09/14/2022
Our story:
This is a long read but please bare with me. My name is Kayleigh Houser. I am married to David Houser. We have 3 beautiful children who mean the world to both of us. Now that you know who we are, let me tell you a little about what we’ve been through. David and I talked on social media and text messages before we ever met. I knew the night we met that I wanted him in my life no matter what. I used to tell myself that I would never get married, until I met him. He was sweet, charming, smart, handsome and I knew he had a son who I have grown to love and treat as my own. A few days later he told me he was an addict of he**in but had been clean for a while. He was open about being on probation and that he had some legal things that he was taking care of. Let’s talk about his addiction history. His addiction started with op**tes. His op**te addiction turned into a he**in addiction, then an alcohol addiction. Turning away from alcohol, he turned to ADHD medication which then turned into methamphetamine. That was his way of coping with things. The only way he knew how to deal with things going on in life. Back to our story.. We got married 4 short months into the relationship and things were going great. Less than a month into our marriage his father passed away and the only way he knew how to cope with it was to get high. I had never been around someone who was an addict to drugs. I didn’t know how they acted aside from the stereotypes I’ve heard about but now I do. Always paranoid. The constant feeling that they’re hiding something from you but you don’t know what it is. The sudden weight loss they blame on not eating much to lose weight but you know they eat well. The knock down, drag out fights and trying to blame you for hiding things. Disappearing for short periods of time and things not adding up and your wondering if there is someone else. The narcissistic behavior. The constant need for control. You’re trying to figure out what’s wrong and you’re feeling that you’ve done something wrong to cause them to distance themself from you. It’s the demon of addiction. The last time we had a big fight I found out what was causing all of our problems. I thought that was the end of us. We were up all night. Back and forth. So I gave him a choice. Me or the drugs. Because as a mother, I could not and would not allow that around myself or my children. I thank God every day that he chose me and our children. Then the crash. He slept for nearly 2 weeks. Barely awake enough to eat and take care of himself. Random drug tests were taken so I knew he was clean. We started going back to church. We bounced around for a while until we found our home church. Then I found out I was pregnant with our daughter. Some of the behavior was still there but I knew for a fact that he was clean. So we separated. For 4 months a man and his wife didn’t sleep in the same house, and only saw each other at church and sometimes when he would come to check on me, our unborn daughter and my son. The man lost everything. Not going back to drugs because he knew the consequence was losing me and our youngest 2 for good. So the only thing he knew to do was to turn to God. During those 4 months he fully gave his life to Christ and I watched God TRANSFORM him. One night he invited me and our middle child over for dinner and a movie. We talked about how things had changed and how much we loved each other. Later that night we left and went home. A few days later I made the decision to get my family back together. Despite friends telling me not to, I knew that’s what God wanted. And of course that’s what I wanted. David turned from a man I loved but could not stand to be around, to a man I loved with my whole heart and could not stand to be without. Folks when I said I watched God transform him.. I did. When God took away his want for drugs.. he took it for good. Not just for one night. Or one week. Or one month. He took it for good. With God in the center of our marriage and family, now, we still have our ups and downs just as every marriage does, but we are so much happier. Let me tell you.. there is peace knowing that he is not an addict ANYMORE and that God took it away for good!! There is peace knowing that when things are tough, he no longer runs to find his fix. Because God is who fixed it all. I don’t sit and wonder if something will make him go back down that dark path. I don’t worry about when he will relapse again. I’m not concerned about him being alone with our children. He’s a good daddy and a good husband. And God is to thank for that. My husband doesn’t wake up with the urge to get high. He doesn’t go to work every day thinking about his next fix. He is FREE. Y’all it doesn’t matter what addiction is holding you down. It doesn’t matter what all you’ve been though. It doesn’t matter if it’s s*x, drugs, po*******hy, gambling, or whatever else it may be. I truly believe that if you want free from your addiction.. God is your answer. But he’s waiting for you to make the first move. God gave you free will. If you chose to live that life, the only person to blame.. is yourself. Because he’s waiting on you.
