Stan, Gina, Dakota, and Keeley Warren

By M. KAREN BREWER

     "It didn’t get really bad until I was probably 13. That’s when my Mom started letting me drink mixed drinks with her. I liked that better, because mixed drinks tasted better to me.

     "My mother was pitiful, a drunk who was as lost as she could be. I kind of followed in her footsteps. But that was the way she had been raised, and, about as far back as you can look, just a bunch of drunks, generational curses. I hope and pray that we’ve brought that curse to an end, through the power of Jesus Christ." (Before his mother’s death, after Stan had made things right with God, he was able to witness to her, and his Pastor, David Gallamore, led her to the Lord. He calls that a blessing for which he is grateful.)

     He remembers well the day in 2002 when he gave his life to the Lord, after trying everything else, for his wife, Gina, and their two small children, Dakota and Keeley.

"It was kind of a slap in my face that it was time to grow up and quit dealing with this mess," he said. "But it’s easier said than done, when you’re an addict, and especially when you’re lost. I did start going to meetings and seeing a psychiatrist and psychologist and was put on some medication that was supposed to help. But the same old feelings were still there, because I was trying to fill a void that we know only Jesus can fill. I reverted back to trying to fill that void with alcohol and drugs.

     "I was working out of town one weekend. Gina had said, ‘If you come in drunk, we’re leaving.’ I came in drunk. Sunday morning, she said, ‘We’re going to church. Are you going?’ I said, ‘I’m not going to church.’ She didn’t come home that night. She didn’t come home for a few days. I was miserable. I didn’t go to work. I was really wanting to die.

     "Finally, we did talk on the phone. I got to thinking about maybe going to talk to the preacher. I mentioned that to her, and she got all excited."

     His appointment with Pastor David Gallamore was at 10 a.m. on a Thursday, the time that Gina helped set up for Rock Springs Baptist Church’s CARE night in the church gymnasium. She had sent e-mails to people she knew from church, asking them to pray for Stan, and, when she entered the gymnasium that morning, she told everyone there, "My husband is talking with the preacher. Please pray."

     "I told him my predicament," said Stan. "I told him I didn’t like preachers and I didn’t like Christians and I didn’t like church. But before I left that day, I ended up getting saved. I said I didn’t like Christians, but I ended up leaving as one that day."

     "He came walking into the gym, and his face was glowing, and he was crying," said Gina. "And I knew he had been saved."

     "I was so excited about it," said Stan. "I was so happy that I wanted to run out and tell people, and I wanted to buy a Bible."

     "A lot of stigma is attached to drugs and alcohol, but the preacher never made us feel that way at all," said Gina. "I remember Stan telling me about that day he told the preacher everything he had done, trying to shock him, make him flinch, some kind of a reaction that Stan had always gotten from people, but the preacher just sat there, listening, and let Stan lay it all out, and he said, ‘God can forgive you for all that.’ Stan had never heard that before. I think that was the first that he understood complete forgiveness."

     "And grace and mercy," added Stan.

     "I’ve always appreciated that about the preacher," said Gina. "I think that had a huge impact on him, because everybody, up to that point in his life, had recoiled, somewhat. But the preacher didn’t, because he understands, as we all should, that sin is sin, that a lie is just as bad as drinking. It didn’t matter what Stan had done. He just put it so simply, that God can forgive it all."

     "He means a lot to both of us," said Stan. "We love him and are thankful for him. We pray for him. He’s a good man."

     "Our kids absolutely love him," said Gina. "Keeley will run down the hall when she sees the preacher and hug his leg. And Dakota, too. They adore him. They look up to him in a huge way."

     Stan became involved in church and joined a Sunday School (Bible Fellowship) class for couples that Gina had been attending at that time. "They were a big support," said Gina. "They held us up in prayer and helped us financially and with food. They were a tremendous blessing. (Gina now teaches a Sunday School class for young girls, and Stan is a member of his Pastor’s Sunday School class.)

