Coalition Newsletter
NEGATIVE IMPULSE - Michael Jackson
Using drugs began innocently for me as a form of recreation. At the age of eleven, I began experimenting with nicotine, drinking malt liquor and wine at thirteen. After reading in my health text about the dangers of marijuana and narcotics, I was terrified and I told myself I would never use them. Although my drinking buddies were months to a year younger in age, they seemed to be more mature and worldly. While in the eighth grade, I had my first experience with marijuana. I didn’t realize that I was becoming a drug addict, or that I was hindering my development and growth into manhood. I became withdrawn, anti-social, and bitter towards life. I made decent grades in school, and was promoted to the tenth grade. Senior High School was scary. I didn’t have a clue as to why I was there. Throughout the next three years, I was in a fog, a daze or depressed. My low-self esteem, lack of confidence, and resentfulness toward success fueled my desire to use drugs. By the eleventh grade, I was popping pills, getting drunk and flunking out.
During my senior year (1977-1978), I got caught cheating on an English make-up exam, turned my textbooks in, cleaned out my locker and walked out with only four credits needed to graduate. My mother was so disappointed that she cried. I hated myself, high school and whatever my mind wanted me to love.
The 1980’s brought a new decadence of terror and turmoil. Our society is plagued with the Aids virus, I was a high school dropout and I had my first experience with cocaine. I loved it. It hated me. In 1985 (July 6th), I met a beautiful young lady who wanted to marry me, but I was so broken (spiritually) that I let her slip away. I worked sporadically, spending my money on drugs and clothes, making the club scene and living for the weekend. I never planned for the future or experienced the beautiful moments that manhood had to offer. Hey! It was the 90’s. In 1993, God held me together, and I moved in with and became engaged to a long-time friend. She was just what the doctor had ordered. Life was good. Love was in the air and crack cocaine came knocking at my door. The chaos, pain and self-destruction were deliberate and swift. In 1999, I squandered $2500 from my savings account, got fired from my new, good job, and lost my fiancé, my car and my dignity. In a three-month span, I went from sitting on top of the world to feeling crushed by it. A fool and his money are soon parted.
By January 2000, I was so sick and tired of the spiritual death that permeated my soul that I cried out to God, pleading for his help and guidance. God answered my cry by inspiring me to seek help at the nearest drug treatment center. Being homeless, penniless and hopeless was becoming the norm, so I contacted The Urban Ministry men’s shelter in High Point, NC, where I lived all my life.
The ministry granted me a thirty-day stay and after consulting with the case manager about The Christian Counseling and Wellness Group, Inc. I immediately submitted an application and was accepted. I was ecstatic to say the least to know that there are people in this world like Donald and Sarah Graham, who dedicated their lives through service for the betterment of mankind.
Their program is second to none. Their encouragement, tough love principle and practice of God’s precepts have helped me to change my life style. Their method of teaching to building and maintaining a recovery and a spiritual foundation has helped to reawaken and affirm my belief in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ of Nazareth and I strongly know that I am healed and delivered from the bondage of drug addiction. I’ve been clean and sober for nearly two years (10/10/04). My road to recovery wasn’t a walk in the park. I fell off the wagon several times, but the Grahams never gave up on me, which inspired me to never give up on myself. Today, I love and welcome being sober. I’m not perfect. I make mistakes. I’ve got some issues and defects within my character that with God’s help and guidance will be worked out. Suffer it to be so now. God had blessed my life in so many ways through my sobriety. I, no, He, has re-established my relationship with my family, healed the brokenness within my spirit and has empowered me to love him, others and myself.
Oh! And I have a job, my first apartment, money, and I can pass a drug screen at any given moment! I don’t know what the future holds, but I know that God loves me and wants the best of me and for me. So does Donald and Sarah Graham!