This honest and candid book tells of Allen Langham's story of how as a lost, hurting boy, in an 18 stone, steroid-filled, violent man's body he was pulled out of the darkness of shame, bitterness and pain by God, who poured his love into Allen's heart.

Allen: Yes, that's what it was. I've been in illicit relationships, taken drugs, dabbled in the occult. I was on a journey but I opened the door to a lot of negative influences. I went through a long series of deliverance and have been set free from the demonic strongholds in my life. It's not talked about very much in the church. The the love of God is expressed but one of the names of God is deliverer and the word is in the Lord's Prayer: deliver us from evil. It can be a physical and spiritual thing. That needed to happen to set me free.

Jeff: I think you're right; the church seems a bit embarrassed about it. The Christian faith seems to put it on one of the wings - at 6 foot and 17 stone when you're a rugby player you weren't a winger, but if you look at Hollywood and some of the Netflix things the demonic is quite acceptable.

Allen: Yes, and I think that's one of the strategies; he glorifies it. If you look in the bible, a third of Jesus' ministry was setting people free from demons, unclean spirits, depending on which translation you read. Even physical healing is usually after an unclean spirit has been cast out. The majority of the miracles recorded in scripture dealt with demons.

Jeff: The later chapters fascinated me, as someone who has some leadership in the church; you say pride almost became an addiction. Having to look at yourself and say I'm doing some of the stuff now, feeding people at Christmas or whatever it may be, because I've got a need. That's an incredible revelation. You don't hear people say that very often.

Allen: That's what I mean; the heart was always right in doing that, I genuinely wanted to help people but it was based on the fact that I'd spent Christmas alone many times either in prison or when I'd come out of prison.

I remember one example where I went into my local pub on Christmas Day and just stood there and was snarling and growling at everybody cos I had nowhere to go and the pub was only open for a few hours on Christmas Day. Somebody felt sorry for me and invited me home for dinner.

Those feelings of standing there at Christmas completely alone is a horrible experience and there are people who go through that every year. I understood what it meant but then you get carried away, people say you're doing great stuff for God and you get a bit puffed up and arrogant. It's such a fine line. It's so easy to fall into that trap of it being about you and not being about God's will for you. Specifically with pride.

I recall having a long period of fasting, like a wilderness experience, to come out in the power of God, to be able to help people. That was a right heart but it was about me having the power not God's power working through me and that was the subtle difference. But once I got that revelation and that conviction and humbled myself before the Lord, he set me free from that and restored me. I know without a shadow of a doubt it's not about me, it's nothing that I can do, it's God working through me. It's his grace.

Jeff: It's easy to read because you put it in terms that anyone can understand but it isn't an easy read because of some of the stuff you're dealing with. You pray with people and see them healed and you think I'm on a roll and then it doesn't happen and you're asked as part of church discipline to put everything down for a year. I thought if somebody said to me Jeff, you're not to preach, you're not to do your radio, you're not to whatever - I thought wow!

Allen: At the time I thought if I stop what I'm doing the world's going to come to an end. What I realised was with the amount of outreach I was doing with the homeless in the town centre I was aiding the problem because these guys were getting fed and clothed; they had better clothes than I had at home. We gave them sleeping bags, they got fed every day so that meant every pence they got they could spend on drugs. I still help that demographic but I don't tell anybody about it. If I see somebody I ask if I can tell them a bit about myself, cos I was homeless and I've been off the streets 20 odd years. I ask if they would go to a rehab and if they say yes I'll make the call. I buy them a drink and something to eat and bless them.

Jeff: Can I take you back to the moment when Jesus became real to you? For people who haven't read the book tell us what happened, what started the journey.

Allen: Seven years ago I was in a prison cell just about to end my life. I was completely broken, ashamed, beaten by the system. I couldn't find the strength anymore to do another sentence. I was looking at years in prison and there wasn't a future for me, no hope, no way out. I went to my knees broken, crying, snot coming out of my nose, so emotionally distraught. I called to God from my heart; it wasn't an outward prayer, it was an inward prayer. I said God, if you're real and you're hearing my cries and my desperation and my prayer then put a white bird outside my window in the place of the pigeons.

I didn't kill myself, I went to sleep, had quite a peaceful night. I got up, made a roll up and went to the window which I had spent hours and hours staring out of and it was a moment of clarity, a real epiphany. Like in slow motions the pigeons left and a white bird sat down and something inside me just clicked and I knew that was the sign, the symbol that I'd asked for. I'd asked for that because I was so mentally damaged, I was under the clinical psychiatrist. I was in such a paranoid state of mind that I needed some reality and he provided that. I wasn't putting him to the test.

It was a sign that it was completely real, that I was giving my heart to God in that prison cell. And seven years down the line he has done so much in that broken man's life. He's restored my children, restored my family, given me the ability to serve the community and do so many different things that I wouldn't even have dreamed of.