You See My Recovery – Psalm 115:1
You see my recovery
From ever lost
To sober man
Still none of this
Of my doing
None of it
My strength
To God be all the glory
To God be all the praise
He’s the reason
For my recovery
The reason I am here
Misery And The Bottle – Proverbs 31:6-7
My misery
No longer ties to the bottle
And the brokenness ti brought
Faded away
The beer
The wine
Seem all so distant
Not found upon this path
I walk with the Lord
With Him I find my joy
And the strength to leave my past
And the bottle no longer holds me
Released from deep within it’s grasp
Replaced The Bottle – Ephesians 5:15-20
Replaced the bottle
With a song
The sick feeling
With joy
All change
When I took
The hand of the Lord
Now I give thanks
For all He has done
My Destruction – Proverbs 16:18
My destruction
All my pride
Could it all have been avoided
If I had opened up my world
Let them in sooner
To the darkness
And the despair
Could the fall have been less
If not for stubborn pride
A typical man
Wouldn’t show my weakness
Not until it was too late
And all came down
Then pride fell
And the light came in
To set me free
From the worst of myself
To open the doors
To a better path
To a better life
Just Hold On – Isaiah 35:4
To all those
Treading the same paths
I wandered once before
Times long ago
When the bottle
A strange partner
In an effort
To break my world
To you
I say this
Hold on
Be strong
I know the pain
The emptiness
The despair
But He will come
Just wait
Stay strong
The world will change
Darkness to light
Hope from despair
So fear not
The time will come
Just hold on
It’s hard to believe this journey, hard to believe that this evening I’ve had 1500 reasons to praise and thank God. From those dark days of mid March 2012, when everything around me was collapsing in on itself and I finally realised that I had no control anymore, the alcohol had control over me.
I couldn’t say no anymore, even if I tried, to some it may seem like a cowards way to give in, but when you’re there in the middle of the fight, trying to resist, but just not able to, you know that it’s not being a coward, it’s being a prisoner of addiction. I still remember crying out I’m sorry as the tears fell, each time I left the house to go buy more alcohol, I tried not to, but I just couldn’t hold back the tide of addiction, I was useless to resist.
By that time I wasn’t even eating, I couldn’t eat, everything tasted like cardboard, I just survived by drinking, I was heading for oblivion. Darkness and the bottle were my only friends.
As that dark week dragged on I found myself on the edge, I wanted to end it all, but couldn’t.
Come Monday 19th March 2012, things began to change, there was a conscious choice to start fighting back, I rang Gareth, the Pastor at our local Church, met with him and made the choice to change everything. In the ten days between that meeting and that last drink on Thursday 29th March 2012, I began praying for the first time in my life, reduced my drinking, stopped bringing alcohol into the house and started to sort myself out.
On that evening of 29th March, I made the declaration that I would never drink again if I didn’t like the taste of my first drink that night, it tasted awful, the worst drink I’ve ever had, I finished it, but since that night I have never drunk a single drop of alcohol again.
I’m in the happy place now that drinking is the furthest from my thoughts. Now it makes my angry when I see relentless alcohol adverts on TV, the though of being in a pub is hard to deal with, though with the right people I can go into a pub and enjoy a Pepsi, at times when I’m in a shop and see all the alcohol close to the checkout, I often feel like smashing every bottle.
This ride isn’t easy, life still has it’s good days and some really bad days, but each night I can be thankful to God that I am still sober and still free from those chains.
Life may not be perfect or the way I want it, but I’m still alive, deep inside I still believe that had God not saved me from myself, I would not have lived beyond 2012, for that I am truly thankful.
I can’t thank everyone enough for the support I have received in those 1500, to everyone I have met at Everyday Champions Church, who have been by my side all the way through and also everyone who has took the time to read this blog, to comment and encourage or have simply liked one of my posts, I thank you all.
PRAISES BE LIFTED UP by KALLEY HEILIGENTHAL
I sing praises to Your name
Praises to Your name
The name that’s so much higher than all names
All honor to Your name
All honor to Your name
The name that’s so much greater than all names
Chorus:
Be lifted up
Be lifted higher
Be lifted up
Be lifted higher
Bridge:
Your name is life
Your name is Hope inside me Hope inside me
Your name is love
A love that always finds me always finds me
So this evening marks my 100 week of sobriety, at 10.30 this evening it will officially by that magical mark. I’ve written so many times about that pivotal moment in my life and I will probably write about it many more times, but for this post I highlight what that means in term of numbers, this it what it would have cost me over the last 100 weeks, had I continued drinking at the rate I was in the weeks before I quit, the figures are pretty interesting!
