Joel Griffin knows all about triumphing over a wasted life. Today, he’s in a successful marriage, a deacon in his church and is heading up a Christian-based drug and alcohol recovery center.
But Griffin can never forget the dark skies that plagued him a few short years ago. Now 46, he spent half his life as a functional alcoholic and drug user.
“In that 28-year span, it would be much easier to tell you the drugs that I didn’t use, rather than the ones I did,” said Griffin, executive director of New Hope Ministries, a residential drug and alcohol program in Dadeville.
Steve Yarbrough, director of Rapha Christian Homes in Attalla, offers a similar story in relating how he went from the life of an addict to helping others recover.
Sharing how he was raised in the church, Griffin said he began using drugs as a youth.
“I was told at church that I’m not supposed to do a lot of things, but they looked like they’d be fun and I wanted to do them,” he said. And at that time drugs looked like one of those “things” that would be fun.
As the church’s influence on Griffin weakened and he dealt with his parents’ divorce, he soon dropped out of church.
“As far as ever being sober, I don’t think I was totally sober for more than three to six months straight before I would always return to drinking, even though I wanted to stop until the time I finally got sober (five years ago),” Griffin said.
During that period of on-again, off-again drinking, Griffin went through two divorces and lost his job as a college educator.
For Yarbrough, the abuse also began when he was young, eventually resulting in a total of seven years in prison for drug-related offenses.
But both men said the key to their recovery came through embracing the gospel, Griffin through a Christian-based program then offered by Covenant House of Birmingham (The Farm, located in Camp Hill) and
Yarbrough through a prison ministry. Upon recovery at The Farm, Griffin became the program director there before beginning New Hope Ministries.
Yarbrough offers three words in describing what set him free. “Salvation, true repentance,” he said.
Yarbrough spent several years ministering to addicts in prison following his release, before starting Rapha with his wife, Marilyn, three years ago. He said he was prompted to begin his ministry after seeing the reaction from those he shared with in prison.
“They responded, because I had been there,” he said.
Griffin agreed that the power of his own testimony can’t be dismissed.
“One of the things that I think makes this program work so well is the fact that the people who are delivering the message have been there, and they have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind, spirit and body — that’s direct evidence that recovery is possible for anyone,” Griffin said.
Share with others: