GOD spoke to me in my PRISON CELL!!! | Life-Changing TESTIMONY

I was fed up of committing crime;
I was fed up of taking drugs;

I was fed up of hurting people.

No one could show me a way to change.

I was like a modern-day vampire.

A vampire only wants blood;
it is not interested in anything else.

When I was a drug addict, I seriously didn't care about anything else in my life,

I knew without a shadow of a doubt
that it was God speaking to me -

from a world where God didn't exist.

HEART TALK
GOD’S HEART TV

Hi everyone. My name is Alan Andrews.
I am from a small town in South Wales.

I run a Centre called ‘Chooselife’, which is a drug and alcohol intervention service.

I come from a drug background myself.

I realise why I ended up taking drugs.

I had stuff going on in my childhood that shouldn’t have happened -

physical, verbal, sexual abuse.

It made me feel different from everyone else.
It made me feel ashamed, full of rejection.

I can remember a point in my life where
I said, ‘I'm no longer going to feel rejection.’

So I started to live a life of rebellion.

I first started shoplifting at the age of ten.

I was taken home in the police car,
to my mum and dad’s shock.

I'm in a police car -
their little ten year old son.

I carried on committing crime.

At the age of 13, I was completely
out of control.

I was put in an approved school, sent away,
which just reinforced the rejection inside.

To everyone else, I was a heck of
a character who just didn't care.

But inside I was still hurting.

Being locked away at 13, away from
my mum and dad, was really difficult.

But I couldn't show anyone,
so I learnt not to show emotion.

And I built a life around that.

At the age of 14, I was sent to a detention centre, which was ‘short, sharp shock’.

From the moment you walk in there,
the officers would scream at you.

I can remember standing naked on this white line for about two hours,

with the officers just verbally abusing you, screaming at you, terrifying you.

And that just remained with me to this day - the memory of it.

I was there for six weeks and four days.
I can remember when I got out of there -

if I was ever going to stop getting in trouble, it would have been then.

But I couldn't stop because I had no one around me to help me

deal with the emotions that I had inside, that I was hiding from.

So I carried on committing crime.
I was sent back to an approved school at 15.

I stayed there until I was 16 years old

and then at 17, I was sent to
a young offenders unit.

At 18 I was sent to Borstal, which in that day was a place you really didn’t want to go.

And I became a borstal boy - I fitted in.
I would fit in wherever I was, just to survive.

Once again, I want to emphasise that I still had these intense emotions on the inside

but on the outside, I had to be
this person that really didn't care.

So everyone who would see me would think, ‘This guy really doesn’t care’.

But inside I was just broken,
completely broken.

I had my 18th birthday in Borstal.

I got out of there, really tried not getting in trouble but I just couldn’t stop.

Because with emotion, it’s ‘energy in motion’ - it always has to be flowing.

But I had to put stuff in there that would stop it because I really didn’t want to feel it.

At this time, there weren’t any drugs
around in my hometown.

If there were drugs around when I was 13,
I would have been a 13 year old

heroin addict - and probably dead by now - but there weren't drugs.

The drugs didn't start till I was 20 years old,
which is quite late these days

because I see young people now aged
10, 11 or 12 taking drugs, smoking dope,

doing cocaine - crack is a big thing -
but they weren’t around.

Once I started - I can remember
I was in Shepton Mallet Prison

when I was first introduced to smoking dope, and within two months,

I was injecting myself with drugs, because these drugs could help me not to feel.

But it was only temporary
because you’d have to put more

and more drugs in to stop feeling - because this energy was always in motion,

emotion was always trying to fight
to come to the surface.

I went berserk. I was crazy before drugs but after drugs, I completely lost the plot.

I was like a modern-day vampire.

A vampire only wants blood;
it is not interested in anything else.

When I was a drug addict, I seriously didn't care about anything else in my life,

but just getting drugs to blot out
everything that was going on in my life.

I actually did an armed robbery
in the street where I lived.

Anyone with common sense would
plan an armed robbery.

It wasn’t with a gun, it was with a baseball bat, running into a shop demanding money.

