The story of Big Mike: Service in Recovery

Kicking off our March, “Service in Recovery” series is the story of Big Mike—a man who learned that purpose isn’t something you find, it’s something you practice, one day at a time.Mike started using at just 16, and his addiction escalated fast. Even when he caught a glimpse of another life—a lacrosse scholarship, real potential—his disease kept pulling him back. After a tooth was pulled, a prescription for Tylenol with codeine lit the fuse again; within a day the bottle was gone, and the daily grind of using returned with full force. He even tried to manage it “his way,” bringing methadone on a trip with his team—only to burn through it immediately and crash into withdrawal. Back home, he spent his last $20 to get high, and hours later came to in his car after sliding into the snow—empty, broke, and out of road.That’s where the turning point came: George the painter brought him to a meeting and, in Mike’s words, helped save his life. Mike begged detox to take him, and when he got out, he lived at George’s house for months—showing up, going to meetings, and learning how to stay. At the Surrender Group, someone looked at him in the wreckage and simply told him he would be okay—and for Mike, that became a promise he’s been living into ever since.Service became his lifeline. Early on, he made himself useful by driving other addicts to meetings, learning that helping someone else was often the quickest way to get out of his own head. And when COVID shut the world down, Mike turned that same instinct into something extraordinary: he started the NANA 24/7 meeting in his basement. That meeting has continued without ending for over five years, reaching several million unique IP addresses—a round-the-clock doorway for the addict who can’t sleep, can’t stop, and doesn’t know where else to go.For years, life on a virtual platform meant he didn’t have an in-person home group—until the Surrender Group reopened near his home. Today, Mike is the greeter, because he believes a “big NA hug” can be the difference between someone staying or leaving. And the dream addiction stole from him—an opportunity at a national lacrosse championship—became part of his amends: when he got clean, he vowed he’d help others play lacrosse, giving back what he lost to the next generation.Mike also credits his recovery to the love and partnership he found along the way. He met his wife at a convention—she was from Kentucky—and they held a long-distance relationship for two years before welcoming twins (a girl and a boy). They later married at the 50th Anniversary Narcotics Anonymous world convention in Hawaii, and today they’ve been married over 20 years, raising 22-year-old twins and a 13-year-old.From being “voted most unlikely to stay clean” to decades clean and deeply committed to service, Big Mike’s story is proof that recovery isn’t just about surviving—it’s about showing up, staying available, and building a life that makes room for others to live, too.