Hello, and welcome to another edition of Up Close.
We are coming to you from the beautiful
3 Angels SDA Church in Wichita, Kansas.
We're so pleased to have you and our live audience
join us.
Today's program will center on one of the most pervasive
problems of our generation: drug addiction.
If I say "drug addict", what image pops up in your mind?
Do you envision someone with scrambled brains who can
no longer function normally? The problem is more widespread
than most of us recognize. 73% of all drug use
is practiced by those that we, benignly, label as
"recreational" drug users.
These are people who go to work every day,
some in their 3 piece suits, but their choice of recreation
is funding the traffickers of the world.
Addiction is a progressive disease, one that accelerates
as brain neurochemicals become depleted by regular drug use.
This degenerative disease leads the addict constantly chasing
after the euphoric high.
Addicts have an illusion and they live in this illusion.
It's an illusion that is a total denial of truth, but it's time
that we stopped looking at drugs as the main issue
and we need to get to the bottom of the problem.
Our first guest, Amanda Hultz, suffered physical
and sexual abuse from childhood at the hands of her father.
His dirty secret was hidden for years, but finally
unveiled when Amanda stood up at 16 years old to testify
against him.
Her father was imprisoned, but the dysfunction of the family
was not healed. When her favorite aunt
was killed in a car crash, Amanda felt as if the only
positive, supporting pillar in her life had just given way,
and her whole world came crashing down.
Listen to this:
About a year, between 16 and 17, a friend of mine
had a brother who was using methamphetamines and at first
we started smoking weed just for a week, and then
he introduced methamphetamines to his sister, him and his drug
dealer did.
And so she introduced it to us, there were about 5 of us
that were all friends, and she introduced the meths to us.
In the beginning we would just do it on the weekends,
or we were just going to do it for recreation,
it wasn't going to become a habit, it was no big deal,
we weren't hurting anybody, that's what we kept saying
to everyone.
It's no big deal, nobody was getting hurt,
we were just trying to have a good time.
I was half into testifying in court, all that kind of stuff.
Well, if I went high, it wasn't the same as if I went sober.
It didn't seem as big of a deal to me, so it helped with
all that, I felt like it was drowning everything out.
I didn't realize that slowly, I was being dragged into
this world that was going to take me 7 years to get out of.
Here she thought it was nothing much in her life, and wasn't
taking it too seriously, but it became a serious problem.
Please help me welcome Amanda Hultz to the program.
Amanda, when I look at you, you're such a pretty young lady,
it's hard for me to believe that you've ever had
a drug problem, but I want to thank you for coming and sharing
your testimony with us today.
Please tell our audience, how did you go from that point
of just recreational drug use into becoming
a full fledged addict?
At first, like I said, it was recreational.
I just used it on the weekends, I wanted to
do it with my friends, to have a good time, stay up all night
and play cards, but then I had to have it on Monday
because I had to work on Monday, and then it became
that I needed it on Tuesday, and then I needed it
on Wednesday so that I could stay up and go to work,
and then I quit my job all together, and then I spiraled
downhill, I needed it everyday.
Now, how did this affect your schooling.
Weren't you a cheerleader in school?
I was. I was a cheerleader. I was captain of my
cheerleader squad and as soon as I started doing drugs
I actually dropped out of high school.
And you were a very good student, right?
I was. I was a good student.
I was gifted and talented as a child.
Straight A student as a smaller child, and then a good student
in high school.
So you dropped out of school and then things began
to get even worse, what did you do to actually support
your drug habit?
About a year into my drug use, I ended up becoming
a drug dealer.
What was that like for you? Did it register up here
for you, Amanda, that you were doing something illegal,
or was this just something that you wanted to do because
you needed a fix?
This was something that I wanted to do because I needed a fix.
I needed it and I didn't have the money to support my habit,
so I did it for the fix.
Well, there's more to this story and in fact, Amanda also shared
with us the rest of the story. When she married the biggest
drug dealer in town, she went further down the slippery slope
into the abyss, and to support their drug habit,
Amanda's husband began making fake checks and fake IDs.
So listen to what happened next.
When I gave birth to my son, it came crashing down
on all of us.
5 days after my son was born,
they raided our house and they arrested my husband
and they charged him with several counts of forgery, fraud
and some drug possession. They released him on bail
and then had to drop the charges so he continued to sell
methamphetamines and we found out about 4 months after
they released him that they were bringing the charges back up.
So, here we had a 4 month old son
and we went on the run from the police.
For several months they followed us
from city to city, place to place.
They would find out, we would find out that they knew.
They would raid the house shortly after we would leave.
We would live in drug houses with my infant son,
where they were, actually, even manufacturing.
Then we would leave and the house would, shortly thereafter,
be raided, looking for us.
Finally, one night I was just done. I told my husband
that I had a child that I was going to raise
and that I couldn't live like that anymore.
He said that was fine, I told him I was going to move in
with my family, and that he was going to have to go elsewhere.
We went to go to the store and we got pulled over
by the police.
What happened that night Amanda?
