YOUNGSTOWN Overcoming their addictions was easier with God, men say

The four men say their addictions would have killed them.
By MARALINE KUBIK
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- David Matheny was 13 when he started eating "reds." A friend had access to the sedatives at home. "He'd bring them to school and we'd get all stupid," Matheny recalls. "I really liked the feeling it gave me -- courage in a pill."
Kevin Rauch was the same age when he started "drinking wine and smokin' weed. I found a boldness," he said, "and I developed an I-don't-care attitude."
Mike Clark started drinking when he was 18, about the time he started doing THC, a drug he describes as "a horse tranquilizer."
David Guido was 12 when he started drinking and smoking pot and hashish. "My sister was an addict and all the kids in my neighborhood were doing it," he said.
At first, it was fun and seemed harmless, the men, all now in their 30s and 40s, agree.
They'd skip school to party, getting drunk or high with their friends. They felt good when they were drunk, felt good when they were high. After a while, they couldn't feel good without it.
Addictions took over
As time passed, the fun faded. Getting drunk and getting high became a way of life -- controlled their lives.
Their addictions destroyed their relationships, wreaked havoc in their families, caused them to miss work, lose jobs and in the process, lose themselves.
All four say they would be dead, if it hadn't been for God.
"I believe everyone who has an addiction wants help," David Guido said. "They're just hurt people who feel trapped and don't know how to get out."
A quiet man with a welcoming smile, Guido's been clean for 13 years.
Before finding God and kicking his drug and drinking habits, Guido, 37, suffered psychotic episodes from drug use. Doctors prescribed anti-psychotic medications.
"Which I, in turn, abused," he said. "If I didn't get high, I felt really bad. I was shooting dope or eating pills every day and my binges would usually end with a trip to the psych ward."
Rehab programs
When he was 16, Guido's mother sent him to rehab.
"I bluffed my way through it," Guido said. Over the next several years, he bluffed his way through or dropped out of about 20 other rehab programs.
To support his addictions, Guido said he borrowed, scammed, lied and stole -- often from the people he cared about most. "I hurt my family and everybody who loved me," he said, shifting his weight from side to side in his chair.
"I got in debt with a drug dealer and I became almost like a slave. I had to work for him to pay him back," he said.
Hopeless and despondent, Guido even tried to kill himself. After several attempts to commit suicide failed, Guido finally decided to quit.
He was 24 and living in the same neighborhood as Kevin Rauch.
A recovering addict himself, and director of Teen Challenge International, a drug and alcohol crisis and referral center in Youngstown, Rauch knew what it was like to live for nothing but the next high.
"Kevin took the time to listen to me and I thought, if he could get better, maybe I could get better. I found acceptance with him," Guido said.
"I didn't change his life," Rauch stressed. "I just happened to be the vessel that happened to be there."
When Guido decided to quit, he and Rauch had been friends for a couple of years. Rauch had consistently told his friend about how he had found salvation in the Lord and how he had overcome his addictions with God's guidance.
Tried to quit
"I cold-turkeyed it off a lot of the drugs," Guido said. But after two weeks of being drug free, the desire to get high got the best of him. He overdosed on methamphetamines, suffered a seizure and ended up in a hospital emergency room.
"After that, I never used again," Guido said. "It wasn't like it scared me -- I was a frequent visitor to emergency. I quit because I let God into my life and that gave me hope."
"Then, I started to live my life. I'd never really lived my life before. Everything I did revolved around drugs," Guido said.
Today, Guido is a chemical dependency counselor and assistant director at Teen Challenge in Youngstown, which serves adults and a few teen-agers. He is also an Assemblies of God minister, is married and has a stepson.
David Matheny, a graduate of Teen Challenge, came to the program as a last resort. A soft-spoken man with graying hair, he'd been through five or six 30-day residential drug treatment programs, had been divorced from his first wife, separated from wife No. 2, and thrown out of his parents' house.
"I thought everybody had it out for me, the cops, my parents," Matheny recalled.
He was arrested for driving under the influence. "I think I had five DUIs in my life," Matheny said. He got caught driving under suspension, never had any money, and his friends and family didn't trust him.
Moved in with parents
With no where else to go, he moved in with his parents when he and his second wife broke up. He was 32 and couldn't support himself or his family, which included a young daughter.
The addiction to alcohol and drugs "slowly ate away at my life," Matheny said. "I didn't want to be a drug addict."
Matheny started stealing money from his parents.
"One day they said, 'Dave, you have to go.' I had no place to go. I had no friends that would trust me. My dad took me to our pastor and he told me about Teen Challenge. I didn't want to go," Matheny said.
"After about a week on the streets it was too much for me and I finally agreed to go. My initial thoughts were that I'd go just to get my folks off my back, like I did with the other programs.
"I played their game for a couple weeks. I grew up in the church. I could talk Christianese," Matheny continued. "Then, I went to a church service and whatever the minister said hit my heart. My attitude changed." That was in 1989 and Matheny's been clean since.
Addressed issues
In Teen Challenge, Matheny said, he learned to address the "deeper issues" in his life. His drug use was a symptom of other problems, he explained.
Once he learned to address those issues, with help from God, Matheny was able to stay clean and live what he calls "a normal life."
He earns a living as a carpenter, is remarried, has two young sons and recently bought a house. His daughter, who lives a few hours a way, recently gave birth to his first grandchild.
When people suggest that he was brainwashed by the program, Matheny said, "I tell them it needed washed. My heart was washed too."
"I'm definitely not the same person I used to be," he said. "I'm real thankful that God didn't give up on me when I gave up on me, and other people gave up on me, and I had a moment of clarity to see his mercy and accept it."
Matheny leads a support group for recovering addicts and has tutored recovering addicts studying for their GEDs.
Mike Clark, 44, was out of prison on parole when he smashed his Chevy S-10 pickup into a tree after leaving a bar on South Avenue in Youngstown.
The Philadelphia native has spent much of the last 22 years in prison on charges ranging from DUI to domestic violence.
Sold drugs
He left home as a teenager because he couldn't abide by his parents' rules. To support his drinking and drug habits, he and a partner sold drugs -- he'd work the neighborhood at night, his partner would work it during the day.
"I made good money, but I don't have anything to show for it," Clark said. Much of what he made he spent on alcohol, drugs, girls and fancy rental cars.
He was charged with a slew of minor crimes over the next several years. "I started going to jail for six months here, 11 months there," Clark said. Before long, his life became a revolving door between prison and the streets.
During a 41/2-year stint in prison after he beat up his girlfriend, Clark became involved in the prison ministry.
He decided to quit drinking and drugs, but relapsed after being released and landed back in jail for violating parole. He had 18 months left to serve, Clark said, but had an opportunity for parole after serving less than half of that time.
At his parole hearing, Clark said, "I told them I was staying."
Wanted to stay clean
He knew he could keep clean in prison, but his chances of staying clean on the streets were slim.
By then, Clark was writing to a woman he met through another prisoner, and shortly after he was released, he married her.
But Clark's struggle to keep clean wasn't over. Ten months after getting out of jail, he took up his old habits: drinking and smoking pot.
It was then that a friend asked him to go to church.
Clark went and, he said, "I got filled with the Lord and there wasn't no room for alcohol and drugs anymore." He's been clean for two years.
Now, he goes to church every Sunday, volunteers three days a week at Teen Challenge, and stays out of places that sell beer. His wife is studying to become a parole officer, and while she's at school, Clark looks after their 5-year-old son.
Referring to the change in his life, Clark said, "If I can do it, anybody can."
kubik@vindy.com