I work for an enhanced NC Medicaid service that provides support to individuals with mental health and substance use disorders. Like most states, NC has a shortage of available beds in state hospitals and residential treatment facilities. I have a member on my caseload that is homeless and is dually diagnosed. My team has worked relentlessly to no avail locating the proper treatment program for this gentleman based on his needs. I walked into Tractor Supply last Friday June 21st. I noticed two women that had a table set up that were selling faith-based tee shirts. They asked me if I would like to donate or purchase a tee shirt. ($15 for one or two for $25) They explained the reason for the fundraiser and that they represent a Christian based treatment program in Hendersonville, NC. They explained that the program was 12 months, and free of charge. One explained that she just graduated from the program and was now working at the treatment center and the other was a "student" that had been in the program for four months. I had been putting off my trip to Tractor Supply for several days. I thought that my encounter with these ladies on this day was a God send and it was meant for me to be there on that specific day. I asked several questions but the one that raised the red flag was my question about medication management. She informed me that the program does not allow psychiatric medications of any kind to be taken as they feel that anyone that enters their treatment program can be healed from mental illness through Jesus Christ. I do not allow my own religious beliefs to interfere with my work, but I will add that I am a Christian. I asked them what their success rate was when treating "students" that have a mental health disorder that experience auditory and visual hallucinations. I was told that sometimes the staff takes them to the hospital but most of the time "people like that don't work out there." I made the reference that maybe "people like that" just aren't trying hard enough to be healed by God just to see what their response would be, and they agreed. Against my own discretion I purchased two tee shirts and was given about 20 flyers to pass out. I returned home and spoke to my director about the program and how it may potentially be a great resource. I then began to do my own research. WOW! I read reviews that were horrible, and many of them brought tears to my eyes. A "student" died unexpectedly while in the facilities care. When the family inquired about what happened they were told that he simply died from the flu. "Students" claimed that if they tried to leave early, they were bullied and not allowed to call family to pick them up. Several reported they were just dropped off at a bus station. Some individuals wrote that their belief in God was tainted, and they have struggled with trusting people that have good intentions wanting to help. Others reported having to sleep on the pews in the church due to being overcrowded. One "student" reported that their use of the word "fundraising" and being forced to travel from city to city is no other than human trafficking. Upon reading these reviews I called the number on the flyer. The number was for a cell phone that went to a default voicemail. No custom greeting that stated, "You are calling Life Changers Outreach." (Another red flag.) My call was returned by a woman that stated her name was Kimberly. (She is not listed as a staff member on their directory for the NC location.) I asked Kimberly about the intake process and what services were provided at the facility to assist individuals with their recovery. Kimberly informed me that the "students" were required to sell tee shirts in front of locations like Dollar General and Walmart Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday from 8am to 8pm. (I met these ladies on a Friday.) Mind you that I live three hours from Hendersonville, and they do not provide out-of-town lodging. (I read that while selling shirts they receive $3 for breakfast, $5 for lunch, and $6-10 for dinner!) Kimberly stated that on the other days they make tee shirts and have daily devotionals. I asked if a "student" has a mental health diagnosis is that not treated as well as the addiction? In my experience most of the individuals we support are dually diagnosed. You can't treat one condition and not the other. Kimberly stated that no psychiatric medications are permitted at the facility because they believe all mental health conditions can be healed solely through God. Some of the rules include...
1. No cell phones or electronics of any kind are permitted throughout the 12 months of your stay.
2. You are not to have any money in your possession for the entire 12 months of your stay. ALL monies must be given to staff members.
3. No incoming calls at any time and all phone calls are monitored by the staff.
4. All personal matters such as medical and dental needs should be "dealt with" prior to entry or after the 12-month completion date.
5. "Students" requesting to go off campus for personal matters more than 15 times within the 12 months stay will have time added to their program. These include doctors and dental appointments.
6. Talking to "students" of the opposite sex is NOT permitted throughout the 12 months stay not even at church.
7. During church you are not permitted to use the restroom without permission…Do NOT ask unless it's an emergency.
8. The costs involved for transportation for the "student" and his/her escort shall be provided by the student who wants to leave the campus for any reason. (That includes appointments.)
9. The first 24-hour pass that is permitted to stay with family is not until the completion of 10 months!
10. If you are corrected by a staff member for anything do not try to explain what happened or why you are not wrong. Take the punishment like an adult and make sure it doesn't happen again! The staff are in charge and should not be questioned.
These are just 10 rules that are listed in the 23-page handbook. It is my belief that this organization is a cult that exploits those in need of help. The ministry hides behind God and the Christian faith to brainwash and control these "students" to make a profit. I read that their NC location brings up to about $30-40,000 per week! Addiction and mental illness are both brain diseases and just like any other disease it can require the use of medication for treatment to sustain a healthy life. Many addicts self-medicate for those exact reasons. Life Changers simply does not want to take in individuals that may need the assistance of psychotropic medications because it interferes with their agenda. Administering any type of medication in a facility requires that it is given an hour before or hour after 8am, 4pm, and 8pm. Life Changers requires that their "students" work constantly making and selling tee shirts. If these "students" are in communities begging for handouts and driving from one town to another there is no structure. There is no one to hold accountable to reassure those medications are given properly which could be a liability to their ministry. Treatment for substance use is not a joke and it requires more than keeping busy and having scriptures shoved down your throat. If it was that simple the substance use, and overdose rate would significantly decrease. I hope before you consider this type of treatment program for your loved one that you do your due diligence and research in DEPTH! Pictures and testimonies can be deceiving. Most of the time opportunities like this one are too good to be true. Needless to say, I threw the cheaply made tee shirts away and will continue to expose these evil imposters that prey on vulnerable human beings for their own financial gain.

