Faith, Recovery, and Finding Acceptance: Tyler Graeff's Story

the thing that just hit my mind as you were asking that was acceptance and looking for validation in others who can accept me and who can like me and it just there's been so much like the thing is like we can like look at like from a program side of things and Teen Challenge like of course there's so much growth and things and Monumental accomplishments that you make and you have while you're in the program but my Lord like and I'm sure you guys years into this thing too can I can agree it's like so much growth happens when real life happens when you have a family when you get married when you're you're serving and you're connected to community or different trials and crisises has come along the way but yeah my story started man like I started pursuing recovery before I started pursuing Christ so I was the guy that tried like After High School when I had a full on drug and alcohol problem I started seeking help like in my early 20s like even as early as like 19 years old like I realized I had a problem so I was going to AA meetings NA meetings I was pursuing like clinical counseling and psychologists and going into different Residential Treatment programs and I went into a couple programs before I went into teen challenge in January of 2016 and every time man like I realized like had a problem and I realized that I was in this vicious cycle of like relapse and falling on my fla face getting arrested going and having to be on prescribed all kinds of like different medicines doctors told me I'd have to take medication the rest of my life just to be normal because of childhood trauma and that's like a whole another part of my story it's just like what led me to start using drugs and alcohol and that was based upon a lot of hurt and Trauma from the past and a lot of wounds that took place at an early age and growing up in a dysfunctional home and family being that my dad was an alcoholic uncles were alcoholics my Mom was adopted and both of her birth parents were drug addicts and alcoholics so like I had this notion as a little kid like I can't drink or I can't do drugs because more than likely I'm going to become my dad or I'm going to become somebody who struggles but High School came and I began to experiment to the point where probably by the time I was a senior in high school man I tried pretty much every drug that was out there in that phase was a regular like marijuana smoker and started drinking and partying but once I faed out of college is when like narcotics really got a hold of my life and I started really doing a lot of opiates and cocaine and things like that and at that point once I fell into the Trap of an opiate addiction like my life just got Reckless and got out of control so quick so I was extreme in nature like I would couldn't just have one drink or smoke a little bit of pot like everything that I did was extreme in nature but after going through a couple different programs and things like that not really processing things that was going on in my life like when I was 21 or 22 which is actually the age that PTSD manifests in a young adult male PTSD actually manifested in my life and for a period of two years I went through flashbacks to trauma that I experienced I was dealing with suicidal thoughts and depression to like a magnitude that I never felt before and I quickly began just on this path of like I was either going to die from an overdose or I was going to die from suicide because of like the pain that I felt inside and I was 25 years old and I'm I thank God that I met him when I did at 25 but I was 25 years old and I was actually in South Florida of all places close to where I'm at serving the lord today was in Fort Lauderdale pompo Beach line in a program is an Extended Care Facility one that was for dual diagnosis like depression and drug and alcohol addiction and I remember just laying in the bed of that facility and I was like man I'm just like so sick of this cycle of in and- out of program so sick of getting arrested so sick of the medication you name it and through that dialogue that I was having with myself like the words Teen Challenge came to my mind I like what's Teen Challenge and I was reminded the first program I went to when I was like 19 or 20 years old I used to be a two pack a day smoker I was walked by two guys sitting on a bench one guy said to the other they're trying to send me to Teen Challenge a year-long program and this was like five years later so like I realized like in that moment there was no reason why I should have remembered that but I recognized that it had been had to have been this God or a God that spoke that to me it made no logical sense while I remembered a conversation that's like me going to Walmart and overhearing a conversation walking into a door but as quick as you hear that as quick as it's gone but the Lord decided to use that as a seed and that's what led me to Sanford Teen Challenge in January of 2016 and yeah when I told this program I was like I want to go to Teen Challenge they were like man you don't want to go to teen challenge that's a Christian program you won't be able to smoke cigarettes or this that and the other I was like listen if it means just for me to I'll stop all that today if it means me getting into that program and I left it all behind and went into sanord Challenge and it was just my second week of the program that I met the Lord and it was a during a time of worship and praise in the chapel and at the time it was carpeted I remember