My Testimony
On my path of addiction I lost my sense of self. 8 years in addiction and my life was falling apart. I became unknown to my family and my friends became the best thing that ever happened to me as they were just as lost as I was at that time. Drug dealers became my healers. God became distant, the innocent me fade away into the dark world of partying and drugs. Stealing, lying, manipulating that was what I did best. I went on with this path of self –destruction not knowing that God had other plans for my life.
My Name is Crisanda and I am a recovery addict who struggles with drug addiction.
I was an addict for 8 years. Before recovery my life was a mess, I started using drugs at the age of 16. It all started with marijuana, ecstasy, CAT, coke, rocks and any over the counter medicine. Soon I was drawn into the world of drugs so bad that I stole my first diamond and sold it on the black market at the age of 17, the only thing I could think about is where I would get my next fix from. Some days I had to skip school as I was too wasted to try to go. I turned to a world of drugs and partying but nothing seemed to be able to fill the emptiness inside of me. I tried to take my own life a few times as I did not know how to live a life without drugs. I often took too much and did not know what reality was anymore or where the world of delusion and fantasy started. I often tried to get away from using drugs but the people I mixed with and the fear of facing reality pulled me back into the world of drugs. I saw no way out for myself.
My dad is a pastor so was my grandfather and you probably think that I should have known that what I was doing was wrong. Yes I did but after a while I stopped caring what was right and what was wrong. In my matric year I met the love of my life also a drug user. It was not long after I moved in with him and no one had a say in my life anymore. I had drug dealers in our car on a daily bases. We took the dealers to where they wanted to go and they paid us in drugs. My life was a wreck, my house was filthy and our doors had holes in from all the fights we had. We rolled our car driving at a 160 02:00 O’clock on a Sunday morning after my mother in law warned us not to drive as we were wasted but we had to get our next fix. The Metro that came to the scene could not believe that we were alive. My Fiancé’s son lived with his grandmother as we were incapable of looking after him. There was times that I phoned our parents and asked them for money as there was really no food for days in our house. The one day they did not give us money but brought us groceries, I freaked out because not even food was important anymore, all I wanted was money for drugs. Before I came to Mighty Wings I weigh 39Kg. At a stage it became so bad that my boyfriend had to pin me down on the bed and stuff my mouth with chocolate as I would go days without eating and passed out quite allot. At times I will not eat or sleep for 7 days and go to work every day. I think why I kept my job was because my mother in law was my manager and she knew we were on the point of losing everything. We had an armed robbery and the robbers took all our stash and shot my boyfriend, luckily God gave him a second change. In 2012 I lost my baby because of using drugs but that didn’t stop me from using drugs again. At the end we lost everything.
I blamed God for everything in my life. My mom past away when I was at the age of 4 while we were sitting in church, I blamed God for taking her away from me. I had 3 step moms and I blamed God. I blamed God for the position I was sitting in. In my head it was His fault I was using drugs. I went to Church but most of the time I was on a trip. I can’t say that I had a relationship with God, it was more of a relationship blaming God for everything that went wrong in my life. But one morning coming down from a high, I had to go to work…… Awake for a few days….. I didn’t know how I was going to get through the day, I didn’t want to feel that way and was tired of using but I didn’t know how I would ever stop. So I said to God that morning, If You do not turn my life around I will take my own life and this time I will make it work. I cannot go on like this. Once again I thought God was not listening. I took time to plan how I am going to kill myself. The plan for my death was in place I just had to set the date. 3 weeks after on the 4th of October 2013 I hit rock bottom and got arrested. In jail I asked why and there and then God reminded me of my prayer 3 weeks back. I thought my life was over. R10000 later I got out.
My court date was set for that Monday, we knew about Mighty Wings as I was here before for a month after I convinced my parents that I was recovered. Pastor Kenneth arranged for us to see the prosecutor before we went into court and we got a court diversion to Mighty Wings without appearing in court.
