How one Sheboygan man is using his 'another chance' in recovery from drug and alcohol addiction to spread positivity
SHEBOYGAN - Two years ago, something clicked for Koke Mailo-Podewils.
The Sheboygan man, then 45, was laying in the hospital facing life-threatening health problems. The doctor asked him if he wanted to live.
“I said, ‘Yessir, I do,’ and I changed my life as soon as I walked out of there,” Mailo-Podewils said.
“I don’t know how to explain it,” he said. “It was like all of a sudden, I knew I disappointed everybody, but I could come back from it. I just realized I had another chance.”
Mailo-Podewils had struggled with drugs and alcohol most of his life. When he began to change things, he thought, “Well, I’m working on me. How can I help other people?” he said.
Last year, he started a booth at Sheboygan County Interfaith Organization farmers' markets, where he greets people, freestyle raps and gives out free donated prizes after passersby spin a "Positivity Wheel" and do something positive. He is in the process of creating a Positivity Recovery Foundation, with the goal of bringing positivity to the community “one smile at a time” through mental health wellness and awareness.
Meantime, Mailo-Podewils also dances, sings and freestyles through grocery stores, Kwik Trips and probably anywhere else you can imagine.
Some people might look at him a little weird, but others automatically smile, said Stephanie Swigert, owner of Sheboygan’s B’Loonie Gifts Party Store, who met Mailo-Podewils and has since become one of several business owners supporting his booth. The positivity is infectious, she said.
‘I woke up at 45, basically, with nothing’
Mailo-Podewils didn’t grow up in Sheboygan, but Sheboygan saved his life, he says.
When he quit playing football in college, where he had played on a scholarship, he didn’t have a home. He started selling drugs and went to prison.
Five years ago, with help from Samaritan’s Hand in Sheboygan, Mailo-Podewils stopped using opiates when an overdose nearly killed him, but he was still using many other drugs. His daughters were born, but for eight years, he let drugs and alcohol take him out of their lives, he said.
“None of that stuff woke me up,” he said. “But when that doctor asked me if I wanted to live, something clicked. ... I was 45 years old, 345 pounds, pre-diabetic, had high blood pressure and he had just found aneurysms in both my legs.
“There’s nothing I didn’t change — my way of thinking, everything,” he said. “I started working out six days a week. I started eating properly. Positivity was huge, though. Like, always staying positive no matter how hard things got because … I woke up at 45, basically, with nothing. You know, I had just been getting by. I didn’t know what love was. I didn’t know what trust was.
“I started loving myself again — because I had been ashamed of who I was,” he said. “All the drugs, all that masking, everything.”
‘I want people to have this happiness,’ Mailo-Podewils says
Living in Plymouth with a friend, Mailo-Podewils started lifting with bags of books. He walked circles outside around the house. He got a membership at Planet Fitness in Sheboygan. A friend got him a Fitbit watch and his girlfriend put alarms on it to drink water, get up and move, and different things.
“That’s what started the routine … and I just started being positive,” he said. “There was no quit in me.”
Since then, things like his emotions and love of music have woken up, he said. He’s found healthier ways to cope with mental illnesses like ADHD, OCD, anxiety and depression. He is reconnecting with family and his Samoan heritage, he said.
Some of it is little things: Painting his nails with P-O-S-I-T-I-V-I-T-Y, and wearing fun socks with his pants rolled up.
One of his biggest faults in the past was caring what people thought — trying to be cool or trying not to be weak, he said.
His transformation is "just a total night-and-day difference," said Misty Bowers, a close friend of Mailo-Podewils's years ago, who recently reconnected with him.
Bowers and Mailo-Podewils had parted ways after a night that Mailo-Podewils attempted suicide and Bowers called emergency responders to help him when he called her to say goodbye.
"It makes me emotional, but ― my thinking was, I know he's going to be mad at me for calling the police because he's not in a very good place and he might have things on him that will get him in trouble, but I would rather him be mad at me the rest of his life and still alive than do nothing and him pass away," Bowers said.
"Then, I was grocery shopping before Christmastime and I ran into him again, and I was just so shocked," she said. "I'm like, 'Koke?' and he's like 'Misty?!'
"He went from being very isolated, depressed, not really willing to talk to a stranger (and) when he was using, he was very paranoid," she said. "Now, it's like this light just shines around him wherever he goes. He used to be so shy about doing freestyles and getting on a microphone. Now, it doesn't matter who's there, who's listening.
"I am so proud of him for overcoming that because there's so many people that do not make it out of the grips of addiction, and not only has he made it out, but he's helping pull other people out, too," she said. "He's taken all these struggles and made it into something so beautiful."
Mailo-Podewils said he still gets nervous sometimes, but he’s aware of it.
“If I start to get negative, something checks me,” he said.
“I feel obligated to do what I’m doing," he added. "Because people deserve to have this happiness that I’ve worked so hard for and finally found so late in life. If I can lead by example, I will — anywhere."
That includes online.
“When I see somebody on Facebook who’s not doing very well, I put a video on there with a little ‘You’re amazing’ or freestyle rap or something like that," he said.
“One of the gentlemen in town here, I did that for," he said. "A couple weeks later, he came to my work and he hugged me and he cried. He goes, 'You have no idea how low I was when you sent that video to me.' And I was like, 'This is why I do what I do.'
“I’ll never stop. ... I’ll help as many people as I can,” he said. “And not just with recovery, just being happy with who they are, because it’s very hard. A lot of people are not happy with who they are.
“Life is so amazing, and I want people to have this happiness,” he said with a smile. “And I think the community is starting to catch on a little bit here and there.”
More:Political polarization. Culture wars. Road rage. We're an angrier society. What can be done?
More:As suicide rate keeps rising in Wisconsin, concentration in rural areas raises alarm
Here's how to get help in Sheboygan County
Suicidal thoughts. If you or someone you know is dealing with suicidal thoughts, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 or text "Hopeline" to the National Crisis Text Line at 741-741. For immediate help with a mental health crisis, call the Sheboygan County 24-Hour Crisis Response at 920-459-3151.
Substance abuse. People needing help with substance abuse can call the Sheboygan County Mental Health and Substance Abuse Treatment Center at 920-459-3207 for help. HSHS St. Nicholas Hospital Emergency Department at 3100 Superior Ave. in Sheboygan also offers 24/7 walk-in care for opioid treatment, including for people who may be overdosing, in withdrawal or ready to start recovery from heroin or pain pills. Medical staff at HSHS Hospital will connect people with further treatment.
More:988 is the number to call if you are experiencing a mental health crisis
Reach Maya Hilty at 920-400-7485 or MHilty@sheboygan.gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Sheboygan Press: Sheboygan man spreads positivity after recovering from drug addiction
