Joshua's Story

I grew up in East Point, Georgia, which is southwest Atlanta. It was considered the ghetto, you know, the hood. And I grew up there until I was 18 years old. I attended public schools and played sports, trying to live a somewhat normal life as a young person, but violence, gangs, and drugs were always around. They were kind of at the forefront of everything as a young person. I stayed drug-free and alcohol-free until I was a senior in high school, and that's when I tried marijuana, tried drinking, and that progressed into the nightlife in Atlanta, the club life, the rave life, and that's when I started doing ecstasy and acid and pretty much anything else you can get your hands on, ketamine, cocaine, and that eventually led to methamphetamines, which was the primary drug I used most of my life. There were different phases in my life, different stages in my life where I could tell that things were not just a casual use anymore. It wasn't just fun. The fun had pretty much left the lifestyle, and now it was using drugs to deal with whatever was going on in my life at the time. The first time I came here to A Better Way, which was around 2014, I heard about A Better Way Ministries through my drug dealer in the Bluffs. I was at his house, and I was desperate. I was wanting to quit heroin, and believe it or not, I was sitting in the Bluff for about three days at his place, and we were looking at different places for me to go. When I first arrived on the property, the first thing I noticed was all the trash cans on the street, and I was like, Jesus, there's a lot of trash cans out there, which means there's a lot of people here. I remember pulling up to the office, and Doug greeting me. My brother-in-law was dropping me off, and just being welcomed. I remember Billy and a couple other guys here taking me in with open arms, and just welcoming me to the whole process of what was expected of me, and what was about to happen over the next couple days. The structure at A Better Way is the most structured lifestyle I've ever been a part

of. Everything is decided for you, every minute of your day, every activity, every place to be. They completely take that out of your hands, which is tough in a way, but at the same time, it's a way to learn how to let go, and just fall in line, and learn that I have to try something different. Why not try this out for once, and see how this goes? The Brotherhood at A Better Way, it was really what I needed. When I arrived, there was a lot of guys with similar mentalities and backgrounds as myself. Kind of a tough group of guys, and we respected each other a lot. All of us had been in and out of prison or jail. Life had not been so easy for most of us, but it also allowed me to relate, and understand, and connect with them much quicker than I would say a normal person in the regular world. The Florida trip was a beautiful trip. It was something that was to be looked forward to during the entire time of being here at A Better Way Ministries. I remember arriving, being able to go into the house and relax, and realizing like, wow, we're at the beach. We get to actually take a few days off. It was just a beautiful environment. It was also nice because I realized at that time, during our walk within this program, that we had now been entrusted to do the right thing without someone hovering over us 24 hours a day. That we could go to the beach, we could ride around on bikes. We were truly entrusted to go around and do the right thing, and prove to the ministry that, hey, we are changing, and we are becoming better people, and that was a really good thing to see happen. A Better Way has, to me, the solution. I've been to different rehab programs and AA programs throughout my entire life, ever since I was a young person, and nothing quite fixed me, nothing quite got me where I needed

to be. It was always an almost get there type of thing, and what I realized was missing was the spiritual side of recovery, was God in my life. A Better Way truly hasn't figured out, you know, it's a very difficult program for a reason, but it has to be that way in order for it to work properly. The results simply wouldn't be there. So everything that this program is doing, I see why now, especially now that I've completed. Truly thankful for this program, truly indebted to this program. It's a beautiful place that has a solution if the person wants it. You