I saw a post on a christian forum of how a recovery expert called Jovani Truman recovered $600,000 for one of our sister in christ that lives in California who got scammed by some investors she met on youtube. As at that time i was also scammed $380,000 by someone i met on instagram who convinced me into trading and he stole all my money. I contacted the recovery expert at his personal email via trustguarddigitalassetsrecovery(AT)aol(DOT)com I was so surprised that i was able to receive my lost funds back within 48 hours because i obeyed him, If you are in such situation and you want to truly recover back your lost, stolen money, then contact him now at trustguarddigitalassetsrecovery (AT) aol (DOT) com... so that you recover all your lost funds, crypto and assets back.

So LifeChangers was a nightmare. I was 17 and disappeared into the cult known as LifeChangers. I wasn't allowed to talk to a majority of my family. I brought pictures of my friends and family 5 months later the pictures were put away and I was advised to let go of my old life. Constantly I was downed for having assurance my boyfriend would be there when I left and was told he'd probably cheat.(he didn't and we got engaged). Constantly I was told I have no right I was a minor and they lawfully could handle me how they wanted. I came in and couldn't walk my need for a physical therapist was neglected for months when I did go they consistently didn't listen to the doctor's instructions leaving me with a dislocated spine disk. Consistently lead me on and left me for a constant need for validation. I was not on drugs nor was I in full sin my own mother abandoned me and it was my only choice. I couldn't get a job or have a minute to myself. They let other people say anything mentally abusive and leave me in tears without correcting bullying behavior (60 year olds bullying 17 year olds and getting away with it) Tennessee puts people in a hot un air conditioned room to make more than 7,500 shirts a week no pay(it's basically a sweatshop). Employees are underpaid and overworked (most can't afford rent for a house and compromise in living in an over populated living setting). You have to even deal with fundraising in extremely hot to extremely cold temperatures fundraiser's sometimes going 6am- 9pm $3 allowance for breakfast, $5 for lunch, $6-10 for dinner and you have to be in luck to find lunch near fundraising area here's the thing only $14 to eat per person but these people earn almost $2000 in a weekend and see nothing. How is it a multimillion program has so much money but doesn't help with the decline of peoples health. The shirts are cheaply made and very easily made and they charge high. In the fine print of the waiver the people sign it makes you agree to not suing and makes you acknowledge you'll go through physical and psychological pain and suffering and your liable for your injuries or issues, and you have to agree to sign away your first amendment right. Plus not being in addiction they preach you were in addiction 100% of the time no regard for who wasn't. It is spirit filled but the good never out weighed the bad there and leaving was the best decision I ever made because though I was homeless leaving I lucked out and now I'm a responsible adult living my life free of abuse. I don't go to church because I still haven't healed from the trauma it gave me. LifeChangers will forever and always be a sweatshop, slavery inducing, and morally wrong cult. This place should be shut down because they have not yet had any repercussion.

