Participants: Cheri Peters (Host), Shelley Quinn
Series Code: CLR
Program Code: CLR000107A
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00:01 The following program discusses sensitive issues
00:03 related to addictive behavior. 00:04 Parents are cautioned that some material 00:06 may be too candid for younger children. 00:10 Today I had a cancellation. 00:12 So I had to pull somebody from the hallway 00:14 to do this program and I love her. 00:16 Shelley Quinn is going to be on. 00:18 You guys are gonna love her. 00:19 Come join us. 00:49 Welcome back. 00:51 And as I said in the beginning is that what happens 00:54 when there's a cancellation 00:55 I have no way to know that in advance. 00:58 An emergency came up and I'm thinking okay, 01:01 we have the schedule. 01:03 We have a schedule for the program 01:04 and the show and all that kind of stuff 01:06 and I thought, wait a minute. 01:07 I am at 3ABN. 01:09 There are some incredible men and women of God 01:11 just walking the hallway. 01:13 And so I thought about who would fit best for this season, 01:16 'cause we're talking about the season, 01:17 about how to not only come out of addiction, 01:21 come out of all that kind of stuff 01:22 but how do you allow God to build you up. 01:25 Where do you get your strength from? 01:26 How do you do the transformation? 01:28 How do you change everything? 01:29 And I thought, oh, Shelly. 01:33 And it was really fun, 'cause going up to you and saying, 01:36 "Shelley, you know, I had a cancellation. 01:38 Can you come and just hangout with us for a while?" 01:41 And immediately, absolutely. 01:43 It's my joy to do this. 01:44 Don't know what we're gonna be talking about 01:46 but I'm glad to be here. 01:47 And we wanted--I wanted to have you on the program 01:49 for a long time because I just--I love what you do. 01:52 I love your teachings and the material 01:54 that you put together. 01:55 And so for people that are watching this, 01:58 maybe in a rehab center, in a jail, 02:00 or they have to be somewhere in a desert not to know 02:04 who you are if they are watching 3ABN, 02:05 'cause you have your own program on 3ABN. 02:07 And--but for people that don't know you, 02:10 can we start with your journey? 02:12 Can you kind of walk us through some of that? 02:14 How far back? 02:16 I would say all the way back 02:17 because I know you and I know that, 02:18 you know, some people look at you and say, 02:20 "You know what? 02:22 She probably you know, has always been 02:24 kind of that woman of God and standing tall." 02:26 But you haven't. 02:28 I mean you have struggled and you know 02:29 like--a lot of the guests that we have on the program 02:32 as you know what it feels like to be surrounded 02:34 by dysfunction and trying to stand up. 02:36 And so I would say if you could-- 02:40 Just a quick testimony? Yeah. 02:42 Okay, first of all mine pales by comparison. 02:46 I thought I grew up in an extremely 02:47 dysfunctional environment but when I listen to your story 02:51 mine pales by comparison. 02:52 But my parents were divorced when I was 4 years old. 02:56 My father got custody of me. 02:58 My mother got custody of my baby sister 03:00 who was 3 months old. 03:02 And we moved thousand miles away. 03:05 Moved in with my grandparents 03:07 and then my father was a commercial pilot. 03:09 So he ended up leaving and I was left with grandparents. 03:12 My grandmother wanted me, my grandfather didn't. But-- 03:15 And you kind of know that as a kid. 03:17 Oh, yeah, you'd really know that as a kid. 03:19 And so here I am, you know, 03:21 about 5 years old at this point 03:22 and just felt like I didn't belong. 03:26 And according to my grandmother, 03:27 letters that my grandmother sent, 03:29 I found out that I cried myself to sleep every night 03:32 for my mother and my baby sister. 03:34 So my father was killed in a plane crash 03:37 when his own plane, it went down when I was six. 03:41 I was reunited with my mother who remarried. 