- Drugs
- Faith
I was living in my car due to my habit of repeatedly making bad choices. While living in my car, I continued my downward spiral by dedicating every minute of every hour of every day to obtaining and using meth. It had been a year since I had felt the comfort of a bed or a roof over my head. One night after all the dope was gone, I had an overwhelming feeling that all hope for a life was gone. After a long drawn out episode of cursing God, cursing myself and cursing my very life, I begged for God to give me the will to end my life. All hope was lost for me, and I no longer wanted to prolong the inevitable.
Shortly after that episode, I was sitting in my car and noticed people running behind my car. I got out to see what was going on and there was a police officer in front of me with his weapon drawn. I was thinking to myself, “Great. This is all I need to happen.” To make a long story short, they placed me in handcuffs, searched my car and found something that someone had hidden in my car. Had I known it was there, it wouldn’t have been there for long. I was arrested and ended up pleading guilty for a sentence of three years in state prison. While I was waiting for the chain to take me upstate, I suddenly realized that God had taken my rant for what it truly was: a prayer. He had answered it by granting it. That was the moment that who I had been began dying. I was ready for the birth of the new man.
While I was in reception, a man came to my cell and asked if I would fill out a questionnaire of what had led me to my current situation. I didn’t know at the time, but the questionnaire was for determining whether or not a prison based treatment program would help me.
The biggest lessons I learned from this were that God does answer prayers, even if the answers are not what you had expected and that, no matter who you are, where you are or what your circumstances are, help is available. The only advice I can give is to recognize when your life is headed in the wrong direction and do not hesitate before asking for help, before you end up like me or worse.
Today, life is awesome. I’m not at the exact place where I want to be, but I am at the exact place I need to be. I’m living the 12 steps. Every day gives me some hope for the rest of my life. I’m at a place where I can accept anything that comes my way as an opportunity rather than a roadblock! God and I have a relationship that has been tried in the fire. And no matter what others think, I can love and respect myself.
Today, I am an addictions counselor with clients who were paroled from prison. And that, my friends, is what recovery is all about: service!
“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.” – Albert Einstein