Leroy Hicks
“I fought the battle of the bottle for more than 30 years... My family didn’t want to be around me, because when I came to visit or they came by to see me, I was either drunk or drinking… I would sit in this old chair, drinking and watching television. This would go on for days, and finally when I would sober up, beside my chair was a big pile of beer cans and whiskey bottles. I would think . . . how can a man live like this?!”
Mary R.
“Started drinking alcohol whenever I could and realized I had a problem shortly thereafter… After half a bottle of Vodka, some Jamaican and Puerto Rican rums, my first shots, Mike's Hard Lemonade, and a couple mixed drinks I was among the drunkest there. A friend, an acquaintance, and a perfect stranger raped me…”
Kyle Baldwin
“I was a frequent visitor to the local bars where I had many drinking friends. There were not many weekends when I was not at a bar, and most of the time I went to many before the night was over… Later on in my life, the drinking got worse, and it became an everyday thing… I once lost my permit for DUI and almost lost my job because of it.”
Tom Sprague
“This is my story, a man who lost his will to live… During this time I was drinking more and more. I was an alcoholic but I wouldn't admit it. Alcohol will strip you of your self-esteem and will eventually destroy you.”
Sharon Niese (1)
“My husband and children thought I had completely lost my mind. They watched and saw that I no longer drank any alcohol, no longer smoked pot, and no longer cursed… They could clearly see the difference in me, and they wanted what I had found. ”
Debra McFarland
“I met some girls and entered the party scene, drinking, and one night stands. I didn't care about my life. My ex-husband said I was dirt and subconsciously maybe I thought I was. My friend and I partied almost every night, and all weekend I drank a lot because I didn't care... I took a barmaid job and began to grow hard. I swore and didn’t care. I hurt people and didn’t care.”
Dennis Minner
“I loved how drinking made me feel and how I forgot all my troubles. Alcohol quickly became my best friend and alter ego. I became a new over confident man when I drank, nothing in this world could stop me and I loved how I lost all inhibition.”
Jeremy Van Wagoner
“Now, after all this had passed with my mother and her murder, suicide, my time of rebellion had only begun and I started partying and drinking socially almost every night. I also didn’t care who I used or hurt in the mean time because deep within my heart I was hurting so badly and I was so lost.”
Stan Borley
“I was distracted from the truth about myself for several years by alcohol, drug abuse and criminal activities. I nearly lost my life and freedom many times… It wasn’t my will power that had done it; I didn’t have any when it came to alcohol, drugs and self-control.”
John Clayton
“You can try sex, drugs, alcohol, stealing, and all kinds of things in a desperate attempt to find happiness. I can testify from experience that you may find pleasure, but you will not find happiness… Have you ever wondered why it is that when a person gets clean from drugs, gets rid of the problem of alcohol, or conquers some of the problems like the ones I had, that the person always seems to get involved in some religious cause, halfway house, or something like that? Why is that?”
Lisa Walker
“I lived only to party and because of the state of my mind on drugs and alcohol I often found myself in very dangerous situations. Once I injured my neck by falling out of a speeding car and another time I was raped at gunpoint… God spared my life and the rapist was arrested…God in His mercy was watching over me once again.”
Joe Robison (1)
"The terrible oppression of over 20 years of acute drug addiction and alcoholism... COMPLETELY GONE!!!... Several of my past friends are now dead. Others are in prison (some for killing the others); one of my friends died from an overdose of crystal meth he did at my home, while I was in jail. Others blew their own brains out.”
Joe Winterman
“I was getting drunk, stoned, and wasting away my life for the next ten years… But I had touched something in Ft. Lauderdale that I couldn't drink or smoke away… I stopped smoking, drinking, fighting, doing drugs, and other lawless activities.”
Matthew Needham
“I had a group of friends who used to listen to their loud music and drink alcohol to get drunk all the time… Through drunk driving they had to pull out his dead body from among the ruins… There was a young girl that I often saw getting drunk… When she died suddenly, her friends were very shocked and never looked the same again.”
