AMAZING STORY
Imprisoned Addict Substitutes Alcohol for Living Water
By Randy Rudder
The 700 Club
CBN.com - “I was one confused and scared little girl. I would hide under the covers on my bed, or I would go into the closet and hide behind my clothes,” Susan Folger says. She could always tell when her parents had been drinking. “There was never any physical violence, but there was always verbal violence,” she says. “I got wrong messages about myself, about what love is, and about relationships.”
Susan says her home life made her feel like an outcast. “I didn’t really believe I fit in with the other kids,” she remembers. “I thought everybody else had successful and loving families and mine was not like that, and so I was probably angry at thinking that I had been dealt a wrong hand.”
She found that drinking and smoking marijuana helped dull her pain, and gave her a shot of confidence.
“I became the person that I thought I wanted to be. Very outgoing, very outspoken, and very loud,” she says. “I would get aggressive, thinking I was very witty, and funny, and entertaining, and actually, people probably wanted to run from me.”
Over the years her abuse of alcohol and prescription drugs affected every area of her life. She had two failed marriages and was later arrested several times on DUI charges. She felt helpless to change, and at one point, even considered suicide.
“I just gave up hope,” Susan says. “I was ruining my health. I was ruining my relationships. I was so unhappy, and making everybody that loved me unhappy, too.”
After a third DUI, she went into a court-ordered 12-step program. It opened her eyes to the possibility of a “higher power.” Seeking spiritual answers, Susan turned to the occult.
“I sought help through self-help books, and New Age-type books. I also attended séances, and psychic events and psychic fairs, and had Tarot Card readings,” she says. “I think that they actually made my life much darker. The bottom line was I was seeking peace, and I would have done anything, or paid anything to obtain that peace. It never entered my mind that I could reach out and ask for help from my creator – from God.”
Susan was given her fourth DUI after police pulled her over for erratic driving, and she tested positive for prescription drugs. Susan was then sentenced to five years in prison.
“I was absolutely stunned. I couldn’t believe it. ‘Oh, my gosh. I’m going to prison. I’m going to prison.’”
The only book that Susan was allowed to take with her was a Bible her sister had given her. With time on her hands, she started reading.
“Amazing things started happening as I was reading that Bible,” she recalls.
She also began to attend prison chapel services.
“As the days went on, and I got clearer and clearer, I realized how very messed up I had been for a very long time. God started working in my life in very personal ways, amazingly personal ways. In my heart, there had been brokenness, and in my heart, I asked the Lord to come in and change me. Jesus started becoming real to me. I started understanding that Jesus was—is—the Son of God.”
Early one morning, on the bunk in her prison cell, Susan surrendered her life to Jesus.
“I knew I was different. I had this love in my heart, this unexplainable, amazing love in my heart. I knew I was different,” she recalls. “I knew my life had changed, and I knew everything was going to be all right.”
Susan was released from prison a year later and left behind her addictions to drugs and alcohol and all involvement with the occult. She tells her story in her book, I Went to Prison to be Set Free. Susan now lives in Austin, Texas where she serves in a local church.
“Jesus is well aware of each person’s issues and of their struggles,” Susan says. “He’s their creator. He knows the hurts, and He wants to help, but He’s a gentleman. He has to be asked. He is there and He loves with an amazing love. He changes. He makes beauty from ashes in everyone’s lives, and He’ll do that for anyone.”
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