- Alcohol
- Faith
I first heard about Heroes in Recovery a few days ago, and my heart leaped for joy because I saw the organization aims to change the stigma associated with addiction. I’m not an “alcoholic” or an “addict;” I’m a person. I’m a person who was addicted to alcohol. I choose not to attach any label to myself much less one that has a stigma attached to it, but if I did choose to label myself, I would use a positive label like “Hero in Recovery.”
I could share all the stories of the horrible things I did when I was addicted, but I’m sure you’ve heard it all. Suffice it to say, nobody reading this has done anything that I haven’t thought, said or done myself while I was addicted to alcohol. I was carrying around 100 pounds of self-imposed guilt and shame before I even started abusing alcohol. Addiction just added another 200 pounds of guilt and shame to the original 100. I’m not a big guy. I can’t get off the ground much less walk carrying 300 pounds of garbage around. Needless to say I wasn’t going anywhere, certainly anywhere good, until I learned to set that unnecessary and debilitating guilt and shame down. I had to forgive myself.
I’ve been an active Christian my whole life. However I haven’t had any visions or epiphanies or seen angels. God has not spoken to me directly through a voice in my head or in a dream. I haven’t even had any “moments of clarity.” What I have done is look at my life and ask the simple question, “Since I believe in Jesus, what am I doing carrying around ANY guilt or shame? Since I believe in Jesus, why would I choose not to forgive myself if God himself has forgiven me?” I’ve done bad things in my life and lots of them, but I’ve asked God to forgive me for each and every one of those bad things, and he has. Completely. He says exactly so in his book The Bible. There are so many passages in there about his complete forgiveness of us. I won’t even begin to list them.
God gave every one of us the ability to make choices in our lives. We don’t live in a vacuum. I am sober today because I choose to be sober today, because Jesus has given me the strength to choose to be sober today. He will continue to give me that strength to always choose to be sober, because He promised that He would do exactly that. I refuse to accept the, “I am powerless” notion. With Jesus I’m not powerless over anything. “I can do anything through him who gives me strength” (Philippians 4:13). Nothing and nobody can take my sobriety away from me. I can only choose to give it away.
I always feel sad when I hear people say, “I’m sober because of my support group.” I’m not knocking those programs. They have helped millions stay sober, but you’re not sober because of your recovery program; you’re sober because of you. I’m sober because God has given me the strength to choose to be. Any credit for my sobriety goes to Jesus first, me second and stops there. Family, friends, addiction programs and sobriety tools can aid in the maintenance of that sobriety, but at the end of the day, the choice to remain sober is mine alone, and I choose to remain at the feet of Jesus where I’ll always be safe.
I live my life in gratitude to Jesus for how he has blessed my life, and in doing so I end up naturally repairing the things I’ve broken, restoring the things I’ve thrown away and healing the wounds I’ve caused to the many people in my life. I don’t do those things out of a duty to make amends or to earn God’s favor. I do them out of thanks to Jesus who always says, “You’re welcome.” I can’t earn His love or forgiveness, and I don’t have to. His gift is free and clear of any obligations.
I’ve been unemployed for 11 months, and I’ve had my share of bad things happening in my life besides that. I certainly could have used all that as an excuse for giving up and choosing to drink, but if Jesus promises to take care of me while I’m here, why would I choose to give up? “For I am the Lord, your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear, I will help you” (Isaiah 41:13).
Anybody who has been through addiction knows how hard it is to get sober and to remain sober. If I relied solely on people, programs or organizations, I would find it way too easy to be let down or disappointed by people and even easier to give up. The only key to my sobriety is to hitch my wagon to the only one who will never let me down, my Savior and my Lord. “On Christ the solid rock I stand. All other ground is sinking sand.”