Faith - believing in something that you cannot see or hear

Here are some ideas on faith that Bobby wanted to share.

Bobby says:
“Even though you can’t see it, feel it, taste it, touch it or hold it, doesn’t mean its not there. For me, with everything that’s going on, its difficult to handle my faith because I have been shot down by a lot of doctors. I feel low. Nobody wants to go through something like this. I know that people can get shot down in any number of ways, but nobody thinks about how I feel when it happens.
Greed, power, being the man, none of that matters. I see some people want to have another run at something, be it drugs, drink, crime, I am not a part of that anymore. There are so many things that I want to do, I wish I did not wait so long to do them. I think I did wait too long.

When I was in jail, one of my cell mates said, "Never sleep with your head towards the bars." I said, "Why?" He said, "Cause if they don’t like you they will cut your throat." That environment was totally new to me, I had to re-learn how to survive, how to have faith, how to be ruthless, how to keep my mouth shut and not be nosy. When I was sentenced to all that time, I was shocked. I was seriously shocked. When I first got there I was in single cell, the “hold” as they call it. There was nothing in it, you couldn’t have any visitors, no telephone, no nothing really. And my Mom sent me some books, they were the only ones I was allowed to have. They were stories about people turning their lives around using faith. I think that was important at that moment, for me to read about that.

The only job another convict in jail has is to break you down, to let you know that he is there, and if he has to kill you he will kill you. It was very hard to adjust to that scene so I made it a point to get on my hands and knees and pray morning noon and night. I remember my mom telling me something that stuck with me, she said, keep the faith. So I did. I kept praying to God, praying to God. It was terrible.

So Brad, if your kids ever screw up, if you have to, be tough with them. Especially if they don’t want to listen. Because you are here to take care of yourself, your kids, your wife. I look at you and say, I think you are doing what God wants you to do. I think God and Jesus have a lot on their plate, if they say, ok Brad, I am going to give you kids, then there has to be a reason for that. To have the opportunity to give those kids what they deserve, I think you are entitled to that.”

Conversation with Bobby

The format of this entry is a conversation that Bobby and I recently had. I recorded it with his consent and decided that rather than summarize what we talked about, I would just post the transcript. Hopefully this way you can see how the conversation flowed and what was on Bobby's mind. The questions are mine and I have edited the paragraphs slightly to make it easier to read. So while the content is not verbatim, it is a very close copy of the spoken words.

As you will see, Bobby has a lot of regret about his past of substance abuse. He is worried about the physical damage, but perhaps more importantly, the spiritual damage. It is a subject that comes up often when we get together and I hoped to push him towards dealing with his guilt rather than let it just dominate his every thought.

Here is our conversation:

Bobby: When it comes to using, there is a voice in my head that says, Bobby, go ahead and do this, you’ll be able to work it out. And then another one will chime in and say, don’t get high, don’t use drugs, don’t take that money, don’t call in sick for work. Well lots of times I ended up listening to the negative side. And I felt bad! You feel bad. Because you went ahead and did that drug, or spent money you weren’t supposed to, or called in sick for work, and here you are now on your knees, praying to God and hoping that you can get by or get through the consequences.

Q: Do you think God is listening?

A: I think God is always listening. I think God doesn’t make the decisions. I think he lets you make the decisions and if you make the wrong decision he will let you know the next day. He will put thoughts in your head, like: I hope they don’t test me, lets hope they don’t check me for drugs.

If you make the decisions and they are poor decisions, all of a sudden you regret them. The reason you regret them is because you screwed up. You decided to walk on the dark, evil side. You decided to go in the wrong direction. If I would just have heeded those words, I would have had far fewer problems. I wouldn’t have had to worry, thinking hey, I did this coke, or heroine, I called in sick, and didn’t exercise because I had other things going on. Or maybe I slept and wasted the whole next day because I decided that drinking was more important. Unacceptable! You are the one that’s regretting it now, and you're hating yourself and thinking to yourself, oh my gosh, I’ve got to call in, hopefully I still have a job. And the entire time you are praying to God! You are praying to God about a mistake that you made and deep down inside you knew was wrong. You already knew it was wrong. And you choose to not go in the right direction. If you had gone to work, or not used drugs, or listened to your doctors, you wouldn’t be regretting it, you wouldn’t be pulling your hair out, or feeling depressed or pressured.