Pete McMaster
“By the age of 30, I was an alcoholic and drug addict… I seemed to possess a natural disliking for work and spent a lot of my time drinking beer and smoking dope. I was either drunk or stoned most of the time… As we drank and talked into the night, my mate was playing around with a loaded shotgun. You guessed it…”
Donna Kazenske
“I tried the drug scene. I even became an alcoholic trying to fit in… I tried a lot of things that just put me deeper and deeper in a deep dark pit… I was instantly delivered from using drugs when I accepted the Lord. Two years later, I was completely delivered from alcohol.”
Marty
“I lead the life of a stereotypical biker... drugs, alcohol, violence and crime… I returned to my walk with the Lord, this time without any of the urges and cravings for the drugs and alcohol that I experienced when I tried to quit them under my own power.”
Anita
“When my father was home from work and the business trips he took, fear entered with the abuse of alcohol and his apparent stress. I think this fear drove me to search for comfort elsewhere… Then my husband re-dedicated his life to Jesus and was set free from drugs, alcohol and depression.”
Terri Hall
“I was addicted to alcohol by age fifteen… I was able to start college, but could not escape alcohol and depression… After almost dying, I tried to pull my life back together. I knew I was going to die if I didn't do something. I ran away from everything…”
Terry Huneke (1)
“Over the next three years we were smoking pot on a regular basis. My wife didn't do it as much as I did because she liked alcohol better. She became a blackout alcoholic. I was doing drugs (pot) all the time... The next day my wife had no desire to drink.”
Paul Ciniraj Mohamed
“I started smoking, began to use drugs and alcohol… By this time I became addicted on drugs and alcohol. My body began to shiver and I became very tense if I did not use drugs at the habitual times.”
Sam Vandervalk
“I started smoking just before going to high school and then started drinking soon after coming to high school… went to the strip clubs and I still went out to the bars and got drunk on Saturday nights.”
Dave Simpson
“…but mostly the band was playing and everyone was just praising the Lord. I didn't really get into that stuff so I went to the pub… I was throwing back the bourbon's as fast as I could.”
Corey Miller
“Life to me became meaningless and no amount of religion, narcotics and alcohol, or sexual promiscuity solved the problem… Jesus is continually transforming my heart as well as my mind.”
Michael Main
“It was the 70s… I found a lot of things to fuel my rage. I was already smoking, but I started drinking heavily, and doing drugs. That was a pattern that lasted for decades… When I was about 30 years old it became apparent even to me that I wasn’t living a life I wanted to live and if I kept living the life I was living I wouldn’t live it long. I was still using drugs; I was still drinking…a lot.”
Paul Qureshi
“I lost all sense of right and wrong, as I plunged into a web of lust, perversion, drunkenness, drugs and pornography… I refuted his testimony that Jesus had helped him to stop smoking and drinking…”
Andrea Do Santos
“By the time I was 14 I was experimenting with alcohol and other drugs, and sex. I continued to have recurring nightmares to the point that I avoided sleeping.”
Susan Stafford
“Herb was an abusive alcoholic who would chase me and my family down with an axe until I was holding for my dear life on the roof of my house… Due to living with an alcoholic, our lives were also in constant chaotic disaster. We moved from school to school, as many as 2-3 times per year. There was also a time when the court system gave my mother an ultimatum; Herb or her kids- she chose him.”
Gary Mitchell
“I left home at 18, and began a life seeking worldly pleasures: alcohol, drugs, fornication, materialism, and whatever came along. I always knew that something was missing, that this temporary satisfaction always left me feeling empty.”
