Craig Clouston: Only An Addict Knows

CBN.com - Craig Clouston lived a double life.

“I’d walk up and I’d knock on the door and if no one came to the door, I’d try the door to see if it was unlocked, and if no one, or if it was unlocked, I’d stick my head in and I’d holler, ‘hey, is this so-and-so’s place?’ Getting no response, I’d walk on in.”

He’d sneak into people’s homes and steal prescription drugs. 

“I was even teaching Sunday school during some of this stuff and teaching youth group,” says Craig.

Craig had grown up in a Christian home, the son of a pastor. His trouble began in his early twenties after he had surgery for carpal tunnel syndrome on his wrist. 

“I was introduced to Percodan,” remembers Craig. “The feeling that I got from this stuff made me feel complete, whole, and this was who I was supposed to be.”

Over the years, due to a string of injuries he kept up a stash of prescription drugs. Then Craig met and married Nancy, a woman who helped him kick his drug habit. 

“I would pray that he would let God deliver him from it,” says Nancy.

“From 1996 to 2002, I was clean and I was walking uprightly, like I said, with the lord,” says Craig.

During this time, Craig and Nancy had two children and Craig remained drug free.  Then in January of 2002, Craig had open heart surgery.

“I wasn’t prepared to know that I was going to wake up on pain medication the next day after that,” says Craig. “And when I woke up, it was euphoric, and I was off and running again.”

Craig’s addiction came back with a vengeance.

“I was consumed by the pills to the point where I knew that a prescription wasn’t going to be enough,” says Craig.

When his prescription ran out, he began  stealing prescription drugs from people’s homes. He lived a double life, stealing and abusing prescription pills while still working a full time job and helping out at his church.

“You know, it was a nightmare to the point where I hated myself so much for the things that I was doing, cause I was professing Jesus Christ on the one hand, and doing the things that I know I’m not supposed to do,” remembers Craig.

Then one day, Craig was caught short.

“On my lunch hour I went looking for pills. And I went to a certain area because I’d been down this way before,” says Craig. “And I went into a house, nobody home, door was unlocked. And as I came out of the bathroom, I came face to face with the woman who lived in that house. She’d come home while I was in there and I didn’t hear her. And God bless her for the strength that she had to tell me to get out of the house.”

“He came and told me that he’d been caught in somebody’s house,” says Nancy. “I felt like my heart was broken. I just felt like my heart broke that day.”

“As upset as she was, we still decided that I was going to go to the sheriff’s department the next day and confessed everything,” says Craig.

The judge initially sentenced Craig to seven years.

“When I was locked up, I missed my daughter’s 21st birthday,” says Craig. “We went into lock down that weekend and during lock down, there are no visitors in prison, period. And the disappointment and shame that I heard in her voice when I had to tell her that they couldn’t come to visit, I knew I never wanted to hear that again.”

That phone call totally changed his life.  Craig cried out to God.
 
“I realized that I had a choice to make,” says Craig. “I could either chose to run toward him in such a way and totally abandoned, or I would never find my way out of this, and I would die this way.”

“God began working on my heart,” says Craig. “And I understood that this was an opportunity to repent, to get cleaned up, and to change. And god was offering it to me and I took it.”

Because Craig disclosed every crime he committed to police, the judge later reduced the sentence to 4 months.  Since his release in 2004, he has lived a life free from drug addiction.

“The first thing you have to know is that there is freedom,” says Craig. “And the only way you’re going to get it is through Jesus Christ. He’s the only one that can set you free from the bondage that you’re in. Only an addict knows what that cycle’s like. And what that obsession’s like and only Jesus Christ has the answer for that.”