Most of the Time

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Most of the Time we do not take crack cocaine seriously. We make it to be just another drug. Crack LOVES this advantage. Crack LOVES to stay labeled as "just a drug". That way it can surround you and attack before you know what hit you. SO...because we now know this, why would we take that chance? I would suggest you take a chance on this ministry...the DVC Ministry...and quit thinking you know how to stop crack cocaine...if you did...you would not be reading this right now!
Todd

Todd

I remember driving to meet Todd. I remember it because I was rehearsing for the entire evening. How I would to talk and walk. How I would control my words and stay cool, not break a sweat. Most of all, how I would appear exciting but not excited.
We met at a local downtown Grand Rapids bar. As I walked through the door I tried not to hyperventilate, I spotted Todd right away. The first thing came to my mind was oh my gosh!...he is so tiny. How in the world am I going to get out of this? I shook his hand (tightly so that he knew I wouldn't put up with any crap). Then he asked me what I wanted to drink. I told him “Bud Lite”. He predicted I would change my taste for it now that I met him. As he stood at the bar paying for our drinks, I did notice his nicely shaped butt … (sorry could not help myself had to put that in).

The Last Page

Is there one simple cure or program? At the moment no. Maybe there never will be. Crackheads are complicated substance abusers. We are people, mostly women with some primitive instincts, which can force us into a heart-mode separating artistically every single aspect of life not related to a problem we insist on solving with the shear, will of just our heart. My daughter said I helped. So- it was GOD, he says! He is not denying all the other things but…Todd said he was so terrified of the feeling, the overwhelming lure of that future moment he was sure no matter how many sponsors or books or meetings or memorizing of triggers or help of any kind-he could not resist.

It was a lot of things, least of all the right time. Time to collect-time to understand-time to hurt too much-but what I wanted above all………

Todd's miracle was a package deal. He did try to help himself and we learned how to help him; many people including a society of people, the counselors bravely walking through wilderness with no road map for crackheads. Pat at Bail Bonds Dept., whose last name I never knew, came into our lives so briefly yet was part of this miracle. I would not want to take one card form the house of cards for fear it would all tumble down. It is hard for me to separate any one part of all the things that helped Todd, and say this is the one that really did it. He traveled a long road with many people to even get miracle status. Perhaps he needed to. But for Todd, after collecting all he had collected on his journey, and taking this journey with all the people he did, his terror of the desire was the greatest obstacle and only GOD could remove that. And HE did.

Pissy People

Sometimes crack causes pissyness.

Years had passed since the phone call to me in Nashville and his crack crap was suddenly thrown at me, before the crack-crap had spread out to include more than him and us.

I suppose he got tired. He had tried keeping a fabulous job and life together with crack. He had tried a cry for help to us, and we could not find the help from experts he needed. He had tried giving up, giving into it, living in squalor at the bottom of life, with crack, and could not do it. He had tried keeping a half of a life together with crack, and some petty employee crime. What was left?

It turned out that Todd was right. He did not need the money I was keeping from him to do crack. The detectives and police and business owners started to show up at my door, and call on my telephone about six months into his retail sales job. Todd had written several bad checks over the last year. Most were under $100. It was difficult to know if this was during an off time, on time, good time, and bad time or in between time because his life was so cluttered with all of the crack-crap.

By then he was into just shrugging, frantically wondering if he was going to jail. He would smile in and at all the right times and right places. There was just a hopeless exhaustion and had reached a point in his life where he just shrugged and said this is my life as it were.

Crack Sucks

The journeys that crack took me on, ended up being many blessings. It exposed me to the evil side of life. It is there that I found and ate and loved the “Devil’s Candy”. This hideous stuff could be nothing but evil.
The insanity of smoking crack and doing nothing else but smoking crack every awake moment of everyday is maddening. I had a relentless desire to smoke crack at any and all expense. I did this no matter what, no matter who, no matter how, no matter why, no matter when, no matter where, no matter…it was truly a horrible passion.

When I finally looked at crack-cocaine as an actual force, I concluded that this is by far more than just substance abuse or addiction. This is when I was finally able to fight the tremendous pull crack-cocaine has on one’s soul and spirit.

The question becomes, “Why do crack?”, if this is what happens and the consequences that follow.

Standard treatment does not address the extreme possession that occurs during crack use. To say we need to treat crack like all other ‘drugs’ could be a mistake. The Devil’s candy does take you over. It possesses you and completely destroys your soul and spirit. If you ask a crack-head if and when they ever decided to try and quit and they might have said, “I am never going to smoke crack again!” What happens? The temptations come at you faster and harder. The urges and triggers jump at you to the point where you start entertaining thoughts of the “Devil’s Candy” again and now you are off to the races again. At times believe it or not it seems easier to keep smoking crack than to quit and deal with the onslaught of the most intense spiritual battle one could ever imagine. Getting past that is no different than making any commitment to GOD and getting the ‘fallen angel’ gunning for you constantly. For years I battled over this.

