Initial testimony from 2011:

“My appreciation story is this. I have been addicted to the drug crack for 20 plus years. It has destroyed every relationship that I ever had....When I use any type of drug I cannot stop, and this includes alcohol. I've spent times on Skid row in Los Angeles and Las Vegas, and have been through many, many programs, including the union rescue mission..., the los Angeles mission, Salvation Army, Teen Challenge, First Step, AA, NA, CA, and any other A program you can think of. My dad left when I was one and my mom tried to commit suicide shortly after this. She owned a bar and worked 18 hour days, so to say the first couple of years of my life were not a healthy developmental period would be an understatement. I started Restarting,1 and at first it was just to save my marriage. I actually found you [note that the writer is referring to Ed Khouri] quite entertaining, and was just going through the motions.

The Immanuel process was when it started to change. God took me back to when I was one year old and my mom tried to commit suicide. He showed me that He was there, that He kept her alive, and that He allowed me to spend time with her. An especially cool, beautiful piece has to do with the end of my Mom’s life. God not only showed me that I wasn’t to blame for my Mom trying to commit suicide and that He was with me the whole time, He also fast forwarded to 40 years later (while I was still in disobedience to Him), and showed me that He was the one that led my Mom to ask me to be the person on her living will – the person who would make the final decisions about her health care. That showed me that I was loved and that I was not just an addict. So God showed me that not only was I not at fault for her trying to commit suicide, but that He had brought bring things full circle.

Through the Immanuel process, the appreciation stories, the quieting myself, and the relationships I've built, Joy has come into my life and my brain has been healed. I was suicidal and on antidepressant medications, but now...I want to live

and am not on any medications. I have been joyfully sober for over 3 years now, which is by far the longest I have been #1 Joyful, and #2 sober.”

Additional follow up from May 2013:

“I just celebrated 5 years on January 11th, and I don't go to 12 step meetings anymore (I haven't for a couple of years)....My brain has been healed. I've learned over the past couple years that my identity has totally changed. I am no longer an addict, alcoholic, liar, thief or any of the other things I thought I was before. I am God's masterpiece. I am a child of the Most High, and that I am alive and serving God is just as powerful of a miracle as any I read about in the Bible. I've been facilitating Restarting for the last few years as well as a class on codependency, and starting this Monday me and my wife will be leading a Search for Significance2 study group....I'm grateful to you, Ed, Jim, Brent and Peggie Harbaugh, and our Pastor, Dwain

Kitchens, and especially to my wife, Andrea, who through the Lord stuck by me and saw things in me I didn't see in myself. Most of all I'm grateful to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Immanuel, who showed me that He has always been with me, even when I didn't realize it.”

For those of you who know anything about addictions, this Immanuel story is very encouraging. Being five and a half years joyful and sober after twenty years of crack addiction is HUGE.

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Healing, Freedom, and Joy for a Crack Addict

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