- Drugs
- Faith
First of all, I would like to start out by thanking the Lord for all that He has done for my family and me!
My name is Melissa, and I am a 39 year old recovering meth addict.
My parents divorced when I was seven years old. My mother partied a lot and often did things in front of my brother and me. After she and my dad divorced, she never had a healthy relationship (at least not that I remembered). I remember seeing my mother get slapped, kicked and her nose broken. I always told myself that I would never let anyone treat me that way. Well… I did just that. I quit school at 16, although I did get my G.E.D. I started smoking pot at the age of 17 1/2, and gradually I tried other drugs like cocaine, rolls, Xanax, Valium, alcohol and then the one that really grabbed a hold of me, methamphetamine.
I did meth for 15 years. A lot happened in those 15 years, a lot of things that I don’t care to remember, but then there are those things that I will never forget. The birth of my daughter and 2 sons. God began working on me during the pregnancy of my second son. I placed him with another family and that’s when God really started touching my heart. Throughout my addiction I never had a stable relationship. I was living life as I had seen my mother do. I was being hit, and I was sometimes the one to throw the first punch. I’m happy to say that the last time a man hit me or I did any meth was in Oct. 2008. The Lord gave me the strength to walk away and not look back.
Well, here it is 2012 and I have been clean almost four years now! Praise God!! I went to a Christian program for 16 months and I was taught how to live a good sober life. The key to it all was accepting Jesus as my Savior! God is so good to me. I now have a full time job at a ministry thrift store. I get to tell people all the time what the Lord has done for me and I am blessed to have the privilege to stop at any time to pray with someone. How great is that?! I had another girl in 2009, which is another blessing. So now, God has blessed my family with a nice home, nice vehicle and a stable life. I still have my ups and downs, but that’s life! My life isn’t perfect nor will it ever be, but it sure is better than it ever has been. God continues to give me strength to keep going. He shows me mercy and grace and He loves me in spite of all my faults, which is pretty amazing to me and He can and will do the same for you if you allow Him to!!
Having told all of this, I would now like to thank God for allowing me to go through all the things that I did, for that is how I turned into the woman that I am now. “I don’t know what the future holds, but I do know who holds the future!”
“I can do ALL things through Christ who gives me strength.” – Philippians 4:13