I'm Rachelle Conley - author, speaker, advocate, and founder of Pain Into Purpose. My mission is to turn real-life struggles into purpose by bringing awareness to prison reform, accountability, rehabilitation, and survivor protection.

From overcoming homelessness, incarceration, trauma, and life inside the penal system to becoming a voice for change, I now use my story to inspire others not to let their past define their future. Through speaking, podcasting, and advocacy, I'm committed to helping people heal, grow, and rise above their circumstances.

https://www.facebook.com/rachelle.conley

Welcome to 12-Minute Converse with Jesus Believers.

God chose first to have a conversation with us, his creation.

Our prayer is that this listening space brings growth and transforms your life forever.

Praise God for you, Rachel.

It's a great pleasure to connect with you.

For the listening, what part of the world are you in today?

I am in Houston, Texas.

The challenge that I've been working around in my life is having a sibling that's dealing with addiction, and I see that it is something that you have dealt with as well.

Please dive into the experience you see versus the experience people that love you, that surround you, are having.

I ended up turned out on drugs at a very young age.

I was a straight-A student, ran track, cheerleaded, and one day my mom, I guess, had a bad day, and she took me to the Department of Children and Family Services and dropped me off.

Because of that, I ended up allowing my challenges to overcome me instead of me overcoming them.

I started hanging with the wrong people in and out of the penal system, and started hanging with people that would shoplift, which is stealing.

They taught me how to steal.

I was like 14.

Because I was a runaway, I would stay with them, and then they would steal from me, and they would use the money to go buy drugs.

Finally, I was dealing with so much hurt from the abandonment.

Being in foster care at 13, that's a young age.

It's different when you grow in the system as a baby or something, but when you are accustomed to a lifestyle with your parents, your mother, and then end up who's a good mother.

My mom wasn't on drugs or none of that.

I don't know what happened, but it just changed my life.

Then when I got on drugs, at that moment, I felt like that was my healing, it was my coping mechanism.

I stayed addicted to drugs for years because I didn't want to deal with the pain of who I was.

Because of that, I ended up in and out of jail, juvenile prison twice, adult prison seven times, attempted suicide three times, domestic violence, unhealthy relationships, toxic relationships.

I lost myself.

I would be so angry because I knew my mom.

I see her all the time.

I see my siblings, but they wouldn't deal with me.

I'd run away.

I'd go over there, and my mom would call the police, and she'll turn me in.

I was so angry, and I was so mad because I felt like they were abandoning me.

The more they abandoned me or they rejected me, I wasn't used.

Now, as I got older and I ended up in the Christ, I accepted Christ, God showed me that there was a reason for them abandoning me.

The reason was because had that not happened, I probably never would have gotten saved.

I never would have accepted Christ.

Sometimes we get so angry at people because of how they treat us, or you get angry at people because you feel like they're not doing what they're supposed to but sometimes God doesn't want those people to do what he wants to do to and through us.

He don't want people enabling us.

He wants us to depend wholeheartedly on him.

I've always depended on people.

I was codependent.

I wanted to be around people.

I wanted to be loved.

I wanted to be hugged.

I wanted to be appreciated.

I wanted all of those things that God was telling me, I got you.

You don't need these good companionship, friendships, family, all that's good.

But God was showing me that I was all he needed and the scripture that was put on my heart was Luke 1.37, with God, nothing is impossible.

I was able, given the opportunity to sign up for the clean slate.

Today, I'm felony free.

I don't have a traffic ticket.

I went from being an inmate to being a correctional officer, from dealing with drug addiction to being a drug addiction counselor, from mental health to being a mental health specialist, homeless, homeless advocate, domestic violence to being a domestic violence advocate, sexually abused to being a sexual assault consultant.

And I say all that to say that all of my pain, everything I went through, he turned into purpose.

The job opportunities that opened up for me is so amazing because a lot of people, they have the degrees, but they chose me because of the experience.

Do you have any fears of the possibility of some scenario occurring that is good enough or justified enough to use again?

