Meth Takes One More..........

17 years ago, I met a sweet, innocent 18 year old fresh off the farm from Arkansas. She was from a town of about 100 people. She was raised with a strong work ethic, and a strong faith. Her family was church of Christ and they were pillars of their church. She was a really good kid. When she walked into Mesquite Charlie's, which was the restaurant I was currently the server manager and trainer for, she was like a shiny toy I wanted to make mine.

I was 25, had been out of prison for a couple of years, and was an alcoholic/addict involved in the manufacturing and distribution of methamphetamine. I was a functioning addict, if you want to call how I was living my life functioning. I worked 80 hour weeks a week. I worked open to close doubles 6 days a week and trained new servers as they came into work. I would wake up Tuesday morning with a shot of meth, go to work and not sleep again until Monday morning. I slept a day a week.

That was the person I was when she met me. She did not see that. After all, I was a chameleon from years of practice. I had learned how to read people from a very young age, and I took her inventory as soon as I met her. She was a little shy but extroverted and had pretty low self-esteem. All I had to do was show her positive attention and tell her she was pretty and she was as good as mine.

Everyone at work was told that she was mine, so she was treated with a "hands off" approach from the people we worked with. They listened to me, because I was the person who supplied most of them with speed and weed. She made it through the training class and was my star pupil.At Mesquite Charlie's, we were given call names. Mine was Desperado, and her call name after she passed the training class was Santa Fe.We went on our first date the day she graduated the training class.

Needless to say, our lifestyles were polar opposites. She was small town and I was big town at the time. She was a small fish in a small pond and I was a big fish in a bigger pond. Everywhere I took her, people knew  me. Every party we went to, people sucked up to me. That tends to happen when you make a lot of money and always have a pocket full of dope with access to all the other drugs people could possibly want.

I made drugs and the addict's lifestyle look very attractive, and she bit. It started slowly, with a couple of wine coolers. From there she moved up to marijuana, and then ecstasy. She enjoyed everything she ever tried. After being told how horrible and evil drugs were her whole life, she was finding them to be quite pleasurable. The hook was in.

She was a really good server, but wanted to be able to work the hours I did so she could make more money. It was impossible to work the way I did without meth, so about a month after working at Mesquite's she tried meth for the first time. As soon as she took her first line, I knew she was like me. I saw her eyes go glaze over and that smile of pure joy play across her face. She was hooked from that first bump.

For the next couple of years, we remained a couple. She went from snorting to smoking it while she was with me. Although I was shooting it at the time, I  never let her know it. I did not want her to ever get introduced to the needle. Back then, that was one of my last vestiges of humanity. If you had never shot up, I would not be the person to do it for you. I also put out the word that if anyone gave her a shot of dope, they would never get dope from me or any of the guys slinging dope for me.

We had our problems, that much is certain. I broke up with her twice before the final time. She met another dope cook, who happened to give her that first shot of dope during our first breakup. I still would not let her shoot up around me. I knew what shooting meth had done to me, and I didn't want it to happen to her. The damage was already done. Shooting dope changed her.

She got violent after her first shot of dope. I can still remember the first time she got violent with me. I pride myself on never having hit a girl, and she punched me. I was spun out, and I laughed at her. She punched me again, and I laughed again. She reached up and yanked my ear ring out. I looked at my shoulder, saw the blood flowing down it, and froze. I knew that if I moved I might hit her, so I just locked up.

That infuriated her, and she started screaming and punching me. One of our friends was walking by and heard the commotion. He had my sister who lived down the hallway unlock the door, thinking I was hurting Santa Fe. They walked in to find me covered in blood from my ear and my  nose with her still screaming and punching me.

There were other times, I would be sitting on the floor playing games and she would be on the bed coloring. I would be so zoned into the game I would not hear her talk to me, and she would kick me in the back of the head.She would fly off of the handle and start yelling about the littlest things, always starting fights with me. She started hanging out with the dope cooks I had nothing to do with because of their moral standards. These were the 30 year old guys who would give a 14 year old her first shot just so they could get their hooks in.

That was the person meth turned her into. I watched her change in front of my eyes. She went from one of the sweetest people I had ever met to a girl that was angry and trusted almost no one.

I did nothing about it. I could have cared less, honestly. I egged it on. The night that she ripped out my ear ring Santa Fe went down to Brian's apartment with Brian and my sister. They talked to her for several hours to calm her down. I slept with our next door neighbor, who Santa Fe was friends with.

The last time I broke up with her, I wanted it to stick. I slept with the person Santa Fe cared most about in the world, her sister. Santa Fe then promptly hooked up with one of the kids who I had slinging my dope, and just like that she was out of my life. When I broke up, I liked clean breaks. Generally I would make sure that I did something that guaranteed they would be out of my life for good. I still saw her boyfriend on occasion, as well as her sister, but she was gone and soon forgotten.

That was, until this Saturday.I was contacted by one of my friends from back in the day with some news. Santa Fe was dead. She had died due to complications from an infection from IV drug use. She had gotten that infection from  her husband, who was the kid who used to sling dope for me years back. He also is deceased from the same infection. I guess that they had gotten married, and it had been chaotically every after. That is what drugs will do to your life.

They left behind 4 children, from the ages of 2-10 years old. What is sad is that the children may actually be better off without them, if they were unable to find their way out of addiction. At least the kids have good grandparents to live with that will allow them to stay together, from what I hear.

What I am reminded of  now is how our choices have long lasting effects. That, and there are two ways to live our lives once we get sober: abstinence and recovery. I chose recovery, and I will explain what that means.

As I reminisce on Santa Fe's life, I am reminded that if not for me she would not have been introduced to meth and the dealer's lifestyle. I have talked to multiple people, and they all tell me the same thing, "It's not your fault." That is then followed by several other statements, "If not you it would have been someone else" or "She made her bed" or "It was the disease, not you that caused you to make the choices you did back then." I abhor all of those statements, so I will address each of them in turn.

1. If not you it would have been someone else - That might be true, but the fact is that she did get her start from me. It wasn't someone else, it was me. She got her first taste of the lifestyle from me She get her first taste of drugs from me. She met her husband through me. I turned her out, and the drugs turned her into someone she never was.  
2. She made her bed - Her choices were all hers, and I can agree with that. My choices, however, were also mine. I chose to introduce her to the drug that would ultimately be her downfall. If she is responsible for her choices I should be held responsible for mine. 
3. It was the disease, not you that caused you to make the choices you did back then - I can't blame it on the disease. I know a lot of addicts that did not make the same horrific choices that I did back then. I ruined people's lives, and I knew what I was doing. I knew that once I got my hooks on someone they were seldom the same, and I chose to do it anyway.

Ultimately, I have found that holding myself accountable for my choices and actions is the reason I stay sober. I have what I consider to be great recovery for a completely different reason. I have made my life a living amends because I hold myself accountable for the collateral damage my past choices and actions have incurred. Because of that, my recovery is fierce. I refuse to go back out and use again because I don't want to hurt myself, the people who care about me, other people and the people that care about them. 

One of the best things about recovery is that you get your feelings back. One of the worst things about recovery is.......you get your feelings back. I am glad that I feel, and no one is going to take that away from me. Although everyone ultimately makes their own choices, I also made all of mine. Because of the damage those choices made both in my life and the lives of so many others, I care about outcomes now. I have a heart. 

I have a heart for the addict who still struggles, the person who has just started using but is not an addict yet, the individual who has yet to use but will as well as the former addict who faces stigma every day. I know the choices we make today come back to haunt us. I made a decision 17 years ago and today 4 children don't have a mother or father because of the damage that decision caused. 

Will I beat myself up about it forever. No, but I did for a day. Then I remembered that the louder my message of hope, the more people will avoid the dangers of drug use. When they say, "Not even once" they are not kidding. Drugs take no prisoners. In my addiction, I did not make friends; I took hostages. I will never live my life that way again. 

