Rebellion to Responsibility is the true story of a successful man who was living the American Dream: He had a wonderful wife, four precious children, a job with a Fortune 500 company, a beautiful two-story colonial home, and even that brand new car. He went from having it all to becoming a widowed, drug-addicted criminal who used every mind-altering substance he could obtain, including drugs, alcohol, and pornography. Acquiring these substances illegally any way that he could, he was under the influence of something (often multiple somethings) 24/7. His life was one of fabrication as he deceived and lied to every single person he knew at that time in his life. After his wife passed away, his children were legally removed from his care as he frequented jails and institutions. His only way out was death, but God had another plan.
Click the links below to listen to a dramatized version of Julian’s testimony produced by Pacific Garden Mission as part of their Unshackled! series.
Read on to learn more about the depth our depravity as human beings; the unimaginable height of God’s sovereignty; how God miraculously intervenes in our lives; and how when God begins a work of salvation in a person He is faithful to complete it.
FIRST THINGS FIRST
Hi. I am a recovered addict named Julian. It is such a great privilege to testify of God’s miraculous intervention and ongoing faithfulness in my life! I want to begin by stating some truths from God’s written Word (the Bible) which are fundamental to understanding the testimony I am about to share. You see we live in a time where many people affirm a certain system of values or beliefs, or even identify themselves with a particular religion… but do they truly embrace what the Bible says about God and mankind and our desperate need for a Savior? I have to ask this because it wasn’t until the past few years that I myself have started to learn the significance of who God is, His authority over my life, and the fact that I owe Him absolute allegiance, obedience, and worship. So, let me start there because who God is and what He has done on behalf of His people informs everything else I am going to share with you today. Let’s walk through this together…
The Bible is clear that there exists only one true God who is Creator and Lord over everything (Genesis 1). As such, God created us (humans) for His glory; to love Him, to serve Him, and to enjoy endless fellowship with Him. And every human creature, therefore, should live for God’s glory. This is fundamental!
Now, God is absolutely perfect; the Bible says that He is holy (Habakkuk 1:13) and He is just (Psalm 11:7). Holy means that He is separated from all that is profane and corrupt (or sinful); God cannot fellowship with sin. Just means that God always acts in a way that is perfectly consistent with who He is. God’s holiness demands that whoever interacts with Him must also be holy (James 1:13; 1 Peter 1:16). And His justice demands that whoever is not holy must be punished by death (Ezekiel 18:4). Well that creates a great dilemma because we humans are sinners; we are morally corrupt and wicked (Romans 3:23; Isaiah 64:6), both by nature and by the deeds that we have committed. And because of our depravity we have failed to glorify God as we should (1 Kings 8:46). All of us, therefore, are guilty and subject to God’s condemnation (Isaiah 59:2; Galatians 3:10). I have to say this because we need to recognize the bad news of our natural human state before we can truly appreciate the good news of the gospel; about God’s great love for us and His plan to redeem us. You probably wouldn’t appreciate someone breaking into your home at night and dragging you out into the street… until you realized your house was on fire.
You see, whereas we humans are corrupt to the core the Bible affirms that God is love (1 John 4:8); He is the essence of what love is and all true love can flow only from Him. So, God in His great love for us, while maintaining His holiness and justice, sent His only begotten son Jesus to be the sacrifice for our sins; to pay that penalty in our place (John 3:16; 1 John 4:9-10). Jesus (who is God) was miraculously conceived by the Holy Spirit (who also is God) and born to a virgin to live among us. Only Jesus lived a perfect, sinless life on this earth, so only He could satisfy the demands of God’s holiness. He was crucified and buried, and His death satisfied the demands of God’s justice (2 Corinthians 5:21). But on the third day He rose again, He ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father.
All of these things enabled God to forgive and save those who place their faith in His son Jesus (Romans 3:26, 10:9), and that my dear friends is the Good News I wish to share with you today. It is not good news because of what I have done to be saved, but because of what God has done and will do on behalf of His people. It is not good news because I was a victim of my circumstances who was then rescued by Christ; it is good news because I was a culprit (a miscreant; an evildoer) that was rescued by Christ. The gospel of Jesus in my life declares the desperate need for divine intervention in an otherwise hopeless world.
