Spinal Cord Victim Finds Himself at Spiritual and Physical Crossroads

ENUMCLAW, Wash., Sept. 17 /Christian Newswire/ -- According to the National Spinal Cord Injury Association, approximately 11,000 individuals suffer a spinal cord injury every year in the United States through sports, auto, or work-related accidents. Over half of these accidents occur to men under thirty years old.

Thanksgiving Day, 1999, at age twenty seven, Andrew Reid suffered a spinal cord stroke, lost all feeling below the belly button, and realized his surfing days had come to an end.

Four years later, while laying in a hospital bed, ravaged by a critical pressure sore along with a preexisting drug problem, a family friend challenged Andrew to consider his eternal future. He agreed to read "The Purpose Driven Life", by Rick Warren; afterwards Andrew surrendered his life to Jesus Christ. Immediately, the blood started to circulate through his atrophied legs, causing him to feel something he hadn't in almost half a decade: intense, chronic pain.

Reid - a self proclaimed adrenaline junkie - describes his first book, "Keel Over & Die", as a real-time memoir recording his struggle from drug addiction to sobriety. Written five years after his stroke, Reid details the difficulties he faced with religion, drug addiction, paralysis, chronic pain, temptation, and his tendencies towards self-destructive behavior.

"I am subconsciously preconditioned to self-destruct. So reconnecting with God is ultimately the only way to resolve the conflict, obtain wisdom, throw obsessions away, resist temptations, to defeat Satan."

"Keel Over & Die" chronicles Andrew Reid's journey from utter hopelessness to faith in Jesus Christ. Though still living with chronic pain, Reid has completed a Master of Arts in Addiction Counseling at the Hazelden Graduate School. Andrew continues to rebuild his leg muscles with the assurance that he will walk again soon.

To order visit www.winepressbooks.com or call 877- 421-7323. For a review copy or to schedule an interview please contact Adam Cothes at 360-802- 9758 or adam@winepressgroup.com.

http://spinalcord.org/news.php?dep=17&page=94

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