Here is part two of Brad Davenport’s letter from prison.
“I picked up a lot of bad habits when I started running
around with my dad. And that wasn’t the
only bad part: I shared those bad habits with others. But the crazy thing about it, God was always
around in the back of my mind. He never
really went away even though I did.
During my addiction process, I joined the Navy at age
eighteen only to get kicked out when I was twenty because I drank too much
alcohol. I went home, worked in saw
mills and eventually learned how to build log homes. I had a natural God-given talent to be able
to build things out of wood. With this
job, I traveled to different parts of America , but mostly stayed on the
East coast where I made most of my money.
My addiction followed me the whole time.
Trust me, you can find drugs anywhere.
I’d come home with a pocket full of money, only to spend it all on booze,
drugs, and women.
Year by year, I got worse and worse. I was drinking every chance I got, taking
pain pills and shooting cocaine. My dad
finally went to prison for eleven years, but even when he was out of my life, I
got no better. I actually got worse, because
now I felt all alone. Not only had I
lost my dad, I lost my best friend too, because I was into drugs too much for
him.
So I would look for anyone to take away my loneliness and
started sleeping around a lot until I met Amanda R. For some reason, I really liked her, so we
started shacking up. I tried to become a
real man, only to fall time after time; she never left me, although I don’t
know why. I began to feel like the Lord
told me to marry her, but I never did.
Once again, the drug addiction won, and after five years, she left
me. To this day, I can’t blame her, and
she should have left a lot sooner than she did because I became very abusive
toward her. I was no good—not fit to be
a boyfriend or a husband. When she left
me, she was afraid of me. Our washing
machine was broken, and one day she said she was going to do laundry at a
friend’s house. I said “okay;” but as
you probably guessed by now, she only took her clothes and never returned.
I was in my twenties going through all this. Her leaving affected me deeply; I had lost my
dad, and now the girl I truly loved. My
life had hit rock bottom. I was out of
work and out of places and people to go to.
I started having thoughts of suicide, and I did cut my wrist a few
times. I was in and out of psychiatric
places. I thought I was crazy, and then
I met some really crazy people! I wasn’t
crazy: I was lonely and depressed, trying to fill my heart with things and
people of this world. It only brought
temporary happiness clouded with sin of every kind.
After I got through the suicide stage, I started hanging out
with worse people than before. I started
shooting a lot of cocaine and became a needle junkie, which is something I
thought would never happen in a million years.
When I was young, I used to tell my mom I was going to grow up and get a
good job and take care of her so she’d never have to worry again. I told her I would never be like Dad, but now
not only was I like my dad, I was worse than he.
Photo from bensingerdupont.com
I ran around getting high all the time and sleeping with
anyone that would have me. During this
time I contracted Hepatitis-C, which is a liver disease. I got it through dirty needles, using them
after other people. But honestly I
didn’t know if I had Hep-C or not until I came to prison: I didn’t even care
enough about myself to worry about it.
I was in and out of jail I don’t know how many times, and
every time I would turn to God to save me and make Him a million promises if He
would only let me out of jail. And every
time He would. And every time, I
lied. So it’s no wonder I’m sitting here
in Federal prison with 210 months of time.
Right before I came to prison, I was shacking up with this
girl named Misty, and I would stay at my cousin’s house a lot too. He let me stay in a camper that had all the
accommodations of a house, and I worked for him digging graves. Yes!
Grave-digging. Actually, there
was money in it—believe it or not. But
once again God was there. Every time I
helped dig the grave, I knew this was where I would be one day. Sometimes I helped families lower the dead
bodies of loved ones into the grave, too.
And I always wondered, “Did this person make it to heaven, or did they
end up in hell?”
Mostly I worked for my cousin to make pill money. I had quit cocaine by this time, but was now
severely hooked on pain pills. Out of
all the drugs, this one gripped me the most.
I honestly thought I couldn’t function without them, and of course,
Misty was hooked on them too. She also
liked downers like Xanax and Valium a lot, but I didn’t really care for
them. She was my girlfriend/pill-popping
partner. Not a good combination for a
relationship—trust me! At times it was
weird. She’d be lying asleep next to me
there in bed and this feeling of guilt would come over me for being in bed with
her to the point I would go lie on the couch. God was letting me know I
shouldn’t be in bed with her because we were not married.
To be continued…
Copyright ©2015
Elaine Beachy
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