I had done such terrible things to my family in my drug and drinking addiction that I didn't think they would accept a collect phone call from me but my sister did. When I told her that I was in a real mess in San Antonio I expected her to hang up but instead she said she already knew because she had done a little research on the organization, including your Web site. She sent me a bus ticket and I traveled home last night. I didn't think anyone would believe the things I went through down there because it all sounded too much like a bad dream or a story concocted by a really sick imagination, but the stories I've just read on your site mirror my experience exactly.
I say "escaped" because these guys weren't going to let me leave, wouldn't let me use the phone, and were gathering around me to "knock the devil out."
When I got out the door my life was still in jeopardy because I was smack dab in the middle of the San Antonio ghetto.
We were fed beans and rice with moldy bread three times a day, that is on the days that we ate three times a day. The kitchen was infested with roaches and scum litter ally ripped from the ceiling.
A man I had traveled with from the detox unit in Amarillo was at the hospital with chest pains when I left. He was severely asthmatic and on meds for emotional disorders of some type as well as epileptic seizures. They had him out digging ditches until he collapsed and then let him lay in bed for a full day before they finally took him to the ER.
I'm sure the place collects several hundred dollars a day for the labors of 10 or 15 guys out slaving but none of that money found its way into the food pantry, however, the director wore some pretty nice gold jewelry and drove a nice car.
The word recovering or recovery was taboo, delivered was the word used instead.
The many guys that had been in and out of there numerous times believed each time that the devil had got 'em and once again, back at VO, they were delivered, then were taken to pray with a shovel in their hands.
I have not been delivered, I've been clean and sober for two weeks now and seeking a treatment program to help me with my recovery. I do believe in God and thank him for getting me out of Victory Outreach, and I pray that others will snap out of the trance and get some recovery as well.
Thanks for sponsoring your site and I hope that some how, some way, somebody will stop Victory Outreach from abducting people who think there is no other way for them and cede to VOs entrapment.
