He Couldn’t Fix His Meth Addiction...Here’s How God Set Him Free

my best choices, my best work ended me up here, ended me in several rehabs. So, if what you're doing is not working, there's a reason why it's not working. Give God a try. there's an old bumper safer says, "Give God a try. If it doesn't work, God, the devil will take you back." Drugs and alcohol are always out there. But God is always out there waiting for you. So, today's conversation, I'm here with David Mosley, one of our long-term staff members at Shannida Valley Adult Teen Challenge. And today we're going to talk about surrender. Not just a religious idea, but that moment that you realize all of your best efforts aren't cutting it. David, one of my favorite quotes that I share often with students is that when I went in a Teen Challenge, I was actually doing the math. And this August will be 20 years since I walked through the doors of Long Island Teen Challenge. And I think I told one of our guys a couple weeks ago when he was like trying to roll through his workbooks, he's "Hey, if I can just fill the answers in without, doing the work and I'm that good, is that going to work for me?" And I'm "No, man. You got to learn a little bit." And I looked at him and I said, "So what you're telling me is that you have all the knowledge that you need already and that was working for you prior to coming in here." And then I reframed it and said, "All of my best decisions, all of my best efforts led me to the Doratine challenge." It wasn't until I was willing to let go, control, surrender a little bit that, things actually started to change. And so, I want to talk to you. We're just have a conversation about surrender. We covered this in our chapel last night. We're going to cover it in our recovery group this Thursday. And before surrender ever meant anything spiritual to you, right? Before you understood the spiritual context of what it meant to surrender to Jesus, what did surrender mean in your life? Before Christianity, before I got saved, before my addiction, surrender meant giving up. It was, I've lost. I have nothing left. I'm just, it's I give up. Yeah. I just I quit. So it was I assume a negative connotation for you. Pretty much a negative connotation. Yes. While you were in the thick of I guess trying to manage everything going on in your life, that was just another layer of negativity. The idea of surrendering was like really just another failure. I would say it's another failure. It's admitting I can't, which growing up I was very much perfectionist. I tried to do everything exactly right so no one could find anything wrong. and trying to find approval through that is if I do everything just right then there won't be anything wrong and there'll be no negative but you can't do everything perfect yeah it's interesting because you your answer there led right to what this whole thing is about right the whole idea of surrender is letting go of the illusion of control letting go of the illusion of control yes I would say so and realizing like right we don't let Oh, because often times we see that control is like the only thing that's allowing us to survive, right? I've I'm holding on to whatever it may be. And so, like you said, letting go ends up feeling like collapse in a sense, but eventually life really does have a way of proving that we're not in control as we think. Right. Right. Right. Absolutely. I think that we try to hold on to control. So even when everything is in chaos, if we have just one thing that we're in control of, one thing that we're able to still hold on to is we have power over that. That's that's our control. That's our pride talking, of course, cuz we have no control, but we're still trying to hold on to that one thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And until we are able to surrender that, and that's when we get into where God comes in, where faith comes in, and surrender takes on a whole another meaning. meaning. meaning. Yeah. That's really good. So, can you take us into a moment in your life where you realized that like I'm not in control of this anymore, right? What broke for you personally, when you finally got that revelation that you weren't in control? Wow. so, probably when I got my cancer diagnosis, that was 12, 13 years ago. I had a tumor growing on my neck and it was getting bigger and I just, I finally went into you the emergency room to get looked at or went into the clinic I guess. Then you go to the emergency room said I need to get looked at and they said we can't see you for two months and I pulled back and showed a tumor the size of a lemon on my neck and they said you need to go to ER. Yeah. Wow. went to ER and they said you have cancer go to oncologist and I started going through all that and I had to go through chemo and radiation and trying to work while doing that and having absolutely no control and still trying to maintain control trying to work while going through chemo and of course you can't do that because it just takes a toll on the body so I started really heavily leaning into supplementing my energy level with drugs and specifically meth, which does not actually help, at least not for very long. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I got to the point where I lost my job. and I just was crashing. Yeah. So, so I guess I can probably figure this out, but if you had to put a word on the emotion that was driving your need to control, right? if it was, maybe fear, shame, a need to feel safe, like what was your grip and control rooted in? your desire to control that situation, what you were doing, like what was the root of that? I think control is the right word. Wanting to have control over something. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. for most of my life, looking back, I didn't have a lot of control or I felt like I didn't have a lot of control. So anytime I could get some control over anything, I felt growing up, that I was the black sheep of the family, I was the one that was left out. being the oldest, I was looked to as to always had to get it right. And, my little brother got away with murder when I would get in trouble for everything. everything. everything. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, anything I could find where I could have some control, something where I could put my hand on and say, "I'm in possession of this. I'm in authority over this." Yeah. So it wasn't control was the word. word. word. Maybe I could phrase that a little differently. So for me like when I like I have had have a need sometimes even now still to strugg when I struggle with this like when I'm going through some difficulty like personally I have my highs and lows that battle depression on and off and it took me a while to get to this place where I I just gave up trying to control my image of people right and so there was maybe some shame associated with that. like if they know what I'm really going through, they're not going to look at me the same. And so out of that shame of what I was dealing with, there was this desire there to control my image so that people would think, what I'm saying? Oh, he's not. And so like when you talk about like obviously in my mind and I'm not trying to put words in your mouth like dealing with cancer I imagine there's a lot of fear right that you were dealing with that you grabbed a hold of the fatigue and some other things like is there anything else that maybe sticks out? Oh, I would say very similar to what you're talking about, but I came at it with the opposite angle of pride, not wanting to admit shame, not wanting to admit, trying to give a front that I'm in control even when obviously spiraling out of control. So, it was more pride, not willing to admit, wanting to give off this front of I've got it under control. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. That's that's powerful, man. I completely forgot. you've told me the story about your cancer diagnosis before, but it's just been a while since I've heard it. And it's just it's impactful to hear that and think about that and the aspect of this conversation, right? And being in that situation where you're really having to surrender, yourself, not just to the Lord, but to the doctors and everybody else. it really is letting go. But, of course, that battle that you're dealing with. And you talked about it at the very beginning in the onset, this word surrender. A lot of times people think weakness, they think loss, they think punishment, but the reality is that the resistance is usually it's hiding something deeper inside of us, right? That us holding on and not wanting to surrender. It really is hiding something deeper. And so when you think about people maybe that we've ministered to over the years, guys you've seen come into the program, leave the program, and the ones that you would say were holding back from truly surrendering. What do you think most people are afraid of losing in that scenario? I think it's probably different for a lot of people. I mostly going to go back to control. that people want to be in charge of their own life. Yeah. And when we surrender especially in a biblical sense we're saying God I want you to be in control and we live in a society where be your own man. Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. Right. Right. Right. do your own thing. Don't let anyone tell you what to do. Right. Right. Right. These are all words that I grew up hearing. Yeah. That makes it extremely difficult to like if that's been your model that you've been taught. And then you come not only into a non-residential recovery program like a group, but more so like a teen challenge type environment where you are literally from day one submitting yourself to a bunch of strangers telling you what to do, people you don't know, hoping they have your best interest at heart. You really don't know when you're walking through the door, right? And so maybe there is that uncertainty, doubt that this is going to be the program for me. This is going to work. And like I need to control at least some part of this cuz I don't know whether these people are trustworthy yet. I don't know whether this is going to work for me. I don't even trust myself yet, and so I got to try to control what I can. what do you think the hardest thing was for you to let go of you during your journey, to Christ and walking through all this? What was the I guess even the situation you described earlier? What was the hardest for you to let go of? The hardest for me to let go of when I had leaders who I didn't think were saying the right thing, doing the right thing, when I thought I knew better. better. better. Yeah. which has been a problem going back well all my life when I would deal with leaders who when I thought I knew more thought I was better thought I was smarter had a better way of doing it and I would spend a lot of time well you don't know what you're doing I'm going to do it my own way and I would do it my own way and often times the leader would not appreciate that because I didn't do the way they wanted it done Yeah, even if I thought my way was better and learning through losing several jobs in my career because I had my own way of doing things. things. things. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. To being able to let go and say, "All right, I'm going to do it, your way and hopefully I'll find a way to present my idea at some point in the future. I think I have a better way of doing this. Can we try it this way?" Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And learning to do it. I'll do it your way. and be positive about it. First, I did I'll do it your way, but I'm going to complain. I'm going to grumble and I'm going to, have a bad attitude, but I'll do it your way. That's so hard, too, when you find yourself in that type of scenario with a leader. I'm just thinking through this and, what they're telling you to do is not going to produce the result. I'm thinking even just physical activity, maybe fixing something or whatever, and you're watching and you're "Hey, we should do it this way." And then the leader's "No, do it my way. You have to do it the way they asked you to do it." Then when it doesn't work out and they go back and do it the way that you had suggested in the first place, it takes a lot of humility to not like come on the other side of that. See, I told you so, ? Yeah. And the I told you so never it never helps, right? But it