My story as a kid. From the time I was little I’ve always been some what the wild child. Always been rambunctious and accident prone. Lets face it I’ve always been crazy as hell. From since I can remember I’ve always prided myself on making others laugh. I always liked the way it felt.
I grew up in a normal enough household. Alcoholic father, down syndrome brother, hard working mother. We didn’t have a whole lot but the love was rich! I never really saw us different from any other family until I started getting older and was more able to put the pieces together of what my current life situation was like. Dad always worked, he was a car salesman and he liked to come home at night and drink his beers and watch star trek. That’s awesome who cares right? My point is, is the man wasn’t an abusive alcoholic he was not mean, he never hit us, rarely did he ever scream and he definitely didn’t bring the belt out. That was always mommas job. The deal as I see it with my dad. He took a lot of blame I believe in the way my brother turned out. Plain and simple. So with that took a lot of his attention when he was present, Keenan is the daddy’s boy, I’m the mommas boy. That would later take a toll on my life.
Fast forward, mom worked at Y camp. Family operated YMCA owned. Starting from the time I was six I camped 8 weeks a summer every summer for many years. I love camp! I love sleeping in a hot cabin with all my friends going swimming and blobbin and the water slides and basketball and football and capture the flag and war games. I loved every aspect of camp. I loved climbing down into Tallulah Gorge every week and getting to hike out first with VIP when I was going through my chubby stage. I love tubing at the lake and fourth of July fireworks. I loved rafting and caving and sneaking over to the girls camp at night. Life was great at camp. It was all I could do to get there when I wasn’t there and never wanted to leave when I was. I love camp. My cousin Edward Schaefer was my hero growing up. Ill never forget cuttin up and hanging out with Ed and old Bob and Sherpa man. Life was great at camp. Life was so great I was blind to my home life. We moved around a lot parents never talked but Keenan and I didn’t have a care in the world we played a lot and hunted snakes and fried ants with magnifying glasses and even beat up a couple kids together for making fun of Keenan. Keenan’s always been my rock, he’s always been my shoulder to lean on he is and always will be my angel.
I remember my mom and my cousin Paula called me back to mom’s office one day. This day I would later realize was the day that completely flipped my whole life upside down. Chicken fingers were a popular meal at camp and I walked into moms office chicken fingers taking up both hands and they closed the door behind me and asked me to sit down. They then proceeded to inform me that we would be staying at camp full time and that my parents were separating. I loved camp so much how could I be disturbed by this news, right? Wrong, I was PISSED! I threw those chicken fingers across the office as hard as I could and remember mom and Paula both jumped back in their seats. I wasnt mad at the time that I was having to stay at camp or that I wouldn’t speak to my dad but a couple of times via email over the next 8 years. No what really got me is that I had just been drafted to Willie Lumus’ team for rec league football and I was not going to get to play for Willie Lumus that upcoming season. Those of you who don’t know who Willie Lumus is, he coached the Dacula Falcons to several recreation league state championships. Anyone who was anyone wanted to be on coach Lumus’ team. This would have been my second year with him and second opportunity at that trophy that we fell short of the season before. I quickly got over it and started my football career as a Rabun County Wildcat.
I also had to leave my brother where he moved in with our God parents in Dacula to finish up High school. Had he stayed in Rabun he would have had to complete 3 more years of high school to graduate. He was a senior at Dacula so they saw best to keep him there. This was ok though because I knew it was for the best as well.
Through the rest of middle school my main focus was sports and girls. Good grades came pretty easy for me so I never had really worried about making good grades. The first day of football practice, I remember we were walking back to the locker room and some kids behind me started making fun of me. I heard one of them ask who is that new gay kid Kelsey. Boldly and completely ungay I turned around raised my hand and said.”that would be me.” They laughed and the encounter was over. A few days later we played this game at practice where we had to hold a stick and wrestle each other and the first person to let go of the stick lost. I was challenged by the star running back the cool kid right. We got up there and I worked this kid like a puppet. He just knew this kid with a girls name wasn’t going to beat him and not only did I beat him I embarrassed him, which at the time made him mad but we would later become really close friends. So I had quickly proven myself capable and worthy of playing football with this bunch of men.
