It was an easy segue into heroin because my tolerance was building. I began to use it almost every day. I’m using three pills just to feel a rush and then just to feel okay, because my body became physically dependent on them. I drew these lines for myself, these boundaries. I’m never gonna use heroin, right? That’s what drug addicts do, even though I am basically a drug addict at the time.

When my friend said, “You want to try black?”, which was heroin, I thought no initially, but she’s like, “It’s cheaper, the high is greater.” I’m already addicted anyway, and my best friend’s doing it. So I tried it, and I took that hit. I ended up throwing up that night, but I got that rush and that numbness, and it hooked me.

This was senior year of high school, my dad started to notice, because I moved back in with him. He’s seeing me begin to spiral. I started sleeping a lot, missing class, but I graduated high school by the skin of my teeth. I think it was just the grace of God. He starts to see these symptoms of an addiction. I start to become more irritated, aggressive, and withdrawn. Stuff’s missing all the time. I’m stealing his money and his pills, which he had because he was prescribed them for pain.

College Life and Continued Struggles

We both think maybe if I go off to college, that’s going to fix all my problems. No rehab, just college, like, put your nose in the books and become ambitious, right? Like my mom was, and that’s going to fix it. So he basically did all the paperwork to get me enrolled in UNR, which is in Reno, Nevada.

When I started college and set foot on that campus, I felt like that scared little girl who had no idea how to live life. I brought with me all my trauma, all my demons. I had not gotten any healing or deliverance, so I’m there in college, unhealed, and so my Bulimia is in full swing. I joined a sorority right away because I thought that’s how I’m gonna make friends. These girls are partying all the time. They’re binge drinking.

I was waking up in random places, with throw-up in my hair. This was a pattern, but they could get up at 8am on Monday and go to class, but I’m stuck in bed and I’m fending for drugs. By the grace of God, though, a friend of mine introduced me to 12-step meetings, and these helped me for a while. I had community, I had fellowship. But I didn’t know what fully surrendering to Jesus looked like.

So I still had a lot more healing to do. I was in therapy, just doing whatever I could, and I did have bouts of sobriety. I got very involved in this on-campus community, and it was during one of these bouts of sobriety, when I was doing really well, about 10 months of sobriety, that the devil was lying in wait for me.

The Trap of the Adult Industry

I’m sitting in the library in a massive study hall. It’s open 24/7 during finals week, and I’m working on an assignment, and this girl sits down next to me. She has what’s called the nod, where she is barely able to open her eyes. She’s going in and out of consciousness. And I knew that, as someone who was a heroin addict, in remission, that she was on heroin.

She’s right there. Why does she sit next to me? There are so many seats in the library, it was like a trap. It was a setup. So she wanders off into the bathroom. Everybody’s laughing and staring and snickering, and I’m thinking, oh my goodness, I need to go help her. I get her a ride home, and I get her number. I looked her up on Facebook because I want to just know who this girl is. She put in her bio that she’s a student at the University and she’s an exotic dancer at the Spice House Reno.

I looked it up, and it turns out it’s a strip club. So I’m wondering, why is this girl so open about this? No shame whatsoever. She’s very open about this part of her life. Now I’m curious, because I had never been to a club, a strip club, before. Even though I grew up in Vegas, I just learned about them from maybe MTV, seeing the girls showered with money, beautiful clothes, all this attention, a glamorous lifestyle, and they looked empowered, and they looked happy.

That was attractive to me. I wanted to be happy. I think a lot of girls who enter the industry are looking for that. They’re looking for connection, they’re looking for love. They’re looking for money, easy money, and they’re thinking, this is it. I asked her one day, “Can I just go see what this is about. I want to shadow you or something.” She says, “Yes,” and by this time, we’re already using drugs together. We’re already using heroin together, and it’s so easy.

The devil makes it so easy. She has her drug dealer drop off heroin for her shift at the strip club. She uses, works, and then makes money so she can buy more drugs. I’m seeing all this, and I’m seeing how the club system works. They asked me, as soon as I get there, what my name is. They’re so excited to see me. I’m just like, oh my goodness. I don’t know, it’s like this social club, this taboo social club that I wanted to be a part of.

I’m feeling so insecure with myself, and I feel like it’s a secret life. I just observed how everything works, how the girls make money, and they asked me if I wanted to try out. And for some reason, I just said yes, and I had no idea what I was doing. I borrowed my friend’s shoes, I think I had some drugs in my system, and honestly, I needed that to detach. I had to disassociate from what I was doing.

I was so ashamed inside, internally. But by the end of that night, I had maybe $300 in cash. I was working at a minimum wage job at the university, making only $7 or $8 an hour. So to me, that was a lot, and I’m already hooked on this drug. My dad is cutting me off financially at this point. He found out I had relapsed up there.

I’m thinking, I’m gonna do this just for a little while. The devil put that thought in my head, and I latched on to it. Okay, just for a little while. I think a lot of girls, this happens to them, they get that taste of fast money, and they say, I’m only gonna do this for a little while. I’m going to stop. I’m going to save up.

By this time, I had graduated from college by the skin of my teeth and the grace of God, so I have that degree. I’m working at the club at night, and by day, I present myself as this ambitious young woman. I have had great internships, and was studying criminal justice and pre-law. I wanted to go to law school. I have legal internships by day, and by night, I am using heroin in a strip club dressing room.

I didn’t want anybody to see that side of me. And I thought I could live this double life. I was living a double life for a while, until the bad life began to creep up on me and basically destroy me from the inside out. It didn’t stop there; I was doing darker and darker forms of exploitation. I got involved in escorting after I found some ads on Craigslist, and they lured me in with this promise of making $1,000 a day. And I’m thinking, I’m already being exploited here at the club. Why not?

Turning Point and Spiritual Awakening

That sent me downhill until one night, I hit my knees on the floor of a motel room by myself. Seeing people in and out. I thought, How did I get here? I had dreams of going to law school, getting married one day, and doing something meaningful with my life. And I had this thought, and maybe it was God. I think it was God, because it just popped out of nowhere. What if I died this way?

I believe that was the Lord warning me, if you don’t stop, you can overdose and die, or one of these customers can really physically harm you, and it’s not going to be good. So during this time, I dragged myself back into a strip club, and on this night, God was answering these cries in my soul that I had.

I’m in the dressing room getting high, about to start my shift, and these ladies come in. They’re older, full of laughter and joy, and they have a warm plate of food. I’m thinking, okay, what are these ladies doing here? They don’t belong. I hear their laughter, I feel their joy, I feel the presence of the Holy Spirit, which I didn’t know at the time.

It was so dark and heavy in that dingy strip club. To see them there was just a shock. They were sitting down, and I was too timid to talk to them, but I would eavesdrop, and I heard them talking to the girls, and I saw they were praying for them. I’m thinking, okay, maybe these ladies, they’re Christian. They had a little prayer box with them, and they said, “If any of you have prayer requests, please write them down and we’ll pray for you.”

I remember writing on that prayer card, and it said, God help me. Deep down, I didn’t want to do this forever, but I felt so sucked in and trapped. It was like I was addicted to this chaotic lifestyle, addicted to the drugs, to the money, to the attention, to people telling me, “I’m beautiful and I’m enough.” I was addicted. I needed help getting out, so I wrote that down.

Discipleship and New Beginnings

God began to send laborers to water those seeds. Like Paul says, I planted the seed, Apollos watered, but God gives the increase. My dad finds out about my addiction. He finds out I’m working at the club. An ex-boyfriend tells him everything. He says, “I’m giving you an ultimatum, if you don’t go to rehab. I’m done. I’m cutting you off. I can’t watch you kill yourself. We’ve already lost your mom.” That stung. It hit me, so I just said, “Yeah, I’ll go to rehab.” I got clean, and I began to get a vision of my life without drugs.

I wasn’t quite ready to let go of the adult industry lifestyle yet, but I’m thinking I want to be sober. I want to go to law school. My case manager started looking at sober living places for a transition out, and we found a place in Covina, California. I moved into a sober living house. I’m there for 10 months, and I’m beginning to build this relationship with God.

I apply and get into law school, and during law school, that’s when God’s really seeking me. I’m still kind of not sure if I’m ready to let go entirely. I look up those ads on Craigslist, I stumble upon another ad, and I begin working for an escort agency in LA, but this agent was more aggressive, more manipulative. He knew where I lived, and if I didn’t show up to work, he would bombard my phone and harass me to the point where I was scared. I remember I hit my knees in my room one night, and I was so sincere, and I said, Lord, I’m sorry for the way that I’m living. Please forgive me. I know that you’re real. Jesus.

I remember those girls in that club, and that presence of God that they carried, and I felt his love, and it was the Lord’s goodness that brought me to repentance, not thinking he’s out to get me, but his goodness. I feel like I was baptized in the Holy Spirit that night, just in my room, in law school. I felt peace. I felt joy. He just took me through this natural process of repentance.

I remembered this one Christian guy I knew in college, and I called him up and confessed everything. It hit me that even when I was at the worst of the worst in that club and at the Escort agency, Christ died for me, and he loved me in that very moment. During that time, I felt so ashamed, so disgusting, so dirty, just this horrible human being, and to know that I was loved in that moment and I was redeemable, that made sense to me. It clicked. And the gospel made sense to me at a personal level. And I’m like, wow, this is real. Jesus is real.

