SID: Jim Maxim was growing up in a dysfunctional home of alcoholics. Chaos was normal. No peace, no direction, but when he was 15, his mother rededicated her life to Jesus. And he began to witness a new normal at home, for his mom at least. But it wasn’t a new norm for you.

JIM: No, not at all Sid. When my mother rededicated her life to Christ things changed. The atmosphere in our home changed. She started to be serious about this relationship she had with her God, somehow it was as if she was really talking to him every day. We used to hear her back there praying for us. So things changed radically.

SID: But for you, your life was still a wreck. What was going on?

JIM: Yes. Well, I started hardcore drugs at 15 and I continued to drink. So by the time I was 18 Sid, I was a full blown alcoholic.

SID: Well, there is a date in history, it’s your date. It shouldn’t happen to anyone, but it happened to Jim, December 27th, 1971.

JIM: Yes.

SID: What happened?

JIM: Well, I was completely drunk at an employee Christmas party. So drunk my friend had to drive me home. His girlfriend drove his car and got me to my house and handed me the keys and said, “Max, I’ll see you in the morning.” I said “Yeah, whatever.” And they left and I hid on the side of the house until they left. And the reason for that Sid, is when you’re an alcoholic, you have something driving you, you have something pushing you, you don’t drink just to drink. You drink to get totally obliterated. And so as they left, I got back in my car and went out for some more. And I was at a red light in my town, and I had an old eight track tape player in my glove box, and I leaned over to change a tape and one fell on the floor.

JIM: And as I bent over to pick it up, I was so drunk Sid, I passed out, and I saw a car coming at me then I passed out again. And they told me my vehicle went up an embankment and came down and hit a telephone pole and I flew through the passenger side of the windshield. And after my face and head went through the glass, my shoulders hit the glass and then the weight of my body dragged me back down in, across the jagged glass, lacerating my face, like a pack of razor blades. So they said that my face was on the passenger floor compartment. And when the cops came to get me, they braced themselves by putting their foot on the floor to pick me up. The cop told me later, he said “Max, when I put my foot in the car, the blood actually came up over the top of my shoe. You had lost so much blood.”

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