Stories of Hope… Daniel Eidson

“My name is Daniel K. Eidson Jr., and I’m a drug addict and alcoholic. But saying that does not define me. I’ve thought a lot about what to say, and I really can’t tell my story without talking about God’s grace.

When I was six years old, my father almost died from a massive heart attack, and my world changed forever. That year I got into my first fight and experienced my first adrenaline rush because my pain went away by hurting someone else. After that, I began down a very dark path. I was angry at God and everyone else around me. I took my pain out on everyone. And I lived my life in direct defiance to God.

When I was in my early teens, I drank alcohol for the first time. From the start, I drank like an alcoholic. Never a sipper, I wanted to get drunk and forget the growing hole inside me. And when I discovered drugs, the game changed once again. At first, it was Marijuana, then acid. Soon the drugs got harder, and my life became more unmanageable. Finally, I didn’t care about anything anymore. I was still in high school the first time I smoked crack cocaine.

At 18 years old, I dropped out of school, and a month later was the first time I got arrested. After I was released, I went to live with my grandparents in Talbotton, Georgia. That was supposed to be my cure. I would just get away, and everything would be alright. But I just found new connections, and things got worse.

I moved back to Marietta about six months later, but the only thing that had changed was the size of the hole inside of me. I went straight back to my old friends, old connections, and my old life. I went to treatment for emotional issues about three months after I moved back, and that was when I finally admitted I was high most of the time. After that, I quit using drugs and alcohol for a couple of years. I said I wouldn’t drink or do any drugs until I was 21, and I kept that goal. Then, six months after my 21^st birthday, I had a beer, and slowly, I headed back down the path to destruction I had left just a few short years earlier.

At 23, I lost my driver’s license, and I didn’t get it back for 23 years. But I kept drinking and drugging. Even not having a license didn’t keep me from driving. Nothing was going to keep me from what I wanted. I was arrested several times for driving without a license, but that still wasn’t enough to stop me. It actually became another part of my addiction. Taking risks and cheating the odds was worth it to me.

When I was 26, my girlfriend died from a heroin overdose. We had found out she was pregnant, and we both stopped getting high for a while. I came home from work one day, and she said she didn’t want to have the baby. She was four months pregnant, and we had started picking out names. I was heartbroken and angry; I begged her to have the baby and let me raise it. But she went through with the abortion. She decided to get high about a week later, and we buried her three days later.

But even that didn’t stop me from getting high. After her death, I jumped headfirst into a bender that lasted six months. I woke up still drunk and high from the night before and stayed that way until I passed out. I never really slept. My life for a while was just a series of blackouts. And so it would go for years off and on.

I was always trying to fill that hole, and after a while, I was just cheating death. I lost friends because I was in and out of jail. I lost friends because my drug use scared them. I lost friends because I was incapable of being a friend.

When I said I couldn’t tell my story without talking about God’s grace, this was just a small part. I spent the next 20 years getting as close to death as I possibly could, but God wasn’t done writing my story.

Fast forward to 2017. I had been in a car wreck with the woman I was dating and received $3,800.00 from the settlement. That money was gone in about a week. I had tried a couple of times to go into business for myself, but I couldn’t keep it together long enough to make it work. Now I needed a job.

I saw a sign on the side of the road and applied for a company called Bristlelite. When I was hired, I soon discovered that almost everyone I worked with had gone through The Extension. Some were Alumni some were residents. But nearly all of them kept trying to talk me into going in. But I didn’t have a problem; I wasn’t homeless; I lived in an extended stay. But I was hopeless. I prayed that God would just let me die every night as I passed out.

I was first introduced to The Extension after being put on probation for possession of methamphetamine. I would go there to take my drug tests. That was over 20 years ago. On September 9, 2017, I woke up in the hospital after drinking for a day covered in blood and had no idea whose it was. The police officer next to the bed told me he was pretty sure it was mine, and I’ve never been more relieved in my life. I was arrested for battery that morning at 4 A.M. When I was able to use the phone, I called my mother and asked her to get in touch with Robert Jordan, the director of The Extension. I knew if I left jail, I was going to die.

On September 11, 2017, in a jail cell in Cobb County, I got on my knees and asked God to come into my life and change me. Since that day, God has not just shown up in my life; God shows off in my life. On the wall in the dining hall at The Extension, in large letters, it says, “IT’S A GOD THING.” For me, no truer statement has ever been made.

Since my time in the Extension, I have gotten my license back; I got baptized, I have my own business, I’ve been on two mission trips to Guatemala. I have my family back in my life,  become a productive member of society, and learned how to be a friend. I have not found it necessary to get high or drunk in almost five years.

I have come to know God. And the hole that I spent 40 years trying to fill was always meant for God to fill it. I finally realized that I had to go through everything I went through for God to bring me where He wanted me to be. So the Extension will always be home because that is where, at 46 years old, I finally grew up.

I am a grateful recovering addict and alcoholic and that’s because The Extension is a God thing.”