When you hit age 60, what will you be doing?

Playing golf? Lounging at the beach?

Or will you be growing and developing your gifts and talents?

Bill Martinez, nationally syndicated radio talk show host, is very involved with the latter. At age 60, he was called back to radio to begin something new, purposeful and fulfilling. Today he is 65 and is heard live in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Dallas every morning. In his current home state of Florida, his voice is heard in West Palm Beach and Titusville. Ever moving forward, Bill Martinez Live is carried in 260 markets on 40 radio stations.

Bill Martinez is no newbie to radio. In 1968 he worked toward a radio license and went live on a local Port Hueneme, California country music station covering the graveyard shift featuring Johnny Cash and other music legends of the time. That was before the market splintered—the “old days” Bill adds, “when you could open up a mike and reach half a million listeners.”

From 1970 to 1972, Bill hosted a radio talk show which he likened to Robin William’s big screen version, “Good Morning Vietnam!” for the Marine Corps where he was based. He also was the television host of a nightly cable news show for the base.

After a vocation in marketing, advertising, and running radio stations, Martinez returned to school, receiving a degree in Biblical theology, expecting to one day work in ministry.

One morning, a friend who hosted a Christian radio show called; he was in the emergency room, just diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Bill was asked to fill in. After 30 years away from the mike, he was called back to his original work.

And he returned, utilizing his gifts, talents, experience, and Biblical knowledge—recognizing the hand of God at in his new vocation.

Bill Martinez is Hispanic, the third son of 10 children. His father, a civil servant was also a World War II veteran. His mother, a homemaker, is an immigrant from Mexico. Together they sent their children to church and Catholic school. “Until I became a senior in high school, the only thing I wanted to be was a priest,” Bill states. Raised conservatively, the former altar boy was schooled by nuns. Even today, the Holy Communion which is so reverenced by the Catholic Church is a part of the fabric of his life. To him, it is about proximity to God.

As a conservative Hispanic, radio marketers heard his broadcasts and that was the beginning of Bill Martinez Live. The show has grown, reaching markets on the air and digitally online.

Before each show, Bill prays, not that his will be done, but that God’s will be done. This is the foundation of Bill Martinez Live. The purpose is to confront the culture of modern society. “When we confront to connect, we connect others with God. What cries out of all of our souls is this: Why am I here? Why now?”

He means to encourage people, helping them connect with God’s purpose in their lives, which leads to fulfillment.

As a former adjunct professor at Cosa Mesa University, Bill taught fulfillment from a Biblical viewpoint:

“Fulfillment,” Bill relates, “leads to ultimate freedom.”

To reach fulfillment, in a Godly way, one must first, enjoy what work he or she is doing.

Second, he has to give it a fair chance and demonstrate competence.

Third, each person has gifts and talents which need to be grown and developed and expressed.

Very few people reach the potential they were placed here to develop. Even the government agrees.

“Several years ago, the U.S. Dept. of Labor reported that less than 10% of people reach these goals and are fulfilled in their life’s work.”

To help listeners understand what they are missing (fulfillment and freedom), Bill discusses politics, world events, culture, and faith from a Biblical worldview through movies and artists, many who are authors. He regularly features interviews with well-known writers and personalities.

“My show is about advancing the greater cause for our country and every American citizen by empowering our listeners with truth and knowledge that will affect the real change we all believe in, in ourselves, our families, neighborhoods, country and world. This may sound grand, but why not? It’s time for America to dream even bigger dreams. Are you in?”

“When we follow God and His way, ‘He will give you the desires of your heart.’”

At age 65 Bill Martinez is reinventing his life with God’s help. And he is excited about it. His life has purpose and meaning. He is fulfilled. He is free.

What are you doing with your life?

Bill Martinez is a resident of Port St. Lucie, Florida. Find Bill online at BillMartinezLive.com

HAVE A HERO TIP? Send your Hometown Hero tip to Kelly Jadon: kfjadon@gmail.com

Indiantown's Bob Howe: One Man Makes a Difference

In the United States, more than 7 million children live with a parent with an alcohol problem. (SAMHSA) Alcohol usage in these families affects the children. Today, 1 in 5 people report that they grew up with an alcoholic parent.

That's roughly 18% of adults. (COA)

About 18 million Americans have an alcohol use disorder (SAMHSA), leading to approximately 85,000 alcohol-related deaths, “making it the third leading preventable cause of death in the country.” (JAMA)

Alcoholism, considered a disease, includes these symptoms:

• Craving—A strong need, or urge, to drink.

• Loss of control—Not being able to stop drinking once drinking has begun.

• Dependence—Withdrawal symptoms, such as nausea, sweating, shakiness, and negative emotional states such as anxiety, after stopping drinking.

• Tolerance—The need to drink greater amounts of alcohol to feel the same effect. (NIH)

70 percent of alcoholics develop a three to four year dependence on alcohol from a single episode. (NIH)

Recovery is possible the National Institute of Health states, especially for those who undergo formal treatment, while many others recover without formal treatment.

