I was sitting in prison after getting my third felony possession charge and thinking back; how did I get here? Where did I go wrong? Why was I so stubborn? Why didn’t I listen to my family and friends?
Every time when I was in trouble with the law or really down and out, I would find myself crying out to God. I would say how sorry I was, apologizing for everything I had done and vow that if I could get out of this situation, I would not let it happen again, but every time I would go right back to doing the same things. I was stuck in a vicious circle called addiction with no way out, or so I thought.
I grew up in a good home with a good family. I had everything a kid could want. I played sports, went on vacations, had family parties for birthdays and holidays. High school was a breeze because I was what they call a “popular jock.” I would show up for school, but I would say that I never really attended. I got special treatment and did whatever I wanted to do. I received a full scholarship for baseball to South Suburban College and I chose there because I had pro scouts looking at me. I would occasionally party on weekends through college but nothing too serious.
My dad had bought a new bass boat. A 21 foot stratus with a 250 horsepower mercury engine. This boat was awesome and fast. We had done some fishing on local lakes but he wanted to take it and go on a weekend long trip. So he planned a fishing trip to Lake Shelbyville for Labor Day weekend 2004. We left on that Friday. My dad had closed up his shop early and we headed out. We got down there, checked into the hotel, had a nice dinner, and went to sleep to get an early start Saturday morning. The weather for this weekend was amazing, sunny no rain, so to be on the water fishing was great. We had caught a few fish Saturday so it was good. Sunday morning was a different story we had been out on the lake all morning with not even a bite. It was lunch time so we were going to pull into the pier where they have a little restaurant to get a bite to eat but every dock was filled. The lake was packed with boaters. That is when we decided we will cruise the lake to find some new fishing spots for early Monday morning before we stop fishing for the day.
This is where my life changed. While we were out cruising the lake, a 25 foot speed boat was doing figure 8’s, which is jumping the wakes of a cruise ship in the middle of this lake. The boat came down and the driver of the boat must not have been paying attention. My dad saw the boat coming at us so he pulled off of the throttle and turned our boat to the left. One of the passengers on their boat yelled out there is a boat in front of us and the driver pulled their boat hard to the right. Their boat hit my dad right on the driver side of our boat and then continued over the front part of our deck. The impact tipped us perpendicular to the water and my dad slammed into me. We then tipped back the other direction and my dad flew across hitting his ribcage on the side of the boat and was going over. I had grabbed the handle to hold on to and I caught him by the back of his pants. He was knocked out. From his waist up he was in the water and I was calling his name but he would not respond. Finally when the boat sort of leveled out I picked him up and laid him on the front deck, where he then started coming to and responding to me talking to him. The other boat called 911 immediately because they said that from the impact they knew there was going to be serious injuries.
We had waited approximately 10 min for the water police to come out and they ended up towing us to a dock where they did a police report. Our adrenaline was running through us. Neither one of us thought we were seriously injured. Our boat was not taking on water, and since we had used a boat launch on the complete other side of the lake we drove the boat to the other boat launch. I started to drive because my dad lost his glasses in the lake, but I couldn’t do it. I was so shaken up my dad had to drive and I was the eyes watching for other boaters. A boat ride that would normally be 10 min seemed like it took forever. I could not wait to get off of the lake. We finally got to our boat launch and got the boat on the trailer. We had a portable camera and took pictures of the damage and we then went back to our hotel. At the hotel my dad was starting to feel pain so we decided to head back home.
When we got back to our house my father went to the emergency room where he found out he had 4 broken ribs. I ended up going to urgent care the next day where I ended up having a separated shoulder. I was prescribed a 2 month supply of pain pills (Vicodin) to be exact. This event is what changed my life completely. Something about these pain pills, they were like a miracle drug. Before long I was taking some sort of pain pill every day. Everywhere I turned I would find them. They consumed me; they were all I thought about. I liked the way they made me feel and I was like a completely different person when I took them. I had become mentally, physically dependent on these pills in 2 short months and it only got progressively worse. I didn’t think I was doing anything wrong. That it was not a problem because doctors prescribed them and the job of a doctor is to help you not hurt you, and that they are safe because pharmacies give them out and monitor them.
