Determined to live his own way, Geoff pursued a lifestyle of drug and alcohol abuse. When a car accident revealed the extent of his addiction, Geoff realised he needed help.

Transcript
I grew up in a household that was a good family. Nice you know, great parents. But we didn’t have a Christian or church upbringing. I never went to church and I was taught good manners, good morals, the right way to live. I hit my teenage years and rebelled against that. I didn’t want to be told what to do or how to live my life, what I could and couldn’t do. I just chased what I wanted to do and I found that in drugs and alcohol. I started with smoking cigarettes and I’d get in trouble. I’d just keep doing it and then I found marijuana and it became my passion I guess. Like I saw my other friends were passionate about sports or music or whatever it might be and the only thing I really cared about was getting drunk, getting wasted. And I, I pursued that. It was the pain of not drinking, the pain of not using that became unbearable. The more I used, the harder it was to stop.

At first I could, I could stop for you know weeks or months and put my life back together and get everything in order. And I’d always go back to using again. And the further I progressed, the more painful it was to be sober and to be present in life. It was just a miserable existence. You know?
Like I’d go to bed at night hoping I didn’t wake up in the morning. I had lost all hope, I was in a pit of despair and I couldn’t see a way out. I crashed into a car when I was drink driving when I was 21. And I wrote off the car that I hit. At 7 o’clock in the morning, on a Sunday morning. From there I kind of really realized that things were getting seriously wrong. And started looking for help, looking for a solution. Part of that was going to drug and alcohol counseling. Part of it was going to a church with a friend of mine. And looking for something that could help me, something that could fix me, something that could cure me.

I was just looking for a way up. I admitted myself to a residential detox unit where they cleaned me up for 7 days. And then into a residential treatment centre for drug and alcohol addictions. It was half about cognitive behavioural therapy, what can I do in my life to change how I’m living. And part of it was about spirituality, me finding God.
It’s not something I actively pursued. I gave myself to God and trust my life into his care. All I wanted was to stay sober and be at peace with myself and that with the world. And by God’s grace I’ve been given everything that I wanted before and more you know. It’s not something I could have ever planned or worked out for myself. Like this is where I was trying to get and all it took me to was the depths of depression you know? When I stepped out of the way and and trusted in God’s care, everything just fell into place. All I have to do is turn up and look for God’s will in my life each day and carry that out to the best of my ability.

You know it doesn’t matter if God’s real or not, I need to have a God in my life. So it’s important for me that he is real. And that I believe. And it’s immaterial almost if I’m right or wrong. I was drinking and using drugs for almost 8 years, from the age of 13 through to 21, 22. And I’ve been seeking recovery for the last ten years. Everything I sought for in drugs and alcohol I’ve found in Jesus.