Tucson Center Students

My first memories of childhood were pretty rough. I remember being adopted into a loving, Godly family at age 7. Everything up to age 15 was for the most part a normal childhood. Then at around age 15, I was put on psychiatric medication which was in a way the beginning of my identity crisis. This was only creating dependency on drugs to fill a void. Coming off those psych meds at age 15 was the first time I experienced a withdraw. This feeling of dependency and emptiness led me to start experimenting, and using other drugs. Still chasing an identity.  The next 7 years of using drugs, and drinking to numb the pain of not knowing who I was in Christ led me to my place of refuge, Teen Challenge.  I needed help. I needed God. While I am here at Teen Challenge I hope to become the better father and husband the Bible says I am supposed to be. I want to finally be able to put my past behind me, and put Christ first in my life.

Favorite Scripture: Romans 8:28- And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.

Life growing up for me was hard. My parents were never together, so I sought after relationships with people who weren’t good influences. My addiction started when I was 13 years old with smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol. I think I started to use drugs because they would make me feel good/happy as well as to be accepted. I came to Teen Challenge to get off the streets because I was homeless.  I also want get away from temptations so that I can work on myself while finding a relationship with God.  The fear of where my addiction was taking me is really what brought me to Teen Challenge. I was clean before I came into the program, but I knew that it wasn’t likely to stay that way for long so I decided to get a head start on it. While here in the program I hope to accomplish a better relationship with God, gain some confidence in myself, and to learn how to humble myself and be the man I am supposed to be.

Favorite Scripture: 1 Corinthians 13:11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.

I grew up in a good, loving, Christian home being raised in church. While everything was going so well, it was all taken from my family and me. My parents ended up getting divorced. I was constantly put down by mom after the divorce because she was angry with my dad.  That’s really when I started to get into my addiction. I started to feel less than and as if I was never going to amount up to anything. I began hanging out with the wrong kids in school to be what I was told I was going to be. I’m here at Teen Challenge to change my life so that I will be ready to marry my fiancée, and be the man God wants me to be. I am sick and tired of always living for the devil and being in darkness. I’ve always known I have a calling on my life and it is time to submit and let God be in control of my life. While here, I hope to be in constant relationship with God, be a leader, and learn how to be the head of my household.  

Favorite Scripture: I Peter 1:22 “Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart”

Growing up life was pretty good up until I was seven years old when my dad decided to leave. From that day forward I always had a feeling of being alone in life. In order to mask the pain, I started using drugs at the early age of 13 and progressively started to get worse. I moved from alcohol to cocaine by the age of 16. I realized that when I was using drugs, I didn’t have to face any of the problems that I had going on in my life or deal with myself. I came to Teen Challenge in order to find my true self, but most importantly grow my relationship and get to a deeper connection with my Savior. Where I find my motivation to stick it through in Teen Challenge is my two beautiful daughters who deserve to have me at my best. I hope during these 13 months I am able to finally figure out the calling God has on my life so that I can have a firm foundation and a purpose for life after Teen Challenge.

Favorite Scripture: Philippians 4:13 “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me”

My life growing up was kind of rough and different than most. My brother and I were adopted by my birth mom’s social worker. My birth mom died when we were very young. I remember thinking drugs were more important than myself at a young age. I don’t know who my father because my mother was a prostitute. My addiction began at 13 when I was a freshman in high school. It started with alcohol, weed, and evolved into cocaine. That led me deeper into harder drugs. I believe I used drugs and alcohol to numb the pain of feeling worthless and I was trying to fit in with people. I would do anything to not be abandoned again. The recent crisis that brought me to Teen Challenge was methamphetamines. My birth mother was a meth addict. My mom always told me to never try any drug because it was in my genetics (but of course I didn’t listen). I promised myself I would do any drug but meth out of respect because it caused my mother to choose it over her kids.  I broke my own heart when I  used meth for the first time. I felt like I was nothing. While I’m here, I hope to do some deep cleaning that I haven’t done ever and look at my major issues like trust and abandonment and work on a relationship with the Lord that I need.  

Favorite Scripture: Psalm 27:10 “When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up.” 

When I was little, my parents were split up so lived with my mom and I didn’t meet my dad until I was four years old. My mom and I were always moving around, so I jumped from school to school.  My drug addiction started when I was thirteen years old and began with marijuana and gradually progressed into using methamphetamines. I was using drugs to not feel alone anymore and mask that pain. I came to Teen Challenge to get clean and sober as well as grow close to the Lord and work on my    mental illness. While being here I hope to  accomplish and become a disciple of Christ.  

Favorite Scripture: Proverbs 12:1-2 Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but whoever hates correction is stupid. Good people obtain favor from the Lord, but he condemns those who devise wicked schemes.

My childhood was a rocky one with plenty of ups and downs. I grew up on a farm so there wasn’t a lot to do besides play video games. I never felt like I fit in or ever really got too close to anyone. I was mostly a loner as a child. I escaped with video games as my reality because they accepted me without judgment. This was my reality until age 21 when I really started experimenting with alcohol. For the next 11 years I started drinking very heavily when my mother passed away. Drinking myself to sleep became the new normal. Alcohol made me numb to avoid dealing with all the internal pain, and sorrows I was trapped in. As I got older I married, and my alcoholism started putting a big strain on that as well. My health started to suffer as too.  I never had a true relationship with God up to this point. Because my wife was in ministry already, she prayed and believed that there was hope for me still with Christ. My journey to Teen Challenge was God ordained, and I believe that I am right where I need to be to receive my inner healing. While being here so far, I have given my life to Christ and now have hope for a better future.  

