FEATURES
From Killing Pain to Killing Himself
By Tim Smith
The 700 Club
CBN.com
–“I liken it to a monster,” says Fab. “A monster inside of me that could not be tamed.”
Fab Cusson was addicted to powerful painkillers. He saw no way out. It all started back in 1996, when Fab was on his way home from work.
“It was in a blizzard. A plow truck came right around the corner, half way in my lane. I just completely lost control of my truck. I slid off the road, and I hit a large oak tree. I immediately felt numbness in my face, and pain going down through my shoulder. I ended up in the hospital, by ambulance. They did some x-rays on me, and realized I had a C1-C2 fracture in my neck. They put two titanium screws in my spine, and they stabilized my spine so I wouldn’t be paralyzed.
“I started taking painkillers. In the beginning, it started off with 5mg Percocets - one or two every couple of hours. And Valiums and muscle relaxants, and in the beginning, I truly did need them because I was in a terrible amount of pain.”
A year later, Fab went back to work, but all of his customers and business connections had moved on.
“I just felt like I’ve lost my business,” says Fab. “I’ve lost everything I’ve worked towards. I started making the transformation from using the pain medication solely for the pain I was in, to dull a mild depression.”
Fab’s depression got worse, so he took more and more Percocets each day. Then he got hooked on Oxycontin.
His wife Jennifer was worried about her husband’s growing addiction.
“I started realizing how severe his addiction really was,” says Jennifer. “And that it was also affecting his organs in his body. And that scared me, because I kept thinking I’m going to lose him.”
“I started taking anything else I could get,” says Fab. “Whether it be Dilaudids, or Morphine, or whatever I could get on the streets, because the prescriptions they gave me wouldn’t last long enough.”
Jennifer prayed. “I said, ‘Lord, please, you have to change my husband. There has to be some miracle that occurs here because I’m going to lose him.’”
Fab remembers the time he accidentally spilled a bottle of pills on the floor.
“I wasn’t concerned that my four or five year old son might find one of those, and put it in his mouth, thinking it’s an M&M. What I was concerned about, is that I would lose that dose. Not that he would get it, but that I wouldn’t get it.”
One day he picked up the Bible his mother had given him years earlier.
“And I thought, ‘You know Fab, one of these days, you’re not going to wake up. Maybe what you ought to do is pick up that Bible, and at least if you wake up, you can go up, not down.’ And right away from Genesis 1:1, it started to unwind wrong thinking in my head. And it captured me. And I continued to read.
Fab had a dream one night.
“There was a light, and I was attracted to the light. I knew in my heart that it was Jesus, and He was calling me. He was saying ‘Fab, come to the light. You have to look in My face. Don’t look into the darkness. Look into the light of my face.’ And as I drew closer to the light, I felt the presence of God come over me. I was engulfed in his presence. I can’t explain it. It was better than the euphoria that the drug gave me.”
A friend invited Fab and his family to go to church with him.
“And he said, ‘Today, I’m going to preach on a message the Lord just dropped in my heart - that you have to keep your eyes on the face of Jesus, and not get distracted by the things of the world.’ And I felt like somebody just smacked me in the back of the head when he said that. And I thought, “You had tried everything you could to prove that God had not spoken to you in that vision,” and God is saying, “No Fab, I spoke to you. Keep your eyes on Me. Don’t stop reading the Bible. Don’t stop praying. Just keep your eyes on me.
“I was just awestruck by God. God you are real! This is not a fairy tale. You are really real, God! I didn’t know that! You are real, and you really talk to me, and you really hear me!”
Fab started reading his Bible every day, and learning more about God.
“I read in the book of Matthew, 11:28, it says, ‘Come unto me all you are heavy burdened, and I will give you rest.’ And that’s what was happening. He was giving me rest. I give You my burden. You give me Your rest. And I just turned my life completely over to the Lord, at that moment.
“It made my faith grow,” remembers Jennifer, “because I watched him grow, and having the head of our household changing in that way, his faith grew, my faith grew, the kids’ faith grew. It was an effect that went down through us all. It was really quite beautiful, actually.”
His mother Nona had been praying for him for years.
“There are times when we pray for our children, and we don’t see any answers right away. We have to surrender them to God. You have to admit to yourself, Lord this is out of my jurisdiction, but I give him to you, and I know you are faithful. I know that you can watch over him.”
“On March 5th, 2006, was the last day I ever touched a pill,” says Fab. “And I’ve been clean ever since. And I had a doctor tell me, “You will need Methodone the rest of your life, like a diabetic needs insulin.’ And I said, ‘No.That’s not true.’ Because the Bible says if you are in Christ, you are a new creation. Old things have passed, and all things are new. And I’m a new creation. My children didn’t have a father. My wife didn’t have a husband. And my parents didn’t have a son. He not only set me free, but He set my family free.”
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