No, God has been too good to me.

And then back in my days, and not trying to be funny when I say this, it's never okay to do drugs, but today's day, it's not safe to do drugs.

Back in my days, they just had like regular cocaine.

Today, they have fentanyl, meth, they have stuff.

You don't know what's what.

And I always tell people that I talk to that are dealing with substance and addiction, put it in your mind that that hit might be your last hit because people do not care nowadays.

They're so greedy for money.

They don't care what they give you.

They don't know what they're giving you.

A lot of them don't use drugs, so they don't know what they get and what they're giving to you.

And I've seen that happen with a young man who had a brother.

He sold his brother some drugs and his brother OD'd off the drugs.

They had fentanyl in them.

And that tore him up.

I asked him, I said, well, what happened?

He's like, well, dude, I normally get this stuff from all the time.

You know, he never had an issue.

I said, this is why it's so important to just, we have to really get to the mindset that this is not what you want.

Now, you're gonna go to jail for your brother's murder for a few dollars.

People out here selling drugs, I tell them, if you don't use drugs and even if you don't know what these people are giving to you that you're giving to somebody else, and this could end you up in a situation just like this young man, where you're on trial for murder, not intentionally, but because you done got something bad.

So, no, I really, I don't have a desire.

And I would encourage anybody that is out there on any dealing with any type of addiction, man, get some help.

And I know a lot of people don't want to go to recovery because of shame and guilt, but man, the word of God, you get in your word, you start seeking God with all your heart and you pray and you fast.

I'm telling you because this word says that jokes are destroyed through prayer and fasting.

I did not get clean from a rehabilitation center.

God did that.

Where during the process did you begin to write?

I was incarcerated.

My first book I wrote in 2007, I believe.

It published in 2013.

So, yeah, I wrote my book.

I went on three-day fast and I asked God, whatever needs to be spoken or whatever it is, the message that you want to give, ask me to speak through me.

And when I wrote this book and read it after I wrote it, I was like, Lord, did we have to go there?

But when I tell you my book was Satan, Men for Evil, God, Men for Good is Naked and Unashamed, I was like, are you kidding me, Lord?

Like, this is all my business.

And he said, this is not your business.

This ain't about you.

This is about me using you.

You're going to be a vessel.

And that book, when several people gave me feedback on it, they was like, man, that book was good.

And I'm like thinking like, what is they thinking about me now?

It talks about me being sexually abused in a penal system, me messing with correction officers, my drug addiction, my stealing, my this, my that.

And I'm like, man, it's just exposed.

Everything that was done in the dark came to the light.

But I'm going to tell you why he did that.

When he allowed me to write that book, it allowed me to no longer walk in shame.

I'm able to share my testimony wholeheartedly, not sugarcoating it or trying to be somebody that I'm not.

Sometimes people don't want to share their story because we got so many people that are judgmental and they want to look down on you.

But we all have been in some dark places in our lives.

And once I learned my identity, what they feel or what they say or what they think no longer mattered to me.

When people will bring up stuff about me, I say, girl, I wrote a book, read my book.

Oh, you must read my book.

It doesn't bother me.

I can walk in my truth.

Shame, guilt, fear for a recovered addict will only keep you high.

Five years from today, you're listening to this conversation.

What's a message you'd leave for future you?

Keep going.

No more looking back.

In closing, is there anything else you'd like to share?

If you are listening to this podcast and you are dealing with anything that I have just spoken about, I want to encourage you to come back to this podcast if you need to.

It is time for you to get into your purpose.

Everything that you went through is not about you and it's not for you.

Your obedience is somebody's deliverance.

Hear me when I say that.

Your obedience is somebody's deliverance.

Something in you that somebody needs to get their deliverance.

And you hold that assignment.

So I want to encourage you to pray, start fasting and believe in God to get you to where you need to be in your journey.

And I pray that this episode blesses somebody.

Risha, my pleasure, my treasure.

Thank you for being on what has inspired my 12 night chronicles.