My name is Michael. I am 38 years old from Middleboro Massachusetts. After playing basketball in college and attaining a Master’s Degree with a promising future, a sports related injury in 2012 led to a 6 year addiction to opiates that led to the loss of my marriage, career and relationship with my two beautiful children.
I needed help. A friend recommended the long-term residential program of Adult & Teen Challenge. It wasn't exactly a slam dunk that I was going to join such a lengthy and challenging program, but In November of 2018 - after a nearly fatal overdose - I finally surrendered and entered the doors of Adult & Teen Challenge in Brockton.
Immediately I felt a miracle take place as the shackles of addiction were instantly replaced with the overwhelming love of Jesus Christ! Adult & Teen Challenge showed me the love of God and gave me the support I needed to eventually see the restoration of my relationship with my children. Today, they feel the fatherly love I have been shown from my father in heaven.
During my time in the program I prayed to God for the woman of my dreams. I married her last September. None of this would have been possible if not for the ministry of Adult & Teen Challenge.
Joining this program was the best decision of my life.
My husband Mel and I are the parents of an Adult & Teen Challenge graduate and staff member. The first day we dropped Matt off in Dorchester, MA, we felt God was in control and that he was going to be okay. It was as though a large weight was lifted off our shoulders. He completed the 18 month program and we saw the transformation in him. We have seen so many men and women's lives change. We have been supporters of the organization for quite a few years now, because we fully believe in Teen Challenge.
Before coming to Adult & Teen Challenge I was living a chaotic life. I surrounded myself with all the wrong people and wrong things. I was living in utter chaos making all the wrong decisions. I was stuck in darkness satisfying the desires of my flesh. All that I cared about was myself, which led me to manipulating every situation to get whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted it. I was severely depressed and wasn't happy with any aspect of my life. I felt the desire to have more and the desire to have a purpose in life. The narcotics numbed the pain and made life more bearable from the depression I was feeling from not knowing my purpose and being stuck in a chaotic lifestyle. The use of narcotics led me to overdosing twice, which in return opened my eyes to needing help for change in my life. These events led me to the doors of Adult and Teen Challenge.
Since coming to Adult and Teen Challenge my life has been drastically changed. I no longer feel the depression I once felt. I know my purpose in life now! God created me to have a relationship with Him and to bring more souls to His kingdom for His glory. I am now three years clean thanks to Adult and Teen Challenge. The staff has been absolutely amazing to me every step of my recovery. I have met some of the most amazing people I have ever met here. I have new found family, friends, and brothers that I truly love and care about. I now know how to genuinely love people and care for people since coming to this program. God called me to this special place to change my life and prepare me to be able to help others overcome their life controlling issues like I did. Since I have completed this program I am now work at Adult and Teen Challenge New England and New Jersey HQ overseeing corporate events and the executive assistant to the COO. I am on my way to further grow my roots in the lord and continue to help men change their lives like mine was!
In 2016 I was lost and broken. Program after program, detox after detox, nothing could change who I became. I hit rock bottom with no place to go, no hope, no reason to live. On May 6th of that year I made the biggest decision of my life and entered through the doors of Adult & Teen Challenge Massachusetts. When I entered, I had no money, no friends left, my relationship with my family members was at an end and I needed to drastically change. Adult & Teen Challenge, through the power of Jesus Christ changed me. During my time in the program, God worked miracles. My relationship with my family was on the mend, I was discovering a will and a reason to live that I never had before. During my time in the program God spoke to me and told me to continue to pursue Him and to use my talents and abilities to help this organization. After I completed the program, I was soon hired on full time and continued the path God laid before me. During this time I eventually met a lovely young lady who also graduated the Adult & Teen Challenge program. In 2020, we decided to tie the knot and got married and moved into a place together. Looking back over the years, I would not be where I am today without the organization of Adult & Teen Challenge New England. Not only are the staff loving, and caring, but they will walk with you though each step of becoming a new person. Thank God for this organization.
If it wasn't for Adult & Teen Challenge, I don't know where I would be. From a very young age God placed a specific call on my life. Through my own choices I strayed away from that call and into addiction. Through the program I was able to find my Identity in Christ and overcome many obstacles that were holding me back from the calling that God placed on my life. I now work for Adult & Teen Challenge as a Graphic Designer and also have started to fulfill the call God placed on my life as a youth pastor for a local church.
If anyone would have told me a few years ago that my life would be where it is today I would have told them that they were crazy. For 20 years I struggled with addiction issues that led to broken relationships, in and out of treatment, and desperation. I always had a need to be loved and accepted but could never obtain what I was longing for. I believed that I was going to die in active addiction and that I would never be able to have the life that God had planned for me. After many overdoses I ended up in a detox and I heard this voice tell me that they created me to have a full, abundant life. I opened up the Bible and read John 10:10 which says "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came so that they would have life, and have it abundantly." I realized at that moment that my problems were deeper than addiction to drugs and that I had abandonment and co-dependency issues. I committed to pursuing true and lasting change and decided to come to Adult & Teen Challenge in Brockton.