The cops surrounded the car with guns pulled,
and they knew that my husband was in the car,
and they asked him to get out of the car and at that moment
he told me that he was done, that he wasn't going to use
ever again.
He actually used the term that he was rescued,
not arrested. So here I was,
I was out, still not having a place to live, raising a baby,
I found out shortly thereafter I was pregnant.
So you had 1 baby and you were pregnant with another one.
Right.
My husband's in jail and he tells me that he gets saved
and that he is turning his life to Christ.
And I thought that was ridiculous.
Of course, he could say that. He's in jail, he has a bed
to sleep in, 3 meals a day. I have a baby, I'm pregnant
and I'm trying to work at a waitressing job.
We're you still doing drugs at this time?
I was still using marijuana at the time
for a couple of months, until I found out I was pregnant
and then I stopped using everything.
When you found out you were pregnant.
Your husband calls you and tells you that he has had an encounter
with the Lord, that he's been saved, he's been changed,
you're not buying it. You all went to court,
and what happened at court?
My husband stood before the judge and he said that
"I know what I've done is wrong and I know that it was"
"a horrible thing." and he said "I take full responsibility"
"for it", but he said "My first ministry, I would like to be"
"at home with my wife and my children, but if I go to prison"
"I know where God wants me, so that I can minister"
"to other men and lead them to the Lord."
And the judge's face softened, and I saw...
...I saw it happen, I saw the judge soften, and I knew
at that moment that he meant what he said, and that
the Lord was there, present.
He was looking at 14 years and that's even what his
lawyer told him, he would probably get at least 7-14.
The judge sentenced him to 10 years and then told him
he only had to serve 6 months and he had already served
4 months, so he got out within less than 2 months later
after being sentenced.
Praise the Lord. Now let me ask you something,
were you brought up in a Christian home?
I was actually brought up in a Mormon LDS home.
Okay, so you were brought up in a religious home,
but you really didn't understand about a personal relationship
with the Lord.
No.
So now, when your husband only had that amount of time
given to him by the judge, did this make you believe
that there really is a God?
It did. It made me believe
and later that night he called me and I was
ecstatic, I was so excited.
I said "I believe, I believe what you've been telling me."
And he asked me to go into a room, private,
and get on my knees and that is when I accepted the Lord
and surrendered my life to Christ.
Praise the Lord.
I think that's wonderful.
Well, in the rest of our program we're going
to try to unveil some of the causes for drug addiction,
and we'll also examine the stages of addiction
and discuss how we can become educated enough to lead
our loved ones to the road of recovery,
but most importantly, we will learn of the resilient nature
of the human mind.
There is great hope for recovery
as Amanda is a testimony to, so please stay with us.
We'll be right back.
We're going to be talking with Dr. Neil Nedly about
some of the common symptoms and the causes of depression.
And I really hate to say this, but in all honesty,
it took every ounce energy I had to even take a shower.
I would be in bed for 5 days at a time.
It was just the most debilitating thing I've ever
gone through in my life.
And I would just lay there.
So don't miss it.
Welcome back to Up Close.
I'm excited to introduce our expert guest for today,
Cheri Peters. Cheri was a drug addict,
living on the streets for 10 years, from the ages of 13-23
before she had an encounter with God that turned her life around.
Now Cheri is the director of the True Step Ministries,
an international organization that reaches out
to at risk people, and it's located in Kuna, Idaho.
Cheri is also a Christian author and has written 2 books:
"Miracle from the streets", her life story,
and "God is crazy about you", please welcome Cheri Peters.
I'm so glad you're here today, thank you so much.
You know what cracks me up, when somebody says an expert
witness, and I'm wanting to look around,
is somebody else here, because my background
is an addict. When I met Amanda was during
the time that she was pregnant and Dave was just getting
out of prison, and those kind of things, and so I work
with addicts, and so the only thing I know for sure
about God and about recovery is God does amazing
things with us. If somebody ran into me
at the airport or at the church, they would never say:
"You know what? She looks like a heroin addict."
You know what I mean is that they see somebody that's
in recovery and that looks healthy.
Amanda's beautiful, when she was up there talking with you
I was just crying because I thought God is so good.
So the first thing that I want to say about recovery is,
recovery is amazing and everything that God promises
about our life in recovery is true, it's a lot of work,
but we are so resilient.
Well you know, what makes you an expert is this is not
just theory for you, you've lived through the lifestyle
and you've lived through the recovery and God is doing
amazing things in your life.
But in Amanda's case it was methamphetamines,
we know that she had an incredibly dysfunctional
childhood, what can we tell about the causes of addiction
from the choice of addiction?
With Amanda, she needed something that would give her
some power because she was powerless.
Methamphetamines does that, Coke does that,
anything that's a stimulant, anything that's going to give
her the ability to feel that she can do anything.
So it's an arousal stage, it's a hype of high that just says
that somebody that's powerless, somebody that's abused,
somebody has really been damaged in a dysfunctional family
will get a lot of their needs met in that way.
