Embrace the Struggle Living Life on Life’s Terms by Zig Ziglar & Julie Ziglar Norman

Author:Zig Ziglar & Julie Ziglar Norman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HOWARD BOOKS
Published: 2009-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Preston Dixon

Preston Dixon grew up in Dalworth, a small close-knit community within Grand Prairie, Texas. His life was uncomplicated, almost innocent by today’s standards. His parents, Myrtle and Albert Dixon, loved him and encouraged him in all he did. They raised him according to Proverbs 22:6, which says, “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old he will not depart from it” ( KJV ).

Preston was also blessed with athletic ability. The coaches at Grand Prairie High School thought so much of his talent that they put him on the varsity team his sophomore year. He proved them right when he became Sophomore of the Year for the Dallas–Ft. Worth Metroplex. Eventually, their star running back won a scholarship to North Texas State University (NTSU), now known as University of North Texas, in Denton.

Life up to that point had been anything but a struggle. All the good things seemed to come to Preston Dixon easily, naturally. But the very things that gave him so many advantages as he was growing up put him at a disadvantage when it came to knowing how to handle the faster pace of college life. The small-town boy did not fare well in the big city of Denton, Texas. The downward spiral of Preston Dixon started with a separated collarbone. Suddenly, he didn’t have to show up for practice every day, and he began to meet a different type of person on campus. Preston is quick to say that he is the only one responsible for the choice he made to drink their alcohol and smoke their marijuana; nobody forced him. Those two gateway drugs soon led to snorting, sniffing, and smoking cocaine.

Interestingly, Preston was able to continue playing football even though he was kicked out of two dorms for smoking marijuana. Nobody seemed to care that he had a drug problem, so he stayed at NTSU, playing and using, for four and a half years. By the time he left the university, he was so hooked on drugs that he didn’t go to class, he’d pawned everything he had, and he used his last dime to support his habit. He left the university without a diploma and with a lot more than he’d bargained for. An addiction to crack cocaine is no small thing.

Preston says, “They say crack kills, and it does. It kills your family; it kills your relationships; it kills your self-esteem; it kills your desire, and it eventually wants to kill you! One hit of crack is too much and a thousand hits aren’t enough.” He knows because the need for a thousand more hits drove him to steal from his own mother. He’d even run into stores, take merchandise, and dash back out if he thought he could do it without being seen.

But Preston was seen, and caught, so many times that his misdemeanor charges converted to a felony through a process called “enhancement,” and that is how petty theft to support his drug habit landed him in state prison.

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