Stanice Anderson shares her inspiring story to show others they too can overcome even the most soul-destroying mistakes - and discover the lifelong assurance of peace and joy through a personal relationship with God. Stanice has lived through it all. From a seemingly perfect upper-class home, she fell into a nightmare of endless partying, self-destructive behavior, and abusive relationships. Unresolved pain and guilt drove her to the bottom on a death-spiral nothing seemed able to stop - until the night, while shooting drugs, she heard of God's infinite forgiveness and began turning her life around. She tells how:

• Walking by faith and taking action rescued her when she was fresh out of rehabilitation-and out of money, references, or credit

• Learning that God loved her despite her darkest secrets freed her from her painful past-and helped her forgive as well as find forgiveness

• Putting herself in another person's shoes taught her how to cope with "difficult" people-and discover truths about herself

• Surrendering unresolved guilt and pain to God gave her the strength to lay down a burden that nearly destroyed her life

• Accepting God's gift of an unusual friend helped her make her most cherished dreams come true.

Honest, caring, and inspiring, I Say A Prayer for Me also features special devotions to help you find your path and grow in God's love throughout your life.

"Beware of guys with matchbook covers torn off at the end," my father warned me as he walked away.

"What exactly does that mean, Daddy?"

He turned and, with a smirk that seemed to question my intelligence, said, "It means that they use drugs!"

"Use drugs! With a matchbook cover?"

"Yes!" Offering no more as he went to his next task.

Our "talk" about drugs was apparently over. I shrugged it off and thought, How stupid does he think I am? Does he think that even at seventeen years old, I don't know anything? After all, I knew drugs were injected. I had seen the movie, The Man with the Golden Arm. Plus, I had seen junkies on the corner in front of the poolroom. They shoot dope into their veins. Boy, to be considered such a smart man, he sure is dumb about the things of life.

It was clear to me that I was going to have to learn things on my own - just like I had learned through being raped three years earlier that men were not to be trusted; not even fathers. After all, they were men first, and fathers second - only out of a sense of duty.

Of course, neither my father nor mother knew about my being raped; but then there was a lot about me they didn't know. I never got the sense that they wanted to know anything about my inner reality. I was their dream-daughter and I lived my nightmares in private, like a "good" Anderson was taught.

After graduation from high school, I started going out almost nightly to what we called the Go-Go's: dances with live bands in rented halls. Usually beginning at 10:00 p.m. and lasting at least until 2:00 a.m., the dances were an all-consuming lifestyle that consisted of fabulous outfits, everyone trying to outdo the other, luxury cars, dancing to the point of near-exhaustion, and trying to "pull" the guys with the nicest cars and sharpest clothes. It didn't matter that they weren't about anything progressive and wholesome. Most of us had petty jobs that afforded credit cards to accumulate the clothes and most of the guys sold drugs or were involved with some other criminal activity. It was living life on the edge, which, for reasons I didn't understand then, appealed to me.

After the Go-Go's, I went to after-hours joints where the guys gambled and the girls watched, ordered bootlegged drinks, and shopped through the various "hot" - as in stolen - wares, especially the clothes that were needed to maintain the lifestyle.

By sunup it was time to go home and since I worked a day job, it would mean taking an hour or so nap, showering, and then heading off to work. By the afternoon break, I would be so sleepy I could barely stay awake. That is until I was introduced to NoDoz, a stimulant that warded off sleep. A few of those and I could get through the rest of the workday and then go home and get ready for the Go-Go again.

Soon I was taking NoDoz like it was candy and using credit cards to charge clothes like I never had to pay for them.

I felt discombobulated most of my life - long before my teen years, so I was ripe for what happened when I was twenty years old.

Early one weekday morning after the Go-Go, a group of friends and I went to another friend's house for breakfast. There was a guy that interested me in the kitchen. I walked toward him and asked him to light my cigarette. He pulled out a book of matches. As he opened the cover and struck the match, I noticed that the cover was torn off on the end.

"What's that?" I pointed to the matchbook.

"What?"

"Let me see those matches."

As he handed them to me, I recalled my father's words from a few years earlier and my curiosity was piqued. While, I must admit, danger! was my first thought, my inquisitive spirit overwhelmed all good judgment.

"Why is this matchbook cover torn off like this?"

"You don't know?"

"No."

"Come on! As fly a girl as you are, you really don't know?" With a slimy smile, he proceeded to reach into his jacket pocket and pull out a clear capsule with white powder inside. He then pulled out the missing strip of the matchbook cover, which was folded in half like a paper airplane without the cockpit torn out of the middle. He turned the strip over, carefully twisted the capsule open, and poured the white powder onto the furrowed strip. It was much like he was putting toothpaste onto a brush.

In the next instant, he directed the strip to his nostril and inhaled deeply. The white powder jetted up his nostril and disappeared. He smiled and shook his head as if to scatter the powder through his skull or something. He proceeded to line the remaining powder on the strip and like a vacuum cleaner his other nostril sucked it up. He made a snorting sound like a hungry pig and then handed the matchbook strip to me. School was in. He was the teacher. I was the willing student.

Lesson 1: "The strip is called a 'quill.' And what you are about to experience is 'boy,' also known as 'dugee,' also known as heroin. But it won't hurt you, as long as you put it up your nose, which is called 'snorting.'"

"Are you sure?"

"Yep! Just don't ever shoot up and you'll be all right."

I snorted the next white-lined quill of boy that he poured.

"It burns!"

"Oh, you'll get used to that. It just means that it's good."

Again, I snorted. My head seemed to take flight. A euphoric trance took control of my brain. I felt light-headed; but what I remember most is I felt memory-light. No thoughts other than those of the moment. A powerful feeling surged through my body. It was like I could conquer anything and anybody.

His next move was toward me - to kiss me, I suppose. But he was in for a rude surprise. I pushed him away so hard against the refrigerator that the bottles inside clanked. I knew then that no man would ever hurt me again. Finally, I had control of what happened to me.

While the rape had turned my young world upside down, I thought that maybe this boy also known as dugee also known as heroin would give me the power to turn it right-side up. So, my love affair with drugs began.

As I look back it reminds me of the song by the Whispers that goes, "I only meant to wet my feet; but you pulled me in . . . oh, the waters of love run deep." The song speaks of falling in love; however, many of us only mean to wet our feet but are pulled into some harmful behavior that drenches and quenches the fires of our spirits. Well, I found out that the waters of addiction run even deeper.

While I went from NoDoz to snorting heroin, left unaddressed, my inner reality of pain and despair would always show up between highs. I was in denial about my problem for many years, thinking that I wasn't that bad. I would trade seats on the Titanic by changing the kind of drugs from pills, to dropping acid, to smoking reefer, to drinking liquor - but my ship was sinking nonetheless. And I was the last to know.

When I went off to college - only to avoid paying the credit card bills I had accumulated - I still used some form of drug and alcohol. Because I was in school, or kept a job, was not homeless or on some corner begging or on some stroll prostituting, I felt that I could not possibly be a junkie or drug addict. I still looked good - or so I thought. But my life was starting to become more and more controlled by drugs - the getting and using. But I only meant to wet my feet.

Copyright © 2002 by Stanice Anderson

Tags: Spirituality, Personal Growth, Addictions

About the Author

Stanice Anderson is a journalist, public speaker, businesswoman, and recovery counselor trainer. The author of 12-Step Programs: A Resource Guide for Women, as well as the e-mail series Food for the Spirit and Power Moments with God, she has appeared on The 700 Club. She lives in Maryland.