Done with Drug Seeking Shackles
“Not many 8-year-olds were driving like 75-miles-per hour down a racetrack!” Adrian Richardson says she was an adrenaline junkie as a young girl. She spent her weekends racing cars with her parents. “I was basically raised at the racetrack. Me, my mom and my dad, we traveled all over. And I think that’s where I got a lot of my thrill-seeking was in that lifestyle.”
In high school, her passion changed from cars to boys. “They were pretty much like my god. If I was single at any point, I felt like I was unworthy to even live. Nothing was satisfying me. It's like I was on a search for something,” she says.
Eventually, she was drawn to drugs. “It was a weekend thing and then it became more often.” she says. A good student, Adrian went on to get a nursing degree. “I graduated valedictorian of my nursing school class. I was married. We had a beautiful baby girl. We had a house. We had it,” she says. “From the world's view, I was blessed, but there was something missing, deep, my soul was thirsty.”
After the birth of her first child, she began to use opioids. “I got sent home from the hospital with a prescription for Percocet, and postpartum depression, which did not mix,” she says.
A subsequent divorce sent her deeper into drug use. “I was a very cruel and self-absorbed person. Very. It didn't matter what it took to get that fix. That’s when things really spiraled. Opiates became my god at that point,” she says. “We were in the middle of a court custody battle, along with a divorce. I wanted to be a mom. I just didn’t know how. The night of my daughter's sixth birthday party, I left with a friend to go get high. And, of course, I lost track of time. And I got back, and everyone was leaving. I will never forget that night. I remember crying in the mirror that night, like staring at a stranger. Like, ‘Who are you and how did you get here?'"
That night was a turning point for Adrian. “From that night on, it was like there was a magnet just pulling me to God,” she says. “And around the same time is when I heard the Gospel through a Facebook video. You know, growing up I had heard that Jesus died for me. I never understood the significance of it. And I also heard about eternity. I heard about Heaven and Hell, that He has the power to set you free from addiction. And I was like, ‘What?’ I cried out to God that night, a God that I didn't really know anything about. And I said, you know, ‘I've heard You're good. I've heard You're real.’ So basically, ‘Show me.’ I said, ‘I'm so tired of drug-seeking day and night. Make me seek what You seek. If you can know God, I want to know Him.' I woke up the next morning with a new heart.”
Adrian says God delivered her from her addiction. “Still to this day, I have not craved or desired another drug or drink since. I was craving righteousness. I was craving Jesus,” she says. "And I was craving the Bible. When I heard the Gospel in its fullness, and the explanation of why Jesus did what He did, it gripped my heart. I don't think I ever got the concept that He's alive! That He didn't just die, and He is after me and that was like, ‘Who would want me?'”
Adrian is a nurse again and co-parents her daughter with her ex-husband. She also has a burden to share the Gospel with millennials. “I was like the woman at the well. I'm telling everybody - I was an evangelist from that moment,” Adrian says. “I went straight to social media and told them everything. I was like, ‘I'm a brand-new person. I had an encounter with God. God is real. Jesus is good. He died for you.’ I mean, you couldn't shut me up. I found out that people will not ask you about your faith. But people will ask you about your tattoos. Because people are like ‘What does that mean? (displays tattoo) It is finished...?’ And I’m like 'Let me tell you.’ God has really given me a heart for the next generation. God is after them, with a passion, just like He was after me. We're wanting to revive, equip, and send the next generation back into their churches and the community and the world.”
