I was finally finished. Ready to stop drinking on my 50th birthday. If I hadn’t, I am afraid I would not be here writing about it. Nobody could stop me. Nobody could make me see I was killing myself slowly. Nobody could convince me by facts. Not to be reasoned with. I was irrational.
You can’t rationalize facts to someone whose decisions are based upon emotion.
I was covering up the real facts with my delusional thoughts of what was real for me in the fog of my drinking state. I had become a victim and stuck in my own behaviors. Behaviors that I believed were working for me, protecting me. They weren’t. Those behaviors were just keeping me stuck. Old behaviors. I didn’t believe I could live my life without alcohol. I didn’t even try. I had tried. But, at the end, my body was so addicted, it would not let me stop drinking. I needed it. That is addiction. My mind kept praying, “Make it stop. Make it stop.” But, I really didn’t want to stop or know how.
People who support alcoholics/addicts that they love often say, “How can they choose drugs and alcohol over their own children or family?” It is hard to understand, but at the point of addiction, it is not a choice anymore. They can’t choose anything else—without help. it is all self-focused. All survival. No looking outward.
They have to be ready to stop. Ready for change. Ready to surrender to outside help from others, including GOD.
If I could have stopped on my own power before I finally did, I would have. Only when I was ready, did I completely give myself over to God to a new way of living. Then is when my miracle happened. the obsession was lifted because I asked—because I was ready to turn it all over to God.
My sponsor said to me when the first woman I sponsored had relapsed. “Heidi, they have to want their sobriety more than you want it for them.” and, I responded, “Well, there must have been something I could have said or done?” to which she replied, “Heidi, you are not that powerful.”
It was stunning to me at the time. But the same realization I had when I knew I could not stop on my own, that surrendering to God for help was it. That was the Power I was seeking once again—or for the first time.
Then and only then, can I begin to see you. See God. I know—You were both there the whole time. My eyes weren’t open yet. I needed to see it on my own.
Thanks for waiting for me.
I love this old hymn that describes this ready point. I know you are humming the tune now!
“Open my eyes that I may see
Glimpses of truth Thou hast for me;
Place in my hands the wonderful key
That shall unclasp and set me free.
Silently now I wait for Thee,
Ready, my God, Thy will to see;
Open my eyes, illumine me,
Spirit Divine!”
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