The heart that has already chosen self as its master does not remain content with small indulgences. What begins as curiosity grows into habit, habit hardens into need, and need becomes a form of slavery that the slave himself often mistakes for freedom. In the years that followed the first cigarettes and the first private sins of lust, the kingdom of self expanded its borders with greater aggression. The objects changed, but the root remained the same.

I was still in 10th grade when pot entered the picture. Through my friend Jeb I met others who used it regularly. One night I was asked to stand watch while they smoked. I was nervous, early years of D.A.R.E. presentations had left their mark, but I did not refuse. Only a couple weeks later I bought two joints from one of them for twenty dollars and smoked with a younger friend named Joel in the woods near his house. The high hit me hard. I uncontrollably laughed for the next couple hours to a point I wanted to vomit. I felt as if I were falling forever when I climbed a fence and fell over the top. I thought I had discovered something new and liberating. In reality I had only found another master willing to take the place of the last one.

From there the progression was steady. Pills of various kinds, cocaine, acid, crank, ecstasy, beer, and liquor all found their way into my life through the same circle of friends and late-night gatherings. I was quickly a daily user of most of these substances, and no longer a stranger to any of them. Each one promised relief, intensity, or escape. Each one delivered a temporary shift in feeling and a deeper entanglement. I still lived in my parents’ home, still showed up to school only when it suited me. But the real governing authority in my days was the next opportunity to feel something other than the restlessness that had become normal.

Sexual relationships followed the same pattern. I dated a girl named Caroline for more than a year. Looking back, the relationship was driven entirely by my own physical desire. We spent time together, talked, and went places, yet the center of it was the bed. When she left for college and ended the relationship, I was devastated. The pain felt like death. My body even reacted with seizures of grief. I contemplated ending my life. I did not follow through, but the depth of the despair revealed how much of my sense of worth I had placed in being wanted. I moved quickly to other girls; Anne, then a brief encounter with Tamara, each time seeking the same thing: the affirmation that came with being desired and the temporary quieting of the ache inside. None of it lasted, none of it satisfied. The emptiness always returned, usually stronger than before.

School became less and less important. I skipped so many days that I could not make up the absences even in summer school. I passed the academic work, but the system required presence that I was unwilling to give. I dropped out. The decision felt practical at the time. Looking back, it was simply another expression of the same self-rule: I would arrange my life according to my desires, not according to any external demand. I later obtained a G.E.D., but the pattern of avoiding whatever felt restrictive had already been set.

Work came in fits and starts. I cooked at Huddle House and Waffle House, lasted one disastrous shift at Hardee’s, and spent increasing amounts of time helping my father with tile. The labor was familiar, it paid, and it required little of my inner life. Between work and daily life I continued the same pursuits: substances, fleeting relationships, and the quiet maintenance of an image that said I was in control.

One New Year’s Eve the pursuit nearly ended me. With friends I swallowed two large handfuls of mixed pills: antidepressants, muscle relaxers, pain-killers, uppers, downers, and whatever else was in the mixed concoction given me in the tin. Within five minutes I remember nothing else of that evening. I was out cold for the next day and a half. When I finally came to, I could not stand, and the room spun. I crawled through the house, dry-heaved on the stairs leading down to the basement, and eventually collapsed on the basement floor. I spent days recovering in a friend’s room while others around me were equally sick. I should have died, but I did not. At the time I treated the episode as a narrow escape and a story to tell. Only later would I recognize it as mercy; the quiet hand of God restraining me from the full consequence of my own choices.

Visible decay began to show. My teeth, especially the upper ones, were dying. Enamel flaked away like the leftover skin of a snake that had shed. I became self-conscious, covering my mouth, avoiding wide smiles. The outward ruin mirrored the inward one, though I did not yet have eyes to see the connection. I was still young, still convinced that I was free because I was doing what I wanted. The truth was the opposite. I was owned by the very things I claimed to control.

Throughout these years my parents’ own struggles deepened. They had become entangled with a couple who brought harder drugs into the circle; pills and cocaine. I watched these newly formed friends lose their son to protective custody after an episode of domestic violence. The boy’s father later died from the same substances. I was present for some of it, even participating. The boundary between their world and mine had grown thin. What had begun as adolescent experimentation was becoming a shared family pattern of self-destruction.

The Lord preserved my life through overdoses and reckless nights. He restrained me from consequences that could have been far worse. He allowed the emptiness to grow so that it could not be ignored forever. He gave me no lasting satisfaction in any of the wells I kept digging. Every relationship that ended, every high that faded, every morning that returned with the same restless heart was a quiet testimony that the things I served could not save me.

I did not see it, I continued to live as if the next girl, the next substance, the next small success at work or with friends would finally be enough. The kingdom of self had expanded from childhood thefts and early lust into a more comprehensive slavery. I was not yet at the bottom. Darker chapters still lay ahead. But the direction was set, and the speed was increasing.

The boy who had once stolen pretzels and smoked cigarettes behind his parents’ back was becoming a young man whose life was increasingly organized around the next hit of pleasure or numbness. The pattern was unbroken. Only the cost was rising. And the God who had known and seen my every sin and rebellious moment was still writing a story that would one day show the superiority of His mercy over the full weight of my rebellion. I was not seeking Him, I was not even looking in His direction. However, He had not taken His eyes off me.