I know firsthand the dangers of addiction. I have been in and out of jails and prison, died more times than I can count on one hand just to be brought back. I also know secondhand the dangers of addiction. I have lost more friends than I can count on my fingers and toes either to addiction or the violence that comes from the addict's lifestyle. Because of that, my voice guiding people towards a different lifestyle is loud. I am tired of losing people I cared about to this disease millions of us share. 

If you have started using, there is still hope. I am living proof! There truly is a BETTER LIFE IN RECOVERY. Join me and BLiR as we share the dangers of drug use and the victories of recovery. We are TRANSFORMING LIVES THROUGH RECOVERY!!

You Think You High but You're Really Getting Low

I was listening to LeCrae’s song Blow Your High yesterday and there is part of his chorus that always catches my ear because of its’ truth, “You think you high but you really getting low.” Every time I hear that I am reminded of my own past, and the reality of addiction. I loved the way it felt when I first used, but by the end I hated it so much but could not quit. When I first used, bad things in life had happened to me. By the end, I was the bad thing that had happened to other people.

My first use was with a group of kids, and I instantly felt a connection to them. It was incredible. I had never really felt like I belonged anywhere and suddenly I was part of a group. All of the painful things I had been through and all the stress I felt instantly melted away.  I had always heard how horrible drugs were in school, and I knew that they had lied to me the first time I tried them.

Drugs were not horrible. In fact, they were quite the opposite. For once, I did not have to put up walls to hide my feelings from others. I could let them see how I really felt. I laughed, I lived and I loved constantly. I was using drugs, and the more I used the better I felt. The better I felt, the more social I became.  I was the life of the party, the center of attention. It felt great and I loved it.

At this point in my life, I was flying high. I was in Junior High and then High School, using to escape my past and create a new reality. I was having fun, acting crazy outside of school and doing pretty well inside of it. I was happy, but only because I was not dealing with life’s problems. In addiction things are often not as they appear.

I went from a stoner in junior high while I was living in Highland to a partying prep when I moved to Eldorado for high school. My junior year I began to get into trouble, drinking too much liquor and smoking too much marijuana. I moved to Hollister for my senior year and was introduced to methamphetamine. It was by far the best thing I had ever done.

To this day, I have never felt anything that compares to the rush I got from doing meth. It was AWESOME!!!! It made me feel so great. I felt so great that I wanted that feeling all of the time. In my previous addiction I would sometimes skip classes so that I could get high. I would get drunk every weekend, several times. But I still had a semblance of a life. With meth, everything faded but the drug.

In my previous use, I vandalized and swiped money and credit cards from my dad. I kept my grades up and I was a prep at school. With meth, I dropped out of school and started stealing so that I could afford to continue using. From there I started dealing meth and marijuana so that I could continue to use meth.

I was in and out of jail 15 or 20 times. I eventually wound up in prison, where I turned 21. I was on probation, parole, in jail or in prison from 17 until I was 29. I hurt people I considered friends: physically, emotionally, psychologically, sexually and spiritually. I stole from people, a lot. I introduced people to methamphetamine and the drug lifestyle. Many of those people are either in prison or dead.

Mister social, with tons of friends at the parties every night, ended up unconscious in a pool full of my own blood after slashing my wrists. Luckily, someone found me before it was too late. The guy who always had parties at his house, ended up all alone locked up in his room with a  needle in his arm while everyone else partied because I didn’t want them to know I was shooting up. Then I only started hanging out with other people who shot up.  

I was no longer doing drugs, the drugs were doing me. I was no longer using to have fun, I was using just to feel less bad. That is the lie many who have never struggled with addiction believe, that we use because we are having fun and life is amazing. The truth is, we often start using to escape life and end up addicted because we can no longer function without it.

I needed drugs to get out of bed. I needed drugs to think. I was sluggish; operating at less than 50 percent and when I used it would lift me to 75 percent. I never felt great, I always felt bad. Using allowed me to feel less bad. Depression that I had once been able to escape and numb from returned and was even worse. Not feeling like I fit in was replaced by social acceptance and that in turn was replaced by paranoia and lack of trust for everybody.

What had started out as freeing in the end became my prison! LeCrae’s lyrics remind me of a saying I heard once at an NA meeting, “Drugs gave me wings, then they took my sky away.” That was the reality of drugs. I have seen that occur not only in my life, but in the lives of countless others. We continually make choices that we swore we would never make and cross lines we never imagined we would cross.

In order to avoid this, don’t use. If you are using, stop. Although this is easier said than done, it is not only  a possibility but a reality if you apply the 5 Pillars of Recovery to your life:

1.       Higher Power: Find something that gives you hope, validation, forgiveness and more. I found that through Jesus Christ, others have found it through the fellowship. Find something bigger than you!

2.       Meetings: Find a community of people who have struggled as you are struggling and have overcome it. This is another great place to gain strength, experience and hope. Some use AA, NA, Celebrate Recovery, Rational Recovery, small groups or an amalgam of the above.

3.       12 Steps: Find a game plan that will help you live your life better. I have found both the 12 Steps and the book of James have been great advice on how to remain sober while building a great foundation for my life as long as I apply them in my life and then follow them daily.

4.       Sponsor/Mentor: Find someone whose life you would like to have in 5 years and ask them to help you get there. If you are working the 12 steps, find someone who has applied them to their lives successfully and have them help you work through them.

5.       Accountability Partners: Put people in your life that will support your future goals and hold you accountable. They have permission to call you out and to support you, through the good and the bad and they are not afraid to do it.

So in closing, although drugs and alcohol may make you feel great at first, for many there are negative consequences down the road. When those occur, there is a solution that can help you get your life back on track and the 5 Pillars of Recovery are a great place to start. I have never seen someone who was actively engaging in all 5 who went back out and stayed there! Never forget, there is a better life in recovery!

Evil Exists

I had a gun to her head. She had turned me over to the police, made a deal with them so that she could get out of trouble. A week previous, I had come home after doing a burn (making a batch of methamphetamine) with several ounces of meth and took a shower. When I got out of the shower, there were people in my house tearing it apart that identified themselves as police. She had let them in to search. They found the meth I had brought home and arrested me.

When you get arrested, you eventually get out. I got out sooner than she thought I would. They held me for 24 hours and then let me go. She was still there when I showed up at home. I went straight to a stash spot they had not uncovered, grabbed my gun, chambered a round and grabbed her by the hair. I pushed her to the ground while putting my gun to the back of her head.

Time stopped. It was like a slow motion scene in a movie. She started crying, telling me she was sorry.  “I didn’t want to tell on you. They pulled me over with drugs and were going to put me in jail. I didn’t have a choice.” My companion was screaming at me as well, “Pull the trigger, coward. Don’t get scared now. You HAVE to do this.”

At that moment, I only knew a few things. One, I was about to make a choice I could never take back. I prided myself on never hitting a girl, and I was preparing to take one’s life. Second, although I was not sure I wanted to kill her, I knew my companion wanted me to pull the trigger and put her out of her misery. Finally, I knew that my companion was evil beyond anyone or thing I had ever met.

My companion always wanted me to hurt either myself or other people. He was there a lot in the shadows, but he only came around when things were getting ready to turn bad. He would encourage me to do the absolute worst thing. If I was going to collect money, he would remind me to take my gun. If I was in a fight, his would be the voice telling me not to quit punching and kicking long after the fight was over. If I was in a house of people I didn’t know, he would whisper in my ear, “They want to kill you. They are going to kill you. You should get them first.”

If I was thinking about quitting drugs, he would show up and remind me of all the times I had tried to quit and failed. “You have been using for over half your life. You’re never going to be able to quit. This is the only thing you are good at. You are not a quitter. DO IT! You know you want to get high. You can’t live without it.”

This time, my companion was not giving up. He was screaming at me, “Pull the trigger, coward. She tried to take your freedom away.” I turned to look at where the voice was coming from and saw my companion. He was a figure blacker than black. He was standing right behind me, darker than any shadow could possibly be. He was not all smooth lines, but his outline was jagged and rough.

