After Battling Addiction Actor Launches 'Holypop' Web Project to Inspire Young Christians

Actor and Holypop CEO Chris Carberg

Editor's Note: Holy Pop has been renamed Bible Sprout.

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Meet Chris Carberg. He's the 28-year-old Hollywood actor (you may recognize him from his roles in "Kill Zone" and "Sydney White") who launched Holypop.com -- a new web site that targets young Christians in an effort to spark their interest in biblical principles.

His story, characterized by a number of twists and turns, is an intriguing one to say the least. Caberg, who has struggled with addiction in the past, knows a thing or two about the difficulties that young people face.

During his college years, the CEO of Holypop battled prescription pain pill addiction. While his dependency didn't manifest itself until his college years, the groundwork was laid early on. As a child, he suffered from migraines and, in middle school, he was prescribed pain pills to ease his discomfort. This was only the beginning.

Carberg described his experimentation with a stimulant called Fioricet. Once this drug lost its effectiveness, he moved onto Norco, which he characterized as "another type of Vicodin." Before he knew it, he says his addiction got out of control. Over a two-year period, Carberg described having taken thousands of pills, burning through his life's savings and racking up major charges on credit cards.

The actor-turned-Christian web guru discussed the dramatic toll the addiction took on his life. At the height of his dependency, he says he was taking 60 or 70 Vicodin per day, along with 10 or 20 Valium so that he could sleep at night. Obviously, the effects were noticeable.

"I wasn't dependable. I went on a bunch of auditions completely high out of my mind and I remember embarrassing my family as I would go on rants [to] their friends," Carberg explained. "I lost jobs, broke relationships, and thought I was God...My drug usage killed my family for awhile, and broke my parents' hearts."

But there was a light at the end of the tunnel for him. When Carberg was 23, he says he became a Christian and "gave [his] life to God" -- something that has profoundly changed his life and path. After overcoming his intense addiction and finding God, he became determined to help young people tackle life obstacles.

This is where Holypop comes in. Through the site, Carberg hopes to target and assist young people -- ages 18 to 24 -- who are looking for answers to life's tough questions, as he claims that it takes a realistic approach to dealing with young people.

"If I'd had Holypop when I was 15, I think I would've lived those years very differently, because I would have had somewhere to turn when I was hopeless," he said.

Screen shot from Holypop.com

Aside from offering help to the hopeless, Carberg created to site to address his concern over the fact that young adults are abandoning the church en masse. Aside from churches changing their teaching on gay marriage, he says, many have also slipped away from focusing upon what's truly needed, according to biblical mandate, to have salvation -- a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

"This all stems from a fundamental lack of biblical literacy in the family, and an unwillingness of the modern church to seriously confront controversial issues," says Carberg. "Many parents continue to push their religious beliefs without understanding what they believe and why, and modern young people have been trained to smell any hint of hypocrisy. That's why we decided it's time we go straight to the young people."

In addition to countless translations of the Bible, Holypop includes study tools and answers to important questions young people might have. Under its "Get Answers" section, the site explores sexuality, abortion, the Holy Trinity, drugs and alcohol and plenty more.

Screen shot from the issues page of Holypop.com

"We reconfigured every aspect of our website for this cause, and our passion for developing Bible literacy is the entire focus of Holypop.” Carberg said. "This is a full scale assault against what we know is endangering the future of the church, and destroying faith in America and abroad."

"Holypop is a place they can go as needed. We’re taking what we call an anti-social approach,"  Carberg told the Blaze. "Today everything is about social communities. In some ways, we think this has dulled some of the importance of one's own spiritual journey."

So, on the web site, users can do their daily Bible study and simply connect with God. There are no bells -- no interactive whistles. The experience is all about connecting with the Almighty.

"We're not trying to be Facebook," he explains.

To better facilitate this personal, one-on-one time with God, Carberg plans to introduce an app he calls "QuietTime" in the next few months.

"QuietTime will transform your private Bible study into an interactive, online experience," he explains. "In a world of social networks, QuietTime is the anti-social network. All you need is God."

As for his acting career, Carberg's always ready and willing to go on auditions. But Holypop, for the time being, is his passion and priority.

You can check Holypop out for yourself here.