How I was set free without even asking

Original audio in French. Captions are requested automatically in the language of this site, depending on the tracks available on YouTube.

This player is provided by YouTube in privacy-enhanced mode. Loading it sends technical information to Google; using it may involve further processing depending on your settings and YouTube’s. Privacy

A caption track is published for this language. You can change captions in the YouTube player.

Transcript

Transcript adapted for reading. Biblical quotations reproduce the wording used in the video.

Hello, my name is Pascal. I was freed from all my addictions.

It happened in September 2004, when I followed my wife to a Christian gathering in Portugal.

I had no particular expectations for that gathering.

During the gathering, I was asked whether I wanted to be baptised with my wife.

I followed her. When I was immersed in the water and came back out, my hand automatically went up.

I felt something filling me, filling the emptiness inside me. After that, so many things changed.

At the first party where there was alcohol, it no longer interested me as before. I was no longer as drawn to it.

Drinking it felt strange. It no longer felt right for me.

After that, I never touched another drop of alcohol, right up to today.

I was also freed from other addictions, including emotional dependency.

I no longer need to do so many things for people to accept me or to please them. Sometimes it used to make me ill.

Now all that is resolved. I am no longer drawn to pornography; it no longer interests me.

My relationship with my wife is much closer. We are much more in love with each other.

I felt that pornography was drawing me away from her. It changed my outlook and many other things.

I saw that no longer being drawn to pornography was beneficial too.

There was also impulse buying. Now my purchases are carefully considered and thought through. I am free from that too.

This freedom from all my addictions happened just like that, without my asking for anything.

Since trying to understand why, I have taken a great interest in God, because I know it was him.

When I accepted Jesus, he set me free.

I read the Bible every day to draw closer to him, to understand better, hear him better and listen to him better.

Now I walk through life with him.

When I stopped praying in my youth, my life took a path it should not have taken.

I left my family out of pure selfishness. Drawn by the world, I did a lot of stupid things.

For example, I went from one woman to another.

With my emotional dependency, I had relationships… I had great expectations of the other person because I gave them so much.

Those expectations could never be met.

I could never fill that emptiness by myself. It was God who filled it through that baptism.