I could never make out any features of his face, as his face was always dark and cloaked in shadow. The most remarkable thing about him was his eyes. They were pulsating, red eyes that burned into me every time he looked at me. The scariest thing was not the eyes, or even him being beside me in my ear but his voice. He never spoke, he shrieked and screamed and yelled. Even his whispers oozed with rage and hate.

People have asked me if he was just a shadow person. He had started out that way. Shadow people are there when you have been up too long. They come out of trees, around corners, run by you so fast you can only catch a glimpse. When you look, the figure fades away, blends in or is gone. You’re mind is unable to explain what you see, so it explains them away to something you can understand.

I was an atheist when my companion was still a shadow person, and did not believe in spirits. I rationalized what I was seeing. I would tell myself it was the wind blowing a branch, or the fact I had been up for a week and had psychosis. Sometimes I thought maybe it was the police watching me, waiting to arrest me. That is the reason so many people think they are being watched when they are not. The shadow people become COMET or DEA to them. That is what they were to me. The problem was, they seemed real and I shared the visions with other people who were with me.

If I was alone I only saw him. When I was by myself, it was just the solitary shadow man. I have talked to some people who saw groups when they are alone. Not me, I generally saw just one. When around other needle freaks, I would see more than just one. They would stand around in a group, almost like they were talking. Maybe our demons were comparing notes or sharing new ways to get us to do things we didn’t want to.

I would explain it away as a group hallucination, telling myself it was sleep deprivation or my mind playing tricks on me. Over time I started seeing him constantly in the shadows, or out of the corner of my eye. The bad part was that I was starting to see him when I was not high. He was always there lurking.

That was how it began for me, with my shadow man. Then I started to hear whispers that I could not quite make out. That advanced to the voice actually speaking to me, telling me what to do. At first the voice was harmless, encouraging my drug use and validating what I was thinking on occasion when I would think out loud. Then it began to tell me to do horrible things, to myself and to others. It was no longer a whisper, it was a scream.  Yelling and nagging at me to do things.

Then one day it appeared before me. I saw something out of the corner of my eye and when I turned to look, it was still there in the shadows watching me. From that day on he would randomly appear next to me, often at the times I was at my weakest, angriest or highest. Always egging me on, encouraging me to do the worst possible thing to either myself or other people.

There were times, like when I was contemplating not using after waking up Sunday, he would show up and remind me that I had never been able to quit and would never be able to. Today I was angry, and it was telling me to do what a part of me wanted and another part of me did not. It was telling me to pull the trigger. I was seriously thinking about it.

I started trying to reason with my companion, “I can’t pull the trigger. I really don’t want to do this.” My girlfriend started talking back to me, thinking that I was talking to her, “Then put the gun down, David. I know you don’t want to shoot me.”  I pulled her head back and started laughing in her face as I told her I wasn’t talking to her. “Who are you talking to then,” she asked? “The demon standing behind me, can’t you see him? He wants me to kill you and part of me wants to kill you as well.”

I am not sure if he showed himself to her or if the craziness of what I said scared her but as she looked behind me her face turned to sheer terror and she started screaming. Not yelling at me like she had been, trying to plead with me. There were no words, just a shrill keening. Her face froze as her eyes went wide.

I had never seen such an intense look of terror before.  The gun to her head had not caused that look of fear, but either her seeing my companion or the insanity she saw in me scared her to death. I took the gun away from her head and pulled her off her knees. “You have one hour to get your stuff and go. You have until tomorrow to be gone. You are going to leave state and go back home. I never want to see you again, or it will be a bad deal,” I told her.

She did not speak. All she did was nod and run out the door. I never saw or heard from her again. She lived with me and she left all of her stuff with me. She left her clothes, make up, purse, everything. She left it all and disappeared.

Looking back now, I hope she made it home and out of her addiction. I pray she is somewhere clean and sober, living a better life in recovery. If you are reading this, and you know who you are, I hope that you can forgive me. You are just one of the people I met in my addiction whose life I wrecked. 

When my shadow person stopped being a shadow person lurking about and started talking to me and had taken form, I stopped being an atheist. I knew that my companion was evil and that he was a spirit. He made me an agnostic, because if he existed than surely other spirits did as well. Or was it all from my imagination and random misfiring neurons in my brain? Was it the drugs working on my brain? Even when I was not high, I still had drugs in my system so it could have been that as well.

I have thought about it for years. I have talked to many other addicts who have shared the same experience that I have with my companion. Due to so many others having very similar if not the same stories, I have come to believe that my companion was a demon, and that when I was using drugs I opened myself up to forces that were evil beyond comprehension.

What is even scarier is the period of my life from 1994 – 2001 and how little memory I have of that 7 years. I almost wonder if I wasn’t possessed for large parts of that time, or if the memories just didn’t form because of all the drugs I was using and the lack of sleep I experienced. I have come to a place where I hold on to a few things about this time in my life so that I can function today:

1.      I know that evil exists and at one period in my life I made very evil choices

2.      I know that nothing good lived in me during my addiction and that all people are capable of doing things they never would believe they would do

3.      I know I am no longer the person I was in my addiction, for I have found a better life in recovery

4.      I know that I have made my life a living amends so that I can help rebuild other people’s lives today instead of destroying them like I once did

5.      I know I believe in a Higher Power I call Jesus that has freed me from my addiction and supports, encourages and guides me in all that I do today

This is actually the rough draft of the first chapter of the book I am writing. I am open to feedback. It is a little rough, but I feel that it gives people an idea of how far down I had gotten in my addiction. I also would ask that if you have had similar experiences or thoughts on what I experiences that you leave comments as I would be very interested in hearing what you have to say.

My Testimony for 2014 Celebrate Recovery

My name is David and I am a grateful believer in Jesus Christ who has been blessed with many trials and tribulations to work through. I guess that you could say that I am in recovery from the consequences of living in an imperfect, sinful world. We will get to all of that as we go. My testimony starts off the way far too many testimonies begin.

One of my first memories is being molested by a baby sitter from our church when I was 4. I was ridiculed and made fun of while being molested; laughed at and told how disgusting and bad I was. I remember while my parents were reading an article in the paper they had talked about a boy getting touched by an adult and how disgusting and sick it was. That is why I never told my parents. I didn’t want them to know I was disgusting, too.

Growing up my father was an alcoholic. My mother left him when I was in 5th grade and sent us to MO with her dad. My grandfather was highly abusive. I thought that I deserved it because he had found out about me being disgusting and sick. He would beat me than not let me go to school for a week, calling and telling the school I was helping out on the farm instead of letting me go to school and risk anyone seeing the cuts and bruises. I found out that by laughing at him when he was hitting me he would wear himself out on me and my brother would not get beat so I learned to laugh when I felt pain. I never told because he threatened to hurt my sister if I did.

Going to school, I felt different from other kids. They had not been molested, they were not living with their grandparents and they did not get beat at home. I felt less than, inadequate and afraid that anyone would find out who I was. I found that picking on kids less popular than me made me feel better and accepted. I became a bully in 5th grade. I would get beat at home than would beat up other kids. Because of the physical/sexual abuse and my fighting several things happened: I never felt that I fit in, I learned to hide how I felt and who I was, I saw several counselors, I learned to embrace pain, I lost all hope and became agnostic.

In 7th Grade my dad got custody of me. I moved back to Illinois. He worked overnights. My first weekend I was walking the town and ran into some kids on the square. They asked me if I had ever smoked marijuana, and I told them yes. They passed me a joint and for the first time I could remember, I felt I fit in. The next night I went to a party with them. It was the first time I got drunk, did cocaine, tripped acid, kissed a girl and slept with a girl.

I learned that if I stayed high, slept with the hot girls and beat people up I could numb my emotions, temporarily escape my past and feel like I fit in.  I began smoking marijuana and eating mini-thins daily and drinking, being promiscuous and fighting on the weekends.

