A Meth Empire's Unexpected End
“There were times where I'd be sitting there with a big pile of drugs on the table and a gun right next to it, and I would think, just do it. Just do a whole bunch of drugs and grab the gun. And I grabbed the gun a couple of times, and it was loaded and ready to go.” Kenneth Saul recalls the abusive environment he suffered in childhood that set him on a path of self-destruction and deep emotional pain. “It was drugs, alcohol, and violence. Those things sent me to a whole other level of hopelessness. At nine years old, one day I was crying, and I grabbed a belt—a cloth belt—and I wrapped it around my neck and tried to choke myself to death.”
He says the military provided some stability in his life after high school, but soon his emotional struggles came to light. “Before I got out of the military, I started cutting, you know, self-mutilation. I would actually get a razor blade and scratch words like ‘worthless’ and ‘hopeless’ into my skin. The pain you feel on your skin is just a reflection of the inward struggle that I felt in my heart.”
He was discharged from the army and began using drugs as a method to suppress his emotional chaos. He says, “I was surprised by how many drugs a person could do and not die. It was something I was just doing to overwhelm the pain inside. There was this emptiness, and I would just fill it with drugs. This led me into an overwhelming addiction to crystal meth. The longer I was in that world of darkness, my morals and standards continued to fade away until I found myself willing to do anything, including killing people or myself.”
For the next six years, he immersed himself in the drug world. Selling meth led to manufacturing it. Paranoia and hallucinations plagued his mind. Ken remembers, “There were days where I would just be like, oh, either my enemies or the DEA were coming to get me. There was always this dread that somebody wanted to do harm to me.”
It all came crashing down when he was arrested for cooking meth. While in jail and overwhelmed by a breakup letter from his girlfriend, Kenneth longed for death. “I would daydream about jumping off the second level and breaking my neck. I was sick of it. I had messed up every relationship, destroyed everything in my life, and there I was, sitting in a cement box. The weirdest thing happened: as I’m sitting there reading this letter, freaking out and banging my head against the wall, a guy that I knew from the streets looks into my jail cell and says, ‘Hey, Jesus loves you.’ I thought he was kidding. I was like, ‘Get outta here.’ But he was serious. He walked off, and I sat there thinking, what if God really is real?”
That night he visited an inmate Bible study and heard about God’s love for him. Afterward, he talked with the pastor. Ken remembers, “I was like, listen man, I don't know about your Bible or your Jesus or any of that. All I know is I want to die. I just don't wanna live anymore.” The pastor prayed for Kenneth. Later that night, he had a spiritual experience when his cellmate gave his life to Christ. “I didn't know why I was crying. It was the first time in my life I felt the Holy Spirit. That moment changed everything for me because I went from being a non-believer to being a believer. I experienced the reality of God. You'd see these grown men, hardened criminals, bawling in worship, crying out to God. It hit me deep down to the point where I got on fire for Jesus. This is who I am now. I'm no longer the person I used to be.”
But after his release from jail, he fell back into cooking meth. Kenneth says, “I was back doing the things that I used to do, but I hated it. It was like a holy war going on in my mind and heart. I remember getting back from a meth lab one night, crying, and praying, ‘God, please forgive me. God, please do something because I can't quit.’ My girlfriend, who is now my wife, and I both repented and gave our lives to Jesus. Since the first week of January 2007, we've been in the church every single week and have been clean ever since. I've been delivered from the way depression used to destroy my life. I used to live in an overwhelming sense of inadequacy and hopelessness, but I don't exist in that anymore. Jesus has delivered me completely. I thank God every day. Every day I wake up not dead or in prison, I say, ‘Thank you, Jesus.’ I don't deserve the life I have now. This is far beyond anything I could ever earn or work for. It's God's grace upon me, and I thank Him for His grace on this sinner's life.”
