It’s around 1 p.m. on April 18, 2000, and I’m walking down Peachtree Street in Atlanta, Georgia. I’m homeless. Sweating like a crackhead because, well… I am a crackhead.
I’ve got five dollars in my pocket, and I’m faced with a decision that’s tearing me apart: spend it on food or on crack. You’d think the choice would be easy, but it isn’t. The pull of the drug, the ache of hunger, the weight of shame—they all claw at me at once. It’s a battle I’ve fought a thousand times. Food or narcotics. Which?
I hadn’t eaten since last night—and even that was barely a meal. Which says a lot, because I’ve always had… let’s call it an intense relationship with food.
On one side, there’s the craving for crack. On the other, my growling stomach. Five bucks won’t satisfy either for long, but the urge to get high is strong. Just as strong as the hunger gnawing at my insides. It’s relentless.
So I make a decision: food. I’ll go to the convenience store, maybe get some ramen or something cheap to hold me over. I turn toward the store.
But wait—I want to get high. Even though I know it won’t really satisfy me. No hit ever matches that first one, the one that lit this fire in my brain. That first high becomes a ghost you spend your life chasing. That’s why they call it “chasing the dragon.” And the dragon never lets you win.
So I turn around. Crackhouse, it is.
But I’m hungry. And if I smoke this five away, I don’t know when I’ll eat again. I stop. Turn back toward the store.
But I want to get high.
But I want to eat.
And just like that, my body starts moving with my mind—back and forth, two steps this way, two steps that way. I must’ve looked like a spinning top in the middle of Peachtree Street. Like one of the “crazy” people I used to avoid. That’s when it hit me: I am becoming one of those people. The people society pretends not to see. The people who talk to themselves on sidewalks. The people I feared becoming.
I’m in my last clean shirt. I unbutton it, then panic—what if people see me? What if they see how far gone I am? I button it back up. My mind is racing. I want food. I want crack. I want to disappear. I want to be saved.
Then, out of nowhere—calm.
“Fuck this,” I hear myself say out loud. “I’m going to rehab.”
But here’s the thing: it wasn’t me who said it. I mean, it was my voice, my lips, my breath. But it wasn’t me.
I’ve said those words before. “I’ll try rehab.” “I hope it works.” “At least I’ll get a bed for the winter.” But there was always a loophole, always a maybe, always an escape plan.
This time was different.
This time, the decision was made for me. There was no negotiation. No backup plan. Just clarity. The craving vanished. The hunger disappeared. I knew what to do.
Step One: Go to the public library, where many of us homeless folks spent the day until the shelters opened. Stay there until 8 p.m.
Step Two: When the library closes, go straight to the shelter. Sleep there, wake up when they kick everyone out at 4 a.m.
Step Three: Walk straight to the rehab intake center. Wait for a bed. If none’s available, come back the next day. And the next. Even if I had to sleep outside on the steps, I was going to wait.
And that’s exactly what I did.
When I got to the rehab, it wasn’t open yet—so I found a bush across the street and slept there for a few hours. At 8 a.m., I checked in. Two hours later, a bed opened up. I was in. About three weeks later, I was offered early entry into a halfway house.
That was twenty-five years ago. On April 19th of this year, I’ll celebrate 25 years clean.
Now, I won’t pretend life was all sunshine after that. I slipped a few times when weed became legal. Technically, a relapse. But I haven’t touched crack or alcohol in decades. And weed? Doesn’t even appeal to me. Makes me paranoid. Doesn’t give me anything I want.
What changed that day on Peachtree wasn’t just my circumstances—it was my spirit. I believe my Higher Self, or God, or whatever you want to call that divine spark, stepped in when I was too broken to keep pretending I had control. I think my willingness to descend into madness—my total surrender—created an opening for something greater than me to lift me out.
That’s why I believe in God.
Because I allowed myself to step back… and let God use me to fulfill my dreams.