I moved back to MO with my mom senior year after getting my stomach pumped due to alcohol poisoning and multiple legal problems chasing me. I was such a knucklehead that I moved to Southwest Missouri to get away from drugs. The problem was that although I changed locales, I had not changed. I brought me with me. I soon found methamphetamine and dropped out of high school because it got in my way of partying. I continued to get into fights and break the law. At 17 I was on probation.

My probation officer tried everything to no avail: probation, community service, scared straight, house arrest, counseling, rehab and county jail. I went on the run for 6 months then turned myself in. At 20 I went to prison. While there I accomplished 3 things: I learned to be better criminal, got my GED and turned 21.

Two hours after I was paroled I was drunk. I used drugs intravenously for the first time the night I was released. Soon after I was dealing drugs and involved in the manufacturing of meth.

At 22 I flew my car 97 feet off of a cliff, getting 32 feet in the air. I died several times in the ambulance and was prescribed opiates for my injuries. By the time the doctor took me off of opiates months later I was addicted to them as well.

At 23 I got married and left a month later due to issues we were having. I found myself back on probation for possession with intent to deliver. At 24 I attempted suicide but my sister happened to come over and find me unconscious in a pool of blood in my bathroom. She called an ambulance. If you can’t tell, I lived. I was trying to find a way out of my addiction and depression and that was the only thing I had not tried. I was so unsuccessful I couldn’t even do that right.

As a side note I have a history of mental illness diagnosis: Bipolar disorder, PTSD, generalized anxiety, major depressive episodes with psychotic features and antisocial personality disorder. 

At 28 I went to residential rehab for the first time. It took me a month after I got out before I relapsed. That 2 month period was the longest I had been clean since I had started using at 12. I needed money and only knew one way to get it quickly. The voice in the back of my head told me I could sell and not use. As usual, the voice lied. That voice led me from one disaster to the next by telling me what I wanted to hear. That is one of the things that makes me an addict.

In the 13 months my relapse lasted I overdosed 3 times, left a trail of used people and shot someone at a drug deal gone badly. He lived and that actually made me mad. I was an evil person back then, a soldier for Satan.  I have holes in my body I was not born with. I did not get them being a nice guy or being around nice people. I moved in with my mother in Springfield from Branson to get my life in order, leaving all I owned behind me. As usual, I ran away but brought me with along.

At 30 I started college and was working in restaurants. I was soon drinking every night, shooting steroids, still getting into fights, being promiscuous and living my life by my rules as an Agnostic. If this was all there was I had better party it up and enjoy life now! My best day consisted of waking up to my alarm and not the shakes because I needed a drink. After this life I knew that there was nothing so I became a hedonist and chased the next rush or conquest.

An Associates, 2 bachelors and in the middle of a master’s degree later I was still an alcoholic; running from my problems and reveling in my character defects. I got into fights almost weekly, cussed constantly, slept with anyone, constantly looked at porn on the internet while smoking 2 packs of cigarettes a day. I saw a dominatrix on a regular basis to get beaten because I felt that I deserved the pain. I was working at a substance abuse facility while drinking until I blacked out every night. I always said I hated Christians because they were hypocrites, yet I was the biggest hypocrite I knew. Looking back it makes since, as I hated myself.

I looked into the mirror and did not like the person I saw, but I could always look at others and see I wasn’t as bad as them. I was not where I wanted to be but was happy I was not where I had been. Because of that I thought I was better. After all, it was only alcohol and a few legal addictions.

The month before I turned 36 my father committed suicide. Several months later I broke up with the mother of my son. She would not let me see him at first. I struggled. I was out of hope, and my job was to give hope to my clients. I began to feel that I was a fraud and they were all going to find out. I started to look at the people I knew who were always happy. I looked for people who had the most hope. It turned out to be a Christian couple I knew through work, Nate and Becca.

One day I broke down and told Nate what was going on. He invited me to come to Church with them. I said no. He asked again several weeks later, and I said no. Then the following week his wife invited me to church for BBQ.  I love to eat, so I said okay. The first thing I remember was the music. They played a song by Third Day called “Cry out to Jesus.” It was a Christian song that talked about addiction in the lyrics. For the first time in a church I did not feel judged for who I was or how I was dressed. Then I heard they had a recovery meeting called Celebrate Recovery, and the next week I checked it out.

I came a week or two a month for the next 6 months. I was not drinking the kool-aid. I did not really believe, but I was around positive people and I hoped it would rub off. I also heard several things that stuck in my mind. I really liked Paul became of the things that he said.

Romans 3:23 – “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” I was not the only sinner in the church. Instead, it was a church full of people who sinned.

 Romans 7:14,19 "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. For what I do is not the good I want to do, no, the evil I do not want to do-this I keep on doing" I could totally relate to Paul, like he was my long lost twin. He had struggles too and had trouble stopping.

About a year later, I had been drinking heavily. As I pulled out of the bar to go home, I had a police car zoom up behind me. I immediately began to pray. “God, if you let me not get pulled over, I will go to church every Sunday.” I turned and the officer turned with me and I continued to pray, “I promise, if you let me not get pulled over I will go to church every Sunday and I will never drink again.” I turned and the police officer turned with me again. Every time that happened I added something else. By the time I turned onto my street I was going to start going to church every Sunday, quit drinking, drugging, smoking cigarettes, cussing, fighting and having premarital sex.

As I turned onto my street, the police officer continued going straight. I passed out in my car when I got home. I remember waking up in the morning and going to bed. I woke up late that afternoon. I had plans to go to my friend house to watch the Super Bowl. I remember getting up and lying in bed trying to piece together the night before. I would generally black out and not remember the previous night, but this time I remembered. I remembered making the deal as I prayed, and the police car driving by after following me half-way across Springfield. That kept playing over and over in my mind. 

I sat and thought about what I was going to do. Finally, I got into my car to go. I can remember thinking that there was no way I could go to Josh’s house and keep my part of the bargain, because everybody there would be drinking and smoking cigarettes. I headed over there anyway. I knew that I had made a deal with God, and that God had kept his part of the bargain. I also knew that I had smoked cigarettes for almost 26 years and been using drugs and alcohol for 24 years. I could not say no. After all, the voice in my head kept telling me I couldn’t do it. Literally, there was a voice in my head telling me I might as well drink because I was going to fail anyway.

As I was driving to my friend’s house I was flipping through radio stations when I heard a song start that I had never heard before. As it played, I started to cry. I had to pull over due to the tears. As soon as I heard the words, “I wish you could see me know, I wish I could show you how I’m not who I was,” I knew that I would never smoke again. At that moment I knew that I would never drink or do drugs again. The voice in my head changed. God spoke to me, and I heard a voice in my head start repeating over and over again, “You are not who you were yesterday. You are changed. You can do this. You never have to be who you were again.” 

God had kept his part of the bargain, so I have attempted to keep mine. I am blessed to say that I have not gotten into a fight outside of the ring, been promiscuous, drank, drugged or smoked a cigarette since that night. I may have cursed a few times, but no one is perfect. I have become a firm believer in Philippians 4:13, "I can do all through Him who gives me strength." As an Agnostic I tried everything the world had to offer: medication, rehab, probation, prison, psychiatrists, psychologists, anonymous programs all to no avail. One foxhole prayer and my life has never been the same…….in amazing ways.

Do I miss the drugs and the lifestyle sometimes? You bet. I can honestly say that I loved drugs and I loved the way they made me feel. I hate the person they turned me into. I never want to be that person again. I am no longer obsessed with drugs, but the desire is still there on occasion. I have prayed for the desire to be lifted, and it has not happened. I find solace in 2 Corinthians 12:7-10, "there was given to me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong."

