John grew up in Aurora, CO with his older sister and parents. He describes his childhood as happy, and his family as typically 1950s. His father was a hard worker, coming home exhausted every night. John’s mother loved her children tenderly. “She never missed a baseball game. She was a big support in my life.”

John went off to the University of Colorado at Boulder to study medicine and play baseball. During this time, he began to drink more and more with his friends. John’s father’s alcoholism and his parents’ ensuing separation troubled him deeply. He dropped out of college.

John moved from part-time job to part-time job, while his drinking habit steadily escalated. When asked how he would describe those years, he uses one word: “unfulfilling.” Eventually, John received an inheritance after his father’s death, and he no longer needed to work. He just drank, wondering about his severe mood swings, and sliding deeper into isolation. “Alcohol is the big thief of my life. It stole years away from me,” John says sadly.

When Janis heard of her brother’s troubles, she immediately cut short her position with the Peace Corps and flew home in order to be with him. At the hospital with John, she shared the following verse: “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”
(II Timothy 1:7 KJV)

This would become Janis’s prayer for John for the next 38 years.

John’s mother and Janis watched his decline with growing alarm. They tried to intervene, praying that John would overcome his addictions. Janis describes receiving the Mission’s newsletter in the mail, and reading the stories of healing and redemption to her mother. “‘Mama,’ I would say, ‘someday John’s going to be in here.’ I really believed it,” she says resolutely. “And God did it."

Last fall, to his family’s elation, John decided to enter the New Life Program at The Crossing. For the first few months, John felt lost without the fallback of alcohol. He began to think about hurting himself. Janis says, “He couldn’t explain what was going on in his mind to anybody. It’s like you are on the edge of the cliff. The only thing I could do for him was to keep praying.”

At The Crossing, John’s chaplain, Rev. Tom Konstanty, feared that John would take his own life unless something was done. He knew that John needed medical help, and had him go to Denver Health for observation and a diagnosis. Doctors concluded that John was bipolar and prescribed medication.

Since then, John describes himself as a “new man.” “I’m a different guy. I’m different!” he says exuberantly. “Tom was really supportive. I just thank God he was my chaplain. He stuck with me when others wouldn’t have. He knew there was a better John in there.”

Janis agrees. “[My brother] has a different look in his eye. He looks younger. We owe a lot to Tom.”

Since the diagnosis, John began working again. He recently received his first paycheck in twenty years. He has a grateful attitude: “I don’t take small things for granted. I have companions, I have friends. I have a warm place to go, food …” His job—telephone sales—proves discouraging at times, but now he can rely on his faith to get him through the days. He says, “While my faith was shaky before, and tentative at best, now it’s a lot more steady. I have to use my faith every day as far as my work goes. I am a sensitive guy, and my job is a little intense. It is a challenge every day. So I have to say a prayer . . . ‘Lord, I need some help!’ A simple prayer like that works.”

John also loves to journal. He writes in order to sort out his own life story, and to remind himself of where he’s going.

Janis is confident that after all these years her brother is becoming the man he is supposed to be. She has her brother back. “[John] has seen the other side. He’s seen the good life . . . . He has a lot to give. God wants to use him. That’s why he’s on the earth. He’s really made a huge comeback. I knew he would if he came to the right place. I had faith.”

“I was at inward war,” John says, describing the years he lost. Then he smiles. “I’ve found peace with myself. My faith is stronger than ever.”