Todd

There is no enabling with crack!

Some would consider this enabling. This is a word that became part of my vocabulary three months after I was assaulted with Todd's crack-crap. This I feel is because they do not understand anything about crackheads. They think it is the same as alcoholism. It's not. They both are devastating substances, but that is the only thing they have in common. Overeating can be devastating, yet no one has suggested that we send crackheads to weight watchers as another quick fix for society's mounting endangerment from crack cocaine. There is a very fine line as to this being enabling. One can only follow their heart. Each case is different. There are no experts regarding crackheads. There are no rules written in stone. Not yet, anyway.

I never did give him money. Some in the family did at first, but not later. We all believed there were easy answers. I did not bail him out of jail after the first time. I did not, nor did anyone buy him necessities of life. What little he had came at gift times. However, I must confess, we all over gave to him. And each gift was drenched with tears for a love we had so little opportunity to express.

And it went on for years. Would he make it this time? Next time? He was always with us at holidays. On those brief occasions we all put out of our minds that he was a crack-head. Still, he was Todd. He was OK. He was a human being, there but for the grace of GOD, go I, Todd, son, brother, grandchild, brother in-law, uncle. He was OK, even when he filled the room with his pain.
Todd

The Crack-Bite

When you are fully contaminated and in the midst of despair, anything or just something could help. Doing nothing won’t. Because it is so spiritually binding, I know it becomes a spiritual battle.

Even though you do not have to use, sometimes it seems like you do have to use…to stop the onslaught of this overpowering pull to smoke crack. It never lets up. It picks at all parts of your inner being. It is so quick and fast and sneaky before you know it, here it is again. The process has to be slowed down in order to have a chance to microscopically penetrate even a slight pin-prick of the evil crack stench bubble. If one’s confession to being a crack-head is completely revealing, including places (as in plural) where they buy crack, where they smoke crack and who they smoke it with or where they smoke it by themselves. By doing this it exposes all the places and people and all the lies. It won’t be an end all to end all, but it does mess up their pattern, and by doing so you might get an ever so small chance to plant a seed or another seed if you have already done so. Every crack-head has a smoking pattern. It starts way before the crackling sound fills the bubble and starts the journey to Crackville, USA.

Feeling possessed by the crack-bite is the loneliest, darkest, sickest, most ugly gnawing and truly captivating all consuming demonic place to be.

Yup...that is it!

Crack and Jail...same thing!

The Steeple Outside My Window

The last clang,
of the door at night
I hate. Sounds dead.
Another day…wondering…
Not looking out my tiny sliver window.
Scripture seeking
for truth and peace.
Sleeping?
Always with a lite.
Another kind of ‘light’ please.
Thankful for food,
although little I eat.
Thirsty for words,
that will heal me deep.
Twenty days?
Longer it seems…
So unaware of life’s continual pace.
Blinded
about my plight.
Crawling. Stumbling.
Can not find the light.
Numb to oblivion.
Close ones I miss…
Mom, family, my sweet lover!
Then one day…
Some relief.
Looking out my tiny sliver window
all I could see
was a steeple for CHRIST.

78 Million Seconds? Are you kidding?!

Our program contains a spiritually supported detoxification format for the process of de-contaminating your body, soul and spirit from the possession of crack cocaine.

It is not in any religion that an answer can be found. Answers start to formulate when we develop a relationship with printed words of powerful healing truths. Scriptures are where they can be found.

Smoking crack cocaine will devour everything and everybody that is willing to let it. Crack cocaine holds no boundaries. It does not care about your age, your race, or your status and could care less as to what you do and how you live.

Giving in to the urges to smoke crack cocaine is such a vicious cycle controlled by a power that wants nothing more than to possess and destroy all life, even if by flying planes filled with people into buildings filled with more people.

Where do you start with such a horrible insidious substance? How can I possibly just say words on how to end your madness with crack cocaine and expect that to just happen? Because of the harsh reality of what a stupid punk crackhead I had become, gives me the ability to do just that, give you words to attack crack so you too can conquer crack cocaine and be free forever just like I am. With crack, ya know when ya know.

Todd

Crack Cocaine Got My Prize Guitar

How much joy can I express in printed words that describe the ultimate high in life…to play music that moves the soul and spirit; a life long dream since I was 6 years old.

