As a child and into my early teenage years I went to church every Sunday, and on Friday nights I was at Royal Rangers, a Boy Scout fellowship. In my early teenage years, I became close with the son of the pastor of the church I was attending. When they moved away, we slowly grew apart. I stopped attending church and slowly stopped following Christ.
At 15, I started hanging out more with the wrong crowds and began drinking and smoking. I became very good at hiding what I was doing. Did just enough to graduate high school and went off to college. My parents had divorced and I started using prescription drugs to numb myself. I started using cocaine to stay awake from all the prescription drugs I was taking and this went on for some time.
Early my early 20’s, I worked at a high-end clothing store while still doing lots of drugs. I met a girl who I had no intentions of becoming serious with. Nevertheless, I moved in with her and got into a good union construction job, but things didn’t change much personally. We were both getting high and things quickly became rocky between us. I ended up moving out and starting using drugs every day. I’d call in sick to work quite often and eventually failed a drug test. With my mind being in a fog, I took whatever money I had saved and blew it all. During that time, I had a freak injury occur and dislocated both of my shoulders. From that point on, it was no problem getting prescription pills for medication.
I needed to do something positive, so I decided to go back to school for HVAC, graduated from TCI in Manhattan, but couldn’t get a job because I lost my license due to not paying my traffic tickets. I started working overnights in a grocery store making next to nothing and fell into a routine of working just to get high. I was lying to my mother about how much I was making so I could spend more money on getting high. When the pain medication wasn’t enough and buying more became too expensive, I discovered heroin. I don’t like the idea of sticking myself with a needle, so I would smoke it when I realized it was the same exact high as the pain medication — only stronger and cheaper. It got to the point where I needed the drug just to function, otherwise I’d become sick.
Watching some of my friends overdose and get caught up in living just to get highntook a toll on me. I just couldn’t do it anymore. I didn’t want to be the next one to not wake up. And I certainly didn’t want to continue the lifestyle I was living. I spoke to my parents and told them what was going on in my life. My father discovered Transformation Life Center and we all agreed this would be the best place for me to work on myself and to get my life back on track with Christ. During my first month at Transformation Life Center, we went to a church in Kingston, N.Y called Lighthouse. At the service I was very moved by the testimonies of others and what the pastor of the church had to say.
That’s when I decided to go to the altar and rededicate my life back to Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior.