"It was just a lot of chaos, and as it went on it got worse," is what Shane Kamban shared about his experience with decades of addiction.
Shane is now 7 yrs into his recovery, a successful business owner, and he is fulfilling his dream of running a recovery group called Life Recovery in Tuscarawas County, Ohio. Life is good these days, but decades of addiction nearly killed him.
As years of addiction grew so did his hunger for numbing the internal pain brought on by a deadly crack cocaine habit. His binges would take him into dark neighborhoods for "days on end."
"Going into my 30's I started to want to stop, but couldn't"
"Going into my 30's I started to want to stop, but couldn't," he explained as he candidly painted the picture of what addiction is really like. A trip to rehab in his early 30's began planting seeds of recovery in his heart even though on the way to his first rehab he said he, "seriously thought about jumping out of the car on the way there, it scared me to death."
Into his mid thirties it was relapses and more trips to rehabs as his addiction got worse and worse. "There came a point where the consequences finally caught up to me and the wife and the kids packed up and left...there were many times I was crying on my way to go use because I didn't want to."
He recalls the last night of his using as he was laying in bed with a pistol, "I didn't want to blow my brains out, I didn't want to live but I didn't want to die...it just felt like darkness dancing all around me...there was a moment when God spoke to me through my youngest daughter's voice and said please daddy don't we love you."
"there was a moment when God spoke to me through my youngest daughter's voice"
He remembers going to a prayer meeting that same night and laying on his face crying as he, "surrendered his life to Christ in a full way." He continued, "when I woke up the next day I was different, and I knew I was different. I woke up feeling like a different person. The urge to use was gone."
That moment was over 7 yrs ago and his work on the road to recovery began, but his lifestyle of addiction had planted seeds of confusion in his son Austin Kamban's heart.
Austin is now over 2 yrs into his recovery and is an up and coming Christian Hop Hop artist, but he recalls, "being very aware of the chaos in his home at a very young age, even at 6."
"There was nothing I wanted more then for everyone to just get along," he recalls about his childhood. "I remember going to school and just putting on a smile, and we would always, kind of, be protective of the secrecy of my dad's addiction," Austin explained.
"I would always fight on behalf of my dad, because I cared about him."
Even in the midst of the chaos growing up the now sober Christian Hip Hop artist stated, "I would always fight on behalf of my dad, because I cared about him."
He made a vow to never get sucked into the death grip of addiction, "even though my dad had these problems I just remember saying, I never ever want to do that...but what finally broke for me was when my parents got divorced."
Austin's determination to never touch drugs lessened and shortly after his parents divorced he tried marijuana, this opened the door to addiction in his own life.
"Instantly I was smoking weed every day, just to numb the pain," he shared. His addiction grew and eventually his life spiraled out of control with cocaine use and daily drinking.
His rock bottom came after he got into a 70 mph collision on the highway while blacked out from drinking and cocaine use. "I think I remember screaming, maybe," he expalined.
"I remember getting out of the car completely unscathed...to this day I know it was God protecting me," Austin expressed with conviction. By this point his father Shane Kamban was starting his recovery and had started his Life Recovery group. Austin began going to meetings after the near death experience on the highway.
"To this day I know it was God protecting me"
Early recovery was a bit of a struggle but he knew, "I don't have to run anymore. I can tell through these meetings and the transformation that my father had went through, and through what I was hearing, I was starting to learn that the problem was with me not with my dad."
Austin's relationship with God grew, "and that's when transformation started to happen." He now makes music that is focused on Jesus and recovery, he is involved in the community, he speaks in churches and recovery meetings and he helps others through his experience, strength, and hope.
The recovering father and son have a restored and healthy relationship these days. As the two of them sat on a couch in the foyer of the church they attend it was obvious that they are friends.
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