Testimony (for adults)

Introduce myself

I was born in California but raised here in Lafayette

Went to Mcc, Class of 2020

Day to day consists of work, go to the gym and love on the Lord. Fishing/hiking when I can ; just being outdoors.

Home life: I wouldn’t say I grew up in a traditional Christian household. My dad was the only one in the family that ever talked to me about Jesus, but for a number of different reasons, we didn’t ever attend any church; other than a couple times here and there when I was really young. I am extremely blessed to have always had a good relationship with my parents who are very loving, and always spoiled my siblings and I growing up.

In high school, I was in FCA and Younglife, which some of you might’ve heard of before. I would swear to anyone that I was a Christian, but I had no relationship with Christ nor did I live the lifestyle at all.

I dealt with, and caved into far too many temptations.. As i’m sure you’re all aware, especially those of you in high school; temptation comes at you from all directions in school.

I unfortunately was very weak, and one of my biggest weaknesses.. was drugs.

My first time ever smoking weed was freshman year, but I didn’t really grow a fondness for it until October of my sophomore year. It started as a thing I would do on the weekends with a couple buddies of mine.. and from there it progressed into an almost daily things very quickly.

For a while I was satisfied with the weed, but sometime into my junior year of high school (which for me was arguably the worst year of my life), I began to grow more curious.. The curiosity led me to trying out other drugs such as: mushrooms, and then adderall, LSD, xanax, cocaine, along with other things I cant remember, or never knew the name of. All of these things I did with a total lack of care for my life or for the consequences.

I was known in my high school class as a stoner, and the guy that could get you basically anything you wanted. I dealt with depression and anxiety like crazy, and all my drug use was my coping mechanism. I wanted to numb myself to reality.. and I genuinely convinced myself that my life had zero value. I would remind myself often how insignificant I am. This led to lots of suicidal thoughts, that almost became action.. but I thank God I never went through with it.

We’ve all heard the expression, “show me your friends, and i’ll show you your future.”

The bible actually agrees and confirms this!

In verses like:

Proverbs 13:20 “Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.”

1 Corinthians 15:33 “Do not be deceived: “Bad company ruins good morals.””

But at this point in life, I had never read any of the bible in my own time, and I wish I had.

I clearly did not pick the best people to be hanging around with, but the worst part is, that I found myself quickly becoming the “bad company that ruins good morals.”

I wish I would’ve just opened my bible.. but I didn’t, and moving into my senior year, my habits didn’t necessarily improve.. In fact I just started getting kinda bored of the weed, and decided to incorporate LSD and mushrooms into the mix a lot more. I always tried to be somewhat responsible with my substance abuse, by doing plenty of research on anything I would consume, before consuming it.

I got pretty studied up on LSD and mushrooms, and I used to even advocate that anyone and everyone should try them at least once in their lives.

Now i’m on the complete opposite side of the spectrum, and would not want anyone to ever try them ever, under any circumstances. I was a horrible influence and instigator to all of my peers, and I hate that.

Shortly after “graduating” I had a horrible experience with the LSD, and have not touched it since.

However it did not take long for the enemy to come knocking again, and at my new job at the time (Auto Express) I became reacquainted with my old friend adderall.. What started as a boost to help me on my bad days, quickly became an almost daily habit. It felt like I literally couldn’t live without it. If I tried a day off, I felt absolutely disgusting and was constantly on edge. My productivity would decline dramatically, and the feelings of depression and anxiety would settle in once again. The next day, I would be right back at it.

Now keep in mind that adderall is a drug that is commonly prescribed to kids with ADHD or ADD. It is supposed to help these kids to focus in class. One of the side effects of this drug is an extremely elevated heart rate. I was well aware of this, and would still drink a coffee or energy drink every morning, sky rocketing my heart rate even more.

On top of that.. I was vaping HEAVILY at the time, and one of nicotines side effects, is constricting blood vessels.. So I was essentially getting my heart rate up SUPER high, getting my heart to pump a lot of blood really fast, and then Id hit my vape and cause my blood vessels to constrict.. Im sure you can all see why that could potentially be a problem.

This awful combination eventually led to me getting heart palpitations that would hurt like you couldn’t even imagine. I couldn’t take it anymore and because of the extremely scary circumstances, I quit the vaping and adderall cold turkey. Let me tell ya, withdrawals from substance abuse are not fun.

Well, me being me, It didn’t take long for me to pick up my next addiction, and thank God it was my last season of addiction to drugs, but it didn’t end pretty.

As I mentioned, for a period of time my drug or drugs of choice, was adderall. Really my preference at the time was anything that would get me speeding. I loved feeling all the energy and jittery.

But.. my preference changed after the heart issues; changed into a desire of numbness and feeling relaxed.. in other words, I started seeking “downers”

Anything that would slows down the heart rate, like pain killers or anti depressants.

One of the unfortunate thing about drugs like these is that they can make you extremely forgetful.. and so as a result, this time of my life is kinda hazy when I try to think back on it.

After a year or so of building this new addiction, I had a work friend of mine offer me something I couldn’t refuse.

He asked me if I would be interested in buying some Percocet.

In the world of opioids and hip hop culture, Percocet is the cream of the crop for many. It’s rare and is very strong and addictive.

I hopped on the offer immediately.

Now this friend of mine had already been dealing with substance abuse for years at this point, and I knew he had a much higher tolerance than me.

So when he told me that he was feeling super high off of just half of one of these tiny pills, I knew that I would need an even smaller fraction.

My preference was to break off about 1/5 of the pill, crush it up, and snort it.

This way, I could get the most bang for my buck, and get more high than if I were ingesting it orally. I would also avoid the side effect of nausea this way.

