Trust me, I've been there, I've looked, I've searched and I know now, that there are no answers to be found in the bottom of a bottle or on the edge of a blade! Fighting Hard, Recovering, Rebuilding, REBORN. Moving on from addiction to a new life.
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 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 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
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
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
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]