Born into a dysfunctional family, Mike Beath didn’t know he had been adopted by his father until it was revealed to him in a negative comment by his grandmother. Resentment and change began in him at age 9, becoming the roots of alcoholism, cocaine addiction, and the need to be a people pleaser and overachiever.

At age 17, Mike dropped out of high school and enlisted in the Navy as a Kiddie Cruiser. Receiving training in Pensacola, he became a plain clothes communication tech with top security clearance.

Based in Istanbul, his job was to intercept communications from the Russian Naval Fleet as they passed through the Bosphorus from a radar base in Ankara. In 1964, this was the height of the Cold War; communications were in Morse Code and were passed to a decoder and then on to a translator who translated them from Russian to English.

A people pleaser, Beath partied while off shift. One night, he and a few other enlisted men stole a slot machine from the non-commissioned officers’ club to be used at parties in their own apartments. Later found out, Beath lost his top security clearance, spent 90 days in the brig, and was demoted to the job of barber on a ship.

All this time he was becoming addicted to alcohol without even realizing he had a problem.

Honorably discharged at age 21, Beath became an electrician, completing his apprenticeship on Towers A and B at the World Trade Center. He used his GI Bill to study at Brooklyn College for a time.

Mike married, had four children, and moved his family to Los Angeles where he’d grown up. For ten years he worked in sales and marketing, adding a cocaine addiction to functional alcoholism, and found himself divorced. Lorraine, his ex-wife, took his children to Port St. Lucie, Florida.

Beath remarried with a woman who had similar problems.

One Easter, the two found themselves with nothing to do, and went to church. It was there that Mike first heard the message of the resurrection. Intrigued, he returned, each week hearing a call for the altar. Finally, he gave his life to Jesus.

In 1979, Mike woke up in jail, with three DUIs. Bonding out, he was sick and tired of being sick and tired, knowing that he couldn’t overcome his addictions on his own. Mike admitted his problem to God, turning the addictions over to him. Three days later, after direction from a friend, Beath admitted himself to an aversion treatment center in Santa Barbara—a ten-day treatment plan costing $10,000.

The regimen applied was successful. Mike’s conscious thoughts had influenced his subconscious, so that he no longer wanted a drink, of any kind. The flesh of the body and the flesh of the mind had been sufficiently overcome. The cocaine addiction left with the alcohol. However, there continued to be a desire to drink, though Mike consciously did not want one.

Mike’s second wife continued to drink and this marriage ended.

One day, Lorraine, his first wife, phoned Mike from Florida. Their oldest son was using drugs. The next day Mike flew south; arriving at the airport, he saw his wife and four children waiting. Mike believes God was saying, “I’m giving you back what you threw away.”

Mike and Lorraine remarried. Eventually, Mike Beath went back to school and graduated from Indiana Wesleyan University with a religious studies degree. He helped found an Overcomers group at Morningside Ministries and on January 1, 2002, opened the doors to Celebrate Recovery at Morningside.

Each week 150 to 200 people attend; over the years, thousands have been helped. The focus is on getting the roots out, the conscious affecting the subconscious, by the renewing of the mind. Mike Beath states that this process works. Beath himself discovered that he had been holding onto issues from his childhood. As these roots were unburied, exposed to the light and dealt with, the desire to drink finally left him.

Today Mike Beath is the pastor overseeing Celebrate Recovery at Morningside Ministries in Port St. Lucie, Florida. Lorraine is co-leader with him, assisting co-dependent women.

Beath understands what others go through because of his own past. “I came from the streets,” he says, and “We’re still works in progress.” Many people see the recovery process as a burden, but Mike Beath calls it “opportunity, a blessing, a u-turn.” It’s a chance at a new life, and “we are paid back what the ‘locusts’ have stolen.”

Mike asserts, “Celebrate Recovery is not like other addiction freeing programs.” It is a stepping stone out of addiction and into a spiritual awakening with God, to the next level of life he has for you. This gives the alcoholic purpose, a more abundant life, and the ability to get up in the morning. Gone is the dread of day-to-day living.

Celebrate Recovery is not only for substance abuse. It is for anything that hinders you: hurts (abuse, abandonment, co-dependency, divorce), hang-ups (anger, depression, fear, unforgiveness), habits (bad coping methods: alcoholism, drugs, food, gambling, sex, shopping, smoking, etc…). This is where the roots to the old man come out and remain out. Beath states, “It’s like getting a check in the mail you didn’t deserve.”

The program utilizes 8 principles, 12 steps, and has many testimonies.

Begun more than 20 years ago at Saddleback Church, Celebrate Recovery today is used in over 20,000 churches internationally. Mike Beath adds, Celebrate Recovery operates under a church because, “a church is a hospital for sinners. There’s no one perfect here.”

Contact Mike Beath: mikebeath@morningsidechurch.com

HAVE A HERO TIP? Hometown Heroes are in every town and city. They are regular people who have made a positive difference in their community, impacting others for the better. Send your Hometown Hero tip to Kelly Jadon kfjadon@gmail.com or find her online at kellyjadon.com.

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