walking down to the front and hit my knees on that carpet and just said Jesus I need you to come into my life and forgive me of my sins and asked him to come into my heart and in that moment I met the presence of God and I just cried and it was the first time I cried and what felt like was probably honestly years and guys in the program came up they laid hands on me and prayed and that was when I actually felt the love of God demonstrated through people so it was my second week in the program man that I met the Lord and we were fortunate enough that we had a men's God encounter come through my first month in the program from a church called Faith Assembly and I remember one of the most powerful moments of it was like a forgiveness exercise that they walked people through and that was when I learned how to forgive those that hurt me growing up this all happened in like my first 30 days a miracle right but like down unforgiveness in my heart and I was instantly healed of PTSD instantly like not taking any medication I haven't had a flashback to trauma and in that moment through the power of forgiveness God healed me from PTSD like where I could have a conversation like this at any time and all of a sudden I'm like having a flashback to stuff I went through as a kid like it's just really a miracle what the Lord did in my life and I've stayed with the ministry and Teen Challenge since then I felt the call of God like probably my fifth month in the program my Call's not Teen Challenge and I think that's like unique like I'm at the point like in my recovery Journey or my walk with Christ it's like Lord however you want to use me you can use me and so I would be curious to see what to hear you elaborate on you what shifted there was it peer pressure was it relationships a struggle to fit in like what were you on pursuing the alcohol was one part of it right but what were you really pursuing in that moment when you started using I would say acceptance at the end of the day I was and I think it came from a father wound honestly a lot of my hurt had to do with like an absent father an abusive father and things of that nature so the thing that just hit my mind as you were asking that was acceptance and looking for validation and other not really even at that time of my life not really even knowing my identity right like I'm a teenager just trying to figure out life and I didn't know Christ right so like obviously that's our Firm Foundation as a Believers our identities are in Christ but at that time I didn't know the Lord so I was looking for validation I was looking for Acceptance in all the wrong places and even like Middle School I went through a period of time even like of like some bullying and things like that and just had some friends that I had friends we were like the video game guys we play sports and have fun but wasn't necessarily like in the quote unquote like cool crowd if you will and then when high school came that like carried over and I had friends right like they were good people and actually some of them were Christians but there's just still like this drive of like trying to like discover of like who I am like who can I become who can accept me and who can like me and it just man it was like before I knew it was probably like my junior year of high school it's like man like some of my friends from middle school that weren't necessarily my friends came back into my life and they were the ones that were really successful in like sports and that was like a lot of the guys that were partying at the time so I went out and started partying and that was when just the first time man things escalated and I knew I had a problem but I was that little kid that said like I can't touch this stuff or else I'm going to become just like who my dad is like I just knew it like deep inside of me maybe it was a warning that the Lord put in me as a child like that I can't do this I don't know but it was definitely the acceptance and looking for validation in all the wrong places it speaks to how much we really crave being known and being loved and one of the things that we've really been hitting on in these conversations is the value of community and the desire to be known and to be accepted would like overread any fear that you had to becoming what you were afraid of becoming right that's how strong that longing for community and connection and I know Rob wants to ask a question but before I give it over to him what era of video games were NES was it Sega Genesis Halo like you were talking like the original Xbox and Playstation 2 like Halo like where you had like you got the two consoles together and you could like connect them so you could have X amount of screens up but that era for sure okay I was a I was Nintendo 64 so we would get down on the original golden eye that was the first mul shooter game man Brothers all that fun stuff yeah that game was epic but go ahead yeah I feel like so just Ed right now CU I didn't play video games like I had the system but I never used it it's it's interesting that you're saying what you're saying Tyler because you become what you behold and so where I what I'm hearing as I listen to you is the Deep desire to be like your father and from a spiritual perspective we desire to be like the one that created us right he tells us to be like him and so you saw your father you saw the image of your Earthly Father which was nothing that you wanted to be but the fact that you had the abuse and the abandonment from him the lack of acceptance from him throughout a period of your life