After just a couple months, I had built up my own tolerance.. and was able to handle half of the pill and “feel great.”

Well on January 22nd of 2022 it dawned on me that the fact I had this tolerance was not a good! It dawned on me while I was laying in bed, high off of half of a pill.

I thought to myself that it would be best, If I just finished the remaining half, and then called it quits for a while.

So that’s exactly what I did! I walked over to my stash drawer, pulled it out, crushed it up and snorted it.. I laid in bed and that’s the last thing I remember.

My next waking memory was in the back of an ambulance..

So if you haven’t already guessed it, I did in fact overdose.

And it felt like it was something straight out of a movie. One minute I’m laying in bed, the next, I’m struggling to open my eyes as I see the bright ambulance lights pointing down on me. There’s a man to my left that’s screaming at me “Ithan, Ithan! Stop shaking!!”

My body was in shock and convulsing and I couldn’t control it. They were trying to restrain me so they could inject me with what I needed.

I remember that as I was struggling to open my eyes, with my body shaking, my very first thought was “no freaking way this just happened to me” I knew what had just happened, and my very next thought after the realization, was “I am so freaking sorry God, I am so sorry for being so careless”

Now keep in mind that while all this chaos is going on around me, it felt like my soul was in a very dark place in the back of my head, looking up through my eyes. And all thought it was dark, it was very peaceful and quiet.

The more I gained consciousness, the more I felt my physical body freezing and shaking. It’s very interesting to think back on.

I wasn’t conscious for very long before I passed out again and then finally woke up in the hospital bed hooked up to a bunch of machines.

I remember that the first person I saw in the hospital room was my dad at the foot of the bed with the most scared look on his face. I said something along the lines of “dad you’re here”

And the doctor told my dad that that was a good sign that I didn’t have brain damage from the lack of oxygen for so long.

They did an X-ray on my lungs to see if there was damage, and they found a big black spot which I guess indicated that I know had pneumonia.

Many of the nurses and the doctor didn’t seem to believe me when I had told them that I only took one Percocet. They never told me exactly what they found in my system, but it became obvious to me that I had been consuming laced pills. Very likely that it was fentanyl, considering how much I would become like a zombie, and how numb I felt.

I arrived at the hospital at 11:30 pm, and was back home by 5:30 in the morning. All though I had pneumonia for the following week; I had recovered extremely quickly considering the circumstances, and that is all glory to God.

My dad told me when we got home that I was not breathing for 30 minutes, and was only resuscitated after 4 narcans (side note: fentanyl has a compound within it that prevents narcan from working, if its not administered in high doses) and whatever else they gave me in the ambulance.

Him and I had a very heartfelt and needed conversation. During this conversation, he gave me the details as to what happened, and made sure that I recognize the blessing that this is from God.

Apparently, my older brother is the one who found me. His room and mine are adjacent to each other.. Initially he heard a noise coming from my room that he passed off as snoring. He then realized that it definitely was not just snoring, so he got my dad and they both went in my room and turned on the lights. My dad said that I was turning purple and looked swollen. After trying to resuscitate me and failing, they called 911.

Cops and firefighters came into my room, and I can tell by the way my room looked when I got back; they were definitely trying to find what I had taken. My dad said they put me on the floor and started punching my chest really hard trying to get my heart to restart. My dad didnt get to see too much before another officer pulled him aside and starting asking questions. My dad was downstairs with officers who were being confrontational towards him, because they suspected that we were a junkie family, and that he was trying to hide the truth..

As this is happening, the officers who were in my room with me, wrapped me up in my sheets and carried me out completely dead weight..

My dad, who is like my best friend, had to see me get carried out basically dead, while being questioned. I can’t even begin to imagine what I put him and my brother through..

For those of you wondering my mom did not see me until after I was nearly recovered in the hospital. She was at work, and my dad refrained from calling and freaking her out, so he asked my oldest brother to go pick her up and bring her to the hospital.

At the end of the conversation, I had two main take aways.

First, I needed to thank and pursue the Lord for blessing me in such a huge way.

Secondly.. Every ordinary day, is truly an extraordinary day. Your average day, where you might be bored, have nothing to do, and feel like its been a bad day.. is truly extraordinary. Because there will come a day where tragedy will strike. None of us can really avoid it. And when that tragedy happens, you will realize how much you really just want it to be a boring day.

Count your blessings every day and thank God for the good he’s done in your lives.

Well I wish that was the end of it all.. but it was not. I knew I had to change my ways for the better. I knew the Lord was trying to pursue me, but my flesh is very weak.

Like Jesus says in Matthew 26:41 “Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

Since I knew that what I had taken was fake, I was determined to find out what the real stuff felt like, so I sought it out, and found it. I took it a couple times and was completely underwhelmed. After that I realized my stupidity once again, and I was done for good.

Over the course of the next year, I was looking for many ways to improve myself for the better.. until finally I stumbled upon Church Alive, and a loving community of people I had been needing all my life.

Conclusion:

Despite everything that happened to me, and that I put myself through, I dont regret any of it. It has made me who I am today, and it gives me insight I would not have otherwise.

I love to think about the story of the blind man that Jesus healed with the dirt that he spat in. Jesus was asked by those around him if it was this mans sin, or his parents sin that caused him to be born blind. Jesus says in John 9:3 “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.”

Despite what happened to me, and all though most of it was self inflicted (with some help from the enemy of course); I believe that the works of God have been displayed in me, because of how far i’ve come since then. Just the fact that i’m sitting in front of you alive and well today, is testimony to The Lord’s work in me, and that he has redeemed me, PRAISE JESUS!

And i’ll leave you all with this.. smart people learn from their own mistakes.. wise people learn from others.

Be wise, and dont make the same mistakes that I did. Thank you.