Michael Balls, City Council
“My name is Michael Balls. I was born and raised in the City of Saginaw, Michigan. My father was what you called a weekend alcoholic. He worked all week and, on the weekend, he liked to go out and party. When he got home at night, normally it'd be a knockdown, drag out fight or something like that. It would wake the kids all up and we'd be rubbing our eyes in the middle of the night and wondering what was going on.
Then I had a grandfather that I loved so much. I think he loved me, too. He would come and pick me up on the weekend and take me to his house. Him and my grandmother divorced because he was also an alcoholic. It runs in my family: I am a recovering alcoholic and drug addict myself, with 30-some years clean.
I was in a car with my grandfather one of those Saturday mornings. He went to look for a new car, and on the way home, a sedan broadsided us. There were four people in our car: my grandfather, two of his friends and me. I'm the only survivor of that car accident. I was in a coma for a couple of weeks, and when I came out of the coma, I found out everybody died but me.
You can imagine how my mother felt losing her father and almost losing her oldest son. Back in 1966 or 1967, we didn't go and get psychological help or counseling. They would give you some pills or something to calm your nerves, and eventually my mother got addicted to prescription drugs. She was a functioning person, but she was addicted to prescription drugs. I would wake up in the middle of the night sometimes and she would be in the bedroom crying about how she couldn't buy the kids clothes or felt bad because of our standing in society.
My mother passed away in 1974, six years after that accident. When she passed away, I just fell off the deep end. By the time I got into ninth grade I was using alcohol and marijuana. I dropped out of school. I just didn't feel like life was really to be enjoyed.
But some of my friends had gone to some of the Muslim meetings and they invited me. They taught me to take care of myself, eat healthy, and quit doing harmful things in my community. By the time I turned 17, I was the manager of the grocery store, the fish market. I was working some 12 to 14 hours a day, but I wasn’t getting into trouble because I didn't have time to. I stopped doing bad things. I think I went from 135 pounds to 210 pounds in less than a year. So, it was obvious it was doing something healthy for me and I was getting my rest.
By the time I turned 19 years old, I got hired in the plant at Saginaw Steering Gear. I will say that association brings about assimilation. After being there for a while, I started smoking cigarettes, started smoking marijuana, started drinking and got married. That didn't last, because I was getting high all the time. That should have told me right then and there that me using and being in a relationship didn’t work. Eventually we got divorced and my life kind of spiraled again. They were getting on me at work about having good attendance. I knew if I wanted to keep my job, I'm going to have to get my act together. So, I went back into treatment. I got sober, and I've been sober ever since.
Then I went back to school and got my high school diploma. I ended up being the valedictorian of my class, of the eight of us that were in that class. I did get married in between that time to the lovely lady, my wife, Lois. She had two boys that I love dearly. Then I applied for apprenticeship at the plant. I ended up getting that apprenticeship and got my license as a pipe fitter for the State of Michigan to General Motors through the Department of Labor. Lo and behold, one of my sons ends up being a pipe fitter, and his kids remind me that he's a master plumber, he's not just a pipe fitter.
The recovery program helped me out tremendously and made me realize the effect my childhood had on me. If I didn’t deal with that, then I was going to continue to do the same things I was doing, because I had to address that first and move on. I learned that I wasn't responsible for what my parents did, that I can only be responsible for what I'm doing and that if I continue to live in the past, that the past is going to mess up my future.
And then I found one of the best ways: getting involved in the Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Great Lakes Bay Region program. They work with young kids and provide them with mentors. After being involved in so many negative things in my life, it was a beautiful combination.
Now, all of a sudden, I had the opportunity to help somebody else out, you know?
I think my life led me to be a mentor, because I know how it feels to grow up in a household where there's no father at home. I know what it feels like to grow up in a household with no mother at home. Or a person that lost a grandfather. I can share that with some kids who have lost the same things and that they can make their lives a lot better.
My heart and soul are in the City of Saginaw to help out. I would do anything I could do to help out the mentoring program in the City of Saginaw or nationally. I never thought that my life could be an example for somebody else's and to help them grow, but now it can be through my work with Youth Development Corporation, Big Brothers Big Sisters, and as a City Council member. I thank God for the opportunity, and that he picked me to be the one to share those experiences and struggles with some young kid here in the City of Saginaw.”
– Michael Balls, Saginaw City Council
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