03:44 Reunited as far as going back 03:46 and living with her. Going back. 03:47 I went back to live with my mother 03:49 but I felt a certain estrangement 03:52 from the family and my stepfather didn't want me. 03:57 I was somebody he had not planned on, bargained for. 04:02 So my mother ended up divorcing him 04:04 and then she was single till I was 13. 04:07 She married an alcoholic man. 04:09 He was an engineer. He was very abusive. 04:12 You know, I want to go back to the point 04:13 where you end up going back 04:15 and did you ever have a sense of, 04:19 they really could send me away at any point? 04:20 You'd been--do you know what I mean? 04:22 It's like am I gonna stay here? 04:25 Are you guys gonna keep me? 04:27 I grew up with a great fear of abandonment 04:29 and because of that I was a perfectionist. 04:34 And I tried to do everything perfect. 04:36 I was always performance oriented. 04:38 You know, if I can just do 04:40 more people are gonna love me. 04:41 And they're gonna keep me. Yes. 04:43 And I was a straight A student 04:44 and it was like you don't make a B. 04:46 You know, you wouldn't dare think to make a B. 04:49 It was an interesting thing because 04:52 I think especially when my mother remarried. 04:54 My mom was a neat lady. 04:57 She was different. 04:58 You know, she stayed up till 2 o'clock every night. 05:02 When I was in first grade I got myself off to school 05:05 and I had to be very quiet, not to wake up 05:06 my mother and my baby sister. 05:08 So my life was different because my mom was different. 05:12 What I didn't know is my mother was bipolar 05:14 because when she started really exhibiting this, 05:18 when she married the alcoholic 05:19 she decided if you can't beat him, join him. 05:21 And so she started drinking real heavily. 05:24 Self medicating more than likely. 05:27 Yeah. And so here we've got--you know, 05:30 I have this abusive stepfather who is an alcoholic 05:33 and I just feel-- I mean we moved. 05:36 Every 6 months I was in a different school, 05:38 every semester for 3 years. 05:41 And you feel like, you know, I became very timid, 05:46 very withdrawn and very quiet. 05:49 And things at home were a wreck. 05:50 I want you to talk about because a lot of people 05:53 never talk about what happens when a parent is struggling 05:56 with a mental illness or with bipolar 05:58 or with any of that kind of stuff. 06:00 Is it--your home life is really different, you know. 06:03 And you learn to adapt to a crazy kind of environment 06:08 but that environment becomes your norm. 06:11 I think for me the hardest thing 06:13 was that I can remember times in my life-- 06:16 I loved my mother very much, you know. 06:18 And once she was finally diagnosed 06:20 and went on medication 06:22 she could be pretty normal for a couple of years at a time 06:25 but she would then go off of medication purposely. 06:28 So we went through-- every 2 years 06:30 we would go through about 3 month spell 06:32 where it was literally insanity at home. 06:36 But what hurt me the most 06:39 I think is the advice of my grandparents. 06:41 My mother grew up in a very dysfunctional environment 06:44 and my grandparents were pillars of the community. 06:49 A lot of people didn't know what went on in their home 06:51 but what hurt me the most was my grandparents would say, 06:54 "You know, you cannot tell anyone what's going on. 06:57 You don't want anyone"-- there was this shame. 06:59 It wasn't business and... Yes, yes. 07:01 And so-- What would they think? 07:03 Here I was as a teenager trying to handle this at home 07:07 because they wouldn't help me handle her. 07:09 And when I say handle her, 07:10 what does 15 or 16-year-old do, you know? 07:13 You really don't know what to do. And-- 07:16 When you say handle her, color that for us. 07:18 What does that mean? 07:20 Oh, well, I would come home from school 07:23 and she always took it out on me. 07:26 I was evidently very much like my father 07:29 and so this was something 07:30 that--I know my mother loved me. 07:32 There was never a question. 07:34 But there was complete disparity in the way 07:36 I was treated and the way my sister was treated. 07:39 Because I would, you know--my sister who did, 07:42 by the way, take the drug addict route. 