Seratonin levels, if you know anything about neurochemistry,
seratonin levels get kicked off with amphetamines
and all of a sudden you feel euphoric, anything is possible,
"I can do anything", and this is from a child that felt
"I could do nothing and no one cares about me,"
"and I couldn't care less about life" and all of a sudden
she wants to live, so the first part, when Amanda was talking
about the first part of her
addiction is everything seemed fun,
everything was incredible and then it got to the point
where I couldn't do this anymore.
When I started coming off of the drug, with an arousal
kind of high is when I come off the drug, then my neurochemistry
is actually flat and I'm not even producing what I was
producing before I felt that euphoria.
So with her, the stages about getting more and more
of the drug, was just a progression of the addiction.
Another part of a high is what's called "saturation".
Somebody that is needing to be filled up, they are empty,
they want to be numbed from pain, and that was more
my story. I was homeless from 13-23,
my parents were addicts, and I was empty inside, so I chose
things like heroin, marijuana, valium, zanex,
things that are going to sedate me and where I could
escape, I can step away totally and escape.
The last part of a high, or an addictive personality
is fantasy, or trance-like stage, and that's more like
sexual addictions, but I want to totally detach from who I am,
from the pain, or the discomfort or the reality that I live in
everyday, I want to be different from...
So usually addictions start with a catalyst of some kind.
Wanting to be different than I am
and finding that in a thing, in an object or in an event,
so I'm not finding it in a person, I'm not finding it
in anything real, I'm finding it in something that is
not real, an illusion.
So basically, let's see if I get this right,
there's 3 types: there's the arousal,
the people who are powerless, who want to be empowered
and drugs do that for them. Then there is the sedating;
people who want to be numbed and want to forget what's
going on in their life. Then the other one is
the fantasy-like. Would gambling fall into this?
Oh yeah. Gambling is "Oh, I want to win big,"
"and I want to be a big spender" and while they're pulling
the slot machine even if they're winning or losing,
that sense of "I'm in this beautiful place,"
"and there's chandeliers" and all that kind of stuff is
that fantasy "I can be something other than who I am".
So all addictions, like cancer, nobody can really understand
all kinds of cancers unless they understand the basic thing
of cancer, it's multiplying of these dysfunctional cells.
In addiction it's the same thing, there's a common thread
through all addictions and that's trying to escape
into something that's not real.
Since what you're saying to me,
let's see if this makes sense, when somebody gets clean,
like for example when she got clean,
when Amanda was rid of her drugs,
that's doesn't mean that she's not longer a drug addict
if the cause was still there, is that correct?
I wish that when I was a heroin addict for 10 years
and somebody said "Cheri all you've got to do"
"is stop using heroin". I did, and my life was still a mess.
And I'm thinking "how fair is that?"
I still didn't know how to relate to people,
I was dysfunctional, I didn't know how to trust,
I didn't know how to do anything.
The first part of breaking an addiction is to get out
of denial, and denial means "I don't even know that I"
"always lie." Use it as an acronym.
"I just don't know anything". So the first step
of the first step is getting away from the drug,
but that is just the very beginning.
We're going to talk more about recovery in our next segment,
but let me ask you this question as well,
what are some of the stages of addiction?
I believe, if you all are like me, I had a sister who was
a heroin and drug addict for 15 years, the Lord healed
her, literally, over night, but we didn't recognize
the symptoms of how she got started in this,
and the different stages of what was going on.
So what are some of the stages?
Some people in the audience will find themselves
in various stages of addiction.
The first stage is always the one
where I start to lie to myself. I'm actually getting pulled by
something that has met a need.
I'm starting to rationalize within my own mind,
I'm starting to protect whatever the behaviour is that is
filling that need, whether it's drugs, alcohol, sex or whatever,
eating, workaholism, and so I'm starting to protect it,
so the first stage is very internal, nobody sees it,
nobody understands that there's really a change happening.
The second stage is that I'm starting to lie to you.
I'm starting to say, sex addicts,
"I'm not really online doing anything wrong."
even though they've been on 3 hours on a porn site.
They start to lie to the people around them, they start to
see you as an enemy; "you are somehow trying to rob"
"my only security."
"I'm not hurting anyone," like Amanda said, "I'm not hurting"
"anyone, I'm just having fun". So what she's trying to do
right now is rationalize, and that's the second stage,
is being able to rationalize that.
The third stage, and a lot of people have seen addicts
in this stage, they are totally out of control.
They are losing jobs, they are losing spouses,
they are financially in a mess, you can start seeing physical
issues happening with them, the liver starting to shut down.
3rd stage is "I'm losing everything", and I will not
get out of the third stage without intervention.
But there's 3 distinctive stages in all addictions.
Now, in the 3rd stage, isn't it true that their brains
have been so suppressed, as far as the seratonin development,
that they no longer have rational thinking.
What's really interesting about that is some people have
even said it's like talking to a schizophrenic, talking to
an addict in the 3rd stage, they do not reason with their
frontal lobe and that's where we reason, they have done
PET scans on addicts in this stage, and there's no frontal
lobe activity, so they can't reason.
