ERIC'S STORY

Here's what one of the guys shared this morning -

I was born in Brooklyn N.Y and raised as a catholic. I even went to catholic school but my family was still very dysfunctional.

My mother was a psychiatrist and my father was an abusive and violent drug user and dealer. At the age of nine I was using all kinds of drugs with my father such as alcohol, marijuana, cigarettes, cocaine and heroin.

By the age of thirteen I was a full time addict and dealing drugs for my father. It was at this age that I was sent to a juvenile facility because of a robbery and some gang related incidents. By the age of sixteen I was really acting out and it was also the year that I watched my mother shoot my father with the gun that I gave her.

By the age of eighteen I was incarcerated for five years because of dealing drugs. I was released at the age of twenty two. At this time we all moved to Puerto Rico where my drug use escalated. By the age of twenty seven I was alone, afraid and I hated my life so I tried to kill myself by overdoses and even jumping in front of a car on the highway. You would think that by now I would know that I had a guardian angel helping me, but I didn’t. After six months of recovery my mother sent for me to live with her in Brooklyn.

By now she had remarried and was doing well. I did well for about three years and fell in love with a great girl, just when everything was going good, I started to use again and lost everything. I lost my job my girlfriend and my mother’s respect again. It was at this time that God stepped into my life again and this time I listened.

I went to a rehabilitation program called Lake Grove and I met people that showed a great interest in my recovery. It was here that I went to school for my GED and I got it. I also was employed by this company as a house manager. It was here that I first met Roger the pastor at our church and from that moment on I started to know and learn about the love of Jesus and my God.

Two years have passed and today I am enrolled in college and I will be graduating in May of this year. I am also a member of this church and part of the small group called Celebrate Recovery, but most of all I found the love of God that I thought I had lost or didn’t deserve as well as the love and respect of my family. All in all I have three years and eight months of recovery