Stand Up With God ... And Rediscover Hope

By Jerry Deutsch

Stand Up With God is truly a God-inspired, important, and powerful masterpiece written by a commoner who was in remedial English upon entering high school.

Jerry Deutsch, Speaker of Hope, is a few days shy of his seventy-eighth birthday, even though many times it seemed impossible to overcome the roadblocks in his life, through his faith and spiritual belief, he overcame them with God leading the way.

His inspiring journey through life is nothing short of many curve balls that went his way. Now Jerry would like to share his very inspiring story with all of you.

He has already inspired the lives of many and he hopes that one day he will be lucky enough to enter your life and inspire you with his story of Hope, Health, and Happiness and Peace of Mind.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jerry Deutsch
• Release date: Nov 14, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005389444

Jerry Deutsch

Meet Jerry Deutsch: Speaker of HopeHis inspiring journey through life is nothing short of many curve balls that went his way. Now Jerry would like to share his very inspiring story with all of you. Jerry has already inspired the lives of many. He hopes that one day he will be lucky enough to enter your life and inspire you.

Book preview

About the Author

Growing up, my father worked nonstop seven days a week. My mother, like many women in the 1940s, stayed at home raising both my big sister and me, while endlessly supporting our father. My mother and father were my two best friends and the greatest teachers in my life. Having an obsessive-compulsive addictive behavior had many advantages and disadvantages for me. My must-read story tells about how I, a commoner, overcame many adversities, some from my own doing and others from living life to its fullest.

Later in life, I found Hope, Health, and Happiness along with Peace of Mind. My faith and the power of God were key to having positive thoughts flowing throughout my mind and my body most of the time. Positive energy is a healer.

Chapter One

Has the World Lost Its Mind?

I Lost Mine!

I used to deliver newspapers; now I deliver wisdom.

In my seventies, on April 1, 2018, I decided that I would take on the task of being the author of my first book. I am sharing my journey with all of you because there are many ways to travel through life. Some ways are better than others.

For many years I did it my way. Then I listened to God, and I did it his way. I thought I was invincible. Control, power, and money all led me down the same dead-ends and left me on the brink of taking my own life.

Then in my darkest hour, when all seemed as if it was lost, I decided to do it God’s way. I replaced the Golden calf with God’s Golden rules and my life has been filled with Hope, Health, and Happiness ever since.

Even though I found myself in remedial English on my first day at West Phoenix High School, I know the chronicle of my journey will give the world we live in today Hope, Health, and Happiness. I am dedicating this story to all humanity so that we can make this world that we live in today and tomorrow a better place than it was yesterday. We can all make a difference by giving back forever. Do not ever forget those left behind.

My words of wisdom have already helped everyone from the homeless to billionaires that are lost without their money, and thousands in between. I have given many one-on-one coaching sessions with positive results. We have all stumbled sometime during our lifetimes, and we all benefit from our interaction with others.

Since my twenties I began searching for peace within myself. I would medicate myself with drugs, alcohol, gambling, workaholic behavior, and the stock market in order to help ease my internal pain. My workaholic behavior contributed to destroying numerous relationships.

At the age of twenty-three, I first started thinking more about my future and what was important to me. That’s when I decided I wanted Peace of Mind, but I struggled for many years throughout my life with many distractions. In my heart and mind, I knew that I needed to quit all mind-altering drugs, alcohol, gambling, workaholic behavior, and other obsessive-compulsive behaviors that would consume me.

However, I would quit something, and then start doing it again more than ever. This went on for years. I knew that something was missing in my life. I always thought and believed that I could do anything and everything myself. But the thought of how to achieve the Peace of Mind I needed to be happy was overwhelming and bewildering to me.

The Wisdom Was Inside Me

Yet, the answer to my yearning was right in front of me all the time. I prayed to God to give me wisdom and my much-needed strength to conquer the many demons that were keeping me from having Peace of Mind.

It took me almost seventy-three years to figure out on my own, do not carry the pain, let it go. The question is how and where to put it. I finally figured that out, and I want to share it with you.

