My motto: Have Holy Ghost...Will Preach!

My name is John H. Byrd, and I am a recovering addict and alcoholic. My addiction was and is Heroin and alcohol. I started using in 1990. What led to it? Here is my story.

As a teenager of thirteen, my father went to the penitentiary. While he was there, my life was in utter turmoil. I was rebellious, so much so that I would cuss my mother out, skip school, and I guess mostly just stayed angry.  My mother couldn't handle me, so I wound up being thrown out. I stayed for a while with my aunts and uncles. That feeling of anger through the years became both my best friend and my worst enemy. I guess you could say it was one of my addictions.

At the age of seventeen, I started using weed regularly, then acid. And of course the usual alcohol accompanied both. I was married at 19 and had a son, Joshua Cole. And at the expense of alcohol and adultery I lost them both.  Too many fights and too much of that old enemy, anger, destroyed my marriage.

Once again, alcohol and me were alone and good friends. In fact, when you saw one of us, you saw the other.  A DWI and a lot of barroom fights and passing out drunk over the next year followed. It seemed like the more I tried to forget my pain, the closer to the surface it was. My "good times" were actually a very costly refuge.

Then, in 1987, I met Shellie, my second wife.  Even to this day, I have nothing bad to say about her. She was a wonderful wife and mother, and to the best of my knowledge she still is.  Again, though, along with alcohol and that good friend anger, I destroyed it.  Long before we actually separated, the marriage was over. Anger again. Losing Shellie and my daughter was more than I could handle. I started using heroin, running with "friends" I had no business running with, and running from God.

Eventually, I ended up addicted and had to "fix" every six to eight hours to stay "well". It led me to stealing. First, it was shoplifting and refunding clothes (You steal them and take them back to the store for a refund). It was enough at first to keep me high. I was, I thought, forgetting my family. In fact, I was only postponing the pain. Little did I know that the consequence of heroin was very large.

I kept using...kept stealing (eventually cars, VCR's, TV's, and a couple of burglaries) until I wound up in jail several times, until now, the penitentiary is almost definite. I wound up being locked up for a year in Plainview, Lubbock, Midland, and Odessa, a few months in each place. And the whole time, I knew that I was going to get out and do heroin again. Still ignoring God and running from pain.

I got out in July of '95 and went to Lubbock in August. I went directly to the dealer's house and got back on a ride that I couldn't get off of. But this time, it was different. I was miserable, I hated the drug, the "life", my attitude, the world around me. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't smile. I hated what I was doing, but I didn't know how to stop. OD'ing entered my mind a lot.

Eventually, I started going state to state, running hard. I wound up being arrested in Modesto, California, wanted in Texas and New Mexico. One night, it came to me like a flood what my life was, and that all in all it amounted to not only my pain, but my parent's, my kids', and everyone around me's as well. It was like a voice inside saying:"Look, John. Look at what you've missed. Your life isn't even remotely considered a life."

God was knocking on my heart, just like he promised. So, on my knees in tears, realizing what I had to own up to (jail), and what I had to do, I asked God into my heart. I felt like the whole world had been lifted. I had at last found peace. It filled the room, and still does every time I pray.

Heroin, I knew, would no longer be a part of my life, and God always would be.  I've been preaching the word of God and giving my testimony as often as possible. I've seen a lot of men just like myself break down in tears and ask God into their lives

My advice? If you're looking for peace, love, happiness, contentment, anywhere in the "world", you're looking in the wrong place first. In Matthew, Jesus said: Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and all things thereafter shall be added unto you." Forget the refuge and step up to bat for Jesus. He has the answer. He calmed the storm of anger.

A brother in Christ

Bro' Tex Byrd

If you want to learn more, read What We Believe. If you are ready for a change in your life like the one Tex experienced, click here.