The battle against drugs and alcohol

Welcome to Man Talk, brought to you by TAWCMN, talking and walking Christian men's ministry, where they are devoted to breaking down the walls of race and denomination, and challenging men to take their God-assigned role.

Here's our hosts Will Hardy and Roy Jones Jr., a black guy, and a white guy. Okay, welcome to Man Talk Radio, and we have on the show today, brother Allen Gee, and Allen has a very, very interesting story, Roy, and he wants to just share that story with us in reference to addiction, alcohol addiction, drug addiction, and you know, there's a lot of men out there, as we know, that have faced and are facing situations like this, and you know, we never want to just look down on an individual, but we just want to let God bless us to take the issue and take it by the throat and run with it. Yeah, that's a very good point, Will. Oftentimes, men don't know where to turn to for help, so it's important that when you encounter somebody that's struggling in this area, that you're there as a support mechanism and as an accountability mechanism. So I'm excited to hear what Allen's got to share with us tonight, and I think as God opens the door, there'll be an opportunity to share a little bit from a personal side as well.

Exactly. So Allen, tell us about how your journey got started in reference to, you know, your addiction. On Long Road, when I was growing up, my dad was an alcoholic. He would come home, he was verbally abusive. I had a brother and three sisters and my mother, and it seemed like every weekend, the cops would be called because he got so irate.

About the time I was 12 years old, there were some guys in my neighborhood who we got together, and at 12 years old, I smoked my first joint, I dropped my first beer, I smoked my first cigarette all in the same day and got so sick. But afterwards, that was my means of escape from the problems that my dad was giving us. So Allen, do you have siblings?

I do. I am the baby of five. I have three older sisters and one older brother, and I'm the baby.

Yes, sir. Okay, so you're the baby, so that makes it even more difficult. Usually by the time the youngest ones come along, the parents have gotten through all the mistakes of learning with the first one or two, but you had to endure what was still to come, I guess. I was raised up in the 70s.

I was born in 1965, and you know, by 1977, I had started. You know, when we're kids, most kids think that, you know, when I grow up, I want to be a fireman or a policeman or a doctor or a lawyer. We never think that we're going to be a drug addict or an alcoholic. We don't grow up thinking we're going to be that way, but it slowly comes up on you.

And by the time you get there, it's too late. You're addicted. You're an alcoholic. You're a drug addict.

So at what point or what age did you realize that you were actually addicted? Oh my gosh. Or did you go through- Forty years old.

Oh wow. So you basically- Oh, I thought I could handle it. Yeah, you were denying it for a lot of years, obviously. Oh, I was a functioning alcoholic and addict. I went to work every day. I made good money.

I've been a printer all my life. I've done good things. I just didn't realize how bad it had gotten.

Right. And that's a very interesting thing that Allen talked about, is that no child wants to say or grows up thinking that I want to become an alcoholic or a drug addict. So I think from that statement and recognizing where you were and in the condition you were in, it gave you some hope that the life that I'm living is not normal.

It wasn't normal at all. How did your siblings turn out, Allen? Did they struggle as well? A few struggles.

Most of them are doing very well. How about with the addictions, any drug or alcoholism? No, I don't think so. So you were the one out of the five- I was the black sheep. But you weren't a black sheep. It just, I think it affected you differently.

So that became your vehicle as you grew older for whatever reason. Which we've talked, Will, you and I have spoken many times off the air about the impact that any type of action has to young men. And for those of you listening, as adults but also as younger men that might be listening, your actions will have a reaction. Exactly. And it will either be within you, there will be a consequence within you personally or within those that are watching you. And Allen's sitting here in front of us as a result of, I would have to say, probably the way his father treated him, the way his father demonstrated alcoholism and those other things.

His authority in my life impacted me. There you go. I was talking to Pastor Hardy earlier and we were talking about, we need to get to these kids now. By the time they're 10 years old, because it just starts earlier and earlier.

I was 12. Right. And that was back in the 70s. Right. It's 2019. Well, you know, do you think, Allen, that the availability of alcohol was much greater to a younger person during that time period?

I do. And I think, Will and I were just talking about this today, actually. I think that today alcoholism for young people is now pornography.

And we think that is probably the much larger problem than people even realize. But the alcoholism piece is an interesting one because it slowly creeps up on you, like you said. At first, it starts out as a social drink. Even people that have never drank and all of a sudden have a glass of wine or something, it becomes the way to socialize, to relax. And then if people have stressful jobs or stressful life, a glass of wine, unfortunately, will ease in the moment that mess that's going on in your mind, which is a false hook. That's right. Satan uses that as a false hook.

So hey, if it worked today, it'll probably work tomorrow. We were talking earlier, when I was 14, 15 years old at the bus stop, I was drinking a pint of liquor in the morning. Before we went to school. Before I went to school. Never got caught.

Never got caught. Wow. And see, but alcohol too is not the drug of choice today. Drug of choice today is like opioids and crystal meth and things like that.