I loved the sport but I ended up getting hurt a lot and was introduced to doctor prescribed pain killers. I didn’t get strung out or actively pursue the pills until later in life but what it did open me up to was that I really liked to be inebriated! From that point on it was my duty and responsibility to see how high I could possibly get, I was on a mission to become the hardest partyer. During all of this time I fell in love for the first time. She stole my heart and I was madly in love and this relationship was my life as well during my high school years but the partying and college drew us apart. Later did I realize the impact this relationship had on my life. When we broke up I was completely and utterly heart broken. I was a wreck couldn’t hardly get up in the mornings my drive for life seemed to have stopped during this time. I began drinking heavily. I used to get a friend to buy me bottles of Jack Daniels and I would go home sit in my closet and drink bourbon and cry at the mistakes I had made. I was pitiful! I was lost I had no direction, my life felt meaningless. But life went on and I hid what was going on inside to the rest of the world. Having gone through some of the stuff I had already gone through I was really good at kicking my emotions to the back burner in front of the rest of the world. To them I was this crazy happy go lucky kind of guy but on the inside I was just a dark bottomless pit.
College came around and now the party had really started! All of my friends started realizing this kids got a problem and would openly acknowledge the fact but I was like yeah great lets go do a line and funnel a beer. I started getting arrested. Literally the first night I moved to my new home with my new roommates fresh out of high school, boom I get locked up. Underage consumption. Over the course of a couple of years I managed to rack up 4 more underage consumption’s and a couple of possession charges. There was a point when I was on probation in literally 3 different counties in the state of Georgia. It wasn’t easy but it taught me how to become a better at lying because the last thing I was going to do was tell any of those officers I was already on probation somewhere else. How there isn’t a database to track that or how they didn’t find out I have no idea. But I complied and managed to get off of paper, for a little while anyways.
The party never stopped. I remember smoking blunts on the way to probation only to get out and go buy 8 balls of cocaine to take back with us. It was that scene I was addicted to more then anything I think. The thrill of being a bad boy really. College introduced me to a world of drugs and I loved them all especially the entheogens (LSD,mushrooms,Ecstasy). But the cocaine and alcohol and drugs to come down were pretty much where my time was consumed. Go to class? Are you kidding me I easily had 15 hours left of guitar hero to play and interrupt that with class yeah right. Needless to say my college days didn’t last too long and it was back home with mom.
Now my mom, I have to give it to her she is a trooper. How she hasn’t gone off the deep end having to deal with my shenanigans ill never know. I’m sure she thought she had reached her breaking point several times. But she never gave up on me. She was always right there anytime I needed anything she was always right there. All she wanted for me was to be a good kid, get an education and make something of my self. That’s it, she never asked a lot of me and was never demanding or too strict. She let me do what I wanted and I took advantage of her tremendously, when she would suggest what I was doing wasn’t good, I played my victim card on her hard and that was wrong but I know that if I ever needed anything ever and I had no one else in the world to count on that I could call that woman and she absolutely would lay down her life for me in a heart beat. NO doubt about it I am her baby. She has given me far more chances then I deserve.
She let me move back home. Helped me get a job and fed me. Now don’t get me wrong we fought like cats and dogs all the while she knew what was best for me. During that time I was introduced to an extremely strong painkiller that could be ingested I.V. There was absolutely no fear in me whatsoever the first time I tried it. Not knowing then how much it would altar my life, I was on the prowl. Anything and everything you could put in a needle that was me, I want it all and I want it now! There was nothing out there that could stop me from getting what I wanted. I also had the mentality that no matter what amount or drug I was doing it was impossible to kill Kelsey Brown. So in turn I used hard. Everything I put in my body I did it to the max, whether it was cocaine, heroin, meth or something as simple as sweet tea, I wanted it extra sweet.
This life of misery seemed to follow me around for the next three years or so. I had made the decision that this was it, that I was finally going to stop lying to everyone about being clean and finally get clean. I quit everything, I even quit smoking cigarettes. This went on for about 3 weeks which was awesome, I was finally starting to see some light. Things were really starting to look up for me. So I decided hey I need to reward myself so I went out to the bar with some friends, had a really great time actually. I didn’t do anything too terribly stupid I don’t think. At the end of the night I got in the car with a girl to head back to her house. We were driving up the road when out of nowhere a cop gets behind us and she takes off on some side road. We ditched the jeep and ran up into the woods. The law looked for us for a good two hours. When they found us they of course arrested us and took us to jail. Here I was again same spot I had found myself so many times before. All that hard work from the weeks before had been thrown out the window. I was ready for mom to come get me and I was going to hit the ground running. I got out and immediately went to the bluffs in Atlanta.
