Celebrate Recovery- Personal Testimony
I’m happy and honored to give my Testimony tonight because the Word says that Testimony is a Holy Weapon, Amen….
In Spiritual Warfare, Testimony is Weapon Amen…
Revelations 12:11 says: “And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony ….”
“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” Acts 1:8
Jesus said in John 3:11 I tell you the truth, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony.
Now, I am a grateful and humbled believer in Jesus Christ who is in recovery that struggles with:
Alcohol
Weed
Meth
Sex Addiction
Porn
CoDependency
PTSD
Trauma and other things that I’m sure I still don’t know about yet. Lol.
Like, I am an addict, addict, addict. Like I’m a holic….of whatever.
I need to be clear that the only thing, the only power that was great enough to bring me to sobriety, not just once but several times was the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
FEAR did not get me sober
RELATIONSHIPS did not get me Sober
CAREER did not get me SOBER
FRIENDSHIPS did not get me sober
JAIL did not get me SOBER
CONSEQUENCES did not get me SOBER
BEING a FATHER did not get me Sober
What got me Sober was the direct intervention of the Holy Spirit and the Heavenly advocacy of Christ Jesus. So let’s get into that.
I’m from a family of 5, I have two siblings both older both of whom struggle with addiction themselves. My dad was a disciplinarian and I was beaten a lot as a child. Like, probably an unreasonable amount but whose to say. My Mom was an alcoholic who drank box wine when my parents were married and moved to the harder stuff when they got divorced.
I started watching porn around age 8 or 9 which was around the first time I “had sex” with my friend's 13 year old sister. I started smoking cigarettes around age 12 when my parents got divorced. and I started drinking around age 14. I want to tell a quick story about that..(Darryl Story)
So, my life, on that front, has almost never not been insane. In fact, one thing that I still occasionally struggle with is that I have spent way more of my life intoxicated in some form or fashion that I have spent it sober. I have spent more time running from reality and my creator that I have spent running towards it. This is work that I am still doing today, right now as we speak.
In High School, I was obsessed with Hip Hop and I was SURE that I was going to make it. Drank all throughout High School and College. First run in with the Law was around 18. And in fact there were two.:
San Jose
Newark
Reasonable degree of success but also a lot of failure.
Of and on the homeless, couldn’t hang on to a relationship. Every partner that I was with wanted me to quit drinking and I didn’t. In fact, my current wife is the only long term partner that I’ve ever had that has not seen me as a drunk.
Like many of us, for a long time I didn’t view my problems as problems. After all, in the music industry getting drunk and high is just par for the course. So, I looked at all like I was just having fun….like I was just being cool, a part of the in crowd. But really, I was hiding. Really I was running. What was I running from??? I was running from the past, the present the future…I was running from feelings and reality, I was running from myself and from God…..I was running from myself and from God.
See, I was one of those people that treated God like an abstract, like a genie, like someone that you talk to only when you want or need something. I didn’t really WANT to get to know him, I just wanted him to do what I wanted him to do. And I certainly didn’t expect him to have any demands or boundaries and characteristics of his own. My God was a God of my own making And so, I really didn’t have any relationship with God at all.
Alcohol and Drugs wreaked havoc in my life. Absolute havoc. And again, I didn’t see it that way. I was a mean drunk who would pick fights and arguments. I was a blackout drinker that would create all sorts of chaos and have no idea what even happened. I could tell you story, after story after story of situations where I woke up with someone angry at me. Ruined birthdays and holidays…always needing that next drink….it was truly a personal hell
As I said, I had been watching porn since I was 8 year old and of course that was an ongoing habit but Meth super charged that habit. A friend of mine used to say, show me a meth addict and I’ll show you their porn collection. I was totally consumed by passions, and by flesh. This coupled with a tendency to overwork that bordered on workaholism led to the destruction of my life and reputation at this time.
I was listening to a Celebrate recovery testimony and I heard someone say….what you’re running to for comfort in one season, can become your prison in the next. In that spirit, I have a difficult time pinpoint what my lowest moment was, because in my sickness and addiction there was low point after low point after lowpoint. I can remember being Blackout drunk on a business trip in Chicago, literally falling on they ground having no idea who I was with or where I was going or how I was getting home. I ended up in Cabrini Green with some of the homies who got me some white castle to sober me up. I can remember being in a hotel room doing Meth with a woman who had just run me over with her car and drinking and smoking all night before a flight for work. I remember smoking meth and masturbating all night in hotel room in San Jose and I finally fell asleep around 6am or something around then. I’m pretty sure OD’ed because I woke up and there was all this white crust on my eyelashes, like the poison had to get out and the manager busted in the door because I wasn’t responding.
I can say that my journey into recovery probably has several starts.
The first time I went into the rooms of the recovery I was 21 and had already been drinking and doing drugs for around 7 years. I was sober for 30 days and at times, I was doing it for a relationship. I wasn’t doing it for me and my higher power was all of the wrong things. It was a partner. It was Hip Hop. It was a bunch of things that were not going to keep me sober.
Eventually I stopped going to meetings, started smoking weed and started drinking again.
The next time I went to recovery was almost 10 years later in Seattle. I went to Cherry Hill Fellowship on 25h and Cherry. I went to one meeting and must have been in pretty bad shape because someone bought me a big book. I went home and bought two boxes of wine and got drunk.
Later, I would quit drinking when I was unable to drink without blacking out drunk, and realized that I was putting myself and others in danger. Having no real home of recovery and no real relationship with Lord I immediately replaced that relationship with Meth and Porn and Masturbation and Sex Addiction. This would continue for almost two years until I cheated on my partner at the time around the same time that my entire digital infrastructure was hacked. Websites, back accounts, email address, etc. were all hit, and this coupled with some other strange events led to my ex girlfriend moving her and her two daughters back up to Seattle.
While all of this was going on….something inside of me, which at this time I’ve come to identify as my first encounter with the Holy Spirit said to me, if you want to understand what’s happening to you….pick up a Bible. So I did. I didn’t understand what I was reading or what it meant yet…and eventually I went up there to fix the relationship but what I found was my relationship with the Lord and Recovery.
If I’m being honest with myself….My relationship with Jesus is my relationship with Recovery. For me, no Jesus, no recovery. Period point blank. Further I will say that in the 7 years that I have been on this walk, when I find myself drifting towards the Lord I inevitably find myself drifting towards my character defects. I am a believer that, at least with myself, there’s really only one choice to make and that choice is who are you going to service. Every other choice flows from that.
Matthew 12:30-He that is not with me is against me.
I am also one of those people who has had to learn through this process that drugs and alcohol, while they were my problem, weren’t really my problem. My problem was that I never learned or was taught how to live life as a sober, sane, emotionally and spiritually mature person. My struggle wasn’t just with physical sobriety, but with emotional sobriety, idol worship and delusion. The program has taught me the power of powerlessness. Corinthians 12:9 “But he said to me ‘My Grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” And of course principle 1 “Blessed are the Poor in Spirit”
I have had an amazing experience with the steps and I will be honest in saying that one of the great joys for me in working the steps has been that each time I do it, I realize something deeper about one or more of the steps.
4th and 5th Step
6th and 7th Step
10th and 11th Step
I’m also very excited about deepening my understanding, practice and discipline around the 8 principles.
Today the Lord continues to restore. He has blessed me with an amazing wife, a career that continues to grow and evolve, family and friends and the ability to overcome struggles in his name and for his glory. I am grateful for recovery for all that it has done for me and millions like me and for those who are wondering….I encourage you to KEEP coming back.
Now I want to close with a poem.