After coming into long term treatment at Adult & Teen Challenge my life started to change and the good things that God promised for me in life started to happen. I realized that I put my family through so much and they didn't trust me but in time I asked for forgiveness and they could see a real change in me that they never saw before. They came to visit me any time they could and they wanted me around more than ever. When they moved into a new house I was able to be a help to them and put in a brand new hardwood floor for them.
Today I am a drastically changed man of God. I paid taxes last year for the first time in the past 12 years. I paid off multiple traffic violations that dated all the way back to 2006 and I now have my license and a car. I just got engaged to a Godly woman and we are getting married in May.
I realize today that God didn't create anyone to be an addict or to live in poverty, but God has created every individual for a purpose and destined them for greatness. I am now working to help others that were where I was and show them that there is hope. I could not be grateful enough for what Adult & Teen Challenge has done for me and what God has done for me through them. Check out my testimony in the link above.
Adult and Teen Challenge: New England and New Jersey Changed my life forever. I am from Savannah, GA, and Adult and Teen Challenge accepted me with open arms. It gave me the opportunity to get completely sober, not only physically, but mentally and emotionally as well. I was struggling through overdoses of Fentanyl, but today I am able to serve God as the Church Service Coordinator in Brockton, MA. I lead the men through worship and sharing our stories throughout New England. My life is so much different than I would have ever imagined, but I am so happy and content taking each day as it comes. Check out my Video Testimony above! Thank you Adult and Teen Challenge!
Even as a child, there were many signs that I had the tendencies of an addict. By 7th grade I was abusing the medication they had prescribed for my ADHD. My father enabled me by blaming the pharmacy for not giving enough pills or by accepting that I had lost them. By high school they were locked in a safe, which I broke into every day. Finally the doctors refused to prescribe me the medication. By the time I graduated high school, I was shooting up heroin in the bathroom.
In 2003 I committed my first robbery. Now, crime did not come naturally to me. I had never held a gun, much less use one. I decided to target pharmacies for their narcotics. My tools were a note, a trash bag, and a broken pellet gun with a realistic handle. If I pulled out the gun, the jig would have been up. The first pharmacy I robbed was out of state at a 24-hour drug store. I slid the note to the pharmacist along with the trash bag. He promptly filled the bag with over $160,000 worth of OxyContin. But when the drugs disappeared, so did the friends. I attempted five more robberies, only two of which yielded any drugs. I was not a very smart criminal either. I was pulled over by Massachusetts State Police on my way to commit another robbery for having stolen plates on my vehicle. The vehicle was impounded along with all the evidence of my intended crimes.
A few days later, I was completely hopeless while withdrawing cold turkey laying on a plastic overflow mattress on the floor of the recreation room in Middlesex County Jail. About a week in, I began to talk to some of the other inmates. One of them mentioned a program called Adult & Teen Challenge. I called a hundred programs, but no one would take me. The few programs that decided to temporarily overlook my financial situation, abruptly ended the interview process upon learning of my lengthy legal troubles. They would not even be able to allow me to take the time off required for all my court dates. They also didn’t know how I would get transportation to both Cambridge and Dedham courthouses without a car or money for transportation. When I called Adult & Teen Challenge, my conversation with them was almost completely opposite. Though I could tell right away that it was probably more than slightly religious. They asked about my legal problems and my inability to contribute anything financially, but they never even mentioned whether I was “eligible”. The only thing they were concerned about was that I understood that I was coming to a place of faith, rules, discipline, and a lot of hard work (physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually) and almost no earthly pleasure to speak of. By the time I interviewed with them I knew that they were the only place that I could go, but during the intake process I was hesitant because I was an atheist. However, when all was said and done, the seven days my father had given me were up and I had nowhere to go but Adult & Teen Challenge.
On August 16, 2004 my father drove me to the doors of Adult & Teen Challenge Brockton. The students and staff treated me with such love and concern. As an addict, you get used to being treated a certain way: criminal, liar, patient, victim, etc. I was treated very differently at Adult & Teen Challenge. People looked me in the eye. They treated me as an adult man, like a beloved creation of God and I felt cared for. The thing that I hated, however, was being treated like a man meant being held accountable for your decisions. Every action. Every word. Every deadline. Every rule. If I did not live up to the guidelines of the program, I was immediately made aware and disciplined. I did not live up to the guidelines of the program approximately 94% of the time.
