#43 Enslaved to Heroin & Alcohol. Freed by Christ. - Fred & Casey Weymouth — Compelled Podcast

Fred was once a successful insurance salesman, but became a homeless drug addict, completely in bondage to heroin and other substances. Casey had a promising military career, but had become a hopeless alcoholic, and no matter how many recovery programs she went to, she always landed back at the bottom of a bottle.

Both of them were desperately looking for their next fix... but could never find what they wanted... until they fixed their eyes upon Jesus.

The following is a summary of the podcast interview above with Fred and Casey Weymouth. Many more details are included in the original podcast episode and we encourage you to listen.

Written by Jace Bower

An Inner Void

Fred and Casey Weymouth both grew up with holes in their hearts. They both grew up with something missing.

Fred grew up in Richmond, Virginia - the son of a successful insurance salesman, and he first turned to alcohol to fill the void. Alcohol served to stave off his insecurities and the wounds of childhood sexual abuse by a family member. At a party one night, Fred was introduced to heroin and before long, his dabbling in drugs was turning into a full-blown addiction.

Casey was facing similar challenges 500 miles away in rural Georgia. She was also sexually abused as a child and sought something to find identity and worth in. At first, that thing was food, then anorexia, then men, and finally drugs and alcohol.

Fred and Casey both emerged into adulthood with these secret addictions weighing on them. Fred worked for his father’s insurance business and did quite well as a salesman, but his financial success only served to enable his lifestyle of partying, drugs, and drinking. Casey, meanwhile, joined the U.S. Army and learned to manage her alcoholism enough to function while deployed in Germany.

Casey’s Search for Meaning

While both Fred and Casey were searching for something to fill their inner void, they were coming up empty. Casey married a fellow soldier and returned with him to his home in Virginia. She went to college and got a job at the Federal Reserve bank. But even these things couldn’t provide Casey with the worth she desperately craved.

Casey gave birth to a son. He was diagnosed with autism at the age of 3 and Casey began to do anything and everything she could to “fix” him. She became angry at God, who had held only a trivial place in her home life growing up. She resolved to live life according to her plan and had soon lost everything: her job, her marriage, and all the things she had depended on to fill her void.

Casey soon found herself in drug rehab.

Angry with God

Fred had also married but remained entrenched in his partying and addiction. His reliance on heroin was keeping him from work and his father eventually caught on. Fred entered a 30-day rehab program and upon graduation from the program promptly joined the Coast Guard.

During the 12 years he spent in the military, Fred excelled. But he had traded his drug addiction for reliance on alcohol.

But alcohol wasn't enough. After 12 years of service in the Coast Guard, Fred transitioned back to civilian life and immediately fell back into drugs. Around that time, Fred’s father died of cancer.

Fred was furious with God for taking away this close relationship. Bitterness overwhelmed him and he plunged into self-destructive behavior which cost him his job, the family business, his marriage, and everything he owned. He spiraled back into heroin addiction and ended up homeless. He was in and out of rehab programs.

It was during one of those programs, Narcotics Anonymous, where Fred and Casey met.

“Let Me Die”

Fred and Casey hit it off. At the moment, they were both sober and were just friends, but within months their relationship would deepen and their soberness would fall to the wayside. They moved in together in March 2009 but they both relapsed within a year of being together.

The results were not pretty. Fred and Casey’s relationship became extremely toxic and abusive. They fought physically, which landed Fred in jail multiple times.

After one particular drunken fight, Casey kicked Fred out of her house and onto the streets. Fred set up camp in the woods behind a Valero gas station, utterly forlorn and broken. Everything he had wanted and desired had been lost. His career, his family, and his hope. Fred cried out to God for the first time since his father’s passing and asked God to let him die in those woods that night.

Utterly Broken

Casey was also crying out to God. She soon lost her house, her car, and everything else she had. She eventually found herself on the streets with just enough money to either get a hotel room or get drugs. Invariably she chose the drugs.

In that moment, she cried out to God, recognizing that only God could save her from her brokenness.

For years, Casey’s mother had been faithfully sending her daughter texts with Bible verses and worship music. When Casey reached her breaking point, she knew she had to return home and seek help from her mother. She soon boarded a Greyhound bus headed to her childhood home in Georgia.

When she arrived in Georgia, she was met with open arms. Her mother and other women from the small rural church discipled her and Casey experienced transformation as she surrendered her life to Jesus Christ.

