Page 14 - Spring 2017 Magazine

aLumni spotLight
cLass of
Jose “Joey” Venegas
’14
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providencecc.edu
When faith Comes fuLL CirCLe
by Mark Pomerville
Photo by samantha Manness
As a child, Joey Venegas’s life was in a shambles. Born in Pomona, California, Venegas grew up in an impoverished home lled with substance abuse, physical violence, and emotional torment. Nearly every week he would watch
in horror as his dad and brothers emotionally abused his mother, smoked meth, and sold the few possessions their family had in order to fuel their destructive habits.
Even though he eventually fled his home to live with his grandmother, it wasn’t long before he followed in the footsteps of his family. “I started doing drugs when I was 11 years old,” says Venegas. “I would constantly smoke weed and drink alcohol to numb the emotional pain that I was experiencing as a kid.”
By the time he was 19 years old, he had turned to harder drugs, as well as excessive partying and sex. Nothing seemed to fill the empty void in his life.
“One night, I was outside sitting on the sidewalk and drinking alone. I was completely wasted and didn’t know what I was doing with my life,” says Venegas. “I woke up the next morning and thought, ‘I need to change my life. I’m going nowhere.’”
In an effort to regain his sobriety and remove the scars from his past, Venegas began attending a local church. The first night he sat in a pew, his life was changed. “I started crying during the service because when I heard the gospel of Jesus Christ, I knew that I was never going to be ‘good enough’ on my own,”