The Many Faces of a Bully, Abuse, and Addiction

At first, I reminisced, “This book should be about the extreme makeover which took place in my life. Going from being bullied for being overweight as a child, to bullied for being thin as an adult,” but that wasn’t it. Next, I considered, “This book should be about nutrition and diet. Taking what I use to eat as a food addict and comparing it to everything I eat today. It would also include research and nutritional discoveries,” but that wasn’t it either. Nor was it about the mean girls, the male bullies, or dating. However, those memories definitely played a part or held a chapter inside this book.

So, there again I went on thinking, “If this book could help anyone to know that ‘bad things happen to good people,’ you just need to get through it in order to get to the other side, well then, I would like to share.” But I knew that wasn’t my purpose driven mission, consequently, I discarded the concept and then reconsidered. Because this contemplative search led me right back to the beginning. As I said in the first chapter, “I did not plan to share my personal testimony on salvation and deliverance from drug abuse as a teen and as a prodigal child,” but when I did open up and link this story to the other stories, I saw a pattern emerge outside of myself. Which was watching other’s ravaged by drugs, bullied by heroin, a soaring national epidemic, with millions of people trying to deal with it. And the hardest part, seeing and hearing about other people who have died in their drug induced addiction, or to hear of other’s involved with an addict continuously in and out of rehab. Still, hoping for the addict to become free from the hold drugs have had on their life and mind.

Then it took bravery to revisit both the molestation and the rape from my youth. Yet, what inspired this were the untold stories from other’s now immerging, including mine. I am silent no more, because my heart goes out to those who cannot tell theirs, but need or want help or a solution. It’s heart wrenching to say the least, these true-life stories. For some, it becomes a storm to persevere through and manage. For others it turns into a dark nightmare to get out of. All you know is that you wish the horrible dream would go away and it doesn’t. At least not right away…. To some degree, this was the motivation behind the book too, but more so, knowing Jesus is the answer to help calm the storm or to carry you through the storm, and He is the way out of any storm that life may bring. And then, times of refreshing can come from above. Healing and restoration can come, and a new beginning can unfold.

With all of this in mind you get to see the challenges created by bullies, abuse, and the addict unwind. Whether anyone wants to or not, I, you, we, or others cannot ignore this universal tragedy of people hurting people needlessly. Perhaps, they are souls in need of a Savior or in need of deliverance and in need of forgiveness.

Yet, while I was working on the content for this book, I couldn’t just write about the trauma I endured without a solution. More importantly, tragedy followed by forgiveness, leading to overcoming through Jesus Christ. He is the reason why I’m alive today. So many times, I could have been dead (even though I had felt mostly dead inside) or should have been dead, but wasn’t. God had His hand on my life. I know I’m a miracle today. And He is a miracle working God, working amongst us and in us and through us. “And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony…” (Revelation 12:11). In other words, Jesus will empower us to overcome any tragedy, thereby giving us victory and a new testimony to share of His goodness.

Given the pursuit to understand the drug culture past or present, to watch other’s on heroin, to know of other Christians using in secret, besides the many faces of abuse, led me full circle on my quest to finish this book. And I knew I could not deny these stories. I couldn’t just shut my eyes to them either or tune them out or pretend they didn’t happen. They certainly became part of the book on this journey called life. Not to mention the resolve of inner healing and restoration, which is so needed today in the world we live in, and can be wrapped up in this verse, “I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living” (Psalm 27:13). And this too, His goodness, was important to share, along with other key verses. All of it (the good, the bad, and the ugly) combined inside this book, blends into having a grateful heart. To know there is a God who wants to heal, deliver, and restore the tragic, broken places that we have walked through. No matter what we have experienced, God’s love is omnipresent and unfathomable and merciful. This is God loving people right where they are at unconditionally.

In looking back, I would have never, intentionally, set out to cover the topic of drugs as compared to other timely topics. But there was the answer staring me in the face, making it hard to shove aside once I saw my testimony in print. And believe me, I wanted to ignore it and paint a pretty picture instead. That I lived a perfect life in a perfect world, but that is not what happened to me while growing up. Anything short of reality would be a mirage or a facade. This book chronicles from the beginning to the end stages of an addict and abuse and more…. Yet, the stories have different outcomes as you have read. Honestly, I wish each chapter had ended on a positive note, but the truth remains, life is messy and short, it’s not a perfect science and can become complicated, and well, life doesn’t always play fair as in some of these stories. It’s what you do with what you know that counts, and who you turn to.

Above all, the best part with everything and anything that we have ever had to face or walk through, is to know Christ--that really counts--at the end of the day, at the end of one’s life. In 2 Corinthians 2:14 it reads, “Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place.” There is victory over what we’ve gone though, and the Lord gives “beauty for ashes” as it says in Isaiah 61:3. Plus, I just had to add beauty for ashes, because that has been me many times over being refashioned, but the promise applies to you as well!