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Reset Podcast with Archie Callahan is where faith meets real life.
In a world constantly shaping the way men think, lead + live, Reset Podcast takes a fresh look at men + culture through the lens of the GOSPEL. Each episode features honest conversations, practical wisdom + scriptural truth designed to help MEN reset their minds, strengthen their faith + lead with purpose in their homes, workplaces, churches + communities.
Whether we’re discussing leadership, marriage, fatherhood, integrity, current culture, spiritual growth, or the challenges men face today, our goal is simple: to align our lives with God’s truth + become the men He has called us to be.
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NEW EPISODE EVERY WEDNESDAY.
Hello, my name is Archie Callahan and welcome to episode two of the Reset Podcast.
It's going to be a great day.
We're going to discuss addiction and fatherhood.
The Reset Podcast is all about men and the struggles men face and culture issues today.
My guest today is Jed Hill.
Jed Hill is a former football player with Penn State University, has a tremendous story.
God has woven his story into the story of Jed Hill.
Jed, it's good to have you today.
It's great to be on with you.
Excited to be able to share with men this morning and let them know that what you struggle with, and as long as you're vulnerable with it, you can get through it.
Yeah, man.
Tell us a little bit about your story, your father, your childhood, and then we'll morph into where your life took a turn through addiction and how God brought you out of that.
Yeah.
So at a very young age, I think a lot of us, we want to be seen, heard, known, loved growing up.
I think we all seek a father's validation.
And when you don't get it inside the house, you're going to search for it outside the house.
And so growing up in a very abusive home really gave me a view of a father that was so tainted.
And so I looked at other people's fathers and was just, man, I wish I could have a dad like that.
And, you know, going through that, it's kept me so far away and guarded.
Right.
We weren't in a family that shared emotions and feelings.
To hear I love you, you'd heard it on the TV shows.
And I thought that was just a TV episode thing that they did on TV.
Their families didn't say that.
And so I felt very insecure growing up.
I had a large exterior.
Even as 10 years old, I was six foot tall, almost 200 pounds.
But I was so insecure on the inside because of what I didn't get from my father.
So what did that insecurity do?
Where did it lead you?
Well, it led me for things outside the house, so I always searched.
So my father was into weightlifting.
So guess what I did?
I became the strongest person in my family, minus my dad at the time.
And you still look like the strongest person, man.
Big dude right there, man.
I maintain it.
But, you know, I thought, man, if I could just bench 225, then he'll say he's proud of me.
Got there.
It didn't happen.
I got to, you know—
I would do the most push-ups.
I would try to just get his attention.
We'd play backyard football.
I would just give it my all and just hope it, man.
Just say you love me.
Say you're proud of me.
Give me some type of validation.
Affirmation.
Come on.
So it led you, your dad not validating you and affirming you probably led you into a life of striving to earn love from your father who should have just loved you unconditionally.
Yeah.
But did not have the capacity to do that.
Not only did he have the... He didn't have the capacity, but now that I look back, I look back and I saw that his father raised him way worse than he raised us.
And so now grace is given because I know that he...
He tried to do his best, even though his best wasn't what I needed.
And so looking back, I searching outside the house for that, you know, so I and it gave me a lot of insecurity issues and it caused me to keep striving.
Right.
And hustling and keep striving.
You know, it's dad looking, you know, I'm all the yard is coming home in 20 minutes.
Let me, let me do these things.
And so growing up, you know, I knew my dad loved football.
And so to be honest with you, I didn't really love football.
I wanted to play baseball, but I knew that I was like, man, if I could just play football, if I could just get on the TV, which he watches every weekend and plays football, then he would show up at a game.
Then he would say, he's proud of me or good job.
Yeah, so that was a generational pattern in his family.
His father didn't have the capacity.
Probably your great-granddad probably didn't have the capacity.
It became a generational pattern, and somebody had to break that.
And then comes along Jed Hill, who's striving for love for his father.
plays football, is a standout high school football player, still holds records in that state, and then you're recruited by Penn State University.
And you probably felt, man, this is the pinnacle.
This is it, man.
My dad's really good.
When you have Joe Paterno come into your high school,
visit you multiple times.
Oh, yeah.
Urban Meyer coming to your high school to visit you.
I felt that from the coaches.
I was like, man, this is so great.
I had a great coach in high school who was like a father figure for me.
You know, coaches pour in so much.
