AMAZING STORY
Carl Hated Addiction, But Couldn't Escape Its Death Grip
By Robert Hull
The 700 Club
CBN.com -Carl Dulinsky grew up in chaos and insecurity. His mother was a drug user and an alcoholic. “(There was) constant drug addiction all the way to heroin and things of that nature, alcoholism, you name it, sitting in front of bars, locked in a car with the windows down just waiting for her to come back in and get us. You don’t even think about the future. You just hope that there’s food tomorrow.”
His father manufactured drugs for organized crime. “There’d be nights where we weren’t sure if someone was coming over to do damage to our family.” Carl says, “So we stayed up all night fully automatic weapons out and nothing came that night and started the next day and moved forward with life, just as if nothing ever happened.”
His parents divorced when he was young and he moved from one relative’s house to another with his mother. In the chaos, Carl says he quit feeling.
“I decided that I’m going to shut off emotions because emotions hurt, but I did. I decided you’re not going to hurt me. This is all just another part of the video game called life and we’ll just move forward with it.”
In his teens he started smoking marijuana as a way to fit in. “I learned to start just doing what everyone did to be accepted.” He says, “I started getting used to being in the drug scene myself and doing things that I told myself I would never do, because I hated it. I just hated it –I hated addiction.”
When he was 15 he attended church and a Bible camp and became a Christian. But after a year he moved again and his faith became a distant memory. His drug use intensified as he started using meth and LSD with his new friends. “I started selling methamphetamines and I started going down a whole other road that was destined for destruction.”
At 19 years old he went on a violent crime spree, stealing guns and robbing convenience stores. His life began to resemble that of his parents. “(I) get in the car that night and realize, ‘you know, that’s something I never thought I would do.’ No adrenaline high, no like, ‘oh, that was exciting.’ No, I had to act that way, but it was—I was extremely afraid. I knew that that wasn’t what I was supposed to be and that I wasn’t intended to live that way.”
Carl covered his fear and emotions with meth. During that time, he befriended a girl who wanted to kill her drug dealing boyfriend. Carl and another friend agreed to help.
"She shot and killed him. When that gunshot went off, I was no longer high. Everything changed in an instant. Everything completely changed. Everything about who I was, everything about what I thought about life, everything became real.”
"Life is real. That whole night was spent trying to cover it up and driving his car and trying to cover up everything and get rid of everything, get rid of all the evidence, make sure we didn’t get caught. I helped try to get rid of the body and we did and I told them, ‘you got to take me home, just take me home.’ And I went home and I got in the shower and I prayed for the first time. God, You got to do something. I’d tried to clean myself. I was in the shower for an hour, 2:00 in the morning, just scrubbing and scrubbing and scrubbing. And I could not get myself to feel clean. I just felt so dirty. I felt so wrong. I felt so evil. I lived in constant fear. And just constant dread of what’s going to actually happen.”
Eventually Carl confessed to his role in the shooting. He and his friends were arrested and charged with first-degree murder. “Life was over, as I knew it. Signing papers that said first-degree murder and realizing how significant that was. And not knowing what to do. (I was) just at a complete loss.” He says.
As he waited in jail for trial, he saw an inmate reading a Bible and asked the man to pray for him. Carl put his life in the hands of Jesus.
Carl says, “Everything about who I was changed. And I can’t explain it; all I know is it changed. Immediate deliverance happened. There was just a real encounter with God. Nothing emotional happened. Nothing physically changed. But there was a spiritual thing that happened where I just decided I am going to read the Word of God every day for the rest of my life.”
He wrote a letter to the church he attended years earlier asking for prayer. Danielle, a girl who remembered him, wrote back.
Danielle remembers that day, “His name was up on the board for prayer and they explained that they got a letter and he was in jail and he was facing some charges and that was the first I had heard his name in about two years.”
Carl says, “She wrote me back and said, ‘I just want you to know we got your letter. We are praying. You’re on our prayer chain. We’re praying for you every Thursday, just believing that God can intervene.’ It brought back a lot of emotion. Because it brought me back to a place where I realized life was actually good during that year that I was at church. People actually cared.”
Carl prayed and studied the Bible for hours every day, and with God’s help he forgave his parents for the years of trauma he endured. He also exchanged letters with Danielle about his growing faith and what he was learning from the Bible.
He says, “I learned what a father is and I learned that I have a daddy I can run to and that will love me no matter what. The Word of God completely changed who I am and identified who I am and how much He really cares and loves in His compassion. The fact that He’s so willing to give so much for someone who was so willing to give so little, just changed everything about who I thought I was.”
Then as the church prayed, his charges were reduced. He spent just under five years in prison, healing from years of hidden pain and bad choices.
“My prison experience was—I would never replace it. I would never replace it. You want out, don’t get me wrong.” He says of prison. “But I had an extreme amount of peace and rest in the Lord.”
Carl and Danielle married after his release from prison and have a daughter, Moriah. They minister together at Crosswalk, a discipleship training program through the church where they first met. He says he is thankful God heard his prayers and gave him a second chance
“The Lord is the love of my life. He took what was broken and made it whole. And I won’t believe for a minute that God can’t deliver the worst of people.” Carl says, “He never abandoned me. He never turned his back on me. When I accepted Him, I was His son and despite the fact that He wasn’t pleased with me and didn’t agree with what I was doing, He was right there in that shower that night to hear that prayer; and to change and start in motion a process that was going to bring deliverance and freedom. And He never gives up. And it doesn’t matter if everyone else does, He never does.”
CBN IS HERE FOR YOU!
Are you seeking answers in life? Are you hurting?
Are you facing a difficult situation?
A caring friend will be there to pray with you in your time of need.