I have discovered over time what I had been doing wrong and why I had failed so many times. As an Agnostic, when I woke up in the morning without a hangover and a cute girl beside me I knew that was the best my life was ever going to get. Through Christ I have something more to look forward to. No matter how bad my day gets, I know that if I continue to live my life guided by the Holy Spirit that I have an eternity of bliss promised to me. Because of that promise, I can make it through everything that this world has to throw at me.

A month after I committed my life to Christ I was first contacted by the woman who is now my wife on E-Harmony, Julie. Christ had to wait until I was ready to place the woman of my dreams in my life. A month after I met Julie I was baptized. These are just a couple of the ways my life has changed.

My life has changed because I see it differently. I see my life as a gift from God, and how I live my life my thank you to Him. I lived years slapping God in the face, and I will never do that again. I have found a purpose for my life that I never knew was possible because there is more to life than just me and my immediate pleasure.   

I once heard it said that going to Church no more makes you a Christian than standing in a garage makes you a car. I completely agree with that, and I want to be known for my actions, not my words. The 10 commandments are not multiple choice. My actions today speak of who I am, not who I was. I am a child of Christ, my life a gift from God.  People should be able to see that when they are around me. It starts with doing community service and sharing the gospel with others.

That is why the 12^th step is by far my favorite step. It is the pay check at the end of a long and hard work week. Let no one tell you that recovery is easy, but it is worth it. You have to be true to yourself and to Christ, and realize that only by walking the walk can you truly influence others. James 1:27 says that "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." Because of this I go out and speak at churches, seminars, groups, trainings, schools, colleges and in communities about how addiction begins, how it progresses, the dangers it presents as well as the fact that there is a Better Life In Recovery; which is the name of the non-profit and the documentary I am working on that will reach out to youth and young adults who have struggles with the sole purpose of giving them hope and letting them know they are not alone in their hurts, habits and hang-ups.

I want others to see how accepting Christ is and come to faith in Him. As Paul said, “Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners of whom I am the worst.”   They can only see loving side of Christ if it is displayed by us as Christians and it all starts with me. Christ has given me an amazing son and daughter, a beautiful wife who has always put Christ first her whole life, a job I enjoy and a story that can be shared with others of how rock bottom can be transformed into a life worth living.

I understand why people feel they are not worthy of Christ’s grace. I remember when I went to my pastor and explained to him about this incredible female I had met and how I was not worthy of her because I sinned frequently in my past and was new to Christ while she had lived her entire life for God. I could not understand how this could be, and my pastor told me a story I will relate to you. It is a parable that Christ shared in Matthew about the landowner who hires men in the early morning to go and work his fields for a denarius, which was the common payment for a full day’s work. Three hours later he goes to the marketplace and gets more workers and sends them to his fields. Three hours later he does the same thing, then again three hours later and yet again two hours later. At the end of the day, he paid them all the same and the first hired grumbled about getting paid the same. The landowner told them to take their pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. Are you envious because I am generous, he asked them. This parable was not at all about money, but was about God's grace. It means that no matter when in your life you heed God’s call, you will gain Eternal Life. So now, instead of focusing on what God has given others I focus on God's gracious benefits to me and I am thankful for all that have.

I have a life now through Christ that I never had without him. I can finally look in the mirror and love the person staring back at me because I was finally able to deal with my problems instead of trying to stay numb and escape them. Working through the steps actually allowed me to not only forgive others, but to finally forgive myself. After all, that was the person I hurt and hated the most.

I went from a drug addicted felon with no hope and no self-esteem to a Christian who shares with others the grace and hope that was shared with me. I like to say that I went From Dealing Dope to Dealing Hope. I can truly do all through him who strengthens me, and so can you. I would strongly encourage anyone considering Celebrate Recovery to look into it, and remember that it is a lifelong commitment. It worked for me and it will work for you.

It is not a magical cure; it needs to be actively worked on a daily basis. I hear some say they are recovered, and to me that says that they are done. I am in recovery. That means I will continue to work at this program, on myself, and for a better relationship with Christ on a daily basis. You see, I still get frustrated, still get sad, still feel guilty, still feel lonely and I do not always do the right thing, but I strive to be Christ like and try to ensure that each day I live my life will be better than the day before it.

I am no longer a hypocrite; I no longer hate or harbor resentments and anger. Instead I laugh, I cry, I love. I am quick to help and even quicker to forgive. What I once saw as weakness I now often see as strength. Some of those who were once my enemies have become my heroes. It is amazing how your outlook on life changes when you are in recovery.

Thank you for letting me share some of my experiences with you and how God has impacted my life and completely change the way I live it. In all honestly I did very little. I owe a lot to 12 step programs, even more to Celebrate Recovery, and I owe it all to Christ. Trust me, with Him all things are possible

The Beverly Hillbillies and My Faith

I am sure that this is a confusing title for a blog. After all, what could the Beverly Hillbillies possibly have to do with my faith? Did the show lead me to God, or did it help me get saved? No, it did not, nor did I learn anything about my faith from watching the show. That said, there are similarities between me and other Christians in the church and the Clampett family and the socialites in Beverly Hills.

The Beverly Hillbillies was a “fish out of water” show. It was about a dirt poor family from the sticks that became rich instantly. They moved to Beverly Hills where they were around other rich people. Because of where they were from and how they acted various things happened. They were sometimes looked down upon They  frequently did not understand the conversations that occurred around them. They were frequently misunderstood by those they lived around. They did not understand a lot of the things they observed, and when people would try to become their friends there was often issues that occurred.

At least in the show, this was always met with laughter and applause. In real life, this is not the case. Instead of laughter and applause there are often bridges burned and greater divides created that separate and hurt one side or the other. Are you still wondering what this has to do with my faith?

I was Agnostic for most of my life.  It started in the 5^th grade, when I decided that God could not be true because of all of the abuse that I was subjected to and the hypocrisy I saw from those who professed to be Christians (mostly my parents). How could a God that cared about me allow this to happen? It continued through my life as I struggled with various addictions and mental health issues while going in and out of jail and prison. It ended when I turned my life over to God at 37.

When it comes to living my life Christ-like, I was definitely the polar opposite. I was a soldier for Satan for probably 2 decades of my life, as I dealt drugs and played a part in the manufacturing of methamphetamine. I had a different lifestyle, used different language and sought after goals that were completely different from Christians. But, after struggling for over 20 years with addictions/anger/depression/PTSD, I gave my life to God and everything instantly changed.

Like the Clampetts, I went from being poor to rich overnight. In my case it was not financially, it was spiritually. I then started going to church, and a lot of the things that came out of my mouth were not understood or alienated some people from me. I would talk about my addiction and prison, because that is what my life previously had consisted of. I think of the dirt that the Clampetts sometimes had on their boots that caused others to turn their noses up in disdain, except my dirt was on my soul.

The Clampetts had Mr Drysdale, who had lived a much different life and had different interests always there to tell them what they need. He was all about the money, which was important to him and he felt should be important to Jed. Today we have the “seeker-friendly” church reaching out to the lost, trying to give me what l already knew. I came to the church for something different, not something comfortable. Change happens not from the ordinary and known but the extraordinary and unknown!

I call it as I see it. I found that there are many who don’t, and much like Jethro I get confused when I see sin called something else. I see sin as black and white. I seldom see shades of gray. Do not get me wrong, I still sin. That said, I try to work on my shortcomings and I still see what I did as sin. Here are a couple of examples that I see often:

1.       How can you look down on someone who is watching pornography or using drugs/alcohol when you have a gluttony issue? Addiction is addiction, no matter how you slice it. Just because yours may be more socially acceptable does not mean that God sees them any differently.

2.       Here all I really have is the name of a book, “50 Shades of Grey.” Have you read it? I had a friend tell me that she had read the book. When I asked her if she was okay with her husband watching pornography she told me that was sick. She was offended when I told her there was no difference between watching it and reading it.

3.       Greed, the “name it claim it” creed and the “prosperity gospel” seem very close to the same thing, although people keep telling me they are different. Some people have a lot of money. There is nothing wrong with that. Other people shaft friends, spend little time with family or ignore the Holy Spirit’s voice because they are busy chasing wants not needs. That is greed, and that is wrong.

