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I remember growing up
always feeling less than,
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less than my big brother,
less than my big sister.
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My name is Alex and this is my story.
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My parents had four kids
and I was the third born.
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From a very early age
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I was behaving pretty absurd
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with telling lies and making things up
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and not fitting into the family unit.
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From then on in it was just
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drugs, discovered heroine.
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Ended up in homes, children's
homes, ended up in prison
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obviously for behaving
wrong, for stealing things,
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for robbing places, for taking
property that wasn't mine.
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Through the 12-step program
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I was introduced to the word 'God'.
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I had heard it many
times in my life before
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but I had no meaning of it
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I would basically say
that I was introduced
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to faith through the 12-step programme.
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If it weren't for the Christian people,
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when I came into this church,
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if it weren't for the
people that opened up
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that'd never seen me before in their life.
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For me, I had very low self esteem
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because of the lifestyle
that I was living,
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and these people helped me
build my self esteem back up.
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Because I used to say things like,
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'Why would these people
be interested in me?'
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'What would they want,
welcome me into their church?'
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'Why are they not shoving me out?'
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Why are they not saying,
'he's a drug dealer!'?
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Do you know what I mean?
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'He's been in prison.'
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But they weren't doing that, they were
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welcoming me in and that was
the beautiful thing about it.
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And from then on it was
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me coming to believe.
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Me coming to believe.
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Oh, I've changed, I've
become a much better person.
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I've been softer, I've been made gentler
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towards other people,
been made compassionate,
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been made patient, been made tolerant.
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I'm really a family
person now, whereas I take
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pride in my children,
I take responsibility
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for what they're doing in their lifestyles
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and try to guide them with
being a right good example.
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I always do an inventory
at night to look at myself
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and find out if I've been a better person
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than I was the day before, you know?
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So Jesus has brought
all that into my life.
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My son was in addiction.
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My son was in drug
addiction for eight years.
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But through me, coming to church,
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he started to notice things
that were changing my life.
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He noticed the difference in my life
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and he kept on asking me,
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'what are you getting out of church, dad?'
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And I says you need to
come to church to find out.
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He tried the Alpha Course, and through
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the Alpha Course, he's now
came to Jesus, himself.
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He's a man, a man got nailed to the cross
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for my sins, for everybody's
sins in this world.
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So, I'm quite courageous,
and I'm quite bold
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about putting stuff that I go to church
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on Facebook and stuff like that, so
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to let people know where
the change comes from.
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And so that, if any of them's interested,
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if any of them likes to see the change,
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and they would like to change, then
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jump on board, come along and try it.