Favorite Scripture: Isaiah 59:1 Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear.

Life growing up for me was good, it was the typical rural farm family life. My mother and father were very hard working. My parents kept me busy going to church, doing chores and my school work. My addiction started in 2006 when I started to use drugs and alcohol to gain friends and feel accepted. I have come to Teen Challenge so that I can obtain sobriety and develop my relationship with Christ. I ended up hearing about Teen Challenge from a friend that had actually completed Teen Challenge and has been living sober, so he urged me to try it out for a while. While I’m here at Teen Challenge I hope that I am able to work towards a firm foundation that I am able to build my life upon so that I no longer have to live in sin and so people can see that God still does miracles.

Favorite Scripture: John 3:16 - For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

My life growing up was a good one. I was blessed to be born into a family of five, including myself, and I am the youngest with an older brother and an older sister. I had both of my parents and they were close to each other. It wasn’t until I was around 7 years old that things started to change around me and my parents started to fight a lot. My dad would drink too much, and began to do damage. Personally, I don’t have any drug or alcohol addictions, but I’ve dealt with other things that have affected my life that caused me pain and heartbreak, even to the point of desiring to be someone else. My circumstances at the time led me here to Teen Challenge of Arizona. I’m here because I needed a way out of the place I was at before. I hope to find something greater than anything I could have ever imagined, and much, much more and also everlasting love.

Favorite Scripture: Philippians 4:13 I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

My life went pretty well when I was growing up. I was loved by both my mother and father and my family and I would spend a lot of time together. When I was a young boy my father started drinking and would be gone a lot of nights.  Also, my mother would get angry at me and it would scare me a lot when I was a child. I love both my parents very much and know that they did their best and continue to do their best.  I started with watching pornography at age 12, then using electronic cigarettes, and before I knew it I was using drugs. I used drugs and alcohol to try and numb trauma from when I was a child, my negative behaviors and actions that I have taken, the way that I felt about myself, and to avoid feelings and reality. I ended up sleeping in my car for about a month and I was absolutely miserable with my life and what I was doing to myself. I was slowly losing my family and was just about out of money and had no hope.  I felt horrible about trying to run from Jesus and for telling Him that I was not going to live for Him.  I wanted to learn about Jesus and also become a pastor and I knew that Teen Challenge would be a great start. I am here at Teen Challenge to learn who Jesus is and what his plan is for my life.  I hope to continue to learn about myself and receive breakthrough and healing. I also hope to rebuild relationships with loved ones and learn the word of God so I can better my life.

Favorite Scripture: Philippians 4:13 I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

I had a fairly typical childhood growing up.  I did come from a divorced household, but it happened when I was three years old so I really don’t remember the separation. Both my parents were present and active in raising me in my early formative years.  My addiction began when I was 18 years old. I dabbled with prescription opiates my senior year in high school and really started abusing them my freshman year in college. I was involved in a car accident in which I was ejected out of my truck at 75+ miles per hour later that same year. I was put in a drug–induced coma for 5 weeks immediately following the accident and suffered a lot of physical trauma and a severe case of PTSD. This was the real beginning of my opiate addiction that’s spanned the following 18 years of my life. I’ve attempted to use drugs and alcohol to block out anything that I find causes me stress because of my inability to deal with the hardships I underwent immediately after high school. I came to Teen Challenge to become a man of God, and a strong, godly husband and father.

Favorite Scripture: Galatians 6:9 “So let us not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up.”

Growing up I had a great childhood and I always remember having everything I always wanted. Sometimes having everything is not enough though. Around the middle of my high school years I started experimenting with drugs and alcohol. Hopefully through Teen Challenge I can figure out what made me start using. Maybe it was to feel better, maybe there’s a deeper root issue I haven’t yet discovered. Earlier this year I got arrested, again, and even though it wasn’t for drugs this time I had been using again and letting everyone down around me that loved me or had anything to do with me. I was told about this program, Teen Challenge, from someone I was in jail with. I was able to get in contact with a man that was able to get me into the program. I’m hoping while I’m here to learn a new way of life centered in Christ and to be set free from addiction.

Favorite Scripture: 1 Corinthians 10:13 There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.

My life growing up was pretty good. My childhood was one with great parents, and two younger brothers. From the outside looking in it would seem I had the “perfect childhood”. What could go wrong?  At age 14 I found out I had more thoughts, and anxieties than I wanted to deal with on my own so I turned to methamphetamines, and alcohol. For the next 19 years my addictions spiraled out of control.  I no longer knew who I was without being saturated in a cloud of substance’s. Because of many lost jobs, and failed relationships I realized I needed a better life. Through a relationship with a local pastor, and my mother counseling me and through fervent prayer, they convinced me I needed to travel from Tennessee to Arizona to this place called Teen Challenge so I could find my purpose in Christ. While in Teen Challenge I hope to build a foundation in Christ that sustains me forever without worrying about tomorrow.

Favorite Scripture: Proverbs 27:1- Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth.

I grew up in a normal Christian household. When I became a teenager I did the whole school thing, graduated and everything. Fast forward to the present, in May of 2022 I overdosed on fentanyl pills. I’m here at Teen Challenge to get the help I so desired and need. Praise the Lord our God, for He is good. In all of this I should have known that my addiction to the pills was making God jealous.  I went to fentanyl instead of God for comfort. This is a life changing event for me. I know Teen Challenge will help and get me through my addiction and off the pills.  I believe in my heart I can start fellowshipping with my brother’s in Christ and be able to lift each other up in prayer when we feel down.

Favorite Scripture: 2 Corinthians 10:3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh.