When Cutter and Kaytie spoke to Scott Stapp, he had just gotten home from a visit to Ethiopia where he works with his own foundations and other foundations to help out the community. In discussing his charitable work, Scott Stapp spoke on one of the reasons why volunteers his time.
“It definitely gets you outside of yourself. Its one way that I’ve found, ya know once I kinda worked through my own issues, which are no secret. It’s one way I’ve found to kinda get outside of myself and I’ve found that when I’m doing something for somebody else, I’m not stuck in my own head. Being stuck in my own head sometimes in the past has not been a good place to be with how I handle certain things. So its definitely contributed to me turning my life around, and ya know I’m coming on 5 years sober, and so all that has come back full circle and even has a deeper and new purpose for me.”
In discussing Stapp’s recovery and work on his addiction and mental health:
“About, I guess maybe 6 years ago, and I was faced with the prospect of losing my wife and all that entails… with not being able to see my kids every day… the tragedies of divorce. That really made me say ‘okay wait a minute. I gotta stop. I gotta see what’s really going on here.’ And that was really my wife loving me and saying ‘I don’t know what else to do. I’ve stuck by your side and we’ve been through this so many times and you just keep going in this circle and we know what you need to do but you’re not taking it serious so either you take it serious or we’re can’t do this anymore.”
He continued:
“With that kinda hanging over me, I dove in head first for the first time. And said ‘okay. I’ll do whatever you tell me to do, whatever you want me to do, educate me. I don’t want to lose my family and I don’t want to go backwards anymore.’ And that’s when the reality of the process started happening. And again, its a day to day thing. Its 24 hours at a time. And that’s really what changed my whole perspective on being able to get this far in my journey was realizing that all I’ve got is today and I can do anything for 24 hours. Once that finally sunk into my brain, sobriety, and mental health, and a healthy lifestyle and a healthy diet got a lot easier. Cause I was like I can do it just today and then I’d wake up the next day and go alright well its a new day and I can do it just today. And those ‘just todays’ turned into 5 years.”
We’ve got a very special acoustic performance and Q&A lined up with Scott Stapp at Rock Garden Studios on June 19th thanks to Bud Light. Keep listening for more details and ways to win entrance to this exclusive performance! You can also catch Scott Stapp at this year’s Waterfest on June 20th! The new album The Space Between Shadows drops on July 19th.
