I’m 31 years old and grew up in Oxford never knowing my dad. When I was little, I was secretly abused and became very angry. This led to me being taken into care when I was 11 years old because my mum couldn’t cope with me. For the five years I was in care homes, I was bullied and my anger grew worse and worse. I grew to be a big guy (6 foot 6 inches, 20 plus stone) and so started to fight back.
When I reached 16, I left care. For the next 4 years, my life became a blur because of all the drugs I was taking. I left Oxford and moved to London when I was 20 and started working for Dominos Pizzas. I was still doing drugs. The job was so stressful to me that I eventually quit and started using my strength in the furniture delivery business. I met a girl called Corrine on a blind date and we moved in together.
For 3 years I moved furniture and then decided to use my strength and aggression to my advantage—I went into the pub trade. I could handle myself and soon made my mark, mainly on other people. I was recruited by some gang-sters to run their pubs, and so my life was full of violence, alcohol, drugs and gambling.
Life took a big turn for the better when my daughter was born in Tooting in 2004. I wanted a better life for her so we moved back to Oxford. My mum let all three of us stay with her for a while. I came off drugs but Corrine contin-ued on Class A drugs and she left me and our daughter. My mum had been going along to a church group and per-suaded me to go with her one Sunday. I’d been to a local church a couple of times a while before because I knew my life was a mess and I was searching for answers and help. The local Anglican church I’d been to was strange—full of old people talking in ways I didn’t understand and laughing at “in jokes” which I didn’t get. Mum took me to her church—it was totally different. I’d never been to anything like it before. It was friendly and felt like a family—although at the time I did think they were a bit nutty. Everyone talked to me and made me feel welcome.
After a few weeks, I was invited to a mid-week church group like the one my mum attended. It was a group of blokes who had dinner together, watched DVDs about God and talked. It was great! Suddenly it all began to make sense to me and in December 2004 I invited one of the Christians in the group round to my mum’s house. We talked and he asked me if I wanted God in my life. I thought to myself that every time things went wrong I asked God for help so I’d be better off with him in my life for good. We prayed and then I felt God’s presence filling the room and me. Amazing!
In October 2006, I joined the Celebrate Recovery course at The King’s Centre. We were encouraged to draw up a ‘timeline’ of our lives with the highs as well as the lows. Things began to feel really raw as I began to recognise the issues I needed to face. But the men’s small group I was in was great and we developed a trusting relationship to-gether. So I was able to be open and receive their support.
I realised that there were a lot of people I needed to forgive and that was the key to me finding healing and release from my past.
All the people on Celebrate Recovery became like family to me rather than a load of strangers. That helped me to make progress and now I’ve got friends across the county, too!
Life has just got better and better. After lots of support and prayer from the church, I won my custody battle for my daughter. We now have our own house amongst lots of other people in the church, I’m a lot less angry and I’ve got a great permanent job with no violence. God has restored my relationship with my mum. My life is completely differ-ent – church is my family and every day God saves me a bit more. If I hadn’t become a Christian I’d probably be dead or in prison right now.