Never had I felt closer to God than when the Bishop of Rochester poured holy water from the font onto my head. I bowed in complete submissiveness and raised myself as if raised from the dead; born again a Christian man. It was the greatest and most important day of my life.

It had been six months since the scriptures had first spoken to me while in a hospital bed after my suicide attempt; a moment in time parallel opposite to my baptism and confirmation. I was 30 years old and had been a drug addict for just over a decade. My love was cannabis, while I enjoyed flings with cocaine and ecstasy. I couldn’t hold down a job or maintain a meaningful relationship while everyone around me seemed to be building towards something, leaving me behind. Then, on the 20th of March 2024, I took an overdose.

While recovering in hospital for reasons unknown to me at the time, I asked for a Bible, and while reading I eventually came across the Gospel of John, chapter 14 verse 6, where Jesus tells us, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” To which I responded, “OK. You’re the way. Let’s do this.”

On returning home, I made our house my tomb and buried myself within its walls, only emerging to take evening walks with my mother and father. Each evening we would watch old movies, and when my parents would go off to bed, I would return to the gospels which were an indispensable comfort due to the insomnia that was a side effect of my recent sobriety.

I was losing weight, and the insomnia had driven me to a point I believed I was going mad. I would lay awake at night and the shadows on my walls would point to the door, telling me to go to the high rise and pick up a fix. Just once. In these moments I would read aloud passages that meant the most to me, most usually, the Gospel of Mathew, chapter 7 verses 13-14. It told me that the road of drug abuse was easy but led to destruction, and the road to sobriety was hard but led to life. Each night during these moments of temptation and torment, I chose life.

Two months had passed, and I had managed to stay sober; sleep had returned, and my eating habits had somewhat normalised. It was at this time I decided to go to church. The church I chose was St Peter and Pauls Milton, just twenty minutes walk from my home. It was the church where my grandparents were married and the church in which my father was baptized as a baby; a long, narrow church with a large stained glass window at the south that bore an image of Jesus standing over all who sat in it. It was perfect.

For the next four months, I devoted myself to traditional as well as a more personal worship of our Lord and Saviour. I attended holy communion every Sunday and most Wednesdays; while at home, I read the gospels and began a renewed love for a hobby from my teenage years: creative writing. Writing especially had become my Excalibur in battling my temptations and demons; expressing my love for God through poetry and songs not only passed the time and freed my mind but was a tool to affirm my faith and know I was on the right path.

On the 22nd of September, almost six months to the day of my suicide attempt, I was baptized and confirmed at Christ Church Gravesend in front of fellow Christians and my family. Since my last fix, I have become an active member of my church and community, a Godparent to my nephew, made lifelong friends with whom I could pray with, and for the first time In twelve years I was truly happy; able to testify without any doubt, that Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour, really is “The way, the truth and the life.”

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