Struggling with bitterness, Arlene was determined to bring change in her life. She was tired of dealing with the way others treated her because of her mother’s illness. She did find change, but it wasn’t what she had anticipated.

Arlene grew up in the heart of the Navajo reservation. It was a simpler time, but her life was deeply effected by the stigma that her family was cursed.

After drinking for a while, it begins to take it’s toll on a man’s body. Jim knows… he drank for forty years. He was a wreck. But something happened one day that brought an end to his drinking, It’s something that would change his life forever. He was free.

Jim was on a quest for revenge on the one who abused him in his youth. “You can break up a man and not kill him. And so I went looking for him. Every time I went into one bar, he just left and went out the back way.” Something happened along the way though that changed his plans.

“Drugs are a horrible thing. I mean, I’ve hurt my family members, I’ve hurt friends… because I was so self-centered; I was very selfish, and that’s what sin basically is; it turns us into these selfish, selfish creatures that we only care about our wants, needs, desires, whatever. And drugs multiply that by a hundred.

The next day I was alive. I woke up, and it was just on my conscience heavy; “You prayed to God and you asked God, ‘get me through the night, and He did. What are you going to do?’”

Mario thought, “What am I doing with my life? I’ve got no future. I could not see a future for myself; all I could see was darkness, and the blackness of the darkness I felt that it was surrounding me at that moment, I could not even look into the future and say there was anything promising for me, and it was scary, it was scary for me.

When Mario was growing up, he got into alcohol, drugs and trouble like many he knew on the reserve did. With the deaths of two of brothers, Mario began to think that there must be a better way to live. This is his story of how he found it.

I’ve encountered other Native Americans who look at Jesus Christ as the Whiteman’s Gospel – as something that is harmful and hurtful to them. And so they try to leave you with a sense a guilt… “Well how can you be a Native – embrace something that is not Native, that is not of your culture, your background, and heritage? How can a person do that?

The road to recovery can be long. Everywhere he turned there was alcohol. If you’ve ever been there, you know what Chug is talking about. So how did he deal with the temptation and ultimately find victory? Thankfully, he tells us.