     "After Stan got saved," she added, "I got baptized again. I got my baptism on the right side of my conversion. Stan and I were baptized together. A year later, Dakota got saved and was baptized."

     Stan discovered, however, that he had a road ahead of him, even after he got saved. "When I got saved, at 33, I thought that was the end of all of my problems," he said. "I thought that, if I got saved, I wouldn’t want to drink anymore, that I wouldn’t have those thoughts anymore, that I wouldn’t go back around old friends and old places that I seemed to always end up visiting. I had moved away from Greenville, but I hadn’t forgotten how to get back to Greenville.

     "It was great, for awhile, but then old feelings and old thoughts started coming back to me. I was too prideful to get an encourager, a Christian person I could lean on. (I have that now, a group of men at the church I can call, and we make ourselves accountable to one another. That has been a huge part of my recovery.)

     "But the thoughts came back, the devil lying to me. ‘It must not have stuck. It didn’t do any good, either. There is no real help for me.’ I just couldn’t seem to nail it down. I ended up going back around old friends I should have stayed away from, and I was back doing drugs.

     "One night, I got honest with Gina, and I told her that it wasn’t just alcohol, that I was addicted to drugs. I figured she would say, ‘That’s it. I don’t want anything else to do with you.’ But she said, ‘Maybe we can get you some help. Now that I know what it is, and you’re getting honest about it, maybe we can get you help you need.’

     "I ended up going to a secular rehab in Greenville. That didn’t work, because there was nothing about Jesus. They just put me on medication.

     "When I got out, I felt like I was at the end of my rope. I felt like I had tried everything I could possibly try. I was contemplating suicide, but, thank goodness, I was too chicken to do it."

     He recalled that early fall night in 2003. "I was distraught," he said. "I was miserable. I thought, ‘I can’t be doing drugs. I’ll go get some alcohol and drink as much as I can.’ I also bought some cigarettes. I went into the woods, behind the house, and drank everything that I could. I came walking back home, but, instead of coming into the house, I got into the car. It was so hot. I was sweating. I kind of blacked out. Gina opened the door of the car, and I fell out and vomited."

     "His eyes were rolling to the back of his head," said Gina. "I was trying to get him to the backyard, where it was cool, but I couldn’t move him, because he was dead weight. His sweat was so thick that it was almost like gel. It was awful. It scared me. When he was at the rehab, a woman had taken his blood pressure, and she said that she had never taken a blood pressure that high that the person wasn’t on a gurney, unconscious. So, knowing that his blood pressure was up and down, and seeing him like that, I thought that he was going to die right there in the driveway.

     "I called the preacher, but the secretary said he wasn’t there. I was almost hysterical, and I said, ‘I really need to talk with him.’ I think he was coming back from preaching somewhere, and he called me from his cell phone. I was just in pieces. He sent Walt and Joey (staff members), and I wound up calling 9-1-1, which I was afraid to do. The police came out, with a siren. An ambulance came, with a siren. The neighbors were out everywhere. The kids were at the door, but I made them stay in the house. It was scary. The medics could hardly get him up."

     The next thing Stan remembers is waking up with men from the church around his bedside in the hospital. They brought him home, and some stayed the night.

     The following day, one of them took Stan to visit Home with a Heart, a Christian rehabilitation home for men recovering from addictions. That Saturday, he became a new resident.

     "That place is very special to me," said Stan. "It was exactly what I needed. I was able to surrender all while I was there. It completely changed the way I looked at a lot of things that were always bringing me back to the way I used to be. I had thought it was all right to watch certain kinds of movies and to listen to certain kinds of music, even though I was a Christian. Some things I had to give up, but it has really helped, giving up those few things. God will always replace them with something better."

