I shot about $100 with of heroin in my veins, and I ended up overdosing.
I said, 'That's great! Why don't you come on over to the house?!' So he came over to the house, and we went into the restroom and I shot about $100 with of heroin in my veins, and I ended up overdosing. He rushed me to the hospital.
By the time I arrived at the hospital, they pronounced me dead. The only thing I could remember is that I could hear. I could not see; I could not speak; I could not move. The last thing I remember before going into a deep coma was a doctor was standing over me telling some of the nurses: 'We've done everything we can to try to revive him; he's dead.'
They put a sheet on me and wheeled me down to another room. I just wanted to scream out and say, 'Hey ' I'm alive!' But, I couldn't speak or move to let them know it.
When I woke up from the coma, I was in an ICU unit ' handcuffed to the bed. I was wanted for another crime in another city. So, back to jail I went. Much of my life was in and out of jail.
Actually, I had been pronounced dead more than just that one time. This God we keep hearing about wanted me to hang around here on this earth for awhile, but I didn't know it at the time.
Another time a friend and I were cruising down the street, and we decided we needed some more drugs. Problem was, we didn't have any money. So I told my partner, 'No problem. Get the guns out of the back of the car.'
We robbed a drugstore and got all the morphine we wanted, and started shooting it. When we ran out of that, (now this was all in the same evening, by the way), we decided to rob another drug store. In the process of doing that, the police showed up. I remember one of the policemen pulled his gun on me - standing no further than four feet away ' and pulled the trigger. Don't ask me how he missed?! All I can say is that Someone of Something wanted me hanging around this planet awhile longer. (Now today, I know who it IS, but at time, I didn't have any idea. I just thought I was a lucky sucker). I took off running and didn't get caught that night.
Another time, I was in California, working and partying and doing drugs. I got sick, and went to the doctor. He told me that I had hepatitis from shooting too much dope, but I wasn't so sure he was correct. Well, not long after that, we were doping and drinking at a house, and all of a sudden I started feeling really, really sick, and I could feel my life actually fading away. I called a friend and told him that I needed a ride to the airport to get back to Arizona, which was home, so I could check myself into a hospital.
Luckily I survived getting to the hospital, and they discovered that my appendix had ruptured some days earlier, but because I had so much dope in me, I hadn't realized it. They discovered that I was filled with gangrene, and rushed me into surgery.
A couple of days later, once I was coherent enough to communicate, the doctor told me that he could not figure out how I had survived. He was convinced I should have been dead from so much infection inside me. When he told me that, I said, 'Well, doc, all I can tell you is that someone is looking out after me, but I just don't know who it is. I guess I'm just lucky.'
Let's back up to my earlier childhood, before going any further. Growing up, I was always a radical type. I was depressed it seemed, most all the time. I hung out on the street corners a lot, because I didn't want to go home. At home there was always a lot of partying and screaming at each other going on, so it was mostly always uncomfortable for me there. I felt no one really loved me.
So, I hung out with the guys on the street corner. Half the time we wouldn't even go to school, when we were suppose to. We were out doing whatever drugs we could find, and running the streets of Phoenix, Arizona, doing crimes at the age of 12. It was at that age I got my first felony, and that blew my chances of growing up and being a Pharmacist. Of course, my reason for wanting to be one was that I could get all the dope I wanted.
It takes money to buy dope, so we stole a gun from one of my friend's parents, and started robbing people. We thought it was a much better way to get money than actually working. I actually believed it was an honorable way of making a living. If you didn't like it, tuff! It seemed like many of the people we robbed didn't have much money, so we decided robbing drugstores might be more lucrative.
We decided morphine was the best drug to steal, and the very first drugstore we robbed, we all got high off it right there in the store. We didn't even care if the police came. If they did, we figured we would just shoot them and get away.
That was the kind of lifestyle I led, so it should surprise no one that as I got older, I continued in that same lifestyle. But all the while I was doping and robbing people to afford the dope, I felt hollow inside. I felt like there was something I was supposed to find, but just didn't know what that was, or where or how I could find it.
