I was born on 28 April 1971, in Hartswater*. My mother was and is a born again Christian and my father was a heavy drinker. They were both school teachers and I lacked nothing as far as money and material possessions went. My mother brought me up in the ways of the Lord as she knew best.
At the age of six I gave my heart to the Lord because that was what I wanted and I also wanted to please my mother. Shortly after this I was introduced to pornography by my friend and neighbour (also my age), who had ‘found’ his father’s porn magazines in his ‘locked’ briefcase. This changed my life because I liked what I saw and soon he and I were paging through these books on a regular basis, and as small as we were we got ‘turned on’ by these images. Very soon we were showing our other friends what we were looking at secretly. I was attending Sunday School and church every Sunday, but had become quite sly and was influencing the other friends with all that I was looking at in those porn magazines. I was convincing both girls and boys to try out these ‘porn scenes’.
Despite going to Bible Class every Saturday and church every Sunday, by the time I was 14 I had started smoking cigarettes and was having the occasional beer, which I would steal from my father’s secret stash in the garage. Even though I got money when I asked for it, I also started stealing money from my father’s jackets (when he was drunk), my mother’s purse and even the church collection as my mother was the treasurer of the church. I soon got caught out and I had to pay the money back.
I was also an avid reader and through this I discovered a pill called Reactivan which was prescribed for lethargy. I lied to the doctor saying that I had trouble staying awake to study and asked for this pill to be prescribed and that was the first pharmaceutical drug I got hooked on. By the time I reached 17 I had tried marijuana a few times and I was also living a secret immoral life.
At the age of 18 I had my first line of cocaine in Durban.* It was not so freely available in Kimberley back then, so every holiday I was in Johannesburg and using cocaine. The rest of the time I was taking Reactivan, painkillers, cigarettes, marijuana, poppers, alcohol and also living a very immoral lifestyle, having sex with whoever was willing.
In 1993, I qualified as a teacher. However, while studying, every holiday I was in Durban* living a life of ‘sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll’. At the end of 1995 I moved to Johannesburg and my drug abuse and immorality became worse because now I also started on LSD, ecstasy and rock cocaine. Soon I was addicted to rock cocaine and had sold most of my possessions to support my habit. In 1998 I tried to take my own life by cutting my wrists and ended up in hospital, tied to a bed for two days. I booked myself into a rehab for two months, but on the same day that I was released I smoked rocks again.
For the next few years I was using all types of drugs and being sexually immoral in the worst way. Many things happened to me – I got stabbed, attacked, robbed and hi-jacked – every time when I was high on some or other substance. I stopped at death’s door a few times, but God was so merciful to me that he spared me again and again. In March 2002 I decided to move back to Kimberley to help look after my 98 year old granny. Since April 2002 I went off all hard drugs, only smoking cigarettes, marijuana and drinking alcohol until June 2004 when I started smoking rock cocaine again. This carried on and got worse until in February 2008 when I attempted to take my life again by swallowing approximately 150 pills. While my stomach was being pumped, my heart stopped for a few seconds, but again God showed me mercy and I was shocked back to life.
I stopped taking hard drugs again for the next two years, except cigarettes, marijuana and alcohol but my immorality and porn addiction grew worse. In 2010, I went back to teaching and also started smoking rocks again. That year I smoked about R100 000 worth of rock cocaine. In 2011 I also started smoking crystal methamphetamine (Tik) and mandrax (buttons).
Many times I wanted to stop but it was as if I was possessed by a demon and could not get myself to stop doing drugs or living immorally. I became more and more depressed and had driven my family further away from me. Bad things were happening to me all the time and I started stealing and selling things to support my habit, even though I was earning a salary of R13 000.00 a month. In October 2013 I decided that I was once again going to attempt to take my life, because the best thing would be if I was off this earth.
God had other plans for me and through my mother, a few days before Christmas, I read a letter in the Joy magazine of someone who had received help with the Concerned Community. On 24 December 2013, I arrived at their premises and I felt like the prodigal son returning home. That night I gave my heart to the Lord again and have not been sorry, but feel like I can shout from the mountains how good, great and merciful our Lord is.
What has been most liberating for me was the confessing of my sins, according to James 5v16. God has and is still very faithful, revealing to me what it is that I need to confess. It is of the utmost importance that all our sins are brought to the Lord and into the open. I am so grateful that God has shown me so much mercy, that I was given another chance. No sin is too big for God to forgive! He also says in His word that He will remove our sins as far as the east is from the west. Jesus is the answer for the world and He will never forsake or leave us.
* Places, names and identifying details of individuals have been changed to protect their privacy.