I played baseball my sophomore year at South Suburban College, but I really had no care in the world other than how I was going to get some more pills. I did physical therapy for my shoulder which helped but at that time or in my mind I didn’t think it did. The only thing I thought was helping my shoulder was the pills. My baseball stats went down tremendously from my freshman year. So I no longer had scouts looking at me. I was not the player that I once was because my focus shifted. It was no longer on baseball. It was on pain pills. I took the bare minimum class schedule because I only wanted to play baseball and not go to school. So what was I going to do next after South Suburban College? I decided to enroll at Purdue University Calumet for a semester. It was once again, a halfhearted attempt to appear to others that I had everything figured out and I was doing the right thing.
I had a good friend’s dad that was a Local 63 Ironworker. He had suggested that his son and I apply for the union because they were going to be hiring. So I did and before I knew it I was in the apprenticeship program. I thought this was going to be the answer to everything. A good career path that has the potential of making a good amount of money and if I make enough money I will not have any problems supporting my pill habit. The problem was the more money I made the more I spent on pills. It wouldn’t have mattered if I was a millionaire, I would have figured out a way to blow it all. Eventually I failed a drug test. I was calling off of work or showing up late because I could not find any pills. I was not reliable in any facet of my life. There was no way I was going to sustain a job because I was consumed with addiction. So I started to do what was out of character for the real me, but was who I had become an addict. Stealing, robbing, lying it didn’t matter, as long as I got the pills. One day my buddy and I were having a really tough time finding pills. He mentioned he knew where he could get some heroin at. Heroin was something I vowed I would never do, but I was about to go for it. We ended up getting some and snorting it. Before long I was shooting up because the high was better. I used to look at people that were doing heroin and would think, why? Only to find myself doing the same thing. I had lost all control.
My family was trying to help me all they could. They sent me to different 30 day rehabs, which I would complete and come out and go right back to heroin. No matter how bad I wanted to stop, I couldn’t. I didn’t know how or which direction to turn. Eventually the law would catch up to me. So here I was 28 years old waking up in prison thinking this was a dream. While I was in prison my mother contacted Restoration Ministries to find out what it was I would have to do to come into their ministry because there was no way I was going to parole out of prison and go to their house or either one of my sisters’ and brother-in-laws’ houses. I had burned all those bridges way too many times and they were not going to go off of my word that I had changed or that the system changed me. My word had no value to them and hadn’t for some time. So I was going to have to go somewhere to prove that I had enough and wanted to change.
I paroled out of prison on July 19, 2013 to a halfway house on 149th and Lincoln in Harvey. I had to deal with a few issues with the parole office and because of that I did not come into the doors of Restoration Ministries and Harvey House until July 26, 2013.
Restoration Ministries has definitely been a godsend in my life. It has been a transformation process that all of my family and friends can say has worked. I always believed in God, but never allowed the process of God to work. God has given us all free will to do what we want, but when I was truly changed all of my decisions and choices changed. God put the right people in place in my life from Dr. Sullivan and Ray Banks to members of the Spirit of God Fellowship. I remained teachable and open to everything because I finally realized my life was worth it. Dr. Sullivan always says, “He doesn’t care where you were yesterday, but he is excited about where you will be tomorrow.”
Since I have been at Harvey House I have graduated from the program on January 28, 2015. I also went back to South Suburban College and finished my associate degree. I am starting at Purdue University Calumet for my bachelors in business in the fall of 2015. I have been the Director of Harvey House since September 2014. My family wants me to come around all the time for family gatherings because they too have seen the complete change in my life. It is about my actions and the consistency behind my actions. God has a purpose for each one of us. I had to go through the suffering I went through because that is what has built my character to who I am today.