
Yeah. I have no problems with women priest. I do have with gay bishops and gay priest.
James Egidio:
Yeah. Yeah, I can imagine. I can imagine. Yeah.
Dale Hutchinson:
So it goes all the way up,
James Egidio:
So your podcast is coffee time again, and that can be found at www.coffee-time-again.com, correct?
Dale Hutchinson:
Correct. There’s a link, link to it that takes you to the shows.
James Egidio:
Yeah. Yeah. And you’ll find the link too. I’ll post that link Yeah. When I post this episode. Yeah. But again Dale Hutchinson again, his podcast is called To Coffee Time. Again, that’s www.coffee-time-again.com. It could be found online. Constitutional conservative who loves Jesus Christ,
Dale Hutchinson:
amen.
James Egidio:
Yeah. And Dale, thank you so much for joining me for this episode of the 99 Relapses podcast.
Dale Hutchinson:
Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. I really enjoy it. And then
James Egidio:
Absolutely.
Dale Hutchinson:
God bless. God bless.
James Egidio:
Thanks. Thank you. All right.