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DANCING WITH ADDICTION
By: April Rowden
We have all read detailed inspiring stories of the struggles and the challenges for both the addict and the family as he seemingly miraculously became clean.
I commend every person who wins the battle of drugs. I ...
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DANCING WITH ADDICTION
By: April Rowden
We have all read detailed inspiring stories of the struggles and the challenges for both the addict and the family as he seemingly miraculously became clean.
I commend every person who wins the battle of drugs. I understand the fight it took to defeat the demon that takes so many drug users to their graves. I do not know these things as a former addict. I know this as the mom of a former addict.
I pray for every mother, father, child, and grandparent that has lost someone they love to drugs. I ask the Father to comfort you and protect you from all condemnation because I know how mean the devil can be. I ask the Lord to give you strength and fill you even fuller with His love and Word of truth to bring you into the fullness of joy in Him.
The side of this inspiring story that I am about to tell you reveals secrets that you don't see in the natural and can only be fought in what we call "spiritual warfare".
Thanksgiving was just a few days away. Our family had decided we would meet at a restaurant for Thanksgiving dinner this year. As I was sitting at my computer working on some last-minute details the phone rang. My oldest daughters number popped up on the caller ID. I looked at my granddaughter who was a toddler at the time and said, "It's your mommy!" as I accepted the call. "April, this is Trevor, Heather is in the hospital, she overdosed. They are moving her to the mental ward and putting her on 72-hour lockdown." I don't remember anything else about that phone call. My mind went into hyper thoughts as my heart sunk thinking my baby could have died! We jumped in the car taking the baby to a relative and then made our two-hour trip to the hospital. As we drove, I tried to pray but seemed all I could do is play various scenarios of how our conversation would go once I arrived at the hospital. I thought this is it, we can now get help for her. This is the perfect time to intervene. After all, nobody says "When I grow up I want to be a drug addict."
We arrived at the hospital. As we entered the mental ward nothing could have prepared me for what I was about to face. My daughter's body sat upon a table, but the face and voice were not my daughters. Her grayish hazel eyes were as black as midnight, empty black cavities that looked everywhere but nowhere at the same time as she constantly but slowly turned her head in a perfect horizontal motion from right to left scanning the room without acknowledging our presence. I began to pray silently asking God to fill my mouth with what to say. Just then, an older nurse around 70 years of age came in the room with a syringe and some tubes to draw blood. She was studying Heather's arm for a vein. As she tapped on several places on Heather's arm, she commented, "Honey you have about blown out every good vein, but don't worry, I'm pretty good at this, I have been doing it for a very long time."
Heather went from scanning the room back and forth in a very straight right to left, left to right motion to a very robotic stop then scanning downward to look at her arm. out of her mouth, in a voice I did not recognize as anything but pure evil and hate, she said in a creepy deep tone "I am better at hitting a vein than you are."
I knew exactly what I was up against at that moment. I had a glimpse of hope. "Lord, I'm going to cast that demon out!". "Not now, it's not time." were the words I heard from the small still voice deep inside me. I was so heartbroken all I could do was grab my husband's hand and say, let's go home as tears streamed down my face.
From that moment on I spent a lot of time in prayer. She had overdosed 2 other times. I took care of her daughter most of the time. I hated taking her home because I didn't know what might happen to her.
Then one day my phone rang. A little prayer warrior woman was on the other end of the line. Not only was she a prayer warrior she was one of my best friends. "April, can you come over right now? God gave me the prayer strategy for Heather, she’s getting free!" What do you say to that? "Yes! Yes, I can come over right now!" I jumped in my car and made the three-hour drive to her house in about two hours.
We spent the next several hours in deep study and prayer as she took out her Bible and began teaching. She turned the pages of her extremely highlighted well-worn Bible to the scripture in Psalm 146:8 that says, "The LORD opens the eyes of the blind; The LORD raises up those who are bowed down; The LORD loves the righteous;".
She explained that she saw in a vision that Heather was under a heavy yoke. A yoke is a heavy wood device for joining together a pair of draft animals, especially oxen, usually consisting of a crosspiece with two bow-shaped pieces, each enclosing the head of an animal.
She saw Heather yoked with blinders. The yoke would keep her head down while she was driven to her death by the demonic force of drug addiction. The blinders would keep her from seeing the way of escape. We had to remove them! and we had to do it quickly! It was as if a window of opportunity had opened and all of heaven was on call and ready to move.
We began to pray using several biblical scripture references that supported what we were asking for.
