Renew. Restore. Rejoice. A SafeHouse Ministries Podcast

Donuts, Deadbeats, and Drinking to Self-Destruct: Christy Connell's Story (Part 1)

• Phil Shuler • Season 2 • Episode 36

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Christy grew up in a very unstable home (her mom was married 7 times and had many other unstable relationships), and Christy learned from an early age to make self-destructive decisions, decisions which brought her much pain and tragedy.

Phil:

so you're 16. You decided you're gonna keep the baby. What did life look like then? were you with your mom raising your daughter? What's your daughter's name?

Christy:

Jasmine.

Phil:

Jasmine. Okay.

Christy:

I was her dad And I were, you know, hopelessly in love, I thought. Yeah. So when I tell him that I'm pregnant shortly after that he says that there's another child that's a year old. And then the girl that he was dating before me calls me and tells me that she's pregnant at the same time that I'm pregnant.

Phil Shuler:

HellO, and welcome to Renew, Restore, Rejoice, the Safe House Ministries podcast, where we share stories of the power of God to change lives through Safe House Ministries. Safe House Ministries is based out of Columbus, Georgia, and we are a ministry that exists to love and serve people who have been affected by addiction, homelessness, and incarceration. I'm your host, Phil Shuler, the Director of Development for Safe House Ministries here in Columbus, Georgia. Safe House serves over 1, 100 people each month as they transition back into our community. Safe House provides an abundance of services including 213 beds for homeless individuals and families, case management for obtaining job skills and long term employment. Over 300 hot meals every day, free clothing, and so much more. One of the most incredible services that Safe House provides is our free 9 12 month intensive outpatient substance abuse program, which is state licensed, CARF accredited, and has no wait list. Almost 100 percent of individuals staying in our shelters who follow our three phase program become fully employed within a few months. And 68 percent of individuals who stay at least one night with us End up finding work and moving into their own home. Thank you for being with us today and listening to our podcast. We hope you enjoy this week's episode.

Phil:

Good morning. This morning on the podcast, I have Christy Connell and I'm so excited to have Christy here. I think this is the first time I've ever met you, right? Christy.

Christy:

I believe so.

Phil:

Okay. You have a great. spirit about you. I feel it already. just having briefly met you. So I'm glad to have you. Thank you for being here today, Christy.

Christy:

Thank you for having me feel.

Phil:

Would love to kick it off with our standard question, which is, Christy, if you had to pick one word that might best describe you, what would that word be?

Christy:

That would be believer. See, I was already prepared for this.

Phil:

Yeah, you listen to the podcast, so you know what to expect. I

Christy:

have friends in safe house ministry, and I do listen to the podcast, yes.

Phil:

Awesome. Okay. Believer. So, what do you mean when you say that?

Christy:

Believer. When I say that I mean that I am a believer, I'm a believer of Jesus Christ.

Phil:

Awesome.

Christy:

You know, first and foremost, most definitely first, and today I believe in myself. And I believe in others. I really, I have a strong belief in others. You know, I have the same belief for them that I have for myself.

Phil:

That is really good. I can't wait to hear how, how that. intertwines with your story. So with that, let's jump in. So tell us, Christy, where did you grow up, and what was young childhood look like for you?

Christy:

Vidalia, Georgia. Awesome. With some onions? The onions. Yeah. The sweet onions. It's in the dirt. They say it's in the dirt, and I played in the dirt, so. The sweetness is in the dirt? Yes. So you,

Phil:

does that, did that make you sweeter as a kid?

Christy:

I think so. I think so. But yeah, I grew up in Vidalia, Georgia, and I had, I just rocked back and forth in how my family life was growing up because I had a mother, a single mother. Well I stay single, but and I love my mother dearly and, and, you know she rest in peace, and but she was married seven times. Wow. She was married seven times. Wow, like, wow. Throughout my lifetime, she was she married two of her husbands twice, I do give her that much. Okay, cool. You know, she was, she, she was, she was a really good mom. She was and she loved. I have a brother and a sister, both younger than me. And she loved us dearly. But she battled with wanting to be loved. You know, she, she really she really would seek love and, and, you know male figure. You know, she just, Really wanted to be loved and and for someone to love us as a family. Yeah, and she battled with some depression you know, I know that today. I just, I didn't realize that growing up that she battled with depression. But, you know, today with knowing so much more about mental well being and any, you know, and how it affects physically, how it affects you physically and it affects your life as a whole. She did, but I had these amazing grandparents, maternal, my mother's parents, that, you know, married and was married all of their children's life and all of our lives too. My granddaddy is a pastor. And my grandmother was just this God fearing, loving woman. They both loved everybody. God was first in their life.

Phil:

Yeah.

Christy:

And their family, and then extended family like everybody. It didn't matter if you were, if you pulled up on a bicycle or in a limousine. They just loved you. That's awesome. And they gave. They gave a lot to others. Did

Phil:

you grow up in your grandparents

Christy:

church? My granddaddy had a small country church that he had for many years, and of course we went there. But then he He traveled to different churches, so really we never knew what church we were going to be at. Wow,

Phil:

so you guys, in the same kind of general area, maybe within an hour radius or something, you would go to different churches each month wherever your grandpa was preaching?

Christy:

Exactly. So he's kind

Phil:

of like a circuit rider preacher.

Christy:

He was, he was. And then he also preached on Tuesdays and Thursday nights at the prison. And then he had a radio show on Sunday mornings. It was called the Tom Joyner Show. You know, there is a really famous Tom Joyner Show, right? Well, his name is Talmadge Joyner, and everyone called him Tom. So his Sunday morning sermon on the radio was the Tom Joyner Show in our, our hometown. That's awesome. And my mom, going back a little bit about my mom she, my grandparents started the donut shop in my hometown.

Phil:

Really? Listen, when I travel around, one of my absolute favorite things to do is to visit the local donut shops.

Christy:

Oh, well you must visit the donut shop. Is it still there? It is there. What's the name of it? Today it's Bill's Donuts because it got sold over to my granddad's brother Bill.

Phil:

Okay, Bill's Donuts in Vidalia. Alright, that's awesome.

Christy:

So how I came about, and I love to visit donut shops too, right? And especially ones where you walk up to the window. And I like to tell the story of how I got, came about into the world. Is that my mom, she was 16 years old and working the window at the donut shop because it was a walk up. And my dad, my biological father, was constantly buying donut holes. So, yeah.

Phil:

Was he going back for the donuts or for the girl?

Christy:

For the girl.

Phil:

Yeah.

Christy:

For the girl. But then, she got pregnant and he didn't stay with the girl. Aww. So, you know, I come into the world in a broken family. My mom was 18. And when she told my dad that she was pregnant he, basically he just walked away. Wow. Mm hmm.

Phil:

Well,

Christy:

I say I came into the world in a broken family, but my mom my adopted father, whose name I have, married my mom at three months, she was three months pregnant.

Phil:

Wow. Yeah. So. That's pretty significant.

Christy:

Probably another donut hole relationship, but.

Phil:

Those donuts sure do bring people together. It's

Christy:

dead set in the middle of Vidalia, Georgia. And I mean, it was a very busy little spot from my understanding. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So she did immediately start dating someone. And when she was three months pregnant with me, they married and at birth, he gave me his name.

Phil:

Wow. Okay. Well, how'd things go growing up a little bit there in the early years?

Christy:

Well, after my mom married Larry which I called my daddy they, they were married for a short period Little over a year and then divorced and she remarried, you know I mentioned at the beginning that she was married seven times say

Phil:

Wow

Christy:

and and she She didn't like to be alone in the sense of companionship.

Phil:

Yeah

Christy:

so she Immediately married again and had my sister. We're two years apart two years and one month apart and then She married divorced and married a couple of times in between that and then approximately ten years later she married my brother's father and had my brother.

Phil:

Wow. So, do you remember how that affected you?

Christy:

I do recall how it affected me. I do. It was, it affected me and of course a negative, it was a negative impact. Going to school, you know, all of my friends had parents, you know, it seems like they had normal lives and I didn't. I mean, I, I can recall it being a very negative impact on me. And it even caused me to feel negative towards my mom.

Phil:

Really?

Christy:

It did. I, I can recall feeling very negative towards my mom and not wanting to be at her house. I wanted to always be with my grandma.

Phil:

Yeah. Were you upset because you didn't have what the people around you at school had? Like, what was it that you were upset about or how that really bothered you about it?

Christy:

That there's just no stability in our home. Well, I guess I also compared it to going to my grandparents house, you know, like that's why I long to be with my grandparents because

Phil:

there was stability there.

Christy:

There was all it was just full of love in their house. I don't recall seeing my grandparents arguing fuss and fight growing up throughout my lifetime. I, you know, there, there was just grandma and granddaddy and I was the first born grandchild from their first born child. So I was a, you know, a grandma baby. You were special. I was, oh yeah. I

Phil:

was probably spoiled too.

Christy:

Probably so, I probably would say, yeah. Oh, and but they just, you know, that's, that's where there was some balance coming into my life was. Where there wasn't any stability in my mom's home, and there was love, like I said, she loved us very much. I can recall her crying over, you know, her, her feeling like she was being a failure as a mother. Yeah. But, so I have to really, you know, try not to cry while I'm talking to you, Phil, cause I, I do like to cry. That's okay. For whatever emotion, I mean, happy, sad. Yeah. Miss Christy Haney can tell you a little bit about that. So, she, you know, I work side by side with her. Yeah. So but, you know, just the really comparing it with being at my grandparents house and being with my mom at, at home. And comparing my granddaddy to, I mean comparing the men in my mother's life to my granddaddy. Yeah. Right. I bet that was so hard. To this love and, you know, Father and grandfather that from the time, you know even just passing every day, you know, many, how many times a day if he was leaving the house, it was, you know, he lovingly gave my grandmother a little peck, love peck. I love you. I'm going here. I'll be back. Coming back in was the same thing. Hey, honey, I'm home. You know, just, and then going to my mom's house and it being, we didn't always have the best stepdad either. Yeah. You know. So it was like there were abusive step dads and there were step dads that just, you know, weren't there. Abusive to her and to you guys? Abusive to, yes.

background:

Wow.

Christy:

So, and, and my brother missed a lot of that in his life. He did. He, he didn't ex experience the things that my sister and I experienced because he was born ten years after, you know, me. And his dad and then the next husband were the two husbands that she remarried twice.

Phil:

They were better than the previous ones. Right.

Christy:

Mm hmm. Yes, sir. Wow. So he, you know, he had a little more stability in, a lot more stability in his life as a child than my sister and I did.

Phil:

Were you guys always in the home or were there periods where you were taken out of the home because of abuse that was going on?

Christy:

No. And. We, we were never taken away from my mom. She, like I said, she was a good mother, you know, overall to us as, as a mom and a mom and daughter or mom and child relationship. It was just her relationships and she did immediately if there was abuse towards us, it was immediate. she got divorced and so the abuse didn't, when I say abuse for us, it was. Like a spanking was not your normal, it was more, it wasn't a normal spanking. And that, that I only recall happening with one, one stepdad in our life. And she immediately divorced him. And he was an alcoholic as well. Oh, wow. Yeah, so there was, there wasn't as much physical abuse as there was mental. Okay. Oh, and toward Judd's children. Yeah. And we have more of the mental abuse, and watching our mom, you know, be abused as well.

Phil:

So as you grew up and got a little older, you know, pre teen years what did your own life look like?

Christy:

An alcoholic.

Phil:

How early did that start?

Christy:

Thirteen years old.

Phil:

Wow. What got you started in that?

Christy:

I think, sorry, I'll start crying. It's

Phil:

okay

Christy:

one thing I think being from a small town I, I experienced drinking even in homes that were not broken. Even with, like, all of my friends, we were teenagers and we were small town teenagers. And I'd sneak in beer from our parents. There was one home where we were allowed to drink. They were Like a well known family and but the parents allowed us to drink. Their, their idea and outlook on it was they would rather their children and friends drink at their house than be out and about drinking. So they had a range of age of children from high school children to us junior high.

Phil:

Wow.

Christy:

And I can remember drinking many, many, many times there.

Phil:

Wow.

Christy:

But I was that. I was that person that you hear people in recovery and alcoholism and substance Abuse talk about it was an immediate attraction for me

Phil:

It

Christy:

was an immediate like it was immediate. I like the way that I felt, you know, just Happier, you know in Just That all the negative stuff disappeared when you were drinking and having fun. Yeah, it was just you were drinking and having fun.

Phil:

Yeah, until the buzzer were off and then you came back and then you wanted to get away from it again. And so what, what did that cycle certain at 13? How did it get worse from there?

Christy:

At I mean, I, I became a pretty regular drinker, even at 13 years old.

Phil:

Wow.

Christy:

Like, regular, meaning that anytime that we could drink, we did.

background:

Yeah.

Christy:

The liquor store, ABC, was easy as one, two, three to get it. Oh, wow. Yeah, I mean, we would go through the drive thru with underage people driving and buy we liked to drink Strawberry Hill. It's, you know, it was It tastes good or we thought it did and so it it was really easy to get It was a very accessible, you know accessible to us. It was It was just easy.

Phil:

How did that affect your school over the years like as you got into high school? Did you did you finish high school? What did that look like? How did it impact your life?

Christy:

Well from just, you know, the wrong decision to be drinking at 13, just continued to lead to other wrong decisions. You know, even with the influence of, even my mom saying, you know, talking to, having to talk about sexual activity and protection and so on, and, you know, her not wanting pregnant at a young age as she did. And I completely let that go in one ear and out the other and began having sex at 15. So I was pregnant by 16 and My best friend at the time then, and is one of my best friends still today and her mom was a special ed school teacher. They had moved there from North Carolina to my hometown. I spent a lot of time with them during, from 14 up I spent a lot of time with them.

Phil:

Did they have a pretty good home?

Christy:

Well There was some, there was problems there, but not in the home. It was with a relationship, a marriage, and that was the reason they moved there. Which is another whole story. That's her story to tell. But

Phil:

you, you guys were really close and you spent a lot of time together. And

Christy:

her mom was very loving and caring and, and cared a lot about us and our education, you know, and things like that. So, she, when I found out that I was pregnant, I told them first. And they were going to, she was going to take me to have an abortion. The mom? Right. We had it planned for me to have an abortion. Yeah. And, about four days before I was supposed to have an abortion, I just called one of my friends to take me over there to their house. And I went over and was crying, and I, I told Miss Linda is her name, and I told her that, you know, I couldn't have an abortion. And, I'm so glad I made that decision today. I don't know if you noticed the picture on my phone, but I have a lovely 33 year old daughter. Wow. And a grandson.

Phil:

What was it that led you to make that choice to keep the baby? Was it? Being in church, and growing up, and knowing what was right, and, and, like, what was it?

Christy:

That would be my exact answer. Yeah. God, and being, you know, that God and Jesus Christ was instilled in me by my grandparents. Yeah. And I knew that that wasn't the right thing for me to do.

Phil:

So, the, the circumstances of your life and the decisions began to lead you in a really bad path, had you, sometime as a young child, You trusted in Jesus as your Savior and you had a relationship with him already?

Christy:

I did. And, and even before, you know, even at that time in my life, at that age, I could look back and, and recall like the exact age, exactly where I was, what I was doing. What was that?

Phil:

Tell me that story.

Christy:

When I, when I really thought in my mind that Jesus is real. Yeah. Eight years old. I was afraid I was in the my mom's car in the back seat of the car and we had been through many marriages. Right. And I was eight years old and we were going to my grandma's house and they lived down a dirt right out on the countryside of our hometown and she told us she did not tell us. She did not tell us. I was up on my knees and my hands like this, looking out the back window, in the back seat. My mom was driving, we were on the dirt road. And I see this car come up close behind us, right? And it was like, before dark, we were going for dinner at my grandmother's house. And it was before dark, so there was a man driving and uh, I told my mom, I got this really scared feeling because he was real close to us, and I told my mom that there was a strange man following us.

Phil:

Wow.

Christy:

Mm hmm. We had been through a lot as, you know, like I said. And she just laughed and she's sad. I can't recall the exact word she said, but basically, that was her new boyfriend, and he was following us to Grandma's house to have dinner with us, right? Oh. But still, I was afraid, even when she said that. Yeah. You know, another man.

Phil:

Yeah.

Christy:

And, that terrified me, because what we'd already been through with marriages with her. Yeah. And what she had been through. What my mom had been through.

background:

Yeah.

Christy:

okay, it's okay,

Phil:

that, that sparked something in your heart that you wanted to take that step to make Jesus real to you in your life?

Christy:

Well, I remember thinking that He was going to protect me. And that's what I remember. Very vividly.

Phil:

And you were eight? I

Christy:

was eight years old.

Phil:

Okay. Okay. Okay. You've probably heard the gospel many times from your grandpa, I'd imagine.

Christy:

I haven't. I mean, my granddaddy, say my mom, my grandmother, would she would, she would go to church with us a lot, and especially on really important, like, celebrations and stuff. But she would stay at home. And listen to granddaddy on the radio and cook because my family, our family was really big and everyone came to grandma's house on Sunday.

Phil:

Wow.

Christy:

After church.

Phil:

Yeah.