07:45 I mean the way she handled all this dysfunction 07:47 was to become an addict. Right, she's got right. 07:49 But for me I just kept trying to be perfect. 07:53 And my mother would tell me, 07:54 "You know, you never needed me as a child. 07:58 You've always been perfect 07:59 and that's why I love your sister more." 08:01 So when she would have these episodes, 08:04 any animosity she felt toward my father came out to me 08:09 and it all ended up on me. 08:11 So you get this barrage of stuff. 08:13 It's like-- Oh, yeah. 08:14 Because I mean, you know, I'm-- 08:16 I mean it doesn't-- I don't want to paint 08:19 a horrible picture of my mother but I've been pulled around 08:22 the house by the hair on my head. 08:23 I've been pretty--you know, things would get very intense 08:27 and my mother was the type that could cycle 08:30 and be at a manic phase and 30 minutes later 08:33 be down in the dumps and in a manic phase. 08:35 And she'd go for weeks without sleep 08:37 which meant I went for weeks without sleep. 08:39 And, you know, what I think-- Because I wasn't allowed. 08:41 What I think is really interesting about a household 08:44 is in the middle of that craziness 08:46 because you are taught to not take that family business 08:49 outside the door at all, if somebody knocked 08:52 on the door or called on the phone 08:54 all of a sudden everything's normal. 08:55 Oh, absolutely. 08:56 And even if I went to the psychiatrist with her, 08:58 when she'd get in front of the psychiatrist 09:00 and I'm--oh, I was so frightened to say anything 09:03 because she's sitting there giving me dirty looks 09:05 while we're talking with him like 09:06 "don't you dare say anything." 09:08 And I'm sitting there pleading with my eyes 09:10 like "please help me," because it was-- 09:12 when I say handle her, it was left to me 09:15 to try to either get her back on her medication 09:18 or get her into a hospital, even as a teenager. 09:20 My grandparents wouldn't step there. 09:22 And her psychiatrist, she would go and act 09:25 barely normal in front of him and he'd say, 09:27 "Oh, let her go off medication. 09:29 She's having a little fun." 09:30 And I think a little fun, you know, 09:32 I've nearly been killed. 09:34 I've nearly--I'm going through just sleep deprivation 09:39 and she would hallucinate when she would go through 09:41 her sleep deprivation. Exactly. 09:42 So things were not pleasant at home. 09:45 And, you know, what's interesting 09:48 is when somebody says, you know, 09:49 my story is nothing like yours and not as bad as yours. 09:53 I think it's all-- it's all dysfunction. 09:56 Do you know what I mean? I think that, you know, 09:58 when I hear your story I think 09:59 that you really did learn to survive in a situation 10:03 where a lot of people like your sister 10:06 would just totally escape. 10:07 One thing when you said about reaching out to people, 10:10 I remember when I was in junior high school 10:13 and it had been 3 weeks, there had been no sleep at our house. 10:16 It had been just insanity. 10:18 And I--my--I was-- we'd just gone through 10:22 the divorce from this stepfather 10:25 and so I just was in a brand new school 10:27 and my biology teacher came to me 10:30 and dressed me down in the hallway. 10:32 And she said "I don't understand you." 10:34 She gave a pop quiz every morning. 10:36 She was my last class. 10:38 And so whatever assignments 10:41 she gave there was no studying when I got home. 10:44 There was no studying. There was no quiet place. 10:46 Because there was no quiet place 10:48 and then I've had to do the rest of my homework. 10:50 I did have one study period 10:52 that I had to do my written homework, 10:54 but she would give me this assignment. 10:56 And I'd always be a day behind. 10:58 And so these pop quizzes, 11:01 I was making bad grades on the pop quizzes. 11:03 And she said "You're the brightest 11:05 student in my class. 11:06 Why are you so lazy?" 11:08 And I'm sitting there just so sleep deprived. 11:10 I look like rocky raccoon 11:12 and everything in me I wanted to cry out, 11:15 "Please help me. You know, 11:16 I don't know what to do with my mother." 