Brenda Helzer
“I was still battling my addictions. I went through a drug rehab and got involved with Alcoholics Anonymous. We all thought FINALLY I was clean and sober but that only lasted for four months…”
Bobby Jack
“I was a controlling individual who became an alcoholic… My life continued on after that still drinking and partying still being the center of attention when along came my wife…”
Mark Jen
“When I got to college, I took a turn for the worse. I did whatever I wanted to do, completely ignoring what God was calling me to. I blocked out any desire to fellowship with Christian friends, go to Church on Sundays or connect with the Christian community. Instead, I focused on worldly things: class work, drinking, partying… whatever I wanted, whatever felt good.”
David Fenwick
“Throughout my life I have had many family issues, and I have not necessarily had it easy. My dad has always had drinking problems, mom has been in bad marriages, and we've struggled to make it on a daily basis.”
Kader
“While still in High School, I started reading, studying philosophers, and also drinking, smoking and doing shameful things too embarrassing to talk about. I felt confused and lost.”
Linda Carter
“The pain I felt after our breakup began to show itself in my obsessive drinking and partying… People need to know and to see and hear how God can save and deliver. What He has done in my life, I believe He can do in your life, no matter what problems you have.”
Ruth Axtell Morren
“My college years were a time of growing from an introverted, very insecure teenager to a young woman who discovered she could talk to boys if she drank enough. Thus began a journey of looking for love in all the wrong places…”
Miriam Passmore
“With the lack of understanding and guidance from her family, Miriam struggled with her identity. Her crisis led to a life filled with alcohol, tomboy activities and an unhealthy connection with women… Miriam's life and it's struggles show the grace and long suffering of God.”
Dusty Donnay
“My experience was pretty extreme, so I stopped cussing, drinking, smoking, and all the things I loved to do… After all that’s happened so far, I feel like I’ve lived a hundred years. As I’ve come through these last eight years and have truly gotten into tune with God, I’ve learned so much more.”
Abby Conley
“As my life unfolded my parents abandoned me after years of emotional, mental and physical abuse… I would grow to an adult, still broken. I abused drugs, and alcohol. I tried very hard to take my life on two occasions.”
Greg Reinhardt
“It was a time of unprecedented freedom and I used this freedom to drink alcohol regularly… I drank regularly for a year and a half and then I stopped drinking altogether. Alcohol helped me mix in a crowd but after the effect of the alcohol wore off, I would feel depressed.”
Chris Okubo
“…there was no accountability, so I could do things like experiment with illegal substances, and did so to the point of near death many times, and committed ethical breaches against others, etc., without any remorse… I was an unhappy teenager and all through my life have tried to fill the emptiness in my heart with drugs, alcohol and unhealthy relationships.”
Gail Owens
“…at the age of 15… I had developed a drink problem and on the way to becoming an alcoholic… I thought to myself there must be more to life than this.”
Ronald Harris
“AFTER OVER 27 YEARS OF ALCOHOL AND DRUG ADDICTION, JESUS DELIVERED ME. NOT ONLY DID HE DELIVER ME BUT HE RECONCILED MY MARRIAGE AND HAS BLESSED ME…”
Kevin Richard
“I have overcome alcohol, drugs, sexual sin, and have been healed of some bad memories. It says in Psalm 147:3 that God heals the broken hearted and bandages their wounds. He does one layer at a time.”
Arthur Cummings (A.C. “da Preacha”)
“While living in Jacksonville, FL., A.C., unfortunately, began to make really bad decisions. In the year 1993, he turned to a life of hanging out, partying and drinking, and doing/selling drugs. Within a year's time A.C. went from respectable war hero, to street thug/drug dealer, to a convict that landed in the Duval County Jail on several occasions.”
Abdelrahman
“…because I had inherited from my father a good fortune, I was able to do a lot of wicked things - wasting money on sex, alcohol, drugs, whatever I could find for pleasure.”
Mark Larson
“My name is Mark and although I’ve never had an addiction or a ‘need’ for alcohol, my abuse of it could have cost me my life on 2 separate occasions… A night of fun and drinking could have turned extremely tragic for my family and the families of those I could have killed.”
Lenore Barnhill
“Then I started drinking…”