Meet Johnny

Johnny was raised in a loving home, and in his early years, it was enough to make him happy. But when he reached adolescence, he began longing for something more. “I felt like I wasn’t enough. I wanted to be accepted by the cool kids, so I started partying with them.”

It was the beginning of a struggle with addiction that escalated when Johnny went to college and after he went to work in the restaurant industry. “No matter what group I was hanging out with, I wanted to be included,” he says.

Over the years, Johnny’s addiction damaged his relationships with the Lord and his family, cost him jobs, and landed him in jail. Eventually, he developed drug-induced psychosis. “I was paranoid and hallucinating. I’d lost all control.”

Thankfully, his best friend learned about Johnny’s struggle and bought him a bus ticket to Pensacola. “When I got here, he took me to Waterfront. I felt like it was God reaching out to me, saying ‘This is your shot. Take it and run with it.’”

Johnny did just that.

Through our LifeBuilder Recovery Program’s chapel services and Bible studies, his relationship with Jesus Christ was restored. “I not only regained what I’d lost, but I built a stronger foundation,” he says.

His growing faith, counseling, and life skills classes helped Johnny learn to live his life in a new way, and when his best friend saw the change, he offered Johnny a job.

Today, he’s not only employed, but he has his own place and his relationships with his family have been restored. Wherever he goes, he serves as a walking testimony of God’s transforming power. “I was broken, but I’ve been rebuilt.”

“Now, I have a purpose.”

This fall, Johnny gives thanks for YOU and your incredible generosity. Your prayers and support have helped change his life. “Waterfront believed in me and gave me the structure, tools, and resources I needed for another chance at life.”

To read this issue of Waterfront Mission Rescue News, click here.