11:18 Will somebody help me? Will somebody help me? 11:19 But there was that code of silence 11:21 that you don't speak about the elephant in the room. 11:24 Do you know out of all of the people, 11:27 even in the café are viewing, there's so many people 11:31 that know that code of silence. 11:32 There's so many families that know 11:34 that when you walk outside this door 11:36 what happens here stays here. 11:39 And so, you know, I would love to hear, 11:41 'cause, you know, I know you as this incredible woman of God 11:45 in a loving relationship, all of that kind of stuff. 11:48 So, you know, how did you--how did that-- 11:52 how did you survive and how did you find God? 11:55 You know, because--was God in the picture at that time? 11:58 My mother believed in God. 12:00 She didn't go to church because she was divorced. 12:02 We grew up in Church of Christ 12:03 and they almost taught that that was unpardonable sin. 12:06 So she would not go to church. 12:08 Almost shunned when you get a divorce? 12:10 Absolutely, absolutely. 12:11 So my grandfather did take us to church 12:14 when we were young. 12:15 And I was in love with Jesus Christ. 12:19 I was, and as a teenager that's the only thing 12:22 that got me through is that I was there every time 12:25 the church doors opened. 12:26 And what is it about the promises of God 12:29 or who you knew God to be that comforted that child? 12:33 I think I knew that Jesus loved me because He died for me. 12:36 I didn't--I had a very tainted picture of the father, 12:40 a very tainted picture. 12:41 I thought that like everyone else I knew 12:44 that I was taught that I had to be perfect 12:46 for God to love me, the Father. 12:48 And that God was just up there on His throne 12:51 watching and waiting to see me do something wrong 12:55 and then He was gonna zap me out of the picture. 12:57 But not Jesus. But not Jesus. 12:59 I always felt--you know, Hebrews 1:3, 13:02 I remember when the Lord started 13:04 turning things around for me is when I found Hebrews 1:3. 13:08 And I read that many times because as a teenager 13:11 I read my Bible, the New Testament. 13:14 We were a New Testament Christian church. 13:16 So I'd read the New Testament 13:18 couple of hundred times probably as a teenager. 13:21 And I'd always focus on the second part of Hebrews 1:3 13:25 that talks about that Jesus upholds 13:28 everything by His mighty Word of power. 13:31 And so I thought man, 13:33 the Word of God is powerful, you know. 13:35 And Jesus can uphold me by His Word. 13:38 But I missed the first part, for some reason in my mind 13:41 till I was probably 28 years old, 13:45 that it says in Hebrews 1:3, 13:48 that Jesus is the exact expression of the Father. 13:52 He's the out ring, He's of the divine. 13:54 So everything that Jesus is, God, the Father is. 13:59 So all of a sudden I started realizing that God 14:03 was just as loving and compassionate 14:06 and merciful and that God, 14:08 the Father revealed Himself to us through His Son 14:13 coming here to represent His character, 14:16 to let us see this is who I am. 14:18 They're exactly the same. 14:20 And that totally changed the way my experience was, 14:26 because I had had--I mean I was--when I say 14:30 I worked toward perfection I never gave 14:33 anyone any excuse, anyway. 14:36 I mean I did everything right. 14:39 And I'm not saying that I didn't get some really bad spankings, 14:42 but they weren't-- it'd be like if I lost $10 14:46 at the--I remember once I was getting vegetables 14:49 and I laid $10 down there as I was picking up 14:52 the vegetables and walked away and came back 14:54 and it was gone and I got a really bad spanking. 14:57 Or if my mother couldn't find us 14:58 and she'd give me a really bad spanking. 15:01 And we might be two houses down 15:02 but--but I never gave anybody excuse to spank me. 15:08 I never gave anybody--I wanted to be loved by everybody. 15:11 You lived up to all of that pressure. 