Previous drug addict arrested as Captain America all through burglary shares story of faith, therapeutic
When David Hobbs looks at images from one 12 months ago, he hardly recognizes himself.
In September 2019, he was arrested in Clarksdale, Mississippi, after breaking into the backyard lose of a previous Marine. Superior on medicine at the time of his arrest, Hobbs was dressed head to toe in a Captain The us costume and fairy wings. His mugshot went viral, and Hobbs quickly became the supply of mockery for tens of millions of social media spectators.
But quickly ahead just one 12 months, and Hobbs is a new gentleman — healthier, whole, and on Oct. 23 he will receive a a person-calendar year sobriety award all through an upcoming pastor’s conference from Very good Landing Recovery, a holistic faith-centered firm in Atlanta, Ga.
“I by no means considered I would ever get out of addiction,” Hobbs explained to The Christian Publish. “I imagined it was likely to be my lifestyle. But God has proven me I’m not just a culture toss absent. It’s all value it for all of us to attempt to have a greater daily life. If I can do it, any person can do it.”
Hobbs’ road to health and fitness and healing was an unlikely just one. A self-explained “active addict” for two many years, he commenced experimenting with medicines and liquor as a teen, and just after a series of car accidents, turned addicted to painkillers.
At the time of his September 2019 arrest, Hobbs experienced now had a number of run-ins with the legislation and was on probation for a grand larceny conviction. Billed with burglary and held on a $25,000 bond, he now confronted even more jail time.
“I strike complete rock base,” he admitted. “I considered I wasn’t excellent enough to get sober. I assumed, ‘this is just the hand I’ve been dealt.’”
Hobbs’ story captured the consideration of Newsweek, Los Angeles Situations, New York Submit and other media, and finally that of Very good Landing founder and CEO Trey Lewis. But unlike the media shops — all of which poked exciting at the circumstances of his arrest — Lewis observed Hobbs’ as a man worthy of getting compassion, empathy, and liberty from dependancy.
“A mate of mine sent me David’s tale, and I identified him straight away,” Lewis told CP. “We ended up from the same compact city in Mississippi and made use of to get superior collectively 20-some many years in the past.”
A former methamphetamine addict with four DUIs on his document, Lewis experienced been to 10 cure facilities before embracing Christianity in 2005. After going through freedom from addiction, he made a decision to open an inpatient household treatment method facility to help other people having difficulties in the same way.
“So when I came throughout David’s story, I named his mom instantly and explained, ‘We want to aid him. If he’s fascinated, there is a area for him in our facility,’” Lewis recalled. “As the full entire world is laughing at David, he is in a jail cell and there is a mom that is chatting to him just about every night, that is just horrified, embarrassed, and just cannot feel that it truly is all about social media. It’s not amusing when it’s connected to genuine people. It was heartbreaking.”
When confronted with the option to get help, Hobbs right away approved.
“I mentioned, ‘Absolutely. I would adore to go,’” he explained. “I failed to know what to hope. I’d never ever been to rehab ahead of in my lifestyle I’d hardly ever been sober in my everyday living. But I desired to get clean up in my dependancy, so when Trey attained out to my loved ones and gave me the resources to get thoroughly clean, I accepted. Thankfully, a judge agreed to let me to take part in rehab rather of serving jail time.”
The next Hobbs walked into Superior Landing, he shown “leadership, function, concentration,” Lewis explained, incorporating: “He had all of the elements for a outstanding comeback story.”
At Superior Landing, Hobbs told CP he figured out how to course of action thoughts and emotions, get over his fight with habit — and, most importantly, renewed his marriage with God.
“God’s timing is usually best,” he reported. “I will not assume Good Landing is just any rehab it is a rehab exactly where God’s at the centre of anything they do. That was the thing that genuinely improved it for me. Putting God at the center of my coronary heart and in the center of my daily life is definitely what stored me sober.”
Thirty times of sobriety turned into 60, and then 90, and inevitably, 365. Obtaining the just one-year sobriety award, Hobbs claimed, was practically nothing brief of extraordinary.
“This award demonstrates me how significantly I have developed,” he explained. “Before, at any time a little something lousy would occur or a person would say something adverse about me, I generally experienced the mentality that I would verify them proper. I just figured, ‘Well, this is who I am. I’m an addict.’”
“But those are all lies,” he added. “That is just what panic tells us. That’s what the enemy tells us. But we all are entitled to a good, sober lifetime and a very good romantic relationship with God. These are the matters that I’ve been taught considering the fact that I’ve been here at Good Landing.”
According to Lewis, there are 20 million addicts in the United States older than age 12, and there is certainly ordinarily a 20{606f97e947fc7fe500c5e780e186767eb6b7860293725659c321f36e32ea0739} results rate and an 80{606f97e947fc7fe500c5e780e186767eb6b7860293725659c321f36e32ea0739} failure price.
“The 80{606f97e947fc7fe500c5e780e186767eb6b7860293725659c321f36e32ea0739} failure charge is generally attributed to the typical denominator of delight,” he shared. “People know that they that they require support, but they often want to circumvent the system.”
When Excellent Landing opened in November 2017, the facility experienced just one particular consumer and two workers associates. Today, it’s the greatest PHP IOP program in Atlanta with 90-95 customers and over 40 team members.
Lewis believes Superior Landing’s commitment to preserving Christ at the centre of the ministry is the critical to the facility’s achievements.
“When we made a decision to commence Excellent Landing, people today have been telling us we couldn’t have a faith-pushed Christian program and wellbeing treatment, that folks wouldn’t reply to it,” he reported. “I recall actually wavering on that. But Jesus is at the forefront of almost everything that we are. I believe God breathed on it and took us to wherever we are right now.”
“Jesus,” he pressured, “is the only way out of dependancy. He’s the only one particular who can convey liberty in this everyday living and in the lifetime to arrive.”
Managing these struggling with addiction with empathy, kindness, and compassion is important, Lewis stated, stressing that no a person “answered an altar call and reported, ‘God, make sure you make me an addict.’”
“I will not imagine there is just this textbook sort tactic to every man or woman, but I do think that we all have to have to have empathy and understand that this person did not talk to for disordered mind chemistry,” he reported.
“We will need to notice that, at the time they get addicted, they forfeit the potential to be capable to pick. That is when we, the men and women that like them, their guidance system, have to phase in and battle for them and really like them when they won’t like themselves.”
Dependancy and restoration are not just health care problems they are non secular challenges, much too, he said. Regrettably, a lot of church buildings and church leaders are not informed of the magnitude of the challenge — or they’re only unwell-equipped to help these having difficulties.
“Churches want to be knowledgeable and know they’re sending their people to a risk-free position in which Jesus is at the forefront,” Lewis emphasized.
Nowadays, Hobbs is on team at Great Landing where by he reminds others struggling with dependancy that no 1 is outside of redemption. “He’s unquestionably killing it in this article,” Lewis mentioned.
“It doesn’t matter how significantly you have fallen, there’s always a path of sobriety and redemption,” Hobbs stated. “You just have to be keen to get clear and have an open up heart and thoughts to the persons that are speaking into your life. Obtaining sober and shifting your daily life is feasible. You’re under no circumstances way too considerably absent.”
