Hayden's Story

You know, my parents, they were both married, you know, my whole entire life. My mom, she had two children, you know, when I was born already, and so my dad, you know, married a woman that already had two kids, and then they kind of, they got married. You know, my childhood, for the most part, was good, you know. I grew up in church, you know, I went to, you know, private Christian school my entire high school, my high school years. Parents didn't really fight a lot, you know, if they did, it was something small, you know, they made up, but it was nothing to ever really affect, you know, in the long run. I got two brothers and sisters, they're both older than me. I felt, with my brothers and sisters, I felt disconnected from them because, you know, they're, they weren't the same skin tone as me, and growing up, you know, going to the same school, you know, it was tough because I didn't relate to them as, you know, much. They had a stronger relationship with each other than I felt is with my relationship with my brother and sister, rather than, you know, I look at them, and, you know, they're like best friends, and I'm kind of just standing outside the glass window, just kind of looking in at them. But for the most part, other than, you know, mental barriers, my childhood, you know, was good for the most part. My problems didn't really start happening until, you know, after high school. So first thing I ever did, I was 15, drinking with my friends, then it progressed to smoking weed. Drinking, you know, when I was in high school, it was one of those things where, you know, I kind of, you know, if there was a party going on, that's when, you know, I went around to socially do it with all my friends. Smoking weed, you know, I discovered that my senior year in high school, and I, you know, I fell in love with smoking weed. I was going over to my buddy's places, my buddy, Chandler, he had a whole basement to himself, and we would just go down there and, you know, just smoke weed all night long. And then moving on from, and just getting drunk, then I started messing with cocaine. When I first did cocaine, when I was 18, I had gone down to UGA, and that completely

changed everything. I immediately was addicted. As an 18, 19-year-old trying to fund a cocaine addiction, it was hard, you know. I'm putting myself in debt just so I could fulfill that, you know, that addiction. Eventually went down, moved down to Florida. I was getting real deal cocaine, you know, coming off the boats, and I couldn't stop. I never, you know, I messed around with pills here and there, but cocaine was, if I had a drink in my hand, I was going to get a bag that night. I didn't care if I had to drive an hour or two. There was no way I was going to drink and not get any blow. I always knew that I had a problem lying to myself. I lived in denial of my problems for so long. Like, I knew I was wrong. I knew I'm lying to everyone, but it was really, I was really just masking everything. I didn't truly realize that, you know, I need to fix this. I need to get help until I truly had to be honest, you know, with everybody in my family. So I mean, when I had my last bender, I felt completely hopeless. You know, that, those couple nights, I was suicidal and, you know, luckily I had a friend that reached out to my family. They didn't, you know, when they came and got me, they didn't just say, hey, you need help. They asked. I wanted help. And it was that moment because I knew every single lie had covered up every single thing I lied about in my entire life. I uncovered those lies because that, that was the breaking point that I knew I needed help. Once I could be honest with myself and be honest with everybody else. So I heard about A Better Way when I was actually in the airport on the way from, back to Georgia from Phoenix.

Just had a pretty wild bender, you know, probably about three or four days long. And my mom, she's, you know, asking me if I wanted to go to a program. She found this one, I guess someone she knew from church had recommended it to her. And, you know, she was like, look at the website. And so I did, you know, at the airport and I didn't really pay attention to any other, you know, program. So like I watched a couple of videos of the guys checked out, you know, where it was at, you know, it was close to home. So I kind of thought that was a good bet since in case something were to happen, you know, I could fall back, but yeah, I just, I looked it up at the airport. Okay. So when I first got checked in, you know, I was kind of like pissed cause I know I couldn't have any nicotine, had to throw away my zins in the truck. I got down there and the guys, you know, that checked me in, in the office, I was like, okay, they were all clean cut guys. I get down to the student center, a bunch of guys, they just finished eating, playing pool. This graduate, Mike Meeks, he's the first guy that, you know, introduces himself and he's covered head to toe in tattoos. Oh man, I've never been to jail or anything like that. And I'm about to be surrounded by all these guys. I don't know what I'm about to do. Ended rec time. You know, we got straight to work. First 10 minutes, they had me cleaning out trash cans, maggots full. It was rough, you know, it was picking weeds. 20 minutes in the same spot and then having to go to another spot and do the same thing. I mean just being around everybody that first day, you know, it was it was different, you know, because I've come to a realization that I'm in a program right now and I'm pretty, I have to be here. I have no choice, but it was nice to see that, you know,

