Drug Addict Comes Face to Face with Jesus

“Two undercover narcotics agents were waiting for me inside a pharmacy and I resisted arrest and we tore up the entire store,” David recalled. “So I was charged with 18 felonies, three misdemeanors and was facing up a maximum of 45 years.”

Life for David had always been good until he was about 9 years old.

“My parents sat me down and they said, ‘Mommy and Dad are getting a divorce. You have to decide who you want to go with.’” David remembered, “My father had even encouraged me to go with my mom. So that was, that was tough. My world was shattered. Bounced back and forth between my parents because I kept being out of control, they couldn't handle me. And got in a lot of fights. Just very angry at the world, confused and rebellious. I was in and out of juvenile delinquent centers, getting arrested, just running from one foolish act to the next.”

In middle school David found weight lifting and football. It helped him vent his anger.

David said, “That is just what gave me an outlet and gave me some sense of control over some area of my life. Graduated high school by the skin of my teeth.  And then walked on a Division One football team at Middle Tennessee State University.  And the so-called good times of partying, uh quickly spiraled out of control. Steroids was the first thing that actually I got into and when I had some injuries then that led to pain killers and then the pain killers really started the whole thing. Got heavily into drugs, total enslavement.”

With the help of a computer saavy friend, David started writing his own prescriptions.

“Anything that would numb the pain of the emotions that were there and the wounds that were there that had never been really addressed of dealt with or healed.” David remembered, “After a good amount of time doing that uh two undercover narcotics agents were waiting for me inside a pharmacy. So I was charged with 18 felonies, three misdemeanors…squandered my education, potential education, potential sports career, was facing up a maximum of 45 years.”

All but one of the charges was dropped and David served 9 months. But the guilt of losing everything he’d worked for drove him to more cocaine over the next 10 years.

He said, “It was a miserable existence, completely devoid of meaning and hope is the only way I can describe it.  And my 20s, essentially, are a lost decade.”  

Three times he overdosed…the third almost killed him.

“June 2006 I woke up in the hospital and I was disoriented and then the doctors came in the room and they said, ‘You're in renal failure.  Your kidneys have shut down.  We're going to have to start you on dialysis soon, and once we do, you're going to be dependent on it for the rest of your life until you get an organ transplant and you tested positive for hepatitis C.’”

David recalls, “And it was like someone had just dropped a payload of bricks on my chest.  Utter hopelessness and despair. And I laid there in that hospital bed reflecting on my life and just started mourning the wasted years. On the 4th day they said, ‘We can't wait any longer, you're not getting any better, we're going to start you on dialysis tomorrow.’  And that night I cried out to God and I said, ‘God, I don't even know if you're real, but if you are, I want to know you.  Please help me.’”

He said, “Well, the next day they came in the room around 11:30 and they said,   ‘Well we can’t explain it but you’ve had a complete recovery and you’re being discharged today.’ And I was amazed! Wasn't sure what to make of that.  But I knew it was God answering my prayer.”  

David moved in with his mom and for the next six months asked questions and sought god. All the while still fighting his addictions. Then at 3 am one Christmas morning he woke up.

David remembers, “I knew I wouldn't be able to go back to sleep. I went out to the living room and I turned on the TV and the Gospel of John was playing, the movie.  And God was doing something in me and I just knew that not only did God heal my kidneys in that hospital bed, but that Jesus Christ was real and that he was born into this world. I didn't have this full grasp of the gospel, but I understood in that moment, in that morning that Jesus died for me and that he was real and it was just mind-blowing. And I was on my mom’s floor bawling like a baby for I don’t know how long. I was asking God for forgiveness of all the things I had done and He set me free.”

Today, David is back in sports as an area rep for fellowship of Christian athletes.

“God is in the restoration business, He loves retrofitting things to adapt them to a new purpose. He also restores to us, redeems things from our past and then uses them in the present,” David said. “You know and he reconciled our family after all those years of brokenness.”  

And, where Christmas was once just about materialism, for David and his family, it has a whole new meaning.

“We worship God together, we read the Scriptures, we go to services, uh just to celebrate God and honor Him and worship Him and thank Him.”

David said, “I realized there’s nothing the world could offer that could ever fill that hole in my heart that only Jesus Christ could. And that’s what I hope people will see in this story, is the authentic life-changing power of Jesus Christ.”