15:14 I lived up. I can remember when I was in high school 15:16 there was a girl that was a gang leader 15:19 and I found out that she didn't like me. 15:21 And I'm thinking how can she not like me. 15:23 And I went to her and I said 15:25 "What have I ever done to you that you wouldn't like me?" 15:27 And she says, "Well, you're so snobby. 15:29 You don't speak to me when you go down the halls." 15:31 And I thought I would never intentionally ignore somebody. 15:35 So then I went out of my way to win her friendship 15:38 because I had to be loved. 15:40 I wanted so much to be loved. 15:42 That's so much pressure. 15:43 And Jesus didn't give you that pressure. 15:45 God didn't give you that pressure. 15:47 So when you said that you were raised with, 15:50 you know, some of that and that starts 15:53 kind of getting you through, especially it had to get you 15:57 through some of those teenage years, you know. 15:59 And so were you back in church at that time? 16:02 Did you--did you come-- were you going to a building 16:05 or was it just kind of what was left over 16:07 from being at grandmother's house? 16:08 No, I was going. 16:10 There was a church--our church 16:11 was just about a block or two away. 16:13 So I went there every time the door was open. 16:15 And we had a wonderful pastor. 16:17 Did you talk to anybody about this craziness? 16:19 It's like, you know, to me I look at this child 16:22 and I think, man, is there--nobody. 16:25 Nobody. Nobody had a clue. 16:27 Well, I think there's a few of my friends 16:29 that came in when my mother might be drunk 16:31 or something and that was terribly embarrassing 16:33 if she's bouncing off the walls. 16:34 But, you know, you downplayed all of that. 16:37 But what happened was after college, 16:41 I think--when I went to school I thought, man, 16:44 I love God to just take care of myself, hallelujah. 16:46 And I was working my way through school 16:49 and after school I kind of went through 16:53 my little rebellious period when I walked in the ways of world. 16:56 I can't even imagine that, Shelley. 16:58 Don't even tell me that. 17:00 It's too much for me. Yeah. 17:02 But, you know, at the same time 17:03 and I've got-- I want to go back 17:05 and just say your sister is jumping into drugs. 17:08 She's using--and she really got lost in drugs. 17:11 So you've got that going on. 17:12 You went off to college with that whole thing. 17:15 Mom is kind of doing better because she is on medication. 17:19 She's staying on them longer. 17:20 Sister is not doing well and now you're in college 17:22 just taking care of yourself. 17:24 Yeah, because I had been my mother's mother 17:25 since I was 13 and I'd been my--tried to be my sister's. 17:28 I tried to intervene and tell them she is doing drugs. 17:31 Nobody would believe me and I would catch her 17:34 so she and I had a bad relationship 17:36 which the Lord has totally mended. 17:39 You know, because my sister, praise the Lord, 17:41 after over 15 years of doing-- what do they call, hard ball. 17:45 Well, but it was hard ball where you combine the cocaine... 17:49 Speed balls, yeah. Speed balls, 17:50 where you combine this cocaine and the heroin. 17:55 God delivered her overnight, literally. 17:58 When she just said if it's true what my sister says, 18:02 you know, that I can come to you and say forgive me 18:05 and I can say Lord, I'm tired of living like this 18:08 and fill me with your Holy Spirit. 18:09 And He did. 18:11 And I mean she's been drug free for 25 years. 18:14 I remember that whole time that you were just saying 18:17 I don't know and is she gonna survive this. 18:20 Oh, yeah. And now she is. 18:23 She's probably watching. 18:24 Yeah, she will be watching. 18:26 She loves this program. 18:27 I know she will be watching. 18:29 Just want to say hi. And we're so close. 18:31 We talk everyday, you know. 18:33 But, you know, could you imagine growing up, 18:36 she jumps into drugs. 18:37 She jumps into all that kind of stuff 18:39 and she's looking at you as the perfect sister, you know. 18:42 It's like what do you think you are, you know, 18:44 and I could imagine for a while just kind of pushing 18:48 you guys further and further apart. 