there's a bunch of other guys that were in my same boat. Structure out a better way is very disciplined. It was relative, you know, to me because I served in the Army and I kind of know what that looks like waking up. You know, we wake up here at 445, our beds have to be tight, our closets are tight, you know, every buttons buttoned, every zippered zippered, you got to have your pants folded a certain way. And so, you know, some guys they struggled with that aspect of it, but for me that was one of the parts that, you know, I kind of, I felt comfortable with and doing. It's one of those things here that is needed. Waking up and making your bed, that's the most important thing, you know, even to this day that, you know, I agree that needs to be done. The structure really helped, you know, at least with other people, you know, my age or guys younger than me, guys older than me, you know, having as leaders around you, guiding you when you're pretty much, you know, a chicken running around with his head cut off because, you know, you kind of don't know what's going on, you're still new, but you got guys, you know, showing, hey, you got to be up at this time, you got to wear this, no you can't wear that, and you got to shave every day for at least six months. It's not, that's not hard. I think a lot, the structure here is very much needed and how Brother John set this place up was incredible. The brotherhood here at Better Way Ministries, it's like a giant fraternity. Kind of reminds me of, you know, being in the Army, you know, just knowing that you can go to someone that you feel close with or someone that, you know, is in the same position as you, someone that has been in the same boat as you, just to sit down and tell your brother what you're struggling with or the problems that you're going through or even just to cut up with and just have a good time, you know, because if you don't find somebody here that you can lean on with or you can lean into, it's going to be, it's going to be rough for you. You don't want to try to do this by yourself. The Florida trip was a blast. We had a great group of guys, man, just from the time we left to the time we got back, going, you know, stopping at Whataburger on the way down there, getting to the, getting to Brother John's beach house, three floor or third floor, mansion kind of looking house, right on the water. It was incredible. Just being with all the guys that you really, you know, you really came in with, you know, watching, you know, seeing other graduation videos of them at the beach when I'm early in the program and then when it's your time to go and you've reached a milestone. It was just really cool to see, be like, wow, I'm like, I'm almost there. So it was, it was really nice to like, just sit back for a little while and not worry about the things that were going on at the ministry

and just enjoy the fruits of the labor and enjoy what God has, you know, created for us all. Spending time with Brother John was, was cool. Getting to know him a little bit more than, you know, just what we see, but, you know, getting to see, you know, the vision behind everything. And then my baptism, you know, I, I felt as if it was a rededication, you know, of myself to Christ. I'm just, I was just thankful to be able to get the opportunity that, you know, we've been blessed. You get to that point as a student that you can go and you can go and take a few days off, kind of reset. A Better Way has given me peace, hope, restored everything I've ever imagined, you know, with my family. And then some, I just, I can't thank God enough for allowing me to come to a place where I could grow somewhere that's conducive, where I can focus on Him alone and focus on the problems that I had. And that was just due to poor choices. Just glad that God has never left me. He stood by my side this whole time. And the program was hard, but I promise it was worth every bit of it to get to be where I'm at now, to have, to truly have the joy of the Lord, knowing that I'm resting on His strength, that everything that I'm doing is for the greater good. It was just a beautiful thing, knowing that when I first got here, there was people that were here for being in jail or being for other things, but knowing that I didn't have any of those situations, you know, I'm just, I come from, I came from a good family that loved me regardless of the situation. But knowing that even God saw that and He knew that I, there were some things that I needed to fix in my life. And I'm just, I'm just super grateful that I was able to come to a place like this to find the brothers that I found here while getting close to God and finding out my purpose.