BRANKA
God gave me life!
I am Branka Ćuslović, and I am 22 years old. I am from Belgrade. As a child I did not have a happy childhood. My parents were divorced, and later on my father died, and my mother was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. The day my father died, my brother started using drugs. This was when my life started going backwards. I could not accept the situation my family got into and I spend my time on the streets. Seeking for acceptance, I got into worse and worse circles of friends. I started smoking, drinking, and doing drugs.
I leave home and my life becomes a mess of parties, criminal, drugs, alcohol. I lack the strength to get back home. Desperate because of my way of life, my grandparents give me a flat to use, but I start doing drugs even more. I become exhausted, broken from all the bad things, traumas, and things that addiction brings with itself, and I try heroin for the first time.
This is when I realize that I have two paths: rehabilitation or drugs. I cannot live any more with paranoia, depression, and fears.
I hear for Crossroads from my brother, whom God has already freed from drugs, and I decide to enter the Crossroads program. It was really hard to adapt to the program, to go from a chaotic life to a peaceful and normal one. What kept me there in the beginning were love, understanding, and support I had from the staff and girls in the center. Later on in the program, I met God, I received Him in my life, asked Him for forgiveness. God gave me strength and love I needed in order to change, He renewed my mind, healed my heart.
Today I am not angry, dissatisfies, devastated, empty, bad, without purpose and aim, I am not imprisoned anymore. God gave me life, a new relationship with my family, purpose, joy and capability to love myself and others, and will to life and fight for it. He gave me what I wanted the most – FREEDOM!
Branka before
Branka after