I was in a very dark place, and was in need of treatment. My mom came across a table of theirs and was given the pitch. She was told they have a house on the beach, its completely free, they have a chef, workout room, is a Christ centered program and basically sounded too good to be true... which it was.
I was told i would be going to their location in Carlsbad but last minute they changed it to Gallup, New Mexico. Since i had made arrangements to go to treatment i couldnt make different arrangements last minute. They didnt pay for transportation as promised, so i book a GreyHound for $300 and arrived at 3AM. (While claiming to be free they did pressure my mom into giving a standard $500 donation) I am driven to the "treatment center" and it's a freezing Cold warehouse. The warehouse consists of three sections a kitchen which is off-limits to everyone, bathrooms and a bunk room with bunkbeds made out of two by fours. Main room is filled with plastic chairs this is the only place you can go and sit there is nothing or nowhere else you can go to do anything. If you wanna go anywhere you have to have somebody go with you as an accountability partner. They have this hillbilly rule called the gun line which is basically old Termanology for back when you're in prisons where you couldn't cross a line or else you get shot things like this were placed around the kitchen entrance and the table where the "pastor" would sit and you would hand in your homework which is ironic because you're turning in homework to someone who didn't graduate high school and has no religious or drug treatment education whatsoever. My main complaint is the fact that 3 to 4 days out of the week you get in a busted up minivan not fit for driving and you drive for six hours to various parts around the surrounding states and stand in front of a Walmart for 12 hours (minimum) yes stand, no sitting and beg people for money in exchange for T-shirt's, homemade necklaces and CAD boards with thing like "live, love, laugh" stuff like that but god related all in order to get people to give you money on the basis that you've pitched them that you are helping feed clothe and house the homeless. Which you are not they feed you hotdogs and beans, no clothes and you're in a warehouse.

The best experience my last day leaving was the "pastor" saying "Y'all keep acting up and you're gonna find out real soon why I got these flames on my hands" basically he was threatening us with violence because one person decided to have an attitude. I guess in prison he used to fight and this was back when he weighed about 180 currently 300 lb. This was the pastor.

On our trips we would stay in trap motels and we're allowed three dollars for food at McDonald's every morning we were then allowed another 3 to 5 dollars for lunch at Jack in the box at the end of our three day sessions of begging for money for 12+ hours depending on whether we hit our $1200 a day goal we would then have to drive regardless of the time we left for about 6 to 12 hours home with the person driving running on nothing but energy drinks in a hoopdee mini van where our lives were seriously at risk because of the tiredness of the driver and the junker vehicle.

Sundays when we arrived home even if we got home at 5:30 - 7 o'clock in the morning we had to go to church, Church would start at 8 o'clock and even if we got one hour sleep we still had to go even though we had just worked 40+ hours out of the last 72 hours and those extra hours were spent in a minivan where you could not sleep the rest of the time again you just had an open space with plastic chairs and all you could do is sit there you could not lay in your bed during the day there was no television to watch there was no Wi-Fi you had to sit in a plastic chair and even if you wanted to go into one of the other rooms you had to have accompaniment less you steal someone's I don't know wife beater or axe deodorant spray or whatever hillbilly items were brought in if I had a nickel for every time someone use the word y'all I would have enough money to afford an actual drug treatment program.

The program is about money and money alone and they do it in the name of God they think they hang the banner of Jesus and claim to be helping people but at the end of the day someone is just making money and that is all it is, very very sad because that person is going to be judged many people are going to be judged. I had to sneak out when I tried to call my mom I could not even reach her because when I mentioned the issues with the program they hung up the phone and said no badmouthing the ministry, click. So I had to wait another two weeks for my next phone call in order to know when I could leave. I had to speak to my mom in code in order for her to book a greyhound ticket. Somehow I managed to get past them, they dropped me off at the bus station eight hours before my departure next to a liquor store knowing the problems I had but they didn't care because they got what they wanted from me and they were moving onto the next person who would be brought in from the jail would be faced with either doing 3-15 years or completing one year of slave labor raising funds for the apostle Mark as he likes to be called.

It's sick, those people are sick everything you read about this program is true all the ones you read that have five stars are written by them, you can tell because they are written in the same country hillbilly accent that I heard while I was in the program by staff. I was lied to, I was manipulated and it was the worst month of my life. Christ would have compassion these country hucksters and I'm sorry if I call these people names that I shouldn't as I am a Christian man but I'm so angry they put me through the worst month of suffering I've ever been through in my life. If I didn't get a ticket out my next best option would have been to commit a crime and spend the time in jail.

