PART 1: INTRO – DRUGS – ALCAHOL

     My wife, Eileen, and I were sitting pool side at our motel in Daytona Beach. We sat facing out over the ocean. The day was bright and that seldom absent breeze floated off the ocean.

      I was in a pensive mood (not uncommon for me) and I was reflecting on life, the past and day at hand. It was peaceful. More than that, I was peaceful.

     I said to Eileen, “I never thought I would see the day that I wasn't afraid.”

     She replied with emphasis, “That's your testimony.”

     A verse in Not For a Second, one of my songs goes, We all have our stories. We all have our crimes. We all have that moment when we changed our minds.”

     God's done so much in my life. A huge part of that is certainly rising out of daily terror, fearing that I had completely lost my mind and would never regain it. Change starts in a moment when we change our minds. For me and my story there were many life changing moments. But there was one moment that soared above the rest.

     I've gone through some changes deciding what to share or if to share at all. It has literally taken me years to deal with my trepidation. It's not that my past is hugely unusual or that I am or was more sinful (or less) than anyone else but some things can induce prejudice and discomfort. Wisdom indicates that somethings are best kept between one's self and God. However, a complete and effective testimony begs a certain transparency. So it is in that spirit that I proceed.

     The place to start is where I was coming from at the time preceding my choice to follow Christ.

     Most of my friends and peers at least smoked weed and drank. A considerable percentage of those I knew were also using LSD, amphetamines and barbiturates. My drug period was very short lived but hugely damaging with life long implications.

     Drunkenness was a large part of my life for many years. I don't know if I fit the definition of an alcoholic or not. I had no affection for the taste of booze. I never just had a beer or two to relax. I drank to be drunk. For a period, I was drunk at least part of the day as often as not. And I drank when I was alone. Though I continued to drink for a number of year after accepting Jesus, I eventually stopped drinking completely. I never decided to stop drinking per se. One day I just realized it had been a while since I had a drink and I didn't really want one. So I didn't drink anymore. To God be the glory.

     This was also about the time I was playing in rock bands. We played in bars around central Connecticut. I was usually loaded by the end of every gig. My signature gimmick was to down a mixed drink and use the glass to play slide guitar on One Way Out by the Allman Brothers. The crowd loved it.

     Life has hundreds of events all the time. Some are good some are bad. Only a few are truly life changing. These were life changing evens in my life: My parents divorced, we lived with my grandmother who openly hated me, my parents remarried, I didn't fit in well resulting in quitting school, I had drug flashbacks resulting in a complete emotional breakdown, I learned to play guitar, I found Jesus, I got married and had two sons, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I think it's fairly easy to see which events were good and not so good. And many peripheral events contribute greatly to those listed. In order to be relatively concise I'm only going to address those things I feel most pertinent to my testimony.

     The first of these is my drug experience. This is what I was primarily referring to when I said that I never thought I'd see the day when I wouldn't be afraid. My experimentation with drugs was not that long or extensive but it was disastrous.

     The culmination began with one afternoon smoking some dope with 3 friends. The first thing I began to experience was that everything that moved left scores of slow motion tracers. This happened after just a couple of hits. Immediately following was an intense, irrational fear. I went into absolute panic.

     I don't remember having the typical rushes. The world was in my perception literally moving in a circle around me like a big disc. Someone (I don't know who) thought I was a good idea to throw water in my face. In my perception it was like being buried under a waterfall. They were walking me around trying to bring me down. I remember hearing birds. But it wasn't like the typical sound of birds in the trees. It sounded like countless millions of birds everywhere. But most prominent and inescapable was the immense fear.

     This didn't happen to the others, Only to me. I have no sense of how long this transpired. To me it seemed unending.

     I did finally come down and realized a week of being back to normal. In that week I don't recall any residual effects, But little did I know, it was far from over.

     Roughly a week later I was sitting in class during what began as a regular school day. I was bored but not ill at ease in any sense. I became slowly aware that I was watching ripples float across everything. It was like seeing the world through supper clear water that had been lightly stirred. I was curious more than alarmed. I'd never seen anything like this before.

     Then my head suddenly seemed to implode. It was like a rush times a thousand. My spit dried up and I began sweating profusely. I must have been very pale because when I said I needed to go to the nurse there was no inquiry. The teacher just said, “Go.” Everything seemed to be moving again and, worst of all, the fear was back.

     The nurse immediately sent me to lay down. I think there was six beds in the clinic and I know at least one other was occupied. They were separated by curtains.

     The nurse came back and said, “So, you want to tell me about it?”

     I thought, she knows. Somehow she knows.

     I said, “You won't tell anyone?”

     She promised.

     I said, “I'm flashing my a-- off.”

     She didn't keep her promise. The next thing I knew I was brought to a guidance office where my parents were notified. I was then taken by ambulance to the hospital where my mother caught up with me. I had adopted what would be my most typical pose for next few months. I was curled up like a fetus.

     I was in the hospital for a few days. I don't remember my Dad coming to see me there.

     The first thing he said to me when I came home was something to the effect of, “I told you this would happen!” Later my Mom told me that he had broke down and cried when he first heard what happened. I think sometimes it's easier to be angry or self-righteous than to show your pain.

     The next few months I spent on the couch. I only left to go to the bathroom and to bed. Eventually tutors started coming and I started visiting a friend three houses away. Leaving the house was scarey at first,

     Step by step I was returning to “normal” activity but I continued to have audible, visual and sensory hallucinations. I remember when I first returned to school I was walking down the hall and the floor turned all rubbery. I felt it sinking in under my steps.

     All this lead to two eventual hospitalizations for what was then termed “nervous breakdown.” In today's terminology I now recognize that I was having virtually daily panic attacks. I was terrified to go to bed at night and terrified everywhere I went during the day. I would come apart in public or in private. It made no difference.

     I began to think quite seriously that I had died and this was my personal hell which would never end.

     My oldest brother who is a psychologist expressed the belief that this precipitated a disorder that would not be diagnosed until I was in my 40's. But I don't want to get ahead of myself.

     People talk of fearing hell. I didn't come to Jesus because I feared eventual hell. I was already there.

     I tried going back to the church I was raised in. I found no hope, no peace and no relief.

     With time I began to move back into a semblance of normalcy. But this opened the door to other disasters.

     The next phase of my downfall was booze. I drank at first to be cool and fit in. I drank because I was afraid of other drugs. I wouldn't even take aspirin anymore. I did take the prescribed psychotropics. Eventually I drank just to be drunk. I might get a bottle of Boone's Farm, a super cheap wine at the time, down the whole thing sitting alone in the woods, stagger home and shut myself in my room.

     I drank a lot. I irritated friends and family, was carried bodily out of bars and passed out in alleys. I hung over toilets vomiting and cursing myself.

     Looking back I realize that when I had a woman in my life I drank less. A lot less.

     I continued to drink after I came to Jesus. Maybe He had other priorities or maybe I was obstinate. What ever the case I was not immediately delivered from alcohol. But when I was delivered, it was without any thought or effort on my part. It just went away and I one day realized I hadn't had a drink in ages.

     While I could detail some pretty gnarly drinking experiences, this seems enough said for my purposes here.

     Yeah, I know this story isn't seeming very uplifting so far but before you get to the high ground you have to climb over the low ground. Better things are coming. Just not for a bit yet.