And so I looked at my coach as my father because my father was absent.
Could you imagine walking out, having all the records?
You have 36 Division I full-ride scholarships, senior day walking out with just your mom because your dad didn't want to be there?
Wow.
Yeah.
And that hurts.
That cuts so deep.
And, you know, it's really it's our need to be seen by others that keeps us from knowing God.
And so I searched validation.
I wanted to clap the crowd.
I wanted all that.
But really, I just wanted my dad there.
That's it.
You were still the boy who wanted the approval of his dad.
I was a boy in a big boy's body.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Three and a half, six, four, two, what, 60?
268.
Yeah.
And just a little boy in a big boy's body wanting the validation or the affirmation of his dad.
Because all of us need affirmation.
We do.
And when we don't get it.
We search for it in other things.
We strive.
We try to be the best.
We go after the girls.
We go after the accolades, the awards.
And oftentimes that just leaves us empty, man.
That's not what we really want.
And if Jesus needed affirmation.
At his baptism, God said, this is my son in whom I'm well pleased.
If Jesus needed affirmation, Jed needed affirmation.
Archie needs affirmation.
All men need affirmation.
And maybe you're a man out there today, a man.
You're striving, man.
And it could be linked.
to your relationship with your dad just like Jed man just like myself man I grew up in a dysfunctional family and I did the same thing just on a different level my dad never told me that he loved me until he was almost in the grave for years and it pushed me man toward academics it pushed me toward sports it pushed me everywhere let me ask you a question though
You didn't get it, but do you think you would have been as pushed to excel if he would have gave you that validation younger?
It would have been a healthy acceleration, not unhealthy.
I would have still excelled because he was a high D personality.
He believed in success, but there's a difference in striving and being driven and being led by the Holy Spirit.
yeah the driving and the striving creates anxiety creates depression creates low self-esteem i was never confident yeah and i believe all that would have went away if he would have been healthy but just like your dad it was a generational pattern yeah he had really no relationship with his dad
His dad had no capacity to be a father.
My dad grows up.
He stops going to school about the seventh grade, never got an education.
He fought tooth and nail, had eight kids, had to supply for them.
And you look back and you have grace for that, man.
You're like, man, he did what he could do with what was given to him.
What was that moment that you look back and said, wow, he did his best as he could?
Because I just had that moment a couple years ago, and I'm in my 40s.
What was that moment for you looking back and being like, wow, my dad actually did the best he could?
After he passed away.
Was it really?
I held my dad's hand when he passed away.
A couple years after that, I was talking to my uncle and really got to know my dad's side of the family for the first time.
And he told me all the dysfunctionalism of his dad and family.
And I'm like, man.
You know, I understand.
And you understand and you give grace.
You know, I remember when my dad, he was given three months to live.
My dad was a hard man.
And I was like, God, I can't love him, man.
I just can't love him.
And I heard the Lord through his Holy Spirit say, will you allow me to love him through you?
Because in my own flesh, I couldn't love my dad, man.
He had said so many goofy things.
He was very verbally abusive, emotionally abusive.
And I see that played out in my siblings' lives that have probably not followed God like I have.
And it still haunts them.
But somehow God gave me compassion for him.
I preached his funeral, and I love him to this day.
He had a lot of great qualities, man.
He taught me a great work ethic.
He taught me not to give up.
He taught me to persevere.
But there was a dysfunctional side to him that was very abusive emotionally and verbally, not physically.
But emotionally and verbally and could could have went into physical abuse if he was not disabled at an early age.
But even like your dad, man.
So you go to college, you're a standout guy.
You get hurt in your senior year.
I think your senior year football.
What happened?
So I did decide to go to Penn State University.
We are.
I had to throw that out there.
Because I had went to Georgia, Ohio State, Michigan, Notre Dame, because you get five official visits.
So I chose to go to Penn State.
And man, coming right off, playing special teams and getting in, it was such an experience.
And my eyes, every game, were constantly looking in the audience.
Because I always left a ticket for
And, um, to look back at that, man, it really, it really still hurts.
You could feel it.
And, um, and even my dad's still alive today and, uh, it's just not there.
I've tried my hardest.
I really haven't.
I can honestly say that to have a relationship, but, uh.
But Penn State, it definitely gave me things to feed my ego.
You know, you have 110,000 people at every game, and when you make a big play, they're chanting your name.
But ego always stands for edging God out.
