“I had broken a front tooth out and had to go to the dentist. By this time, I was many years into my addiction….so when I got to the dentist in Santa Fe, they could see that I had been drinking and they called my husband to pick me up and I was like…why did you call him? I’m fine!  I got back in the car, drank some more, and started to drive home. The cops started following me, they tried to pull me over and…I took them on a high-speed chase. I was out of my mind. I hit a few other cars during the chase. You have to realize that I was completely blacked out. I didn’t know what I was doing. I remember bits and pieces but….anyway…I hit a kid on a motorcycle.

I woke up in the hospital. I was handcuffed to the bed. I looked up and there was a cop standing there. He looked at me and said: ‘Oh, its nice that you’re awake. It’s nice that you’re gonna make it ‘cause the kid you hit is fighting for his life and probably won’t make it through the night.’

All I wanted to do was kill myself. I reached for the cop’s gun and tried to pull it ‘cause I wanted to die. We struggled and they came in and sedated me. When I came to I was in a cop car and I was headed to county jail. The drugs were wearing off and…oh my God, what did I do?

I started bargaining with the Lord. Just trying to make deals with God to let this kid live.

When I was in jail I got this phone call. I didn’t want to take it. I was sure they would tell me the kid was dead. But it was my mom and she said; ‘Shannon, you’d better get to your knees right now. You get to your knees and you thank God ‘cause that kid you hit just walked out of the hospital with only scrapes and bruises and they don’t know how. They’re calling him a miracle.’

I knew right there it was the Lord and I knew then it was my time to fulfill my side of the bargain. One of the bargains I made was that if I ever drank or drugged again I’d put it on my kid’s life. So, it was about fear. If I ever used again, God would take my children. I got to make good on my deal. You don’t mess with God.

By the tenth day, I finally broke it. I stayed up for nine nights straight. Didn’t sleep. I fought the withdrawals. You see, we are spiritually sick. We’ve been taken over by demonic forces that tell us how worthless we are. We are in bondage, wrapped in chains and breaking free is pure hell. You see, by the second day you feel so bad you think you’re going to die. You don’t have control of your body, you don’t have control of your bowel movements. You don’t have control of your arms or your legs. They just flail around. And on top of that there is the mental anguish. You can’t stop thinking about it. You want it. You’re crazy. You got to understand that people can’t easily get off drugs. It was like an exorcism. That evil entity inside of you is starving and it is fighting back. So, I held onto my Bible. I fought it in fifteen-minute increments. If I can just get through this fifteen minutes God will power me through the next fifteen.

On the tenth day, I felt the hand of God. Peace came through me. I felt like I was a new creation. I opened the Bible to Revelations 2:10 and it said: ‘behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that you may be tried; and you shall suffer for ten days: be faithful and I will give you the crown of life.’

I had trauma from my childhood. I had trauma from some bad things the cops did to me over the years. I learned that, if I’m going to heal, I have to let those things go.

So, there I am. Home. Clean. I was going back to school. I’ve got my shit together. I’m moving ahead. Eight months later the court calls me in. I go. They judge decided to send me up for four years! They arrested me and took me straight to prison without letting me say goodbye to my family.

I knew this was God’s will. It took me out of my comfortableness and tested me. In prison I did this in-treatment program that made me look inside. It really made me look at my trauma. I took out all that dirt and started to deal with it. Going to prison was a Godsend. I got ordained, I started teaching anger management classes and I started preaching. I decided, this is what I wanted to do with my life.

I got out after two years. I knew I had to do something for the Lord. I got out there and started giving out sack lunches and blankets to people in need and telling them about the Lord. I was advocating for getting a shelter opened for the homeless. We did it and…man, does God open doors. I landed this job managing the homeless shelter. How does that happen? I just got out of prison! How? God.

I wrote a book. It’s called “Breaking the Chains by the Supernatural Power of Jesus.” It will be on Amazon, Barnes and Nobels and all the places. I want to be able to tell the people: Hey, I know the way out. Come on. Follow me.”

 - August 2022