TOTAL CONSUMPTION:
Bottles of Rose Wine: 1000
Pints of Cider: 1800
Cans of Cider/Lager: 800
Bottles of Jaques Cider: 200
This was based on what I drank over the last few weeks before I quit, this was an average week, obviously it was some times a little more or a little less, but this was the average as I remember it, this obviously doesn’t include the odd bottle of Rum or other spirit I may have every now and again.
TOTAL UNITS OF ALCOHOL: 17560
So the recommended intake of alcohol for a male in the UK is 21 units per week, so that would total 2100 units, right so my average intake would have been over 8 times that, is it any wonder my blood pressure was rising.
TOTAL COST: £11,900.00 ($19,857 US)
Okay, so I’ve saved myself almost £12,000 in these last 100 weeks, which in itself is interesting seeing as I’m still almost flat broke, luckily this week the bank gave me back the charges they took from me last week. I don’t know how I kept my habit going consider the cost of it, but I guess until you step back and look at it with fresh eyes do you really realise the cost.
TOTAL CALORIES: 698800
So the total calories of 698800 alone does not seem to be too interesting a figure, but when you convert that into weight it makes a truly different reading, that converts to around 200lbs in weight. Seeing as I was at my heaviest when I quit drinking and that was only 182 pounds, that extra 200lbs in weight would probably have increased that figure drastically!
I’m not sure given the above figures whether I would actually be here to count these figures, which would have got to me first, the high blood pressure or the stress of the financial burden I was putting on myself and the family, it drove me close to suicide on many occasions.
The hardest thing for an addict is to admit they have the problem in the first place, that realisation hit me smack in the face when my relationship with Victoria essentially ended, but I still couldn’t stop, I knew I had to change and I knew there was only person I wanted to speak to about it.
The rest is history, I called Gareth one Monday morning, I met with him that evening and poured my soul out to him, along with a thousand tears, that night everything changed, Gareth brought the possibility of a life with God, it may have taken me a few days to embrace that, but when I did, I found the strength that I prayed for to overcome my addiction.
On 29th March 2012 I took that last drink and although the next few weeks were hard work, the temptation and then the intense pain of withdrawals were hard to deal with, but again I prayed for strength and fought through it and made it to the otherside.
It’s not been an easy ride all the way through those last 100 weeks, I’ve struggled with many things in that time, eventually ending up on anti-depressants, but despite that these last few weeks I have felt more positive about the future than ever before. But there is no way I would be here celebrating this milestone without the Grace of God.
My future seems bright, now that there’s a light shining upon it.
FOREVER by BETHEL MUSIC
The moon and stars they wept
The morning sun was dead
The Savior of the world was fallen
His body on the cross
His blood poured out for us
The weight of every curse upon Him
One final breath He gave
As heaven looked away
The Son of God was laid in darkness
A battle in the grave
The war on death was waged
The power of hell forever broken
The ground began to shake
The stone was rolled away
His perfect love could not be overcome
Now death where is your sting?
Our resurrected King
Has rendered you defeated
Forever He is glorified
Forever He is lifted high
Forever He is risen
He is alive, [and] He is alive
Forever He is glorified
Forever He is lifted high
Forever He is risen
He is alive, [and] He is alive
The ground began to shake
The stone was rolled away
His perfect love could not be overcome
Now death where is your sting?
Our resurrected King
Has rendered you defeated
Forever He is glorified
Forever He is lifted high
Forever He is risen
He is alive, [and] He is alive
He is alive!
He’s lifted high
We sing hallelujah
We sing hallelujah
We sing hallelujah
The Lamb has overcome
We sing hallelujah
We sing hallelujah
We sing hallelujah
The Lamb has overcome
We sing hallelujah
We sing hallelujah
We sing hallelujah
The Lamb has overcome
We sing hallelujah
We sing hallelujah
We sing hallelujah
The Lamb has overcome
Now death where is your sting?