MY LIFE BEFORE CHRIST
I was born in 1976 around the city of Munich, Bavaria, which at the time was in West Germany, where my older brother and I lived with our parents in a two-family dwelling and life as we knew it seemed pretty status quo. Well in 1985, my dad accepted a job opportunity in the United States that moved us to Kansas. I still remember my grandma teaching me my first four words of English at the airport, which I would rely on quite heavily that summer: yes, no, oops, and sorry! At the age of nine, I started school in the fourth grade and from the first day I was bullied and picked on by the other students because I seemed different from them. What started as hurtful words in elementary school turned into physical aggression by middle school and resulted in many visits to the Principal’s office. But I need to mention that, even though many things were in fact “done to me” at that time in my life, my own heart was filled with evil thoughts, anger, lying, and just all kinds of blasphemies (Matthew 15:19). It’s so easy to view ourselves as victims of our circumstances while overlooking our own sinful hearts. Let me just tell you, my life before Christ absolutely reflected the inward moral corruption of all mankind. I may not have appeared desperately wicked on the outside, but I can assure you that my heart was inclined towards all kinds of evil and it was deceitful above all things (Jeremiah 17:9).
In my youth I was a schemer and a manipulator (Ecclesiastes 7:29); at school I stole money out of the other kids’ lockers, I listened to music with the most vile lyrics, I looked at pornographic magazines, I watched pornographic videos in my neighbor’s basement, I spent the majority of my time on just plain useless endeavors, I lied and exaggerated, and I had one foul mouth… unbelievably foul (Colossians 3:7-8). Now in my early teens I actually attended church with my mom and was even part of a youth group… but my thoughts, my words, and deeds confirmed that no part of me was subjected to the law of God (Romans 8:7). That’s because I wasn’t seeking after God; I was in total bondage to my own vanity and sin. I was living for myself; doing what I wanted, when I wanted, where I wanted, and with whom I wanted. Well, all that changed in the fall of 1992 when God graciously opened my eyes to the truth.
HOW I CAME TO KNOW CHRIST
When I was 16 and a junior in high school, my best friend and I were invited to a party at Central Missouri State University (CMSU) in Warrensburg. What high school boy in his natural mind would pass up an evening with a bunch of college girls, right? Well when we got to CMSU it turned out to be a bowling party for a bible study group! But hey, we adjusted our expectations and enjoyed ourselves anyway. The evening progressed and when it got late, the guys walked the ladies back to their dorm. Once inside, everyone formed a circle and the fellow who had invited us to the party started to pray. Now I had heard people pray perhaps hundreds of times over the years, but never quite like the way this man prayed: He spoke with Jesus like he actually knew Him personally. This time of prayer impacted us so greatly it was all we could talk about on the hour-long drive home.
The following night I attended an evening of worship at a local church and God encountered me. He opened my eyes to how much He loves me and I just wanted to know Him. I had heard in the past what God says about us being sinners, but for the first time I recognized it in my own life and confessed it to be true… I repented. My friends, repentance is a gift from God (Acts 11:18) and a work of the Holy Spirit in the sinner’s heart that results in a change of mind (1 Thessalonians 1:5, 9). Shortly after that weekend my friend and I converted our garage band to a Christian band; we stopped writing songs that were profane and vile and began writing about the things we were learning through our study of God’s Word. Something else that was divine in all this was that I had just started to get in “good” with the not-so-good crowds at my school; being accepted by them and invited to do things with them… what providential timing the Lord has!
MY LIFE AFTER COMING TO CHRIST
After coming to Christ, I got involved in church and spent much of my free time hanging out with adult friends from there instead of my high school friends. I graduated high school in 1994, attended junior college for a year, then in ‘95 I moved to Pennsylvania to attend Bible school; which was a time that the Lord used to remove a seriously false doctrine from my life. You see the denomination of which I was a member taught that you could lose your salvation. Well in the summer of 1996 I took a Doctrines and Distinctions class at the college and really began to wrestle with the lie that I could somehow “undo” this great work of God. The Lord used this experience to give me an assurance that salvation is not the result of my works but of the supernatural, recreating work of God in my heart, making me a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). I realized that summer that there was nothing I could do to keep myself saved or to get myself unsaved; because my salvation was not the result of my own virtue or merit; it was not as a result of my work for God but the result of His great work for me through His son Jesus Christ (Galatians 2:16).
“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).
