Your Life Line

My name is Robert Joy, I am 28 years old and I have lived a very bad life up until 2 years ago. I grew up on a rough council estate and I lived with my Mum, Dad and 2 sisters. My Dad was a recovering alcoholic and a very angry man, he was a good provider but he found it very hard to show love, this resulted in me growing up with a feeling of rejection. I would do anything to try and get his approval. My mum was a bit of a drinker as well and a shoplifter so as you can probably tell I never had the best start in life. Homelife was very very bad, although as kids we were lucky to have a holiday most years the rows my parents would have nearly all the time left me very frustrated and angry myself. I used to sit at the top of the stairs night after night listening to the terrible rows between my parents and I would regulary cry myself to sleep. I am sure this has a lot to do with the way my life turned out. I am not trying to pass the blame but hopefully make others aware of how important it is that children get the right love in their lives.

During my school days I was constantly in trouble, I was in a fight nearly every day and started to get a bad reputation. I was one of the smallest kids in my class, but I made up for that with my temper and violence. I was expelled from 2 schools and eventually left with poor GCSE results. My dad had his own roofing company and I went straight to work for him. My Dad was a very hard worker and I actually enjoyed working with him until his health started to get really bad. He had a serious heart problem due to his old lifestyle of drinking, smoking and fatty foods. He had several heart attacks and other problems with his lungs and other parts of his body. I lived in fear that he would die, although my Dad was a very hard man, I adored him, he was my hero and role model even though I can see now a very bad one.

When I was about 14 I started to drink myself, I would get some cider or cans of beer and sit down the park with my mates and get totally wasted. I ended up in hospital once with serious alcohol poisoning. As I got older I started hanging around with a large group of lads from my estate and we formed a gang called the "Jackmans Boys" We were really bad and very violent, it wasnt long before we had a very bad reputation in our town and that soon spread to the surrounding towns as well. At the age of 16 I started to dabble with drugs, it started off with just Speed " Amphetimines" but very quickly progressed onto cocaine. I was always a very full on person and this was no different in my drug taking. I was soon taking cocaine everyday and also selling loads to fund my habit.  My mind was very quick and I knew how to make money very easily at least £10,000 each week, unfortunateley this was normally by illegal means. I know now that the drug use distorted my mind, especially my thinking often making me paranoid and very aggressive.

It got to a stage in my life where I was barred from every pub in my town and surrounding towns and wanted by every police officer for miles around. One night a huge fight kicked off and I was involved in putting a young man in a coma. He nearly died due to the horrific injurys he suffered at our hands. I was sentenced to 18 months in a young offenders institute and beagan my first prison sentence. My life was starting to become more and more empty, I was hurting a lot of people but none more than myself. I was only 19 at this point and already full of hate and anger. My life was spiralling out of control and I felt powerless to stop it.

Once I finished my sentence, I came out and threw myself straight back into the drug scene, I had made more contacts while I was in jail and I took it to another level. I was soon the biggest dealer in the area and the amounts I was taking myself was ridiculous. The money I earned funded really bad crimes, that's what happens with drug money, people use the proceeds to set up other terrible criminal behaviour and target the most vulnerable people in our society like young people. The first thing you learn as a dealer is how to get young people hooked and feel like your their best friend, when really we just use them and drop them when we like. I ended up becoming more and more paranoid as each day went by, not trusting anyone. You see that is what happens, people are around you for the wrong reasons. I used them and they tried to use me and I was determined to survive in the drug dealing world.

In July 2000 my whole life fell apart, my dad had a massive heart attack and died. I was devastated, it was the lowest moment of my life so far, although it was soon to get a lot worse. I had had a huge argument with my dad the day he died and for years I carried the guilt and the shame of how I believed I had killed him by causing him so much stress. I lost what little sense I had left and I became totally oblivious to the grief and sorrow I was causing my family as I fell deeper and deeper into a life of drugs, crime and even more serious violence.

I served a second prison sentence for attacking a man with a lump of wood and while I was on bail for that I hit someone round the head with the butt of my gun after a fight in the street. Two years in prison this time and still I never learnt my lesson. I came out from that sentence even worse, I had been doing a lot of weight training and started taking steroids, so as ell as my fierce temper I now had a lot of size and strength to back it up with.

I was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and started to lose a lot of friends. I was very unpredictable and inside I was completley tormented. I had progressed onto crack cocaine and I was totally dependent on this drug for months. I went from being a very strong and very confident fearless man to a very scrawny 8 stone weakling with really bad drug physcosis.

My girlfriend fell pregnant, although unplanned, I was over the moon. It was the first time in several months that anything good had happened in my life and I was determined to get off the drugs and make a new life for myself, but no matter how hard I tried I would keep falling into the same old trap, time after time after time. Drugs had completley ruined my life and now I was desperate to stop and I couldnt. I was at a place in my life where I feared I would die, I had often contemplated suicide as the only way out. I hated who I was and what I had done and realised I was nothing to nobody. I could no longer feel loved or feel I could love anyone, I have heard people say they are lonely, perhaps they are but to feel that nothing no longer mattered, left such sadness that I did not know how to express this and hated the feeling of this is loneliness.

One day after several failed attempts to get clean and after nearly ending my own life I decided to try GOD! I got down on my knees and prayed, I humbled myself to him and admitted that I had made a huge mess of my life and I was desperate to change it but I couldn'tdo this on my own. I asked for His help and His strength to overcome my addictions. I fell asleep that night with a new peace in my heart and a new hope.

I woke up the next morning and something amazing had happened to me, I had no desire at all to get any drugs, I was feeling great and had a new spring in my step. I left my house and walked on the street with no paranoia and no hate in my heart. That was the greatest miracle for me, 25 years of anger and hate had left me and there was an overwhelming feeling of love in me that I was not used to. For me I had found a connection to my spiritual side and I read and heard another story, some say the greatest story about Jesus Christ, I became a Christian. I understood just like His story, that there is hope for everyone and believed that He had died on a cross and paid the penalty for my sins, all I had to do was accept Him as my saviour and let him have my life and make it what he wanted.

That was 2 years ago and I am now a member of a great church and living a totally different life than I used to. I have written a book about my life to try and help others. I travel to other churches and venues to share my story of transformation. It was all made possible the day I surrendered my life to Jesus Christ and put my faith and trust in Him.

I have a great relationship with my son and although I am no longer with his mum we get on well and both have our son Callums' best interests at heart.

I hope my story encourages you and also makes you seriously think about your life and where its heading.  Yours, Rob.