So, I was making them money, you know, and they were making me money. And there was this one company, and I think it was in Southend-on-Sea called the Bermans. They had just bought a license from Walt Disney Productions to produce special sweatshirts and T-shirts with a dimension-welded application. They said to me, “Vic, we need somebody to go to Germany, buy a company there, set up this operation, and distribute all over Europe. You’re the perfect candidate. We’ll give you the license. Do you want to do this?” I said, “Yes.”

I sold everything else I had in London, went to Germany, and bought a company. Now, to run this company, I need to speak German. I already spoke French, and I speak Hindi, which is my mother tongue, and English. So I learned German.

The first six months it was a really rough road because you’re establishing the product. It’s just all tough in a language you don’t know, but after 6 months, it took off. It was like having sliced bread. I had it. Everybody wanted it. They had to come to me.

The only problem was that I was a functioning alcoholic. I drank all the time, and I worked all the time, so money became my God. I thought I was something really special. I was drinking a lot. I was only 30 years old, and I’d go to a bank, let’s say in Germany, a Deutsche Bank. I’d be sitting there transferring funds from different banks. I would sit there like I owned the bank. It was just demonic.

Move to Dallas and Subway Franchise

My parents visited me in Germany in 1983, and they said, Vic, “Money is your God. You drink all the time. You’re killing yourself. Why don’t you go to Dallas? You do new businesses all the time. You have your sisters in Dallas, and you’ll have some family there; you can start some new businesses in Dallas, and that would be a good thing for you.”

I thought that was a good thing, even though I was a functioning alcoholic and a workaholic. I knew that I’d been really fortunate to have all these businesses be so successful. I thought to myself, you know, I need to do something safe. So I went to an exhibition, and I saw Subway sandwiches. I said, yeah, now that would be the product for Dallas.

Christian Influence

I opened the first Subway on Lovers and Greenville in 1983; it became the best store in the country. There were lines outside the door. We delivered till four o’clock in the morning. And there were all these kids from Christ For the Nation, which is a Bible school, who used to come and eat there. And they were witnessing to me for a whole year.

I thought, oh, these Christians talk all the time, it’s just a cop out, I believe in Jesus, I believe in Buddha, I believe in Krishna, not a big deal. They just don’t want to work; they just want to talk about Jesus.

But God was slowly, slowly, slowly doing a work in my heart. I was noticing that I was desiring what some of these Christians had when they were coming in. Not only were there Christ For the Nation kids, but there was also the college campus ministry at SMU, Maranatha, those kids, too. I was just desiring the joy and the peace that they had, and their testimony was kind of resonating in me, in my spirit. 

Healing from Addiction

In 1986, I’d been partying all night somewhere with girls, drugs, and alcohol, but I was a diligent worker, and I was back at the Subway at five o’clock in the morning. God was doing a work in my heart that day, and those kids came in again. The Holy Spirit said, Today is the day and I surrendered. That day, I gave my life to the Lord.

I never drank again. So I immediately knew Jesus was real, because I couldn’t give up drinking. It was not possible. The best part of it was that I started to go to church right away, and I was still a womanizer, so God had to deliver me from that, too. I mean, alcohol was one, and womanizing would be the second thing. Immediately, I saw this girl at church, who was beautiful. She was a fashion model.

We dated her for eight months, and we’ve been married for 38 years. I’ve been in the fashion business for 35 years. I have women all around me. I’ve never looked at another girl. So that was another miracle of Jesus. I think God just works in miraculous ways. You know, where He takes away things that would be detrimental to our life, that we can’t handle, we can’t take care of ourselves. He does that.

Start of the Fashion Business

Lovers Lane was the Rodeo Drive of Dallas at the time. So I put my first store called Deja vu a Paris on Lovers and Inwood. It was very, very successful. These are the days of the Stark Club and all that scene. Everybody shopped with me at that time.

The only thing was, there was an area in back there that’s all crack houses and drug dealers. I was robbed 18 times. I have been robbed at gunpoint six times. I said, “In the name of Jesus, drop your gun each time. And they left me alone each time because I was on fire for the Lord.”

But I opened one in Snyder Plaza, which is Hillcrest and Lovers, which is where all the money is. Then I had another one at The Plaza in Preston Center, where Bachendorf’s is. Those three stores had 10,000 customers.

Painkillers and Addiction

I started to have some back issues, pain in my back. I had a lot of doctors who shopped with me. So I don’t even have to go to the doctor’s office. At the shop, I said, “Can you give me some painkillers for my back?” This was 35 years ago, so this was not a problem in those days. They would say, “Yeah, Vic, we get samples all the time. Here are some painkillers.”

