“Kids Like Me”

“Kids Like Me” are kids and adults of all ages whose parents are, or were, drug addicts, and alcoholics; kids who have suffered, or who are suffering, abuse and neglect on multiple levels (trauma), and kids who are victims of bullying.

Big Mike is an adult Kid Like Me whose father was an alcoholic, smoked marijuana, used cocaine, and introduced his children to the drug/gang lifestyle. But Big Mike’s mother was just the opposite and demonstrated her love for him with lots of hugs and regularly told him she loved him. (You can never tell your children, too much, that you love them).

Big Mike’s Story-Part Two

My father promised my mother that he would stop drinking and would change his life. He did just what he said as far as changing his life but as far as our relationship went, that really didn’t change. So, knowing then that my mother was dying, I cursed God and asked how there could be a God that would allow this to happen to such a great woman.

I became angry and rebellious. I continued to live that street life and to be the hardest gangster I could be. After two years my mother finally lost her battle to cancer. About two weeks prior to her death, she asked to speak with me. She told me that she loved me and forgave me for all that I had done. I couldn’t understand how she could love me, let alone forgive me; I would later find out how.

So, after her death I went harder than ever. I was drinking two gallons of vodka a day and my drug of choice was cocaine. I was intentionally trying to kill myself; I had so much guilt for all the pain I had caused my mother. I felt as though all the pain that I endured was what I truly deserved. I deserved to die a long and painful death. I couldn’t forgive myself.

In the meantime, I was raising my son in the same environment in which my father had raised me - around the drinking and the drugs and the gang life. It’s all I knew and now it was all my son knew. It got so bad that my son became addicted to heroin and basically everything else. My ex-wife and kids left me. I stayed in an apartment alone just getting high and drinking everyday just waiting to die.

One evening while in my room I saw this thing standing in my doorway. It appeared to be some type of demon and it began to speak to me. It told me that all I have ever done is cause pain to all of my loved ones and that I should just kill myself. It told me that I would be doing everyone a favor by dying because they wouldn’t have to worry about me any longer. They would be sad of course but the sadness would subside and be replaced with relief and freedom - the freedom to not have to worry about me anymore. This went on for days.

Finally, one night I had enough. I fell to my knees in the middle of my apartment and yelled at the top of my lungs, “If there is a God, let me live or let me die!” I didn’t believe in God, but I was so done with this life that I was living. Actually, I wasn’t living; I was just existing. Well, anyway, that’s the last thing I remember before waking up in my room the next morning.

When I woke up, I felt like a new person. Something had happened - I was changed. I wasn’t sick from drinking. I actually felt like I had never drunk alcohol ever in my life which is so weird cause that was the main reason I never quit because I would get so extremely sick in withdrawals. And the doctors had told me not to quit cold turkey because I would die due to the amount of vodka I was drinking daily. But I wasn’t sick.

That morning when I woke-up, the sun was shining on me. The air that was coming in through my window had never smelled so great. I had this feeling of peace, this feeling of love, something I had never experienced before.

I felt like a brand-new person. I didn’t understand what had happened to me. Then I remembered what I had asked God, “If there is a God, let me live or let me die!” Wow! He had truly heard me and answered me right where I was. — Big Mike

Stay tuned for Big Mike’s Story-Part Three, next week.

Thank you for reading my column.

Remember, Jesus loves you and Jesus is Lord!