Come Now, My Brother!
(Lauderdale Lakes, Florida- June 26, 2007) Hidden in the good times, the party life, the alcohol, the social life, the screams, the fear, the violence, the abandonment and rejection, there is an unspoken message that unleashes pain, trauma and emotional scarring, through some form of addiction or other anti-social behavior; but for some supernatural intervention saving the day.
Gregory Hammonds remembers what life was like with his alcoholic parents, how his father and mother would fight all the time. One day after they got into it, his mother walked away and never came back. A day which he says “left a void in my heart.” After his mother left-- at four years old-- Hammonds started drinking with his father.
Through a twist of fate, a school accident costing him two of his fingers changed his living arrangements to his aunt’s house. In her loving care is where he was first introduced to church. As he puts it, “I was raised up in the church during my childhood and youth. I was smart, became an usher, very faithful and it was easy to catch on to God’s Word.”
Upon graduation from high school, he convinced his aunt to give him his savings and to let him pursue the call of the world, and she did. Hammonds struck out on his own to live a riotous life of drinking, smoking cigarettes, using dope, cursing, lying, fighting and stealing.
Hammond’s life began to spiral out of control when he convinced his drug addict brother to let him shoot up with him. In his brother’s words, “It was like creating a monster. We never had any more respect for each other. We only wanted each other for what we could get.”
“At first I was able to hold a job but then I couldn’t. I turned to begging, stealing, and picking up cans from sun up to sun down to support my habit. Things I never thought I would do. Yet I was too embarrassed to go into a program. I slept under park benches, in alleys, underneath houses, in trees. I was lost. People who knew me use to tell me that I could do better than this. I would go away and cry because I couldn’t. Drugs had me, riding me; I couldn’t break free,” said Hammonds
Hammonds recalls getting high and preaching to other addicts. He said, “It was amazing, they use to listen to me. It was like they were hypnotized. That’s where I got the name ‘Rev.’ I stopped playing with God like that but I kept on praying, asking, ‘God, help me. Save me. I don’t want to be like this.’ ”
Ten years ago Hammonds walked away from twenty years of drinking, doping, stealing, lying and fighting and has never looked back. Today he is a husband and father absent the craving for drugs and alcohol, gainfully employed and sharing his experiences with others in hopes their lives would be impacted by his story.
If you would like any further info, or would like to interview Gregory Hammonds, please contact him at Frank7@bellsouth.net or visit his web site at www.Comenowmybrother.com. Gregory has released his memoir called “Come Now, My Brother!” detailing his life on the streets and the turning point that cleaned his life up and restored him to wholeness.
Photo:
http://www.prlog.org/
