‘I used to be on medicine at 11 and a vendor at 14 after being raped – now I’m a bishop’

He was a gangster and felony enforcer who turned to medicine at an early age after a horrific childhood expertise. Mick Fleming entered the darkish felony underworld in a bid to flee his ache within the 90s – however years later ‘divine intervention’ helped him depart it.

Mick was a troubled man when he noticed the person who raped him aged 11 and vowed to kill him. But one thing modified in that second and he left his life as a felony enforcer to hitch the church and assist others.

After turning into a bishop he has now launched a brand new habit challenge with a distinction.

Opening up about his personal habit, Mick defined he started utilizing medicine at age 11 after the rape and the dying of his sister Anne. To deal with each traumas he took a few of his mum’s painkillers and it led to 30 years of habit the place he tried each form of drug and substance.

READ MORE: ‘El Chapo of the Cotswolds’ accused of operating £5m drug racket tells prosecutors ‘deliver it on’

For extra drug-related information, click on right here

Speaking to the Daily Star solely he recalled the second he determined to get clear and discover God after pointing a loaded gun at himself.

He stated: “I had a gun in my hand and I had it under my chin so it was at the point of a suicide attempt. Thank God it didn’t work.

“In my mind then I believed that there must be a God or something because I wasn’t dead and I should have been dead. I put the gun under my chin and pulled the trigger and I knew it was loaded and he didn’t go off. I fired it later and it went off.

“It started a thought process in my mind that is there a purpose to my life? Was it divine intervention? If you just luck, then what do I do with it? So it made me ask a question, and that was the beginning of leading me towards faith.”

Mick admitted that one of many key moments in his restoration was selecting to forgive his rapist. After an opportunity assembly in McDonald’s he organized to satisfy his attacker and meant to kill him. He met an alcoholic who had their very own habit issues.

Seeing him in that means modified one thing and Mick determined to forgive. He added: “That changed something in me because I was going to kill him and I had this sort of understanding, of forgiveness.

“Not being the ‘it’s all right’, but forgiveness being ‘I don’t need to live in your sin’ or ‘I don’t need to live in what you’ve done’ and I got this absolutely massive feeling of peace. Without that, I probably would have relapsed or I’d probably be dead now.”

Now 14 years on, Mick has put his personal expertise and neighborhood work to make use of to assist others of their restoration. In partnership with Pastor Emma, they’re tackling the psychological, emotional and non secular problems with habit.

The Exodus Project is a twelve-week programme of three full days every week. People might be utilizing proper up till the day they begin the programme, however throughout they need to decide to abstinence.

“Christian recovery is really poor, what Christian rehabs are doing, it’s like it’s bad, it’s very unsuccessful and I’m a bishop, that’s me saying it”, Mick added.

“This is different. What we’re doing is we’re taking secular techniques and Christian belief and melding them together and seeing the person as a whole. But the shocker which I didn’t realise myself was some are getting clean, and sober, and their mental health is improving off the scale.

“The illnesses haven’t gone away, but they’re not being dominated. They’re not using it as an excuse, which makes the illness appeal less, so they get well. And honestly some of the the outcomes that we’ve been seeing have been absolutely mind-blowing. It’s crazy, really.”

• To discover out extra about The Exodus Project please go to right here.

Keep updated with all the most recent information tales by signing up for one among Daily Star’s free newsletters right here.