The revelation that Jesus Christ being my Savior means that He is my only righteousness with God dramatically changed my view of God! Later that summer I left that college and denomination, moving back to Kansas where I would meet my first wife. In February of 1998 I married Kelly at the age of 21 (she was 19) and we started a family right away. Nine months later our first daughter, Heidi, was born and our first son, Levi, followed in 2000. In the summer of 2002 while Kelly was pregnant with our second son, Daniel, we moved to Wichita to be closer to her family who had moved two years prior and my Kansas City-based company allowed me to work from home. We quickly made new friends and got involved in a local church. Over the next few years we served there in various capacities including the children’s ministry and leading the Young Adult Fellowship; I also served as an usher, taught Sunday School, served on the Deacon board, the pulpit committee, and worked part-time as the Church Administrator. Our second daughter, Claire, was born in 2004 and became ill for several years at around six months of age. Then in late 2006 my company announced that all remote employees were being relocated back to their world headquarters in Kansas City. After much prayer and no other jobs panning out in Wichita, we moved back to Kansas City in the summer of 2007. There was a great sense of loss leaving our family, friends, and church. And once we were moved back to Kansas City, we worked hard to recreate the same life we had left in Wichita. Without realizing it, we were rejecting God’s providence, will, and circumstances for our lives.
YEARS OF ADDICTION
Then, in the summer of 2007, I became addicted to sleeping and pain medication. I had been on sleeping medication several years prior to then but I wasn’t abusing it yet. Then I was prescribed narcotics because of stress-related upper back pain that started before the move. Well late that summer I started abusing those medications, taking them in greater quantities than prescribed. I didn’t realize it, but I was using these meds to cope with this major life change, and my spiritual life became numb. Kelly also grew increasingly depressed about the place where God had us; neither of us trusted His sovereignty. We adamantly resisted this change on the inside while struggling to duplicate the life we left on the outside.
Then in 2009 Kelly started to get sick. One evening as we were getting ready for bed, we noticed that she had these tiny purple discolorations all over her legs and what looked like blood blisters inside her mouth – they seemed to appear from nowhere. A few emergency room visits later she was diagnosed with Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura, which is a bleeding disorder of unknown cause (hence the label idiopathic) where the immune system tells the spleen to destroy platelets (or thrombocytes), which are necessary for normal blood clotting, causing blood vessels to burst and appear as these purple discolorations on the skin (i.e. purpura, or petechia). Over the next few months Kelly underwent various transfusions in an attempt to get the platelet count stabilized – and after multiple recurrences they removed her spleen. After the splenectomy, her platelet count shot through the roof, requiring the use of blood thinners. High doses of intravenous (IV) steroids during those months caused Avascular Necrosis (AVN) in her joints. AVN is the death of bone tissue due to a lack of blood supply. Kelly’s blood stopped flowing into the bone of several of her joints, after which the bone started to die and get brittle to the point where her right hip joint actually collapsed. This, unfortunately, was not diagnosed until Kelly’s skeleton, according to doctors, looked like that of an 80-year old woman with osteoporosis. I remember her telling me of the deep internal pain she would feel in her legs, like a car driving over them again and again, crushing them. We spent months visiting doctors and frequenting ERs due to the increasing pain. By the time they discovered that she had AVN, we were both addicted to pain medication, taking more medication than prescribed and frequently sharing with each other. I was so far gone that I started altering prescriptions and getting in trouble with the law. Once Kelly was officially diagnosed doctors said that she needed hip and knee replacements. Well we ended up finding a doctor who could repair the hip without actually replacing it, so he performed the right hip surgery first since it had already collapsed. About five weeks after the surgery, a blood clot had developed and caused a double-pulmonary embolism. And Kelly went to be with the Lord on June 2, 2010 at the age of 31.
In the weeks to follow I started to wallow in self-pity. I had this constant feeling that I was a victim of my circumstances. I thought “the legal system” was out to get me (as if they had no cause for suspicion). I thought my situation was unique and nobody understood exactly what I was going through. It was just all about me, to where I put on this persona of a strong fighter… you know, glorying in that… I would blast songs like “It’s My Life” and it’s now or never so “Don’t Stop Believing” because it should be “Anyway I Want It” and “I’m Not Gonna Take It” anymore… those were my “fight songs” if you will; trying to take back my life to prove that I’m right and in my own power I can be strong and I don’t really care what anybody else believes about me because… it was all about me. It was absolutely ridiculous because I wasn’t strong at all; I was delusional and foolish; refusing to surrender to God. Let me tell you something: resistance to God’s providence and will for our lives… that is not strength… it’s stupid!