Our resurrected King
Has overcome, He’s overcome [oh]
New Life
From a world so barren
Of a soul so empty
With cold eyes staring
Out to an empty horizon
Buried beneath a mountain
Hurt within my heart
Sinking below the pain
Of a life growing cold
In an instant it was lifted
That mountain thrown aside
A light began to shine
A consuming fire burns within
Lifted from the bottom
Life new begins to thrive
Through Grace I stand
Thankful for a life with You
Then You Called
It’s all going wrong
I’m slipping, I’m falling
I’m lost, I’m alone
What’s left of me now
I’m worthless, I’m useless
I’m nothing, I’m over
These thoughts they hurt
The pain, oh the pain
Just take it away
Then you called
You whispered in my ear
Your words strike
Deep inside my heart
I’m frozen, I’m still
But hope ignites
A reason for life
You say just hold on
Keep holding tight
Just a while longer
This fog will clear
You’ll make through
It’s an amazing thought tonight, that as I start to write this, at this very time on a Monday evening just like this one a whole year ago, I was in pieces, reliving, but more importantly discovering that I was an alcoholic. It was the first time that I was admitting to the outside world and once again more importantly to myself that I had a problem with alcohol, not just that I liked a drink and often, but that this transcended beyond mere liking and enjoying a drink, but that my whole being was dependant on it to survive, I was a lost and hopeless alcoholic, I knew how I was living was all wrong, I knew I had to do something about it before it was too late, I knew having made the most important phone call of my life earlier that day, that the time had come, time to find a way out of “Hell’s Waiting Room”!
I’m not going to write in detail about that phone call or that evening, that can be found here in the post “Answering The Call“, no this post is about my life of addiction and having had a year to reflect on it, a year living with the ups and downs of recovering from addiction, it’s time to discuss some of the more painful aspects of my addiction.
Please note the contents of this post haven’t been research over hours on the internet, I haven’t read hundreds of self help books or A.A. manuals, these are my thoughts on addiction based on my years of living with mine, you may disagree, that’s fine, if you have face an addiction of whatever kind, then naturally your experiences will differ from mine and your opinions will differ also.
My words are mine, my thoughts are mine, my feelings are mine, my experiences are mine, this is just me sharing me!
I have written about many parts of my troubles with drinking and what lead me to drinking, the simple fact of the matter was my complete inability to deal with my life when my own self worth was tested, I let my focus be on the things that were being taken from my life, things that in all honesty could be replaced with the right attitude, mainly work and money, they will always come and go, they have come and gone in my life before and I still got through it, but my reliance on these things for me to be me were far too much, so much that I started to worry about these things that I was losing, but could be replaced, rather than the things that were left, that I couldn’t replace, the love of Victoria and my kids, I focused so much on these other things, that I let them destroy me, then before I knew it I had lost the one thing that was the most important thing in my world at that time, Victoria. She stayed the course as long as she could, but she wanted better than I could give her, damn it, she deserved better than I gave her, but I destroyed all of that because instead of concentrating on serving her and my family, I chose worship a bottle, I gave in and consequently almost gave up.
Seeing Victoria everyday can be hard, most days I just want to reach out, just to brush her hand with mine, to offer a hug or kiss, but I can’t, I have to just stand aside and let her go by. Boy, do I pray about it, as I can’t influence her anymore than just sorting myself out, I leave the rest in God’s hands, if his paths for us are that we are truly meant to be together, then He will find a way, if not He will allow me to move on when the time is right, either way and although sometimes it’s hard to do I believe and trust in Him lead us both in the right direction.
So why do I call this my addiction?
Although I have spoken with and read testimonies of many who have been brave enough to admit they are an alcoholic, I use the term “are” rather than “were” as I do not believe you can ever escape this illness, but I’ll discuss this point later, each one is different, we all have common points, but we all have slightly different reasons why we got where we were, how we indulged in our addiction, how much or what we drank and how we were saved.
Therefore my experiences are almost entirely unique to me, no one else, as only I experienced them from my perspective, then they are truly my experiences alone. Yes, we who have been ravished by an addiction can converse with language that we may only understand, we share common points in our addiction, some key points will overlap, others will be unique, but we can understand each other and we can understand how someone became so lost within their own mind, that they were trapped in there and feared they would never get out alive, sadly some don’t.
Why are we addicts, rather than were addicts?