does feel good. It does. It feels really good. I've had several examples where I've been able to do it the way the leader said, go back, and say, I did the task you asked for. As I was doing, I was thinking, what if we tried doing it next time doing it this way and giving them ideas of suggestion rather than saying this is a better way of doing it. Yeah. Yeah. It's really good. So let's talk about what surrender actually looks like because I think a lot of times this idea of surrender it's really vague or even overspiritualized but in real life surrender is gritty it's practical and sometimes it's it's ugly and so just thinking about like the whole idea my process of learning to finally surrender and I think there was this wrestling match that I had with God at verse because like we talked about the verse in Matthew last night, right? Where was Matthew or Luke where whoever wants to you gain his life must lose it and I think it's in both but there's that process of like having to really like lay my plans and dreams down and like the entirety of my life is what he wants, right? Not just part of it. And for me, I think the struggle was like it was difficult to get to that place where "No, God, I just want you to take my addiction. I'm just going to keep everything else. All the other stuff that's around it. you just deal with the meth addiction. I got everything else." Right? And that part was a challenge for me, and it wasn't until I started to allow him to affect on everything, but it was definitely challenging. What did surrender actually look like for you? Like not in theory, but like in real life, like what did that practically look like? Well, it's definitely a process and it's laying down things. And I started very similar to where you just mentioned, God, take my addiction and, let me just keep everything else. And I had to realize that like especially with my addiction, there were so many things that I associated with using that I had to let go of. Things that weren't necessarily bad things, but because I associated them with the addiction that, things singing karaoke, which you do in a bar. I used to love doing that. Playing cards. I used to love doing that, but I would always be high when I was playing cards. So, I had to put all those things down. And I didn't want to. I knew I wanted to stop using, but I didn't want to let go of the other stuff. And I would complain. I argued with God. These aren't bad things, right? These they're fun things. I can do them without using. They're not it's not a sin. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I had to realize, and God said, "Yeah, but you're doing them when you sin." Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And to let go of it. And you mentioned the verse in Matthew about, God wants to take everything. There's a second part to that verse that really stands out. We have to take up our cross daily. So I think Christian surrender we talk about secular surrender looks like this. Christian surrender looks like this because we have to be willing to receive what God has for us. Yeah, that's really good. And so it's not about just putting down things because God is going to have us pick something else up in exchange. Mhm. So, we need to have that new thing to fill that hole that we've just when we've put down these things that we are letting go, God's going to give us something new, something better to put in place of that. Yeah, that's really good. it's funny. I hear some testimonies. I've heard a lot of Teen Challenge testimonies over the years, and I hear these guys sometimes "Man, I was ready the day I went into the program. I was doubting. I never wanted to leave." And like every day I was locked in and I'm just "Well, that may be your story, but it just wasn't mine." and you think about this idea of surrender. And I've even heard pastor say, and I'm not knocking him. I've got a good friend that like genuinely and I believe him 100%. I've never had a day that I've wanted to quit doing the ministry is what he said. And I hear that and I'm man, I wish that's not my story. Like I've wanted to quit often, ? And I think there's this process of like even now surrender and going back like God why did I start this in the first place? Right? And that's the I think the messy part. It's the even when I was pastoring like the Sunday I had to be vulnerable with a board member and call and say, "Hey, I am not in a good mental place right now to preach. Like I'm having a rough week mentally. I'm going through it. I just need the day off." and being willing to be vulnerable in those moments. And that's the messiness of what surrender looks like. And I think longevity looks like being able to acknowledge that weakness and constantly laying it down at the foot of the cross, right? It's it's not getting to this false finish line, if you will, that we often times set, but it's that willingness to work through the messy and the difficult and the ugly and constantly going back, like you just said, dying to yourself, picking up the cross daily and following after him. Absolutely. I agree with you there. And I think it goes back to what you were saying earlier about shame and what I was saying about pride. It takes a lot of strength when we are surrendering to say, "Hey, I need help. Hey, I can't do this today. Hey, I'm not in a good space right now." especially in ministry, especially as pastors. it's, people look at us as being bulletproof and always being ready and we're just as human. That's right. And that is one of the hardest things. And I remember when I was a new Christian and thinking that my pastor was perfect, right? right? right? And until one day I heard him snap at someone. someone. someone. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I who are what who are you and what have you done with the real pastor, Gary? Gary? Gary? Right. Yeah. So, and that was, the reality that, ministry leadership is probably one of the toughest jobs there is. And you just got to because you have to be on your game. you had to be on point. People expect you to be there all the time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When you work in, living in a residential program, I'm on duty 24/7. Someone knocks on my door at 2 a.m., I've got to be there. And I told the guys, I will be there. I may not be too coherent to 2 a.m., but I'll be there. But I'll open the door. So, let's talk about what like actually changes, right? Because I think we Dave Ramsey talks about we live in a microwave generation, right? But real growth happens in a crockpot. It's it's slow and it's not immediately external. We're so carnally minded even once we come to Christ cuz we think that like okay now that I surrender all my relationships are going to be fixed. I'm he's going to bless my bank account. There's going to be an open door for a job immediately. But like I think a lot of times we don't realize that the first changes aren't external. There's a work happening on the inside of us, right? And and so like just thinking about that like once you finally let go like what shifted for you, right? Was it the circumstances or was there something inside of you that shifted first before the circumstances began to change? And it can be either or. That's not a set. I set the question up, but some of both. I got radically saved when I got saved. there was a I was wasn't planning on getting saved. my best friend at the time, I'll give him little my mini testimony here. wife was killed in a car accident and which was terrible thing. he was going to this church and she was going to the church. They were actually this church was sponsoring them, helping them pay their rent and he was a drinking buddy and we'd get together and smoke weed. I was going to move in with him as a friend cuz he just didn't have anyone. He was very lonely and wanted just some company, a friend to be there. Well, he said I probably have to go to church. Being raised Methodist, but having walked away from the ministry when I was about 13, I knew enough Christianes that I could tell the pastor what he wanted to hear, right? and I'll give up an hour on Sundays, . Yeah. Okay. And it gets me out of the house where I was living. I didn't want to live there. everything was be great. Walk into the neighborhood Assembly of God Church. it was September 27th, 2001, 1:30 p.m. Went into Pastor Brad's office and we just talked. I expected this whole fire and brimstone lecture about what a horrible sinner I was. Right. Right. Right. And we just talked. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And we talked about 911. That was just a few weeks ago. talked about Gail's death. That was my best friend's wife. And we just talked and after about an hour, hour, hour, my life was just this pile of junk in my lap. I really didn't want it. He led me in the sinner's prayer. And it felt as though weight had been pushing down on my shoulders that I didn't even know was there. Lifted up. I literally felt the weight lift up, which was amazing. I never expected to feel that you that night in my house. I went to get out my pipe, my pot pipe to take a pipe hit. I couldn't bring my arm to the pipe. And as real as you're sitting there, the Holy Spirit was in that room. Wow. Wow. Wow. And was blown away by the presence of God. I didn't expect that. I didn't didn't understand it. I just knew I wanted more of it. Yeah. And I was hungry for God. And over the next several years, the mundainess of life began to wear on. I was still on fire, but I began to, start cutting corners and start compromising a little here and there, spending a little less time in the word, a little less time in prayer. you still going to prayer meetings, still experiencing the presence of God. But life started creeping in. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I got to where I started went had a really bad day at work and said, "I'm going to go to bar and have a beer." Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that was all it took was to get back into start that real slide back into drugs and alcohol and eventually into meth. And so there was not one thing I can point to but this general slide. So what I'm hearing you say is that like there was a shift. You got to this place where you made a decision to surrender to God. He responded right. There was a very real response. But then there wasn't perfection right after. Right. that there was a little bit of a battle still that you had you were walking through. and I think sometimes like we like God's response is there, but like again going back to that earlier point like not everything's going to be perfect afterwards, right? And what do you say to somebody who's maybe got the wrong idea about surrender, right? They're not really if I surrender to God, it's going to fix everything immediately. And I think sometimes I grow I've been around Pentecostal charismatic church my entire life, right? And sometimes I think we do a good job getting people to the altar, having these Holy Spirit moments, but then I was talking to Ben Fuller about this, not preparing them for the way he described it in that previous episode. Y'all can go check that out a couple episodes down that when he got up from the altar, it was like there was a target on his back. And like I sometimes we lack prepar we lack the ability to prepare people for that, right? We let me rephrase that. We don't prepare people adequately for that. Right. I agree. And I was thinking about that. I used to love watching the TBN and all these networks where they'd have these huge altra calls where hundreds, thousands of people go down. I'd be so excited to see all these people getting saved. And as I've gotten more mature and grown a little bit, I realize it's not about getting them saved, it's about getting them discipled. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, as this ministry here has grown and has changed over the years that when I got here, we had 40 plus students. students. students. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it was amazing. I thought that was awesome. And now we have, 10 beds. Yep. Yep. Yep. And I realized that we can do more in the lives of 10 people. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Than we can do in the lives of 40 if we really pour in. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I am much happier now here in this much smaller facility. I'm open to growth. I'm always open to having more people. And if God wants to make this program bigger, he'll bring in more staff, but we need to have the staff. You need to have the people to offset so people don't get lost in the works. And I think that, there is a lot, especially in charismatic things that Yeah. God's going to fix all your problems. And in a microwave generation, generation, generation, yeah, he does walk with us. And I I it's hard to describe to the non-believer and the person who hasn't been there like weakness is strength, right? Like in this power you're made perfect. Like in this like this is where my power is made perfect in you. I completely just butchered the verse, but what ? but I think a lot of people like they live in this place of fear like they're they're exhausted. They know something needs to change, right? But just dead afraid of what surrender is going to look like. And I've been there, right? I've been there myself, but what do you say to somebody who may be in that spot? Maybe there's a listener that is worn out. They know something needs to change, but they're just afraid to surrender. Psalm 34, God says, "Taste and see that the Lord is good." So God is saying, "Give me a chance." U, if you're listening and you're hearing this and you're you're afraid of surrendering, not to beat you over the head with a lot of scripture or anything, but everything I did, you like we said, my best choices, my best work ended me up here, ended me in several rehabs. So, if what you're doing is not working, there's a reason why it's not working. give God a try. there's an old bumper sticker says, "Give God a try. If it doesn't work, God, the devil will take you back." drugs and alcohol are always out there. But God is always out there waiting for you. surrender is difficult because it means letting go. But what we've done, when we were doing when we were drinking and drugging, running and gunning, doing our own thing, it wasn't working. And while it may have been fun for a while, it didn't end up fun. As I look back, I the farther away I get from my addiction, the less I remember the good stuff and the more I remember all the negatives. when you're right out of addiction. I can remember I remember the fun times and how good it was when I was doing this when I was it's the only way to cope getting high and getting drunk and partying with women and doing whatever I wanted and that was and I don't remember the negatives and waking up in a field you not knowing how I got there. there. there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which actually happened. Yeah. It's so crazy because I was even thinking about this from the context of how I've grown as a leader and like I remember like the first couple years of doing intake calls like if you're not willing to commit to the year, this isn't the place for you like and how honestly like I understand the whole idea it's a long-term program. make the decision. You got to know what you're coming into and all of that. But even just the mindset of me in those moments as a leader trying to control outcomes, right? And I didn't realize it at the time that's what I was doing. But like just trying to control outcomes and like I can only build the structure, right? People have to make their decisions on whether they're going to remain a part of that. And I think as I matured as a leader even now, we're doing this shorter term 90-day program. something that I would have never done, never even considered 10 years ago. Not it wouldn't even across my mind, but it's I'm had a call today from a guy who had looked at our year-long program probably four or five times, saw the 90-day post come up and said, I wasn't quite sure that I could commit to a year, but I saw that you're doing the 90 days and I think I'm going to give it a shot. And so we're talking, but it's just the difference of like there's it's just one step, right? One process, one thing. You don't have to like give everything up like right out the gate. You're not going to fix everything right out of the gate. Like now, there are some majors that you should probably consider quitting, like shooting drugs, right? That's probably important. But like find one thing to surrender to the Lord that's like micro microiz decisions on a guy by the name of James Clear writes a book called Atomic Habits and the book is really about taking bite-sized chunks right small steps toward the end goal and he goes as far as saying if you can't find the motivation to go to the gym just drive to the parking lot once a day of the gym and get the habit get the discipline down right find that one thing that you need to surrender. As small and as minuscule as it may seem, God honors faith that's just the size of a mustard seed. It doesn't have to be huge. And I think that's the reality. Like we often see surrender is this passive thing, but it really isn't. No. And it's it's again the two parts of surrender. It's not just letting go of something. It's letting God put something else in its place. So it's two steps. Even if it's you're getting rid of one small thing, allow God to put one small thing back in one change in the positive. Get rid of one negative and bring in one positive. And that'll make a huge difference in your life. Allowing God to just do that one thing. And if you like that, then allow God to do one more. more. more. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then one turns to two to three to four. And you see, surrender is not about letting go, but allowing God to bring the new, the good in. Yeah, that's so good. I think that's a great stopping point, man. I appreciate the conversation, and I'm excited. I think for those watching, SVTC has recently transitioned. We've renovated the building, and we're doing a 90-day intensive residential program. We've layered some of the 12 steps in, which is the driving factor of this conversation today. But if you're interested in learning more, you can hit the website www.SVTC.info. I'll drop the link in the description as well. We love the opportunity to help if you're in need of help. yeah, David, thank you so much for sitting down and talk, man. It's fun to do this. My pleasure. I love doing it. It's a good time. Hey, God bless you guys. Have a great day.