Anyone with common sense would go
and do it away somewhere and plan it.

I just wanted my next fix.

I didn't think of my second fix,
it was my next fix.

I did that armed robbery, got away with it, ended up back in prison for something else.

By this time, prison had become a home.

The problem with prison is that it breeds you to become institutionalised.

It was my home. It no longer held any fear. It was a safe place for me.

But even then, because I had this stuff going on inside, I would do things in prison.

One of the staff here remembers me -

I went away to the doctor because
I wanted more drugs off him

and four screws (prison officers) carried me down into the strip cell.

I would threaten doctors;
I would steal from them.

I remember in the hospital,
I knew where the drugs were kept.

I stole from there.

I was just out of control.

I would be put in the block quite regularly
because I couldn't face other people.

I was at the point in my life where I just
didn't want to be around people,

because I had no self-worth.

I just hated myself. I hated my life.

I hated myself and had
no confidence whatsoever.

I remember then being sent to a prison called Erlestoke Prison.

And while I was there,
you might laugh at this -

I had six weeks left of my sentence

but I just needed more drugs and I escaped from prison with six weeks left.

I had no thought of, ‘If I escape, why would I do another 6 to 12 months?’

I just wanted a fix.
I just had to get out of prison.

I got out of this prison,
climbed up this 20ft high fence,

and I could remember the feeling
on the top of the fence.

When you look up at a fence, it doesn’t look as high as when you are looking down.

When I was looking down, I can remember
thinking, ‘When I jump from here,

if I fall and break my leg,
I am going to look like a complete idiot.’

But I managed to get away
and go back to my hometown.

I was only out for ten days,
but in that time I took loads of drugs

and I actually smuggled a load
back into prison, which was my intention.

It didn't bother me that I would
have to do six months extra.

Obviously, they have got to punish you
and I was sent to Dartmoor Prison.

At that time, prison was the place where society sent people who broke the rules.

Dartmoor was a place where prisons
sent prisoners who broke the rules.

It was the absolute pits, in the middle
of nowhere, on the Dartmoor moors,

in a place called Princetown.

And, apparently there's
a sign engraved in stone -

it was built for French prisoners of war -

and it says in Latin,
‘Abandon hope, all who enter’.

And it was as if I had arrived at a destination that agreed with how I felt.

I had abandoned hope of ever changing,

ever finding a girlfriend,
a wife, having children.

I never used to think of those things.

It was so far away from where I was in life.

I just thought that I am going to
spend the rest of my life in prison.

And I can remember being in Dartmoor -

there were some scary
prisoners down there.

People would just stab you
or beat you for nothing.

I can remember thinking,
‘Look how far I’ve come in life’

because I was still this
rejected little boy inside.

But on the outside,
I thought I'd become like these -

I'd become like all these
crazy people down here.

And it was a real eye opener.

And the first time I heard someone mentioning God, my friend ‘Artie’ -

I had received a letter from another
friend saying, ‘Artie is into God’.

And I didn't think, ‘God? What's he doing? Is he off his head?’

I thought ‘Good for him’.

And I started praying - it was not a silly prayer, but I had never prayed.

I had no knowledge of anything
outside of the life I lived.

And I started saying this prayer,

“When I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep...”

Obviously, God was
starting something in me.

The last night in Dartmoor Prison,

as much as I hated it,
I was scared of being released

because I knew that I was
fed up of committing crime.

I was fed up of taking drugs,
and I was fed up of hurting people.

But no one could show
me a way to change.

I always wanted to change.

And I've never met a drug addict
who doesn't want to change.

I've never, ever met them.

I had to get released but I didn't want
to because I was safe in there.

As mad as it was, it was like a zoo.

As mad as it was, I was safe there.

Anyway, I got out of there, went
absolutely berserk on the drugs.

I was injecting drugs.

I was breaking into chemist shops,
doing all sorts of things and

ended up in this house and they
started telling me about Jesus.

And I ‘flipped’ on them.
I swore at them and said,

‘Where was He when this happened?

When this abuse happened,
where was He?’

I didn’t use those nice words
but a lot stronger language.

