Recovery Through Faith

This week we talked about the reality of addiction and how it seems that any addiction can take over your entire life. This can affect your family, your friends, your job, and your own well being. In our society a lot of addicts feel alone in their addiction as they feel that there is no way out of this dark place and they have no hope or future. However, this is not true as there are many different programs like Adult Teen Challenge which is a place for men to go and learn that there is a way to beat their addiction and that is through Jesus Christ!

The director of Adult Teen Challenge is Pastor Phil Hall who was on the show this week and explained what Adult Teen challenge does to help these men battling addiction. The program has many opportunities for men to go to different church services where they are taught about the power of Jesus. They also have time to meet with a mentor where they will encourage them to keep up the fight against the addiction. Along with that the mentors help the patient realize you can have fun without drugs and alcohol. Pastor Phil Hall himself was in this program at a young age as he started to become addicted to drugs and alcohol. 

Luckily, this program was able to help him turn his life around and by the end he was motivated to go to college to study to become a Pastor. At first he thought he was going to be a youth Pastor somewhere but realized that God was calling him back to the place where he was at his lowest to help other people at their lowest. 

Along with Pastor Phil Hall we also had Sean Murray on the show who is the co-owner of Cafe Rhema a coffee and bake shop in downtown Flint. However this wasn’t always Sean Murray's life as he struggled with addiction as he fell into depression and to cope with that depression he turned to alcohol. He was at the point where he had to decide to do something or he could possibly die from his addiction. After a suicide attempt he was in a mental hospital where the Doctor told him that he saw light in him and encouraged him to listen to his mother that had been begging him to go to Adult Teen Challenge. On that day he prayed to the Lord and asked what he wanted to do with his life and he heard God say go follow me! 

So he did and he started a journey that he would change his life forever. He was in Adult Teen Challenge for a whole year and in that time he was able to overcome his addiction. Now as mentioned above he is a co- owner of Cafe Rhema, he is also playing guitar for his church, and is a mentor at Adult Teen Challenge and being an inspiration to young people struggling with addiction. 

Both of these stories have shown that God can use the darkest situations in people's lives to bring light into other people's lives. It is amazing to think that both of these men are still working at Adult Teen Challenge as usually after such a dramatic experience people tend to stay away and not go back. However they have felt the power of God and realized that they can be an influence to people that went through things just like them. 

Did you miss the Stacy Swimp Show on Monday at 11am on Flints News Talk 1470 WFNT? Well, check out the episode on the Stacy Swimp YouTube Channel!