In the book of Jonah, chapter1, verse 17 the story begins by saying “The Lord had prepared a great fish to swallowup Jonah” For me jail was my fish God prepared for me. The verse goes on and God demanded Jonah to go to Nineveh but Jonah was stubborn and went to Tarshish. The same with me, God called on my name and gave me a change to change but I turned my back on God and went my own way, so God sent me a fish I call jail.
God commanded the fish and it vomited out Jonah onto dry land. This time Jonah obeyed God. With me God demanded my fish to spit me out at Mighty Wings (Dry Land) a place I can find healing and were I can be useful to His will.
My growing relationship with God influenced my recovery in so many ways. At first I did not want to be at Mighty Wings and struggled believing that this was the plan that God had for my life but once I gave myself over to God that was the first step and I realized everyday with Jesus is sweeter than the day before.
My thinking towards myself and life became different and began to see the light, the plan God had for my life. God helped me to take one step at a time dealing with all my emotions and hang-ups I had from my childhood that made me feel worthless and unwanted is this world. I think without accepting God as a part of my recovery for me recovery would not have been possible. The program at Mighty Wings supplied me with so many tools to help with recovery. When I started working the program and using the tools they supplied, I managed my recovery much better and realized that relapsing is not an option.
There was one step that touched my hart at Mighty Wings and that was step 4. Working my step 4 was a life changing experience. To forgive and let go! To set myself free from all the negativity that was spread over my life. For me doing my step 4 was setting myself free from the past and starting a new beginning with no more hatred or resentment.
Recovery brought me back to God and now my walk with God is a walk of life. A verse that I held on to trough out my recovery is: Psalm 32:8 I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you.
My family relationships are renewed and we grew closer and still do every day. My fiancé’s son is now living with us and we are building a great family. My whole life is renewed in every area I can see a change. My self-confidence, the way I see life and what I am striving for now in life is different from what it was in addiction.
God blessed me in this year and I am grateful.
On my path of addiction I lost my sense of self. 8 years in addiction and my life was falling apart. I became unknown to my family and my friends became the best thing that ever happened to me as they were just as lost as I was at that time. Drug dealers became my healers. God became distant, the innocent me fade away into the dark world of partying and drugs. Stealing, lying, manipulating that was what I did best. I went on with this path of self –destruction not knowing that God had other plans for my life.
My Name is Crisanda and I am a recovery addict who struggles with drug addiction.
I was an addict for 8 years. Before recovery my life was a mess, I started using drugs at the age of 16. It all started with marijuana, ecstasy, CAT, coke, rocks and any over the counter medicine. Soon I was drawn into the world of drugs so bad that I stole my first diamond and sold it on the black market at the age of 17, the only thing I could think about is where I would get my next fix from. Some days I had to skip school as I was too wasted to try to go. I turned to a world of drugs and partying but nothing seemed to be able to fill the emptiness inside of me. I tried to take my own life a few times as I did not know how to live a life without drugs. I often took too much and did not know what reality was anymore or where the world of delusion and fantasy started. I often tried to get away from using drugs but the people I mixed with and the fear of facing reality pulled me back into the world of drugs. I saw no way out for myself.