When we say "I can't believe you don't understand this"
and you're talking to somebody you love and is totally
falling apart, they do not hear you.
They honestly do not hear you. When they're manipulating you,
they don't even know that they are manipulating anymore.
That stage is beyond any kind of reasoning,
all you can do with that stage with an addict is pray for them
and be able to intervene in short, little spurts with truth,
and hopefully they will hear something.
Have you seen the advertisement on television where it shows
the frying pan and then it says: "This is your brain."
And then it shows the fried egg, they crack an egg
and say "this is your brain on drugs", the cognitive impairment
is so bad, that they are not reasoning, and you can't
reason with them. Now, for example, Amanda,
you told me earlier that you were in the hospital
and you were being treated, your kidneys were shutting down.
Right. My kidneys were failing, completely failing.
I was on dialysis for a little bit.
Listen, in the 80's you were 83 pounds.
I weighed 86 pounds, I was in the hospital,
I was so dehydrated that my kidneys were literally
shutting down, and I couldn't wait to get out of the hospital
so that I could get another fix.
How long were you in the hospital?
3 weeks.
3 weeks, so in my mind, and probably in your mind as well,
we would think that 3 weeks of no drug use, it aught to be
out of her system, but yet they are not thinking properly.
Well, coming up next we're going to introduce you to a man
who battled a lifelong addiction to drugs,
so please stay with us for this encouraging story.
Are you, or someone you love, struggling
with drugs or alcohol? Do you sometimes wonder
if there is hope? If so, we have just the book for you.
Be encouraged as you read the promises that God
has given in His word. Call or write today for your free gift
of "God's promises" for your every need.
You can write to us at:
Up Close, PO Box 220 West Frankfort, IL 62896
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Ask for Up Close Offer Nr. 2.
Welcome back to Up Close. Today we're talking about
recovery from drug addiction, and our next guest
is Ivan Morfit from Wichita, Kansas.
Ivan was tragically introduced to drugs as a youth
by his older sister who thought it would be funny
to see her brother high. Here's Ivan's story.
My older sister starting giving me drugs when I was probably
11 years old. I'm not sure why, I never
really asked her, but it was probably simply to be amused
by the antics that I would do.
It was a very powerful thing for me because then I got
to hang out with her and all of her friends, and I was
socially accepted into that peer group
as their little buddy.
I used to spend the weekends with my sister at her house,
and we would smoke pot and watch TV and hang out,
or sometimes we would drink.
For me, it was being cool. I was cool, to hang out
and do all those things.
When you're 11 years old you just don't stop and think
about consequences, you don't have the mental acuity
to do that.
It really became engrained into my personality,
into my behaviour. All through school
I was smoking and drinking and carrying on as I wanted to.
Teachers would pull me aside and say "Ivan, you're a really"
"smart guy, why are you going through the emotions?"
Well, I didn't tell them it's because I'm getting high
every weekend and not worrying about it, and I never thought
about what it would lead to.
Ivan didn't realize how this was going to affect his life,
and how long, when Ivan actually met the woman of his dreams,
she loved him so much that she tolerated his drug addiction
and agreed to marry him anyway.
But Ivan received a wake up call when the couple
was expecting their first baby, and when his wife
faced frightening complications, let's have a look.
We had our first child, my son, Daniel,
and I still used drugs.
And then she got pregnant with our daughter, Audrey,
and got exposed to chicken pox
and she ended up in a coma.
42 days. I didn't know if she was
going to live, she was going to die.
My daughter was born 2 and a half months premature
and I couldn't hold her, I couldn't pick her up,
I couldn't touch her, she had all these tubes and wires
and leads wired to her body to keep her alive.
I think that was the pivotal point when
I realized no matter how much drugs I did, I was still unhappy
and I began to look; there's got to be something out here
that'll make me happy.
I couldn't fight the depression and I couldn't fight the feeling
that there is something missing in your life, and you better
figure out what it is.
Well we're happy to have Ivan here with us today,
and we'd like to ask him to come on up, so please help me
welcome Ivan Morfit.
Thank you for being here today to share your testimony.
When your wife was in that coma, what was going through your mind
as far as what you've been doing with your life?
At first I would just say
"do more drugs!"
I was so miserable I couldn't function, and then
when I realized that I was still so unhappy, even when I was high
that I had to figure something out.
So did you think that she could possibly die,
were you facing a life and death issue?
That year was a bad year, there were 4 other expecting mothers
at the hospital with chicken pox that year
and in all 4 instances either the mother or the infant died.
Oh my goodness! Oh, mercy.
So then, you started off doing more drugs initially
during these 42 days, but something happened
when you went to a party and you went from a party
to a church - could you tell us a little bit about that.
Being at the party and just singing and doing all the things
that I did, I couldn't handle it anymore,
I was so miserable.
I went for a drive.
I'm just driving in my vehicle and I'm looking around
and I ended up, actually here, at 3 Angels church.
And it was very quiet and it was very peaceful.