     Recalling those first few days at the Home, Stan said, "I could tell that that place was all about love and brotherhood and people really serious about straightening their life out. I jumped in and started taking it in. About the third night, I was lying on my cot, listening to Christian music, and a certain song spoke to me. I know that it was the Lord speaking to me through that song. I got on my face, prayed, repented, and got right with God that night. It was a real supernatural experience. I made some promises that night. He made some promises to me. When I came up off that floor, I was like a new man. I felt like God wrapped his arms around me and let me know that, if I would serve Him, I wouldn’t have to worry about drugs and alcohol anymore, and that is what it has been. I haven’t looked back."

     The next morning, Stan jumped out of bed and told Home with a Heart Director Alex Richey what had happened. "I was so filled with the spirit," said Stan. "It was like a super high. It felt so good to get rid of all of that junk. Things I had done and had buried deep came up when I prayed to God to bring it all to light. I knew that I had been healed. It was so apparent to me that I didn’t have to live that way anymore. God let me know that He touched me, as the song says."

     When Gina came for a visit, Stan tried to talk to her about his experience. "I was shaking," he said. "My eyes were dilated. I was filled with the spirit, so high and happy. Gina didn’t know what to think, because I wasn’t acting like myself. This wasn’t the same man she had dropped off. This wasn’t the same man she had married. I think she took Alex off to the side and asked if I had sneaked some drugs in, because I was acting like I was on something. He said, ‘He’s on something, all right. The Holy Spirit has got hold of him.’

     "I was able to enjoy the rest of my stay at the Home and really soak it in. I wouldn’t take anything for those eight weeks. I got exactly what I needed out of it. That place means so much to us. It’s a blessing.

     "I did have to let go of some things while I was in there. Gina and the kids burned all of my CD’s and a whole bunch of stuff I had held onto. I had a cleansed home to come back to."

     "We called it roasting the devil," Gina said of burning the CD’s and other items. "We got two wheelbarrows full. We went into our room and cleaned out t-shirts. We went into his shop and ripped down posters. We got the racing memorabilia with beer advertisements, too. We had fun. We lit fire to it in the backyard and danced around it. We had a good time."

     "I had thought that everybody deserved a little vice in their life, and mine was music," said Stan. "But that music was part of that old lifestyle, and I didn’t have any business listening to it. I can’t stand it now. I won’t listen to it. It makes me sick to hear it, because it conjures up old feelings that I don’t want to feel anymore. If you give up some little things, God will replace them with something that you’ll enjoy so much more."

     Stan now serves on the Board of Directors at Home with a Heart. "The vision of the founder, the late John Brock, was for the Board of Directors to be all graduates of the Home," said Stan. "After you have some clean time and have proven yourself and you come back and remain involved, they ask you to join the Board. I was constantly going back and helping out, and they asked me to be on the board."

     Stan has also taught a class at the Home for the past year. "When those guys come in, I can see how down and out and broken they are, and I watch the Lord work on them, week by week. A lot of them are new creatures when they get out. I see a huge change in them, a lot of growth in a short amount of time. You know it’s all Jesus. That really excites me, because that’s what happened to me. I try to help them all I can, give them rides to the Home, be there for them, be an encourager for them and a sponsor to them.

     "I work through booklets called Freedom in Christ," he said. "It’s a seven-step program for ironing out conflicts, spiritual conflicts and personal conflicts, and, through the Bible, showing what your true identity is. A lot of these guys think that they’re just old drug addicts and alcoholics. That’s how they identify themselves. I preach to them that, if you’re saved, you’re a child of God. That’s what you should identify yourself as, not what the devil is telling you that you are, not what the world is telling you that you are. That’s what has helped me the most in these last couple of years, really identifying who I am."

     He encourages the men at the Home as well as others to read a book entitled Bondage Breaker. "I really think everybody ought to read it," he said. "When I read that book, it took me to a different level, spiritually."

     "I’m not an addict, but it helped me," said Gina. "It opens your eyes to a lot of things, deeper things that we don’t like to look at a lot of times, as Christians."