My name is Katie I hacked into Life Changers in Pigeon Forge TN in October 2017 I had struggled with addiction for about five years I had torn apart my whole family lost my job house car and even my two children because of addiction I was in and out of jail and ended up doin a little prison time. After I was released from prison having nowhere to go and no family who wanted me around because of the things I had done I met someone who told me about Life Changers I had nothing to loose so why not I thought little did I know or expect it was really going to change my life forever everyone was welcoming and friendly the staff were very understanding and encouraging they loved on me thy prayed for me laughed with me and cried with me they introduced me to God, to who He really is they taught me how to have a relationship with Him how to love Him the way He loves me after going to the center in TN I found out they had centers all over the US including one in Alaska which is where me kids we're living with my mother in law who had custody of them I was like what are the chances of me randomly picking a rehab in TN without knowing anything about it and they also have one all the way in Alaska and not only was the center in Alaska it's in Wasilla even the exact city my children live in so I knew right then that God had orchestrated the whole thing I was in the program in TN for 6 months then the program paid to send me to the one in Alaska where I finished my other 6 months graduated from and now work for I now y'all to and get to see my two boys that I had lost and given up all hope of ever seeing I have hope again- For I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord plans to prosper you and not harm you plans for hope and a future Jeremiah 29:11. Life Changers gave me my life back thy gave me more life then I had before more life then I could have ever hoped for, was it hard? ABSOLUTELY! Yes you travel to other places to fundraise and I love how everyone throws that in there about they force you to fundraise bla bla bla but they forget to mention that they fundraise on Friday and Saturday because they live completely free for the whole 12 months fundraising is how they pay for housing and food I didn't even have clothes when I arrived they even provide the clothing for a lot of people and the one lady was being honest they wouldn't take the guy with the prescription they tell you that over they phone when they do your application no narcotics and no MIND ALTERING OR MOOD ALTERING medicines they are not a medical facility and they tell you that they tell you if they is any medical stuff you need to have it all took care of before you come yes they have a strict schedule you get up at 6am you gotta be dressed and ready for praise and worship by 6:30am then you have breakfast do chores like clean up the house then you go to class and do different bible studies to learn how to come to know God and how to grow closer and stronger in Him then when you graduate not only do they off you a job as staff with the program they also off World Harvest School of Ministry classes which is part of Oral Roberts University to help you maintain the new life they helped you create now I'm deeply sorry for anyone who didn't have the strenth to surrender and let God in and allow Him to heal but you have to want it!

My brother went through this program and has been clean for years.
What most people who have not been through this personally, or who have not seen first hand, do not understand, is not just the spiritual, but the mental aspect of this program, and why it works.
Being in the midst of addition, your brain has physiologically been altered & needs to be re-wired. That is why the majority of these 30, 60, 90 day programs have such a high relapse rate (go look it up, its astonishing the amount of times people have been through multiple programs), simply put - our brains need more time. That is why the 1 yr is so crucial.
Now, the prescription drug issue that was mentioned before, was completely false. Yes, the program does not allow ANY mood altering drug, allowing these would be counterintuitive. These can come to be relied upon & later might even be a trigger if they get fearful that they will have to come off of these in the future. Yes, this does include anti-depressants, not just opioids. But the leaders have NEVER and would never not allow someone to take meds that are medically necessary, such insulin for diabetes, antibiotics etc.

Now on to the last, and most controversial issue- the fundraising. Yes, the boys have to work. Period.
This is a program that they offer completely free (yes, if the family is able to help, its great- but it is offered free so that anyone willing and ready, can come get help no matter their circumstances), of course the men & women do not like this in the beginning (or being told what to do at all for that matter) because they have been living in addiction for how long? Everyone who's knows anything about addiction, knows they are not themselves & have been living a SELFISH life for a while- OF COURSE THEY DON'T WANT TO DO IT! Of course it seems cult-like if someone is forcing you to do something you do not like, but that does not mean it is not benefical (but I am assuming the did not like jail all that well either).
Unlike these 30-90 day programs that cost anywhere from a couple thousand to upwards of $25,000, & they are living in an enviroment that is not sustainable once they are in the real world. Anyone can stay sober with all day group-counseling, massages and acupunture, and yes, drugs that are deemed "acceptable" to make it a little easier. But what happens when they get home and real life starts? Problems at work? Screaming Kids? A family who might not be sure if this is real yet, and not ready to open 100% back up.
These programs just want them to be prepared for life, AND That means work- but that is only a fraction of the time. The rest of the time they are receiving biblical counsling, mentorship & if you stick it out & allow God to lead your life, they WILL BECOME YOUR FAMILY.
And just to be clear, I have never heard of ANYONE getting kicked out for not making a certain amount of money each week ( though an attitude and anyone causing division that might affect another persons recovery is a given). No one will receive help, unless they truly want it for themselves. And no matter what some person, who is uneducated on the ins and out of the program said, I will be forever grateful for this program & how it gave my brother a new life in Christ Jesus. Thank you LifeChangers.