I had some emotions from other events surface through the guitar while I was messing around and my door to serenity was wide open and I was running through it this time.

At the age of 29 I smoked crack. Playing guitar was not on life’s list anymore. I pawned my one prize possession in life…my 1958 double cut away Sunburst finish with circle fret marks Gibson ES-330 or 335, I am not positive which number exactly, but it was a dream guitar bought by my parents for my 11th birthday from just a guy going to Vietnam and was so sad to sell it. They bought it for $150. I pawned it for the last time for $75, to smoke crack, and I never was able to get it back.

In 1983 I had 7 guitars and stuff. From 1985 through 1997 I did not have 1 guitar or even think of playing or even wanted to. Looking back, it is clear that during this time my soul and spirit were empty, very empty.

It is amazing to me now, that person that I used to be. I am so thankful that I have an opportunity to share what has been given to me. I am very blessed to be alive and able to extend myself through my truths, experiences and my guitar to reach out and bring the truth about crack cocaine to "all the still suffering crackheads" :)
Todd

13 Quips to Destroy Crack With

Everyday Book Quips

1. Dear God, please help me be the person that my dog thinks I am.
2. Happiness is a choice.
3. Honesty is essential for recovery.
4. If it don't apply let it fly.
5. To fail to cry is to fail to live.
6. Anger alerts us to the fact that something is not right.
7. The soul would have no rainbow had the eyes no tears.
8. Those who forget their past are doomed to relive it.
9. The best way to replace a bad habit is to replace it with a good one.
10. Choose your companions with care; you may become what they are.
11. Suffering is defined as, 'anything about which one says, Oh No!
12. One form of insanity is to do the same thing over and over and expect different results.
13. Worrying is paying interest on troubles that may never come due.

What Does Camille Say?

Understand that crack cocaine is the Devils Candy
If you want power over crack cocaine you must expose all the crack cocaine lies
Be honest with everyone and in everything you do
Show actions not words
Understand that when your family is nagging, crack cocaine is attacking them and to answer all nagging with a good attitude
Understand Crack cocaine’s purpose is to kill you and destroy all those who care about you
Commit to 6 months of not touching any money for any reason
Commit to not handling money issues for 2 years after the 6 months of not touching money
Except help and understand you can not fight crack cocaine on your own. It takes a team of those willing to follow your program. If they are not willing to participate 100% they can not be apart of your life for now.
Understand when your family hides their money and things of value that it is NOT because of YOU but because they do not trust crack cocaine and do not want crack cocaine to torture you with the urges. Your job is to protect your family from crack. Crack cocaine is very jealous of what you have. It wants your family members, its wants all your money and all of your families money, it wants your TV, it wants your VCR, stereo, CD’s and anything of value you own. It wants to destroy those who care about you, their spirit, their self worth, their joy, their happiness; it wants to suffocate your kids or future kids. It wants your life!
Get our quit crack 75 Day Program and do it! It works when you work it.
Listen to all past radio shows. There are well over 30 hours of audio rebroadcast radio programs. Read everything in our websites.
Do 30 shows in 30 days!

Crack and Court...www.devilscandy.com

When Todd’s court day came, I went to it. Mostly out of my curiosity, because I had never been to someone's trial. The judge sentenced him to 12 months in jail with no time served (4 months) meant that he was to be in jail 13 months. Todd was able to get into a work release program. His father hired him to sweep floors at his factory. A manager picked him up each morning and I drove him back to jail each night. During that time, we really got to know each other. All we could really do was talk, but we did have some fun. Even took Sue “trick or treating”. A no…no but Todd always found a way to have good time and create memories.

My first experience with crack happened a few weeks after Todd got out of jail. Todd’s dad owns a hot tubs factory, a very fine line, #5 in the industry. A big hot tub show was happening in Atlantic City, NJ. Todd traveled there with his dad followed by a short crack vacation in Florida.

Todd had called me every night while in Atlantic City but when traveled to Florida to visit his grandmother the calls stopped. I knew he was to fly home soon and I had not heard from him so I called his grandma to ask about him and she told me he disappeared. I tried to get information but grandma, was too sad to talk. I thought something terrible happened; little did I know; something terrible did happen. I called his dad and had to hold the phone away from my ear he was so angry at Todd I think he could of killed him. I was very upset I had no idea what was going on. Todd’s dad just said he did it again… I kept asking what? He just screamed in the phone I’m so f**kn sick of it and slammed the phone down. I received a call back from Todd the day he was to fly out and he just said he’ll explain when he got home. My spirit was torn inside, I paced the floor until the minute he finally walked in the door which was several hours after he should of.

