M2 The Rock
Talking about all the struggles that come with addictions, hurts, habits, and hang-ups.
About M2 the Rock Podcast
For over 25 years, Michael Molthan was known as one of the best luxury home builders in the country. But an addiction to drugs and alcohol caused his life to spiral out of control, slowly stripping him of everything that mattered to him, including his business, his relationship with his family, his marriage, his children and finally, his freedom. After 27 arrests and doing close to 4 years in prison, Molthan had a “spiritual awakening. A true bright-light moment with God”. He began reading the Bible, studying with fellow inmates, and speaking each day after dinner about the hope he had found. “My life today is the result of a series of miracles created by God to put me on the path to my divine-right destiny,” says Molthan. “I now live to serve God and share the hope and love he so freely gave to me.”
"He told about the motel, all the awful things going on in there: firearms, sex traffic, drugs, people being beat up, people being killed. I could tell that people in the audience were kind of going, ‘whatever, it’s Dallas. That doesn’t affect us here [in Coppell].’ They ran all the license plates in the parking lot, and 80% of the license plates were registered to Coppell."
Closer Look into M2 The Rock
On March 26, 2019, the Dallas Morning News published a story titled, “How a drug-infested motel in northwest Dallas ‘ruined many, many lives’ in Coppell”. Joining Michael Molthan for real talk on solutions to addiction, alcoholism, and unmanageable habits is Colleen Michaelis, who was interviewed for this story.
Colleen Michaelis lost her 24 year old son, Tommy McClenahan, to an accidental drug overdose on August 10, 2018. She believes that when bad or even tragic things happen in your life, they are an opportunity to help others. By telling her family’s story, she hopes to educate people about addiction…in particular opioids, bring awareness to the drug epidemic that is killing so many and help to end the stigma of addiction. Addiction has no zip code and although hers is an affluent suburb of Dallas, they have sadly witnessed a spike in opioid use and opioid related deaths. It is a subject that is often covered up or swept under the rug. She wants to address “the elephant in the room” in hopes of helping other families who are dealing with addiction or even prevent someone from heading down that road altogether.
Molthan opened the show by presenting an article that was released on March 26 this year about a drug-infested motel in North West Dallas has “ruined many, many lives in Coppel.” Colleen Michaelis, who was interviewed in the story, lost her 24 year old son, Tommy, to an accidental drug overdose on August 10, 2018. She believes, however, that these tragic events are opportunities to help others, to educate about addiction, to bring awareness to the drug epidemic in our backyard.
Her son Tommy was also very involved with Recovery Unplugged, explaining:
“I can’t say enough about the people at recovery unplugged. His counselor, Anna, has been just amazing and supportive throughout this process. Then you mention Face the Music; in lieu of flowers or anything, we asked for donations to face the music. I like to think Tommy has a hand in getting us together.”
Molthan elaborated on the incredible coincidence:
“I’m getting goosebumps talking about this because this morning I got a text from Randy and Cynthia Smoot saying, ‘did you know the connection between Tommy and Recovery Unplugged?’ I didn’t, so I pulled it up and read it. It’s almost God-scripted because we didn’t script this.”
Molthan then asked Michaelis to explain what opportunity she mentioned could come out of such a tragic event. She explained:
“We started attending funerals a couple of years ago in Coppell, and nobody talked about it. Parents, the community, [and] our school district weren’t talking about it, and in 2017, there were more than a couple very sad drug-induced death, then in 2018, Tommy was actually the eighth drug-related death of a Coppell high school student.
I had watched this go on with other families, so I just was like, ‘I’m not going to let Tommy’s get swept under the rug.’ We need to do something, and I spoke in his service and said, ‘I’m going to address the elephant in the room because here we are again. Here we are again, and we’ve got to do something about it. Our superintendent was there and several board members, and a lot of people knew my story because I am a PE teacher at Pinkerton.
So it wasn’t just Tommy but it was the series of deaths and me speaking out that really prompted our own town and [school] district to take some proactive steps and bring awareness to our community.
The Superintendent last Friday sent out an email to all of the educators and parents through his newsletter and said it’s time to burst our bubble, and we have to address this as a town. So having said that, one of the things they did proactively is they brought in a man named Rick Calvert last week. He is a US Federal Prosecutor that usually worked with the DEA and FBI on big drug trafficking charges.
That’s where the hotel that everybody has read about in the article. Early summer last year, there were three deaths to heroin overdose, deaths of young men that were all former Coppell high school students. The Coppell police department got in touch with Mr. Calvert and got the ball rolling on that investigation.”
