By the time Robin Tan was 21, he was visiting Orchard Towers almost every night.

It started with friends inviting him to try out “seedy places” because he was of age. Soon, he was going on his own. His friends could not keep up with his lifestyle.

“I was drinking a bottle of whiskey a night, at least, by myself. I also started leading a promiscuous lifestyle with paid workers from Thailand. I got involved in relationships with them.

“I was a hardcore party animal, delighting in being the centre of attention. I craved the attention. I don’t know why. I think I have a tendency to get hooked on things easily – obsessed,” admitted Robin, now 40.

Though he never finished his ‘A’ levels, he managed to get a job in the financial industry. With a credit card in hand, he “lived the life”.

He was raised in a Christian family with parents who served the church faithfully and he attended church all his life.

“I knew the Bible teachings. I even had experiences in the youth ministry. I saw visions, I cried during worship. But I wouldn’t say that I worshipped God. It wasn’t a relationship.”

By secondary school, he was gambling and smoking.

Though he grew up in a Christian household and went to church regularly, Robin (extreme left) did not feel he had a relationship with God.

During his season chasing the fast life in his 20s, Robin continued to attend worship services. Every Sunday, his mother would drag him out of bed.

“After worship when the sermon started, I would go to the toilet and sleep on the floor of the cubicle.”

When his mother tried to prevent his nightly jaunts by sitting in front of their main door, he took drastic measures. He jumped from their second-floor balcony to get out. He made it unscathed.

“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.”

After that, leaping from his balcony became his escape route of choice. He would return in the wee hours of the morning the same way, shimmying up water pipes to his balcony.

Some nights, he did not even bother to go home. Once, he stayed away for two weeks, refusing even to answer messages and calls from his family. In desperation, his parents filed a missing person’s report.

But that did nothing to stop his life of debauchery. It just got worse.

Spiralling downwards

Robin’s drinking got more and more excessive. He would get so drunk that he would black out and find himself in strange places.

Once, he woke up in the middle of the road. On another occasion, he found himself several kilometres away from where he started out at night with no knowledge of how he got there.

At 23, he drove drunk. Ending up on the wrong side of traffic, he collided with a car. His father’s car was totalled but no one was hurt and no police report was made.

His drinking seeped into other areas of his life. While he continued to meet his sales targets, his frequent absence soon caught up with him. He was asked to go. 

“I thought, ‘What did I do with my life? My future is gone.’”

But it was not enough of a wakeup call. 

“I wasn’t as promiscuous as before, but I started drinking way earlier at a pub near my home. They opened at 5pm. There were nights I drank from then till the next day 11am.”

One day, while drunk, he tried carrying an equally drunk friend to a sofa. In the process, he hurt his back.

Robin suffered a slipped disc when he tried to carry his friend to a sofa while both of them were drunk. The prolapsed L4/L5 disc pressing on his nerve canal caused him severe back pain.

“The next morning, I couldn’t move. I thought I was paralysed.”

Unable to exercise anymore, his weight ballooned from a healthy 68kg to a whopping 105kg in less than a year.

“Are you a liar, God?”

It was then that Robin met a girl at a Christian event. He believed she was “the one”.

By then, he was heading towards his late 20s and trying to clean up his act. He had limited his drinking to weekdays and was serving in church.

For the sake of the girl, he tried even harder to be on the straight and narrow. They started dating and were soon talking about marriage and shopping for a new home. They even planned a holiday abroad together.

Then she went away to a conference.

“Over the week, she kept telling me about this guy who was annoying. I told her, ‘Surely you will fall in love with him.’

“After the conference, she just faded away and we split up without much closure. I was devastated.”

To drown his sorrows, he went back to his old lifestyle “with a vengeance”.

“Revenge drinking, revenge whatever. Some nights, I even drank three bottles of whiskey. It went out of control.”

Depression set in and he even contemplated suicide. “I was sick and tired of my life. I felt fat, ugly, in debt.”

He hit what he thought was his lowest when he went drinking right 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? You promised me You have plans for me for a hope and future (Jeremiah 29:11). I don’t see any of this at all. Everything is darkness. Are you a real God or are You a liar? I just want to be a normal Christian.’”

“Then 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.’”

Unrepentant, Robin now challenged God. Years earlier, three different pastors had prophesied that God had prepared a partner for him.

“My response to God was, ‘Okay, You will use me. Where is my wife?’”

God posed him three questions in return: Was he the man, husband and father God wanted him to be? Did he have integrity, responsibility and accountability? Could he take care of himself?

“I broke down and I cried. I told God, ‘Help me.’”

A wake-up call

After that, Robin tried to change again. He committed to giving up drinking, sometimes succeeding for up to two weeks at a stretch.

“I used will power, submitted myself to God. When I thought I got it under control, I would fall again and go binge drinking.

“It was like everything I missed out in those two week, I would cram into one night.”

He carried on “in this state” for a couple of months and then he really fell off the bandwagon. 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 night, Robin would go back to the same KTV lounge night after night. It got so bad that the same best friend who was not a believer visited him to talk some sense into him.

“He said, ‘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. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.’ He told me to talk to Jesus.”

Robin did just that. He wrote God a long letter. But instead of saying he wanted to be a “normal Christian”, he told God that he wanted to be a disciple.

The letter of repentance Robin wrote to God.

“I told Him, ‘Unless you remove these urges, I cannot stop. But I am willing to surrender to You. I surrender to You.’ I was crying as I wrote the letter. I meant it with all my heart.”

To this day, Robin remembers the date that happened – February 7, 2011.

“After that, the desire stopped just like that. I used to smoke at least 20 cigarettes a day; I stopped drinking and smoking.

“I used to be a vulgar person; I stopped cursing and womanising. And I didn’t have any withdrawal symptoms.”

That same year, Robin enrolled in a diploma course in the prophetic ministry and committed his life to serving in church.

“I told God, ‘This life I had was an utter mess. I should have died so many times. I even tried jumping down 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. Where You go, I will go.’”

Check back for Part 2 of Robin’s story soon. Would he be able to stay on the straight and narrow?

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