I was extremely skeptical, sarcastic, and cynical. The staff was very patient, and eventually learned the one thing that could break me: Bible projects. I could easily copy a book of the Bible, but the leadership wanted me to actually read and comprehend the Word of God. They even moved me permanently in the learning center to directly in front of the desk of the education coordinator. All they wanted from me was one page that showed that I was actually receiving at least a mustard seed of revelation from God. I had been reading the Word of God every day. Hearing the gospel constantly, and being prayed for by everyone. I also as receiving godly counsel from champions of the faith. My heart was so hardened that it was hard work just to be polite about people’s faith. The thing about God’s truth is that it has a way of revealing itself at different paces to different people. When the truth of who Jesus is hit me, it was like a dam broke and I was swept away by the love of God. It was December graduation chapel and the band was singing, “Worthy is the Lamb, seated on the throne, the darling of Heaven crucified, worthy is the Lamb.” It was all clear. All at once. The debt I owed. The price He paid. His love was so dense, so real, and so limitless. He gave His life for me and I humbly and wholeheartedly devoted my life to Him. In a gym full of the dregs of society, I found the only thing that matters in the universe. The eyes of the Creator were looking lovingly at me. It was after that experience that I understood where “Jesus freaks” come from. The scriptures became ALIVE! 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation. The old is gone, the new has come.” That is the first scripture we learn in Adult & Teen Challenge, but I went around quoting it to everyone who would listen. For the first time I realized that because I was in Christ, I was something completely new. In the eyes of God I was brand new not just a cleaned up version of the old me. I was born again without spot or blemish. God Himself had put His own spirit in me. I knew nothing was ever going to be the same. My day-to-day life became completely different. I woke up looking forward to prayer, studying scripture, worshiping, and attending chapel. Even daily chores (mine was to clean the two dorm bathrooms) became an opportunity to worship God. I scrubbed each toilet and shower stalls as unto the Lord. The Bible says, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men.” I was a man without a penny to my name, in a treatment program, facing at least 15 years in prison, yet I was full of more hope, peace, contentment, and joy than I had ever been. I began to devote my time to studying God’s Word on my own. I felt a desire to help other students who were as opposed to faith as I was.
I don’t have room to write about my legal cases, but Adult & Teen Challenge holds so much sway in the court system, that I served only 3 years of probation for 9 felony convictions. Which is unheard of. In the 18 years since that day there have been far too many miracles to mention, but I’ll mention a few. I worked for Adult & Teen Challenge for seven years and worked in almost every department. I saw many lives saved and families restored. At the end of 2006, the mother that I had only ever known as an addict, a patient, and a victim, left the life she knew behind and walked through the doors of Adult & Teen Challenge Rhode Island. She is serving God to this day; she’s a mother to her children, she’s volunteering, she has a job, and she has almost completed enough Biblical studies to earn her ministerial credentials! In 2005, I met a girl who was attending Southeastern University in Lakeland, Florida who was home visiting family for the summer. She was beautiful, funny, intelligent, and most importantly she had a deep love for God and people. I prayed that God would make her my wife! There were some pretty major obstacles to our becoming a couple. First, I was a student when I met her so I was going to have to wait a while before making my feelings known. Second, when I said “met” a girl I wasn’t exaggerating: we spent all of ten minutes in each other’s company (none of which she spent talking to me), so I would have to make her fall in love with me. Third, I wasn’t exactly a Casanova before coming to rehab. Fourth, did I mention that her dad was the President of Adult & Teen Challenge New England? That she was his firstborn and the apple of his eye? That this made it more dangerous than armed robbery? However, the Lord is on my side. In December of 2007 we were married (I even danced with my mother at the reception). We are still madly in love today. With nine felony convictions I had to work harder than most to find employment. After moving on from Adult and Teen Challenge, I got a job setting up banquet tables, and within 4 years I was managing a Marriott. In 2014 we bought our first home, and 2018, we purchased a beautiful Lake House in Blackstone MA. On August 29th, 2015, we had our daughter Norah, who is my world. A few years ago my wife convinced me to get in front of a group of people at a talent show and do stand-up comedy. Since then I have had the opportunity to travel all over the world telling jokes. I have such An Amazing Life! A Changed Life! All the extras have been great, but to be clear: everything I ever needed or wanted I received when I met Jesus for the first time. He is the only real prize. He is the purpose of our existence. I will be singing His praise for the rest of eternity! Thank you Adult & Teen Challenge!
I never thought that I would be free from the bondage of addiction, I believed that I was going to die a junkie.
But since going thought Teen Challenge my life has been renewed, my relationship with loved ones has been restored, and now I have a hope and a future.
I know work helping others that are in the same situation that I was once in.
This program saved my life.
Francisco C.