- Alcohol
- Drugs
- Faith
I’m 46 now and most of my mad life I’ve been addicted to alcohol or drugs of some sort. This is my story.
I had a good upbringing and came from a loving and caring yet poor family. My parents tried their hardest to provide the best for my sister and me. Smoking and drinking were very much part of Welsh working class culture as I grew up, and I’d tried my first cigarette when I was eight. By the age of 12 I was smoking regularly, had tried cannabis and was thinking about exploring other drugs. Magic mushrooms and LSD were a natural progression by age 14. By the age of 21 I was drinking and smoking heavily and selling cannabis to my friends. I moved on to amphetamines (speed) which basically meant I could smoke more pot and drink more. Soon I was struggling to hold down good jobs, selling cannabis and amphetamines and living a double life.
I struggled with relationships, because I was immature and too self absorbed. Soon the natural solution to any problems or difficulties that arose was to drink or use drugs. I knew there was something deeper and more meaningful than this meager existence, but I was looking in all the wrong places. I began looking into some minor occult stuff, and with the rave scene and the New Age Traveling scene came all the party drugs: speed, ecstasy, LSD, cocaine and more. To fund my partying lifestyle I sold the drugs I was using to my ever-growing circle of friends. Soon I was more into occult philosophies and drugs than I’d ever been and prided myself as an expert on all things occult or supernatural. I was a practicing witch. I was still no good at relationships, but I was popular. Everyone wanted to bother with me because of the drugs and “free” lifestyle that I lived, but I was still so self-absorbed that all I could think about were my own wants and desires. Somewhere along the line I picked up three beautiful children who I didn’t deserve but by God’s grace have turned out to be bright, loving and kind. In my wake I left behind me a string of failed friendships, broken relationships and destroyed lives. I professed to want freedom and light but lived in bondage and darkness. Relationships, drink, drugs and witchcraft are an explosive combination and my life soon blew up.
I can see that I was always craving acceptance and longing for recognition. Drink and drugs helped me fit in, and they filled the gaping hole that was inside me. As I struggled to deal with my growing insanity, I became more violent, lost more friends and took more drugs.
Twenty years of this self-centered and self-absorbed lifestyle eventually and inevitably led to heroin. When you’re a mad junkie like I was and the tablets don’t work anymore, all roads lead to heroin. I took heroin to block out all the stuff going on in my head, to hide from reality and to hide from myself. I hated myself and I hated what I was becoming, but I felt as if I had no control over who I was, who I was becoming and what I was doing. Heroin is not called the devil’s mistress for nothing. She not only seduced me but mugged me, robbed me, raped me and held me captive. Heroin took everything. It took me to depths of depravity and desperation that I considered impossible even for a junkie like me. I became the lowest of the low, as every shred of decency or feigned self-respect went out of the window. I sold heroin and robbed and cheated everyone who was foolish enough or unlucky enough to come into contact with me. Seven years of heroin addiction brought me to my knees. I had no self-worth, no sense of direction and no future beyond the next “bag.”
My parents eventually gave up on me, my sister barely spoke to me and I was banned from all the pubs and shops locally. I’ve been to prison twice and deserved to go a few times more, and I have been arrested more times than I can remember. My life was pointless, hopeless and meaningless. Doctors, psychiatrists, probation officers and drug counselors couldn’t help me despite all their best efforts. I was just a frustration to them. I was too ill for the local nut house, and all the prescribed medication didn’t help. At times I’ve been prescribed methadone, subutex, diazepam, temazepam and oxazepam as well as all the different anti-depressants and anti-psychotics. The final nail in the coffin was when my children’s mothers stopped me from seeing my children because of the state I was in. The only company I had was other addicts as desperate and lonely as me, and my only consolation came from the needle a piece of foil or a bottle.
There are not enough words to describe the misery I felt. I was lonely and sad, and my life was a constant circle of despair and depression. I was racked with insecurities and fears. I just felt so lost, and there was no way out of the constant circle of misery.
With nowhere to turn, nowhere to run and no way out I went to a Christian rehabilitation program with an emphasis on discipleship. My life changed dramatically there, as I came to know Jesus Christ as my personal savior. Now there’s no looking back. This Christian discipleship program teaches biblical principles and ways of living. I was only there six days, when I realized the calling of God on my life. I cried out to Jesus, and He heard me and helped me. He really did step into my life. He touched me in a powerful way and baptized me with His holy spirit. Jesus smashed the chains of addiction that held me fast for years. He healed my tortured and tormented mind and filled the gaping hole that was inside of me. I realized that what I’d been yearning for all my life, what I’d been looking for in all the wrong places, was God. Jesus gave me the love that I’d been desperately craving, and He accepted me for who I was. He took away the pain, the suffering and the feelings of inadequacy. He shone light deep into the darkest recesses of my soul and overcame my desperation and despair by giving me hope. For years I’d believed, “once a smack head always a smack head,” but Jesus showed me that I could be a new creation.
My life had a God-shaped hole that only Jesus could fill, and now He filled it to the brim with happiness, joy, love and His peace. With God’s help I graduated the rehab program, went on to graduate from ministry school, did an internship as a support worker, completed a training program in health and social care and worked as a support worker. I did all of this in less than three years. God provided me with ample opportunities to grow and to learn, and He continues to guide me towards my future. I was paid to run a kitchen three days a week that cooks for up to 70 residents daily. I’ve worked as a support worker/project worker. I’ve run drug and alcohol workshops in schools and smoking awareness days in schools, and I’ve preached in prisons and in churches. I trained as a peer mentor with a secular drug treatment provider and have helped pioneer service user forums, spoken at conferences and been involved on decision-making boards. I’ve just completed a diploma in drugs and alcohol mentoring, and I’ve joined an amazing church where I headed up the outreach team, booked speakers for Sunday mornings and stepped in when the pastor was away.
All of these opportunities and responsibilities have been provided by God. I have my children back, and my relationship now is better than it has ever been. By the grace of God I am now a very positive influence in their lives. God has kept my children safe and has repaired the damage done by my drug addiction. My youngest daughter Grace now lives with me. My parents trust me again and have given me a key to their home, and they actually ask me for advice and I have helped them organize their finances. God has definitely repaired the damage, and I can see the joy in my parents’ faces these days when I visit. I often tell my story at churches, youth meetings or other public events. I’ve been into schools to speak with kids. I have had the privilege of helping to start and run a youth Bible study
I now have a confidence and an assurance of who I am in Christ. I don’t have to pretend to be someone I’m not, and I don’t have to try and fit in anymore. Now that is freedom. I have joy and happiness in my life, and my life is filled with hope. The past six and a half years have been the best ever. It is a pleasure to get up in the morning, and it’s amazingly peaceful to lay my head down at night knowing that I’m fulfilling God’s purpose for my life and have taken another step towards my destiny.
Now people ask me, a former raving lunatic, for advice, and they actually listen to what I have to say. I have a lot of great friends who like me for who I am and not what I can give them..
I am now employed by a Presbyterian church, where I am paid to explore my calling as a minister. I am doing some pastoral and ministerial training, and I’m an official minister in training. Now that blows my mind. I have seasoned pastors mentoring and guiding me. I have a much more active role in our church leadership, and the Lord is leading me from strength to strength.
Life can still throw it’s problems at me, but God helps me to face them head on and to overcome any obstacles. He has given me a peace that surpasses all my understanding and a joy that seems to know no limits. God really has transformed my life, and I’m so exited about the future.
I don’t drink, I don’t smoke and I don’t use drugs. Some people would say that I’m a square or that my life is boring, but I can say that I am free and that my life is very, very exciting, because I now have life, real life, and lots of it. I thank God daily, if not hourly, for what He’s done in my life and for what He’s doing. I am always overjoyed to talk about Jesus and His work with anybody and everybody.
Thank you Jesus.
And thank you for reading this.
My prayer is that it will give you hope. Whatever your situation, whatever predicament you may be facing, Jesus is the answer to it. You don’t have to be a drug addict and a loser like I was to be weighed down by problems, because life is so full of difficulties and pressures. Sometimes they just seem endless. If you are reading this and feel moved by it, you are thinking about the problems in your life that seem to be overwhelming or you have a hurt or loneliness that you cant express to anyone, ask Jesus into your life. I can guarantee from experience that He can and will help you in that situation.
The biggest problem in our lives is not debt or finances, it’s not loneliness or feeling unloved, it’s not rejection or disappointment, it’s not growing up without a father figure in your life, it’s not the loss of a loved one, it’s not your children, partner or parents, and it’s not a million other things that rear up to complicate our lives. The biggest problem in our lives is that we are spiritual beings yearning to be in relationship with our creator God. We are separated from Him. This state of separation is called sin. Because of this sin in all of our lives we cannot have that fulfilling relationship that we were designed and destined for. There is absolutely nothing we ourselves can do about our sinful nature or to get back into relationship with God.
The good news is that God Himself has provided the way back, and that way is through His son Jesus Christ. Jesus came, lived a perfect, pure, blameless and sinless life and then offered that life as an atoning sacrifice to pay for all our sins. He suffered and died on the cross so that we wouldn’t have to carry our burdens any more. When Jesus rose from the dead three days later, He imparted His spirit into His followers to help guide them, teach them and comfort them. Believers carry this holy spirit around with them all the time. If you can accept this as true and would like to ask Jesus into your life then try this simple prayer:
Lord Jesus,
I have done wrong.
I confess to you that I am a sinner and need saving.
Please forgive me.
Thank You for dying on the cross for me.
Thank You for paying the price for all the wrongs that I’ve ever done.
Thank You for forgiving me.
I turn away from it all now.
Please come into my life now and be Lord of my life.
Please come and lead me.
AMEN.
If you have prayed this prayer, it’s a good idea to tell someone right away, or if you’re still not sure but are thinking about it.