Rayburn Pharr was awarded the 2024 Perseverance Thrive Award for his commitment to himself and how he has grown beyond the build. After overcoming addiction and turning his life around, he invested in his new life with the aid of Habitat. Now he is an addiction counselor, a deacon, and an aspiring writer. This is Rayburn’s story. 

By Rayburn Pharr

I was born at Grady hospital in Atlanta, Ga and raised in Peoplestown — not just Peoplestown, but Summerhill, Thomasville and Mechanicsville. I was that child that wanted more and to do more.

I was mostly raised by my mom, but my dad was around for the early years. As a child, I was overweight and had insecurities that I now know led to why I ever did drugs. I was always hanging with the older and what I thought was the cooler crowd.

I did find some motivation for a little while in sports until I was introduced to something that made me forget all my troubles. I never learned how to love myself.

Don’t get me wrong, my parents and grandparents loved me, but they could only give what they had been given by their parents. My parents did their best and I am grateful to have had them. I just wanted more, like for them to come and watch me play football and basketball.

I went through school most of the time not learning what I should have learned due to my pride.  My insecurity would not allow me to raise my hand because I didn’t want to be called dumb. Kids could be so cruel to one another and it’s still like that today.

This kept me from learning as I should all the way through high school until I dropped out in the tenth grade.

After I dropped out at 16, I met a young lady, got a job, left home and then got an apartment for us to live in.

I grew up really fast.

I guess I thought that would fix my insides, but it didn’t. Things changed and I was introduced to some things that changed my life forever.

At the same I started to try dugs regularly. I began with alcohol very young, then I moved to marijuana before eventually trying more harmful substances. Through the years I would go from job to job and try drugs that I thought would fix my feelings but today I know that drugs only medicated my feelings and keep them stuffed down.

Due to my drug use, I could not keep a job. I went down a dark path, a turning point in my life, that I never want to back to. I was in and out of county jail and went to prison three times for selling drugs or breaking the law to fuel my drug habit.

My addiction took around 30 years of my life, 10 incarcerated.

Everything that I went through has led me to where I am today. I have lived all over Atlanta and even a few places around Georgia, trying to find something that would fix me today I have found that and it’s God.

I used to love to go to church when I was younger even when I was made to go but then drugs came into my life and changed that.

I never really wanted a lot but to have a place to call home and to be able to give back to those that are dealing with the demons I face daily, and God has delivered me from.

God placed in my heart early in my recovery to want a house and then He gave me the vision.

I set a plan in motion and now I am a Habitat homeowner!

I did not want to continue to live in an apartment, I wanted a place to call home and

something that I could be proud of, and God blessed me with a Habitat home. This home has given me so much joy and confidence that I can do more than I ever dreamed of to better my life and help others.

With 17 years clean and sober today, I’m a certified substance abuse counselor, case manager and an ordained deacon in my church. I want to leave more than material substance as my legacy but that of how I overcame and then had the love of God in my heart to help others.

I have a passion to do and be more than what I have or own but what God has given me a charge to be and do.

God has brought me from the crack house to His house and through me brings others from the darkness.

This is my story.