And they said, ‘You need to
ask Jesus into your life.’

And apparently, I prayed the sinner’s prayer.

I can't remember it, which is a first,
because most people remember

praying a sinner's prayer; I can't
remember it but, apparently, I did.

From that moment on,
things started to change.

I can remember committing this burglary,
and I was cutting the telephone wires.

And this thought came to me.

I've had rushes from the craziest drugs and rushes where the hairs on

your hands stand up and
you are buzzing inside.

I had the biggest rush.

This thought came to me and the
thought was, ‘I'm watching you’.

And this rush came through
my body and I knew

without a shadow of a doubt
that it was God speaking to me.

I came from a world where God didn't exist.

I carried on with the burglary but this thing stuck in my head - what had happened.

So I carried on committing crime,
and every now and again,

someone would say something about God.

And Artie, my friend, came to see
me and the girl I was with at the time.

And we went to church, and I wouldn't say
that anything happened, but at that time

I was having the craziest thoughts as well - quite scary thoughts.

And I was scared of following them through - violence and other things.

And my mate said to me, ‘The
Bible says to take every thought

captive to be obedient to Christ.’
I said, ‘So what do you mean?’

‘Well, just tell your thoughts
to stop in the name of Jesus.’

So there I am in my house, a non-Christian,

saying in my head, ‘In the name of Jesus, stop!’

When I saw him, I said,
‘It's working, it’s working!’

These thoughts would stop.

And, obviously, God was at work.

I ended up back in prison.

This time, He was having me.
The ‘chase’ was on.

I can remember, as I said,
I’d steal from the hospital over there

and I managed to get hold
of a bag full of drugs.

The ‘screws’ came through my cell.

They couldn't find the drugs;
we’d taken most of them.

I was carted down to the strip cell.

I'm sitting in the strip cell with
a pair of rubber shorts on

so that you can't cut your
clothes to hang yourself,

although there's no windows so you couldn’t hang yourself anyway.

I remember sitting there thinking,
‘How far have I come?

How much further am I going to go in life?”

You're only allowed to
stay in there for six hours.

So they came to get me and they
put me in the punishment block.

The strip cell is in the block
but the block is just a cell.

It's still a punishment cell,
but not like the strip cell.

Normally, they empty it.

When the prisoner leaves the block, they
completely empty the cell of everything.

Well, I went into the cell and there were
a load of books - Christian books.

And there was one by Frank Constantino,
a gangster from America.

So I started reading this book, how he’d met God and Jesus, and I started crying.

Now, I never cried because
I spent my life hiding from how I felt.

And as soon as I started crying,
I started kicking the cell door.

And this ‘screw’ came, Barry.

I said, ‘Put me back in that strip cell!’

because I just could not
handle the emotion.

And he said, ‘Here, Andy, have a fag’

and he gave me a cigarette to
smoke and calm me down.

And so I went back in the cell and
carried on reading the book,

went back on the landing,
then still carried on going crazy.

But every couple of weeks, I’d get this thought and the thought was,

‘You ain't getting out of here
until you come to Me.’

And I'd go, ‘Oh yeah, I'm coming.’

And I would go and take drugs.

And two weeks later, ‘You are not getting out of here until you come to Me.’

I was talking to a God that I didn't
know or even believe in.

So one day, I had this instant thought,

‘I want to get shipped out’,
which is to be sent to another prison.

Now, at that time, there was a
three month waiting list.

I went down to what’s called the allocation.

And Barry, that officer, was in and
I said, ‘Barry, I need to get out of here.’

He said, ‘You are going on Tuesday.’

So I went to this prison called
Channings Wood, which was semi-open,

where you could walk around on the inside.

And one of the main buildings
in that place was the church.

So I started going there and I started hearing about born-again Christians.

I would read my Bible and
I'd read it for three days.

I was still smoking dope and doing other drugs, but I would read my Bible.

Then I’d chuck it away thinking
that it was a load of nonsense.

And then I would go back to the church, pick my Bible back up and read it.

I would then throw it away
thinking it was a load of nonsense.

