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HGTV’s Izzy Battres is opening up about his battle with addiction on the Tuesday, May 13 episode of the We’re Out of Time podcast
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The TV contractor recalls going to jail and how a visit to church made him feel he “needed to get forgiveness”
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Battres is the star of Izzy Does It and first found HGTV fame as Christina Haack and Tarek El Moussa’s longtime contractor on Flip or Flop
HGTV star Izzy Battres wants others to know that “there is hope” amid addiction.
Battres, the contractor known for his appearances on Flip or Flop and his new series Izzy Does It, will appear on the Tuesday, May 13 episode of addiction recovery expert Richard Taite’s podcast, We’re Out of Time. In an exclusive clip shared with PEOPLE, he’s opening up about his past struggles with addiction, its harsh consequences and how he found “redemption.”
The HGTV regular reveals he started drinking at a young age, which then led to smoking marijuana, “dropping mushrooms and acid” and eventually “smoking PCP.”
“Back in the hood, it was so inexpensive and that’s what you did. You know, you’d drop PCP. Put joints in PCPs, they’d call them lovelies and that’s what we did,” Battres said.
Taite ask, “Did you get arrested when you were a kid?”
“I was,” Battres admits. Taite then asks if he spent time in jail and he replies, “I did.”
The contractor is sharing his “redemption story” now in order to show that there is a path out of the dark place in which he found himself.
“That’s why I’m here. That’s why we’re here,” he says. “There’s a lot of people out there who find themselves in that place and think they’re never going to get out, there’s no hope. And I’m just here to tell you guys that there is hope.”
Elsewhere in the episode, the HGTV star — who is now stepfather to his wife Liliana’s two children, Joseph and Brianna — recalls the moment he began his recovery journey when he visited an old “movie theater converted to a church” hoping to make a confession.
“I thought I was just going to confess, have another few days of getting high and then that was it and hopefully I make it into purgatory. And when I got there, I just felt something there,” he shares. “I just started walking toward the cross. It was dark, no church service. And then the minute I got to the front of the altar, I just broke. I never felt bad about doing people wrong and I didn’t feel guilt about stuff. But [in] that moment, I just felt all the heaviness of all the madness and dirt that I did. And I felt remorseful. And I felt like I just needed to get forgiveness.”
Courtesy of HGTV
Battres says that moment sparked “an immediate transformation” in his life. “I got up. I felt lighter. I felt delivered. And from that day on, no more meth, no more madness. It was just a miracle,” he says.
When Taite asks him to give a piece of advice to his younger self, he adds: “I would say, ‘I see you. You matter. You have purpose…’ I think that’s everybody’s innate desire, to be seen.”
Izzy Battres/Instagram
Nowadays, Battres is a dad, owner of Battres Construction and host of Izzy Does It — which premiered back in February on HGTV. The series follows his family’s renovation and design business and arrives more than a decade after Battres first appeared on HGTV in 2013 on Flip or Flop alongside stars Christina Haack and Tarek El Moussa. He has also appeared on her spinoff Christina on the Coast and most recently, with Haack, Tarek and his new wife, Heather Rae El Moussa, on an episode of the competition series, The Flip Off.
He previously opened up about his own transformation in the past, sharing an Instagram tribute in March dedicated to Pastor Sonny Sr., a man who he wrote “pulled drug addicts off the streets, gave them hope, and showed them a new way to live.”
“Rudy and I were two of those lost souls,” he wrote of himself and his brother. “If it weren’t for Pastor Sonny’s vision, we wouldn’t be here today. Battres Construction wouldn’t exist. The lives we’ve built, the families we lead, and the work we do — it’s all because God placed a man like Pastor Sonny in our path. I will forever be grateful for the second chance he helped give us. His legacy lives on in every life he touched.”
Read the original article on People