Teen Challenge

A Testimony

My name is Josh and I am 21 years old. Like many people, I come from a good family and a relatively normal upbringing in a Christian environment. Now that I look back on my life so far, I realize that from a young age that there was always something missing in my life. I never knew at the time, but as I grew older, the hole seemed to grow bigger.

I was born in Ontario, Canada, but was raised up until the age of 11 in Detroit, USA. My family and I moved back to my birthplace of Windsor, Ontario, and this had a huge effect on me. I had to leave all of my friends and my school and parts of my family. This was a very difficult thing for me, and I became angry with my parents for moving. I found it to be difficult to fit in my new neighbourhood and school, and I would do what I needed to be accepted.

When I hit high school, what made me accepted with the new crowd there had a much strong impact on my life. I got mixed up with the crowd that I though was "cool". When I was 13 years old, I tried marijuana for the first time. I had smoked cigarettes on off from the age of 11 or so, but this was a whole new level. I would smoke pot with friends from school on the weekends occasionally, but this wasn`t enough. It progressed to using it during the week, staying out late with this crowd while my parents though I was out with "church friends". I lived a double life, going to church with my family on Sundays and hanging out with church friends occasionally to keep a good reputation.

Slowly I drifted away from church, and I began to throw my morals out the window. I began selling pot at school to support my habit. I was skipping classes and not doing any work in school because I was high all the time. When I was 16 I was invited to a rave with my friends. It was that night that I was introduced to ecstasy. The first time I took it I was hooked. For 8 hours it filled that hole where God was supposed to be. I began using it just like I began using pot. On the weekends socially, but then it began to take control of me. I found myself at underground after-hours clubs taking loads of ecstasy pills all weekend.

I was thrown out of school at 17 because I was never there, and I decided to move back to the US to work with family. I found a really good job making upwards of $1000 cash every week. That amount of money in the hands of a 17 year old is very dangerous. I was living with heavy drug users, who lived the party life. I began to use all of the drugs that they used. I mixed my ecstasy addiction with cocaine, crack, speed, ketamine, and any other drug that I could get my hands on. I was using drugs all week long, and there rarely was a time when I was not high on something.

Because of all the drugs I was using, I was irresponsible, just living a day at a time. I lost my job and was forced to move back to Canada. I tried moving up north with some friends to get away, but my issues followed me. I began using cocaine and crack almost on a daily basis, spending my money for rent and food. I had ruined my life, but I hadn't realized it. I needed to be high all the time on something, because when I wasn't, I just wished that I was dead.

I moved back home with my parents and tried to find a good job. I didn`t want to give up drugs, but I was tired of not having a definite place to stay and no money. I was used to living with one friend this week and then another the next. I found a good job, but just my luck, the company fell through. Over the years I have had so many jobs, and had been fired from or quit them all. I tried to tell my parents what had happened, but they thought I was fired again. They asked me to move out, but I had no where to go.

During that period of a few years, I had become a horrible person. I was a drug dealer and a liar and a thief. I would use anyone if I could get something out of them. My family couldn`t help me anymore, and I was setting a very bad example for my little brother. I slept on friend`s couches and back decks and porches. I lived only for that day trying to get high. I ended up stealing to eat, and to get money for drugs. No one wanted to hang out with me because I was such a wreck.

All of the drug use had destroyed my mind and I was very mentally unhealthy. I wouldn`t sleep for weeks on end, being strung out on cocaine and speed and other stimulants. They made me insane and I though that I was going to lose my mind. I checked myself into a psychiatric hospital looking for relief from no sleep and the manic state that the drugs put me in.

I was severely depressed and had many thoughts of suicide. I was too scared to take my own life, but wished someone else would. I ruined every good thing that I ever got in life. I hated myself, and wanted to die. The drugs had destroyed any sense of worth and confidence that I had, and had made me socially unacceptable. I was so unstable that I couldn`t have a job or even keep a conversation for more than a minute.

I was able to move in with my cousin, but after a few weeks I ruined that as well. I didn`t live by the rules he sent down, so he asked me to leave. I thought that this was going to be the end of me, and I was on the verge of killing myself. But, I thought to myself, "I have lied to everyone, used everyone and had no one left. Who can I turn to?" I felt the urge to cry out to God, and I did. "If you're real, you need to do something in my life today, or I am going to die."

That very day I went to run some errands with my cousin, and he had to stop at my old church. One of the pastors there asked my cousin where I was, even though she didn`t know that I was there, and she hadn`t seen me in two years. She asked that my cousin bring me in the office, and I spilled everything to her. All of the things that I was going through: the drug addiction, the lies, sleeping on porches and benches, the depression and the fact that I wanted to die. She said, "You need Teen Challenge."

Through a series of God ordained events, I ended up at Teen Challenge on October 10, 2002. Since that day, a miracle has taken place. Through the power of Jesus Christ and the ministry of Teen Challenge, he set me free from all of my addictions and my hopelessness and helplessness. I was set free right away, but it took quite a while to understand who God was and the plan he has for my life. I spent 13 months in Teen Challenge, and in that time, God turned me into a healthy, stable, reliable, responsible man of God. The power of Christ invaded my life, and I have not been the same man ever since. If any man is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has gone, the new has come! Praise the Lord, for this scripture has become a reality in my life.

I was offered an opportunity to come to the UK to work with Teen Challenge London, and I knew God was leading me here. I have been here for over a year now, and God is using me in many ways within the ministry of TCL. I give him all the praise and the honour and the glory. My life is now His!

[www.breakeryard.com is an arm of Teen Challenge UK.]