We were in a chase, and the police shot into a truck I was in. So called witnesses “saw” me hanging out the window shooting at the police. None of that was the truth. We had shot at a stop sign. We had been on a beer run, and I had shot three bullets at a stop sign with a Smith and Wesson .357 Magnum. So I’ve got a pistol in my pants. The police are chasing us. We wouldn’t let them pass us. They get reinforcements. We get to a dead end, and I jump out of the vehicle with the .357 Magnum and run away. Immediately, the pistol falls out of my pants. I can’t stop at that time because they're shooting at me. I run off, but they've got the vehicle that we’ve been in. They've got a pistol with three shows out of it with my fingerprints on it. I figure, “I’m going to prison for a long time.” It was just the grace of God that a family member knew the Sheriff. He talked to the Sheriff for us. We had a meeting with the sheriff, and he believed us.
I had taken two black RGS pills, which was speed back in the late seventies. They were capsules. Sometime people would lace capsules with PCP [horse tranquilizer]. I'm drunk, crazy, been on a big bender [at least three days of continued drunkenness]. I take two black RGS pills that I get from somebody that morning. Going into work that morning, my wife had to drive me in to meet some friends of mine, coworkers who were going to take me to work at the beer company. I was just miserable. Of course I had been miserable for a long time. Under conviction [by the Holy Spirit]. At one point now I said, “Lord if you'll help me I’m going to quit living like this. It’s ridiculous! It’s crazy!” It was almost like a deal with God. I came in that evening, and told friends [about my prayer]. I was sort of one of the leading heathens at the company. My wife came to pick me up from work. I said, “I’m done with this.” I made about thirty-thousand dollars a year just in the beer business. I worked four days a week, and made thirty-two cents a case. I was a hard worker. I’d sell close to five hundred cases of beer a day. That was good money back in the late seventies. That wasn't counting my extracurricular “stuff.”
Everybody thought I was crazy. Everybody says, “I’m going to quit drinking. I’m going to quit drugging.” They thought, “This is NUTS!” The bottom line was, I was done. God helped. I didn’t go to church for a while after that, but I feel like that was my conversion experience. I said, “Lord, if you'll help me, I’m going to quit living like this.” I was like the thief on the cross. “Remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Jesus said, “Today you'll be with me in paradise.”
I didn’t go to church after that for a month or so. I had withdrawals and depression, but the bottom-line was, I didn’t drink anything or smoke any dope or snort anything or take pills after that and haven’t since then, and that was 1984. There were people praying for me. My grandmother prayed for me. She was a really serious Godly woman. She prayed me out of Hell!
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