ADDICTION OVERCOME

‘I used to pick up cigarette ends off the street’ 

I started smoking – in secret – a few menthol cigarettes that I’d steal from my stepmother’s packet when I was about 10 years old.

As a teenager, I even used to smoke in the toilets at my school.

Later, when I was about 15, if I didn’t have any money to buy cigarettes, I’d pick up cigarette ends off the street to salvage the remaining tobacco and roll my own cigarettes. I smoked all sorts of tobacco: blond, menthol, dark, cigars, rolling tobacco… until I became addicted to dark tobacco.

When I was about 25, I got to know some friends, former drug addicts, who occasionally took heroin but regularly smoked hashish. That’s how I was introduced to it. Thank God, I didn’t get into hard drugs and stuck to hashish. However, I wasn’t as addicted to it as I was to tobacco. It was cigarettes that really had the strongest hold over me.

When I was around 30, I tried several times — unsuccessfully — to give up smoking: nicotine patches, acupuncture, self-hypnosis… Whenever I managed to cut down, I’d get into such a foul mood that my colleagues eventually asked me to start smoking again.

The price of cigarettes was constantly rising, and this was putting a heavy strain on my budget. But I had become completely addicted. Whenever I found myself without cigarettes on a Sunday evening, at the weekend or on a public holiday, I would travel several kilometres to find a tobacconist’s that was open.

It was at the age of 39 that I was set free from this addiction — and from cannabis — by Jesus Christ (Luke 4:18; Galatians 5:1).

I use the word ‘delivered’ quite rightly: I made no effort whatsoever to be set free once and for all, and it had no effect on my mood. One day, when I longed with all my heart to be baptised, I knew that continuing to smoke was incompatible with the commitment I wanted to make to God. After praying, I simply threw my lighter, my cigarettes, my joint and everything else into the bin (Ephesians 2:8–9). From that day onwards, I never felt the need to smoke again.

Today, at nearly 64, I have no lasting effects. What Jesus did for me, He can do for you too… and much more besides.

Mireille

A SOLID ROCK

"I've been cured of anorexia nervosa"

In our lives, our Creator provides various means to keep us safe; He Himself is the ultimate security.  But sometimes we stubbornly refuse it, believing we can get out of it on our own. We place our trust in material and unstable things that are blown away by the slightest gust of wind. 

One day, my heart cried out to GOD: "If you exist, now is the time to intervene". And He did. First, he "pulled me out of the water" and brought me to safety on the shore. He spoke to me, comforted me, encouraged me, loved me.

My heart, so vulnerable at that moment, let itself be filled with the unconditional love that comes from the Creator. Just as a father is supposed to take care of his children and keep them safe.  GOD does this for each and every one of us if we let him, if we trust him. (Psalm 62:6).

Then, day by day, He showed me what a stable and solid rock He was that I could always hold on to. I've been cured of anorexia nervosa for 5 years now. Every time I feel insecurity and fear knocking at my door, I don't let them in and I run to take refuge in the arms of GOD where I find security and comfort. There, I am no longer afraid, my heart is soothed. GOD speaks to me, reminds me of his promises, reminds me that he has saved me for eternity.  He will never abandon me. (2 Samuel 22:3).

Charlotte V.  (Source La bonne semence 2025)