Because of these examples as well as many more, I am the fish out of water much like the Clampetts. I try to understand what I am seeing, but I interpret people’s actions instead of just listening to their words and get confused. I am used to taking things at face value, which is what I did in the world I used to live in. Back then it was life and death, so you had to learn how to read people and the best way to do that was by their actions.

Now that I am in a battle for my eternal soul, it seems to even more important that I prepare myself to be successful and here are the 5 Pillars I have found to do that:

1.       God/Jesus/Holy Spirit - This is where I found my hope, faith and strength. Without hope and faith, change is impossible. If I don’t have hope that it can change and the faith to pursue change, I am stuck right where I was. Recovery programs refer to a Higher Power, but “there is no High like the Most High!” (This was stolen from Mike Rogers new church in Springfield, MO)

2.       Bible – I say the book of James in particular, which is a great guide to help you live a better life. In recovery they talk about the 12 steps, in life I say there is no better game plan for living your life than the Bible!

3.       Mentor - Find someone who is living the life you would like to live, and ask them to help guide you there. In recovery programs, t hey call this a sponsor. Someone who is living t heir lives sober that has worked through the 12 steps to guide you through the 12 steps. In my walk, I would find someone that is walking the Christian walk I want to walk that can, with the help of the Bible, guide me to an improved walk.

4.       Accountability Partners – These are people with similar goals to yours that can encourage and support you while you encourage and support them. The best way to see if they have similar goals is by fruit inspecting, or gauging them by their words and their works.

5.       Church/Small Groups – This is the place where you gather with a group of people who have similar goals and gain hope/faith/strength. In recovery they talk about 12 step meetings, in life I talk about small groups which are set up with a specific topic!

My Life as a Bad Guy Part 3: Meth in Missouri

I decided that I was headed towards jail or expulsion so I moved to Missouri from Illinois. Once there, I tried methamphetamine. I liked it, a lot. Soon school was no longer important to me. It got in the way of my partying and I dropped out  the last semester of my senior year. I headed towards rock bottom. I went to jail multiple times. My probation officer sent me to Scared Straight at the prison in Jefferson City. I spent 120 days on house arrest and several years on probation, stacking up violations.

I had some things happen that should have changed me. I had a couple friends die in drinking and driving accidents. I was the first one on the scene and found one of my friends dead. I saw a friend get beat to death and another beat into a coma. I had alcohol poisoning and stopped breathing. They pumped my stomach and I was drinking again the next night. I saw someone I knew get shot during a drug deal.

I went on the run for a while. I was gone for almost a year. It is exhausting, being on the run. You always look over your shoulder in the party world, and it is three times as bad when you have warrants out for your arrest and all of the city and county police know what you look like. Finally, I needed some rest. I showed up at the probation office, and when my probation officer walked out I told him I was ready to go to prison. He said okay. I turned 21 in Booneville Correctional Center. I was drunk an hour after I was released and used intravenously later that night for the very first time.

I had found methamphetamine and learned that it could help with my pain. I was able to numb myself for periods of time with meth. When I started using intravenously, that was the end of me as a person. It gave me a feeling I had never experienced before. I became dead inside and only felt alive when I was high. After years of being an Agnostic, I had found my Higher Power. Meth became my God. Then it turned into Satan.

I hoped for death. I had alcohol poisoning and lived. Drunk, I flew a car 97 feet down a hill, clipping trees 32 feet in the air and lived. I attempted suicide and my sister found me unconscious in a pool of blood. The ambulance got there in time to save me. I lived. Are you noticing a pattern? That was the 5th time I had flatlined, and I kept coming back. I promised my sister I would never try to kill myself again after the attempted suicide. The truth is, I wanted to die. I no longer wanted to live and I was tired of feeling.

Meth gave me all I thought I needed. I had money, power, friends, women, excitement and so much more. I was the life of the party. But I was still dead inside. I could be at a party with 100 people and feel completely alone. I did not feel alive unless I was high. Meth was all I cared about. I would sit at home in a funk if I wasn't high, so I discovered a new lifestyle. I would stay up from Sunday when I woke up until Sunday morning when I would go to bed. I joked that if God got a Sabbath day, so should I.

I would wake up to a shot of dope on Sunday evening, then stay high through the week until early Sunday morning when I would take a handful of benzodiazepines to help me sleep. I found that I never hurt if I stayed high. No one ever got close enough to me to really hurt me as long as I was high. It got to the point that if I was awake, I was high.

I became heartless and used everyone I came in contact with. I knew if I didn't use them they would use me. Why not be first. Everyone in my life was there to serve me. I let people be my friend because they would allow me to be around a better class of people, they had money, they had dope, they cooked dope, they had friends who bought my dope, they were pretty and would sleep with me or I was trying to sleep with them, they would get high with me, they had things to loan me that I needed, they had a car I could use when I thought mine was hot or they had a house for me to party at so I didn't have to use mine.

Everyone and everything had a purpose. Some times I did nice things, but I even had ulterior motives for that. I remember one of my friends having a baby and being broke. I helped his family pay the bills for several months so that they could not work and  bond. I helped pay rent, utilities and even bought them food. I then would frequently bring up doing that any time people would talk trash about  me being a dope dealer. "Well, look at the good things I do with my money."

I would give people $100's just to remind them about it when I  needed to borrow their car or have a party at their house. I would justify my selling meth with this logic, "I use Super B to cut it. Other people use stuff that is really bad to cut theirs. My people get vitamins so I am doing them a favor by dealing." Life was a hustle, and I was good at being a hustler.

Somewhere along the way I became more suicidal. Some might call it an addiction to the rush of adrenaline. I would show up to a meth cooks house not knowing them to buy methamphetamine. I would hang out with the most sketched out people I knew. I would buy  meth at the  hottest houses I knew just to see if when I got pulled over they would find the dope. I was insane and no longer cared. I always had my sister to fall back on, and for the most part I could always argue that I was only hurting myself.

That is another thing I always did in my addiction. I downplayed the impact of everything that I did. I would justify my dealing with the law of supply and demand and my dope was better for them. I would never look at the money that I took from people. Maybe when they came down they beat their wife or kids. Not my problem. Maybe they gave me their families grocery money.  Not my fault. I would have tons of food stamps, at 30 cents on the dollar if I didn't like you and 50 cents if I did. Maybe they were robbing people for money to buy it. If it wasn't me getting robbed, I was fine with it. Maybe they would get high and rape people. As long as it wasn't my sister getting hurt, who cares? I know that I didn't!

The truth is that I saw and did things that give me nightmares 15 years later. I was insane, doing insane things and I associated with insane people. I have held people at gun point and made them strip because I thought they were wearing a wire. I have beat someone unconscious, waited for him to regain consciousness so that I could beat them some more. That was over $25, to set an example. I have done and seen much worse, sometimes for money, sometimes because they crossed lines and sometimes just because I was bored and angry.

I have ravaged people emotionally and psychologically, leaving them a shell of their former selves. I have built a shot for someone that they overdosed on. Quite a few people have overdosed on my drugs, I am quite sure. I have given many people their first shot of dope, because I knew that if I did that I would have control over them for life. I was evil, and I was okay with that. It was what I was good at, so I did it.

On the flip side of that, I have been robbed several times. I have been held at gun point. I have often been in situations I didn't know if I would live through. I have been beaten unconscious. I have been jumped by multiple people on several occasions. I have overdosed and been left for dead where I was. I have holes in me I was not born with put there by other people. I have been face down on the floor during a raid with a gun to the back of my head. I am certain that I deserved all of that and a whole lot more.

I was a bad guy. I look back on my life and I don't know how I am still alive. Scratch that, after dying more times than I can count on one hand and overamping multiple times, I am alive because there was some good EMTs and paramedics. I would tell you because of luck, as there were probably a dozen times I played Russian Roulette with a 38 revolver and a lone bullet. At the time I thought that nothing could kill me, and nothing or no one would ever get me to stop using drugs. I would have told you that only the good die young, and I was anything but good so I would probably live forever.

Are You Comfortable?

Today I was thinking about two words, comfortable and complacent. These two words scare me to death. They are the last two words I ever want to use to define my life. I don’t mind words like struggling or challenged. In fact, I welcome struggles and challenges. They are the reason that we grow. Let us look at the word complacent and comfortable in a couple of different contexts.

For starters, I am in recovery from an addiction to more. Yes, I preferred methamphetamine then alcohol but I would use whatever was available. My addiction did not stop there, either. I was addicted to money, power, women and violence. I have been in recovery for 4 ½ years now. I work in the field of recovery and have for about 6 years (4 ½ years in recovery but 6 in the field may puzzle you. I consider abstinent and recovery two completely different things). I sit in multiple meetings every week, since I conduct them. I go to trainings and read the latest research on addiction and recovery but I know I do not have it figured out. 

I can never allow myself to get comfortable and complacent. If I do, I might lose focus. You see, my addiction is not gone. It is at work in the back of my head; lifting weights, running on the treadmill and doing research on the internet. My addiction gets smarter, stronger and more cunning. It is searching for a way to take my life over again. Comfortable and complacent has caused me to relapse once before. I cannot relapse again. I am pretty sure that I don’t have another recovery left in me.

How about work? I work in the field of addiction. I am currently a counselor for an organization that has DWI and Drug Court contracts, so I work with clients and teams from those 2 courts. I have been doing that for 5 plus years now. I have also in that time period worked with residential and outpatient clients. I feel that I am pretty good at what I do. I have a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Sociology, a Master’s degree in Social Work and I am a LCSW (Licensed Clinical Social Worker). I have 4 ½ years in recovery after a 20 plus year addiction. I am street and book educated in this field.

I can never allow myself to get comfortable and complacent. My clients deserve better. Comfortable and complacent tell me that I don’t have to go the extra mile for them. I can kick back on my laurels and coast. Absolutely not, this is so much more than people’s freedom. It is their very lives that they can lose if they go back out there. If they do, is it my fault? No, but I want to know that I did everything I could to give them the best interventions and support I could. Complacency does none of that.

How about faith? I have been going to church for about 6 years and got saved 4 ½ years ago. I know the songs and I raise my hand when I worship. I tithe like I should. I pray. I don’t judge and I am accepting of all people. In fact, I love the services I go to and I feel accepted and know that I am doing what I need to be doing after I hear them. I know the primary message of the Bible and it comforts me because I know Jesus loves me and that I am saved. I love that everybody can go to my church and not feel called out and no one will judge me if I make mistakes here and there.

I can never allow myself to get comfortable and complacent. When I think of Christ and the early Christians the last thing I think of is warm and fuzzy. They lived a radically different life that led to many of them being killed. We are called to be Christ-like. Christ told us people would hate us at they hated Him and to daily pick up our cross. Those two things do not sound comfortable nor do they fit into a complacent life. I should be talking about feeling the Spirit move, not how rocking the band is.

In the end, complacency kills. It could cost me my job. It could cost me my sobriety. It could cost me my eternal soul. This is not something to mess around with. I should challenge myself all of the time. I should surround myself with people that help build me up and people that I can help build up. I should not live my life comfortably. We are called to lead by example, to be salt and light. I can’t do that when I live a comfortable life, blend in with everyone else and never call anybody out for their actions. That is ordinary. I don’t know about you, but I was born to be extraordinary!

Not Afraid to Die

I was never afraid of death. In my addiction I died multiple times and was brought back to life. I had my stomach pumped, slashed my wrists, flew a car 97 feet clipping trees 32 feet in the air and had a couple of overdoses. I continued to use drugs and drive under the influence, so needless to say I wasn't afraid of death. I kept doing the things that had caused me to die previously. I was not afraid and took pride in it.

I was hopeless. The best I could hope for in a day was to get high multiple times, make money and that was about it. In my addiction I would sleep once a week, and I did this for years. I always made sure I had drugs to take as soon as I woke up, because that was where I  placed my hope. My higher power was drugs and money and everything that came with that. When I was an alcoholic I  knew that if I slept through the night without having the shakes wake me up, not urinating in the bed overnight and didn't have a hangover  that was the best I could hope for. That was the best my life was going to get. Not much hope there.

I was ashamed. I had already lost most of my values and morals. I put up so many walls that I was like the heart of the onion; completely covered so no one could know who I really was. I lied to everyone about my past so much that I began to believe the lies myself. It became my persona, the gang banger who moved to southwest Missouri. I was so ashamed of who I was I would lie to people when telling them the truth would not even matter.

I felt all alone. I could be in a house with 10 other people or a bar with 100's and would feel alone. I would spend hours shuffling cards or playing video games, making no contact with the outside world. I would have sex with people for the conquest. I would not know their name and  half the time they did not know mine because I wanted no one to truly get close to me. That way I could stay alone.

I hated myself. I would let no one get too close to me. I dated a lot of people. We used each other. I used them for the conquest, arm candy or to try to fix them up as a project. They used me for money, protection or drugs. If a girl I was dating told me she loved me I would break up with her if I thought she was telling the truth. "If you are sick enough to love someone like me, I can't be with you," I would say.

I felt numb. I think that is why I took the drugs to begin with. Maybe not in the very beginning, but in the end. The first time I smoked marijuana I did it to fit in, and I did. I soon learned that drugs numbed my pain, helped me forget about the abuse I  had suffered through as a kid. The hurt I felt from not fitting in disappeared. I learned that no one could hurt me if I was high, so I stayed that way all the time.

I felt dead. I no longer felt alive without putting chemicals in my body. In fact, the only time I felt alive was when I was sticking a needle into my arm or putting myself in a situation where I might die. I would feel alive when my car got searched and they didn't find the drugs. I would feel alive when I got into a fight or was running from the police. I felt dead and empty unless I was doing things that released massive amounts of adrenaline and/or dopamine.

I was evil. I consider meth a drug straight from the Devil. In my addiction, I was a soldier for Satan. I did his bidding and I brought more people into  his fold. I helped manufacture a drug that enabled society to continue its rapid decay. I dealt a drug that is associated with murder, rape, burglary and assault. I would take food stamps for 40 cents on the dollar from friends and 25 cents on the dollar from everybody else then throw the food stamps away because I felt they were beneath me and its not like I ate anyway. I took money out of kids mouths that needed it. I hurt friends physically over $25 to make an example of  them.

I wanted to die. I had no hope of getting of drugs, changing my lifestyle or not going back to prison other than death. Death would have been a reprieve at the time. Supporting an addiction to drugs, power and money is a very stressful job. Once a month, I would put one round in a .38, spin the cylinder and pull the trigger. I did that for the last year of my addiction.

But here is the truth...................................

I was scared to death. I was afraid that if I let someone in my life they would  hurt me. I had been hurt by people that were supposed to nurture and love me because they were related to me. I had been devastated by people claiming to be my friends and if I kept my walls up they could never hurt me again. Would I have really been so paranoid I played curtain patrol and had motion detectors and recording devices set everywhere if I wasn't scared?

I was afraid to live. I was afraid of truly trying because if I didn't try I couldn't fail. No one would expect much from me. I had tried and failed enough times in the beginning of my drug use that I was afraid to try again. I dropped out of high school and had never had a long term relationship. I broke off any relationships I had with people who truly cared about me so that I could simply exist. If I never tried anything, I could never fail again. If I kept people in my life who expected nothing of me I could do nothing.

I wanted to not hurt anymore. To accomplish that I tried drugs, alcohol, sex and power. I was still scared, angry and hurt. I tried suicide. I wasn't very good at it. I tried jail, house arrest and prison without any success. I was using half an hour after I got out of prison. I tried rehab, counseling and prescribed medication. The result was temporary at best and I would relapse within weeks at most. I could not escape who I was and what I had done.