I Can't Remember Of Ever Having Any Real Happiness Until There Was A Need In My Arm ...
Happiness? I can't remember of ever having any real happiness until there was a needle in my arm and I was getting a rush off of a fix. I thought that was true happiness. There was a time when I was shooting about $500 worth of heroin a day just to survive, and that wasn't cut heroin either. It was straight from South America or Vietnam. I know, because I transported drugs in the United States, and I knew everything there was to know about the quality of the drugs I was transporting. Going back to the early school days, I remember one time we broke our 8th grade teachers arm? Why? Because we didn't like him. It was that simple. We were crazy kids, and had no regard for authority. We were in trouble constantly, yet didn't care. When we weren't in trouble, we would go inside a dope house and stay doped up for two and three days sometimes. Our parents wouldn't even know where we were. We did as we pleased. If they didn't like it, we could care less.
I enjoyed being around the Hippies during those years. Peace, love and no war; I thought it was the only way to fly. My parents split up one time, and while they were gone, a bunch of my friends came over and we decided to paint my bedroom black and make it a crash pad. Well, so many people kept trying to come into the place that we decided we needed some place bigger. Because we had plenty of money from selling drugs, we used some of it. We talked my father into building a 12' x 24' room and putting a pool table in it, and soundproof it. That way we could come and go as we pleased, and we wouldn't be bothering anyone.
Then the time came when a man moved in across the street from where I lived. They called him a biker. That really excited me, and so I started hanging around with the guy. I was age 14 at that time.
Well, this biker friend of mine ' they called him Moses ' I thought he was the coolest guy. He would take this phony money and give it to me, and all I had to do was go buy what I wanted, and give him the cash left over. He was okay for awhile, but I was making so much money as it was from selling dope that I stopped cashing in the counterfeit money.
I really liked riding motorcycles though so I continued to hang around Moses, and he started introducing me to his motorcycle friends. We would go to parties and just have fun. Before long, they were asking me to join one of their clubs, but I told them, 'Nope. I'm a loner. I'll never join any club.'
When I was around age 16, I ran into some rock n' roll people. At the time I met them, they were just nobodies, basically roaming the streets like I was. Today, they are famous, successful musicians, who I will keep their names anonymous. I thought they were a great group of people, but what I didn't know, is that they are Satan worshipers. I would go to their house and shoot Methadrine with them. That is a drug that a lot of people today haven't heard of. You could stay up for 2 -3 days at a time when you shoot up that drug. Most of the time I got the drug for them, from drugstores. By that time, we often were robbing three to four drugstores a night.
At the time, we thought this was rather funny. Every now and then we would break into a doctor's office. One doctor got so tired of us breaking into his office that he would leave a note telling us exactly where he kept the morphine and the syringes, because he was tired of the broken windows and the broken doors.
I had committed murder by age 17, but I don't want to go into any details.
Back to the rock-n-roll bunch I was hanging out with. One particular time, I was so high on LSD, methadrine, cocaine and speed and alcohol while I was with them. There was a bonafied witch in the bunch, and they tried to cast a spell on me. They tried to get 'the wizard' to possess me, and she started freaking me out, so I left Phoenix, Arizona and went to Colorado for 31 days.
After 31 days, my drug supply was getting low. I had a new car, fully paid for. I was in Grand Junction, and I could not find any heroin. I started having withdrawals, and was getting desperate, so I decided I would have to break into another drugstore. I didn't like doing that without someone with me, but I didn't know anyone who could help me pull the robbery off, so I did it myself.
I managed to pull it off, and crazy as it sounds, I thanked somebody called 'God,' because I managed to pull it off without getting caught, but just barely. Interestingly ' every once in a while, when I was in big trouble, I would talk to God, and would say, 'God, if you get me out of this, I'll do such and such,' so I guess there had to be a part of me who believed there was a God.