     Stan also leads an addiction ministry called Freedom Ministry, which meets Sundays at 4:30 p.m. and Wednesdays at 7:30 p.m. in Room F 215 at Rock Springs, and is open to those both inside and outside the church. "A lot of people are suffering with alcohol and drug addiction, and addiction in general," he said. "I would like to get the word out that we’ve got a ministry that wants to help those people."

     "We would like to see it branch out, and have support for the family members of addicts, also," said Gina.

     "We’re working out of a book called Freedom from Addiction," said Stan. "It’s a good book, and a good program goes along with it. I’m excited about it."

     "It’s completely Christian-based," said Gina. "The whole recovery program is through Christ alone. When you gain sobriety through Christ, you have real freedom, and you’re not just a dry drunk or dry addict."

     Stan has shared his testimony with Sunday School classes for young people, including the class for girls Gina now teaches. "I wasn’t raised in a Christian home," he said, "so, if young people have Christian parents, I tell them they need to be appreciative of what they have."

     Speaking in front of groups or sharing with people was not always easy for him, he explained. "Talking to people scared me," he said. "Since I’ve gotten out of the Home, the Lord has opened so many doors for me. I was an usher at church, right after coming out of the Home. That was a real blessing. Here I was, shaking people’s hands and speaking to them. I know the Lord opened that door to help me feel a little more at ease with myself."

     Stan enjoys working at Rock Springs throughout the week. "It’s great, because I’m able to minister to people while I’m doing my job at the church," he said. "The preacher will give me a name of somebody to call and talk to, and they’ll come to see me at the church during my break time."

     "He has told me a few times that other men would sometimes bring a man by, and Stan and other Christians from our church would go to the altar right then and pray with the man," said Gina.

     "It’s a great place to work," said Stan. "It’s really what I need. On my desk, I have my Bible, and I study during my breaks and put together my lesson for my class. It’s a blessing. I have Tuesdays off, and there was an opening at the Home on Tuesdays to do a class. It’s awesome the way God works things out, like a puzzle. I’ve been able to see Him put all of the pieces in place in the last couple of years. We’ve been obedient to Him, and He’s been good to us in return."

     He has a ministry he calls Cross Addicted Ministries, in which he counsels with men trying to overcome an addiction. "I try to make myself available to anyone who wants to listen," he said. "I’m willing to do whatever I can to help people in that situation, because I know how detrimental it can be to your life. It had me miserable for years and years. Addiction is terrible. It’s like having a monkey on your back that you can’t shake off. We took the kids to a waterpark, and I was able to enjoy the simple pleasure of watching my kids and playing with them. There was a time when I couldn’t have been able to enjoy that. There would have been an old gnawing voice in the back of my head telling me that I needed a drug or alcohol to enhance the situation. That is such a lie, such a lie of the devil, but so many of us have believed it.

     "I love my life now. I’ve given my testimony at a few churches, and I give it at the Home when we have our tent revivals. I try to keep the message out there that we serve an awesome God and that He can deliver you from anything. If He can change me, He can change anybody."

     The scripture on his business card for Cross Addicted Ministries is II Corinthians 10:4. "That’s my life verse," he said. "For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. At the Home, Alex told us to find a Bible verse that will help us keep clean or help us live life the way we should. That’s just one of many that really spoke to me, because I look at drugs and alcohol as strongholds, as sin. They can be dealt with--not with the means of the world, but by the hand of God. That’s what I’ve done, and it has worked."

     "The Bible is called the Sword of the Spirit," said Gina. "Keeley would ask him, ‘Daddy, have you got your sword?’"

     "I still try to keep my pocket Bible in my pocket," said Stan. "I don’t go anywhere without my sword."

