A Testimony of My Father

Growing up in a strong Christian home I was to some what of an extent sheltered. I was brought up to say no to drugs, no to sex (that is until married), no to alcohol, bars and anything that had to do with “evilness” in the churches eyes. My father and mother have been involved in ministry for over 25 years and now they are pastors of a church in the southwest. Before my father got involved in church or should I say walking the righteous path, he wasn’t so holy to say the least.

My Dad got into drugs and alcohol at a very young age. He is a great musician and has been playing the saxophone since he was six years old. So, by the time he was thirteen, he was sneaking out of the house at night time to go play music with his buddies. At a very young age, because of his talent and who he knew at the time, he was able to play in bars and night clubs until very late at night. He began to get involved with cocaine at a very young age, as well as marijuana and alcohol. My father was able to go places and do lots of things because of the connections he was making. He played in many different bands all throughout Detroit, Michigan and ended up recording with quite a few Motown recording artist’s such as BB King, Janis Joplin, The Temptations etc…

By the age of nineteen he was off to Las Vegas Nevada to begin a new life of fun, partying, and music. His Drug habits seemed to have gotten much worse. With a four thousand dollar a week cocaine habit his life was only headed one way, and that was towards destruction. I asked him if he ever considered drug rehab back then, and he said that he was too busy to ever get treatment and that drugs were a part of his life and somehow they intertwined with the whole musician/Las Vegas lifestyle. My father met and fell in love with my mother in Vegas.

During that time, she was performing in a couple of all-girl bands. So music was definitely what they had in common. My mother was never in to the whole drug thing however, she did consider herself to be an alcoholic. They got married and began to perform together. Discreetly, my dad was hiding the whole cocaine addiction from her and somehow managed to stay an addict until four years after I was born. I believe that if my mother knew about it then she would’ve encouraged my father to seek out a local drug treatment center. After finally realizing that my dad had a drug problem, she stressed the urgency of him getting addiction treatment.

Then, in 1979 it happened, there my father was on his death bed from what appeared to be a drug overdose. They removed four feet of his intestines and his esophagus was completely ripped in half. Drugs had eaten away so much of his insides that the doctors said that he only had a few days to live and that not even drug detox would save him. He claims that the next morning he saw a light in his hospital bedroom window and he heard the voice of God tell him to give up drugs and surrender his life to him, and from that day forward, my father did a complete 180 and changed his life around and his life was sparred.

He has been clean for almost 30 years now. This experience definitely sobered up my mother being alcohol free for almost 30 years as well. Today they are very much involved in ministry and in music, Drug and alcohol free. It’s comforting to know that they can have a long healthy life a head of them without fear of addiction. Now I know why my parents wanted to protect me from everything. So I wouldn’t fall into the path of a self destructing behavior.