A singer songwriter has spoken of his long battle with drugs and alcohol addiction and how he found freedom through turning to Christ.
Nine years ago Steph Macleod was trapped in a cycle of addiction and spent time sleeping rough on the streets.
However his life was transformed after he became a Christian and now he has a travelling ministry as well as a wife and three children.
Bad habits
Steph started drinking and taking drugs when he was a teenager. After leaving home to go to music college his bad habits spiraled out of control and he injured himself.
Speaking to Christian Today he said: “I couldn’t do something unless I was drunk or using drugs. I ended up having to leave the course because I didn’t fulfil its obligations.
“Then I just lost the plot, I punched a wall so hard that I broke the bones in my hand, so that was the end of my classical guitar career.”
Addiction
He spent a brief time at home with his parents but in the end he succumbed to his addiction.
“I tried my hardest to stay sober but I lasted six weeks and before I knew it I was drinking a bottle of cider in an alley”, Steph related.
He ended up leaving home again, “sleeping rough” and “waking up in hospital every other day”.
Hope
He made varying attempts to change his life, trying rehabilitation centres like Alcoholics Anonymous.
However it wasn’t until he sought help from the Bethany Christian Centre, a charity that helps people with addictions, that things started to change for the better.
He talked about meeting a minister who had a similar experience in his younger days.
Freedom
Steph explains that the minister “spoke about how he’d found freedom in Christ and the strength to break chains that had been killing him”.
The minister’s story spoke deeply to Steph and he took a “step of faith”.
“I asked God for his forgiveness and said that I would follow Jesus – I would do it I would surrender everything in the hope that I’d be free.
Love
“I’m quite a sceptical guy, but when I prayed that night I felt a sense of peace wash over me.”
He continued “Jesus reached out and loved me when everybody else just saw a down and out homeless man with a severe addiction.”
Now he travels around sharing his testimony through songs and speaking.