Chase

So, growing up I never would have imagined that I would end up an addict. Even though both of my parents were, mom was an addict/alcoholic and dad was an alcoholic.  So, I saw what it did to my family firsthand. Meanwhile, both parents drilled into my head that I had addict blood and that if I tried anything, I would get addicted, so I stayed away from anything and everything for a long time. I didn’t really start fully submerging into my addiction until I was 20. You see, whenever anything traumatic, hectic or stressful happened in my household my parents “self-medicated” and that was all I saw. So, when my best childhood friend committed suicide when I was 20 and I found him shortly after his time of death, everything fell apart. I wanted to numb everything out, I didn’t want to feel the way I was feeling so I started using.

From that point on life slowly but surely started spiraling out of control.  I went from having a full-time well-paying job and having my own place to being jobless and homeless within a year. Life continued to spiral quickly downhill and nothing seemed to change my outlook on life or the situation that I was stuck in. I had absolutely no motivation to change my ways. Countless attempts to get clean, treatments and detox’s and nothing seemed to matter. Until eventually I became completely content with the thought that I was going to be miserable for the rest of my life.

Finally, I got tired of having nothing and no one, living on the streets for years, in and out of jail, stealing from stores to support my habit, literally just struggling to survive or even wanting to live. I just thought that’s the way life was going to be. It wasn’t until this final attempt at treatment that I went somewhere that I was able to stay for three months that changed everything. In that place not only did I accept and face my addiction, but I was able to renew my relationship with the Lord and was able to go to church everyday and led the worship team there for two months.

I slowly started realizing that the reason why I had such a hard time getting and staying sober was because I was always trying to do it on my own. I realized that if I just asked the Lord to help me take this obsession away and to help me walk through this journey that I could do it. But doing that required a 100% change in my way of life that I had lived for so long. He makes all things new is a fitting theme because that is what He did, the whole way of life I was about to take on was new to me.

Moving into TMTL has been the best decision that I could have ever made. The accountability and structure of a program designed to help transition you back into everyday living and learn to become a productive member of society again is unparalleled. I’ve gained some of the best friends I could have ever asked for and am proud to call them family. I’m bettering my relationship with the Lord every day and I am learning how to live life on life’s terms and take this thing one day at a time. I have been able to get my license back after seven years without it, found fulltime employment when before I was unemployable. I also just became an apprentice in the carpenter’s union. I’ve cleared up all my court cases and I am slowly but surely rebuilding relationships with my loved ones that I had destroyed over the years. It hasn’t been easy, but I take it one day at a time and I know that the Lord won’t put something in my path that I can’t handle and that every trial in my life is a lesson meant to teach me something. I just celebrated my 1 year clean and sober and I am super grateful for the place I’m at in my life and for TMTL for giving me the tools to succeed in life and I wouldn’t trade any of this for anything.

Chase