I had tried everything the devil could give me
to make me happy, I mean everything.
So that night I tried something new, I said a prayer.
I said "God, I can't figure this out, I need Your help."
Was this your first prayer?
Pretty much.
And then how this prayer opened the way, and started you
on the road to recovery, tell us a little about your road
to recovery.
I started Bible study with some men here in the church
and every time they met with me, I knew that
whatever they had, I wanted.
I studied the Bible for over a year
and then when school started I put my son here in the school.
He came up to me one day and he said: "You know, dad"
"I really think we should be baptized."
Praise the Lord. How old was he?
12 at the time.
How old is your baby that was born after
the chicken pox incident?
She's 11 now and She's something else.
And she's a healthy baby?
Yeah.
Praise the Lord. Well, when Ivan was speaking
with us earlier, he reflected on what might have been.
I think the most dangerous thing for the youth of today
is that drugs make you feel good.
I'm not going to deny it, I can't deny it.
I did drugs for over 20 years.
They don't understand,
they'll say "well, I don't rob banks."
"I don't beat up old ladies. I don't do all those things"
"that drug addicts do." Well, it doesn't matter,
I didn't do those things either.
I scored really high on on all those standardized testing
that schools used.
I believe I have a really great intellect, but here I am,
I'm a 35 year old man, family, and I work part time
in a warehouse.
What could I have done if I had put the drugs away?
Where would I be now?
Ivan, it's a sad thing when God gave you so much potential
and you feel like you haven't used that.
What do you think might have been?
What was your interest before?
Or were you too young to really even gain that interest?
No, from the time I was really young, I was always reading
books on science.
Natural history, stuff like that.
Archeology is a really big interest of mine,
I love watching Discovery Channel,
it's great.
There's really no telling what I might have done or become.
I try not to dwell on it.
One of the crew, when I was doing my interview,
told me, he said "I was 34 with a family, and I went back"
"to university and I now have a Ph.D."
He said it's never too late.
You know what I was just getting ready to tell him,
God is the God of the impossible, all things
are possible with God, so we're just going to be believing
and praying for you.
I know He has a purpose for your life, He's got a plan for your
life and you're beginning to walk in that.
We'll just believe that God is going to bring about
some wonderful things in your life, so thank you.
Please stay tuned, when we return we're going to be talking
with Cheri Peters again about how families can educate
themselves and reach out to at risk loved ones,
so don't go away.
We're going to be talking with Dr. Neil Nedly about
some of the common symptoms and the causes of depression.
And I really hate to say this, but in all honesty,
it took every ounce energy I had to even take a shower.
I would be in bed for 5 days at a time.
It was just the most debilitating thing I've ever
gone through in my life.
And I would just lay there.
So don't miss it.
Welcome back to Up Close.
We're talking to Cheri Peters, a former drug addict,
who was literally a miracle from the streets.
Cheri, if you would, you mentioned to me earlier
when we were just talking by ourselves,
a story about Lance Michael, could you share
just a little bit about that.
That, to me, was one of the saddest things.
Lance Michael was an incredible kid, was very good in school,
his family loved him, parents were very normal
and very involved in their lives.
Lance gets strung out on methamphetamine in the 9th grade
and was dead by the time he was 22 years old.
But I've got to tell you, in that process, he found out,
after he started experimenting with drugs,
he found out that his heart was blown up, and swollen up,
and the doctors said "you even need a heart transplant".
His mom totally panicked,
could you imagine, as mom, hearing that?
Was it the drugs that caused this?
The drugs accelerated a natural condition in this family
that the men typically die when they're 70, 80 years old.
This kid's dying at 18 years old, but it was a predisposition
in this family for this type of heart disease,
but the methamphetamine just sped that up.
So he's in the hospital, he's on IVs,
he's waiting for a heart transplant and he pulls
the IVs from his arm and goes and gets high.
And his mum said she would cry to somebody
"I don't understand addiction. I don't understand"
"what this is, somebody should have taught me because I don't"
"even know how to reach him. I don't how to tell him to stop"
When he turns 21 he finally says "I can't accept a heart"
"because if I did this to someone else's heart,"
"what I've done to my own heart, I wouldn't be able to live"
"with myself." Takes himself off the heart transplant list
and dies within 3 months, and this is a family
that was in love with him.
Ivan, your family you said was pretty normal when you
were growing up, and all those kind of things.
The addiction just took this kid's life.
The mom said at one point she thought
"he just needs to do something. He just needs to be"
"involved in something." So she wanted to make
a hobby for him. So she said "Lance, what would"
"you like to learn, or do?" And he said "I'd like to do"
"glass blowing."
For any addicts in the audience, why do you think
he wanted to glass blow? Do you have any idea?
He wanted to make his own pipes, and his mom didn't
know that because she's not educated, so she sent
him to school to learn how to blow glass, and he made
the cutest little pipes to smoke crack in.
His mom even found a pipe, a little bear, in the trash can
with a long tail, and she said "Lance, why did you"
"throw this away, it is so cute."