you were like man I don't want this but yet at the same time it's almost like you fell down this path of addiction because you thought in your mind almost hey look if I do this maybe my dad will also accept me maybe he'll validate Me Maybe he'll take me in and I could be wrong in my thought but as I listen to people's stories man where I get the most intrigued is looking at people's past and seeing the younger years and how it's affected them and so like maybe you can speak on this a little bit but like where is your relationship with your father now if you have that and how have you learned to now navigate through receiving the acceptance of your heavenly father rather than being validated by your Earthly father yeah that's good there was I would say with what you're describing there was definitely a portion of time that was in the very early on my 20s is like when a relationship started to be potentially there with my dad it was actually formed on Common Ground that I got hired at a pest control company and my dad was a pest control technician so that was like our thing that like bridged the gap of communication like okay so I'm a pest control technician so is he so I can call my dad and have conversation about that and it's an indoor for conversation with my dad however that was shortlived and the fact that at that same time I was an alcoholic as well and I lost my license from a DUI in 2012 and my license was my job to get into this work truck and get to different customers residential and Commercial so I lost that job and that time that even at that period of time I felt like man like a sense of worth I I'm doing something productive I'm I'm I'm the guy that's coming into people's houses and helping to solve a problem I felt important but addiction otherwise took me down another path and W it crumbled and so did then at that point relationship with any potential relationship with my dad to the point the last time up until right before I came into teen challenge him and my mom and they don't have any relationship today but I was in a crack Motel just got evicted out of an apartment that I was selling drugs in and I moved into a pay by the week Motel and I blacked out for an entire week on Xanax and I woke up with like my face this close to the mattress and I was wearing glasses and they were like flipped so it prevented my face from suffocating I remember taking a deep breath looking around me I'm like looking at drug baggies needle caps empty liquor bottles and I find my phone it's almost dead underneath a bed and it says a date a week later than what I remembered last I lost entire week and that was like my point where like I was like man like I'm not going to live like things are really bad it was actually my dad who found me down at this crack Motel him and my mom had dropped me off at that first treatment facility that I shared about the seed of Teen Challenge being sewed in my dad and I's relationship today man even like there's been so much like the thing is like we can like look at like from a program side of things and Teen Challenge like of course there's so much growth and things and Monumental accomplishments that you make and you have while you're in the program but my Lord like and I'm sure you guys years into this thing too can agree it's like so much growth happens when real life happens when you have a family when you get married when you're you're serving and you're connected to community or different trials and crisises has come along the way and after I graduated Teen Challenge I saw a relationship with my mother great right like it was the best relationship that I had up until that point and it was founded in Christ now relationship with my sister started to come aboard and I had that hope like well man my dad like There's Hope for restoration there with my father but even like when I was a student in Teen Challenge I tried calling him and then I guess he blocked the Teen Challenge number like or my cell phone after I graduated but I was asking I was like Hey just wanted to reach out let I'm doing good just want to touch base with you share what God's doing in my life and I had that hope and drive for restoration finally he responded to a letter that I wrote and called me we had like three conversations they were pretty good and then there was and in this letter just to be super vulnerable I let him know that I for gave him but then I also apologized for things that I even did in my mess in my addiction like I broke into his house and was about to steal all of his guns and somebody that I was with stole a piece of jewelry from his house unbeknownst to me but again it was like at that period of time where we were like blacked out and just doing stupid stuff on SX and that was something that I said some things to my dad on the telephone that really were cutthroat and hurt right and he brought that up in our third conversation like hey like I hear these things but there's still some things we need to talk about and I was like what do you mean like like what how can we talk this through I'm sorry taking ownership like how can I make this right like going through the process of amends at that point I didn't hear from him for a while but I saw him one time since I've gotten saved and that was he has cancer right now so that's a whole another story he's got a terminal cancer that they say is uncurable but he's actually been alive for like the last seven or eight years so it's I believe God's grace and mercy on his life keeping him alive but I saw him at a nursing home when