- Alcohol
- Drugs
- Faith
I grew up in a tiny, old falling down farmhouse full of love compassion and caring parents and siblings. We didn’t have much except for all the food we could eat and our imaginations for toys. My father worked hard and so did I right beside him, we had a concrete lawn ornament business. We played hard also, I killed my first raccoon when I was four and could catch the most stubborn fish before I could read and write. Those were the good times, the happy moments in my life that I’ll never forget and that I’m most proud of.
I think, because of the conditions, us children got boils a lot. I had a huge boil on my leg once. We didn’t always go to the hospital for what ailed us, so my loving Mother decided the best way to cure me was to wrap a boiling hot towel around my leg. I immediately saw the results of puss and blood on the towel, but I don’t think I’ve ever screamed as loud as I had that day. Ten minutes after I thought I was cured my leg bubbled up all over the area where the towel was. I spent the next three weeks and a day in the hospital with third degree burns. Unbeknownst to me, I wouldn’t be going home. I would be going to a stranger’s home and I wouldn’t be seeing my Mother and Father for a long time.
Five years later my sister told me the preacher’s family that she went to did countless ungodly acts against her and another of my four sisters. I immediately felt guilt for it was my best logical thinking that told me it was my fault. That was my first turning point. I was fourteen years old when I went into the world and started work at a local dairy farm. It was a lot of hard work and I could forget.
The next fifteen years I would do a lot of forgetting. I found I could forget with booze and drugs and I didn’t discover any consequences until I was about 33 years old. The jails, judges and not even my own family could convince me of my dilemma. My son was nine years old when he looked at me and said very plainly that if I didn’t quit drinking he would move into his mother’s home. And so I checked into an inpatient six month program that would change my life. Twenty-seven days into the program I wanted to run away. Instead, I went to work. It was 12 degrees below zero and windy. I couldn’t afford the proper attire so I was freezing. I dropped to my knees for the first time, looked up to the sky and asked HIM why I suffer so. When I opened my eyes the clouds had blown away from the sun and the winds started dying down some. I was sober and I was praying and it was working. It’s been countless bigger and better miracles since then in my life, and in all the lives of those that I have affected.
Well I’m still dealing with wreckage, but yes, everything changed. I found a relationship with my higher power and he gave me countless relationships with recovering alcoholics; Most of whom looked up to me, some of whom stayed sober. The jobs didn’t get much better but so much more enjoyable with the Father on my side. I’ve always been a very healthy human being, but the inner peace I’ve felt is almost overwhelming at times. To laugh so hard it hurts, to cry until it heals, to strive for a cause until your voice gets scratchy, to have love in my heart for another human being: these are the things I’ve not experienced in a long time and it felt good to feel like a human, a member of society, a healer of lost souls.
Don’t be scared, open your heart and mind grab a hold of the program and hang on tight to experience many miracles. If not you will surely wither in a slow and miserable death and your family will pay the consequences.