She got it out and gave it back to him, and said
you can make something of this, and it was a pipe to smoke
his meth in.
So I really believe that for families you've got to be
educated, and we hate to educate ourselves with darker
things, but addiction is all around us
and we need to know what it is, what it looks like.
I would even suggest, if you're worried about your child using
or your spouse using, get a drug test, tell them to pee
in this bottle.
I am so bold when it comes to that, if I am hanging
out with somebody and I think they're using,
"You've got to pee in this bottle."
If they don't do it, I will set boundaries.
"Then you can't be over here with us because I can't"
"have you using, and lying to yourself and lying to us."
So I really set strong boundaries.
So how do families educate themselves, because even though
my sister was a drug addict for 15 years, I prayed
for her everyday for 15 years and the Lord did deliver her
in an unusual way, literally overnight.
Oh, and I hate that.
That was 18 years ago.
And I say that I hate that, not because of any other reason
than some people work the rest of their life in their recovery.
My sister, when she prayed to the Lord
and surrendered, and said "OK, I'm ready,"
"I'm powerless, give me Your Holy Spirit."
That was nearly 18 years ago and she's never done
drugs since.
That's rare isn't it?
Right. It's rare. God is faithful.
The reason I think it's rare is He knows that if I would have
gotten victory over night, I would have been using
the next day. Do you know what I mean?
So I had to learn the whole process of recovery,
I had to learn to hate the drugs and the dysfunction.
I had to learn that it's better to be honest and not lie
and manipulate. Why do I not have sex
with different people? Because it's better to be
in a monogamous relationship that has more purity.
So God teaches us slowly in recovery.
But for family education, with your sister is a good example,
you start noticing changes in your sister, and everybody
hides that, nobody says anything.
People start making excuses for them,
instead of confronting: "It's not OK that you're no longer"
"doing good in school. I'ts not OK that you're hanging out"
"with friends that you would not have hung out with before."
"It's not OK with me" - for a husband- "that you're not"
"coming home at night. It's not OK with me"
"that you're working till 12 o'clock at the office."
All those things, when you see behavioral changes
in somebody you love, do not let that go unspoken.
People say "well, I don't want to nag."
I don't want them to die.
Chris, Lance's mum, did not want to bury her son
and she did, and she said I enabled him right into
the grave because I didn't know how to speak to him,
and I didn't know about drug education.
Go online and find out signs and symptoms of different
addictions, get yourself books from the library.
There is so much information out there that you couldn't
read or take in everything that's out there.
Stop living in denial yourself that "I don't have to be aware."
I think you just hit the nail no the head,
Most of us feel overwhelmed. I know some of your symptoms,
Amanda, you began losing weight, your hair began to get
like straw.
I was just recently working with another family who's daughter
was going through the same thing and I kept telling them
"your child is using drugs", and there was absolute denial.
"I've suspicion that may be, but we can't prove that."
"She keeps telling me, I've asked her, and she said"
"absolutely not."
Somebody called Chris and said, in the middle of Lance's
worst part of his addiction, called her and said
"Chris, what is Lance's drug of choice?"
And Chris said "I was absolutely dumbfounded and I said"
"tylenol?", and they said "No, I didn't mean that."
"I mean his illegal drug of choice." And she said
"I couldn't even hardly hear them," there was such denial.
You said there's so much out there it's overwhelming.
Most of us don't know where to begin, don't you have
some information on your website that can give people...
I will send anybody anything on any drug, on any type
of recovery, for sex, workaholism, drugs,
alcohol, all the latest stuff, ecstacy, club drugs,
so I will send them anything, www.truestep.org is my website
and you can ask for anything and I will send it.
You can put "drug intervention", type it into your
search program and it will give you tones of stuff.
Online you can find amazing information.
Let me give you that because she speaks so slowly
you might have missed it.
It's www.truestep.org.
So, www.truestep.org.
Right, and there's something else that different ministries
will do, or different people will do, we've actually
gone out to houses and do interventions, where you sit
down with the family and you tell them.
Tell them what you're afraid of, you encourage people
to speak the truth to the addict, in stage 3 the addict
will not hear you, but until they get to that stage
they will hear you. Even in stage 3 you're still
planting seeds, so you do an actual intervention.
Having one addict talking to another one and me looking
right into their face, or somebody like me looking
in their face saying: "You are losing everything" and giving
that truth to them.
We did a structured intervention with my sister and we got
her into a drug recovery program, she actually
went through 3 of them, and each time it was
a 30 day program and she would come out and within
3-5 days she would be on drugs again.
I just want to emphasize something that we mentioned
earlier: getting clean, being drug free for 30 days...
...Is half of the first step.
Did you catch that? It's not even the first step,
it's half of the first step.
What's really interesting is if you don't take an addict
through the rest of the steps in your families, in your
churches, in your community, then they will relapse,
so the next step is to acknowledge that I am
out of control, so I get clean, but then I say out loud
"I am out of control. I need some help. "
Reaching out for actual, real connections,
not with any even or object, but with a person.
"I need your help, will you help me?"
