Too High To Care About Consequences

Ron knew where his life as a drug dealer and addict was leading … he was just too high to care.  

“I knew I was not doing the right thing,” Ron says.  “And I always knew that if I died, I was going to hell.”

He knew because as a pastor’s son, he had been held to a strict standard of right and wrong.        

“I was required to do certain things as a preacher’s kid.  I had to act a certain way.  I guess I kind of started resenting that a little bit,” he admits.    

Ron started drinking in Jr. High, and hanging around with older kids.  

“I definitely wanted their approval and wanted to fit in with the older kids and be able to do what they were doing,” Ron explains.  “And it felt good, you know - getting drunk and high.   If sin wasn’t fun, nobody would want to do it.”

By high school, he was also using drugs, skipping school, and was arrested three times for DUI’s.

“It was a very tense situation at home. Because I was so rebellious that I didn’t want to hear anything they had to say. I didn’t want to do anything they wanted to do, I just wanted to do what I wanted to do,” he says.  

Ron dropped out of high school, worked various jobs, and at 19, was introduced to methamphetamine.

“Even though I knew what I should be doing spiritually from the way my parents raised me, I just  let the meth control my thinking, control my life.  So I started selling meth. And that way I could do what I wanted, when I wanted.  And at the same time make some pretty good money. I did very quickly start getting a sense of power,” Ron confesses.  “It made me feel like people did need me. They needed me for their drugs.”

Several years later Ron was indicted by the FBI for drug trafficking.  By then, Ron didn’t care how his choices were affecting himself or those who loved him.
Naomi Perryman is Ron’s mother.  “Well, I must say it was very difficult to cope with. And even though you spend time in prayer and trusting the Lord to bring him back in His timing, Ronnie sort of, in my opinion, went from bad to worse,” she remembers.  

Ron’s father, Jim Perryman, shares how he felt at the time:  “I was working part time with the sheriff’s department during the time that he was being imprisoned.  And I was the one that had to take him into jail and sign him in.   And that was one of the hardest things that I’ve ever done.”

He was released after three and half years.  Not only did he go back to selling and using meth, he started cooking it himself.   Ron continued in that lifestyle for 14 years, gunning between four meth labs in as many south carolina counties.  Then in 2012, he was busted for drug manufacturing and given five years.  At the time, a number of his friends had recently died --  many from drug addiction.

“I just felt like there was a feeling of death all around me all the time, you know, whether I was high or not.  And it really bothered me,” he reveals.  

Two months into his sentence, Ron went to a jail bible study – just to get a break from his cell.  Instead, he was faced with the truth of who he had become.“All of my past  the drugs, all of my sins, everything just kind of overwhelmed me for some reason all of a sudden. And I knew at that moment that all I had to do was ask and accept Jesus. And that I would be forgiven.  I got on my knees in that prison cell and I said God, I just give it all to You. I know I’ve messed my life up.  And I want you to take over. And He took over,” Ron says gratefully.  “I had an amazing feeling of peace come over me. The looming feeling of death that was still surrounding me even when I went into prison, was just gone. The desire, which I still had, even though I was locked up, to do meth, was gone. You know, God performed a miracle in my life.”    

Ron spent his remaining time in prison seeking what he’d ignored his whole life.

“Of course I had a lot of time on my hands being in prison.  So I spent a lot of time in the Word.”   

Granted parole in 2014, Ron walked out of prison with a renewed heart and mind.   He now has a great relationship with his parents.   Ron later married Lisa and says he’s come to know true freedom.   

“All of my need for acceptance from other people just was gone,” Ron remembers.  “Even though I’m still not proud of what I did for the majority of my life, there’s—I don’t have to be ashamed of it anymore. I like who I am. I like who God is making me.  And He’s still workin’ on my everyday.”