After Kelly’s passing I resigned a 12-year career with a Fortune 500 company thinking I should help the kids grieve. That was my excuse, but I had also gone from the top 5% of the company to the bottom 15% due to my increasing inability to function at work; and my Vice President told me that I was about to be managed out. In October of 2010 I was arrested for driving under the influence of narcotics with my four young children in the car, and they experienced their first experience in foster care. I should mention that they went to foster care because I was trying to keep my addiction a secret from my family (as if they didn’t already know). Some of them lived only a few miles from my house and would have readily taken them, but again, I was living a life of deception and my judgment couldn’t have been more clouded. The following month some of my family members and friends attempted an intervention after which I attended my first drug treatment program – let me say a few things about that… I attended the rehab to appease them not because I admitted to having a problem with addiction. But even though I falsely complied with their request at the time, today I have the utmost respect for those individuals for caring enough to try and get me the help I so desperately needed.
Well, I learned a lot about addiction in the rehab and by late 2010 I became a cross-addict, supplementing my use of narcotics with alcohol, any kind of mind-altering pill I could get my hands on (tranquilizers, hypnotics, muscle relaxers, etc.); and I also became heavily addicted to pornography. 2011 consisted of increased drug and alcohol use, leaving my memory of this year questionable to say the least. I had literally dozens of relationships with doctors and pharmacies in the area, maintaining an electronic database to keep track of when and where each script could be refilled. By mid-2011 I was ordering mass quantities of prescription medication from overseas and Mexico. I started snorting narcotic pain medications and overdosed at least twice. Throughout 2011 I was in and out of drug treatment programs, mental health wards, and psychiatric hospitals. Let me just say here that no psychological therapy is able address the deepest problem of the human race – sin. That year my four young children were legally removed from my care because of my neglect and absentmindedness.
By early 2012 I was sitting in a bathtub with a butcher knife at my wrist. I had lost all hope and I couldn’t live with myself any longer: My entire life was a lie, I was ashamed, and my hope was in my own ability to overcome instead of Jesus who had already overcome. My focus was entirely on myself: self-preservation; self-hatred; self-destruction; just no self-control. I quenched the Holy Spirit’s work in my life, resisting what was good, embracing every kind of evil (1 Thessalonians 5:19-22) and listening only to “the accuser of the brethren” (Revelation 12:10). At a time when I was trying to take my life into my own hands one final time, God already knew and had an intervention planned… you see several months prior I had the names of my four children tattooed on my wrists and I simply couldn’t slice through them.
By January of 2012 I was escorted out of my place of employment for being intoxicated at work. Sometime that month I went to another rehab and met a young woman with whom I had sex. Early February I fled the state in despair, hoping to get “cleaned up” at my parent’s house some 800 miles away. About four hours into this trip I was again arrested for driving under the influence and spent the night in jail. While incarcerated, I went through withdrawal and made two attempts on my life. I was still convinced that my children would be better off without me so I popped the lenses out of my eye glasses and formed the metal frame into a spear. Twice I attempted to gouge myself through the eye in hopes of reaching the brain, but God again intervened and caused me to miss. I was released the next day and sobered up enough to drive back and turn myself in. Later that afternoon when I was booked in the county jail, I actually felt safe from myself for the first time in years. Three months later I finally acknowledged that I was an alcoholic and an addict and that this was a real problem. So, to summarize my addictive years at a very high level (as best as I can remember):
I was addicted to every mind-altering substance I could obtain, including pornography. I was arrested multiple times. I’ve been to five drug rehabilitation treatment programs. I have overdosed at least twice. I have planned or made multiple attempts on my life. I have driven under the influence drugs or alcohol and put lives at risk hundreds of times, if not more. I was under the influence of something (often multiple somethings) 24 hours a day, 7 days per week. I wrecked over a dozen vehicles between the years of 2009 and 2012 alone. My four precious children were legally removed from my custody. I stole medication from my sick wife, from family members, and even total strangers. I obtained prescriptions illegally any way that I could. I fornicated both physically and emotionally. I wasted my God-given time and money on totally useless and vain endeavors. And I deceived and lied to every single person I knew at that time in my life. I would lie more than any human being I’ve ever known; simply everything in my life was a fabrication. You know you’re in bondage when someone asks you a simple question and you can’t even answer without exaggerating the truth in some way.