So being able to do that with family or friends,
or definitely the Body of Christ is being able to say
"I need some help" is definitely a part of it,
to look outside myself and find some meaning outside of myself.
Alcoholics Anonymous was one of the first treatment modalities
that got the attention of almost the world, as far as
addictions, in 1935 because they started seeing addicts
really get well.
And the reason they get well is because there was community,
there was 1 addict sharing hope with another one, they started
to look outside themselves in the addiction and started to
realize that there is a power greater than myself
that will restore me to sanity, and there's nothing magical
about AA, it's just that they did things that were right
for addicts, and families can do that.
Actually, the 12 steps of AA, if you're familiar with them,
they all come from the Bible.
Exactly.
Let's say that in a church environment, or even in a home,
once someone has gotten to that point, they've admitted they're
out of control, if someone walks into our church and tells us
"I'm a recovering drug addict", what can we do to help
because how uncomfortable are they to be "normal people".
So uncomfortable.
I was an addict on the streets by age 13,
At 23, when I came into the church.
My family are addicts, and when I came into the church
I didn't even know how to eat at a table with someone.
I had not eaten dinner with someone, I didn't know
how to deal with anything normal and I'm around normal folk.
So anything you did was modelling to me.
When somebody would say anything about friendship, that you are
my friend, my palms would sweat because I didn't
know how to do that, I didn't know how to trust.
So as family members, as a community, church community,
any of that, is to realize that your role is to show them
everything; how to laugh without it being a sadistic kind of
laugh, how to communicate, how to have small talk.
When somebody would sit across the table
and eat with me, I would think "Do I look at them chew?"
"Do I look at the table?" "Do I look at my feet?"
I had no idea; Why do you talk about just the weather?
And I had no idea that for normal people, the weather,
talking about that kind of stuff is just getting to feel
each other out and being normal.
And I wanted to talk about my last suicide attempt,
and they're like "Whoa!", so it's like being able to model
appropriate communication.
If we did that as a body of Christ, if we understood
we're doing this for the very life of the person,
we would bless them beyond what you could imagine,
and we would bless ourselves. There's a reason why we need
to be well and a reason why we need to model that.
People would just flock to us if we could just do that.
Ivan, for you a great part of your recovery was coming
to this church and beginning to do the Bible studies with
these men, did they do some role modelling for you
and help you? What was the most effective part,
besides the spiritual knowledge you were getting,
working with the other men began to change your life?
I would say the biggest thing was that when somebody's
new to Christ and they're studying the word,
they have questions.
It didn't matter what question I had, they would say
"Well, let's see what the Bible says."
They would open the book and the answers are in there.
I don't care what the question is, the answer is in there.
Amen.
But I have to say Ivan, too, that what doesn't
get seen a lot is just the interaction with asking someone
for help and getting the help.
There's a healing process that happens there, just being
able to sit down with a live person, rather than an
inanimate object, a substance, or the addiction.
So any communication that you do with an addict during that part
of the recovery, will keep them in recovery.
This is a stat the most people don't know, and I was shocked
to hear it, but as sex offenders, somebody that is
acting out a lot, establishes a friend with one person,
a real friendship, not a token friendship, a real friendship
with 1 person, the recidivism rate for them acting out
drops 98%.
98%, and that is with an addiction that is difficult
to control, and so you're talking about
any other addiction, we can act as a body of Christ,
and the Bible backs us up, we will heal each other.
Confess one to another, pray for each other that you may
be healed, and it's an amazing process, but if I think
it's just about stopping the drugs, I'm never going to help
that person get well, it's about walking with them now.
Because you've got to uproot whatever the cause was.
Right, and relearn stuff.
Well coming up next we're going to be taking some questions
from our live audience, so please stay with us.
Are you, or someone you love, struggling
with drugs or alcohol? Do you sometimes wonder
if there is hope? If so, we have just the book for you.
Be encouraged as you read the promises that God
has given in His word. Call or write today for your free gift
of "God's promises" for your every need.
You can write to us at:
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Or call during regular business hours:
1-800-752-3226 or 618-627-4651
Welcome back to Up Close. We're talking about how to
escape from drug and alcohol addiction, and we're now going
to be taking some questions from our live audience.
So if you will, please, thank you for coming up.
Tell us what you're name and your question is.
Hello, my name is John Cayler, my question is
if there is a key in helping keep people out of addiction
after having been addicted, what would that key be?
The key is finding meaning outside yourself.
Addicts are so self focused. Everything is about finding
release of pain, or pleasure for myself.
So finding a purpose, when AA uses a higher power,
that I can turn it over to God, I can look at something
that's bigger than myself, I can even say my purpose
is to let people know that recovery is possible,
and so the purpose is bigger than what the addictive draw was
Then I start getting reinforced by people that get into recovery
because of something, we share it.
So the key is finding meaning outside yourself,
and stop being so self focused, and that's so hard for addicts
because "it's all about me."