When I went back to Phoenix, I wanted something new to excite me beside the rock n' roll people, so I got into racing cars and racing motorcycles. That was really fun for about a year, then that started getting boring too.
One night I was at this party. I was taking half a pound of heroin to this guy's place. They really liked it, because it was so pure. This guy wanted me to supply him with a whole lot more, so I started bringing more and more of it to him from Mexico and Vietnam. In the process of all this, not only did I have all the drugs I could possibly want for myself, I was moving up in the big-time with the 'big boys' ' the Mafia.
I was in a mansion for about a week of one of the 'big boys' ' having our drugs delivered to us by servants on a silver platter ' with the finest of food and wine. While there, I overdosed again on drugs, and ended up in another coma, which by then was about my fifth time.
I Did Whatever It Took To Get Heroin
After I dried out and healed up some, I started thinking pretty hard about my lifestyle. I thought: It's about time I grow up. If I don't stop this drugging, it's going to kill me. I tried to quit, but of course I couldn't, because by that time I had the monkey on my back, and it took complete control, and I did whatever it took to get heroin. After that, some of the 'big-boys' wanted to know if my buddies and I would be willing to transport pounds of heroin to different parts of the United States. 'No problem,' we told them. 'Guarantee we'll deliver.'
So after that, we made drops at most all the major airports in the U.S.
But even that got old and boring after awhile. Besides, the law was moving in closer and closer to us, and we knew our 'profession' was getting more and more risky.
One day I was in Glendale, Arizona. I was stoned and kept falling down; having a difficult time walking. An undercover police officer arrested me for being in possession of heroin, and I was hauled off to jail. When I woke up the next day, he was still there in the cell with me. He had spent the night with me.
He then asked me, 'Danny ' aren't you getting tired of your lifestyle. You know we're going to bust you some day and put you away for a long, long time ' hopefully forever if you keep it up. We're getting tired of people like you. We know you're selling a lot of drugs. We know you have robbed people. We know you have been stealing cars. We know you have robbed businesses. We know you've been involved in murder. '
Arrogantly, I told him, 'Nawww sir ' you got the wrong fella'. Look someplace else.' Now you have to know, at that time of my life, I hated the police. I thought they were the worst people in the whole world. Then I asked this cop, 'Why did you sit here all night with me? You didn't have to.'
'I hate to see a life wasted, like you are wasting yours over drugs. Believe me, there is more to life than sticking a needle in your arm to survive.' I laughed at him.
A couple hours later, I got bailed out of jail, and guess where I went? Straight to my car, cooked up some more dope and shot it right in the car, and started off again, doing my own thing like nothing had happened.
Some months later, I got pulled over by the police. 'We've got you this time, buddy!' they said. I asked them, 'For what?!'
'For right now, being under the influence of heroin, and selling it.'
So back to jail I went again. But this time I didn't get out. While in there, they kept me on some very heavy medication. I believe nine different kinds of medication. One of them was Thorazine. (If any of you reading this has ever done the 'Thorazine Shuffle,' you know what I'm talking about! You're a walking zombie. They kept me on these different drugs for two weeks, so I could kick my heroin addiction. They were concerned that I might die otherwise.
Three months go by in the county jail, then I was tried. They sentenced me to the Arizona State Penitentiary. I knew sooner or later, it probably was going to happen, but I didn't really care.
From one jail to another, I ended up in a maximum security prison, and when I found myself there ' I said to myself: 'Man ' I blew it this time, but I'll get out. I'll escape, or whatever I have to do, because I'm not staying in this place the rest of my life!'
Next To The Bag of Peanuts Was Something I Hadn't Seen In Many, Many Years.
Well ' I didn't escape ' so I'm in there, wanting dope really bad ' wanting a cigarette real bad, and couldn't even get one of those. They locked me in this little room, and I was hungry. In there with me was a little bag of peanuts, and next to the bag of peanuts was something I hadn't seen in many, many years. It was an old, old book. On the front was written: The Holy Bible. I thought to myself: Well ' I'm going to need something to read, so I might as well read this Bible.
