When I was 15, I bought my first bag of marijuana out of curiosity, and from the age of 15 on to 23 was a constant experimentation with different substances. By the time I was 23, there was not a drug I had not tried. I had worn myself out searching for happiness and one day I came home tired as usual and I started drinking and as usual after I started drinking, I started looking for a higher buzz. Someone came by with some Xanax. Someone also came by with something else that I liked and that was cocaine. This time, not thinking I took the whole thing, I went to bed about five in the afternoon. My roommate went off to work that night. When he came back from work the next day though, he noticed something was wrong because I was still in bed in the same position.
He tried to wake me up and he couldn't wake me up. When my parents found me, they found me curled up in the fetal position in my hospital room unconscious still and I stayed unconscious in this coma like state for the next week, I stayed the next month in the hospital, slowly getting better to where I could sit up in bed and I had to learn to walk again, but my parents found this one facility out in the hills of Tennessee. I had to admit that I liked the place, but they were Christian and even worse than that, I said "yes" When they asked me if I wanted to go to church that week before the pastor said the Benediction, I was so excited because I was planning my escape. After everybody was all in bed that night, I made sure that they were snoring and that they were asleep.
I went into the kitchen and stole a few banana's, got my backpack ready. I figured I could get sober on my own. My favorite song was, I did it my way. Of course, my definition of sober was a nice supply of marijuana each day and alcohol on the weekends, and of course if I had a bad hangover, I might need some of those relaxing pills to take, but other than that, that would be it. Here I am, stranded on the street in the big city of Houston. My bag of clothes is gone. My cell phone's gone. My Wallet, my bus tickets gone. I don't have anything but the shirt on my back. It's at that point that this man comes up to me, this mysterious man. He's actually very short and appears to be homeless and he led me to some food and even a place to stay that night.
Looking back, it is my firm conclusion that was an angel, my dad was able to come down to Houston and picked me up and take me back up to the health retreat at Wildwood in Tennessee. They had a satellite. On this channel, there was a man named Doug Bachelor I liked what I heard. I liked the way he explained the Bible. It was so simple and he also had an experience similar to mine and I had talked to Lou about them and they happened to have a whole set of cassette tapes. I would wake up at four in the morning sometimes and I would get up and I would watch two of those videos before breakfast. I would sit this close to the TV watching what Doug Bachelor was saying, just eating up every word of it.
I was so tired of hearing lies and even believing my own lies that I-- It was so wonderful to find something that was solid and that I could rely on. When I got home from Rehab in my local church, Eric Flickinger from amazing facts was holding an evangelistic series. They solidified my conviction and it was then I made the absolute decision to follow Jesus. I praise the Lord Jesus Christ for Amazing Facts. I praise God for Amazing Facts because they are so Bible based. They send out evangelists who are willing to teach the truth to people. I'm thankful that they're preaching right now all over the world changing lives just as they changed mine.