Twenty years ago this month, Gallaty endured a near-fatal car accident. When he left the hospital, the club-bouncer-turned-church-leader took with him several prescriptions for painkillers.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy descent into full-scale drug abuse was amazingly rapid,\u201d he writes in his new book, Recovered: How an Accident, Alcohol, and Addiction Led Me to God<\/em><\/a>. \u201cIn November of 1999, before the accident, I was selling cars, training for the Ultimate Fighting Championship, and thinking about business opportunities. By early the next year, I was looking for faster and better drug connections.\u201d<\/p>\n After stealing $15,000 from his parents to feed his addiction, Gallaty found himself at his lowest point\u2014kicked out of his parents\u2019 home and told not to come back. \u201cIt was the hardest three months of their lives, and they\u2019ll tell you that,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it was the best thing for me. I knew that I couldn\u2019t fix myself.\u201d<\/p>\n This led Gallaty, now pastor of Long Hollow Baptist Church in Hendersonville, Tennessee, to what he calls a \u201cradical, Paul-like conversion\u201d on November 12, 2002.<\/p>\n Most pastors don\u2019t have the intimate knowledge of addiction Gallaty has, but most say they\u2019ve seen it face to face through people connected to their church and among members of their congregation.<\/p>\n Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n 52% of pastors say they know someone in their church who’s dealing with an opioid addiction @LifeWayResearch<\/a> https:\/\/t.co\/TbymVTPueR<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) November 19, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n