- Alcohol
- Faith
Going to church each week was not an option while I was growing up. It was a requirement. I often felt like a hypocrite. My family argued in the car on the way in, acted like the perfect family while there and then argued in the car on the way out. When I was old enough, I often asked to sit in the front row by myself. Was I acting like a big kid or trying to get away from the family? I am not sure. When older I was able to sing in the youth choir. This meant I walked to church and did not go with my family. Between songs we were often being “shushed” because we were giggling and not paying attention to what was going on.
As time went on, I was introduced to alcohol. Alcohol became my best friend, my confidant and my savior. I continued to attend church but only because it was easier to go than to explain why I didn’t. I began to lose myself in my drinking. I did not lose the house, the car, the job or many other things that people tend to lose while drinking as I was a 19-year-old. I did not have these things to lose. What I did lose was myself and my family. I had no idea who I was, where I was going or why I was here. I built up so many walls to keep my family and friends out that it felt as if they had disappeared. I hid my feelings so far inside that I only had two. I felt “good” or I felt “like crap,” and it was usually the latter. The only other option was to feel nothing at all. I was an empty shell and barely surviving. Alcohol helped me to feel something, even if that feeling was only “drunk.”
Church was getting in the way of my drinking. How could I go to church while drinking like I did? How could I drink with my disjointed belief in God still in my head? How could two very different people live inside me? I tried to be an atheist. I told my friends that I was an atheist. I said I did not believe in God, but I couldn’t turn my back on the early years of my life. I decided to be an agnostic. I could believe that God was out there somewhere but just did not want anything to do with me. A friend and I decided we were on Earth to be God’s guinea pigs as he determined how much humans could handle before breaking apart into nothingness. This ended the battle within, and I could go on with my drinking.
Although I had given up on God, when I look back on this time, it is apparent that God did not give up on me. My eyes, ears and heart were open at just the right time to hear just the right words. Someone suggested that I try a recovery support group. I finally consented and went. The first thing I heard was, “Stop drinking.” The second thing was, “Find a God you understand and can believe in,” and the third was, “Let go and let God take care of your life.” This was a tall order for me, since I thought I always had to be in control of everything. I was willing to try not drinking for a little while. The “God thing,” on the other hand, was something I was not willing to spend much time on.
I started attending this group and following some of the directions, but I focused on why I drank. I looked through my family history trying to find another alcoholic. I did not want to be the first. I wanted to claim genetic susceptibility and that my drinking was not my fault. In time I was able to accept that the “why” of being an alcoholic was not as important as just accepting that I was an alcoholic. I finally felt that it was time to move forward.
I did not feel I needed to find a God of my understanding. I had grown up going to church every week and learning more than I ever wanted to know about God. I knew about God and sometimes sort of believed in God. There was nothing more there for me. I tried to move on with the suggestions and found I could not. I spent some time walking around in circles not feeling like I was going anywhere. Each time I tried to move on, I felt like I hit a wall I would never be able to move over or around.
The trouble, I eventually realized, is that I got sober with a God of my parents’ understanding. This was enough to get me in the door of the room and start some soul searching. However it was not enough to allow me to move forward and grow in faith or spirituality. I had to find a God of my own understanding if these suggestions for life were going to work for me. I did a lot of soul searching, a lot of talking with others, a lot of reading and a lot of praying. I meditated on the God I brought with me from childhood. I was able to pick out the things I liked and sort out the things I could not agree with. I searched my soul to fill in the missing pieces. I was finally able to move forward with the suggestions given to me when I had a God I could love, trust and understand.
I could not define my relationship with God if anyone asked me to. I believe that God is all being, all loving, all caring and all guiding. The God of my understanding is limitless. If I try to define my God, I am placing limits and trying to make God more of a human than a spiritual being. I know that the God of my understanding will lead me through my journey of life and will always be by my side. I am grateful for the God I was brought up with. It was this God who brought me to recovery, but I would not have been able to remain sober with this God. I needed to find a God I could believe in before I could walk further in my journey through life.