Breaking Free (pt. 3)

I knew I wanted to stop drinking. God had stirred it up inside of me that drinking was not serving a purpose in my life, that it wasn't good for me, that it was separating me from Him. So I struggled through 2005 with a few periods of sobriety. It was so weird to me that I could go a week(or more) without drinking to fast or a week without drinking when I went on a mission trip in the summer of 2005. But I'd always go back. No matter how much I wanted to stop drinking, I always went back.

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I felt like such a fraud. Such a hypocrite. Here I was going to church every Sunday, going to life group every week, even going out of the country on a mission trip! And Sunday night, I'd drink. I'd drink when I got home from life group. And I drank when I got back from that mission trip. What a fraud.

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I remember one time of desperation when I finally began to realize that I had a real problem with alcohol. It was late, I'm not even sure where Brian was at this point. Most likely he had already gone to bed. Anyway, it was late and I was drunk. I remember going into the bathroom and stumbling a little. And leaned against the bathroom sink to catch my balance. I looked up into the mirror and at myself. I thought, who are you? Really, who are you? Your whole life is somewhere else right now. Who you were this morning while you praying is not who you are right now, drunk and stumbling in the bathroom. Your husband and child, your family who you love is sleeping and their wife & mother is drunk and stumbling in the bathroom. It was like a slow motion movie.... I backed away from the sink, just looking at myself in the mirror, my back touched the wall behind me and I remember sliding down the wall and sitting on the floor, tears running down my face. Saying out loud, Oh God what am I going to do? I can't stop drinking. Please, God, help me stop drinking. Please, God, take this away from me. Please, take it, take it, take it. It was only a few sentences but I was tired, emotionally and physically. And I sat there. And I remember clearly hearing in my heart..... I can't take this away, you have to give it to me. WHAT? I remember shaking my head, thinking I couldn't have heard that right. God, takes things like this, He's a miracle worker, He heals people. He can make me stop drinking! Again, that still, small voice everyone talks about..... no, Dawn, this you have to give to me. Oh, God, how, how do I do that? Surrender, He said. I'll be honest and tell you that made no sense to me at the time. And really just irritated me. I thought, I don't know how to do that! And then I remembered, with great sadness, the Bible story of the guy with the thorn in his side. And I thought, crud, that's gonna be me. If I can't figure out how to surrender this, then I'm going to be walking around for the rest of my life with this big thorn sticking me in my side, hurting me forever! GREAT! JUST GREAT! I pulled myself together, got up off the floor, wiped my face and went on to bed.

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More short periods of sobriety came, followed by periods of drinking and ignoring my problem. I found out I was pregnant and stopped drinking the entire time. Zachery was born in 2006 and for the 1st six months or so after he was born I didn't drink at all because I was nursing.

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Bby now realized that I had a REAL problem, so I decided to go to AA. I found a meeting that was just around the corner from me. Gathered up my courage and went. Once inside, I cried and cried and cried. Walking into that 1st AA meeting was the 1st step to admitting to myself that I had a drinking problem. I sat and listened to everyone sharing their struggles....or as they say in AA, their experience, strength and hope. They talked of a Higher Power. Many people told what finally made the difference for them in their drinking problem was when they "came to believe that a power greater than themselves could restore them to sanity". Well, good for me, I thought. I know the *real* Higher Power. You can't really say Jesus in AA....God is okay, Higher Power is better. It's a program of surrender but one that doesn't require you to believe in only one God. Anyway, I sat there thinking... cool, I've got this. If all you need is a Higher Power, then I'm good to go. Because I know the real Higher Power, I'm not like these other people believing in something "out there", I have a personal relationship with Jesus. So, I didn't take any of the suggestions. I didn't get a sponsor, I only went to a few meetings a month. I compared myself to the others, to see how I *wasn't* like them, instead of trying to find the similarities. Never mind that there were people in the room with many, many years of continuous sobriety. I dabbled in and out of AA. In AA, you take chips (looks like a poker chip) to mark you time in sobriety. The white chip is the 1st one, the chip of surrender. I would take white chip after white chip after white chip....until, I didn't take anymore white chips because I was tired of taking a white chip and still drinking again. One nice person who was trying to encourage me and help me, had given me their 30 day chip and said, "give it back to me when you get your own". It took me 6 months but I finally put together 30 days in a row....just so I could give him back his chip.

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It would take me another 3 years to get 30 days in a row of sobriety.

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I eventually stopped going to AA.

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But, I never stopped asking God to teach me how to surrender and to give up alcohol.

(to be continued)