Q: Do you think God is going to forgive you for these things, Bobby?

A: I think he knows what I have done. Whether he forgives me or not, it is really up to me, Brad. I really think that he thinks it’s up to me. I think that God gave me the opportunity and gives me a chance to redeem myself. He can help me do what I am doing now. Even so.....I knew what was going to happen, I knew what was in store.

Q: And you think he is going to look at that and not forgive you because you knew what was in store and you did it anyway?

A: I don’t know if he will forgive me or not, I am the one who has to ask for forgiveness. I do know that the wager of sin is death, plain and simple.

Q: Do you forgive yourself?

A: I think I forgive myself. I think I just let myself down because I was better than that. Crack? Crack is such a dirty, nasty drug. Heroine has been around for ages, we just figured out a way to make it more potent. If we were true Christians, or maybe if we weren’t Christians but we had strong minds, we would think to ourselves: we can do better than this. Why would we put this crap in our bodies? Our bodies are supposed to be our temples. We are supposed to be strong! We are supposed to be good to ourselves. Yet here we are doing stupid crap. We decide to take injections, use a needle and use our veins as a racetrack. Its disgusting. I look at myself and say that its not that I won’t forgive myself, but I need to choose to spend my money on good things, instead of taking the money and spending it on crack.

When you came and saw me in the hospital eight months ago and I was out of it, they had to watch me because I was in such bad shape. I told you about the seizures I had. Well, that was the crack. Crack was one of the reasons why I was in there, it was why I was nodding out and why I OD’d. I was taking too much of my medication and mixing it with crack.

Q:So you weren’t there because of cocaine?

A: Crack is a form of cocaine.

Q:When you went into the hospital that time how did you do the crack, did you smoke it?

A: I smoked it, I relapsed. Since that time, February, I haven’t done anything or involved myself in anything like that. Actually, I OD’d on a combination of medication, heroine and crack.

Q: All three? There was the prescription dilaudid, the crack and the heroine?

A: Yes.

Q: Intravenous heroine?

A: Yeah. It was dirty heroine, it wasn’t that good, you could tell. What I am getting at is that I knew what the consequences were. And in my heart I knew I wanted to change but I was having a hard time converting over because I had been that way for so long. I can remember going to meetings and acting like I was sober. I was faking, playing both sides of the fence. You can’t play both sides of the fence or you are going to fall off. It just doesn’t work. Bottom line is this, you cannot live your life like that, sooner or later, you are going to fall off on the wrong side, you are going to get busted or caught and you are going to do some serious damage.

Q: So here we are today, that was 8-9 months ago, tomorrow will be here in a few hours, and then there will be a day after that and a day after that, how are you going to live the future?

A: That’s why I have been praying to God asking him to let me stay around. I feel I owe him because he has allowed me to live for so long and for the damage that I have done. I want him to let me do his work for him, do some work for him. Whether he lets me do that or not is up to him.

Q: But that doesn’t change your intention, right? I think its important to recognize your regret, but I don’t know that the way that you are thinking about it is productive, I think you are letting it overwhelm you and if all you think is, well I messed up, and that is all there is, then how are you going to get anything done?

A: That’s what I’m trying to overcome, that’s why I want to see Father Rob or Anne, or a social worker, or why I am talking to you. I don’t want to live with any more regrets. I don’t know where to start except to say I know the damage I have done. Plain and simple.

Q: But you know there is a lot of potential to do some good too.

A: I have every intention of doing that when I get out of here. I just feel that I have to do something for God, and I want to. And this is before he calls for me, before he takes me. You can get lucky like that preacher did in that book “90 Minutes in Heaven” but I just feel like I have things to do, and I want to do them. I am excited about it. I used to not get excited about Christmas or Thanksgiving. I told my mom before I came in here that I want to go to New York to see family this thanksgiving. I want to go with her and my brother to this play on Christmas. I want to do that with them, I just want to do family things. I really don’t think I have that much longer to live, Brad, but what time I have I want to do what I have to do for God and carry my weight because I sure as heck didn’t help God out.

Q: Pulling your weight also means getting up and doing some exercise, eating right, stuff like that?

