I Remember A Time – John 16:23-24
I remember a time
I could not believe
I would not believe
Could never have asked
But the in my need
My heart was awakened
My ears opened
A mind prepared
And tongue released
I asked, I asked
Between all the tears
And He took it away
And as time passes on
Almost ten years
I’m still sober
To this very day
Even Though – 1 Timothy 1:12
Even though
I was broken
Even though
I was lost
Even though
I lied through life
Even though
Addiction had took it’s toll
He saw enough
To lift me
He saw enough
To trust in me
He saw enough
To make me strong
He saw enough
To wipe the slate clean
How great is our Lord
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
The Bottom of a Bottle 