Monday, 11 June 2012

• The Mental Battlefield: My Struggle With Alcoholism

  "In my distress I called to the LORD; I cried to my God for help. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came before him, into his ears." -- King David

  Agony can lead a pure heart into filth, and emotional struggle can take its toll until the character of a man is questioned and thought unconscious. Multiple relationships torn apart, left bleeding with no solace or remedy, just festering sores gushing day and night in anguish and regret, confusion and depression.
  
  What went wrong? Was it not perfect? What is perfection anyway? Dreams crushed, and zeal extinguished, the death of a loved one or the death of a child lie as an open mouth of a tomb ominously calling to the depth of the soul.

  The scene playback of surreal cognitive film of an ice-cold room lined with chairs, and magazines lining the tables in front of a curtain. Soundless death rips through the heart with each emerging limping and emotionally exhausted woman from behind the curtain, knowing that the abortion performed sent her child screaming through time and space into the arms of God, and the blood invisibly running down her hands, because you have arranged for it that your seed should be next -- the blood, your own flesh and blood will be on your own hands.   

  I have struggled with a life of alcoholism now for almost three years, and during much of this time I’ve served at churches as a minister of some type -- achieving victory in the pulpit and an intoxicated defeat in my personal life.  Most of the issues and situations described above are my own mistakes and at times unfortunate situations to which the list could continue.  A few months ago after struggling successfully to repress my craving to drink for a time, I slipped very hard. I vaguely remember the day, and it would so happen that I had on this particular day consumed so much alcohol that I’m literally unable to recall what happened during a time frame of about 12 hours. My life changed
  drastically on that day.

  Eventually I woke up, laying sideways in a hospital ER bed; with a cast on my right foot, and blood covering the top of my head from being robbed after the fact. My life spiraled out of control for about two hours that day, and what used to be a normal routine led to the darkest and one of the most emotionally painful times in my life. Laying in a bed for months, in a dorm room alone and discombobulated, life had become undesirable to me, a thing to be hated. The God that I claimed to love I then began to fear, and I abandoned Him because of my utter failure.

  There’s no way I can tell you all that has happened to me on this blog, and all the many ways that I still struggle with substance abuse; but what I want to tell you is that there isn’t a single bottle of alcohol out there, empty or full, that Jesus will stop loving you because of.  I know there are those of you out there like me, who wonder if Jesus has walked away because of your alcohol problem, and you wonder deep inside if you even really love Him. You wonder why it’s not desirable to you to escape to Jesus rather than to whiskey. For you ministers out there like me who feel like the biggest loser, who feel that you are a huge hypocrite and failure. For anyone who like me has put a bottle to their lips and cried, and cried, every swallow bitter/sweet burning knowing that something is so wrong but you don’t know how to fix it because you don’t know what’s broken.

  Jesus hasn't walked away from us!  I write with tears because I’m learning to understand that He has compassion on His children. Not only does He sympathize, but he is actually emotionally and intimately involved with our pain. He understands what we do not and He cares even when people walk away from us in disgust. He reaches out to us, and comforts us as a father who has never lost a single ounce of love for a son, who still believes in that son even when others write the son off, and when the son writes himself off. Jesus believes in, Jesus cares for, Jesus continues to sing over, and Jesus will never stop loving you.  

  I’m now attending AA meetings, and I have returned to my ministry duties; it is a fight everyday because I know that these craving don't have a death date, or in other words, one doesn't break free from this addiction in 2-3 months, it's everyday struggle that may never go away. Pray for me -- I am human but I do love my Jesus even though I’m messed up inside for some reason, and please if you too struggle with alcoholism, let me know who you are, so that I can pray for you as well. The race isn’t given to the swift, nor the strong, but to him that endures to the end.

  "For I will restore health to you, and your wounds I will heal, declares the Lord, because they have called you an outcast: ‘It is Zion, for whom no one cares!’' Jeremiah 30:17

  "In you, Lord, I have taken refuge; let me never be put to shame. In your righteousness, rescue me and deliver me; turn your ear to me and save me. Be my rock of refuge, to which I can always go; give the command to save me, for you are my rock and my fortress. Deliver me, my God, from the hand of the wicked, from the grasp of those who are evil and cruel. For you have been my hope, Sovereign Lord, my confidence since my youth.'' Psalm 71:1-4

  "He will call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him." Psalms 91:15

  "Here is a trustworthy saying: If we died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him. If we disown him, he will also disown us; if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot disown himself." 2 Timothy 2:11-13
  
  Do you or does someone you know struggle with alcoholism?  How do we, as Christians, face and fight alcoholism in our lives?  What support systems exist for people who suffer from it?
  

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