And, one day I was reading the Bible
and it said, ‘If a man cannot make himself

grow a foot, why worry about the least of things?’

And at that time I was having
Valium off the doctor.

I was horrible to the doctor. I used to threaten him, ‘I want more drugs!’

So I said, ‘Okay, if that's true - why worry about the least of things - take my Valium off me.’

And at that moment, my desire
for the Valium disappeared.

I stopped going three times a day
to pick up my Valium.

The doctor must have thought
I'd ‘lost the plot’ or something.

That was just a start.

One day, I jumped off my bed and I said,
‘I am not stopping until I find You.’

And as I said that... I knew
nothing about the Holy Spirit.

I knew nothing about the
baptism in the Holy Spirit.

I knew nothing about Christianity.

But at that moment, I now know the Holy Spirit came and filled me so full.

It literally felt like Jesus was
coming into my body.

I was crying my eyes out -
nice crying, not horrible crying.

And it was such a relief.

But at the same time, I had this
revelation that Jesus was alive.

So once I’d had this experience, I was ‘mental’.

I would go around the prison...

One minute I'm a drug addict,
running around to score drugs,

and all of a sudden I'm just telling
everyone about Jesus.

And I think they thought I’d ‘flipped my lid’.

I can remember in the communal bath,
I was singing ‘Jesus loves me’.

They thought I'd ‘lost the plot’.
And I can understand why!

I couldn't wait to get back into my cell because in my cell,

as soon as I was there, I’d be crying.

It's like this emotion that had driven my life,

which had caused me to do things
that I'm ashamed of,

which had locked me away in strip cells -
all this emotion was coming out.

So I’d go to work in the workshops and
I just couldn't wait to get back into my cell,

because to me, I know Jesus was in me,
but He was in my cell especially.

And strange things started happening
to me - spiritual things.

I now know they were demonic things.

Because what I found in life is that wherever there is traumatic pain,

the devil takes advantage of that.

And here I was in a cell with things happening that wouldn’t have happened before.

I thought I was going crazy.

After three days, three days after being born again, I put myself in the psychiatric

part of the prison because
I thought I was going insane.

Because I had all this, which I now know
is demonic stuff, happening.

I could remember being in that cell,
in the psychiatric unit, thinking,

‘I’ve lost the plot; I’ve completely lost it’

because I had these
manifestations happening.

I had no one around me to talk to me.

I can remember writing a letter to
my girlfriend at the time, saying,

‘Look, I can't come back to my hometown. Something's happened to me.

I am losing the plot. My head's gone.
I've got these spiritual things happening.

And, sorry I can't come home.’

And the letter was sitting there.

The next minute, the doctor,
who I used to terrify to get drugs off,

came in and sat on my bed and
he said, ‘What's the matter?’

I said, ‘I can't tell you.’

He said, ‘What's the matter? Tell me.’

I said, ‘I can't tell you.’

He said, ‘Please tell me what's the matter?’

So I gave him the letter.

He read it and he said,
‘I am a born-again Christian.’

This was the first Christian
that I'd ever come across

who understood what I was going through.

And I got out of prison.

I can remember driving a car thinking,
‘Should I tax and insure this car?’

I'd lived so far outside the law that I just didn't know how to live within the law.

So I parked the car away, saved money, and put tax and insurance on it.

And little things like that - if I knew
it was wrong, I’d try and do it right.

Then my life started coming together.

I joined the church - a very supportive church that had people coming to help us.

We had absolutely nothing - me and my partner at the time when we got married.

We had nothing and there was a baby due.

And we had people from the church
come in with a new cot,

with a washing machine, and they just looked after us and loved us.

Over the years, people would
come to me and they'd say,

‘Your life’s changed. How can mine?’

I’d just say, ‘Well, I asked
Jesus to come into my life.’

I had five people at once living in my house, all coming off heroin and other drugs -

which I wouldn’t recommend to anyone.

But at that time, it was
the way I was led to go.

And, around that time, the church I was with acquired quite a large, old factory.

I asked for a part of it, which was
an old shed with holes in the roof,

asbestos roof etc. - and that’s
where we started ‘Chooselife’.

