Craig Willson is a native Central Floridian born on April 6, 1972. He was raised in the Roman Catholic faith and attended church as a child with his mother. Craig attended Public Schools and graduated from Lake Mary High School in 1990. He attended Stetson for one year on a music scholarship before going on the road with a band at age 19.
Craig relates that the next eight years were spent in travels around the country and state as a musician drug user/dealer and he considered himself a functional addict. At age 28 married a woman he had an affair with who was pregnant with his child. The new responsibilities encouraged Craig who had first started using drugs at age 15 to clean up his act. He went back to college and received a B.M.E. degree in Elementary Music Education in 1999. He acquired a part time job as Music Director at Trinity Methodist Church in Orlando, gave private piano lessons, and became a Band Director at Sweetwater Music Academy.
However, the drug addiction problem became worse, which Craig described as an “A to Z” in addiction that ended with the injection of heroin. The increasing addiction and the focus on drugs led to divorce with his unstable wife who battled addiction and mental health problems herself. The mask that Craig wore, a double life as addict and functional adult, ended one day when he came to work at Sweetwater in a drugged state that scared the children and resulted in his termination of employment as Band Director. It was then suffering from clinical depression and thoughts of suicide that Craig turned himself into detox and drug rehab at a local hospital.
When Craig was finally released from care he went almost immediately on a drug binge that cost thousands of dollars. He had somehow managed to keep his job with Trinity Methodist Church and the Minister he worked for there knew of Central Care Mission and its focus on the Gospel of Jesus Christ as the primary means of ending addiction. Craig relates that although he had been baptized as an infant in the Roman Catholic Church and had attended that church for years and in addition to working for years as a musician at Trinity Methodist Church, he thought of Christianity as a wonderful fairy tale that an adult could not believe.
Nevertheless, he agreed to meet with Director William Lowry of Central Care Mission on December 21, 2004 at the request of his employer. This fateful meeting proved to be the turning point in the spiritual life of Craig Willson when he heard what he calls the “Crack The Demon Speech” by William Lowry in which the scales finally fell off his eyes and he realized that he was involved in a spiritual battle for his soul, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ the key to freedom and salvation.
Craig says that he has now read the Bible cover-to-cover twice in the last year at Central Care Mission and understands that only the Word can deliver him from addiction, which is at root a worship of a false god of drugs who promises paradise on earth, but instead leads the user to Hell on earth and in the afterlife.
Craig relates that the next eight years were spent in travels around the country and state as a musician drug user/dealer and he considered himself a functional addict. At age 28 married a woman he had an affair with who was pregnant with his child. The new responsibilities encouraged Craig who had first started using drugs at age 15 to clean up his act. He went back to college and received a B.M.E. degree in Elementary Music Education in 1999. He acquired a part time job as Music Director at Trinity Methodist Church in Orlando, gave private piano lessons, and became a Band Director at Sweetwater Music Academy.
However, the drug addiction problem became worse, which Craig described as an “A to Z” in addiction that ended with the injection of heroin. The increasing addiction and the focus on drugs led to divorce with his unstable wife who battled addiction and mental health problems herself. The mask that Craig wore, a double life as addict and functional adult, ended one day when he came to work at Sweetwater in a drugged state that scared the children and resulted in his termination of employment as Band Director. It was then suffering from clinical depression and thoughts of suicide that Craig turned himself into detox and drug rehab at a local hospital.
When Craig was finally released from care he went almost immediately on a drug binge that cost thousands of dollars. He had somehow managed to keep his job with Trinity Methodist Church and the Minister he worked for there knew of Central Care Mission and its focus on the Gospel of Jesus Christ as the primary means of ending addiction. Craig relates that although he had been baptized as an infant in the Roman Catholic Church and had attended that church for years and in addition to working for years as a musician at Trinity Methodist Church, he thought of Christianity as a wonderful fairy tale that an adult could not believe.
Nevertheless, he agreed to meet with Director William Lowry of Central Care Mission on December 21, 2004 at the request of his employer. This fateful meeting proved to be the turning point in the spiritual life of Craig Willson when he heard what he calls the “Crack The Demon Speech” by William Lowry in which the scales finally fell off his eyes and he realized that he was involved in a spiritual battle for his soul, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ the key to freedom and salvation.
Craig says that he has now read the Bible cover-to-cover twice in the last year at Central Care Mission and understands that only the Word can deliver him from addiction, which is at root a worship of a false god of drugs who promises paradise on earth, but instead leads the user to Hell on earth and in the afterlife.
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