I told you I didn't go to school very much, so I couldn't read and write very well. So I opened this book called: The Bible, and started eating those peanuts, and I thought, this might not be so bad after all. I opened the book in Matthew. I saw some red letters, and then it came to me that this was supposed to be Jesus Christ talking. I kept turning pages, and stopped at Matthew 28, and started reading at verse 18. Let me share what that scripture says, because this was the beginning of the Holy Spirit changing my life. These words appeared to me to be sticking out like three or four inches in size! I felt these words were talking to me! I couldn't believe it!
It says: And Jesus came to them and spoke to them, saying, 'ALL power,' (not some power folks) ' all power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teaching all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever things I have commanded you: and lo, I am with you, always, even until the end of the world.'
And I thought to myself: What in the world is this talking about? The only thing I got out of it is: Jesus has ALL power.' So I kept reading a little more, and found out that Jesus Christ has all power in heaven and on earth.
Then I began to take a thorough inventory of my past. Remember, I shared earlier that I had a void ' an empty feeling - in my life? It was like there was a hole inside me that needed to be filled. I was looking for something to satisfy permanently, yet everything I ever tried didn't satisfy. Drugs wouldn't fill that hole in my heart; fast cars wouldn't fill it; hanging around rock n' roll people ' freaking out with them didn't do; the excitement of robbing a person ' you never know whether you're going to get stabbed or shot ' never know for sure whether you'll get away with it and get busted ' that's excitement to a criminal ' they like it ' that's their thing ' yet that didn't do it for me either. Nothing would fill that hole in my heart ' that something missing inside me.
So here I was, sitting in jail, my reward for trying to fill that hole in my heart by breaking society's laws ' and I thought to myself ' well ' if Jesus Christ has all power ' why don't I try this guy?
There was a small problem though. I didn't know how to 'try Him,' so I just figured that as long as I read the Holy Bible, that made me a 'Christian.' Boy, was I ever wrong!
Once I was transferred from jail to the state penitentiary, I ran into a couple of old friends who were there. They had access to drugs, and so I began shooting heroin again. The neat thing about it, I thought, was that I needed no money ' I didn't have to go anywhere far to get it ' and if I got caught for doing it, what were they going to do to me? Send me to prison?! Hey ' I was protected in there by gang members, what more could I want, I thought to myself.
The Reason I Was So Cold-hearted Was Because I Simply Didn't Care About Life
It wasn't long that they nicknamed me 'the horse-trader.' If people wanted drugs, they came to me for them. I was the type of person that I didn't care what it took to get the drugs. The reason I was so cold-hearted was because I simply didn't care about life. Soon my heroin addiction was in full blossom again, just like before. Yet there were times when I realized that I needed to do something besides letting drugs control my life. I'm sure it was God letting me realize that, but I didn't recognize it as being God at the time.
On Easter Sunday, 1988, I was walking across the prison yard in Douglas, Arizona. It was pretty chilly out that morning. I heard over the prison loud speaker: 'We're having church services.'
My cellmate was already in the process of getting drugs from a woman smuggling them into prison. We had no coffee. We had no cookies or candy bars in the cell. It's like 8:30 a.m. in the morning: half of the prison inmates were still asleep ' so I thought: I've got to do something. I'm really sick; my stomach is hurting ' and then the thought came to me that if I went into a church service, I might be able to get some free coffee and maybe a free donut, or whatever they may be offering. Once my cellmate gets off of visitation, I'll have my drugs, and everything will be okay.
So I walked up the steps into the church service, and was surprised that I was the first one there, other than a man in a suit playing a guitar and a woman singing. I had one foot inside the building, and the other foot still was outside ' when this Jesus Christ spoke inside of me.
He said, 'Danny ' if you want to live ' accept me as your person Savior and Lord ' right now.'