I was the type to blame God for everything but not praise Him for anything.
And so when it came to my senior year against Iowa, running down the field on kickoff, I made the tackle and my own teammates helmet went into my left ankle.
And I remember the numbing feeling and grabbing the grass,
Guys are telling me not to look down.
I look down.
The bottom of my foot is touching my shin with all the bones and everything out.
And in that moment, I was just, yeah.
Mentally.
It messes you up.
You've been there.
So you know what I'm talking about.
It messes you up mentally.
And so it took nine months for me to rehab from that.
And I was so angry at God for that.
Just, God, why would you allow this to happen?
This was my ticket.
But that's the pride.
That's the ego, right?
Trying to get your way to fit into God's will.
And so I went through nine months of rehab.
I tried the NFL draft.
I wasn't able to do a lot of the agility drills.
And so training to play over in Europe, trying to still achieve this dream of my dad's.
It wasn't even my dream.
Like I said, if it was up to me, I'd still be playing baseball.
Yeah.
I was a good third baseman.
Wow, man.
I didn't know that.
Yeah.
Could you hit?
I could hit.
Okay.
Yeah.
Good deal.
And so you break your ankle.
You go into some other league.
You eventually go down to Hollywood, Los Angeles, that area.
I do.
So my agent for football was also an agent for Wilhelmina, which is a modeling agency.
And he was like, hey, man, I know it's not going the way you want right now, but I have an opportunity with GNC, which is a supplement store.
He's like, man, read this audition.
You fit the criteria.
And he sent it over to me, and I read it, and it was like 6'3", brown hair, big.
And so I was like, well, that kind of described me.
Let me go to the audition.
And I was a big fan of Arnold Schwarzenegger.
I think all you men out there know what I'm talking about.
Everybody wants to be Arnold back in the day.
I had his poster on my wall.
Miss the Olympia universe and all that kind of good stuff.
And they asked me, like, you know, front double bicep.
And I've seen Arnold.
And so I was, you know, I did the poses.
And as I was walking out, they told the guys in the lobby, they said, we don't need to see anybody else.
And they said, you have the gig.
And they flew me out to Pittsburgh the following week where their corporation is.
And for three years, I was a spokesmodel for GNC.
Then something happened.
What happened?
Man, I was living my dream out there in Los Angeles, which is a crazy town.
And even all the billboards, all the modeling, all the book covers, all the magazine covers, all that I was on, man, I felt so empty.
And I was striving to do more.
And then something happened.
In 2013, I get an audition for the Superman movie, Man of Steel.
and um they call in 125 of us and they call back five and wouldn't you know it i was one of the five wow yeah that's crazy and so like it's just my dad will definitely watch this movie yeah even if he does it in secret maybe maybe then you know i'll get some validation right and
And so here we are.
I'm rehearsing.
They hired me an acting coach.
I'm going in to visit the acting coach three times a week for a whole month before the final audition.
And I leave my acting coach three days before the final audition in Beverly Hills, driving down Wilshire Boulevard.
A Range Rover turns right in front of me on a green light.
And my skid marks later on to find out said I was going between 61 and 63 miles an hour on impact.
And the last thing I saw as I was flying over the car, I just see the lady's face.
It's complete shock.
And then.
I wake up in a hospital bed, mouth wired shut.
Bone is broken.
Bone in a cast up to my hip and tubes in.
And I was just, I didn't know.
I kind of recollect, last thing I remember is her face.
And I'm like, I'm thinking like,
What happened?
I'm feeling my mouth.
I don't know if you've had dreams about missing teeth, but when you're missing seven teeth, there it was again.
Why God?
Why would you do this?
And I think that's the part a lot of us need to do is understand that God doesn't do all these things, but he will work all these things for the good, right?
And so I think we have to stop blaming God for the things he didn't do in our lives, and that'll set us free in understanding that.
So here I am in the hospital in Los Angeles.
I can't do anything.
Taking some meds.
Taking some subscribed meds.
Subscribed.
I never thought it was never in my vision board, my radar.
It wasn't something that I ever thought could happen to me that I would be a drug addict.
I'm almost a professional athlete.
I'm on billboards.
I'm 5% body fat.
I'm what the world would call successful.
You look the part.
You play the part.
You are the part.
But I'm still that little boy on the inside.
Still a little boy.
Yeah.
And prescription drugs came knocking.
And you had to take them.
I did.