I have read many articles by some great Christians that I have a lot of respect for, their love and knowledge for the Word of God is far greater than mine, I am just a baby in terms of my faith, I have read many articles about God and addiction, they nearly all state that God can pretty much just remove any addiction, if you pray for it, it will be granted. Ok, I know the power of these words and yes, I have also experienced this power, there have been times when I have struggled and prayed for these thoughts to be removed, they were, He took them and gave me peace. But as I am only human and born to fail, I do, I fall back.
Because I have succumbed once before, it has left a weakness, my human mind looks and craves for a comfort zone, somewhere it can feel safe and happy, it built a reliance on that one thing that took away from all the hatred and stress that clouded my ability to exist, although it didn’t allow me to address my problems, it did allow me to relax enough to walk away from them, dealing with them was hard, walking away happy was easy, I took that route!
But, the problem with the weakness that addiction exposes, is that it will always be beacon of hope for just one, a beacon of hope for the enemy.
The Devil will and does use our weaknesses to build a barrier between us and God, if it makes us feel good, even though we know it’s wrong, he will use those feelings and the memories of those feelings to stoke up a will within us to sin again, to forgo our God and allow him to satisfy our needs. I know I’ve let him get too far into my head, I’ve let him try to build on weaknesses, when I couldn’t fight anymore, I gave in, not to the devil, but to prayer, I found I couldn’t stand alone, I asked for temptation to be removed and God granted my prayer, but the Devil keeps coming back, he leave’s me be for a while, then when I think all is fine and I’m moving on nicely, when my guard is beginning to fall, than bang, he’s back, trying to catch me off guard, trying to take me unawares, but I’m determined not to let him force me from my path with God.
So whether you are a believer in God or not, addiction is addiction, we never really get away from it, we learn to live with it, we learn to avoid it, we learn when the trigger points arise and find a way to deal with it when it arises, but we are only one small mistake away from falling back into a life of addiction.
What did my addiction do for me?
My addiction through alcohol was I would say a physical one, it involved a physical introduction into my body, so much so that eventually the body becomes reliant, this is more evident in alcohol and drug addictions, even smoking, the body begins to crave the introduction of these substances to trigger things in our heads that make us feel better, to give us that temporary high, that takes us away from all that may be troubling us, removes us from reality and into the bliss our own mind has created. Theses substance addictions can be very dangerous, in the case of alcohol, the body become dependant on that regular introduction of alcohol in order to function, it doesn’t actually need alcohol to function, but after prolonged exposure, it’s reliance is cemented and after such prolonged use just stopping drinking can actually be more dangerous than continuing to drink, the body becomes so reliant it shuts down when it is removed, unable to cope, in many instances this can result in death, not from the alcohol but indeed the lack of it.
The withdrawals from alcohol abuse can be extremely painful. I scoffed when I used to hear about celebrities having to go into rehab to deal with their addictions and the withdrawals, I thought they were sad and weak, but when my withdrawals kicked in, I found myself in a world of pain, starting from simple headaches, leading to full on body and in particular joint pain, I could hardly move, it was painful to stay still and painful to move, there was no escaping them, I just had to ride them out, hoping the pain killers would help, they didn’t but I got through it. But there were times when the pain was at it’s worst that I was tempted to take another drink. My thinking was to take a bottle of wine, this was what the body wanted to ease it’s pain, then this is what I would do, once again through prayer and good friends, I resisted the temptation and got through it all.
My limited understanding of drug abuse, leads me to understand that dependant on the drug the symptoms are very similar, the cravings, the body reliance and the search for that temporary high.
Another of what I would class as physical addiction is self harm, probably the most misunderstood and hidden of addictions. We see everyday addicts with a can of beer, smoking cigarettes and to a lesser extent taking drugs, we all know someone that does at least one of these things in excess, but do we know someone that actually takes a blade or a sharp object to cut their skin? I believe we all do, it a hidden addiction that’s as bad as any other, it’s not just confused teens or angst ridden Emo kids that do this, you would surprised at how many and just who do this to themselves, and why do you ask, why do they do this?
The same reason as I drank, that temporary high, that relief the brain sends out, that release of chemicals in our brain, that when our feelings say our lives are so bad we can never be happy, we can do something to ourselves that rebukes those feelings, that for a short while will make us feel better about ourselves. The bodies natural protection when we cut ourselves is to release these chemicals to make us feel better, to hide the pain of the cut, so just like I reached for a bottle to feel better, they reach for a blade to cut, that cut makes them feel better, just like my drink did, they crave it just like any other addict.