     "The children hold him accountable," Gina said of Dakota and Keeley, who are now ages ten and five, respectively. "They remember how it used to be, and sometimes fear will rise up from the old life before Christ," she said. "Parents might think that it doesn’t make an impact on the children, but it does. I can see the fear in Keeley’s eyes, sometimes. It comes from out of nowhere. One time, Stan was leaving to go to the store, and Keeley said, ‘Mama, where is daddy going? Is he coming back?’ She remembers that he would leave sometimes at night. He would always come home, but she remembers him leaving and her crying and begging him to come back. She says that it scared her. It still pulls on her, from way back, even with her being so young.

     "In her prayers, Keeley always thanks the Lord that we go to Rock Springs, and that her daddy works at the church and goes down to the Home. When Dakota prays, he thanks God that his daddy doesn’t drink or smoke anymore."

     Both children prayed for their father years before he was saved. "We prayed for him all the time," said Gina. "I would tell Dakota, ‘He’s your father, and he loves you very much. But he doesn’t know the Lord, and therefore he’s going to do things like this, because he’s not listening to the right master.’ I had talks with Dakota when he was three, four, and five, and he would be on his little knees, praying for his daddy, praying that he wouldn’t drink anymore. Dakota’s prayers, and Keeley’s prayers, when she got a little older, I think played a huge part in Stan finally coming to the Lord. As adults, we sometimes doubt the power of God and think that maybe it won’t happen, but they just prayed, believing that it was going to happen."

     Both children have been involved at Home with a Heart. "Our kids are very familiar with the damage that alcohol and drugs can cause in homes," said Gina. "They can’t stand either one. When we go to the grocery store, and they see beer, they’ll say, ‘Yuck, yuck, yuck’ or ‘Satan, Satan, Satan.’ One time, in the grocery store, we were passing somebody with a case of beer, and Keeley said, ‘Mama, look what they’ve got in their cart.’ But that’s the way we want them to be."

     "That’s the way they’re going to have to be as adults," said Stan. "They’re going to have to despise it. I don’t want them to ever take that first drink. They don’t need to know what it tastes like. I can tell them exactly what it tastes like, and how powerful it is. We have zero tolerance for it. We have to, because it took too much of my life."

     "Satan always tries to make it look good," said Gina. "In beer commercials, they make it look so good, but they don’t show the people in the gutter, the homes that are busted up, the jobs that are lost, the lives that are ruined. They only show a moment that lasts for only a little while. They don’t show the end result.

     "Unfortunately, a lot of Christians drink. When they do it in front of their kids, even socially, they’ll never know if that child is going to have a problem with it. What if they teach their child that it is okay to drink socially, and then that child winds up with an addiction problem down the road? You just can’t play with it. Satan is after our young people and our families.

     "Young people don’t realize, when they start drinking, how far-reaching it can be, even if they stop and are trying to get things right. Stan had stopped drinking and had turned his life around, but still didn’t have his license because of many d.u.i.’s, and couldn’t get life insurance for a long time, because they considered him a risk."

     "A big part of my life was drinking and driving," said Stan. "I lost my license for 15 years because of it. We’re dead set against it. If we see anybody we think might be drinking and driving, we get our cell phone and call it in. I have no tolerance for it. I can’t. I drank and drove for years, and I’m lucky I didn’t kill anybody. I’m still paying the consequences of it, because I have it stamped on my driver’s license.

       "The addictions in my life were so detrimental to us, that we had to give it all to God," said Stan. "We had tried other methods, and nothing had worked. It had to be full-blown Jesus. I found my brokenness at the Home, and, during that time, Gina found her brokenness, separately. We were able to come together, equally yoked, and start over. The day I graduated from the Home, November 29, 2003, we renewed our wedding vows, with the kids. It was awesome. I was a different person compared to when I checked in. I wasn’t necessarily a bad person, when I checked in, but inside I felt like the scum of the earth, because I had done so much. I had to work through all of that when I was at the Home. It has been good ever since. Living for Jesus makes it a lot easier."

This story, originally published in The Christian View magazine, may not be reprinted in part or whole without prior written permission from the author. Photos may not be used without permission from the Warren family.