| Jose's Story |
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‘  Heroin stole everything from me. Any dignity I had, it took it. It took my womanhood – I became like an animal.’ For 17 years Jose was addicted to heroin and crack cocaine. She stole to finance her habit and spent over 10 years in prison. At breaking point she went looking for drugs to kill herself. What she found was a love that would transform her life. Jose, now 48, was brought up by her mother and the man she believed to be her father in an unhappy home. ‘He never spoke a word to me. Maybe I was just in the way – extra baggage for him.’ She was 28 when she learnt that ‘dad’ was in fact her step father. She spent her childhood hurt and rejected. Jose was sexually abused as a young child by a neighbour. ‘I was completely terrified,’ she recalls, feeling powerless to stop it. ‘I was just a child and he was an adult. I didn’t tell my mum till many years later.’ When her mum fell pregnant again, Jose was put into foster care where she remembers being ‘treated like a dog’ – fed under the table with scraps and physically abused. ‘I grew up bitter and angry – angry with my mum for not stopping it.’ It’s not surprising that Jose sought acceptance elsewhere. She was disruptive in school, always wanting to be the centre of attention. ‘When I left I felt so worthless. I ran away from home.’ She took up with the street gangs of youths like herself, and began a life of drink, drugs and crime. She cultivated a hard tough image, even deliberately picking fights to go to prison. ‘It sounds crazy for people who have never lived that life but where do you get your meaning or your love from? You have to get it from somewhere. That’s where I found mine.’ ‘Everything is exaggerated in prison – except the food, that’s not nice!’ She learnt from other inmates and first tried heroin while behind bars. Even knowing it was addictive she still went ahead and after two weeks she was hooked. ‘It felt like my best friend; the missing thing in my life.’ On her release she kept in touch with other addicts and ‘from that day on I was hooked on heroin and crack cocaine for 17 years of my life. It stole everything from me. Any dignity I had, it took it. It took my womanhood; I became like an animal. Every single second of my life I needed this heroin.’ Jose became a liar and a thief to finance her habit. In total she spent over 10 years in prison plus spells in rehab homes where she tried and failed to kick her habit. She made friends with a fellow addict who had become pregnant and formed a close bond with the baby whom she named. But even the love she had for that little baby girl didn’t give Jose the will to come off drugs. Her life simply wasn’t worth living. ‘I remember walking through the streets of Kings Cross one night looking for my dealer. Two ladies approached me and one said ‘Jesus loves you’. She might as well have been talking about aliens,’ Jose said. But she did recognise Mandy (we told her story in Challenge 620) who Jose had known in prison. ‘She had a big smile on her face. I knew she’d come off drugs. I was really jealous and angry with her,’ Jose recalls. Jose accepted their card with details of a church offering rehab help (www.vouk.org.uk). Feeling at her lowest ebb, she made contact. ‘I could not believe it when they said “come, we have a place for you”.’ With mixed emotions, Jose moved in. ‘I couldn’t believe the acceptance. I wanted more, even though I looked on them as softies. That first night I slept in a clean, warm bed for the first time in 17 years.’ Adjusting to the home’s strict but supportive regime tested Jose to the limit as she came off both heroin and prescription methadone. ‘I’d been “caged” for so many years. I had to learn how to be human again. Every day we got up at 6 am to read the Bible for half an hour and then prayers.’ It took just three days for her frustrations to bubble over as she threw the Bible across the room. All set to leave, she gave prayer one last try and got to her knees with the others ‘to be polite’. ‘“I can’t get this,” I said. I was angry at this Jesus. I shouted out “If you’re there, help me!”’ ‘Then,’ she says, ‘I heard an audible voice in my heart. “The reason for prayer is so that I can talk to you and you can talk to me”. It was like the shutter of a camera opening. I realised that there was a real God in this world. I was loved.’ This was the start of Jose’s walk with God. Her life was transformed. She learnt what it means to follow Jesus and become a Christian. ‘I had a lot of issues and was still very angry,’ but with help and support she came to understand how to pray, read and understand the Bible and most of all that she was loved by God and made in the image of her heavenly Father. Some time later she was even able to foster and then adopt the little girl whom she had known since birth. Today that child is 11 and Jose teaches her at home. ‘I give all the thanks and glory to God,’ Jose says. Her life has been restored, renewed and transformed by her faith in Jesus Christ. Transformed.org.uk is a ministry based in Brixton, London for ex-offenders with branches in Southampton, Leicester and Glasgow. Transformed meetings are held every month – see their website for details. |
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