By Avia Ustanny, Freelance Writer 
Joseph Tai
THE SALTY liquid leaking from his eyes were washed away by water from the shower, but more came in their place as Joseph Tai stood in the bath thinking about his son.
He had seen him the day before, working in a local supermarket as an attendant. Two years had passed since the last time he saw him. Years before that, he had only seen him "off and on".
When he saw him at the supermarket, a wave of sadness, followed by regret, almost lifted Tai off his feet.
Tai, a career sales, marketing promotions consultant, greeted his son, asking him if he knew him. The young man answered, "Yes, I remember you, Daddy."
Tai then went home feeling depressed, and in the morning, while bathing and still recalling what could have been, Joseph Tai wept for his lost family, and the future of his only son, that seemed so much more challenging than it ought to have been.
Tai is a recovering drug addict, now two years free from cocaine's demonic embrace. After 20 years in its clutches, he has been clean for two years now, crediting his transformation to Jesus Christ, but he wishes that so many things were different.
Today, as he speaks about the moment with his heart and his tears revealed, he says that he heard a voice in the shower which told him that though he could not change the past, he should testify. "My purpose is to testify so I can transform the lives of others," he told Outlook.
Tai's two children are a daughter, now aged 25 and his son, who is 21. They do not have a good relationship.
"I guess because of my wayward lifestyle they are very cautious. Although I have been clean for over two years they are still skeptic," the father laments.
"Only time will educate them to the fact that I am actually a changed person. Until they see you living differently, they may not be convinced."
In his 20 years of dallying with cocaine, there have been periods of victory followed by disappointments. He stopped for periods of two and a half and even three years, but always the cocaine would prove to be too much to resist.
"I stopped using, but there were issues to be dealt with. The peer comparisons were what really kept me bound.
"I was always comparing myself to my school mates who were doing so much better than myself. I had been on my way to financial security."
The spectre of failure was always enough to send him running from reality and searching for a high. He was fortunate enough to retain employment during the period of his addiction. He also begged and conned his way into getting funds to buy cocaine. Sometimes he even stole. A favourite con, he recalls, was to tell people that he needed funds to go to the doctor.
Now, however, he is sure that the door on addiction has been closed permanently. A few years ago, the meeting with his son would have been enough to trigger a search for escape. Now, instead of running, he stands to testify. Christ is the source of his courage, he says.
AM I MAD?
IN 1980, Joseph Tai was living in Florida -- North Dade County with his wife and family which would soon include two children. He was a "high flier" in marketing, doing well on the job. He owned his own home.
"I was what you could consider an achiever, I was on my way to financial independence," he recalls.
But, he was also on his way into the wrong crowd.
"I was in with the jet set and started smoking crack along with then. I did it out of curiosity. It was a weekend party activity."
Soon, he was doing drugs every night. Soon he was addicted.
Joseph landed in trouble with the law. Returning to Florida from Jamaica, where he had left his children to spend the holiday, one summer, he was nabbed by US law enforcement officers and incarcerated for nine months for possession for ganja.
It was a bad break, but good in a sense. Tai stayed clean for a while. However, it was not long before he started the deadly habit. This time, it was out of a feeling of "dejection". His wife and children had disappeared out of his life. He had been served with divorce papers while in prison. Now, back on cocaine, it was an escape from reality.
"I started to lose a lot of things," he recalls.
His house was lost when he could not pay the lawyer who had defended him in the marijuana case.
Life became all about getting a high, his addiction, a seductive a vicious cycle.
"I tried a few things," he said.
Tai checked himself into Ward 21, the psychiatric ward of the University Hospital of the West Indies, in 1990.
"I thought I may have been mad. Knowing that I should stop, yet not finding myself able to, I thought I must have been mad."
He remained in the hospital for 28 days.
"At the time, they were just starting to consider treating drug addiction. They thought it could be done with medicine."
But, after he came out, he slipped back into drug usage. In 1999 he returned when some friends encouraged him to try the detoxification unit. From the unit he went straight to the Patricia House, another well known rehabilitation programme for drug users.
Here he was to stop three times, the last time begging that his stay be extended by three months. It was during this time that he learnt of Teen Challenge, the option for change that was to become his 'final solution.'
Tai's testimony
ON WEDNESDAY 1st March 2001, I showed up at the gates of Teen Challenge Jamaica in a state of brokenness. I was physically, I was financially and I was spiritually bankrupt. For over 20 years, I used, I abused and I had become a chronic crack addict and alcoholic.
The Executive Director, Pastor John David Steigerwald on seeing me, came out and enquired who I was. I gave him a precise version, and on hearing, he remarked that my life needed a change. I mustered a smile, because
I had known that for years. I just
couldn't find how to do it. Then he made a statement that was to have a significant and lasting impact on my life. He asked "Are you willing to give God a chance?"
