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The Miracle Continues
cocaine and drinking. I had known this dealer before I went into the service; I truly thought he was a "friend." Beware of who you may think is a friend, Eve in the garden thought the snake was a friend. Things from that moment started slowly spiraling out of control. While I was out doing "my thing" drinking, snorting cocaine, running with a very dangerous pack, my life took a nose dive, not all at once, it took years to get from the "meanest" wolf in the pack to the one the pack ate up and spit out. While I was out there things happened that started my chain reaction down, my mother, whom I adored and loved beyond my life, past away. She died in her sleep back home in Minnesota. When I found out, I lost it, all I could think was WHY! Why did God take her? She went to church every week; she read the Bible front to back four times! She prayed every single day. She had Bible studies in our family home, she was deeply involved in our church, and I was raised in the Methodist Church. So, I just could not understand why a God that was supposed to be a loving and compassionate one would take my mother. After her funeral and I returned back to Tucson, I hit the drugs and alcohol with a new purpose, to get as high and as lost as I could. Then a few years later, after my father had moved to Tucson, he was diagnosed with "cancer," his body was full of it, he died 8 years ago, I saw another thing God did to me! Now, I started the last run, I began to not only "snort" the coke, I started to "smoke" it. I found a quick way to get lost, smoke "Rock" and drink the only thing that seemed to have any affect on my, drink "Ever Clear" pure grain alcohol. By the time I had hit these heavy substances I had stolen from every one of family members, I stole their money, items the had attained like any cash I saw, TVs they had bought or were gifts, stereos, I even stole their faith, trust, and finally all their love. My family was so very afraid of me that they all had a restraining order out against me. I had lost my family, homes, apartments, friends, cars, clothes, money, and any and all of my self-respect and honor that I had when I was in the service. I drank and smoked it all away! I had reached the very lowest point in my life, I was at my very bottom, and I was now living in the back yard patio of the man that supplied me with my rock cocaine. I slept on the cement patio right between the washer and the dryer. All I had for warmth at night were my three dogs; these dogs truly were a God send to me, for they were the very last bit of humanity left in me. If not for them I would have died a long time ago. I also had few old blankets and the very last pieces of clothing I owed, a jean jacket, sweatshirt, one pair of jeans, and an old pair of boots. They were everything I had. The day that I had finally had enough came, it was a Sunday morning of all days, I got up, did some "rock" took a drink of Ever Clear and went out to find food, "dumpster diving" as it is called. I was at the Walgreen's on Speedway in Mid-town, around the Loft Theatre, when I suddenly got a look at my self in a pane of glass, I finally saw just what I had become, a drug addicted monster! I had hair, in tangles, that hung down past my waist, my beard was long and dirty, I weighed around 135 pounds! I bleed from ever open part of my body, I could not hold down any food, I WAS DIEING! I took one last look at this monster and knew that it had to die. I made a call to one of the last friends I had to come and take care of my dogs, which they did, I went back to the dealer's house, went into the back patio, found the gun that I always carried, 9mm automatic, took a huge drink of the Ever Clear, smoked two rocks of cocaine, put a round in the chamber, put the gun in my mouth and pulled the trigger... NOTHING HAPPENED! I thought that I could not even do this right! I put the gun in the spot I kept it at, got up and went for a wake to get up my nerve to do it again, when I walked right into a police officer that have known for well over 10 years. This officer called me over and talked to me, he told that I was worth something he said that there was someone waiting to love me and forgive me! He said that this person was a friend of his, too. He also said that I needed to get out of the place I was at, that he was going to hit the house and anyone in it was going to jail. He told me that he remembered the "Old Butch." He remembered the man that had a lot to give to people, he wanted to help me find that "Butch" again. He told that the person he said loved me could help me find the real Butch. He said the person who could do that was "Jesus Christ." I listened and said what ever he wanted to hear; at least that was what I thought I was doing. I finally agreed to get help, so he called my sister and talked her into letting me stay on the couch for a few weeks till a bed opened up in the Veteran's Hospital Substance Abuse Treatment Center. This officer did all this because he said that he knew I was different and that he was lead to help me get off the streets and stay out of jail, that I had a purpose. So, I stayed at my sister's for two weeks, then I went to a shelter for a few days, then a Lutheran Church called Old Spanish Trail Lutheran opened up its doors for Veteran's to stay in till they had a space in the Veteran's Treatment Center. I finally got into the treatment program a few weeks later. Now, I was still having a battle with God, I did not see that everything that happened to me was all according to Him, to me He was still the reason for all problems, that is until one day, I had been in the treatment center for two weeks when I was called down to see a visitor, it was the police officer who said I had a purpose. He came to tell me something that I realize now I really needed to hear, he told me that when he and other officers finally busted the house that I was in and he had gone into the back yard to retrieve the gun I had tried to use, that when he had just touched it to pick it up, the GUN FIRED! It was at that
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