As we took our authority over principalities powers and spiritual wickedness in high places like we are told to do in Ephesians. In authoritative voices, we commanded the devil to take the blinders off of Heather so that the light of the gospel would shine in her eyes according to 2 Corinthians 4:3-4 . We then by faith said, "I break the yoke that has tightly bound Heather to the spirit of addiction."
When we were finished, we did not feel any different, the walls never shook, we didn't hear heaven rejoice. As a matter of fact, nothing was different with Heather. She was still using, partying, and whatever unthinkable thing that an addict would do. It didn't matter, because I had Mark 11:23-24 – “For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says. Therefore, I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you have already received them, and you will have them.”
Faith does not go by what it sees or hears. Faith stands firm on what the Word of God says. Even though things looked ugly, we never spoke anything but the word over Heather.
A week turned into two weeks. nothing in the natural had changed. We were going on the third week when sometime in the wee hours of the night I woke up wide awake for no apparent reason. The room was very dark I could only see the silhouette of objects that sat in the room such as a treadmill that my husband called my walk-in closet. I turned my head to the left because I caught a glimpse of something. When I looked, to my surprise I saw him..it.. in full color laying on his side with one hand on his hip, a long stem rose between his gnarly teeth and a very smug toothy smile that took up a good amount of his ugly face.
This was a demon that appeared in the form of a man. Not just any man. But a very eccentric looking man with shoulder-length curly fuzzy dark brown hair. His pale skin was acne pitted. He appeared to be the age of someone in their mid to late 30’s. His teeth were hideously crooked and a gnarly shade of yellowish-brown. His clothes looked like they came right out of the 1800’s or maybe from the dressing room of the movie "Alice" starring Johnny Depp. He was wearing a very tall dark purple crushed velvet top hat and a suit jacket with tails to match. Around his neck, he wore a cravat that was tucked into his matching vest.
I instantly knew without a doubt that this was the spirit of addiction! I was so livid that this creeper had the nerve to show up in my bedroom. On my bed! Looking at me with this smug look on his face as though he won a huge prize. I saw my arm materialize into full color as I curled my hand into a fist I was thinking as from deep in my spirit, "Get out in the Name of Jesus!" before I could audibly repeat what I heard myself think, I saw myself punch him in the face. As my fist was meeting his face and my deep spirited words were rolling out, he disappeared and so did my full-color arm and hand. Everything in the room became a silhouette again. I pondered, "Why did he have a rose between his teeth? What does that have to do with addiction?"
The next morning, I called a friend and told her everything that had happened. I asked the questions, "I wonder why he had a rose between his teeth? What does that have to do with addiction?" Her immediate response was so right on! She exclaimed, "It was a tango rose!" I began to study tango.
Tango music is a distinctive style of music that originated in the late 18th and 19th centuries. There are many different tango music songs. It has died down then emerged back in full power many times over the years not to mention all over the world as well. The Tango even has lyrics to go with the seductive dance. The woman will pull away in order to leave but the man seductively pulls her back to himself with force. It is the same dance the spirit of addiction seduces the addict with. They try so hard to get clean but seductive addiction pulls them back into the abusive love/hate relationship they have with the drugs.
What does this have to do with anything? It has everything to do with the final outcome! The day of reward! The fruit of our labor! The fulfilled prayers of that faithful day.
The spirit of addiction was trying to bluff me! It had lost a grip and the only way to get a grip would be to trip up my faith by getting me into fear so that I would say the wrong thing to deactivate our prayers. God is so good! He will give you a plan and the strength to carry on even when it seems like nothing really happened.
Within a few days, I receive a phone call. It was Heather, she sounded like she was crying but not upset. "Mom, something happened to me! I was sitting here, and I got so scared, I went into a panic. I was crying and crying. My mind was racing, and my heart was beating out of my chest. I called on Jesus and a peace I never experienced filled me and it filled the room and I knew everything was going to be ok."
Heather made a commitment to God that day. That was the day she was delivered from the spirit of addiction. There were no rehabs, there were no severe withdraws. Heather is clean to this day.
Please follow livingsupernatural on FaceBook to keep up to date on the progress of my book and read more supernatural posts!.
Disclaimer: If you have not made Jesus LORD and Savior of your life Do not try casting out demons. It is only by the protection through salvation that anyone can cast out demons safely. If you would like to know Jesus personally by making Him Lord and Savior in your life but don’t know what to do. Send me a message. I will be happy to assist you.
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February 2, 2021
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