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By Ludwik, aged 33,
I lived a hell on earth, but God touched me, and I was resurrected. But to begin at the beginning… Although I was born a Catholic, there was never any practice of the faith in my family. Fortunately — as it would turn out later — I was baptized. To all appearances ours was a normal home. My mom and dad loved us. Materially, we lacked for nothing. But Dad had to work hard and had little time for us. Meanwhile I was at an age when I needed, and was looking for, an authority figure. And since Dad was not around to tell me certain things, and I did not know God whom I might have prayed to for guidance, I was left to my own devices. I sought out the company of older friends who listened to hard rock and metal. And so I began to listen to the same music. I would hang out with my friends, dress like them and, of course, act like them. In grade five I began to smoke cigarettes. Two years later I was into beer and cheap wine, and, when the new groups came out, I switched to black metal. My buddies and I became so fascinated by this music that we began to wear various symbols: upside-down crosses, triple sixes (the infamous number of the Beast in the Book of Revelation), and pentagrams. I would sneak out of the house and go to satanic rock concerts, and so — consciously or unconsciously — I let evil enter my life. After that, everything began to unfold as in a bad fairy tale. After growing tired of heavy metal, I switched to punk. I went to punk concerts where I popped pills, drank booze, smoked grass, and sniffed glue. After that I became a kind of hippy. I switched to another kind of music, but I did not stop drinking alcohol or smoking grass. More than that, I began experimenting with LSD. I was then living in sin with a girlfriend. Before long I discovered amphetamine, and since I always wanted to be a free person, I tried it. I thought it was the best thing in my life and that it gave me total freedom. But here I was mistaken. Instead of gaining total freedom, I lost it. But I did not know that yet. After a few years of being on amphetamines, I began to suffer various health problems. So I decided to go to the USA and change my life. I assured my girlfriend that from now on everything would be different. Well, it was. For the first six months I worked hard and stayed clear of people using drugs. We made enough money to buy a car and a house. But alas! All this was built on sand and collapsed like a house of cards. Unable to resist any longer, I gave in to my addictions. What is more, I became close friends with a number of drug dealers, and then my life really turned into a hell on earth. I did cocaine, and then heroine as well. I lost the girlfriend I had been with for seven years. I lost my house, my car. What was worse, I lost my human dignity. Everything I did revolved around drugs. After moving in with my dealer friends, I began to deal in drugs myself. I drove around the black neighborhoods in constant fear of being arrested by the police. I was afraid of being mugged or killed. (Having a gun put to your head was not unusual in these devastated neighborhoods where every house window was either broken or boarded up.) At times, I felt I was an actor in some cheap movie or simply having a bad dream. But it was not a dream. It was my life — a grim reality from which there was no escape (at least so I thought then.) Worse still, I had been so deeply drawn into this way of life that I was unable to tell right from wrong. Totally twisted and eaten up by my drug addiction — the leprosy of our time — I decided not to return to the house of my fellow dealers, where I could live for free. I took to living with a black prostitute in my car, but continued to deal in drugs. And when they repossessed my car, I began to live a solitary life on the street. My old dealer friends refused to help me, but then I did not want their help anyway. All I wanted was to do drugs. I roamed the streets like a lunatic, slept under stairways on pieces of cardboard, ate from trash bins, talked to myself, and reeked to high heaven. And still I thought things were all right. It was not until a friend of mine died of a drug overdose, that my eyes were finally opened. Sitting one day by a pile of waste in a black neighborhood, I decided I had had enough. Lying beside me was a torpid heap of human bodies. Suddenly I thrust my syringe and “cooking spoon” into the midst of that heap. An overwhelming desire welled up from deep within my heart. “I want to live!” I said to myself. “I don’t want to die! I’m only twenty-nine, after all.” At that moment I felt some Power seize me by the scruff of the neck. It began to lead me through streets I had never walked before. Did the Good Shepherd not leave his ninety-nine sheep to look for the one that was lost? (cf. Luke 15:1-7). Surrendering myself totally to this Power, I allowed It to lead me on. I did not know yet that It was God taking me in hand. I came upon a black prostitute and told her what had happened. I said I did not want to die on the street, that I wanted to live. The woman told me of a place where I could find help. I went to the address she gave me and told the people there about myself. They said I had to go to a detox center, but since they did not have a car available, I had to sit and wait. I sat down and waited. But by now the heroin I was on was beginning to lose its effect I needed my next fix. I had reached such a state that I needed two fixes of narcotics every two hours if I was to function at all. I wanted to leave, but just then a man and woman came in on some business. I saw them as angels sent by God to help me. They drove me to the detox center; and there, for the first time in seventeen years of heavy drinking and taking drugs, I began to sober up. I went for support group meetings and even knelt down to pray in the evenings with my black fellow-convalescents. They prayed aloud, asking for every blessing upon myself and my family. I found this incredible. Here they were praying for someone who for so many years had been doing nothing but evil things! After three months, God sent another man-angel my way. He said to me, “Ludwik, you are doing everything right, but to persevere in sobriety you have to find God.” Then he took me to a chapel in a home for the homeless attached to Holy Trinity Church. He knelt down at the pew. I knelt down beside him. Then, pointing to the monstrance, he said to me, “Ludwik, that is the Blessed Sacrament. We believe it is the Body of Jesus, and that He is the Living God.” And he began to pray. Kneeling and staring at the Blessed Sacrament, I said to myself: “I see. So here I am directing my thoughts to the center of that cross with all the antennae. From there the thoughts are radio-signaled into space where little green men pick them up on their computer screens and then send back some kind of energy that changes the world.” As I was deliberating in this very wise fashion, I suddenly saw a Light radiating from the Blessed Sacrament. That Luminosity shone around me, and I was within It. At that moment I began to cry like a baby. I howled, while my friend watched me uncomprehendingly. It was the prodigal son returning to his Father (Luke 15:11-32). Once again God had touched me in a palpable way. And so for several months I lived in this home for the homeless. I began to take part in prayer group meetings. Not long after, at the age of thirty, I made my First Confession. I felt as if an enormous bag of rocks had fallen from my heart. For the first time in my life I felt truly free. Not the freedom I had sought in music and drugs, but the real freedom that only God can give. With that confession began my sober spiritual journey in the footsteps of Jesus Christ. “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). Shortly afterwards. I made my First Holy Communion. From then on Jesus began to work changes in my heart; and so He continues to do today. I also received the Sacrament of Confirmation. What a tremendous thing it was that I had been baptized! Thanks to the Sacrament of Baptism I was a member of the Good Shepherd’s flock. He had kept watch over me and seen to it that I never spent time in jail, did not die in an automobile accident, did not fall to a gunman’s bullet, and was never infected with HIV. I had never noticed this before. Only now am I grateful for what I have and for the fact that Jesus found and enabled me to be resurrected to a new life. It is now five years since that resurrection. Thanks to my experience — to my carrying my cross — I am able today to help others. Through me, Jesus is able to give hope to others. I do not claim that my life is always easy, but then I do have Jesus, who is present in the Holy Sacraments. I have the Eucharist and the Sacrament of Reconciliation. I know Jesus loves me very much and that for Him nothing is impossible. Praise and glory to Him!
Ludwik, aged 33
Published in February 2012.
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