By the time he was 21, Robin Tan was visiting Orchard Towers almost every night.
It started when friends invited him to try out “seedy places”. Soon, he was going on his own.
“I have a tendency to get hooked on things easily.”
He drank at least a bottle of whiskey a night. On his own.
“I also started leading a promiscuous lifestyle with paid workers,” admitted Robin, now 40.
“I was a hardcore party animal. I craved the attention. I think I have a tendency to get hooked on things easily.”
Though he never finished his ‘A’ levels, he managed to score a job in the financial industry. With credit card in hand, he “lived the life”.
Rebel with no cause
Growing up, Robin was a rebel with a “deceitful heart”.
In primary school, his mum gave him $10 to buy books. He stole two books and spent the money on renting two movies from a video rental shop.
When questioned, he lied.
The child who stole and lied grew up to become a rebellious teen who smoked and gambled.
“It wasn’t peer pressure. Nobody taught me to do it. It was just me,” Robin said.
By secondary school, he placed football bets with bookies and smoked. When he lost all his money, he stole from his schoolmates.
In junior college, he skipped classes and flunked out. When the school asked to meet his parents, he got a friend to impersonate his mum.
Cutting Mum’s heart
Every Sunday, Robin’s mother would drag him out of bed and into church.
“When the sermon started, I would go to the toilet and sleep on the floor in a cubicle,” he admitted.
“For some reason, I thought my mother didn’t love me as much as she loves my sisters,” said Robin. “Much later, a pastor praying for me saw a vision of my mum on her knees praying for me. She was crying out to God. That was healing for my heart.”
When his mother tried to prevent his nightly outings by guarding their front door, Robin jumped from their second-floor balcony to get out.
“When I got to the bus stop, my dad messaged me, ‘Why did you do that? You really cut your mother’s heart.’
“I teared when I read the message. But I didn’t go home.”
Once, he stayed away for two weeks. Desperate, his parents filed a missing person’s report.
The balcony became Robin’s escape route – and he returned in the wee hours of the morning the same way, shimmying up water pipes.
Some nights, he didn’t even go home. Once, he stayed away for two weeks, refusing to answer his family’s messages and calls. Desperate, Robin’s parents filed a missing person’s report.
But that did nothing to stop his life of unabashed debauchery.
Waking up in strange places
Robin’s drinking intensified to the point where he would black out.
When he regained consciousness, he often found himself in strange places … such as in the middle of a street or several kilometres from where he started the night. He had no memory of how he got there.
At 23, he drove drunk on the wrong side of traffic and smashed into a car. His father’s car was totalled. Thankfully, no one was hurt.
“There were nights I drank from 5pm till 11am the next day.”
Because of his heavy drinking, Robin often did not show up at work. He was asked to leave the company despite meeting his sales targets.
“My future is gone,” he thought.
But even that wasn’t enough of a wakeup call. Instead, Robin had another solution.
“I started drinking at a pub near my home that opened earlier – at 5pm. There were nights I drank till 11am the next day.”
Once, while drunk, he carried another drunk friend to a sofa, but hurt his own back.
Robin suffered a slipped disc when he tried to carry his friend while both of them were drunk.
“The next morning, I couldn’t move. I thought I was paralysed,” he said.
Diagnosed with a slipped disc, Robin was unable to exercise. He ballooned from a healthy 68kg to a whopping 105kg in less than a year.
Revenge drinking
Then in his late 20s, Robin met a girl at a Christian event, and believed she was “the one”.
By then, he had limited his drinking to weekdays, and was serving in church. For her sake, he tried even harder to clean up his act.
They were soon talking about marriage and shopping for a home.
But then “we split up without much closure”.
“I was devastated,” he said.
“I was sick and tired of my life. I felt fat and ugly”
To drown his sorrows, Robin went back to his old lifestyle “with a vengeance”, calling it “revenge drinking”.
“Some nights, I even drank three bottles of whiskey. It went out of control.”
Robin became depressed and contemplated suicide.
“I was sick and tired of my life. I felt fat and ugly.”
He had also racked up debts from living life in the fast lane. (He subsequently cleared them.)
