Craig

I used to run for the county when I was younger. I did lots of sports and hung around with a big group of friends, growing up in a small town outside Burnley.

But I got into drugs when I was just ten.

Then I started stealing to get them, selling them, and hanging out with the wrong crowd.

Well, we were the wrong crowd.

When I was sixteen, I went to work with my father at a slaughterhouse. I was earning good money.

But soon I was needing a drink in the mornings, and waking up in the middle of the night, drinking.

I always had work, here and there, different jobs, different places, but I’d always end up losing them.

I almost died when I was 26. I was rushed into hospital, but that still didn’t stop me.

Then my father passed away when I was 28, and I completely went off the rails.

Years later, I was stealing in a shop when a woman called Lee caught me.

She didn’t work there, but she asked me what I was doing and then bought me some food and gave me a lift home.

She told me she was a Christian and she asked if I’d like some help.

Overnight, I was on my way to Wales, to rehab. It was very strict. I was a bit taken aback by it.

But that’s where I first encountered God.

I didn’t stay there long, and then went back home, still using.

I’d burned every bridge that I could with friends and family, and I found myself homeless.

I was living in a tent. I went out one day and when I came back someone had set fire to the tent with all my clothes in. I thought, ‘I can’t do this anymore.’

I went to Pastor Mick’s Church on the Street that Lee had told me about.

I started going along on a Sunday, and then for food every day.

One day, Pastor Mick asked if I’d do an interview with Sky News.

Then I got a phone call to say a rehab in Oxford called ADAPT had got in touch.

Michael from ACT had seen my interview on TV and asked them to offer me a place.

So I moved to Oxford and started coming along to church, too. But I was still a really angry, resentful person.

I used to come to do the cooking on a Monday Night with ACT but that’s all I was doing towards my recovery. I graduated after six months in rehab.

But I had a lot of time on my hands, with nothing to do, and I relapsed after just a week and a half.

I spent two weeks on the streets, coming back to ACT for food, instead of cooking.

I was using constantly.

I knew if I didn’t get any help it would be homelessness, living in doorways, probably death.

I reached out to the rehab again. They were sceptical but gave me the benefit of the doubt. I knew that when I came back, I had to change everything – my attitudes, my resentments.

Then ACT invited me on their summer retreat.

We prayed a lot for things to change for me.

Rob told us to take a piece of coal and to ask God to take away what needed to be taken away to start a new life.

I did that and left it at the gate.

I truly believe that when we drove through that gate on the last morning that everything was taken away, and that I had a new start in life.

I came back to treatment, opened up more, got actively involved, started doing meetings every day, and came back to ACT to do the cooking on a Monday Night and be part of ACT Family.

For the last few months, I’ve been helping Jamie who cooks at church.

He’s a friendly, encouraging guy. He’s helped take my level of cooking to a whole new standard.

Having a role model and a mentor has been really special.

ACT means the world to me. I don’t know where I’d be if I didn’t have ACT.

They loved me when I didn’t love myself.

The fact I’m clean is something I never would have believed – it’s truly down to the Lord. 

Today, with God in my life, I have a purpose.

I will keep on following that and serving for as long as I can.