After Molthan went to break, he returned by asking Michaelis about the story of the motel, which she explained:
“It’s hard to believe kids from Coppell would even go near that place. I had not heard of that hotel until Mr. Calvert came and presented last week. He told about the motel, all the awful things going on in there: firearms, sex traffic, drugs, people being beat up, people being killed. He ties it back to three kids that I talked about earlier that had died of a heroin overdose that had been traced back to that hotel. I could tell that people in the audience were kind of going, ‘whatever, it’s Dallas. That doesn’t affect us here’ until he said, ‘the reason I’m talking to you about this hotel is because the three kids were all former students at Coppell High School. The two kids we found that were actually dealing out of one of the rooms were former students of Coppell High School.
So you would go in there and if you wanted to be a dealer there, you pay $200 to the owner, and you got to deal whatever you wanted out of your room. If you were a customer, you could go to room 342 and get heroin, you could go two rooms down and get methamphetamine.
One of the other shocking things Mr. Calvert said at the end of the presentation he gave to the educators was that as they were raiding that place, they ran all the license plates in the parking lot, and 80% of the license plates were registered to Coppell.
Certainly, that’s not the only place like that in Dallas. The story of the hotel is awful, but our community needed to hear it. To have a federal prosecutor come out and take his time to speak to all of the high school age kids and educators is a big deal.”
Michaelis then went on to share a timeline of Tommy’s addiction, the months, weeks, and days leading up to his tragic accident. She shared the story with confidence and poise, which prompted Molthan to ask how she has felt so safe coping with the death of her son. Michaelis responded:
“Speaking about it helps. But realizing I’ve gotten a lot of great feedback from other interviews that I’ve done and a podcast I did and even the Dallas Morning News Article. The feedback I’ve gotten has been thank you so much for doing this. Thank you for bringing awareness. That lifted me knowing that I am bringing awareness and knowing that there are people that have reached out to me who have lost their kids and don’t feel like they have anyone to talk to. I’m really just trying to end the stigma because there is not a person in the United States of America that addiction has not affected in one way or another, so it does affect everybody.
One other thing I just want to mention is that [addiction is] very linked to genetics. We need to talk about that with our kids. My brother got sober at 23, and I remember when he told us that he had a problem with alcohol primarily, my sister and I were like, ‘you’re 23. Everybody drinks.’ And he goes, ‘you guys are going out and having fun. I’m getting a case of beer, going back to my place by myself and drinking it.’ We should have told his story earlier to our kids. My mom stopped drinking at 41 years old.
So we need to be really open with our kids because Uncle Jimmy looks great now, but we need to open about what that road looked like when he was 19, 20, 21, 22. My brother actually went down to Austin and visit Tommy while he was there and wrote an eight page handwritten letter, which is really special.
I have a running club at my school, 4th and 5th graders, and we run a 5k every month. So I talked to the other coaches and was like, ‘do you think we can run this 5k; it’ll give us a chance to actually address this with them.’ They said sure. So we ended up being the second highest fundraiser in Dallas. Team Tommy raised over $10,000. My school is going to have a Team Tommy day, and it’s given us an opportunity to talk to the kids. The average age in Texas for alcohol and smoking experimentation is 11 years old.”
For over 25 years, Michael Molthan was known as one of the best luxury home builders in the country. But an addiction to drugs and alcohol caused his life to spiral out of control, slowly stripping him of everything that mattered to him, including his business, his relationship with his family, his marriage, his children and finally, his freedom. After 27 arrests and doing close to 4 years in prison, Molthan had a “spiritual awakening. A true bright-light moment with God”. He began reading the Bible, studying with fellow inmates, and speaking each day after dinner about the hope he had found. “My life today is the result of a series of miracles created by God to put me on the path to my divine-right destiny,” says Molthan. “I now live to serve God and share the hope and love he so freely gave to me.”
The first miracle, was in October of 2017 when Molthan was “accidentally” released from jail on a paperwork error. Michael traveled over 300 miles with no money, no food, and no transportation to meet with his Judge, Jennifer Bennett, to be placed back into jail and then go to prison. Because of the dramatic spiritual awakening Michael experienced during his incarceration and his willingness to do anything to get healthy the Judge granted him another miracle, which was to forgive him and challenge him to pursue a self-correct program. Within a few days, a reporter Molthan had known from his home-building days reached out to interview him and was blown away when he heard his story. He invited him to be a guest on his radio show to share his amazing testimony and that radio interview led to the miracle of Molthan being given his own show on iHeart radio.
In February of 2018, he shared a heartfelt Facebook Live video to announce that he would only be able to broadcast one final show due to lack of funding. A listener saw Molthan’s video and called to let him know how much the show had changed her life and helped her recover from the loss of her son and a grandson from addiction. She asked to meet him for lunch the next day and at that meeting made the miraculous decision to become his angel investor to keep the show on the air.