Testimony Wall

I was laying on the freezing snow-covered ground soaking wet, going through hypothermia trying to figure out how a person gets into a situation like this. It is not like I woke up that morning and thought, “I think I am going to try to freeze to death today.” No, that is not what I thought at all. I did not wake up one morning in my youth and think I would be addicted to pain medication either. Anyway that is where I ended up. So, let us start long before that, at the beginning.

When I turned thirteen years old I started smoking Marijuana. From that I stemmed into doing other drugs such as nerve pills and whatever else I could find in the medicine cabinet. The friends I hung out with were a big influence on what I found myself doing as they were also drug heads. By the time I was fifteen I had done my fair share of pain pills. If you were never on the drug scene, it is hard to imagine what people do to be “cool” or have a good time. Crushing up and snorting a Lortab (pain pill) was not unseen around my friends. It was not something I really enjoyed doing because it burned my nose. However, I did take quite a few. When I was seventeen years old my best friend introduced me to Oxycontin, a very addictive and powerful pain medication. When my friend crushed the pill up there was not very much there to snort, unlike a Lortab, and when I snorted it, it did not burn like a Lortab. From then on I was hooked. For years I would basically hand over my pay-check to the drug dealer just to get more of this drug that was eating away not only at my finances but at my home-life and my life in general.

One night I went to a party, or as I would like to call it, “the party”. This party was one of the greatest turning points of my life. Some friends of mine asked me to sing in a band at the party. I had already been in a couple of hard rock bands, and some of the same band members from a previous band were playing there. Anyway, I was excited to go to say the least.

When I arrived at the party I realized I did not have any Oxycontin with me but I planned to leave and get some because I had not done much that day and I knew I would need some later. Most of the people at the party only drank and there was not much drugs there except the Marijuana I had in my pocket. Anyway I sang and I drank a little bit, and I was not much of a drinker believe it or not. During all of this it started to snow and it snowed more and more, and I being without a car could not persuade anyone to take me anywhere to get my fix. At this point I made a bad decision, I decided to become so intoxicated with alcohol that I did not care about not having the Oxycontin, and I did just that. At one point I remember saying “I’m thirsty”, and grabbing a tall, full glass of what I thought was water and just drinking it down. A friend of mine said “Do you know what you just did? You just drank a full glass of Vodka!”  After that everything else was kind of blurry. I laid down in a water bed that was leaking and got back up soaking wet. I was getting out of control and I got into an argument with someone there and just as we were about to fight, four or five people grabbed me and dragged me outside onto the porch. I can remember wrestling and trying to fight my way back into the house. The wind-chill was seven below zero and I was starting to freeze to death literally. Finally somebody pushed me over the porch rail and I landed in the snow. Beyond drunk and tired from fighting I just laid there. Everyone went back inside and left me there. Now, here I am, lying on the snow-covered ground freezing to death. I did the one and only thing I knew how to do; pray. My simple prayer was this, “God, please don’t let me die. If I live the rest of my life out the way it’s supposed to be lived, just please don’t let me die.” The next thing I knew I was standing in front of the porch and the guy I had the argument with was putting my jacket on me. The next thing I remembered I was sitting with my head down on a table back inside and when I lifted my head my Aunt and Grandmother was there to pick me up, because they had called them and that is who I lived with at the time.

Now it is three days later and I am at home in my Grandmother’s living-room. I am trying to decipher in my mind what happened at the party and what I was going to do with the rest of my life, because I just knew God had saved my life. My Grandmother came in there and asked me if I was okay and I said “No”. Then she asked me if I wanted to pray about it and I said “Yes”. That night I asked Jesus to come live in my heart and save me eternally and he did. I ended up going through quite a bit more after that. You see as a result of either going through hypothermia, Alcohol poisoning, all the drugs I had done in the past, DT’s, or all of the above, I developed a Psychosis or a chemical imbalance. I started to perceive reality in a way even I cannot explain. Three weeks later I found myself in jail, not knowing why or how I had got there. To make a long story short I walked into a church where the pastor was cleaning the church and I ended up hurting the pastor and stealing his truck. The court system sent me to a Prison/Mental facility and when I arrived there and the doctors had done their evaluation they told my parents that they were 99% sure that that my mind was so distorted that I would never have a normal conversation ever again. Through prayer, my medicine I take every day, and by the grace of God I tell my testimony almost every day. I now have a music ministry I have been doing for six years and I thank God for everything he has done in my life. It has made me who I am today and I would not change it for the world.

P.S.

I have made amends with the pastor and we are friends now. He is also helping me have my Felony removed.

God Bless,

Brandon Robbins