God has done for me what I could not have done for myself. I’m privileged and proud to say I’ve had 7 years of sobriety today. That’s 2,555 daily miracles!
It’s hard to believe that 7 years ago I hit my bottom with my drinking career. I took my last drink at 12:10am on June 4th, 2009. I’ll never forget it. I had a Coors Light in one hand and took a shot of Rumplemintz before I left the bar that night. I finished my beer, not knowing that was my farewell moment to alcohol. I wanted my body to be 100% clean of alcohol in my system. So I gave it 24 hours. I’m proud to say my BAC (Blood Alcohol Content) has been 0.00 since June 5th, 2009.
I’m having trouble thinking about what I should write about today however. The reason is, that my father-in-law is dying of cancer and is in the last stages of his life. Hospice thinks he may not last more than 2 weeks at this point.
I’m sitting at the family dining table next to the kitchen. My father-in-law sits next to me on my left in a sun room. The decision was made yesterday to have a hospital bed brought in for him. He has now been moved from his bedroom to the hospital bed where it makes just a little easier for his family to care for him.
He loves to watch the Twins baseball team and is watching them as I write this post. He has lost so much weight and is very thin, like that of a concentration camp victim. I haven’t seen him for a few weeks so it was shocking to say the least yesterday when I drove out to be there for him and my wife. He has said to my wife, “I just want to die”. He’s tired and knows that he can’t go on, so he just wants it to end. Life and death gets very real when you are this close to a person who says something like this. It’s hard to grasp the concept of death and what it must be like for a person to be at end of life?
I want to relate the question I just asked to the finality of what it was like for me to end my drinking career.
I was dying, but in a different way with my alcoholism. It wasn’t a physical thing. It was a mental and spiritual process of dying. My soul was dying and so was my hope that life could be worth anything. I was alive, but not alive inside. I was a mere shell of a human being. The alcohol had been taking everything of who I am, and who I was in life.
“Alcohol was and always will be my cancer!”
I just didn’t know it would be such a slow and progressive disease. Alcohol was the catalyst that would slowly erode the things I held dear in my life. It was taking from me which I could not see with my own eyes. It was taking away the love I had for others and for myself. It was taking away friendships, jobs, and money. It destroyed any foundation of trust and integrity that I had built with loved ones in my life.
Does this sound familiar to you if you are currently suffering from your disease?
By the grace of God, He took away my pain the early morning of June 4th, 2009. My life with alcohol passed on. You see, we (alcoholics) need our using life to end to become reborn to a new life of sobriety! So the death of my drinking life was the best thing that has ever happened to me. The fortunate thing is, that I didn’t (literally) die with the death of my drinking career. The opposite has come true.
A new life had begun for me where I could start to find God again – my Higher Power. A Higher Power that could restore me to sanity and give me back the things that alcohol had taken from me. I have my integrity back, people trust me, I have love for myself again, and I can love and help others. This is why we were put on this earth. To help other people. I’ll always be a selfish person, but have become so much more selfless in my actions.
I can only imagine how beautiful the next life must be in the Kingdom of God. My father-in-law will soon pass on to the next stage of life. I pray that he passes peacefully and without pain. It will be his death that will allow him to be forever free and happy. He won’t have to live in pain anymore. His suffering will have ended.
You too can be at peace by ending your suffering with your disease of alcoholism and/or drug addiction starting today! Allow yourself to move to the next phase in your life by surrendering to your disease. God has things in store for you, you can’t begin to imagine!
I leave you today with this,
Seek out the help you need whether it be treatment or AA/NA meetings. Don’t be afraid. This is only your fear and disease wanting to hold you back from the life you deserve. Allow people to help you find a new life in recovery. I did, and I could have never of dreamed my life being so peaceful. I’ve finally found the easier softer way of living life.
And that is…being sober.