Tucson Center Students

I grew up in a Christian household and things were generally good. As I got older, I started to rebel. I started getting high at a young age. When I started using drugs it was just for fun, but before I knew it I was a drug addict. I came to Teen Challenge to finally break free from the chains of addiction I have been under for so many years. I know that it is only through Christ that I can overcome my addiction. I hope to grow in Christ as I go through this program.

Favorite Scripture: John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him shall never perish but have eternal life.

Growing up going to church every Sunday, I thought I knew Christ. As I got older, I started wanting to discover myself. Getting into drugs and relationships, I thought I had found my identity in gangs and the lifestyle I chose. When I found myself waking up under bridges and in hospitals for overdoses, I knew I had to make a change. I believed Christ could make that change, and so I started investigating. Today I am developing a relationship with Jesus Christ through his word and prayer. Learning to be a servant to many people that come through the doors and humbling myself. My pride is being stripped away and I’m no longer a self-centered man.  I can now rely on the word of God to make me stronger than I ever thought I was in jail or gangs. Teen Challenge saved my life.

Favorite Scripture: Amos 9:15 And I will plant them upon their land and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them saith the Lord thy God.

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.” 

I grew up in a pretty good family unit until I turned 14, at which point our home turned into a drug house. I started using alcohol at 13 and methamphetamine at 17, mostly    because everyone else was doing it. I thought it would all be okay. I came to Teen Challenge because God definitely has a  calling on my life and I know it. I don’t want to slip back into alcoholism an meth use, I want restoration and healing through Christ and His power.  

Favorite Scripture: James 5:16 “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.”

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.

My childhood was good. I didn’t want for anything. I just didn’t have my mom growing up. I had to learn how to let her go because it was a major downfall in my life. After I lost my daughter, when she passed at the age of 23, it was really hard on me. I had a lot of things going on and anger towards the situation, so I learned to cope with it by doing things on my own because a lot of people I loved were already out of my life. I always looked for love in the wrong places. I finally turned to God. He helped me realize he loved me and even through my daughter’s death, I know that she’s with him and taken care of. Teen Challenge has helped me slowly learn how to open up and understand that no matter the circumstance, God gives me a second chance to be a father to my new son that I had just a year ago. I get to be the father I have not had the chance to be.

Favorite Scripture: 1 Timothy 5:1-2 Do not rebuke an older man but encourage him as you would a father, younger man as brothers, older woman as mothers, and younger woman as sisters in all purity.