Christy:

So my granddaddy and most of the time myself because I was already there on Sunday mornings. And probably every Sunday morning. I say most of the time, but I don't recall many Sunday mornings that I wasn't there.

Phil:

Yeah.

Christy:

And we would get in the car and go pick up. If, if, if the other grandkids weren't there spending the night, my, me and my granddad would go pick up everybody, and then we would go to church.

Phil:

Wow.

background:

Awesome.

Christy:

And then we would all go to Grandma's house.

background:

Okay.

Christy:

For, and everybody else was there. And I mean, I, I mean, when I say everybody, it could be twenty to, Forty plus people every Sunday. Wow. That is

Phil:

a big event.

Christy:

It was. Wow.

Phil:

Okay.

Christy:

So I had a lot of joy in my life, too.

Phil:

Yeah, so you're 16. You decided you're gonna keep the baby. What did life look like then? were you with your mom raising your daughter? What's your daughter's name?

Christy:

Jasmine.

Phil:

Jasmine. Okay.

Christy:

I was her dad And I were, you know, hopelessly in love, I thought. Yeah. So when I tell him that I'm pregnant shortly after that he says that there's another child that's a year old. And then the girl that he was dating before me calls me and tells me that she's pregnant at the same time that I'm pregnant.

Phil:

Wow.

Christy:

So our, our girls are, I think, two months apart.

Phil:

Wow. So, so you weren't the only girl in his life?

Christy:

No. No. And he did he, he asked me to marry him. Really? In front of all of his friends and at, at one of my friend's house.

Phil:

Yeah.

Christy:

He came and got on his knee and everything and asked me to marry him and I, I was like, I told him I didn't know. I was 16 and I told him I didn't know and we still had pay phones at that time. And so we went downtown to Vidalia Strip. It's famous. It's in the New York Times newspaper too, the Strip of Vidalia. And, so we were riding the Strip and I'm pregnant and I'm, you know, they are, they're Soperton, Georgia boys. A carload of them that I'm with. And I'm sure they were drinking. I mean, that's what we did. We did. And I tell him that I needed to stop at Hardee's and use the phone. So I get out of the car, I'm at the phone booth, and I call my grandmother. And, of course, they tell me that that I don't have to marry him. They didn't want me to, you know.

Phil:

Yeah.

Christy:

That I didn't have to marry him, that they would make sure that me and Jasmine were taken care of

Phil:

I'm sure that was a great comfort.

Christy:

So I told him no, that I wasn't marrying him. And and, you know, we kind of, I still tried to have a relationship with him if, you know, we really didn't know what we were doing. We didn't, I didn't even really know what a relationship was about that wasn't anything other than like my grandparents. If it wasn't the way that their relationship was, then it just wasn't right. And I knew ours wasn't right. So you know, we eventually just stopped talking and he quit coming around and I was my mom. You know, I was doing what she was hoping and praying that didn't happen was following in her footsteps have happened. A child at a young age. Yeah.

Phil:

Did that deter you for a while from continuing the drinking or going deeper into the darkness? Or did you just kind of continue in that path while you were raising your daughter?

Christy:

Well, while I was pregnant, of course, it did, but I continued to hang out with people and, you know, partake in the same hang, and, and we really just hung out, like, we would go to the river and hang out, or we would ride the strip and hang out in the parking lots and ride up and down the strip, it, I mean, you should look up the Vidalia Strip, it's pretty, it was a pretty, kept you busy for, You know, till 12 o'clock at night on Friday and Saturday nights, and that's what we did. But I spent a lot of time with my friends. They still spend a lot of time with me. All of them skipped school the day that I had Jasmine. And so and I had a lot of different types of friends. So I had friends that I drank with. I had friends that I didn't drink with, that I went to church with. Friends that we spent a significant amount of time with. Their parents or their, or their mothers. I had a one of my dear friends. Their dad had passed away at her, at a young age. So her mom and me and her. Yeah, I was always included in my friends. Parenting, like, kind of taken under their wing. And, and they all you know, loved my mom, too, and my family. So I still spend a lot of time and had a lot of different friends that just had different values. Yeah. And beliefs, so.

Phil:

Okay. So, as as your daughter started to get older. What did things, where did things go from there? Did, were you still, you finished high school or?

Christy:

I did not. I, I did try to go to school while I was pregnant. But when I started showing, I felt really uncomfortable. I guess I probably, and I know I did, had some insecurities about myself anyway in my home life and you know, to certain friends I felt insecure to and then certain friends I didn't, you know, it just, it was a lot of mixed emotions and feelings that I had.

