I started to take drugs as an adolescent and for ten years was caught up in this spiral. I was under the impression that it made me happy. In fact, it was a fleeting pleasure and I constantly had to come back for more.

My life had become a succession of 'breakdowns' and 'drying out' (I had four of them without really being able to stop doing drugs). Every six months I changed jobs and girlfriends. It was like that up until the time I settled in (Haute-Savoie): I got a little mushroom farm going, which worked well and allowed me to deal quite a bit in the trafficing of drugs. Under the cover of the mushrooms, it was easy to get drugs into Belgium and Switzerland. I was living with a young woman who worked with me and the biggest dealer in the area was my best friend.

Then, one day, that very same friend suddenly stopped everything: he cut his hair, stopped coming to the bar, seeing women, doing drugs and dealing. "Its Jesus that's changed me", he said. Of course everybody laughed at him and we thought he was simply doing it as a cover. We stopped seeing him, but he came to see us to talk to us about this Jesus who had transformed him. In fact, while he had always been very unstable and unable to control himself, everything was now going well for him. He had found an apartment, a job and was always smiling.

His happiness was making me jealous. As he was always inviting me to his prayer group, I ended up being tempted. Right away I noticed that the people there had something strange about them: they were not like other people on the street who walk with their heads down, avoiding all contact. These people looked at everybody straight in the eyes, smiled all the time and talked about God in a very straightforward way. This didn't stop me feeling very uneasy: I asked myself what I was doing there...

If You Really Exist God

Sometime later, I went there again because, despite all of this, there was something which attracted me. During the prayer, I spoke directly to God saying: "God, if you really exist, if you can really do something for me, show me now that you exist." At that moment, I sensed an intense happiness and a warmth throughout my entire being: I felt very good, very relaxed, very calm. And I was sure that God exists. All the prayers of my childhood came back to my memory and when I returned home, I had the impression that Jesus was beside me.

When I told everyone about this back at home, they all thought that I was mad. How could I make them see? I was in a difficult position: my girlfriend was a divorcee, the company I had set up really wasn't clean... Did I have to break with all of that?

I went through six terrible months. I didn't manage to stop the drugs, I even started taking more to relieve the struggle that was going on inside of me.

A Gift of God

Then, sometime later, I had a phone call from my sister who explained, without knowing at all what had happened to me, that she had rediscoved her faith and that she was completely happy. I then told her about my situation. She promised to pray and to have others pray for me.

This really made me think. And in fact, a little while later, I split up with my girlfriend. I left her the mushroom business and I returned to the home of my parents. In the car, I threw away the drugs I had left and, from that moment onwards, all desire to touch them again completely left me.

The change which had come over me was inexplicable in the eyes of the world. Who could believe that it is the same man who, five years later, now has an honest job which he enjoys, who is married, happy and stable? My happiness is a gift from God! !

Dominic