He was a gangster and criminal enforcer who turned to drugs at an early age after a horrific childhood experience. Mick Fleming entered the dark criminal underworld in a bid to escape his pain in the 90s – but years later 'divine intervention' helped him leave it.
Mick was a troubled man when he saw the man who raped him aged 11 and vowed to kill him. But something changed in that moment and he left his life as a criminal enforcer to join the church and help others.
After becoming a bishop he has now launched a new addiction project with a difference.
Opening up about his own addiction, Mick explained he began using drugs at age 11 after the rape and the death of his sister Anne. To cope with both traumas he took some of his mum's painkillers and it led to 30 years of addiction where he tried every kind of drug and substance.
READ MORE: 'El Chapo of the Cotswolds' accused of running £5m drug racket tells prosecutors 'bring it on'
For more drug-related news, click here
Speaking to the Daily Star exclusively he recalled the moment he decided to get clean and find God after pointing a loaded gun at himself.
He said: “I had a gun in my hand and I had it under my chin so it was at the point of a suicide attempt. Thank God it didn't work.
“In my mind then I believed that there must be a God or something because I wasn't dead and I should have been dead. I put the gun under my chin and pulled the trigger and I knew it was loaded and he didn't go off. I fired it later and it went off.
“It started a thought process in my mind that is there a purpose to my life? Was it divine intervention? If you just luck, then what do I do with it? So it made me ask a question, and that was the beginning of leading me towards faith.”
Mick admitted that one of the key moments in his recovery was choosing to forgive his rapist. After a chance meeting in McDonald's he arranged to meet his attacker and intended to kill him. He met an alcoholic who had their own addiction problems.
Seeing him in that way changed something and Mick decided to forgive. He added: “That changed something in me because I was going to kill him and I had this sort of understanding, of forgiveness.
“Not being the ‘it's all right’, but forgiveness being ‘I don't need to live in your sin’ or ‘I don't need to live in what you've done’ and I got this absolutely massive feeling of peace. Without that, I probably would have relapsed or I’d probably be dead now.”
Now 14 years on, Mick has put his own experience and community work to use to help others in their recovery. In partnership with Pastor Emma, they are tackling the mental, emotional and spiritual issues of addiction.
The Exodus Project is a twelve-week programme of three full days a week. People can be using right up until the day they start the programme, but during they must commit to abstinence.
“Christian recovery is really poor, what Christian rehabs are doing, it's like it's bad, it's very unsuccessful and I'm a bishop, that's me saying it”, Mick added.
“This is different. What we're doing is we're taking secular techniques and Christian belief and melding them together and seeing the person as a whole. But the shocker which I didn't realise myself was some are getting clean, and sober, and their mental health is improving off the scale.
“The illnesses haven't gone away, but they're not being dominated. They're not using it as an excuse, which makes the illness appeal less, so they get well. And honestly some of the the outcomes that we've been seeing have been absolutely mind-blowing. It's crazy, really.”
- To find out more about The Exodus Project please visit here.
Keep up to date with all the latest news stories by signing up for one of Daily Star's free newsletters here.