My dad is a pastor so was my grandfather and you probably think that I should have known that what I was doing was wrong. Yes I did but after a while I stopped caring what was right and what was wrong. In my matric year I met the love of my life also a drug user. It was not long after I moved in with him and no one had a say in my life anymore. I had drug dealers in our car on a daily bases. We took the dealers to where they wanted to go and they paid us in drugs. My life was a wreck, my house was filthy and our doors had holes in from all the fights we had. We rolled our car driving at a 160 02:00 O’clock on a Sunday morning after my mother in law warned us not to drive as we were wasted but we had to get our next fix. The Metro that came to the scene could not believe that we were alive. My Fiancé’s son lived with his grandmother as we were incapable of looking after him. There was times that I phoned our parents and asked them for money as there was really no food for days in our house. The one day they did not give us money but brought us groceries, I freaked out because not even food was important anymore, all I wanted was money for drugs. Before I came to Mighty Wings I weigh 39Kg. At a stage it became so bad that my boyfriend had to pin me down on the bed and stuff my mouth with chocolate as I would go days without eating and passed out quite allot. At times I will not eat or sleep for 7 days and go to work every day. I think why I kept my job was because my mother in law was my manager and she knew we were on the point of losing everything. We had an armed robbery and the robbers took all our stash and shot my boyfriend, luckily God gave him a second change. In 2012 I lost my baby because of using drugs but that didn’t stop me from using drugs again. At the end we lost everything.
I blamed God for everything in my life. My mom past away when I was at the age of 4 while we were sitting in church, I blamed God for taking her away from me. I had 3 step moms and I blamed God. I blamed God for the position I was sitting in. In my head it was His fault I was using drugs. I went to Church but most of the time I was on a trip. I can’t say that I had a relationship with God, it was more of a relationship blaming God for everything that went wrong in my life. But one morning coming down from a high, I had to go to work…… Awake for a few days….. I didn’t know how I was going to get through the day, I didn’t want to feel that way and was tired of using but I didn’t know how I would ever stop. So I said to God that morning, If You do not turn my life around I will take my own life and this time I will make it work. I cannot go on like this. Once again I thought God was not listening. I took time to plan how I am going to kill myself. The plan for my death was in place I just had to set the date. 3 weeks after on the 4th of October 2013 I hit rock bottom and got arrested. In jail I asked why and there and then God reminded me of my prayer 3 weeks back. I thought my life was over. R10000 later I got out.
My court date was set for that Monday, we knew about Mighty Wings as I was here before for a month after I convinced my parents that I was recovered. Pastor Kenneth arranged for us to see the prosecutor before we went into court and we got a court diversion to Mighty Wings without appearing in court.
In the book of Jonah, chapter1, verse 17 the story begins by saying “The Lord had prepared a great fish to swallowup Jonah” For me jail was my fish God prepared for me. The verse goes on and God demanded Jonah to go to Nineveh but Jonah was stubborn and went to Tarshish. The same with me, God called on my name and gave me a change to change but I turned my back on God and went my own way, so God sent me a fish I call jail.
God commanded the fish and it vomited out Jonah onto dry land. This time Jonah obeyed God. With me God demanded my fish to spit me out at Mighty Wings (Dry Land) a place I can find healing and were I can be useful to His will.
My growing relationship with God influenced my recovery in so many ways. At first I did not want to be at Mighty Wings and struggled believing that this was the plan that God had for my life but once I gave myself over to God that was the first step and I realized everyday with Jesus is sweeter than the day before.
My thinking towards myself and life became different and began to see the light, the plan God had for my life. God helped me to take one step at a time dealing with all my emotions and hang-ups I had from my childhood that made me feel worthless and unwanted is this world. I think without accepting God as a part of my recovery for me recovery would not have been possible. The program at Mighty Wings supplied me with so many tools to help with recovery. When I started working the program and using the tools they supplied, I managed my recovery much better and realized that relapsing is not an option.
There was one step that touched my hart at Mighty Wings and that was step 4. Working my step 4 was a life changing experience. To forgive and let go! To set myself free from all the negativity that was spread over my life. For me doing my step 4 was setting myself free from the past and starting a new beginning with no more hatred or resentment.
Recovery brought me back to God and now my walk with God is a walk of life. A verse that I held on to trough out my recovery is: Psalm 32:8 I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you.
My family relationships are renewed and we grew closer and still do every day. My fiancé’s son is now living with us and we are building a great family. My whole life is renewed in every area I can see a change. My self-confidence, the way I see life and what I am striving for now in life is different from what it was in addiction.
God blessed me in this year and I am grateful.