What was the reason..............................

All of the trauma I had been through (whether it had been done to me or I had done it myself) had created a hole in me that I kept trying to fill with sex, money, power and drugs. Unfortunately, there was only one thing that could fill it. It was a hope sized hole that nothing man made could touch. There was not enough money, sex, drugs or counseling to fill it. And trust me, I tried. I still felt empty and broken, unworthy and worthless.

What is the answer.........................

Spiritual Spackle is based solely on one concept. Life creates holes in our souls, and the things we have available to us in this physical world only cover the holes. Notice I didn't say they fill the holes. They only cover them. The holes are still there. The Holy Spirit is like spackle for our soul. It is what is meant to fill the holes in and restore our hope. You can read more about the Spiritual Spackle Theory here http://spiritualspackle.blogspot.com/2011/08/spackle-theory.html

God is the bringer of true hope and purpose. In order to accept Him into our lives and live differently we have to:

1. Accept -  Admit that you have sinned.
2. Repent - Not just feel sorry for what you have done, but be ready to live your life differently.
3. Belief - Believe that Jesus is the son of God and that He died to forgive your sins
4. Action - Live your life differently. My life revolved around drugs from waking to sleep. Now it revolves around God and living a life I hope He finds pleasing
5. Prepare - (for Success) Use the 5 Pillars http://spiritualspackle.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-5-pillars.html or try the Locker Room approach http://spiritualspackle.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-locker-room.html

If anyone has any questions or requests, please let me know. Remember, the journey has just begun!

Christians Are Not to Judge (NOT!!)

Do we judge other people? There are those who will quote scripture to chastise and judge those who judge others. Today we are going to look at one passage in the Bible to learn about whether or not we should judge others. The reason I am going to use this particular passage is because it contains the scripture that most often gets thrown in Christian's faces when we disagree with how others live.

The argument against judging others is that Jesus, in Matthew 7:1 clearly says, "Do not judge." They read that, and most stop right there. "See, your own Jesus says that you are not to judge me or anyone else," says the sinner. They use this as a way to say, "Christians don't even follow the malarkey that they believe." With that simple sentence, do not judge, many a Christian is shut down and left speechless.

Some will even use the entire first verse of Matthew chapter 7, "Do not judge, or you too will be judged." With that comment, anyone who suggests that someone is living a life that could lead them to hell is really saying that they too are going to hell. This makes complete sense, right?!?!?! After all, if a judge sentences someone to prison he is really sending himself to prison. Of course not. That would be ludicrous and devoid of logic.

If we look at this scripture, we should automatically realize that it is not to be taken in by itself only. If this scripture is read in to, I can walk away believing that I can do whatever I want and will never be judged. I can murder, lie, steal, cheat and there are no consequences for it as long as I don't judge other people. Wahoo!! There's no rules!!!

In Matthew 7:21 Jesus says, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven." How is that possible if all we have to do is not judge others and we will get into heaven? So what is God's will Jesus speaks of? Jesus said there are two commands we are to follow in Matthew 22:37-40. He says we are to love God with all of our heart, soul and mind as well as love our neighbor as we love ourselves.

Wait, there's two rules? How can this be, if we do not get judged as long as we don't judge others? What do you mean, we won't get into heaven if we don't do God's will. I thought I couldn't get judged?? Obviously, there is a disconnect here. It is because we have not taken in the entire passage. So, lets look at the passage and see what Jesus really says.

Matthew 7:2-5 says, "For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured against you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."

So, when Jesus says do not judge, what He really means is do not judge out of hypocrisy. It is like an alcoholic telling someone smoking marijuana or doing methamphetamine that they need to stop because its wrong what they are doing. When I was an addict, I would have people who were next to me smoking meth tell me that I was going to hell because I was not saved. "Get saved like me and you will go to heaven too," I was told on several occasions. THIS IS ONE OF THE MAIN REASONS I STAYED AN AGNOSTIC FOR AS LONG AS I DID!!!! Jesus is saying that we are not to judge other's sin when our sin is just as bad if not worse!

Parents, how can you tell your children not to smoke cigarettes or do drugs when you are doing them yourself? How can you tell them to not cuss when you curse yourself? When we parent with a "do as I say, not as I do" mentality we are doomed to fail. Get your life in order and begin living your life as we are commanded to.

When I am not living my life well, I am not in a position to help others. Judgement consists of two things. First we look at the actions and words of someone and discern how what they mean. Then we begin to instruct them on how to live their lives better. It is not hateful to judge someones actions and then assist them. If I see someone about to do something that would kill them and do nothing, that makes me a horrible person. If we see our brothers and sisters engaging in actions that will doom them for eternity and do nothing, we are sinning. Period!!

We should be instructing others in how to live the right way. This is done to all of us from the day we are born until the day we die. Our parents, teachers, local and federal laws all instruct us on how we should conduct ourselves. So, judgement and instruction is not bad................but it can be!

We are not to tear others down, just to build ourselves up. We don't belittle or nag others. We are not to instruct others to make ourselves feel better. We are not to instruct others and be hateful or judgmental in the process. Instead, we are to live our lives well and try to help those who are our brother's in Christ do the same! We are not instructing others out of hate, but out of love. We do not walk before our brothers, but instead walk beside them.

So who are we to judge? We are to instruct and help our brothers and sisters in Christ based on what God has said in the Bible. That at times means we need to make a judgement of someone based on their words or actions. By judging someones actions or words, we can then instruct them on how to live their lives by the Word of God. This is vital!

I know the American church does not need less internal judgement. THE AMERICAN CHURCH NEEDS MORE INTERNAL JUDGEMENT, AND LESS EXTERNAL CONDEMNATION!!! We are so busy picking the dust out of the eyes of the nonbeliever that we not only ignore the tree in our own eye. we also ignore all of the sin that is in the church. We are not called to stand in judgement of the world. God will do that. We are to help our brethren. Remember, iron sharpens iron.

So in closing, we are called to judge and instruct our Christian brothers and sisters from God's Word with discernment and love by first judging ourselves. Once we have gotten our lives in order with the two commandments we can then begin to help others. In all honesty, if you see your brother doing something that you know would lead to his death and said and did nothing you would be a horrible person! So, let us begin to rebuild the church and make it strong again by l

My very first VLog script and VLog

Hi, my name is David. I am going to be starting a vlog. One of my friends told me that he thought it would be a good idea, and after thinking about it I agree with him. I talk in colleges, schools, churches and communities about the dangers of addiction and the power of recovery. I often have people call me, email me, tweet me or talk to me in public with questions about the struggles either they or someone they care about are going through and what they can do to help them, or sometimes just understand what they are going through. I think that I am a great person to answer those questions. Here are the reasons why i am a great person to answer those questions. I was abused as a child and started fighting as well as using drugs and alcohol as a way to cope. I eventually ended up in prison after being on probation, house arrest and in and out of jail for several years. I have used drugs IV and was involved in the manufacturing and distribution of meth as well as many other drugs. I am diagnosed Bipolar, PTSD, generalized anxiety, antisocial personality disorder. I have attempted suicide and have died and been brought back 6 times after overdoses and car accidents. I cannot count on two hands the number of friends that I have lost to addiction. I now have 3 1/2 years of what I consider true recovery. I have a bachelors degree in psychology and sociology. I have a masters degree in social work and I work at a substance abuse facililty and drug court as a counselor. I am starting a nonprofit to go into communities and schools to let people know that there is a better life in recovery. So in this vlog I will talk about the things that have helped me in recovery as well as the things that have enabled me to go from an agnostic to a Christian and how God has changed my life in ways that I can only attempt to share. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them. Put them on facebook, tweet me, email me or use the comments on youtube. I will answer all questions in a vlog for you if they are asked. I hope that you find this helpful, as I know sharing my faith and recovery will be helpful for me.