So it's sort of like taking a back seat, but we still can't forget about it from the simple fact that when people do start consuming it, they think it's okay. Right. And addiction is addiction, right? Exactly. Whether it's alcohol, the opioids, which I think the opioids are so popular because it's not so visible. If you've taken one, you know, you're able to kind of stay to yourself.

And the feeling that it gives you is more within you unless you're just happened to be out doing a lot of talking or something. It's easy to be done at any time. Unfortunately, the availability as we know it's epidemic portion proportions in our country right now. I think they just arrested a doctor got convicted in the last couple of weeks, I believe will in North Carolina from that very thing, right. And too many prescriptions and they, the flag went up.

So Alan. My thing was crack cocaine. So you went through a drug addiction behind the alcoholism for years, 20 years of crack cocaine.

In a week's time, I'd probably do a thousand dollars worth a week. I had a lot of friends. I'd say that kind of habit, you must have had something.

I make good money and I wouldn't only smoke it, but I was selling it also. Oh my, you know, I had plenty. And like I said, I had many of friends. You got to change your friends.

You have to change the places you go at to change everything. Yeah. So the, um, friends were probably temporary. I'm sure when the drugs went away, a lot of those friends went away.

So they're really more acquaintances, I guess, just to have the convenience of having access to a supply line. Right. So real quickly, um, tell us a little bit about some of the more traumatic times growing up. If you will, just a few examples, you don't have to get into tremendous amount of detail, but we'd just like for our listeners to understand from a grown man's perspective, reflecting back on his childhood, what those things did to you.

Exactly. Made me scared to death. Uh, my, my dad just, I was telling, uh, pastor Hardy earlier that he never really did beat us. It was more verbally intimidating. Scaring would scare us. Oh gosh.

It was terrible. And my way of escape was that alcohol was that marijuana. Mm hmm.

Um, I would stay gone all the time. Do you know, did you, when I got my license? Right, right. Did your dad ever get a DUI, DWI? He spent time, uh, over that and he lost his license for life for life. Did he ever get them back? No. Cause sometimes, you know, he was scared to for life.

Sometimes in today's society, they can have enough to come back. Wow. And what age was he when he lost him? It was probably 55 and he lived to be in his late eighties. You said 85. Wow. So 35 years without a driver's license and still having hard to do family and your mother lived to be held 75. Wow.

I'm sure that took a toll on her watching all that and being a part of that. So see, man, when you, when Allen here, I mean, he's been gracious enough to come in and share his story. And I'm sure some of you who are listening out there have, are going through something similar or have gone through it. And when you come to a realization and when we come back after the break, we want to ask Allen as a result of this addiction, what type of wrong decisions that you made going forward.

But we want to, we want to just keep that until after the break. So men be thinking about what it is that you need to be doing at this current state in your relationship. If you were married or in your walk with God, because see a lot of people who are doing this, Roy are in the church.

They are willing to, I would go one step further. What are you doing right now? If you're sipping on a cold one, what kind of impact are you having on your family?

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Call 336-885-1987. Welcome back to ManTalk Radio and before the break we were talking with Allen about things and decisions that you made as a result of being addicted to alcohol and crack cocaine. If you don't mind Allen sharing some of those decisions that you made that you feel in today's time that you know if you were to go back and redo them what would you do differently? Well I tell you when I was in my younger age I had a girlfriend and I got her pregnant twice. We were both doing things we shouldn't be doing but we had abortions. Something I'm not proud of at all. You know we don't think about the consequences when they happen but I am getting older in age and those consequences are that one thing I'm not married right now I have nobody in my life except for God.

Who's going to take care of me when I get older? That's a big consequence. Having those abortions at the time I didn't realize how much of an impact it was going to have on me in my later years. And because I think those things you know we don't think about because we're in the moment of whatever it is we're engaged in. And I think this is where the love of God you know comes in because now you have a whole different view of where you know you want to go in God and a lot of things that we were talking about early you know sometimes it doesn't happen right away for everyone but we should not come to a point to say hey there's no hope because this show is about hope.

It's about reaching out to individuals who may have experience or are experiencing some of the same things you're experiencing. And just don't ever give up because God never gave up on me. I was telling a story earlier about my dad. It's all about a pocket cross.

A little pocket cross which might not mean much to you or anybody in the audience but it means a whole whole lot to me. My dad came to see me I gave him a pocket cross. Four months later he had a stroke. Well two months after that he was in a nursing home and let me back up for a second when he went to the hospital after a stroke all he had in his pocket was that pocket cross.

Two months later when he died he had that pocket cross in his hand. But he had gave his life to Christ. I never gave up on him. God has never gave up on me. And that's why I think I'm here right now to tell everybody out there don't ever give up on anybody because God can do some amazing things in your life. No matter how far down the road you are right?