Seriously, as I am writing this, trying to recall the incidents seemed impossible. It’s all a blurb in the past. I will share the incidents that I remember. All the in-between stuff really does not matter. What matters is that you understand that I understand what you have been through or are going though. Hopefully by the time you finish reading this book you will find hope that you too can become a survivor. Hopefully you no longer are a victim of crack cocaine, by learning to live in victory over crack cocaine.

Miracles Can Happen...Even with Crackheads

Todd's miracle was a package deal. He did try to help himself and we learned how to help him; many people including a society of people, the counselors bravely walking through wilderness with no road map for crackheads. Pat at Bail Bonds Dept., whose last name I never knew, came into our lives so briefly yet was part of this miracle. I would not want to take one card form the house of cards for fear it would all tumble down. It is hard for me to separate any one part of all the things that helped Todd, and say this is the one that really did it. He traveled a long road with many people to even get miracle status. Perhaps he needed to. But for Todd, after collecting all he had collected on his journey, and taking this journey with all the people he did, his terror of the desire was the greatest obstacle and only GOD could remove that. And HE did.

My daughter said, "You had a lot to do with this. I do not know if it would have happened without you". Why didn't I feel that's true? I would stop and think when she said it, of what specifically did I do that made a difference? I never could pinpoint it. I do think it was not as people think it was. Similar, but not the same. Certainly there were things I did with no motivation other than help or cure Todd. But that could not be sustained for long in the chaotic ups and downs, disappointments and failures of having a crackhead son. What I did was sustain myself. Help myself to get through it. Made myself feel as good as I possibly could to endure it. Had he died, I would have been able to draw on this. As it was it got me through, and in the process helped him. It did not cure him. Only he could do that.

He was not entirely alone, either. Neither was I, because it was a very lonely time for both of us. To death, or to life, I had to take that walk with him, or I could not have lived with it.

AGAPE LOVE? It seems too perfect a feat for me. Maybe a mini Agape Love was achieved-sometimes.

If I can...You certainly can!

They live in the underworld of the criminal, the hopeless, the ignored, the forgotten, and the lepers of our society. I searched for a link, any link to the warmth of human beings living a normal life, something to keep the memory alive. I welcomed every small and seemingly insignificant opportunity to bring him out of this black hole of life he lived in a as a crack-head and bring him into a brief moment of fresh air.

I never did give him money. Some in the family did at first, but not later.

We all believed there were easy answers. I did not bail him out of jail after the first time. I did not, nor did anyone buy him necessities of life. What little he had came at gift times. However, I must confess, we all over gave to him. And each gift was drenched with tears for a love we had so little opportunity to express.

And it went on for years. Would he make it this time? Next time?

After Todd's many grueling years of being a crack-head, the family would always ask me 'the big question' (like I had the answer) will he make it this time? Because it was I who said I was sure he'd make it one of these times. It was I who said he's starting over again, trying once again, or he's failed again.

I would always answer the same, "I do not know"! And I would count off the good things on my finger for them, like a magic potion.

It All Sucks When It Comes To Crack

I could mourn the crack addiction. I could pray for it to leave. I could try to contribute to its death. I could pretend it was not here, year after year, or that it might always be here.
Maybe even that death might take it away, as well as my son, or that there is and was a quick and easy answer.

I was there to share another starting over again. There was never any doubt he had to try again. Just as I knew he would make it, maybe this time or maybe next time. How to retrieve his fast dwindling boxes of worldly possessions was always first on my list of 'enabling actions'. In this moment of a zombie-like existence, while entering back into the real world, when only a moment ago deep into hell, he would have let someone saw off any leg of choice, truly believing he did not deserve this added aid to re-enter the world of 'normal'. I knew starting over again required some semblance of material possessions to function at least with a little dignity and being able to have some personal moments to weave the days together. He would sleep on my davenport and go to the mall to sit and wait for me to get out of work. He was not allowed in my house anymore when I was not there.

When he became angry at his bleak life, I reminded him that this was the life of a crackhead. When he sighed that he could not walk through another Michigan winter, I again reminded him this is the walk of a crack-head. I said these without bitterness, and without anger or judgment, just a quiet reminder of the sad facts. I wished I could make it not so. But I did not know how. Only Todd could figure out how for himself.

It Was So Bad...

It was so bad:
It is embarrassing to even tell myself. The memories now are the kinds that make you put your head in your hands and say in breathy sighs, “Oh my God”.

It was so bad I should have died. The physical abuse to myself was horrendous. The price I pay later in life I truly hope has some grace bestowed upon it.