my nanny was about to pass away we went and saw her and she was in like the late stages of like Dementia or early stages where she was a little bit confused and it recognize people but as I left she looked at me she was like all right Tyler and I was like yes I was like then he recognized me got to say goodbye and as we were walking out of that nursing home my dad walked in I'd had no clue he was coming out but my dad walked in with my grandfather comes up and he's like hey how's it going I said good I just had seing the last visit God restored that relationship with my grandparents he's like where are you living now I was like Columbus Georgia I'm working up at our regional office yada y my dad's listening and finally like my dad comes up and I it was so weird it was like as a father should embrace the son like I embraced my dad like I just gave him the biggest hug wow held on to him and I it was like I almost felt like something break in the spirit but now that it's been a couple years since that happened I really believe it was affirmation that like I have genuinely forgiven him that I've done everything that I can to pursue relationship and reconciliation but that's a relationship today that I actually don't have and I got married I Invited him to my wedding we got married at the height of Co which is a whole another story our wedding changes planned but my god I got engaged right I sent him some pictures he said congratulations then I reached out and said hey just want to let my wedding invitations also going to include my Pap didn't hear anything then it was like Hey Dad we ended up getting married and send them pictures and nothing like no congratulations no phone call and that's been now a period of three years that wow to him so but through that process like like that feeling of like maybe like losing hope or like wanting to give up or just saying what like we're even being like angry with God like why isn't this relationship restored like I have such a piece about it and like knowing that I've done everything that I can in these almost eight years of walking and serving the lord and walking in recovery and repentance in my life that I have a genuine peace and I pray for my dad every day but really I've really grown in the last couple years of like knowing who my heavenly father is and that he is not my Earthly father and the hurts that I've even experienced from my dad on this Earth they're inconsequential compared to the love that my heavenly father has for me that's my dad like my Father in Heaven yeah it's been a journey in that retrospect but hopefully I didn't ramble too long on that but just like lers so no man you're good so the the process of reconciliation and whatnot right the work that you put in there I imagine that's it's not been easy that's it's not a easy process to walk through but like how vital was that so Tyler just out of curiosity since challenge have you relapsed at all or have you stayed the course no I've stayed the course thank God yeah there had been opportunities maybe that I could have or places in my life like where I was really down and out and struggling where I may have turned to it but man it's been God's mercy on my life man that I haven't even since I was like I used to sneak cigarettes as a student like up until my fifth month of the program but I haven't even touched a cigarette since graduated Teen Challenge or drank or used any drugs it's just it's a miracle man really well what's cool about this is with my wife Lauren she actually all the way back to when she was a student she had a desire to direct a Teen Challenge program oh wow so this is like yeah this is an answered come on dude this is awesome yeah so it's an awesome assignment but yeah so not only did the Lord fulfill that desire but he did it like exceedingly above anything she could ask think her so since covid so I worked in Ministry preco and after that season I remember hearing stories from my parents that man they went through a lot of craziness like having to isolate students having to lock things down and all of that and people just collectively went through some craziness with all the stuff we were all facing all the fear and everything that was just going on and I'm just curious from where you sit now as a director seeing students come into programs working with students up in Baltimore even during that season like have you seen any changes is the addiction is it is it pretty much the same as it has been or are you seeing changes in people that are reaching out for help or had did that impact any of that at all on perspective yeah absolutely I would say Co plus just the last couple years we're seeing like a more highly charged emotionally driven people than ever before so I think even this generation that's coming up and the generation of students that are now coming in through the Teen Challenge doors are those that require much more grace and mercy than ever before I think Teen Challenge in the past I have to caution myself I don't knock this every program's a little bit different but at least in my what the Lord's really challenged Lauren and I in and even what we like grew up in through in like up in Baltimore was just really learning how to be patient and Terry with people and then understanding the concept of like that discipleship is individual so often times we can have this idea and this cookie cutter image of what A Teen Challenge graduate should look like man you should have this figured out by this point in order to graduate you have to look like this or be saying