Testimony

Dennis Reagan

            I was raised by my father from the time I was four until I found him dead when I was 15.  He was Irish and liked to drink.  What a surprise right?  He was Catholic so I was raised Catholic.  Dad’s drinking increased after he re-married when I was 11 or 12.  It wasn’t a good marriage.  Stepmom liked to drink too.  Their arguments led to fights that included, among other things, black eyes.

            Until dad died, I attended mass regularly and considered myself a devout Catholic.  After he died, I eventually became a “lapsed Catholic.”  The world began to win my attention.  I believed in God, though for many years to come I’d be serving Satan.

            I first drank at 17 when I graduated.  Alcohol seemed like magic medicine.  I’d always been introverted, low self-esteem with a lack of confidence and prone to depression.  When I drank, I was confident, bold, self-assured; but it didn’t take long for alcohol to begin causing problems, rather than solving them.  Around that time, I also discovered pot, uppers, downers, LSD, etc.  It was the 60s—sex, drugs, and rock and roll.  Free love!

            I first had sex at 18.  I had a son and married at 19.  My daughter came a year later.  At 21, I was in the U.S. Air Force.  At 23, I was divorced.  At 25, I got out of the military and won custody of my children.  I continued to abuse drugs and alcohol.  I had many illicit relationships with both single and married women.  Pornography became a common thing.  I was married and divorced a second time.  I had numerous drunk driving arrests.  I quit drinking while in AA for nearly 10 years, then I started drinking again.  All my attempts to quit drugs and alcohol eventually failed.          

            I don’t believe my father intended to teach me to abuse alcohol any more than I intended to teach my children to abuse drugs and alcohol.  But that’s what happened. 

            Abuse of drugs and alcohol cost me dearly over the years.  Besides many failed relationships, stints in jail, car crashes, fights, injuries and drug abuse, I ended up in prison.  Drugs were responsible for my son being killed in 2010.

            It wasn’t until I was born again and accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior that I realized I had been heading straight to hell, that I’d been serving the devil all those years.  I began to really study the Word of God.  As a Catholic, I don’t recall anyone ever encouraging me to read the bible.  Someone back then said Jesus came to build a church, not write a book.  Well that book, the bible, is the living Word of God.  The Word and the Holy Spirit of God who indwell in us upon our accepting Christ are gifts from God. They are to guide us correctly through our lives and to let us know His will.

            I regret not being saved early enough so I could have raised my children as God would have intended.  I’m no longer headed for hell.  My citizenship is in heaven.  I’ve experienced divine healing.  The Lord has freed me from addiction.  He even freed me from needing medication for depression, a lifelong condition.  No more drugs, no more alcohol.  No pornography.  No cigarettes.  I no longer serve the prince of darkness.  In thought, word, and deed, I plan on being renewed as I serve the Most High God.

            Being a Christian and serving the Lord isn’t always easy, sometimes it’s hard.  But it’s always worth it, and I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.  I’d rather be in prison with the Lord than to be free without Him.