“My definition of hell on earth is living with one foot in the world, and the other with Christ. I know, because I lived that way for so long.” – Allen Hankins.
“Growing up, I went to church on Christmas and Easter. I didn’t have a model for following Christ. I sought acceptance and significance in my performance in academics and sports. Those aren’t necessarily bad things. But it’s not Christ.
“I later went to University of Nebraska on a wrestling scholarship. The guys I hung out with in college were far from God. At first, I felt uncomfortable with the drinking and how women were viewed as objects. But I became numb to it, and soon, drinking and inappropriate relationships with women were a regular part of my life.
“After graduation, I tried to fill the gap that sports left in my life with drugs. I also thought I was on the path toward marriage, because I’d been living with my girlfriend for about two years. That changed when I was offered a job in Cincinnati, and she (at about the same time) made a decision to trust Christ. She set new boundaries in our relationship and took a stand for what she believed. Honestly, I didn’t get it. I accepted the job in Cincinnati, and we broke up.
“Moving to a new city meant I no longer had a network of friends encouraging me to do the wrong thing. I chose those things on my own. But I did notice the changes happening in my former girlfriend’s life, and that prompted me to check out a local church. There, I was confronted with this truth: I either had to stand for Christ or stay seated with the Enemy. That moved me, and I decided to trust Christ. I still hadn’t taken care of the 800 lb. gorilla of alcohol and drugs on my back. But I found a freedom and peace that I’d never felt before.
“I started reading my Bible and praying regularly. But I didn’t have Christian friends around me. That made it easy for me to spend two or three nights a week at bars, and another couple of nights at home studying my Bible. Trying to live in both of those worlds was lonely and exhausting, and nobody was there to tell me how crazy that really was.
“I lived like that for about 4 years. Work was going well, and I was promoted a couple of times, so I bought a home far away from my church. Isolation made it easy for the gods of money, alcohol and relationships to take over. There was a lot of internal struggle, and I convinced myself that freedom from alcohol and other struggles would have to wait until heaven. Until then, I’d try to be a ‘good person’ and hopefully, God could see past my sin.
“That faulty thinking led up to my darkest point in life: July 7, 2007. I’d gone out that night, drank too much and decided to try to climb a television tower. It seemed like a harmless prank, but it got a little more serious with the police and television news crews showed up, and I was on the front page of the newspaper the next day.
“In just 48 hours after that incident, everything changed. I was in jail, charged with criminal trespassing and public intoxication, and I lost my job. All the things that I had placed my trust and faith in came tumbling down. It was devastating.
“I see now that God loved me enough to discipline and expose me and this was the beginning of my journey with Christ. I’d recently moved to Dallas, and God connected me to friends who invited me to Watermark. I felt a lot of shame, and authenticity was hard. But when I read stories in Watermark News of broken people now changed by Christ, I discovered what I’d been missing all along.
“The rest was a process. I had a real problem with alcohol, and it took a while to give it up. But over time, I found recovery in Christ and a small group of men who walked with me. I came to understand that ‘nothing good lives in me’ (Romans 7:18), so there’s no point to keeping areas of my life isolated from God. I made hard decisions about relationships and alcohol – sometimes fighting tooth and nail with my community about it. But in the end, I needed to give up my desires so that I could pursue Christ alone. I admitted that I feared not be able to handle the loneliness and emptiness. But through consistent time in Scripture, God helped me trust Him to be what I needed. With the help of community and Celebrate Recovery at Watermark, Icelebrated over one year of sobriety in November, and I am living the life I only thought possible the other side of heaven.
“For a long time, I was afraid of giving God all of my life, because I thought I’d get shortchanged. But God is so much bigger and better than I ever imagined. I have friends who encourage and tell me the truth even if it hurts. I have the chance to serve God by serving others. When I gave up my own selfish desires, God did not short-change me. My life became fuller. And I’ve discovered that the only way to truly live is to live for Christ.”