The pain was there.
It was real.
Yeah.
They started me off with liquid codeine because I could only suck through a straw because my mouth was wired shut for three months.
And then after that, they subscribed me oxycodones.
They subscribed me to those for a whole year.
And the doctor at the end was like, hey, that's good enough.
We're going to cut you off.
And if you know anything about, this is before we had Suboxone, where it could help you taper off.
He cut me off of, and I was taking 90, 30 milligram oxys a month.
And he was just going to cut you cold turkey.
To zero.
Because he couldn't subscribe to the 15s at that time.
And so here I am sweating profusely.
I mean, withdrawal is crazy.
That withdrawal from that drug will make you do anything.
I'm just going to be honest.
And so here I am.
What do I do now?
And I started going to the streets to suffocate that feeling, really just to medicate myself so I didn't have to feel that way anymore.
And James 1.15 says, sin fully grown leads to death.
So basically, you medicated the pain.
Once you learn that, man, this stuff numbs the pain of my past, the pain of my childhood.
Didn't care about what my dad did or didn't do.
Didn't care about paying bills.
Didn't care about anything.
And started losing things little by little.
Selling one of my Big Ten championship rings.
Getting rid of one of my cars.
And doing things that was on the outside.
doing you had i had this in my hand but i knew that material possessions did not satisfy me the more you get the more you want yeah and so here i am for six years of my life um using any mood mind altering drug every single day so how'd you end up in jail prison
Well, I had four drug overdoses.
After I couldn't find the pills anymore, I went to heroin.
And, you know, those things, as an addict, you say you're never going to do.
It just keeps getting worse.
It just keeps getting worse.
And so I started injecting and four drug overdoses.
And in the state of Ohio, because I had to move back to Ohio because my twin brother helped me nurse me back.
In the state of Ohio, they give you charges for internal possession when you overdose.
One of three states does that.
And Ohio does that.
I didn't have any drugs on me, but I got taken to the hospital and nor canned.
And two of the times I was, uh, they said that I would have a brain damage.
I mean, my brother was sitting at the hospital and, uh, waking up and, you know, I was on for five, six days.
I was in the ICU waking up with tubes in my mouth and catheter ran and just, but that wasn't enough to stop me.
So how'd you get a jail?
What happened?
Well, after getting two internal possession charges.
Had to go to court.
Had to go to court.
And I don't know if anybody's ever been an addict before, but addicts don't show up for court the second time.
And so charges started being brought.
Warrants started being in four different counties, racked up 12 felonies for my arrest.
You know, just doing stupid things.
Um, never things I never, I mean, stealing from Walmart, little things, pumping and leaving the gas stations, little misdemeanors, but those misdemeanors led to, you know, trafficking and led to different things, uh, receiving stolen property and racked up all these, uh, felonies, all drug related, uh,
And the last time I got arrested, man, I have a twin brother and I used to use his ID.
Like when I knew I had warrants out, I would use his identification.
I knew it was social, had everything.
And the last time, actually my twin brother ended up getting a arrest warrant out for his arrest.
And he said, what's going on?
That's not me.
And so it's pulled up in the chart, falsification for this person.
I gave that information.
They take me to jail.
And here I am sitting in jail.
I do 90 days in one jail, get sent to another county.
And that other county was the one's most serious charges.
And going through the whole court process and everything.
I remember the judge saying, Hill, we're going to save your life today.
I really thought they were going to let me go.
And she said that we're going to send you to prison.
And that, that right there was the thing that my life was over.
That is the best thing looking back that could have happened to me.
It was the mercy of God.
It was.
It was the mercy of God.
God can save you in prison.
Yeah, come on.
And you went to prison and there you tried to take your life.
It was actually in jail before they shipped me to prison.
I leave the courthouse, go back to the cell.
They put me in a solo cell because I was really upset.
And the next morning, they kick underneath a paper underneath my cell door.
It said, from Penn State to the state pen.
And it had a picture of me in our first ever white-out game against Ohio State.
Read that, and man, if you live for other people's compliments, you'll die by their criticism.
And so I said, my life is over.
I didn't want to live anymore.
It's not that I didn't want to live anymore.
I just wanted the pain to go away.
And so I watched the guard.
He does a round every 15 minutes.
Watched him walk right past my cell.
And I took the sheets and I tied them around the top bunk.
