Expert: Gareth Stubbs - 3/23/2009

Question
Hi there.
I am 17 years old and live on a farm with my mom. Our horse
vet came one day with her new boyfriend. He looks in his
30's and was a heroine addict. His story goes that 5 years
ago he gave his life to God and studied ministry. Then his
girlfriend of a year (she was 7 months pregnant) died in a
car accident and this sent him off the rails again. He then
said he was running from addicts and ran to another
province. Upon arriving he was mugged and his car with
EVERYTHING was stolen. He moved to my province about 8
months ago where he worked for a lady and she put him in
jail for fraud. I learnt he did drugs while he was there.
Now its about 3 months since that and he claims he's clean.
He has pitched up here looking for a horse to ride and my
mom and I (fellow Christians) have given him one of my
horses. Is this a stupid thing to do?
He claims to have been a big star in the horse world.
Another thing I have noticed that in almost every area of
our lives he is trying to make money. (eg. letting cows
graze on our land) My mom seems very keen but we don't know
anything about addicts.
Will he mess us about? What is his personality traits? Can
we trust him? He has been riding my horse for about a week
now - and he has never disobeyed his word. He is always on
time and a very nice guy.
Please give me some valid advice about what you think is
best.
Thanks so much.
Lizzy

Answer
Hey Lizzy,

Thanks for writing in and I hope all is well.

Drug addicts are sometimes very misunderstood and judged, and this is based on experience in the past. Yes, we may have done some terrible things during our days of abuse, but when we try and recover, judgement is often something that comes along and I have found from the work that I had done with addicts in the past that this is one of the main reasons why they struggle to stay in recovery and get better. Yes, they do relapse and they do stupid things, but at the same time, internally, we are so desparate to sort our lives out that it does get hard.

This man sounds like he may have followed a similar path and it sounds like he is trying to sort out his life. Regardless of whether he is an addict or not, how would you deal with a person that comes into your life and does similar things like he is doing ? It would be very difficult to say what someones traits are as we are all very different, and by the sounds of it, he does seem to be keeping his word and doing what you expect of him, so on that, I would be unable to say what he could and could not do.

You mention that you and your mom are Christians which may help me out a bit given my beliefs. Do you know what Noah's history was before God stepped in and the same goes for Paul (formerly Saul) - these are probably 2 of the most influential people in the bible and in fact, if it were not for Noah, I dont think you and I would be around today. Noah was an alcoholic and Saul was a solider who killed a lot of people, yet they changed their lives totally and this is proof that people who were bad in the past can turn their lives around, which gives me a lot of faith when working with people who want to change. Pray about it and seek what the bible tells you in terms of this - I have found that when I have done this in the past, my God has helped me so much to understand things a lot more.

I hope this has given you some guidance into the whole situation. If you require anything further, please do not hesitate to contact me and I will be more than happy to help out where possible.

Gareth