That was the turning point, and that was when God was like, Okay, I see you’re serious. Now I’m going to send more laborers. I’m going to send people to disciple you. I met a woman at an Alcoholics Anonymous club. Usually, when you introduce yourself, you say, “Hi, I’m Paige. I’m an alcoholic.” But she said, “Hi, I’m Terry, and I’m a child of God. I’m kind of just here visiting.” I’m like, Child of God, that’s not…that’s breaking the traditions.

I walked up to her afterwards, and I had so many questions. Is premarital, you know, sex a sin? All this stuff that God’s just putting on my spirit that I had no one to talk to about. She said, “Come over.” She would open up her home, which was a few blocks away from the law school, open up the Bible, make me a cup of coffee, and begin to take me through the word of God. It was so cool. It was old school discipleship.

She was like a maternal figure to me, which I didn’t have, like a spiritual mom, and oh my goodness, she just taught me about the Word of God. She taught me about spiritual warfare. She taught me what happens when we come to Christ. You know the enemy is trying to attack us and get us not to go. So I learned all about that with her.

Then God sent another woman of God to invite me to a small group. I get connected there and start going to her church. I went up to the altar, and I gave my heart to Jesus in front of everybody. I got baptized, and then I went to a discipleship class on purity, and it was in that class that I got delivered because they called everybody up to the altar. I remember I was just shaking. It was sincere repentance, stuff was breaking off of me in the Spirit.

And from that point on, I lost all desire for that lifestyle, and I made a vow to God. I said, God, the next man that I’m with is going to be my husband. I had discipleship through the church. A woman met me at the altar when I went up for the salvation call, and she got to know me, and I built a relationship with her. At the time, I was living with my daughter’s father, unequally yoked and unmarried.

The Lord began to convict me, and I told this girl, “Hey, I think God, I don’t know, was telling me to move out because this man doesn’t want to marry me, and he’s not a Christian. I just cry every time I’m there. I feel like I’m doing something wrong. I don’t know where to go.” She says, “I have a room for rent if you’re serious.” How does that happen? You know, that was another point where I thought, God, you’re literally hearing my prayers. She said I was about to give it away, by the way, but God told me to keep it open. I’m like, oh my goodness!

Our daughter is six months old, and my friends think I’m crazy. Why are you moving out of this man’s house? He’s helping pay your bills. You know it’s not a sin. Don’t worry. They were telling me all these lies. She has a room for rent. I check it out, and I’m like, I’m just gonna do it. I told that, man, “I’m sorry. I have to obey God.”

He said, “Are you hearing from God? I’m gonna put you in the mental institution.” He literally told me that because he’s thinking, Where’s she getting these ideas? All of a sudden, the sin that I was okay with, I’m no longer okay with.

I remember moving out crying, that lady came and helped me, and I kept reciting scripture. I can do all things through Christ, who gives me strength. And the thought would come in, Oh, you’re getting too old. No one’s gonna ever want to marry you. I have to just stay in this situation, unmarried, even though I’m not happy, because this is all I’m gonna get, it’s the best it’s ever gonna be. Those lies would come in.

The church I was going to taught me, no, you hear a lie and you combat it with a promise. You do what Jesus did and speak, no, it is written. And I literally had to just say that every day. I wrote it down as I had not memorized Scripture yet. I wrote it all on this pad of paper, and I would look at it, and read it out, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, and the Lord will supply all my needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ, Jesus.” That’s what got me through.

Ministry and Outreach

Wow, I just want to cry because he answered my prayer. I lived in that rented room for three years, got discipled, and in that third year, I met my now husband, a man of God, a powerful evangelist. He took me out evangelizing for the first time. I saw him pray for and witness to people. I saw what walking in the fullness of Christ looked like. And we’ve been married for two and a half years now. We have two little ones, and then I have my daughter from a previous relationship.

Ever since that experience, the Lord put on my heart to go back to those clubs, but here in Orange County, and witness to girls, so we launched a strip club outreach, and we’ve been going out to strip clubs on a bi-monthly basis since 2023.

We visit five clubs during each outreach. It’s me and a group of two other powerful women of God with gifts or roses. We are seeing women get set free right there in the strip club dressing room. I get to share my testimony with them. I’m seeing deliverances. We’re starting to disciple these girls. One night we went, and a girl said, “I want to come to church with you the next day.” The next day, she comes to church with one of the team members, and she gets water baptized. And she’s said, “I don’t want to do that anymore.”

I’ve seen at least five women we’ve worked with who have completely left the industry. So I’m wow, like, if any of those women from Reno knew. And now they do know, because I found them on Instagram, Scarlet Hope, the ministry that met me in the club in Reno. I got to speak and share my story with them, the seeds that they planted that night, and the harvest that it grew into. So I’m just so grateful. That’s basically it. But all glory to Jesus.