Today we hear so much about overdoses due to drug addiction, and curiosity coupled with lack of training is causing teenagers to die from the lethal opioid Fentanyl. We tend to shake our heads when we hear how foolish some people are with their addiction. In reading the following article, don’t concentrate on the source of addiction but on what a person went through because of it.

So, this is a young man’s story of how his life was transformed. He struggled with addiction since he was fourteen years old. In fact, he remembers his fourteenth birthday and someone offering him a cigarette for the first time. From that moment on, he never stopped; instead, he just added drugs and alcohol. His life was a mess through high school, and it’s a miracle that he graduated.

During his 20s, he managed to get a decent job and stay out of trouble. he met a girl, and she got pregnant, so he thought getting married would be the right thing to do. He slowed his addiction for a couple of years after his son was born, but the son’s mother had her addictions, and soon they were destroying their lives together.

They divorced, and he would get his son every weekend because his “ex” was a nurse working. Within a short time, they both lost their jobs due to drug addiction, and for the sake of his son, he tried to get some help. He went to some Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and even some church services, but he would purposely find something wrong with them, so he had an excuse to quit.

It didn’t take long before he was drunk every day, all day, and couldn’t pay any of his bills. If not for having his son, he knows his parents would not have let me stay with them.

Finally, his father told him he had to get a job and not come home drunk. So, he was driving to interviews and feeling at a very low point in his life. Driving to this job interview, he noticed a sign about addiction in front of a church. On the way home, he was looking for a bar but noticed the same church and that arrows were pointing to another sign that said, “Addiction Program tonight.” he pulled into the parking lot and first looked online to see what it was about. After he read about it, he decided to just go ahead and walk in.

That Friday, he was welcomed by wonderful people, and although he didn’t understand what was said in the Bible, he decided to accept their invitation to come back for the Sunday service. But, again, he could feel Jesus pulling on him. That week he even went to the Wednesday night service, desperately trying to fight his urges to drink.

The following Friday night, it became so obvious that he needed Jesus, and by the end of the third talk, he was ready to speak to the Pastor about salvation. He knew deliverance doesn’t come to everyone, but since that day, he has had no urges to drink again! All praise to the Lord Jesus Christ!

Following his conversion, God opened his mind to His Word, and he was able to understand, study, and apply God’s message. He learned that praying many times daily (meditating on the right things) helps him when his mind wanders somewhere it should not. The devil knows he can’t beat him with booze, so Satan continues to try other evil things. He knew that as he grew stronger in his relationship with Jesus, the less he is vulnerable to Satan…and that is the strongest desire of his life. His life was transformed.

Your addiction may not be alcohol or drugs, but other things such as snacking, texting, TV, social media, gossiping, worldly entertainment, ungodly music, Restricted rated movies, etc. But the same principles apply. As a singer-songwriter, Israel Houghton sings, “Jesus be the center of it all.”