18:49 Well, and plus I tried to police her. 18:52 You know, I tried to be the one 18:53 that was watching what she was doing. 18:55 So yes, we were. We were quite distanced. 18:59 But she knew she could always call on me 19:02 if she needed help. 19:03 And I actually enabled her for some years, you know, 19:05 thinking like by paying her rent, 19:07 I'd keep her off the streets. 19:08 And I didn't realize I was just--I was enabling her 19:11 to do more drugs and spend her money on drugs 19:14 rather than paying her rent. 19:15 It is hard to know that because it's hard to know 19:17 the difference between loving somebody 19:19 and kind of allowing them to stay in their lifestyle. 19:22 And when you pull back it feels so cruel. 19:25 This sounds so mean. What if she doesn't? 19:28 And, you know, we ask ourselves 19:29 all those questions and I get calls like 19:32 that all the time is what's the difference. 19:34 You know, tough love is tough on the people who-- 19:36 It's tougher on you guys, yeah. 19:38 But let me kind of fast forward this because 19:40 my walk with the Lord 19:42 was kind of like up the down escalator. 19:45 I would just go forward with God and then I would stop 19:48 and then if you don't keep progressing, 19:49 you find yourself going back down. 19:51 Then I'd go forward with God. 19:53 So there was this kind of roller coaster 19:55 Christian walk of mine. 19:57 And I met J.D. Quinn and J.D. had been-- 20:04 You know I love him. Oh, yeah. 20:06 Everybody-- everybody loves my husband. 20:08 Everybody does. 20:09 But he'd been brought up as a Seventh-day Adventist. 20:12 But when I met him he wasn't going to church. 20:15 And he'd been an elder by the age of 21 20:18 but it was kind of a cultural thing, 20:20 more than-- I mean somehow 20:21 it was rules without relationship 20:24 and that always results in rebellion. 20:26 So at age 25 he'd just kind of quit going to church. 20:29 And he's good at business. He was-- 20:30 Oh, he was a great businessman 20:32 so he just kind of evolved away from it. 20:34 And when we met I told him well, 20:36 I'm not gonna date anybody that doesn't go to church. 20:38 So he started coming to church with me and it was like, 20:41 wow, there's a lot of energy. 20:42 By this time I had studied my way out of Church of Christ 20:45 into a non-denominational arena. 20:47 And he's going, wow, there's a lot of energy 20:51 and this is interesting. 20:52 So we marry and very active in the church, very active. 20:59 And J.D. went with me all the time to church. 21:03 I didn't know till just a few years ago 21:06 when they were interviewing us on 3ABN 21:08 that all the time he was feeling guilty 21:10 because he's going to church on Sunday. 21:13 And that Sabbath truth was in him. 21:16 But what happened was I--God--I had an illness 21:23 in 1995 and that's when God taught me the power of His Word. 21:28 I mean really, I'd been so sick for 8 months 21:30 that my mother tried to commit suicide 21:32 a number of times. 21:34 And I--you know, you're always cleaning up 21:36 after that and trying to save her. 21:38 And I got to the point where finally 21:41 I'd been so sick for 8 months with just 24/7 vertigo. 21:46 I mean it was--vertigo is that condition 21:49 where you feel like your whole world twirling but mine-- 21:51 And you couldn't even stand up. 21:53 I could hardly stand up, you know. 21:56 And this had been 8 months. 21:57 You're nauseated. You can't eat. 21:59 You can't read the Bible. 22:00 I mean your eyes won't focus. 22:02 And God really impressed upon me 22:05 that His Word was life to me 22:08 and that I needed to get into the Word 22:10 and trust His promises. 22:12 You know what I'd like to do, 22:14 because I know where you're gonna go, 22:16 because I love you and we're friends, 22:18 so I want to go to break, 22:20 come in to start your second half 22:22 so we don't have to interrupt any of this next part. 22:26 And so, you know, if you want to hear the rest of it, 22:28 if you want to hear what happened, 22:29 how God jumped in, even how Shelley 22:32 survived this vertigo, 22:34 you're gonna have to come back. |
Revised 2014-12-17