It was so powerful ' so real ' and I knew it was God almighty talking to me. It was in that service that I gave my soul to Jesus Christ, and it was for real. It was that day that I was spared from going to hell, and I have not been the same person since!
That Dark Hole In My Soul Was Filled With Love And Peace
Remember that ache in my soul ' that void in my heart ' I spoke of earlier? That void got filled that day. That dark hole in my soul was filled with love and peace. Filled with the love of God that nothing else can be compared with it, and peace knowing that I will not only be spared from hell, but peace knowing that I now have something to live for in this life instead of for myself and another chemical high. God gave me a purpose that day in prison that has remained my purpose every day since. My purpose is sharing with others who also have a hole in their heart ' a void in their soul ' an aching to be loved and accepted by someone who really cares for you and I - someone who cares so much for you and I that He gave His very life on the cross for us ' when He never had to. Now that is love, folks! My purpose for living is sharing this good news with anyone else who will listen to me.
How many times did I come close to death when I was strung out on drugs, yet someone didn't allow me to die. How many times did I flirt with eternity in hell ' and didn't care ' but someone else did. Someone looked past the hurt in my heart from a very young boy to the anger and rebellion in my heart as I grew into a teenager and then an adult. Someone looked past all the harm I did to so many others ' and forgave me for it ' wiping my sin slate clean like it never happened. You know who this 'someone' is I'm talking about?: He's the same One who spoke to me that day when I went to that Easter Sunday church service in prison. He's changed my life, folks, and I'm telling you, I'm the least deserving of it, and if for no other reason ' I owe it to Him to tell every living soul I can that if He forgive me for all the hurt ' all the pain I've caused to others, and fully deserved to spend eternity out of His presence for all eternity, and spend it in hell ' then I am here to tell you ' He will do it for anyone else. Yes ' He'll do it for YOU.
What are you waiting for? Are you waiting to give your soul to Him tomorrow? I have some sobering news for you. You don't have tomorrow promised to you. None of us do. This moment is the only time you can promise yourself you have, in this life anyway. Another hour is not promised to any of us.
What are you waiting for? Afraid you'll have to make some changes in your life? Is satisfying your selfishness and stubborn pride more important than turning your life over to the very One who created you - giving you the chance to glorify Him with your life, or grant you your right to be your supposed own "god?" Is your chemical addiction the little "god" you plan on being a slave to the rest of your life, like it was mine, or is the One who created you, and gave you a life to live in the first place, going to become your God? Is money or success or fame or exciting entertainment or sexual pleasure your substitute "god?" None of these things will save you from your sins on the Judgment Day, I promise you.
Is your 'religion' your "god?" Religion will not save you from your sins either on the Judgment Day. Only a relationship will - with the Creator of all things - the One who has all power and all authority in heaven and in earth can save you from your sins. There is only ONE way to have a relationship with this One, and it starts by asking Him to forgive you of all your sins, and telling Him you are truly sorry for committing all of them. Then it takes a commitment on your part to begin reading the New Testament Bible and asking the Holy Spirit to help you understand it, and begin obeying it. (The Holy Spirit doesn't ask you to do anything when you read it that isn't good for you to do, in case you didn't know that). Begin talking to God on a frequent basis, trusting Him to direct your path from here on out, as He promises He will do in Proverbs 3:5-6.
Jesus Christ is not a 'religion,' in case you've never heard. A 'religion' didn't die for you on the cross. A person did ' a person who desires to have intimate relationship with us. 'Religion' will take you straight to hell! Certain 'Religious' people crucified God on the cross. The Bible says Jesus Christ was fully God before He came to earth as a mere man, and the Bible says He went back to heaven to be fully God again after He resurrected. You're not sure you believe that? Why? You don't even care? Why?
Let me ask you ' just because life has been the pits for you since you were young ' isn't there something inside you that would like to connect with the Creator of life? The Creator of all things good? The One who has ALL power and authority? The One who can fill the same void you have in your soul? The One who can fill your need to be loved and accepted like no one else could ever do?
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