that weird right exactly you have this cookie cutter image right but learning that like man everybody's stage of growth and their growth in the Lord looks a little bit different so we really try to take discipleship from like a individual side of things and that's like what the Generation Now is crying out for it's like individualism so it's like man like of course discipleship can be individualized like of course you have policies and you have procedures in place like and systems there for protection and things like that but rather than the first thing that you think of is like man we got to kick Bobby Joe out of the program because of this it's like well slowing down as like a as a leader and being like well could you like can you blame what happened in this situation from somebody that's only been walking with God for two months or yeah just been delivered from drugs and alcohol for six months what have you but really just slowing it down and having more of like a Grace based approach and things but the students now man people are just so broken so lost and hurting and emotionally driven but the good news of it all is that even though it's more intense and I think it's harder than ever before in this a faith-based context to minister to people the message doesn't change yeah the message is the same Jesus no matter what somebody's coming from or the hurts and the things that they've encountered in life like the hope of the Gospel Remains the Same it might just require a little bit more work in ministering it or helping lead people to that truth but really just knowing like God's in the details and he can do anything like he still saves delivers and heals today but it's harder like even up in Baltimore man like we had people overdosing on the streets when we were out there ministering having to shoot people with Naran like literally the level of addiction that we see today it's it's crushing and it's hard and it's it's I don't think something that we've ever seen to this degree before yeah I read some of the numbers that they did some studies postco of where the addiction rates went up and I astronomical it astonishes me that like when and I don't want to get political but it's just part of the conversation that when prod and these other companies were being sued addiction was sexy to talk about everybody was talking about opioid addiction and now people are dying on fent andol but through the roof the numbers are crazy and it's not politically expedient for anybody to talk about it and it breaks my heart because these people are my friends I see myself in their shoes and it's just like it's like yeah it's heartbreaking we see these numbers and we see it blowing up and man I yeah that makes the hope of the Gospel that much more real I believe and I appreciate what people like yourself are doing Tyler man to just remain faithful eight years and just wherever the Lord calls you're saying yes and I I really honor that in you man I appreciate you sharing your heart and being vulnerable about your own story but even just how God is using you today and so for anybody that might pop on if they need help they have a Wom female that needs to reach out for help how can they contact your Teen Challenge Center and and get some help yeah absolutely so we're located down here in dve Florida we sit on two acres it's a beautiful campus and it's such an honor and a privilege to serve here but it's I will say like one of the things that sets our program apart right now it's like there's a lot of time for the spiritual side of like the program like for a lot of the mentoring and just cyle ship and things like that happens so we're located here in Davy and we hold up to 16 ladies and right now we have eight in the program so we are looking to fill more beds and things like that so the website's teen challenge. CC and our regional admissions number is 866 563 0497 and the cool thing is with the our regional admissions department they can help plug somebody into the right program then you can also request like if you wanted to send your loved one to Dave TC they would do everything that they can to accommodate sending them down here so but we love the Lord we're seeing God move here on campus and it's a he's doing a very unique and special thing here and we're very thankful to be here so that's amazing Rob did you have anything to no I know that we're we're wrapping we're over on time so I want to be very respectful for your time Tyler if there's one lasting your parting words what would you share with somebody that's listening whether it's a family member maybe somebody that's struggling in addiction what would you leave them with yeah just leave them with this just that there's hope for the situation whether that's yourself if you find yourself in a relapse or a loved one that's struggling just know that there's hope for your situation and no matter how daunting or scary things might seem just knowing that even today God is still in the business of rescuing and delivering people from drug and alcohol addiction and there's hope for your situation and just don't underestimate the power of prayer and for God to move in the situation of yourself or a loved one so amen so good well thanks so much for your time thanks for on really appreciate it and and for those watching again you can check out team challeng Southeast Tyler's out of Davey Florida but if somebody that needs help or you're just not sure what to do or where the next steps are that's a great place to reach out to and again man thanks so much for being here