Just to add to that, I think that really, an intimate
relationship with God, if we don't try to practice religion
but if we really come to know God as a loving Father
and someone who is intimately involved and concerned about
every detail of our life, if we see Him that way, I think
that'll really help us. We begin to understand what
2 Corinthians 12:9 says "His grace is sufficient, His power"
"is made perfect in our weakness."
We've learned to depend totally upon Him.
Amen.
Well, hello, thank you for coming. What's your name
and your question.
My name's [?], and my question is
how can you tell if one of your friends that you don't know
very well, is having drug abuse?
When I can tell when somebody's using is all of a sudden
they'll be happy, then they'll be angry, then they'll
be irritated, then they'll want to go do something,
they're going from one thing to another.
Or their interests change radically, and those kind
of things, so usually it's a change in behaviour.
If you're saying in your gut "Something is not quite right",
trust your gut, it's probably not right and there's something
going on. To check it out just says
what an incredible friend you are, if you came up to me
and said "Cheri, I really like you and I'm starting to get"
"to know you, but you know you're all over the place."
Being able to check it out is incredible.
Sometimes you can stop an addictive process right in
the beginning of an addiction if somebody is just able
to talk about what's happening.
Good question.
Yes, very good question.
Hi, welcome to the program, please tell us your name
and your question.
Hilary Washington. My father has been
involved with drugs ever since he was 18.
He was a drug dealer at first, it was easy money for him
and then he became addicted and he's been addicted
for the past 20 years. He's been in and out of prison
and he acknowledges his problem, but he always seems to go back.
What can I do, physically, because I've prayed,
all of our family for the past 20 years, but it doesn't seem...
A lot of the times relapse happens with an addict
7-8 times before they get it right.
So sometimes going back is part of the process
for some people, but also a lot of times with people
that we love, we think that stopping the drug,
or stopping the alcohol is the answer, and it's not.
He has to learn. That neurochemistry that he got
way out of whack has to establish itself again,
and that all takes time. With some people that are in
severe addictions, and I know that this is not a popular
belief for some, but with severe addictions you actually need
to take some anti depressants that will kick up your seratonin
levels so that you feel like living during the time
that you are relearning how to function again.
So with a severe addict their neurochemistry
is so suppressed that you need some intervention.
With your dad, I want to say for one, I will join you
in prayer with him, and don't give up on him, ever!
Well Cheri, we have about 2 minutes that I'd like to get
some final thoughts from you.
One thing I was interested in, what are the stages of recovery?
Stages of recovery are first to admit that I am powerless,
I can't do this, I am a mess, my life is not working.
The first stage is the acknowledgement of that.
A lot of times, the first stage happens when somebody's
in prison, they're sitting there and they're thinking
"I think this is not working", it's like "Well hello!"
The next stage is somebody intervening and introducing you
to your own spirituality, and some people hate to say that
is God or whatever, but to God Himself, and being able
to realize that there is something outside myself.
I can start establishing trust in you because I can't trust me.
Another thing is to have a really conscious
skepticism about your own understanding;
don't lean on it, don't trust it.
I do not know how to think yet, and I may never,
so I'm going to lean on people around me.
I'm going to lean on you as my friend, I'm going to lean
on my family, people in church, the men that are ministering
to me, I'm going to lean on God Himself, I'm not going to at all
think that I can figure this out because I can't.
So it's like being able to start looking at all those things:
"I need to start doing the nutrition thing."
"I need to start putting water in my body,
"good stuff in my body. I need to start sleeping."
An addict is never to be too tired, too hungry, or too angry.
All those kind of things all relapse,
so the first stages are just learning all those things.
Once you get into the next stage of recovery is you
finally get it; there's meaning in my life outside myself.
"I care about you!" and all of a sudden the addict looks
up and says "I care about you. I'm glad Amanda's"
"in recovery. I'm glad that she's learning"
"to love her children." Those kind of things that her
husband is in recovery, that they have a life.
As an addict I'm not glad about that at all
unless that's somehow going to benefit me.
When I'm in the next stage in recovery, I am truly glad
for someone else. So you can start telling
where an addict is in recovery by those things.
The last stage is not only am I glad for her, but I want
to see if I can help in any way, so I actually start
reaching out to make a difference in my family,
in the community around me, in my church
and I feel like I'm actively a part of the human race,
which I didn't feel in my addiction.
Praise God. I just want to thank you so much
for being here today, it has been such a pleasure.
I also want to thank our guests, Amanda Hultz and Ivan Morfit,
thank you for sharing your testimony with us.
As I've been sitting here, the scripture that keeps coming
to my mind tonight is Acts 26:18.
This is what Jesus told Paul, and Paul is sharing this,
Christ told him: "I am sending you to them to open their eyes"
"that they may turn from darkness to light,"
"and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may"
"receive forgiveness and release from their sins,"
"and a place and a portion among those who are consecrated"
"by faith in Me. " Jesus really is the answer
and His power is made perfect in our weakness.
So I pray that you will put your trust in Jesus,
don't ever underestimate the power of prayer,
but we've got to all be educated and do some very
practical things as well.
Thank you for joining us tonight.