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Brandon Deel

Probably, most people don't know where their breaking point is until they cross it. For Brandon Deel, it happened when he was 14 years old. In the next few years of his young life, drugs became the driving force behind his existence. He tried every drug imaginable, but when a friend hooked him up with Methamphetamine (Crystal Meth), he was completely and unalterably addicted—after just one fix.

In the next 6 years, he went from being a user to being a dealer to being a cook to being a junkie. His life became a constant pursuit of the next fix, and he did whatever was required to make it happen. He lost the ability to maintain any amount of control. The drug occupied his every thought, and he immersed himself in the culture.

Many people who get to where Brandon went don't come back. I caught up with Brandon recently and asked him how he has recovered when so many others never do.
 

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bw: Were you raised with a Christian influence?

brandon: No, my mom used God in vague, general terms but nothing to influence me towards a relationship with God. I think it's important to know that my mom did the best she could under the circumstances. I had a wonderful childhood and nothing traumatic happened to send me over the edge. I was just ignorant.

bw: When you look back on things, it probably is a little mystifying how you got into this, isn't it?

brandon: No, I remember a specific starting point. It was at a lunch table when I was 14 years old. I had just moved to a new school and I was having trouble fitting in. There were kids all around and I desperately wanted to fit in and they were making fun of me for not cussing. Finally, I just had enough and I remember looking up into their eyes and saying **** you guys. They all just laughed and shrugged it off and at that point I started fitting in. It was at that point that I lost a little piece of myself. I gave in to the temptation and I gave in to what the world wanted. I remember that moment distinctly.

bw: So, it was a simple cuss phrase that you spoke that day, but it somehow represented a crossover of some kind?

brandon: Yeah, that was the start of what I call the Flesh Monster. It is compiled of pride, of anger, of jealousy, sexual sin, addiction, greed, money, power. For me, at that moment, that was the very first piece of the Flesh Monster.

From that moment, through junior high and into high school, you could just see me packing on the little pieces of what the world wanted me to be. I started cussing. I started smoking cigarettes. Started drinking. Started having sex. I became a habitual liar; I would say anything that would make me look good. Drugs. Harder drugs. I just kept packing on all these pieces of the flesh monster until I was no longer recognizable; until I no longer knew who I was. Little did I know it would all lead to what would eventually take me down: crystal meth. The Flesh Monster had surfaced. I indeed became a monster.

bw: As you know, many people who begin to live the way you were are never able to correct their course. How is that you were able to find your way back when so many others never do?

brandon: Well, there really is no better answer than the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. However, if you or a loved one are going through an addiction and need a 2-step answer:

• First, I have to give the credit to my mother. Without her unfailing and unconditional love, I could have never beat this thing. She was always gracefully there  for me—never enabling. When the streets were done with me, they would wash me up to her door and it was always open. It wasn’t tough love, it was just love.
  
  

• Second, run! Run as far away as you can from anything or anybody resembling your old life. Just run. If you can’t run, crawl, but get away.

bw: This logo you've given me for Operation Soul Patch. This represents your recovery experience?

brandon: Well, I call the whole recovery experience Operation Soul Patch. I designed this logo that symbolizes what's happened to me. The concept is from that of a loom which takes a tangled, knotted mess through a filtration system and is reduced to a single element. It's a reduction theory inspired by my own testimony.

For the past 4 years & 10 months, I have been wrestling with some of life’s toughest questions to better understand my recovery process. The why? I've come to the realization that there are too many factors to explain the human condition. However, in my opinion, I feel like there is something that all of mankind has in common, and I have come up with this thesis: There is a monster inside all of us—a monster capable of being the worst and doing the unthinkable. For some, it’s small and suppressed, but others feed it until it rises to the surface like a sleeping giant, ready to wake.

I feel like, as long as we have half-a-brain and can make decisions on our own, we are capable of becoming monsters if a few circumstances are changed. I believe we all have a HEADLINE to our lives. Mine reads, “Meth Addict Strives to turn things around.” Your headline might read differently, but I believe it would tell the same story, and thats the story I named Operation Soul Patch.

bw: So, your caution to others who might be tempted to take a path similar to yours would be?

brandon: I guess my caution is to be aware what we are capable of. I feel like the sooner we recognize the monster the sooner we can start fighting it and prevent it from destroying us.

bw: Obviously, you are a very different person now than you were then. How do you explain the change?

brandon: This is the amazing part of the story because, when I look back, it's so clear. After years and years of drug abuse and constant tribulation and drama in my life, after 2 arrests and a felony charge, after losing the trust of all my friends and all my family and putting them through hell, after completely losing myself, I remember being so depressed and wrestling with the question of what I should do. If you can imagine me building up this big ball of mess and I'm going at a hundred miles an hour and all of a sudden I hit this brick wall. This person that I thought was me hit this wall and all the little pieces of the flesh monster that I was packing on broke off and fell all around me. Even the flesh monster will succumb to it's own destruction. That was the case at that moment. I was standing there and looking at this shell of a man that I no longer knew. I didn't recognize myself, I had no idea who I was as a person. My inner character was flawed completely.

bw: How old were you when this happened?

brandon: Twenty-one. I was just standing there, a shell of a man, and I don't know who I am and I just remember thinking, I've got to turn my life around. I've got to change; I can't keep doing this, and I've tried my own way and nothing worked. I had this sense that I needed to turn to someone who is bigger or better than me. And I didn't know what to do. I hit my knees and started crying and I said, "God, I'm a lying, cheating drug and sex addicted animal. I'm a monster and I want to change. Please change me." And, from that moment, I stood up and I just knew what I had to do. I knew I had to run away from old friends. I knew I had to move away, remove myself from my scenario and seek God.

bw: So you recognized that this "direction" you were receiving was from God? You must have believed in God to a certain degree?

brandon: I must have believed in God to a certain degree, but there was a lot I didn’t know. What I did know was, I needed to take action, quickly, desperately.



I remember standing next to a corn field as a child thinking, there's got to be something bigger than what I see. My mom always said that there is a God. However, I don’t know if she understood religion or Christianity. But, she just said that in general terms; you better be good or you're going to go to hell. Plus, I think I was influenced by my high-school-sweetheart, Audrea. She was with me the entire time, although she never got caught up herself with all the destructive behavior. She believed in God and I'm sure had an influence on me.

bw: So, from that point, did it begin to feel like you were walking with God?

brandon: It didn't all happen at once. I moved away when I was ready to quit. I moved to Fort Wayne, removed myself from my previous scenario and friends. A year went by and I found out about Pastor Paul Mowery and ended up at Harvest Fellowship in Leo, Indiana. I started reading the Bible and slowly God started to reconstruct me as a person. He started to reconstruct my life the way He wanted it to be. When your character is so flawed, it's impossible to just rewire the way you think. I knew it was going to take something great to reconstruct me. That's what God did.

That four-letter cuss word that I shouted at my friends when I was 14 has now changed to another four-letter word: Love. To hope. It's changed to mercy, grace, faith. Those things about my character just changed. I stopped lying. Heck, I even stopped littering out the window! If I could paraphrase a quote from Plato, it was like I had the open sense of a child but the ripe facility of a man who steps out of a cave for the very first time to see the world. And that's what it was like for me: Seeing the world for the first time.

bw: So what's the future for Brandon Deel? What does life look like to you now?

brandon: Well, I'm taking my life back and it's full of hope and it's full of faith, and it's all because of a promise that God made through Jesus Christ that there is hope and there is something to work for and we're not just here to fulfill our own desires and our own needs and to take on that monster just for our own enjoyment. There's a purpose and we're here to serve God and to serve man and to love each other. There's so much joy in that and it's so fulfilling...there's just so much purpose.

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Brandon is now 26, has one semester of college left (he's a graphic designer) and is engaged to Audrea. As soon as he can get his financial bearings, he's planning to start a design business called Threadhead. He attends Harvest Fellowship on a regular basis and is involved with church studies and activities.

Brandon's story is the first in a new series called Spotlight on the Harvest Fellowship website. As new stories are added, you can check out other people's stories on the archive page.

Story & Photography by Brad Wieland.

published 07/26/2010