The Boy From the Crib: A Journey Through Fire, Addiction, and Redemption

On the outside, everything looked composed. But inside, I was still that boy from the crib, desperate not to be taken, desperate not to be forgotten.

I thought speed and alcohol would bring freedom. Instead, they delivered chaos. One crash rattled me. The next nearly killed me.

I woke up in a burn unit in Augusta, Georgia, with second- and third-degree burns covering the entire left side of my body. Months of surgeries, scars, and hospital stays followed. It should have been my breaking point. But I didn’t see the invitation hidden in the pain.

God wasn’t punishing me, He was calling me. Trying to awaken me. But I was still clinging to pride, still wrestling, still refusing surrender.

Marriage, divorce, addiction, and a restless pursuit of love that looked like healing but only deepened my wounds, it all brought me back to the same truth: I couldn’t save myself. And no person, no bottle, no city move could save me either.

It took years of unraveling, through fire, heartbreak, and near death, for me to finally understand that redemption doesn’t come from running. It comes from surrender.

This is just a glimpse of my story. The full journey, the fire, the storm, the unraveling, and the redemption, lives inside the pages of my book.

Read more in To Die is To Live. Discover how God takes broken beginnings and turns them into testimonies of grace.