SOME FRIENDS (498) I am almost finished with the book by Brian ‘head’ Welch. It tells a lot of times when Welch was thinking of getting off of drugs and would find himself doing more. The feeling I have had for a while now reminds me of being on an ‘Acid’ trip. The bad ‘trip’ I had years ago had me seeing ‘things’ pretty badly. I remember looking into this mirror of a bowling alley and seeing my face black/purple. Seeing yourself this way while also experiencing no feeling to your body is a trip. You think your dead. One time during the year where I backslid, I took a friend over to Robstown to score some stuff. He was going to shoot it up, I just went for the ride [really!]. My pay was some real good weed. I sat in the car and got high on this joint. Before I smoked it he told me ‘this is some real good weed’ but he then used a term, which too me in my early days meant ‘week weed’ but in South Texas language this term meant ‘really strong’. Oh well. After smoking this joint I got absolutely wasted. There obviously was something more than just ‘pot’ in it. I drove a few blocks [my friend was still inside fixing] and parked by some Rail Road tracks. I just laid down in the car and went on this trip. It reminded me somewhat of the acid trip I had years before. I later [or earlier] had snorted some cocaine with my friends, but this weed had something much more potent in it. I remember how at times in the past where I would be totally wasted, yet I would not stop partying. It was like I felt ‘man, I really need to come down’ and then keep getting high. In the book I could identify somewhat with Brian’s seeming inability to just stop. Ultimately God does the ‘stopping’ for you. When people are in this cycle they don’t seem to realize the danger of dieing. You seem to think nothing will happen. And then when your ‘tripping’ you think ‘O my God, I feel like I am going to die’ it really is deceptive. Only God can save people from this. NOTE: This brother was one of a whole family of guys I met while preaching to the father in jail. One of these brothers is now one of our main guys in Kingsville serving the Lord. During this year of backsliding, I took him to H.E.B. [our grocery stores in Texas- like Path Mark to all you Yankees!] and he goes in. He comes out with something that he was going to steel from one of the hardware aisles. He walks out with the look on his face like ‘there’s nothing strange about the way I look, I am just normal’ as I see him walking across the parking lot, I could spot the stolen thing under his shirt a mile away! It looked so obvious, like a pregnant woman! When he got to the car I was like ‘I could see you a mile away you idiot, how did you get away with it?’ Of course he bought a stick of gum or something on the way out, he told me ‘I think the chick at the register liked me’ I guess so! NOTE: One time when we were having ‘church’ in an old rented hospital building, I would go and pick up our guys before the service. One day both of my friends had been out the night before shooting up. So when I went to get them the wives and kids got in my suburban but the guys were no where to be found, and as we were driving back to the building, we stopped right at a stop sign where these 2 guys were right next to us in the car that they were using all night to score drugs. Of course their wives were mad, these guys were out all night shooting up. It was too late to hide, but as they were looking straight at us, my one friend [Elias] just ducks down and hides in the seat, my other friend [Juan Saldana] just looked straight forward. It was kinda funny, we did laugh about it later. Elias eventually became the preacher of the local Victory Outreach. He died from a brain aneurism while serving the Lord. Juan, I haven’t heard from him years. I think he is working with a ministry in El Paso?