The wisdom was inside of me from an early age, but I didn’t realize it. You see, since I was a little boy — about five years old — I learned about God by going to Temple Beth Israel Sunday School with my sister and reading a book that my parents gave my sister and me to share. The book was The Golden Bible, first printed in 1946. We would read it every night before going to sleep as it had great biblical stories and beautiful illustrations too, and then we prayed afterward. The Ten Commandments and the biblical stories with beautiful illustrations left an imprint in my mind forever.

I was raised a Reform Jew. In 1960 I was confirmed from Temple Beth Israel. I went to Temple with my parents for the High Holy Days. I have been exposed to other religions and beliefs throughout my life. I have always prayed to God at least once a day, but in my workaholic days my heart and mind were not connecting with God. My mind was in the subconscious. I substituted money and power for God. I was a lost soul spiritually. I did not become fully aware of God again until my insanity years, 1997 to 2001.

One reason is that I always had an obsessive-compulsive behavior that got the better of me. That type of behavior has many pluses, but also many minuses. I was a wise guy with authority, and I always wanted to be a leader rather than a follower. I was obsessed with being in control like so many others out there — and possibly you too.

I was born with numbers on my mind. At an early age I discovered I had a photographic memory. Numbers dominated much of my life. I was raised in a household where more praise was given for my intellectual ability than my athleticism. I did play sports, but the talk at our dinner table was more about business and current events. Money inevitably crept into the conversation.

When I was seven years old, my sister and I would spend many hours playing ping pong, monopoly, and gin rummy. The winner of each game would win ten cents. Neither one of us had much money so my sister would pay her debt to me by making me bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwiches and/or grilled cheese sandwiches. Each sandwich represented ten cents. I ate quite a few sandwiches. We both had fun. This was the beginning of launching my gambling addiction into orbit.

By the time I was fourteen, I was a child prodigy in the world of gaming. I played in high stake gin rummy games with individuals of all ages. My parents praised me for my gambling winnings.

Of all the numbers that dominated my mind, my favorite number was one. The reason is I always believed I would come in first place and be number one. This did not always happen. It has happened more times than not. But being number two in many cases is good too. However, my ultra-competitive mind did not really get that when I was younger.

What I did not realize until later was that God has given many of us brilliant minds and brilliant abilities. The key is to use our gifts in a positive manner, and to not try to replace God by putting me in the center of our world. We need to be about we instead of me. And number two is always OK when God is number one.

But as I grew older and more successful, and as my work hours became longer my prayers to God became shorter. I did not literally worship a Golden Calf, but money, power, and control became my new God for sure. I became a lost soul as an individual, but powerful to the outside world. In March of 1997 enough was enough.

My mind was starting to weaken. God, my wife, and my father told me I was going down the wrong road. But I was not about to listen to anyone other than the superficial world of money, power, and control.

So where did that lead me? God brought me to four-and-one-half-years of insanity and isolation. My new world was pills, two psychiatrists, the pharmacist at Walgreens, and more pills.

I now pray to God many times throughout the day. My spiritual connection with God continues to grow every day. I know I get my strength from God. With God I am something, without God I am nothing. I have gone down many streets previously by myself. Now God leads me, and I follow. God has opened doors for me that I did not even know existed. God is preparing me to blow his horn. I love you God.

My quest is to inspire people, and to instill Hope, Health, and Happiness in those who seek Peace of Mind. On the surface it seems to me that this would be a simple thing to do. However, it does not seem to be. It may be more difficult because it touches humanity from all walks of life nowadays.

You do not really know or understand a book or a human being, until you read and know them inside and out. As I give you my heart and share my inspiring story with all of you, I ask all of you to have compassion for all humanity, and for yourself, so the world will be a better place today and tomorrow than it was yesterday. As many of you know, anger is a killer, positive thinking is a healer.

My journey will give you Hope, Health, and Happiness and inspire you to take your next step. I have taken millions of steps (more about that later), and I have already inspired the lives of many. I want to touch millions of more hearts. I hope one day I will be lucky enough to enter your life and inspire YOU.

Stand up with God

My firsthand experiences will shed light on many of the top social issues of the twenty-first century: anxiety, addiction, desperation, depression, loneliness, and mental illness just to name a few.