As I said, ‘Chooselife’ is a drug
and alcohol intervention service.

It's been going 28 years now.

We've seen people come to us from all walks of life - a lot of people.

The world is suffering.

There's so many fatherless families, motherless families, abuse.

You wouldn't believe the stories of physical, verbal, sexual abuse

that I hear on a daily basis;
they are in pain.

Sadly, we’ve seen people who've made good choices, then made not so good choices.

And they've overdosed.
They're no longer with us.

That's the reality of working with
people in drugs and alcohol.

But also we've seen people who were heroin addicts, crack addicts,

and when you see them meeting Jesus -
the Jesus I know,

the Jesus that comes to set you free
and love you unconditionally,

not based on what you do,
but based on what He’s done -

when you see people's lives change
like that, it's absolutely amazing.

I’ve got some really good friends that I could name who’ve seen their lives transformed.

I just love what I do here
on a daily basis.

We’ve been doing this for 28 years.

Not one day have I woke up thinking,
‘Oh, I’ve got go to Chooselife today’.

I just love what I do.

And someone said that
if you love what you do,

you never have to work
another day in your life.

I refuse to call what I do work.
Yes, I get paid for it.

But I love what I do here -
seeing people’s lives transformed.

But also loving the people
that society rejects.

We provide a hot meal every day
for people to take away.

We've got accommodation with
31 beds in the community.

We are just supporting people, loving people, hoping that one day,

they'll find a way of dealing with the (normally) childhood trauma

that they’ve hidden away from all their life.

And childhood trauma could be a simple thing like mum and dad separating,

to the extreme of physical,
verbal, sexual abuse.

To each person it’s different and
we absorb things differently.

But especially when you see God
dealing with someone's past pain,

there's nothing more beautiful - seeing them become whole and complete.

Trust me, where there are things
that happened in your life,

the devil only needs a little gap
because he wants to go in there.

And I know people who work in that area, move in that area.

Have a look for this ministry -
God’s Heart TV, which I came across.

Brother Chris prayed for me in the past.

There are other ministries out there.

Seek your healing and
seek your deliverance.

Because the Bible says that Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil.

That's the reason He came.

He didn't come to make you feel better.
He came to make you set free.

He came to destroy the works of the devil.
And trust me, He can do it.

Whoever you are today,
wherever you are watching this -

no one is too far away from God's love.

Because God's love can get you
wherever you are.

He came to me in the prison cell.

He had the key to my cell and came in.

He took me - I am no longer
the person that I was.

This is 33 years. This is my 33rd year,
entering my 34th year...

I couldn't stay out of prison for six weeks.

In fact, six weeks was one of my longest times I stayed out of prison. 33 years!

If He can reach me, He can reach you.

He’s not a ‘religious’ God; He’s a loving God.

He’s a God that loves you unconditionally.

There's not much more I can say -
just if you ask Him...

I asked Him, ‘Jesus, if You’re there,
come and touch my life.’

You can say exactly the same.

You might know someone whose
got a problem with drugs or alcohol,

and it's so consuming - it consumes
the whole family.

And normally you suffer more than the addict because the addict

is intoxicated going through it.

And I get asked all the time, ‘How do we deal with our son, our daughter?’

And firstly, you have to put boundaries in

to protect yourself and the other
members of your family.

You can pray for that person,
love that person.

But love and discipline
have to go together.

You can't just love and give and give.

I hear mums who say, ‘I gave him £10 to save him stealing; I gave him this...’

At the end of the day,
love and discipline go together.

‘I will always care for you.
I will always love you.

But this far and no further.’

You have to put that discipline
around yourselves as a family

and ultimately trust that God wants your family member in a relationship with Him

far more than you will ever want them to.

So He’s at work.

There’s a song that says, ‘He’s working even when you think He’s not working.’

He’s always at work.

And He will draw your son
or daughter to Himself,

and He takes a mess and will turn
that mess into a message.

You might not see it, but it will happen.

Just keep believing it's going to happen.

Your job in the meantime is to
love your son or daughter

in a way that protects you as a family.