By Derek Slayter
I didn’t wake up one day and decide to destroy my life. It started small—just smoking pot with friends in high school. It felt harmless, like just being part of the group. But small compromises became a pattern, and that pattern grew into a path I never meant to walk. Pills came next—Xanax, hydros, oxy—off and on, just enough to feel like I was still in control. But the truth is I was drifting, and I didn’t see how far I was slipping.
When I started working at a job where the bosses didn’t care what we did, everything sped up. Drug dealers worked beside me. That’s where I met cocaine. At the same time, I had a family—a son, a girlfriend who had been a meth addict but got clean during pregnancy, and a life I wanted to hold together. I quit Coke after our son turned one. I begged her to get clean, too, but she didn’t want it. We fought constantly. I was tired, depressed, and desperate to keep us together. And in that weakness, I made the worst decision of my life: “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.” That’s the day I tried meth.
Everything unravelled from there. That house saw things I still don’t like to remember. Eventually, I left—strung out, lost, homeless. I slept under bridges, hopped couches, wandered through benders that felt like they’d never end. After one two-week run, I crashed on a high school friend’s couch. When I finally woke up, I washed my face, looked in the mirror, and something inside me broke. Or maybe it woke up. I saw what I had become. And I heard it clear as day: “What have I done?”
I called my parents and asked them to take me to Freedom Mission, a faith-based rehab where my cousin had gone. There, we worked hard—gardens, landscaping, kitchens, whatever Bro. Wayne needed. We studied the Bible every day. Getting clean inside rehab wasn’t the hardest part. Walking back into the world afterward was. And I did relapse once—after getting a job at UTLX, doing well, feeling steady. One message from my old dealer pulled me back. But the experience was so horrific—hallucinations, stiff joints, total collapse—that it snapped me awake. That was six years ago. I’ve never touched it again.
Today I have full custody of my son. I’m in school, rebuilding my life. I’m grateful for my family, for Freedom Mission, for Bro. Wayne. But most of all, I’m thankful to God, who reached into the pit I dug and pulled me out. My story is proof that no one is too far gone for Him to rescue.