My journey would drive most of you to insanity. I became a legalized drug addict during my four-and-a-half years of insanity. My addictive behavior was more than a sneeze. I would compare it to a severe case of cancer. The combination of working and gambling would sometimes allow me to only take cat naps for days on end without ever touching an actual mattress.

Some of you may have already experienced your own battle with insanity in your own way, others may often feel like they are on the edge. But I am sure that most of you will identify with the pressures and the feelings that living in the modern world can push you to experience and feel.

In our fast-changing society of computers and cell phones many of us have become strangers to ourselves, to our families and friends, and to the outside world as well. Too often our emotions become buried deep inside our hearts and minds. It is easy to hide behind the many text messages that we receive and send.

Many companies have their employees work from their homes as we are living in an electronic world, and even more so now after the Pandemic. Colleges also have many online classes so mingling with your classmates went out the door. Many individuals have never read and/or heard of an encyclopedia. In today’s world, we just Google it when we have a question. Where did all the personal interaction and involvement in searching and discovery go?

But I want you to know that we have choices. Let us make the right ones. Along my journey, a lot of curve balls have been thrown my way. Even though many times it seemed impossible to overcome the roadblocks in my life, through my spiritual belief I did.

At one time in my life, I thought money and power were the ultimate definition of success. Yet, once I reached the top of the mountain by myself it was lonely. And in fact, I had a massive heart attack on top of a mountain — literally!

It is not how you look on the outside, but how you feel on the inside that is most important. Time, love, and patience are some of the important things we all must learn. Family and friends are the true blessings, and many people climbing to the top give them up, and most importantly they often give up God.

It has taken me many years to learn how to reprogram my mind, but I finally found one of the biggest treasures of all, Peace of Mind on September 12, 2017. You will read about that later, but first let me tell you a bit about what happened to me on the way there.

Since my early twenties, I was endlessly and aimlessly searching for Peace of Mind, yet ironically, frantically, and compulsively pursuing power and wealth.

My addictions and workaholic behavior contributed to destroying numerous relationships. Eventually I figured out how to make my addictive compulsive behavior my friend instead of my foe by becoming compulsive about not being compulsive. Yet even that was a band-aid. I would simply find another compulsion or addiction — eventually contemplating suicide.

Crazy as it sounds, this was my world for many years. I treated the symptoms, not the problem. In time, like most terrible diseases, it eats away at you. Nothing was ever enough. I found myself working excessively. Instead of developing a relationship with a girlfriend in my younger days, I would make it a doubleheader, work and gambling. Then, my third choice was a relationship. I did this because my first two choices had me in control. A growing healthy relationship would have both parties giving each other 110 %. I was selfish, and usually didn’t want to make the necessary commitment.

I have been married four times, and all three (married twice to the same woman) of my wives have taught me so much that I now say yes more, and no less. I should have listened to them more, but many times I let my obsessive-compulsive behavior get in my way.

Looking back at my first seventy-seven years, I now realize many of us with addictive compulsive personalities go from one escape to another escape. Throughout my life I have overcome adversity even when it seemed impossible. Often my family and friends gave up on me. I attempted to do it alone many times, and I hit dead ends. I turned to God only after I exhausted all avenues of hope for myself. With this information now at my fingertips, the beginning of solving one problem is not replacing it with another potential problem — but with one ultimate solution — God.

It culminated in me losing so much of what I spent my life trying to gain and almost cost me my life.

Years of Insantiy

I destroyed my relationships with others, and I became a legalized drug addict during four-and-a-half years of insanity. Because of my own experience, I know that mental illness touches all walks of life, the billionaire, the top athlete, the loner to the most outgoing personality, top entertainers, performers, many of our own family, friends, and maybe even ourselves, the homeless, and everyone in between are not immune from mental illness entering our lives.

There are no boundaries. Mental illness can affect your body and mind. Sometimes the people we look up to the most in our lives are struggling internally without us ever even knowing it. No one really knows how we feel inside ourselves, including sometime even ourselves.

I would medicate myself with drugs, alcohol, gambling, workaholic behavior, and the stock market in order to help ease my internal pain. I felt the only way to prove my worth and overcome my insecurities was by making large sums of money and being in total control. But it led me to being out of control and completely hopeless. At my worst, I became a legalized drug