Radical Transformation

But while Casey was in Georgia undergoing a spiritual transformation, Fred was still in Virginia, crawling through the mess of his life.

He spent 6 months in jail, and it was there that God met him.

He attended chapel while in jail, not to hear the word of God but to see other inmates from another pod. But one day, a long-bearded preacher arrived to share God’s word with the inmates. He preached from the book of Acts in such a way that Fred knew that this man believed what he was preaching. After chapel that day, Fred returned to his cell where he found a Bible and began reading.

“I had a ferocious appetite for the Word of God.” Fred recalled.

That day changed Fred. He had found the freedom, the missing piece, that he had been searching for his entire life.

As soon as he was released from jail, Fred headed to a church he knew, which just so happened to stand right across the street from the Valero gas station he had slept behind months earlier. He made a public profession of faith and was baptized.

Fred heard the truth of God’s word preached at the church and the pastor held him accountable and discipled him. By God’s grace, Fred hasn’t picked up a drug since his conversion in 2014.

A Unique Wedding

Fred and Casey had both fully committed their lives to the Lord, but neither one knew that the other one had done that. They were living 500 miles apart in two separate states and had not kept up with each other. In fact, the last time they had seen each other, both of them were in the depths of their addiction and their relationship had been incredibly toxic and harmful.

After almost a year of no contact with Casey, Fred called her mom and asked to talk with her. Casey wasn’t interested. She was totally against getting back together with Fred, unaware of the transformation that had taken place in his life. When Fred insisted he was now a born-again Christian Casey just scoffed, calling Fred a liar.

Eventually God convicted Casey that if He could change her life, He could change Fred’s. She finally agreed to talk to him and he asked her to marry him over the phone. She agreed.

But there was a problem. Fred was on probation and wasn’t allowed to leave Virginia, even to get married. His probation officer couldn’t help either.

But Fred was determined to not let Casey down on yet another promise after breaking so many he had made to her in the past. He got on a bus, arrived in Georgia, married Casey in her small country church on November 22, 2014, and then immediately returned to Virginia by himself.

Ministry to the Homeless

Several months later, when Casey joined Fred in Virginia, they began to minister to people who were in the same place where they had been.

They started serving the homeless people on the streets of Richmond, praying with them and helping meet their material needs. But they were convicted that meeting material needs alone was not enough. What the homeless community needed even more than food and shelter, was the Good News about Jesus.

Their ministry grew into a Bible study, open to the public in downtown Richmond, and eventually expanded into a gathering of more than 200.

During one particular Bible study, a young homeless man named Preston approached Fred while he was teaching and handed over his drugs and needles, surrendering his life to Christ right then and there. This became a defining moment in Fred’s life as he saw God using his ministry to impact the lives of others.

Fred sought long-term help for Preston, but because of Preston’s lack of ID and insurance, and a felony conviction, he was barred from entering many of the local recovery programs. Preston’s situation inspired Fred and Casey to think about a new vision: a place where anyone could come and get help - regardless of ID, criminal record, or insurance.

That was the start of Fred and Casey's vision for what would become The Fix Ministry, a Christ-centered program and ministry to men recovering from addiction.

A Vision Comes True

Fred and Casey had a vision, but they didn’t have the resources to start a program like this. That’s when they got help from an unexpected source.

Fred was acquainted with the County Sheriff who had been involved in multiple of Fred’s arrests in the past. The sheriff, whose name was Joe, helped Fred and Casey gather a group of people together who could help them bring their vision to reality.

And that’s how The Fix Ministry was born. They formed a board and God miraculously provided a property in the countryside where the homeless and addicted could recover, far away from many of the temptations they normally faced in the city.

The True Fix

Today, Fred and Casey run the day-to-day operations of The Fix Ministry and reach men recovering from addiction with the truth and love of Jesus Christ. They can relate so well with this community, because they were once there themselves. God was working in their stories long before either of them were aware, and they have both experienced beautiful redemption and fulfillment in Jesus. Jesus is “the fix” for all the brokenness in our hearts and lives.

Fred and Casey started off their lives looking for things that could fill them and provide them with hope, identity, and worth. But nothing they tried worked… until they cast their eyes upon Jesus Christ.

Now as they minister through The Fix Ministry, even more people are finding their way to the One who can fill their inner void.

—
Jace Bower is a writer with a passion for justice and biblical principles. He writes at jacebower.com.