Friends can be a great help in life, as long as they are the right friends. Greg Graham knows this to be very true. In his younger years he ran with a very bad crowd before he radically turned his life over to Christ.

Graham had a lot of friends growing up in Birmingham Alabama, and some of his closest were Jeff Davis, Scott Savage, and Charles. The majority of those friends were drug addicts, thieves, and criminals. These friends would come and go but Davis always stayed with Graham.

“Jeff was someone that always accepted me the way I was and didn’t expect me to change or be someone different to be his friend,” Graham said. “When I gave up drugs and partying and became Christian, most of my friends wouldn’t hang out with me, but Jeff still did and never judged me for it.”

Now he is older and much wiser than when he was 16 and has a different outlook on everything he did as a teenager. If he could go back in time knowing what he knows now, he would have some advice for his friends.

“I would tell them how dangerous drugs and alcohol were because it ended up taking Charles’s life and took Scott’s life,” Graham said. “And I think I would’ve changed earlier and would’ve helped them to see that you can have fun in life and enjoy life without having to do drugs and alcohol.”

Everyone has embarrassing moments with their friends but Greg’s most embarrassing moment was different from most.

“One time my mom caught me and my friends after we had broke into a house and stole a bunch of things,” Graham said. “We had stole things like steak and sausage and were cooking them in my house and we had put everything in garbage bags into my room and my mom came home early. She was knocking on my door and I panicked so I started to try and cover everything up with blankets and clothes but we had to let her in.”

Graham knew this was all going downhill, so he decided to take ownership for his actions.

“She saw everything and asked what all of it was so we told her that we had broke into this house and robbed it,” Graham said. “So, being the bold woman she was made us go back to the house and return everything the way it was and the next day brought us to work and called the police on us.”

After everything Greg’s been through he has learned a lot about life and friendship and making decisions.

“Choose your friends carefully, forgive quickly, and don’t speak when you’re angry because you are no longer responding, you’re reacting,” Graham said. “Be honest and open with your friends; have good clean fun, but you have to laugh to keep from crying because life is way too serious. Keep in touch when you leave high school, encourage your friends and build them up.”