All these addictions seek the same thing, whether it be physical like drink, drugs and self harm, or something like gambling, steeling, shopping or anything else that you do make yourself feel better, when you can’t control your feelings and urges, when you give in to temptation every time as an easy way out you are an addict.
Why did I not know I was an addict?
I guess my explanation of this is simple, to admit this addiction would be to admit it was a problem, admitting it was a problem would be to seek to put an end to my problem, why would I want to do that? After all it makes me feel good about myself, even if just for a short time!
My addictions made me feel better about myself for a while, when my life was well and truly “sucking more than an airplane toilet” (thanks Magnus for that one), why would I want to put an end to the only thing that makes me feel better, that’s all I had to look forward to, the temporary high, it only lasted a short time, so I did it again and again, it tried my best to live with that high, admitting I had a problem meant losing that high and no addict wants to do that!
So as an addict I ended up in a never ending circle, my life (in my opinion) sucked so bad I couldn’t deal with it, so I drank, that allowed me to remove myself from the problems, not deal with them remove myself from them, which in turn made the problems bigger, so I drank more to escape them, my problems got bigger and I drank more to escape them, it just kept increasing, they went hand in hand and I was losing the will to live, deep down I didn’t want to drink, but neither cold I actually function without it.
My life sucked as Magnus Persson said, more than an airplane toilet, but he also said;
“It’s OK to suck, as it’s halfway to success!”
I like that phrase, Magnus was guest speaker at Everyday Champions Church a few weeks ago, he used this phrase then and it stuck with me, when we admit our life does suck and we submit to God that we are not enough alone, then we truly are half way to success, an “excess” of God will make it complete!
Just what was Hell’s Waiting Room?
Well this is my take on the scenario, I see my addiction as controlling my life at that point, I couldn’t be happy without it, I couldn’t deal with anything without it, I couldn’t cope without it, I was reliant on it, but it was a sinful existence.
To be a drunkard is sinful and to indulge in porn for a high when I had no alcohol was sinful.
But my despair for the problems that my drinking compounded drove me to contemplations of suicide, it wasn’t just that one episode on Mother’s Day last year (a year yesterday), it was actually a fairly regular occurrence, it happened many times when I was alone, lost in my own world, feeling so insufficient, feeling I wasn’t needed, feeling useless, feeling alone, feeling DEAD, I had the knife, I had the location, all I had was the despair, luckily for me and unbeknownst to me, I had a God looking out for me who wouldn’t let me do it.
But I was there in a sinful life, looking to take the next step into hell, to end this sinful life and cease to exist, the only place for me was hell, I was there in the waiting room, just waiting for my number to be called so I could move on into hell!
Hell’s waiting room is a fantastic place for the sinful addict, it had everything I needed, shelves and fridges full of alcohol, porn on the TV’s and books just laid everywhere, I’m sure every sinner’s waiting room is different, but essentially the same, just waiting to be invited through those doors!
Luckily for all of us, God never locks those doors, that door we walk through to get into the that waiting room, is always available to use, you just need to know what the key is, to declare that Christ, our saviour Died on the Cross for our sins, when we believe Hell’s Waiting Room fades from view and the doorway to the Kingdom of God becomes illuminated beyond anything else!
On this night one year ago, I was given that key, that key to the rest of my life, with it I was given the courage, not just to hold on to that key, but to use it in that doorway to the Kingdom of God and the new life that awaited me beyond it, it may have taken me a few days to work out how to use the key, but I got there, I used that key and now I live a new life, not free of addiction, I will never be free whilst I am in this life on earth, but I can live with it and beyond it, I can handle it, I can fight it.
So I am truly:
Fighting Hard, Recovering, Rebuilding, REBORN.
Moving on from addiction to a new life!
I love this song, it’s lyrics and the passion in which they are sung, echo where I was one year ago, I can almost see and hear myself singing these words, luckily God heard my silent cries, the ones I didn’t actually know I was making, he heard and sent people into my life to “Just Save Me”!
What have I become?
Can’t face the morning sun
Just save me
You’re the only one
Who can pull me out
Save me from myself
Just save me
Just save me
(Just Save Me by Like A Storm)
