Review of Against All Odds by Joe Tarasuk

This is an incredible real-life story.  The Joe Tarasuk you get to know in the first half of the book is so different than the one in the second half, that you might be tempted to believe some of the story is a bit glamorized.  How could a guy who rose to the top levels of the cocaine business, dealing directly with a Bolivian drug lord, change so completely?  How could a guy who was so addicted to alcohol and cocaine walk out of that life and into the light of God’s love?  And how could a guy who could barely read or write himself write a book that’s as absorbing as this one? 

The one thread that runs through the story from beginning to end is Joe’s awareness of the spiritual realm.  We in the USA generally fall into two camps here: either we don’t believe in the existence of a non-material world at all, or we buy into the Hollywood version of demonic creatures, which is mostly ridiculous.  The truth is somewhere else.  The truth is that we are all partially spiritual.  The fact that you think, that you can understand and translate the words on screen or page into thoughts means that you possess spiritual powers.  But they’re very limited spiritual powers. 

In reality, the spirit world consists of holy and demonic beings.  What Joe Tarasuk shows us, up close and personal, is how demonic powers can take hold of a person, twist their thinking more and more, and eventually turn them into a slave of their own desires.  (C.S. Lewis brilliantly showed us some of the strategies they use in The Screwtape Letters.)  Joe’s natural ability to sense this darkness, and the power it had, drove him to and beyond the brink of sanity.  But his awareness of the power of God through the Holy 

Spirit gave him all he needed to resist those powers, even though they took him to some dark and scary places before he finally gave up.

Only the Holy Spirit – the third person of the tri-une God – can overpower the demonic beings and force them to release a man they’ve taken over.    And it was Joe’s willingness to surrender to Him and His will completely that allowed him to move away from the darkness of the demonic realm of drugs and lawlessness, and into the wonderful light of God’s truth.

In Against All Odds, Joe takes us on a personal journey from shy kid, to scared kid, to star athlete, and into his life as a young adult trying to live a good life, but with the baggage of low self-esteem, the haunting memory of having been sexually abused, and without a moral compass to guide him.  Starting with a “little pot”, he gradually goes from smoking it to growing and selling it, then is introduced to cocaine, which took him to a more euphoric high.  Soon, it became an easy next step to start selling it too.  And he shows us firsthand how he rose up the ranks of street dealer to the big time.  As he unfolds this success story though, we are also shown his rising inner struggles with the spiritual darkness he increasingly found all around him, as well as his own sanity.  When he’s finally busted for trafficking, we share his profound feeling of relief as he surrenders his life to God while sitting in the police car at the arrest scene!

The story changes at that point, but does not become less intriguing.  We see him admitting his guilt, but getting a 35 year sentence anyway.  Then we walk with him as he is offered the chance to stay in the local jail with the sheriff to do ministry work in the nearby jails and prisons.  We see his growing knowledge of who God really is, his growing friendship with the sheriff, and his willingness to work hard and to go above and beyond what is required. 

We see his hunger to be close to God and his willingness to pray and fast.  And after only 18 months of this growth and service, he secures a release, and moves back to Maryland!  From there we share his quest for complete freedom through Celebrate Recovery, where he learned the joys of helping others get free as well.  (He says he was clean and sober, but not free until he dealt with the baggage put on him by his past.)  We see him continuing to grow in his faith, his service to others in recovery, and in his business in flooring. 

But this is real life, and we also see the darkness returning to Joe’s life, this time because of his wife’s inability to break free from her own addictions.  As she descends more and more deeply into addiction, we share Joe’s feelings of helplessness over his inability to fix her.  We watch as her life slowly ebbs away, and share in his grief over her death. 

Finally, after a time of grieving the loss of his wife, we see Joe gradually starting to pursue his dream of opening a recovery center, as CrossRoads Freedom Center takes shape.

As the book draws to an end, we are left with a sense of anticipation, and a conviction that God has used Joe Tarasuk for a purpose – a purpose that will outlive his life on earth, and that will bring peace to many tortured souls.  Addictions to drugs and alcohol are a scourge upon our world, and freedom from them remains an elusive ideal.  Most treatment programs ignore the powerful spiritual forces at work in the addict, and fail much more often than they succeed.  The few (like AA and NA) that do have a spiritual component so water it down that it may as well not be there at all.  One of the few that does it right is Celebrate Recovery, which in just a few decades has grown to over 20,000 church locations.  CrossRoads Freedom Center will be one of only a handful of residential recovery programs that use the CR principles.

We should all pray that it is successful, and we should all read this powerful story of how it all came about.

Freedom is just another word for nothin’ left to lose

The need for aftercare services for prisoners returning to society

I once got a cute postcard from a friend. It had a picture of a guy in a convoluted position, and it said ‘Keep your eye on the ball, your shoulder to the grindstone and your hand on the wheel.’ Now try to work in that position! Cute.

CS Lewis once said “In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”

Both illustrate the task in front of a newly released prisoner. He or she is typically given whatever personal possessions they had when they were first incarcerated, and enough money to buy a bus ticket. They need to find a place to stay and get something to eat. After that first night, they need to look for a job, find a way to get a little bit of pocket money, and check in with their parole officer. Most prisoners are released with just the clothes on their back, so all the basics are needed – outerwear, underwear, shoes, and socks not to mention soap, deodorant etc.

Going on job interviews is a challenge, because they have little or no money for bus fare, no decent clothes, and no driver’s license.  Because of their criminal record, few employers are willing to take a chance on them.  Then there are the ways in which they interact with other people.

During incarceration, they have been effectively cut off from the rest of the world. There are no cell phones permitted, and the only land-line is a shared payphone, and phone calls are ridiculously expensive. Other means of communication are limited and challenging. As a result, family relationships are strained. Children are forced to cope without their incarcerated parent, and are often angry and alienated. So there’s often a pressing desire to reconnect with loved ones, and to start the process of setting things right.

If that were not enough, a whole new set of social skills needs to be learned. Crimes that lead to incarceration are the result of a lot of poor choices, not all of which were made by the one convicted and incarcerated. Sometimes hanging with the wrong crowd is seen as a better alternative than sticking around the house where families are dysfunctional; parents are involved in drugs or alcohol, or where abuse is involved. So they go out to the streets, and learn social skills street-style.  Eventually they realize that those skills are of no use in “normal” society. Then a new way of living is forced on them by incarceration. But none of the social skills learned inside are very useful on the outside, either.

The bottom line is that in order to reenter society, stay clear of further legal problems, and ultimately to become a productive member of society the newly released inmate stands at the bottom of a huge mountain. The task of climbing that mountain is so daunting, that almost nobody can do it without a lot of help.

Meanwhile, the government wonders why we have such a high rate of re-incarceration.  It’s called recidivism, and it’s extraordinarily expensive.  If I have a job, support a family and pay my taxes, I am a net gain to society.  But if I’m in prison, it costs taxpayers over $38,000 a year.  So we have a lot of incentive to actually prepare inmates for life on the outside, then work to assure that they have a support system that gives them a decent second chance.

Until laws and systems undergo some pretty radical changes however, most of the support has to come from volunteer organizations, particularly those that are faith-based.  CrossRoads is one of them, and we are working with others in the community to try to get it right.  If you or someone you know either has need of re-entry support, or would like to volunteer to mentor someone who does, please contact us.  Let’s all work to make freedom worth having for everyone.