CIR KBs

Christians in Recovery Knowledge Base article

Jailed Twice Before I was 18 for Selling Drugs

I grew up in an alcoholic family. Both my father and my mother came from alcoholic homes as well. I lost a brother to a drunk driving accident. He was 24. Because I grew up in such a very chaotic home, I was running the streets from an early age.

I had my first drinking experience was when I was just twelve years old. I was “turned on” to pot at age fourteen, and went to jail twice for selling marijuana, hashish, and LSD, before I was eighteen years old.

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God Worked Powerfully in My Life

In the late sixties, long before I committed to follow the Lord, God delivered me from an intense IV Meth addiction. There were no withdrawal symptoms of any kind, I simply stopped.

In the mid-seventies, I lived in a hippie-type community in Pennsylvania. I smoked as many packs of cigarettes a day as I could get my hands on. Filtered or non-filtered, it didn’t matter. When I ran out of cigarettes, I rolled my own with Blue Bugler, the cheapest package tobacco you could by at that time. I looked physically fit, but every morning, I woke up congested with phlegm and I could not walk up a flight of stairs without stopping several times to catch my breath.

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Lisa and Gambling

Addiction is a powerful bondage that binds us to the sins of the world. It is an evil spirit that is sent by Satan into our lives to deceive us and destroy our lives ever so slowly. It is like a long, long line that he has hooked us with and is ever so slowly reeling us closer and closer. When you get close enough he has you in his grasp forever. All the fun that you thought you were having along the way is over and you live a life of hell.

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I Survived Sexual Abuse at the Hands of My Father

Hi. My name is Laura.

I have gone through an immense amount of healing, and would like to share it.

From the time I was 4 to the time I was 12, I was sexually abused by my father. His abuse was violent and varied, ranging from rape to bleach poisoning to gagging, choking, and tying me to the bed while abusing me.

When I went into counseling at age 14 for emotionally induced seizures, I could no longer stand it and had to tell someone. At that point, I was on the verge of a multiple personality disorder. I thought I belonged to the darkness and always would.

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Prayer is Like Breathing

    “Praying is like breathing; it is part of the Christian’s life and basic to it. It is more than formal prayer, important as that is. It is a continual openness to God in all our being. Instead of talking to ourselves as we go through the day, we talk to God, sentence prayers, momentary calls for help, grace, or strength, quick words of thanks, or expressions of need, all this and more. Such constant sentence praying gives us the greatest freedom and advantage in prayer, because it is the practice of the presence of God, of our awareness of it. Its greatest reward is the growing awareness that God is closer to us than we are to ourselves. (Systematic Theology, p. 7204)

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Living a Double Standard

My feelings of guilt and shame towards a same-sex attraction began at an early age. I experienced frequent sexual abuse from an older male friend during most of my teen years, and hustling for money soon followed.

Years later, I was baptized in a Mennonite Brethren church as a public declaration that I would follow Christ. My secret desire was that maybe now my attraction and sexual fantasies towards men would disappear. They didn’t, and the fantasies soon turned into years of acting out behaviours.

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Manifest the Life of Christ in Our Daily Living

True religion will manifest itself in every phase of life. We sit down in the quiet and read our Bible–and get our lesson. We know it now–but we have not as yet got it into our life–which is the thing we must really do.

Knowing that we should love our enemies, is not the ultimate thing–actually loving our enemies is.

Knowing that we should be patient, is not all–we are to practice the lesson of patience, until it has become a habit in our life.

Many know the cardinal duties of Christian life–who yet have not learned to live them. It is living them, however, that is true religion.

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Christian Guidance and Counseling

CLICK HERE IF YOU ARE IN CRISIS Database of Christian Recovery Ministries, Groups, Counselors and Meetings Biblical Counseling Referrals for Christian counselors: Christian Counseling Associations can recommend counselors. The following ministries provide guidance: Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, Guidance Dept. Toll Free Phone: 877-247-2426 Focus on the Family Toll Free Phone: 800-232-6459) American Family Radio Christian

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Training for Recovery Professionals and Pastors

Need more training so you can more effectively help others or run a recovery group? Thinking about a career in the recovery field? These accredited facilities offer online as well as classroom training: (Make sure to scroll down this page, lots of information is here!)

RISE Professional Recovery Coach Program

    The Premier Online Certificate Program for Professional Addiction Recovery Coaching Act Now and get $500 in Tuition Assistance! This 90-Hour, Self-paced, Online Training Program Includes:

      Professional Continuing Education Units (CEUs)
      TWO Credentials: Certified Professional Recovery Coach and Certified Professional Coach

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