You know, I see my mother and my sisters drive off.

That's kind of when everything-- my life--

went down with his.

NARRATOR: Eight-year-old David [INAUDIBLE]

never thought his parents would divorce.

But the signs were there.

I noticed my mother and father started arguing more.

I noticed the fights started getting more violent.

My father started getting more violent.

NARRATOR: His father's discipline

had also become more harsh.

But David held onto the good memories before things got bad.

I had a lot of respect for my father.

I love my father.

He was abusive, but I still love my father.

So we had that, you know, connection.

NARRATOR: So it was decided he would stay with his dad

while his two sisters went with their mom.

From there, the abuse and drinking only got worse.

DAVID: He started going to the bars every night.

The house started getting louder, sex in the house.

It turned into a home that I didn't even know.

And not only that, there was mental abuse.

You're a flunky.

You're a loser.

NARRATOR: At 11, David started drinking and smoking pot

because, according to his dad, it was the cool thing to do.

On the weekends, he stayed with his mom, who

tried talking to him about God.

But he was too angry and hurt to listen.

DAVID: She would always encouraged with bibles

and "God has plans," "things happen for a reason,"

and all the stuff you don't want to hear.

Even if there is a God, where is He at?

You know, why is this happening?

NARRATOR: In 11th grade, he dropped out of school

and became a small-time drug dealer.

He left his dad's and bounced in and out of drug houses

and was arrested numerous times.

Like his dad, he felt life was hopeless.

DAVID: Your mother's gone.

Your father's abusive.

You don't know what life is.

You have no value of life.

I had no value for life.

NARRATOR: That is until David's girlfriend told him

she was pregnant.

As he prepared to be a father, he

felt something he'd never felt before.

DAVID: Yeah, there was a hope that life was going to change.

And when I saw the heartbeat, it's like, wow.

This is where my life is really headed now.

You know, this is where it's really going.

NARRATOR: Then, without notice, his girlfriend got an abortion.

David was crushed and felt that, in some way, he was to blame.

DAVID: I had to get away because I knew my life was now

costing other lives.

And that's when I really started first

realizing that there needed to be a change in my life--

that, you know, I needed to do something with my life.

NARRATOR: David earned his GED, joined the Army Reserves,

and took a job at a steel factory.

But it was when he married and had

two sons that he felt he had found

what he'd been looking for.

DAVID: I always started trying to find that hope.

And it was all about family.

It was all about finding someone to marry, having kids.

And that would settle you down.

NARRATOR: David loved his sons and was never abusive,

but he never got over his need for alcohol.

He and his wife argued constantly and eventually filed

for divorce.

DAVID: When the separation finally happened

and everything started coming to fruition

is when I pushed farther away.

And I went to the only thing that I knew how.

And that was back to the bar scene,

back to drinking even more so.

NARRATOR: While waiting on the divorce settlement,

they shared custody of their boys.

DAVID: When my sons were around, I held it together.

It's when they weren't around that I went off.

NARRATOR: One night, David was arrested and jailed

for driving while intoxicated.

The divorce hearing was only weeks away,

and David feared he would lose all custody of his sons.

DAVID: And I automatically, at that moment,

felt a sense of brokenness that I'd never felt before.

My sons were really on my heart.

Like what are they going to do?

How's this going to all get fixed?

What's going to happen here?

NARRATOR: After his arraignment, David posted bail and went home

to await trial.

DAVID: Millions of thoughts went through my mind on what to do,

that I wasn't good enough to be a father.

Everybody I let down was probably

just better off without me.

NARRATOR: David turned on the television

looking for a distraction.

Instead he found a message of hope.

"The 700 Club" was on, and Pat Robertson was ministering.

Would you like that love?

At the end, when he said, "you have two ways to go right now--

you can go the way you're going, or you can accept Jesus Christ

as your Lord and Savior and choose the life that He has

for you," I was like, wow.

Is it really that easy?

Because I'd never heard that it was that easy before.

So I went in my back room, knelt down, prayed.

Lord Jesus, I believe you.

I need you.

It was a need.

It was a hunger and a thirst that I'd never felt before.

I remember I rose.

And I felt free for the first time,

like everything was going to be fine.

I was like, this is like a wow factor, you know?

Everything was going to truly be OK?

NARRATOR: David got himself into a rehab facility,

where he started reading his bible and praying.

And he discovered the true meaning

of being a man and father.

DAVID: I didn't have a father figure to look up to,

but I had God.

And, wow, did He reveal His true identity to me.

And through that time, He equipped

me to be a better father, to be everything that my sons needed.

So all that fear was gone.

All that fear of what's ahead was gone.

You know, all that fear of who I was going to be was gone.

NARRATOR: Freed from his addictions,

David showed up to his pretrial a changed man.

The judge counted his rehab as time

served and dropped the charges.

Two weeks later, he was in front of a judge again,

this time for a custody hearing.

I wore my faith on my sleeve and told the judge everything

about my faith, everything about my new-found hope and my plans,

and yeah.

So, two weeks later, I get a phone call from my attorney

that I won residential parenting rights.

We shared parenting, but they were allowed to go school

where I was residing.

NARRATOR: Today David is a pastor and ministers to people

suffering from addictions.

He's married to Rhonda.

And together they're teaching their family whose example

they need to follow above all.

DAVID: I'm encouraging.

I love them.

I'm their buddy.

I'm their dad.

I'm their friend.

But they know that there's one over me,

and that's their Father in Heaven.

And that's why I am who I am today.