My name is John Rice, and at 50 years of age, I can honestly say I never thought I would make it this far!

I was born in a large town called Dumfries in the South West of Scotland. My mother was of gypsy descent, and with other relatives we stayed in a wood called The Craigs. Basically it was a few tin huts; however it was my home for the first five years of my life.

My Dad was a painter and scaffolder and worked sub-contracting at the ICI factory in Dumfries. He was a pretty tough character. However he was good to me - teaching me survival tactics such as fishing and rabbit-snaring. He had a hard background of trouble with the police, resulting in him doing plenty of jail time. To give him his due, he tried hard to make sure I did not follow in his footsteps, but life was to teach me its own lessons.

At 18 years of age I began drinking pints of beer, having plenty of good money working as a painter and decorator with friends of my Dad. The problem with me and booze is that once over the limit of alcohol intake, my temper just flares up. Fighting was part of my life for many years. Living the hard-drinking existence usually pays off with trouble. No matter how hard I tried, nine times out of ten it ended in disaster. Police assault got me my first 3 months in Barlinnie, the notorious Glasgow jail. There were many prison spells, all connected with alcohol and my lack of self-control. After a two-year sentence I kept away from drink, got involved with a lovely lass, bought a caravan and pickup, started my own business, and for a year and more was pretty settled. However, I lifted a drink again, and soon it was all gone.

By this time my mum had left my dad, vowing to take no more beatings from him while he was raging drunk. So for a while I moved in with him. However, booze was the only relationship we had left.

All this time in my heart I'm wondering about life. Is this all there is? What's the point? Is God alive? And if so, what's going on. Most people think these things growing up - I was told you just have to 'accept your lot.' Again I 'dried out', tidied up and wised up, or so I thought! I met another good-looking local lass and married. The marriage lasted 5 years of turbulent rows - my bad behaviour, I just could not get rid of alcohol addiction - it was ruling my every move in life. As much as I loved my wife I could not leave the bottle. I lived inside it, with the cork on. Reduced to the status of the Town Drunk, I became totally oblivious of my existence, drinking myself into an unconscious state time after time.

I was so stuck on drink that I drank anything just to escape my own life - white spirit, cheap wine, cans of beer and on occasion the odd expensive whisky or rum or vodka - whatever!!! I was so far down that I had to sleep rough. I lost everything, including my dignity. So intoxicated I had become, that life was just a haze of stupid fights, arrests and prison sentences (so many I lost count). Sleeping rough in public toilets, old condemned property or under some pile of rubbish, I was beyond all help in my mind. Often I would wake up covered in faeces, stinking of urine and smeared in my own sickness.

Yes, I know it's disgusting, but truth is truth and it shows how low a weak and helpless soul can sink when they will not listen to reason. One time the police lifted me on a warrant for 12 charges of breach of the peace and drunk and disorderly. I said to the cops "I've never been so glad to be arrested, thank you." - Such was my depraved state. When they got me to the local prison, they had to hose me down and even then the encrusted excrement took ages to dislodge. I was down to 7½ stone and knew that I would not last much longer on the streets.

In Dumfries prison, an old friend of mine, who was now a Born Again Christian came to see me and told me about a place in Edinburgh, called Bethany Trust. Two representatives of the addiction charity came to see me. To cut a long story short, they secured me a place and on release from jail, I went to Bethany Trust in Edinburgh. JW, my friend in Dumfries, got me clothes and shoes, so I arrived tidy and clean. The staff were so very kind and genuine (No-one spots genuineness like a person who has nothing), and I thought, "I don't know what these people have, but I would love to be like them." I soon found out they had Jesus in their life, and over the next year or so I was convinced of the reality of God through Bible Study groups, church attendance, and encouragement from Bethany Staff. I became a Born Again Christian.

In 2000 my whole life changed, and my worthless life has now become very useful, as God uses me to witness at different churches and meetings, warning others of the dangers of not heeding God's warnings in the Bible. Read Proverbs 23 v.29-35, and you will read of alcoholism and its dreadful consequences. Also Proverbs 20 v.1 gives a clear account of drunkenness. Thank God He saved me; now I have a purpose in life, using the experience of my past to tell others of the danger of addiction to booze and drug crutches. Drink, drugs and any other form of escape from the reality of life will eventually come to an end, with a dreadful price to pay (Mark 16 v.16). Jesus is not Religion, Jesus is Reality. He gave His life on a Roman cross about 2000 years ago, so that a poor lost drunkard like John Rice could go to heaven. See John chapter 3 v.14-16.

Now through working with charities who reach out to people in the same state I was in, I realise that I have a place in God's ultimate plan for this world - what a privilege, what a pleasure. Please consider your life. Religion gives you a choice, but Jesus gives you a chance. Yes! Another chance to start afresh - accept his sacrifice on the cross as being for you (because it was) and he will come into your life and save you from your own sins, which, if not dealt with, will take you to hell.

To end with, let me say this:

There is only one God - 1 Timothy 2 v.5.

There is only one plan - 2 Timothy 1 v.16-17.

There is only one solution - John 3 v.16-21.

There are only two options - Revelation 20 v.15.

There is absolutely no escape - Heb 9 v.27.

There is very little time - 2 Corinthians 6 v.2.

The choice is yours - Romans 10 v.9-10.