Sobriety, Belief, and Unbelief

I started my 20-year drinking and drugging career when I was 13-years-old. At the time I didn’t even think about the ramifications of what I was getting myself into. I, like most immature teenagers, thought “it wouldn’t happen to me.” Meaning, I wouldn’t be an alcoholic or drug addict. You could say I didn’t believe the potential outcome of my decision to participate in something that I would eventually want to stop doing. I was aware of the potential, but I just didn’t believe it.
While I was in the clutches, the captivity, of drug and alcohol addiction, I didn’t believe that my life was bad. The choices that I made separated me from everything I had ever cared about. Family, friends, girlfriends, jobs, and everything that was important to me. Most of all God.
I couldn’t believe that my addiction was causing all of this. It must have been all the other people involved in the equation. I thought this despite the fact that I was the common denominator. As I got older I didn’t believe there was any hope for me. Toward the end of my drinking and drugging career, I can remember waking up in the morning and thinking to myself, “I can’t believe I woke up again.”
My days and nights were basically spent severely intoxicated. I would black out three or four days a week and sometimes for three or four days in a row. I just didn’t believe there was any solution for this misery, no freedom from this imprisonment. I just didn’t believe in anything. Most of all God.
Let me fast forward to the good part of this story. When I was 33-years-old, it dawned on me that I was separate from God. I grew up in a Christian home and believed in God. As a result of events in my life I consciously denied God and turned from Him.
So, here I sit, 33-years-old and more alone then I could ever explain with words. I couldn’t even invite myself over to Thanksgiving dinner at a relative’s houses. Once again in trouble, I was forced into the rooms of AA. I never went to a meeting before because I didn’t believe anything could help me.
That day I stumbled into this meeting as drunk and high as I had ever been in my life, I was full of hate, anger, resentment, and everything that doesn’t come from God. Somehow, that day I looked up and saw hope. I’ll never forget thinking to myself, “This is how I’m going to stay sober.”
Once I had that thought, I became as sober as I was before I took my first drink. Eight years later I realized that God had taken my addiction from me. He removed it from me because I had repented in my mind when I said, “this is how I’m going to stay sober.” In that instance I believed there was a solution to my condition of bad choices and sinfulness. That day God drained the drugs and alcohol out of my body like, as I’ve said for years, “water draining from a tub.”
I’m now a couple of weeks from 10 years sober. My unbelief has turned to belief. It is a process, but it’s a wonderful process. I chose to believe the truth that is the Bible. I also chose to believe people’s testimonies of their encounters with God. I believe some people may read this article and believe this could happen for them.
I also want to invite everyone to hear Doug Addison at Christ Fellowship in Seaville, June 6 and 7. Doug is Christian comedian with an incredible testimony of freedom from the darkness of addiction.
For more information, go to www.snjce.com. I pray that the stronghold of addiction is broken in our wonderful area of South Jersey.