A Kentucky man who spent 88 days in jail for his drug addiction says he found freedom in Christ and no longer craves the pills he once loved.
“Ain’t nothing has made me as high as Jesus does,” Frankie Woodall, a former drug user and dealer, told a WRVK-AM Facebook/radio program. KentuckyToday.com, a website with national and faith-based news, recounted Woodall’s inspiring journey.
Woodall attends the faith-based Brodhead Celebrate Recovery in Rockcastle County, Ky.
For years, he was hooked on pain pills. When doctors refused to write him a prescription, he went to a suboxone clinic.
“Seven or eight years of using and I kept getting worse and worse,” Woodall said. “They sent me to a suboxone clinic – I did those for three years. It was always trading one for another. Then I turned to meth and it destroyed me. I was trading good friends for bad friends. It took away everything. It made a slave of me.”
Woodall said he never stole to feed his drug addict but constantly worked to make enough money to feed his habit, Kentucky Today reported.
“I worked myself to death. I was paying $300 to $500 every two days [for drugs],” he said.
His arrest was a blessing.
“I was running on borrowed time until I got arrested,” Woodall asserted.
His stint in jail lasted 88 days, during which he attended church services, accepted Christ and was baptized.
“Until then I couldn’t sleep,” he said. “I gave my life to God and went back to my cell. I slept that night, prayed every night since. I’m sober and haven’t done nothing (sic) in 11 months. I haven’t had a craving.”
After being released from jail he had “to pass 18 drug tests to get rid” of an ankle bracelet, Kentucky Today reported.
Katheryn Pope, the director of Brodhead Celebrate Recovery, said Woodall is a living testimony of God’s grace.
Faith-based recovery programs and jail ministries, she said, are changing lives.
“He was a big-time drug dealer and ended up in jail several times,” she told Kentucky Today. “... Randy McPherson, and several pastors from our association in Rockcastle, have been doing jail ministry on Saturday nights. This was like coming full circle for them.”
Michael Foust is a freelance writer. Visit his blog, MichaelFoust.com.
Photo courtesy: Pablo Heimplatz/Unsplash
Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.
