I lay in bed tossing and turning, feeling my body sober up, sobbing and begging God for relief from the cravings. The cravings were lifted as the sun rose over the horizon, and God filled me with a sense of knowing. A knowledge of what I had to do.
Have you ever felt like this? This post is decidedly a little different than posts this blog is generally about. Still, addiction is a genuine part of life that affects 20 million Americans over the age of 12, 9.8 million of whom are above the age of 18.
I suffered from addiction from the time I was 18. I got sober for the first time at 21 but still allowed my addiction to control my life. It wasn’t until a life-changing relapse at 26 that my life shifted, that I began to live for God rather than according to my own will.
The Cyclical Nature of Addiction
A good deal of people experiment in their late teens and early twenties. Whether this be with alcohol, cigarettes, or a crazy new hairstyle is up to them. There is a group of people, though, that when they first experience drugs or alcohol, a switch flips in their brain, and they lose control. As the years go on, it gets worse and worse.
All of a sudden, their lives are not under their own control; they are entirely lost to the diseases of alcoholism and addiction. It works in a cycle, the “run” starts, and one spends a chunk of time lost to that substance. Once they begin to sober up, God grants them a moment of clarity.
The moments of clarity are essential. This is your chance! If an addict or alcoholic grasps onto one of these moments of clarity, they have an opportunity to become sober. If they ignore it, the cycle begins anew, and they once again become lost to their substance of choice.
Grasping Onto God
Finding your way out is challenging. It means trusting something-somebody- that you can’t even see over the life that you know. Trusting God can be scary if you’ve never known God. It was easier for me because I grew up in a church, and I knew that God was the solution to this deep hole in my soul that I could feel.
How do you give your life over to something you can’t even see? How do you rely on a power greater than yourself?
Well, it starts small.
It starts with waking up each day and not thinking about what you want to do but instead about God’s plan for you. It is hacking your daily routine to become more God-focused and less you-focused. It is finding mentors that have what you want in life.
Growth
In order to stay sober, you must grow. This is the hardest part of it all. You need to analyze every regret you have, every little thing you are ashamed of. All of those little things that you drank and used over? You have to give every one of those things over to God. You have to give yourself a clean slate.
When you mess up, you have to own it. You have to go fix that mistake because if you don’t, you will spend hours analyzing it, and that regret will lead to a bottle in your hand.
Conclusion
A spiritual solution is vital to staying sober. Without it, sobriety isn’t long-lasting, leaving you empty inside, white-knuckling the cravings. You must be honest with yourself and God to achieve true happiness and relief.
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