It was so bad I lost every worldly item one could imagine. I had stuff at one time. A whole bunch of stuff. Lots of stuff. Really good stuff. Lost it all. I guess not really lost, more like willing to pawn, sell or trade for crack.
I lost respect for myself. I hated myself. I would get so angry at screwing up again. I would go to meeting after meeting. I would go in and out of treatment centers. I believed I would never get rid of this crack-crap! I had resigned to a life with this hell. Let me see if I can make some kind of life, and have the “Devil’s Candy”, too. This can’t be done.

The only true meaning to the word can’t is….You CAN”T mix a life and crack-cocaine. CAN’T be done. CAN’T smoke crack and have a life of any substance. CAN’T be done.

What a moron I was to my mother. What a creep I was to my father. What an idiot I was to everyone. What a looser I was to my family. What a complete fool I was in God’s eyes.

It Was So Bad...

Our Girls

To Sue: You too, my lovely daughter, are a crack cocaine survivor. God is good. He allows us to move on and forget some of the bad things we’ve lived through. I love you. I know “Toddy” loved you first. You will always be his first and our first. I am so proud of you.

To Sarah & Staci: You’re both too young to understand, but in time you will. I thank God for both of you and for allowing both your dad and I to be in your lives. God has great plans for both of you and I am privileged to be apart of that.

To those still suffering in the crack cocaine madness:

NEVER GIVE UP!

You may think it is hopeless, but hope anyway. You may think you are losing, but never, never surrender. Believe me you can win this battle. My family is living proof. You can not only win the battle, but together we will win the war! What a sight, an entire army of ex crack addicts and heir battle weary loved ones….a blessed people traveling out of the darkness into the light. Survivors all, moving towards the lives they have fought so hard to live.

This is my survival story……….yours is waiting to be written.
Camille

The Difference Between

The difference between night and day, long and short, male and female, jail and treatment, mom and dad, stupid and smart, good and evil, acute stage and chronic stage, Christian and Jew, love and hate, up and down, me and you, Sept. 10th and Sept. 11th, life and death could be so thin, it is not visible to the human eye.
For me just the simple difference between right and wrong explains, and everyone has experiences with these two.
To be truly strong, cross over the line of selfish pride. Be humble before you are humbled. Swallow your pride. Make the first move to reconcile a situation, even though your feelings of you being absolutely right are so strong you do not want to back down. This only blocks looking at a difference. Get past the “who is right” and the “who is wrong”. It becomes unimportant when communications seize to exist. What becomes important is returning to being creating equal and allowing life to flow honestly without snags of bickering, or finger pointing, or the I am right ‘so there’ attitude. Self centered pride brings on total blindness to even knowing when to humble ourselves. The arrogant attitude of being prideful hardens our awareness of the need to be truly humble. Once we think or feel we should only apologize or recognize and if that is all we feel we should do…we will overlook actually seeing the need to feel humility, or the need to be truly humble in certain situations or to a certain person. Instead we pridefully just say “I’m sorry” and go about our business. When what we really need to do is show submissive respect for a difference or for a different point of view, or even respect for the opposite of what you think, even if you feel you are right, but humbly admit your are wrong for not respecting or recognizing that maybe there is no right or wrong, just a difference.

Who and What To Believe?

No decision should be made without knowledge of all the available facts. By examining the facts and looking through eyes of truth, we can conclude that there is some sort of true resolution from this madness. There has to be. What to believe? I can say this; do not believe anything a crack-head says. As long as the contamination is there, there is zero trust regardless of how sweet it seems, and until non-users get it straight on how ‘this’ stuff destroys the soul and spirit, and it could depend on how “you” respond to this stuff and its behavior…as in you could be the person that says the word that penetrates the “bubble”, or could steer them in a new direction that could enlighten one…or could be the one to keep a thin string of the reality of life in the grips of the poor contaminated soul and plant that seed of hope and help nurture it slightly from a loving distance.
My hunger for truth ended up being very difficult to hear and see. It hurt. I can only imagine my hurt was way less than some hurt I caused from my desire to smoke crack. I believe all crack-heads can rid themselves from the power of the lure and uncontrollable urge to smoke crack no matter what happens from smoking crack. I believe every person possessed and addicted to crack can quit. I believe all cocaine addicts can leave it alone forever. I believe if you shoot up cocaine and maybe even mix it with heroin; you too can forever stop poking your skin.

Once you expose the lie it becomes harder to keep it a secret. The secret is when you know the truth and that is what you can believe. I have told you the truth. Now you do know. It can develop into and become just a simple decision to quit. But…not until you have faith in what you do believe, and faith in God, and faith that now you know you do not have to smoke crack, and faith that smoking crack is not what God wants you to be doing with your time; but…most of all have faith in yourself. You can quit forever; that is what to believe.