I had my heroin and had a friend help me find cocaine. I got my drugs and locked myself up for a few days speedballing. My life had fallen to shambles, I didn’t even know it had hit me. Everything sucked pretty bad during that time. I was so mad with myself. I started thinking maybe if I just ended it here all the pain and suffering I had caused myself and my family would be over and everyone could just move on with their lives. In somewhat of a psychotic drug induced state, I didn’t think anything more of it and made the decision I’m going to do it right here right now and get it over with. I remember I turned on an Alice in Chains song that described my pain so well and that was pretty much it. Everything went black. The next thing I remember waking up in a hospital room puking my guts out and pissed off. I couldn’t do anything right. Now my moms over here crying and freaking out and I’ve done nothing but make matters worse. A little while in the room a preacher from easily 15 years ago and family friend comes walking in the room and began praying over me. I didn’t know what was going on I literally felt like I was hissing and cussing at this guy. They said I wasn’t so I don’t know what that was but it was very distinct to me almost exorcismish. I mean really I was freaked out.
They kept me in the hospital a few days to make sure I wouldn’t hurt myself and administer me through detox and sent me to another detox/ funny farm. It was every sense of a loony bin. I was a little wierded out how much I fit in and how easily I made friends with some of the attendees who weren’t in there for drug related issues. None the less it prepared me for treatment and 10 days later I was moved to a treatment facility on the south side of Atlanta. I had had some major revelation and was ready to start over and give this life another shot. It was in treatment where my eyes were opened to what my home life had done to my psyche over the years and I was able to finally begin the healing and understanding process of why I was the way I was. It kind of sucked really to be told all of these things that are wrong with you and this is why. They made us get jobs so I found a job and they didn’t give me the hours required so I found another job except my start date for this job wasn’t until two weeks before I was supposed to complete the program. That two weeks drew near and I explained that I would not take a job that I was referred to, and just quit after two weeks. They didn’t seem to understand and kicked me out for not complying.
I moved in with a great friend of mine right here in midtown and he helped me get a job. I learned how much this life really is a learning process. This friend has helped me through so much and taught me so much about recovery as he is in recovery himself. He has been every meaning of the word a best friend. When I’ve slipped hes been there to encourage me. He hasn’t given up on me. God puts people in our lives for a very specific reason and we both have been given these opportunities to draw near to the Lord. We started attending Passion City Church. We are both heavily involved in serving our house as well as the people of our city. Where my path will take a different direction in the near future I know that this man will be here continuing to do the lords work until the day he dies. That’s the kind of heart we have today. I don’t think I could have made it without his support and encouragement honestly. Forever grateful buddy.
During this time I have found freedom in Jesus Christ. I don’t mean the kind of freedom that AA gave me. Which it did help. I have been relieved from the bondage of self but in AA there was still something missing. I got a connection with God but when I started really wondering about God and how he worked and what he was doing in my life. I had to pick up the bible and in the scriptures is Jesus. That was it! That’s what I was missing! I had a hard time really understanding Jesus I mean I could get down with God but this Jesus? I don’t understand him so I dove in and quickly found out who Jesus was and that’s when my true healing began. The living breathing son of God. The son of the same God they told me about in treatment and that I had known about from camp growing up. Except in AA everyone was talking about God but where was Jesus? So, I slowly started leaving AA and HA and started really diving into Passion City. The Lord has rewarded me for this as well. I’ve been given opportunity’s to share my story on stage. I got to be directly involved with Passion conference as I was on the host transportation team for the musicians and speakers. I got to meet a lot of people during these two conferences. I also got to be baptized at PCC on March 1st. Not only all of these really cool things that have happened to me, I also get to walk into a house where people have a true desire to know me and I them. There’s a genuine kind of love that I get to experience on a day to day basis just because I know that Jesus is with me at all times. It hasn’t been easy during this rebuilding process, it really hasn’t, but so far it has been well worth it!
I am a #worldracer #11in11