A: Yup, but I have got to do some work. He’s not going to do it. If he decides to let me help him spread his word then maybe he’ll let me stay, maybe he won’t call for me right away. But I am feeling guilty and I don’t want to feel like this anymore. I want to do what I have to do, get out of here, live whatever life I have left and hopefully that will be a good amount.

Q: why don’t you talk about that with Anne tomorrow?

A: I will. If I can get through to one person - anybody - and they read about me and try to contact me, then I did my job, I feel I have connected with somebody. That’s what this is all about.

Introduction

Welcome and thank you for visiting!

I have known Bobby for almost a year now. We have been talking about ways to share his story and a blog seemed like a good way to not only put his thoughts and experiences down in writing, but also connect with other people who have had similar experiences. Bobby tells me that he wants good things to come out of his life and one way to make that happen is to talk about his challenges, mistakes or successes in order to give others some insight into their own lives. Of course, that goes both ways, and he would very much like to hear about your stories, that they might impact him constructively.

So, by way of introduction, here is Bobby in his own words:
"My name is Bobby and this is my blog. This is how my life came about. The experience and the mistakes. The consequences that I have endured and what I have to do now to turn it around. The bottom line is this, I have made a lot of mistakes, and I do know one thing, that with everything that I have done I know that if anybody reads this, listens to this, hears this that I am living proof that you are able to change your life if you give yourself a chance. Because if you don't, you just may die."

Bobby has a lot on his plate. And that's understating it. When he was in his teens, his kidney's were found to be poly cystic. He got his first transplant at 18, his second at 30. Seven years later, last February, Bobby's kidney stopped working and he has been on dialysis three times a week, three and half hours at a time since then. He has other ailments, the most severe of which are gout, diabetes, and peripheral artery disease. He takes 13 kinds of medication including drugs to control the constant, chronic pain.

There is more to Bobby's story than his medical history. One of the main reasons he wanted to write this blog was to talk about his history of substance abuse. This is also an affliction that hit Bobby in his teens. First he was a 13 year old trying marijuana, forcing himself to drink beer (though he hated the taste), in order to fit in with the kids around him. Then he was 16 with a cocaine and LSD habit. Three years later he was sentenced to three years in jail and one year of in-house rehab for intent to distribute LSD and probation violation. As a result of the drug use he has lost many battles but Bobby continues to wage war on the urge to use and over the last year has won, he is clean. He knows he’ll never totally win the war against drug abuse, but he thinks he just may be able to get through to someone who can win that war. Maybe he can help that person walk away from it early on. When he can, he stays active with church, NA and AA groups. He says, “I am living proof that there is a God. And I can tell you, there definitely is a hell. I have seen marijuana to opiates to cocaine, just pure evil that makes harsh things happen. There has to be a heaven, but you have to realize that you can’t do it by yourself. Bottom line, this is a war. It's not just about drugs and alcohol, its about ourselves. Reprogramming our minds and doing something different. We need to realize that we can get by without drugs or alcohol or sexual urges or using violence to solve problems. When we don't realize that, those times are when we allow ourselves to be influenced by the devil. That’s when we are in denial. The definition of DENIAL is: Don’t Even kNow I Am Lying.

If you know of others going through an addiction to drugs or alcohol, or are a user yourself, this blog is for you. Bobby wants to share his story so that you can apply his lessons in your life or the life of a loved one.

Surrounding those two very big issues that Bobby deals with is his faith. God is a part of Bobby's life. Five months ago he was baptized at our church in Sterling, VA. Surrounded by his loved ones, he reaffirmed his commitment to Christ. I think it was an important moment for him. See, sometimes Bobby's troubles make him question, where is God right now? Why doesn't he talk to me? Can't I just get a break from ONE of my medical problems? The profound thing is that despite his suffering, he has learned to listen for God's answers to those questions. He is finding that the key is not what is happening with his body, its what happens in his heart and mind. And though that does not give an instant answer to those tough questions, it is remarkable that he remains dedicated to nurturing his relationship with God. It is our hope that you read into that and say, if he can do it, I can do it.

I will update with news from Bobby as often as I can. He would very much like you to comment about things you read, so please let us know you were here.

Talk to you soon.