I remember sitting on the bottom bunk, and I kicked my feet underneath, and I tied three knots on my neck, because I wasn't going to fail at this thing.
And I leaned forward.
Before I leaned forward, I said, Mom, I'm sorry, because I had a praying mother.
And I took my own life that day in the cell.
Wow.
And you were legally dead?
So I wake up in the hospital.
They said it was six days later that I woke up in the hospital.
It wasn't four days like Lazarus, but the nurse from the jail, her name is Karen, and she came into the jail weeping, crying.
She said, Jed, you shouldn't be here.
And I couldn't talk.
I had ruined all my vocal cords, and I said, I don't want to be here.
And she said, you don't understand.
I pronounced you dead in your cell six days ago.
I'm only here at the hospital to collect the paperwork because we all thought you were dead.
Wow.
And that right there hit me so hard.
And she asked me this question, which transformed my life, and it could transform anyone's life.
She said, Jed, if you really be honest with what you're going through, she said, could your life be different?
And she said, transparency leads to transformation.
Just think if we really get honest about what we're going through in our lives.
You ain't got to tell everybody what you're going through, but you better tell somebody.
And I go back to the jail three weeks later after being in the ICU.
I'm on suicide watch.
And she talked to the warden to get me a Bible because when you're on suicide watch, you don't have toilet paper.
You have to knock on the door to get toilet paper.
You don't have anything.
And she got me a little New Testament Bible.
And she slipped it through the door, the cubby.
And she said, Jed, if you get honest, your life can be different.
And she handed me that Bible.
And I wish I could tell you that as soon as she gave it to me, I opened it and I prayed and all that.
But the first thing when she gave it to me, I threw it against the wall.
Through it against the world.
My first real prayer to God was, I hate you.
Yeah.
And I know people, it's blasphemy.
Cast all your cares on him because he cared.
So that means I can talk to God when I'm happy, when I'm up and down.
And it took a couple of days.
It was a seed though, man.
It was a seed.
It was a seed.
The word of God.
You open the book.
God began to speak to you.
Yeah.
That didn't negate all the consequences of your choices because you had to walk that out.
But you went from a prisoner to being a pastor, now going into the field of evangelism, making a difference.
Yeah.
I think all that started with the brokenness of your dad, man, and wanting validation and affirmation.
And maybe you're out here today, and that's what you're desiring, man.
And maybe you've had a rocky relationship with your dad or mom, and you're looking for validation.
You hear this story of redemption.
You can't find it in people.
You have to find it in Jesus.
It's Jesus, man.
It is Jesus.
God's grace is sufficient, but God's grace still will not cancel out the consequences of our choices.
Mm-hmm.
Do not be deceived.
God cannot be mocked.
What a man sows in choices he'll reap in consequences.
And so giving my life to Christ that day in the jail cell, I wish I could say that the state dropped the charges, but God did.
Yeah.
And I, I, it was the most honest prayer.
And if you're out there today, it's a simple, honest prayer.
I just said, God, I give you all that I am.
It's not much.
I give you all that I will be do something with it.
I want to be a whosoever because John three 16 says for whosoever believe them should not perish, but have everlasting life.
And I was tired of person.
I said, I want to be a whosoever.
And that was it.
And I got up and.
God's grace is sufficient, but I still had to go serve some time in prison.
Yeah.
But I wasn't locked up a day in my life.
Amen.
You were just, you were freer.
I was free.
I was free.
Like Paul says in chains, but I'm free.
Yeah.
And so it was, it was just phenomenal what God has done and what he's continuing to do.
Because I surround myself with people that don't put fires under me, they put fires in me.
That's good.
That's good.
Friends, man, thank you for sharing your story, Jed.
What a powerful, redemptive story, man.
One of God's grace, his mercy weaved throughout your life.
Your mom's prayers like a red thread, man, from the time you were a child, you went to prison, came out.
And she's gone.
She's not forgotten.
She's not in your past.
She's in your future.
She's in heaven, man.
One day you're going to see her again.
And we're believing for the redemption of your dad also.
And that will come, man.
Well, the fervent prayers of a righteous person prevail with much.
I'm not giving up on him because I know God's not giving up.
No, we're not giving up on you.
Thank you for joining us on the Reset Podcast.
And thank you, Jed, for being with us.
Join us next week as we dive back into another conversation of culture, dealing with men,
dealing with situations that men go through thank you i'm your host Archie Callahan and we'll see you soon