Paul Algeo grew up in some of Scotland's most deprived streets, where crime and drugs were simply the weather of daily life. He had been sexually abused as a child, and at 14 he found that cannabis quieted the thoughts he could not silence on his own. To fund the habit he started dealing, and the spiral tightened from there: prison sentences, violence, then heroin and alcohol. He would later describe his existence in one word. Hopeless.
Four Hours With the Police at His Door
The lowest point came when his mental health collapsed into a four-hour standoff with police, complete with bomb disposal units and armed response teams. It was the kind of day that ends a life, one way or another.
It did end something. After his release, a taxi driver handed him a card for a Christian group called The Freedom Fighters. On it was a single line: "You shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free." Paul was 32 years old, and through that contact he walked into a church for the first time.
The Night He Met the Risen Christ
During the service the speaker said that someone in the room would leave transformed. Paul knew, with a certainty he could not explain, that it was him. That night he was overwhelmed by the weight of his own sin, and as he was, he saw something: pierced hands, and an empty tomb. In that moment he understood it completely. "Jesus Christ, the saviour of the world, was crucified for me."
By 1 May 2015 he was free from alcohol, and that freedom has held ever since.
More Than He Could Have Asked
Paul is married now, with another son, and serves in church leadership. He works as a coordinator for Blythswood, a Christian charity, travelling across the UK to tell his story and to remind people who feel beyond reach that "God is able to do abundantly more than we could ever ask or imagine." The man the police once surrounded now spends his days carrying freedom to others.
