When I was seventeen, someone introduced me to a drug called crystal meth. Since the age of eleven, my story had been a drug-induced downward spiral, but this was a new low.
How Addiction Took Control
Crystal meth is an upper. You can snort it, shoot it up with a needle, or smoke it. I chose to smoke it. I placed a rock of meth on a piece of aluminum foil and burned it with a lighter underneath the foil. When the smoke rose up, I inhaled it with a small straight glass pipe between my teeth. Not a pretty picture, I know.
The Illusion Addiction Creates
The effect? Instant euphoria and excitement.
The first time I used it, I knew I was in love and would need to have it every day for the rest of my life. Starting the next morning, I woke up every day immediately focused on where and how I was going to get more.
When you come down from meth, you’re buried by an unbearable wave of depression and emotional instability. Probably the most destructive aspect is how it makes you believe you can never be truly whole without it. That’s likely true with most addictions, but something about meth imprisoned me more than other drugs.
On meth, I became even more conversational than I am naturally, which means I talked so much I could open a portal to another dimension. I thought it made me more creative. I wrote so many songs on meth that were utter trash, but I believed they were masterpieces. (They were pieces alright. Ha!)
During this time, I somehow got a pretty decent job working for a media duplication company doing graphic design and DVD and VHS duplication (which I know dates me). Throughout the workday, I frequently sneaked off to the bathroom to smoke meth. When I came back, there must have been an obvious change in my personality. It wouldn’t have taken much sleuthing to figure out I was on something. But I was under the impression it made me the fastest and best employee on the planet. Ultimately, I was fired. I was confused and devastated. Why would they fire me? Yeah, meth doesn’t make you the smartest person in the world.
The Darkness of Addiction
Growing up, I saw movies with addicts desperate for their next score. I always wondered how pathetic someone must be to let themselves end up like that. I never in a million years imagined I would become that person in real life.
When Addiction Feels Like the Only Option
One time, after being awake for four days straight on crystal meth, I sat in my car watching the sun come up and realized I would die at a young age from this addiction. The really scary part is that I was okay with it. The idea of quitting the life I had chosen was out of the question. For me, there was no fork in the road, only a grave to fall into. It may seem inconceivable to prefer death over sobriety, but that was my reality.
Looking back on my years of crystal-meth addiction, it feels like an out-of-body experience. How could I have made such monumentally destructive choices?
It seemed I always ended up in the darkest situations. I will never forget sitting in the living room of a typical suburban family’s home when I was about eighteen. Someone had told us there was a party at this house, so we went. This was not some graffitied, rundown crack house. At first glance, it looked like the home of a doctor and his family. A bunch of teens were drinking in the garage. We sneaked into the house, where the parents were enjoying the party. I watched as the parents verbally and physically fought with their teenage daughter over their next hit of meth. It was next-level evil. I could actually feel darkness wrapping itself around me. It was choking any hope of life out of me.
I even knew someone who had been cooking meth and blew up their trailer with their infant child inside. They both died. It was heartbreaking.
Did that deter me? No.
Have you heard someone say, “I can stop anytime I want. I just don’t want to”? Well, I didn’t want to change, but I also felt like I couldn’t, even if I wanted to. I had fallen so far. I was too broken. I couldn’t remember what it felt like to be happy without taking something to give me that feeling.
I had created an entire life around my trauma, my hurt, my anger and addiction.
The Lies Behind Addiction
Like many, I was using addiction to numb the pain of childhood wounds and trauma. Nobody sets out in life thinking, You know what? I’m going to become a raging alcoholic and crystal-meth addict. No. I believed a lie about who God was, so I rebelled against him, which left me broken and empty.
Broken People Making Broken Choices
While it was difficult and sad, it brings such clarity to every destructive decision I made. Every destructive decision human beings make. We are just a bunch of broken people, making broken choices and breaking everything around us.
Addiction Cannot Fill the Void
Choosing to live a life that runs from the goodness of God only ends with us hurting ourselves, or worse. The result is a broken person living a shattered life. But we were not made to live that way. We were meant to be not broken but whole in Christ.
The pain of living outside God’s purpose is the byproduct of a sinful, fallen world. We all have an inherent black-hole void inside that we know must be filled. But without Jesus, there’s just no filling that emptiness. We try to fill it with everything but him. When we do, the hole only grows, so we get more desperate and try to shove even more stuff into it.
From the very beginning, God has been showing us: Jesus is the only light that fills the dark void.
Hope Beyond Addiction
If you are going through a time of pain or addiction, or if you have a loved one who is, hold on! I’m telling you my story, but remember, pain and addiction aren’t where it ends.
Your story isn’t over either. That may sound cheesy, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s true.
Over twenty years ago, Stephen McWhirter was a meth addict and wounded preacher’s kid who had a radical encounter with Jesus. Today, he travels the world leading worship, sharing his testimony, and seeing many people come to Christ. His song “Come Jesus Come,” which has amassed over one hundred million views and streams across platforms, has been performed by CeCe Winans on American Idol and recorded by Winans with gospel legend Shirley Caesar, by country music artist Cody Johnson, and in Spanish by Christine D’Clario. With the momentum from “Come Jesus Come,” Stephen started going live on social media and traveling all over the world worshiping Jesus and sharing his testimony. Today, Stephen is an artist and writer with Capitol Christian Music Group and Re:think Music. He shares his story of radical transformation in Radically Restored (Zondervan). Stephen is married to Tara and has three growing redheaded boys. They live in Louisville, Kentucky, and are unswervingly committed to worshiping Jesus and leading others to him.
