ĐORĐE
I AM READY FOR LIFE
My name is Đorđe Andrejić. I’m 31. I was born in Belgrade where I live. My childhood was quite ordinary: school, play, summer vacations. However, as I was growing up my interests and my company were changing.
Prior to the end of elementary school I started smoking marihuana, and in the high school I took trodons. When I was sixteen I took heroin, ecstasy, speed and LSD. These drugs made me not think about where I live and about the world around me. I was maddened to the point that I didn’t even notice that I consumed heroin on a daily basis. I lived in a delusion that heroin actually helps me to survive everything that was going on. I realized that I was an addict. I visited many hospitals for treatments. Nothing helped. I would be clean for several months and I would be back on needle again. I was so physically destroyed that I scarcely had 59 kg and on my body there was no a place for a new puncture. My life became a real agony. My family came apart. My father went to jail, and I was completely incapable of living, useless and on the edge of dying.
My mother, sister and me decided to search for help in Crossroads, the place I heard about many times from various people. I firmly decided to stay to the end, and that I would not return to the streets and addiction. Life in Crossroads wasn’t easy, because I had to change my way of thinking and behavior entirely. I read a lot, mostly Bible, and in one moment I had a remarkable experience or so-called encounter with God. I realized that there is a new life in front of me, that I was forgiven for everything I did in the past and that there is hope. Somehow everything fell in its place and with faith everything became easier. Eventually, family relationships became better. My re-socialization is successful for the first time and I feel ready for life.
Life is not a fairy tale and at every step I encounter rough reality. Now I have a new strength which I found in Jesus Christ to whom I thank every day for not being in the streets and dead. Today I am strengthened and capable to bear anything life brings, and I don’t have to search for comfort in any substance.
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