Hungover at Grandma’s wake
Then Robin hit rock bottom: He went drinking after his grandmother’s wake and turned up hungover the next morning.
“I was very angry with myself, very angry with God.
“I told God, ‘Why am I living like this? Why am I going through all this?
“‘Everything is darkness. Are you a real God?'”
Then Robin felt God respond directly to him.
Did Robin have integrity, responsibility and accountability? Could he take care of himself?
“God spoke to me. He said, ‘This path you are walking, I didn’t put you there. You chose to walk this path. I allowed you to walk this path because I want you to be a witness to youths.’”
But Robin didn’t back down.
Unrepentant, he challenged God, saying, “Okay, You will use me. But where is my wife?”
(Years earlier, three different pastors had prophesied that God had prepared a partner for him.)
God asked Robin three questions in return: Was Robin the man, husband and father God wanted him to be? Did he have integrity, responsibility and accountability? Could he take care of himself?
Faced with his own weakness, Robin broke down and cried.
“I told God, ‘Help me.’”
Just one more drink
After that moment with God, Robin tried to change again.
Sometimes, he managed not to drink for up to two weeks at a stretch.
However, Robin soon realised he was trying to use his own willpower to get out of his hole – without truly seeking God.
“When I thought I got it under control, I would go binge drinking again.
“It was like I was trying to cram into one night the alcohol I missed out on during those two weeks,” he explained.
“I told my best friend, ‘I’m so weak. I’m so useless.’ He then told me to talk to Jesus.”
This was his pattern for a couple of months.
And then at his best friend’s stag party, the group went to a KTV lounge.
“I didn’t want to drink. But my best friend kept saying, ‘Just one drink.’ I succumbed.”
After that, Robin went back to the same KTV lounge every night.
His habit got so bad that the very same best friend (who wasn’t a Christian) tried to talk sense into him.
“He said to me, ‘What’s wrong with you? I thought you said you love Jesus? I thought you wanted to change?’
“I told him, ‘I’m so weak. I’m so useless.’
“He then told me to talk to Jesus.”
A letter to God
In response, Robin wrote God a letter.
Robin’s letter of repentance to God.
“I was crying as I wrote the letter. I meant it with all my heart.”
“I told Him, ‘I want to follow Jesus. Unless you remove these urges, I cannot. But I surrender to You.’
“My desire to drink and smoke stopped just like that. And I didn’t have any withdrawal symptoms.”
That’s when a miracle happened.
On that very day – February 7, 2012 – Robin experienced a dramatic change.
The addictions that had plagued him for years – that he had been unable to quit on his own – instantly vanished.
“My desire to drink and smoke stopped just like that. I used to smoke at least 20 cigarettes a day. And I didn’t have any withdrawal symptoms.”
“I used to be a vulgar person; I stopped cursing and womanising.”
Prayer for his liver
His second chance at life didn’t stop there.
At one conference, a woman approached Robin to pray for him.
“She told me, ‘Young man, God told me to pray for your liver. I don’t know what that means.’”
But Robin knew.
After years of excessive drinking, smoking, and sex, Robin thought that he would suffer from liver failure, lung cancer, or a sexually transmitted disease.
So he went for a medical check-up.
“I had a clean bill of health. I believe God healed me,” he said.
‘The life I had was an utter mess. I should have died so many times but You rescued me.”
Today, Robin works as a financial planner. He also met a loving and supportive partner, as God had promised. The got married, and now have two children, who are 2 and 5.
Robin now freely shares his testimony of God’s dramatic transformation in his life – in the hope of helping others who may be on the dark path that he once trod. He shows that change is possible when you surrender your life to God.
Robin’s transformation wasn’t just on the inside. He started to go to church four times a week. He also enrolled in a diploma course to help him serve God more effectively.
“I told God, ‘The life I had was an utter mess. I should have died so many times but You rescued me. I should have been in jail.
“So this life that I have right now, I give to You. I will serve and follow You.’”
This is an excerpt of an article that first appeared in Salt&Light. Click here to join our Telegram family for more stories like Robin’s.
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