THE ROOT OF ADDICTION AND THE GREAT LOVE OF GOD
My life before Christ reflected the inward moral corruption of mankind; my struggle with addiction after knowing Christ reflected it outwardly. I’ve often asked myself, “How did I get to this point?” How can someone who regularly reads the Bible, prays, serves others – in essence strives to live out the “Christian life” – How does something like this happen to somebody like that? I still don’t have all of the answers, but I am learning this:
- I was not rooted in sound doctrine. Although I was reading my Bible consistently, I was seeking answers that I wanted and not the truth. Ever since the move in 2007 I didn’t like the way my life was, so I was trying to find assurance or promises that God was going to fix or at least improve it in some way… it was all about me.
- I was not abiding in Christ at that time of my life. I was not focusing on the character of God through His written Word and conforming my will to His. So, my “identity” was not in the person of Jesus Christ but rather in my various roles in life: Husband, father, provider, Deacon, Sunday School teacher, and so on… it was all vanity. You know, the more you give yourself to pride the more you give yourself over to delusion… and you start to lie to yourself (often without even realizing it at first). So as God slowly started removing those roles from my life, instead of setting my mind on Him, I tried to recreate those roles to maintain my false sense of self-worth. But even when His children fall into grievous sin for a time, there is a promise!
- “…whom the Lord loves He chastens” (Hebrews 12:6). Now, there are a number of things one can learn about God’s discipline of His children. His discipline in our lives is evidence that we are His children. Hebrews 12:3-11 is a great testimony of this:
“3 For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls. 4 You have not yet resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin. 5 And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons: “My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him; 6 For whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives. 7 If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? 8 But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. 9 Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? 10 For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. 11 Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”
Verse 10 says that God’s goal for our present lives is to share in His holiness; to become holy as He is holy. Verse 11 says, “Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” My friends, this is how we can “count it all joy when [we] fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of [our] faith produces patience” and patience must finish its work “that [we] may be mature and complete, lacking nothing” (James 1:2-4). Chastening is an expression of God’s love to mature us and mold us into the image of His Son. Even as Christians we will continue to have struggles with sin, and we may even fall into grievous sin for a time like I did, but God will use it is to correct us and to teach us reverence for Him… because of His great love for us! I can personally testify that His discipline can be terribly painful, but afterwards it yields the fruit of greater conformity to Christ for those who surrender to Him.
God allowed addiction in my life to remove many strongholds that I didn’t even know were there. Whereas I still struggle with feelings of shame and hatred for what I did, I have a whole new understanding of my sinfulness and guilt before a holy and righteous God. And my faith has been assured that, what God has promised He is able to and will perform… and He will do so exceedingly and abundantly above all that we ask or think. Check this out!
God restored my children unto me after they were legally removed from my care. He blessed me with a new wife who is far beyond anything I could have imagined. He provided a job with which to support my family on a single income and give to others. He is using my ugly “mess” to proclaim His gospel “message” into the lives of other men who are struggling with various addictions.
God has given me a renewed love for Himself; a desire to know Him intimately and intentionally. I desperately want to know more about Him, about His character and attributes. He has become my only source of comfort and true satisfaction, and I just thirst for Him. I certainly still struggle with sin and to love Him with all of my heart, soul, mind, and strength, but my desire is to know Him and to please and to glorify Him above anything else.
He’s given me a renewed prayer life. The focus of my prayer life has shifted from “when I need or want something” to regular communion with Him. And not only thanking Him when things go my way, but actually adoring Him simply for who He is (without reference to my circumstances). And I want His Word “in my heart like a burning fire shut up in my bones” as the prophet Jeremiah wrote, to where I am “weary of holding it back” and I simply cannot (20:9).
Friends, my life is no longer about who I am and what I’ve done and what I will achieve. It’s about who God is, and was, and forever shall be (Revelation 1:8). I still have so much learning and growing to do, but what a great encouragement it is that “all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28) and that “He who has begun a good work” in me “will complete it” (Philippians 1:6).
And “for this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant us all, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith; that we, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that we may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” (Ephesians 3:14-21)
Pursue Him boldly. Pursue Him relentlessly. Because nothing, absolutely nothing will ever satisfy you except Jesus Christ.
For more testimony of God’s goodness, please select Speaking from the Rebellion to Responsibility menu above.