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
Beginning, End, Beginning
Beginning of a soul
Our God
He is there
He who forms the soul
Breathes life into the heart
Walking with us through life
Through every wrong turn
There in all our failures
There for every fall
He was with me at the darkness
When I couldn’t take no more
He heard my cries at the end
End is where He caught me
In the darkness of my nights
Where I could fight no more
He caught me in the fall
Removed the burdens from my hands
Released me from the chains
Addiction held me within
He turned the end around
Took away all the pain
And there it started again
As He took me back to the beginning
Pills?
Please don’t take another pill
You’ve sucked it down
How do you feel?
Has it lifted you from there?
Or dragged you down
Down deeper far
Is this the answer?
Is this the way?
The artificial
Will it save the day?
Will it release the pain?
You hold deep down
The pain that erodes the hope inside
A pill won’t help
It just delays it all
Tomorrow the pain will still be there
Tearing apart the fragile mind
Of a broken soul beyond the world
I speak of this
I’ve took the bottle
It never helped
Just numbed it all
But it returns when it all wore off
And I took it again to try and hide it all
A bleeding heart in the dead of night
Lost his way
Dying inside
Until a day I could face no more
And as I stared to death beyond
His voice came through above the chaos
To shine a light upon the pain inside
From that day I sought Him more
The bottles, the pills had no hold
I put them down and sought His love
To find a way out of this pain
Through open doors I found the light
And I walk free once more
So is this pill the answer for you?
Or can you hear Him calling you
To rise from just where you are
He loves you as He loves me
He cries for you in heaven above
He waits for you
My friend I pray
Embrace His love
The Ransom – 1 Corinthians 6:19-20
Lord You paid the price
The highest ransom
For this worthless soul
Taking up the cross
So I could live again
Why would You buy my life
At the cost of Your own
I was worthless in my sin
Just a wretch in my addiction
Yet You paid my ransom
With Your own life
So I could live again
What could I ever do to repay You
All I can do is to try
To try to be like You
I know that I will fail
But You will love me anyway
1 Corinthians 6:19-20
Don’t Give Up
Don’t give up
We’re going to find a way
Don’t let go
We can make it through
Addiction grips
Souls slide to despair
Addiction diminishes
Our hearts to hear
But light will come
I’ve been to where you are
But life will grow
When Christ finds you here
Submit your soul
To the Lord above all
Submit your life
To the Glory of the Lord
Don’t give up
We’re going to find a way
Don’t let go
With Christ we will make it through
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