Phil:

Yeah.

Christy:

And that plays a lot in probably why I like to drink. And genetically, my biological father and his entire family are all alcoholics. Died early ages. Aged, like I lost cousins from his family in their 30s from alcoholism. And my dad is definitely an alcoholic. He survived and as I, as a, You know, I know that he is still alive today. If he wasn't, then someone would have told me that we don't have a relationship, even though many tried times, but each time, you know, it fails.

Phil:

Yeah.

Christy:

And for reasons that we didn't have a relationship while I was growing up and my children were growing up is because he was an alcoholic and I didn't want my children around it.

Phil:

Yeah.

Christy:

I didn't want to be around it and I didn't want my children around it because, you know, I've yet to see that I'm an alcoholic at this time. I'm just drinking for fun.

background:

Yeah.

Christy:

Continue to even after having my daughter Say after having my daughter, you know I wasn't I was mom first from very young age the time I had her my friends caught her my shadow she was always with me and had her just by herself for five years and still partake in the very social Drinking life, but she was always taken care of if I did not ever, you know, not with me. Very few times if she ever was with me. So met my son's father. I have a son as well. He he, I met my son's father and had him five years later. Tasman was five. Okay. He is an alcoholic. I left him when Duncan was one because of alcoholism. So, he was, you know, he drank in, in deep alcoholism form, and I'm still very social. Yeah. You know, still function, take care of my life. Yeah, you hadn't fallen off the cliff in that way. Right. No. Mm

background:

mm. Okay.

Christy:

So, I left him in You know, today, if I knew then what I know today, I probably would have tried to help him more than I did, but I just walked away and took his son from him, right? Which, as an alcoholic and that being your solution, pushed him even deeper into alcoholism and just, you know, it really hurt him really bad.

Phil:

Yeah, yeah.

Christy:

raising my children I, I really strive to be, to give them a more stable life. But I still can see where, you know, my, where they were learned behaviors, relationships. I didn't get married every time, but I had you know, relationships that I would be in. And just, you know, in them for whatever reason. You know, they weren't always good relationships, and then I have ended good relationships as well. But and, and in between all of them, I've been married twice. Not to either one of my children's fathers. I was married. I married the first time my son was three and Jasmine would have been eight. Okay. And so we married, built a new house, brand new house and everything. And he had children as well, out of one out of wedlock and one to a previous marriage. But alcohol affected that. We were both very big social drinkers and he was an only child and had only child syndrome and I was broken home syndrome and we just fought like we just fought really bad and he was not abusive to me but he was like tear things up kind of fighter. Yeah. So he would, tearing up our new home, my children were in, you know, just. They were not happy and disturbed and it was mental abuse for them. Wow. My daughter went to a neighbor's house and called 911. You know, she's just a little girl. Yeah. And we divorced. I left him and we divorced. And and then I was divorced for several years. Eight, between eight and nine years when I married the second time.

background:

Okay.

Christy:

By this time now, alcohol is taking more you're drinking

Phil:

more. Yeah, I

Christy:

drink more.

Phil:

Longer and.

Christy:

And, and then when I married the second time, my children are 17, 11th grade and 6th grade, I think. 11th and 6th grade.

Phil:

Okay. How badly was the alcoholism affecting your life at that point?

Christy:

This is when, once I married well, it was pretty, it was pretty effective. Like, I drink a lot my children were a little bit older, and Duncan went to his dad's every other weekend and on Wednesday nights, and then half of the summer. So, during those times I was drinking, you know, just. It was not a, not at home by myself at this point, but it was very heavy social drinking. Everything I did involved drinking. Every, you know, going out to dinner, going out to dinner in the movies, going, we rarely went to the movies because you didn't get a drink at the movies. And So, but going to dinner was usually, like, with friends, socially, and my children were doing something else. Still, at this time, I was still mom first, like, if they were there, I wasn't drinking like that.

Phil:

Yeah.

Christy:

Unless it was, we were having a cookout at our house, and everybody was drinking, but then it seemed a little normal to them, you know, because we're cooking out, and everybody's drinking. Or if we went to a cookout that, just to be drinking and come home to them drinking and stuff, you know, I have not really. It wasn't really heavy at that time. Maybe at points. Thinking, you know, different points in my life it was. But, then, when I married the second time, my husband was a police officer. Really? Mm hmm. And he was my high school Spanish teacher's son. And he's He was two years younger than me and he had moved to Augusta, Georgia and he still lives there.