I must have answered in the affirmative because a short while after, I was accepted on the premises. When he made the statement to me, it was not hard to make a decision because I had reached a place and state of desperation. I had tried medicine, I had tried counselling, I had tried abstinence, I had tried will power, I had even tried the obeah man, but could not break free from the bondage of addiction, which had dismantled my life. Over the period, my life had been ravaged by this scourge. It had gotten so bad that concerned persons thinking that I was beyond recall, got in touch with Brown's Funeral Home for the purpose of making arrangement for my coffin.
After sleeping in the Teen Challenge Observation Unit for the night, I woke up the following morning, and as I bent down to retrieve my shoes from under the bed, lo and behold I saw written on a piece of board, "Jesus Is The Way, He Is The Only Way."
From that moment my spirit seemed to have gotten an injection, which awoke it from the docile state that it had been in. After a few weeks in the TC programme, I started to get real uncomfortable, due to the fact that the programme is based on Kingdom truth and Kingdom order my life was full of lies and disorder. It was also revealed to me, that besides the three meals and two showers, Teen Challenge fed a very special daily diet of God in the morning, Jesus in the afternoon and the Holy Spirit at night.
My addictive and sinful nature was not comfortable with this recipe and I asked the Programme Manager for an audience in order to pay my respect and say goodbye. He invited me into his office and listened to all I had to say. When I was finished, instead of an outburst or uproar, I heard these words coming from behind the desk: "Are you turning your back on God. Are you running away from God?" On hearing these words, tears came flowing from my eyes, as I tried to control them, they flowed more and more. The last time I could recall shedding tears was when my grandmother, who had raised me, was buried in 1993.
I came out of Brother Austin's office that Wednesday the 28th March 2001, a different person. It was as if for the first time in my life, I heard God speaking to me directly. The following week, Friday 6th April, I answered an altar call at a church convention service, where I invited Christ Jesus into my life, not only to be my Saviour, but also to be the Lord of my life. On this same occasion, the Pastor as if divinely inspired and directed, laid his hand on me and on the 5th occasion that he did so he declared that the spirit of death should depart in the name of Jesus. It was the very first time that I was slain in the Spirit. That Friday night I was both physically and spiritually saved in the name of Jesus.
It was from that very moment that I realised that of all the names there is "Jesus! Jesus is the sweetest name I know." I then understood that if I cling to and follow His teachings, I shall know the truth and His truth will set me free, and "whosoever the Son sets free is free indeed." I am now confident that He who has started this good work in me, will see it to completion, until the day of Christ Jesus.
I am not yet in the promised land, but I have made a commitment not to return to Egypt. Therefore, now when I am faced with problems, pressure or pain, I do not have to resort to crack or any other substance, but to get into the most powerful position known to man (on my knees) and take it to the Most High God. Then His mercy and grace will see me entering His gates with thanksgiving, standing in His courts with praise and every fibre of my being will bless His holy name.
I am not yet where God intends
for me to be! But thanks be to the heavens, I am not where I used to be!
Love in the spirit
SHE LOVES him in all the ways it is possible to love a man, but she also cares for him and respects him as a Christian. This is the most important sentiment of all.
She will not give her name, but the 40-year-old fiancee of Joseph Tai is convinced that she has found a man who has given his life to God and who is 'living in purpose.' That was all she needed -- not man who could provide for her materially, but one who is purpose centred and submitted to Christ.
"He is very humorous, very articulate, very good with words," she says. She is also pleased with the fact that he is a reader, something that many men do not do. She has asked him directly How do you know that you will never use drugs again?
"He has answered me that he is relying on Jesus. That is all any Christian really needs."
Another close friend, a male who has known him from the 60s, says that he is convinced that Joseph Tai is walking a new path. The justification for this, he says, is the character changes which he has seen in him.
"I have seen honesty, humility. I have seen Christian principles being practised such as the willingness to forgive. His faith is strong. He seems to have a strong relationship with God. These things, among others, are a sound basis of recovery."
The one-year-old Christian rehabilitation programme at Teen Challenge has a success rate second to none, in its ability to turn around the lives of those who are ready for change. Independent surveys of the programme done by the United States Government have come up with a 'turnaround' figure of 85 per cent. Other secular programmes can produce no more than 15 per cent success rate in freeing clients from drug addiction.
The difference, says Joseph Tai (now the marketing and promotions officer for Teen Challenge in Jamaica) is that while other secular programmes teach clients only about their addiction, the "Teen Challenge programme teaches their students about Jesus Christ.
"There is one thing I know as a living fact. Whenever someone comes in contact with Jesus there must be a change. Teen Challenge presents G.O.D -- Good , Orderly Direction -- as its primary therapy.
"If you keep on journeying with Jesus after being introduced to him, if you have a relationship with him, there is no way you will slip back into the old ways."
He quotes Corinthians 5:17 which says, for those who are in Christ are new creatures... "From my experience the Jesus factor is what is really the foundation for one affected by addiction.
"Today I feel very confident of whom Joseph Tai is. He is a born again son of God. Even if I were not lacking in any material thing, I would not be as confident as I am. The material trimmings in life are secondary. It is true that they could bring a certain amount of ease. But, the most important thing to Joseph Tai today is to keep my relationship with Christ at a premium."
