Stories of Hope Happen Here—with Help Like Yours!
“I spent so many years wrecking my community.
Now, I’m glad I can give back in a positive way!”
George’s incredible story of a life transformed by God’s grace . . . PART 1
When their dad left the house one day and never came back, George and his little brother began practically raising themselves, as their mom worked long, hard hours to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads.
“She raised us as Christians, as best as she possibly could,” George recalls. “But being a single mother with two children, working a second- and third-shift job, well,” he shrugs sadly. “It was hard for her to really be there when she was trying to provide everything.”
So George fended for himself . . .
George vividly remembers how he spent his high school years. “I went to school, worked a job—two jobs—then on weekends, I was left on my own.
“That’s where the party scene came in,” George says. “I was really big into the rave scene. She thought I was just having fun with my friends, going out, but not realizing . . .” he shakes his head.
“She knew I went to the clubs, but since they were 21 and under, she wasn’t really familiar with the rave scene at all, and a lot went undetected . . .
“I kind of made my own family,” George says. And like almost everyone else in this new ‘family’ he’d found, “I was doing a lot of the pharmaceutical club drugs. I was 15.”
George’s experimentation didn’t stop there. “Heroin came onto the scene,” he admits. “Instead of being up 24-36 hours in one shot, you got the same feeling and it was cheaper.
“So, I got addicted to heroin, not knowing
anything about addiction:
I just thought it was a party drug.”
George didn’t want his younger brother to follow in his footsteps . . .
As George fell deeper into the club scene and the heroin that now filled it, he instinctively knew he never wanted his younger brother to follow in his footsteps.
“I was 19 when I got into heroin, and he was coming into that same age frame. I didn’t want him falling in there with me, and my grandparents offered him an opportunity to go live with them. Basically, I pushed him out the door, so he wasn’t in the setting that I was in, so he didn’t fall into the same trap.
“That put a big wedge between us,” George sighs. But by then, his life had grown even darker—“I was selling to support my habit.”
“I was never afraid: I had no fear at all. Some of the things I did, it’s amazing I’m not dead.”
“I was young. I was invincible. The cash flow was enormous—
nonstop. It was a big party.”
The party didn’t last long. “It was just a path of destruction,” George says. “When the heroin came in, it changed everything, and confidential informers started getting involved. I got set up”—and it all came crashing down.
“A lot of cops, a lot of guns, being thrown down to the ground, and being told I was looking at jail,” he says, the memory still vivid. “It looked like Christmas Eve, with all the lights.”
“I ended up going upstate . . . for four years. I was 20.”
See PART 2 of George’s story of life transformation in the Lord in an upcoming blog: how he was freed from addiction after coming to LifePath, where he received God’s love and forgiveness through friends like you!