He was eighty-five years old before he gave his life to Christ till he truly gave his life to Christ. And see and I think I think when God when Jesus Christ said what's impossible to man is possible with God. So you know regardless of what we we go through in a lot of a lot of things we don't understand why we go through them.

But when we do go through them and then we begin to share what we went through and see that's what man talk radio is all about is to is to get me and get you in the position to say that the life that you're living if you are were on the road that Alan was on and he shared earlier that it is a struggle he still struggle with some things we all struggle with them. Are we sinless? No we're not sinless because we all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. So and if we if we never sin anymore then the Word of God says that we are a lie and the truth is not in us.

James 1 John chapter 1 and verse number 6. So we don't want to be deceiving ourselves that we are all of this in a bag of chips. No I agree with that. But what's important Will and you know this is that you know you've got you can't keep doing the same thing over and over you know and we've talked about this in the past. People say well I'm covered by the blood so therefore I don't have to turn away from what I'm doing. No that wasn't quite what he meant you know turn and sin no more. He knows we're going to sin and we're going to fall short to your quote earlier of course we're going to fall short we all do. But you can't just keep going right back to the same well and that's why it's important to seek help, seek recovery, seek institutions that can bring you through this. Because if I know that I'm forgiven I just keep going right back to the cocaine every day just because I've got the blood of Christ covering me. You know is that honoring God is that really dying to self and then that's I've got to make an effort. You know part of that is we've got to do in the natural what we can do and then God will come alongside like you said the impossible.

He can do all those things. God took cocaine away from me instantly when I asked him to. Other things I struggle with. But the crack cocaine he took away from me instantly. I went on a three day binge without sleeping rode around for three days ran out of gas five times going from Charlotte to Hickory to Lenoir everywhere states full Gastonia I would ride around for three days had a thousand dollars in my pocket too scared to get out of the car to get a tank of gas. Fortunately people were there at the times that I needed them. I was so sick after those three days I went to an acquaintance house. I said here take it. I don't want no more. I went back to that crack house and I prayed to God to save me. And that's what he did. I've got a friend whose son just went through the same thing a few months ago went to a men's meeting on a Saturday morning heard the word went home got in the shower and just got down on his knees and pray that God would release him from the hold of the drug right there back at that crack house.

Same thing happened to him. You don't have to be on an altar. Oh no. You don't have to be at some fancy church or wherever wherever you're at. God can save you. You just let him into your heart. You got to open your heart up and just say look God I am sick of this. And see that's the message that's the message man is it doesn't matter where you are because if if God can save Alan where he was then how much more will he do for you because see when he talked when he talked in reference to the parable in St. Luke chapter 18 about the unjust judge you know that judge he didn't have any respect for man he didn't have any respect for God but it was one widow woman.

She kept coming back again and again and again and finally he said this lady basically is wearing me down and if I don't do anything I'm not going to get anything else done. But the key to this parable I think is not only the faith that God want us to impart to him but it's all it also says that if I am in a situation to be able to do something and you and we heard Alan that you said that all along the way there was people there you know there was people there to help you there were people there to give you some instruction and give you some guidance. People were praying for me that I didn't even know were praying for me. My aunt Peggy oh gosh she was she's a wonderful woman and I will never I will never forget her.

She's still alive she's older up in years. Her I think through her prayers into my church's prayers that's how I came out all this. Prayer works. Well that's important we need to remember all those people that we know in our life that aren't where they need to be that indeed to your point now and prayer does work. So I want to as we're coming down in the last few moments here today I want to just share some thoughts from a personal perspective I was one of those guys that grew up with in an alcoholic's home but he was a seasonal alcoholic he would drink on three or four day Benjis about four times a year but it unfortunately was all the key times of the year and end up putting a heavy shadow on Christmas Thanksgiving holiday so if you're listening today and you've got you've got a problem with this drinking I want to challenge you to turn it loose even if you don't know you've got a problem I want to challenge you to turn it loose because it's affecting your family it's affecting your children and you young men you just need to shut it down and not even get going down this path because you will have a family someday and it's better to turn it loose now than try to deal with it in the future and as always we want to remind you if you don't know the Lord now's the time to just ask him into your heart accept the fact he died for you you're covered by the blood turn from your sins and start walking with Jesus and get involved in the church close by and if you don't have one contact talk and we'll get you connected absolutely Roy and because men all around the country needs to hear the word of God and if the word of God does anything for you it'll save your soul amen Will I'm Roy Jones Jr. and I'm Will Hardy and we just like to thank you again for listening to another episode of man talk radio and tune in again. As we wrap up today's show be assured that TAWCMM talking and walking Christian men's ministry is building a community of men that are Christ followers with a desire to be servant leaders in their homes communities churches and work environments check out our website for upcoming events and regularly scheduled meetings drop us a note for topics that you would like to have us visit in the future thank you for joining us on man talk today visit us at www.tawcmm.com men walking the talk This is the Truth Network.