Phil:

Okay.

Christy:

But he was home visiting for Thanksgiving and we ran into each other and we started dating from there and we got married. Wow. Alright. And this was after a really heavy drinking time in my life. This is it. Boop. Let me back up just a little bit. You get ahead of yourself when you're telling these stories. Or you're telling your story. I worked I decided to go back to college. So I took a a bartending job at the golf course. At the golf resort in my hometown. Yeah. I went and applied for a job, and I got a job as a server. And so, that it wouldn't be so stressful while going to school and having teenage children and, you know, trying in my mind going to better our life. Yeah. Because that was my goal was to, you know, to do the right things. But alcohol, you know, would deter that many times in my life. And take me different avenues than what I really wanted to go in my heart. But, you know, it wasn't following my heart. It's following the desires of other things. And, so, in that bartending time of three years, I completed a year of school, because that would take a lot to break from school, because it was very stressful with having a teenage daughter, a son a little younger than her. Bartending, I got put in the bartending job very quickly while I was there as a server. They moved me to the bar. I was vibrant, fun I guess attractive, and they put me in there, and I loved it.

background:

It

Christy:

was the perfect job while I was going to school that I began drinking more and more and more because I was allowed to. My customers were the same people every day your wealthier side of people, it was a members only club, so it was, you know, they would Hey, give me a drink and get you one too that's when my children would see me drinking. You know, that, that, those years, those three years, they saw me drunk more than they had in their, you know, the earlier years. But still, they were still young. But after moving out of the bar out of the job, you know and I did, I knew that it, you know, that was not good for me and my family. It came to a point where I was like, this, I gotta stop. And I stopped. And moved back into working in an office administration type is what I did normally.

Phil:

Yeah, and you were married to the police officer at this time?

Christy:

Right after that. We started dating and we got married. Okay. And I moved me and my children to Augusta, Georgia. Okay. My daughter was 16 and going into 11th grade. And my son was 11. And so, I married him and moved to Augusta. While we were dating and he'd come to visit me, we would go out drinking in Vidalia. You know, he partook in my lifestyle. When we moved to Augusta and I got there as his wife and he was He was a police officer, been a police officer there for many years and didn't patrol anymore. He taught the gang resistance education and drugs in the schools. And then he was the explorer, like he was, was over the explorers and then there's another step up. I can't recall what they call him, but he was a big role model for kids in the, in the So he,

Phil:

did he not drink at all?

Christy:

It completely came to a stop.

Phil:

Wow. And

Christy:

I was so bored I was so bored with my life. At first I was happy and okay and we got it, we were in church, which was bounced in and out of church with me and my children too throughout life. And like our relation, he was so good to me and my children.

Phil:

So what happened then?

Christy:

I devastated him and divorced him and, you know, probably devastated my children too. my daughter. I, I was, we were married a year

And this concludes part one of Christy's story. The pattern of destructive behavior she had learned from her mother had taken root in her own life. And with the addition of alcohol and drinking so much, she really began to make some just utterly self destructive decisions. As you'll hear next week in the conclusion of part two of Christy's story, those self destructive decisions get even worse. And tragedy will strike, darkness falls, and things get about as bad as they could possibly get for Christy. But it does not end there. Because You will learn just how amazing the love of God is when he steps into Christie's life and delivers her in a miraculous way to bring her out of the depths of darkness that she had fallen into. Do not miss next week because you will love to hear the conclusion of Christy's story and she will share some amazing insights and some great lessons that she learned along the way that can be a blessing to you as well. God bless you and we look forward to being back with you again next week.

Phil Shuler:

We look forward to being with you again next week as we share another testimony about the power and the goodness of God to change lives through Safe House Ministries. if you are someone listening to this podcast that loves to hear these stories of the great things that God is doing in changing people's lives for the better, and if you would like to be a part of that work, please reach out to us You can reach us at 2101 Hamilton Road, Columbus, Georgia, 31,904. You can call us at seven oh six three two two. 3 7, 7 3, or you can email us at info@safehouse-ministries.com.

Microphone (Samson Q2U Microphone)-2:

Thank you so much for being with us this week for the renew restore and rejoice podcast of safe house ministries, we pray that God will bless you this week. And we look forward to having you back with us again next week for a new episode.