Hydrocodone is a strong painkiller. If you don’t know anything about painkillers. Painkillers make you high. So this is another addictive thing. I got hooked on painkillers, you know, but I was functioning great with my business. I was talking great, I was doing good deals, and making a lot of money.

I thought, Well, there’s nothing wrong with that. I mean, these painkillers are helping with my back and keeping me upbeat during the high-pressure stuff of running this business. So, you can justify anything. Satan is a liar. You know you can justify anything. I justified it.

The Crash

I abused those medications for 13 years, 13 years in an obsessive, compulsive way. Taking a lot more than I was supposed to. So my wife is starting to notice. She said, “Vic, this is destroying you. You need to sell everything.” In 2010, we sold everything. Everything we owned business-wise, she helped me detox from January 16, 2010, to August 31, 2010. I was completely clean, no more painkillers or antidepressants or anything.

Then my body went into shock. My immune system was shot because I’d taken so many chemicals, and my body was craving all that. So I didn’t know what I was going to do. I was getting really depressed. The businesses were all gone. I was at home. I didn’t know what to do with myself. No medication, no nothing.

I locked myself in a room in my house for seven years. I was desperate, I was suicidal. I was trying to kill myself because I thought, maybe God had forsaken me, because I was a very ruthless businessman, which I wasn’t, you know. So when I said, I’m going to start writing checks to all these people that I got great deals from. Then I started getting calls from them. They said, “Vic, why are you sending us this money?”

Anyway, I was just trying to redeem myself somehow, and Satan was lying to me again. So, I tried all kinds of things just to make myself feel better, you know, but nothing was working. But in life, one thing I know for sure is that you reap what you sow. So I was reaping the benefits of all the abuse of the chemicals that I put in my body.

Family History of Suicide

You know, I came from a very aristocratic family, and we went to school in Switzerland, and one of my eldest brothers, who looked just like Elvis, a real handsome guy, sang like Elvis committed suicide. He went to this hotel, onto the roof, took his glasses in his pocket, and jumped and killed himself.

When I went to Europe, and I made all that money, I let my brother, who was in Luxembourg. I let him manage all the money. My deal with him was, you just give me 10% and you invest wherever you want to invest. We were doing overnight currency. We were doing a lot of stuff, and we lost it all in 1987. I forgave my brother the debt. He committed suicide.

My parents said to come to Dallas to be with my sister, who lived in Preston Holloway in a mansion, married to the top neuroradiologist surgeon in Dallas. This was back in 1983, and we found out he was cheating on my sister. This is an Indian marriage, an arranged marriage. They only meet one girl, one guy. He was cheating on her, which is unheard of in Indian marriages, and she killed herself.

Here I come from an aristocratic family. My father. Worked with the president. Everybody committed suicide. I almost died, almost killed myself, but in any case, I had a lot of people praying for me, because I knew a lot of people, and I used to go to this Bible study in Highland Park. It’s a women’s Bible study, but I went there for 10 years with my wife, and there I was being prayed for all the time.

A New Life and Testimony

On January 8th, 2018, I went there. All the ladies there were really happy to see me. Something happened, the cloud that was in my mind lifted, and I started to get better. Yeah, that’s January the eighth, 2018, I went into that Bible study. I think God was just doing a work. I don’t know.

Who knows how God works? He spoke the world into existence in six days by the word of his mouth. Nowadays, they say there are millions of galaxies. We don’t know how he works. All I know is that day I went, and the cloud lifted from my mind. I started to become free, and then I started doing the right things.

I got out of bed, and I started walking six hours a day. Walked, prayed, walked, prayed, walked, prayed, walked. You know, one thing I know for sure, I never let go of the hand of God, even those seven years, every day, I was in the word. Every day.

Now I’m bold. I have no fear of anything. I’m a walking testimony. Wherever I go, people ask me, “Why are you always so cheerful? Why do you always look so nice?” They ask and I tell them what happened to me. “I tried to kill myself. This is what happened to me, but God delivered me, he saved me, he helped me. I just use it as a testimony.

That’s my only end goal: for people to get to know Jesus Christ. That’s the only thing that’s going to help them. I’d be glad to go through those seven years again to have what I have now. I’m 73, you know? I’m so grateful. I’m just so grateful to God, you know, I mean, it’s so awesome. It’s just, it’s just so awesome what he’s given me.