Introduction.....short version

[Dean62]

Hi everyone, or the few of you that come here. I have been an alcoholic I believe since my first drunk at the age of 13. I didn't know it then but my primary use of alcohol has been so that I would not feel the feelings I did not like and could not deal with.

We didn't talk about God in our home so I was not a believer. I trusted myself and I trusted booze to save me.

It's been a long road with more lost opportunities then I would have ever imagined humanly possible.

In 2007 having been completely broken I was finally humble enough to read the bible and have it actually make sense to me. I became a Christian although remained sober for over a year only once in 2008. Today I am 48 days sober and continue to put all hope in Jesus.

 

[Yadid]

Hi Dean;
Your story sounds a lot like my own. I've been an alcoholic all of my adult life beginning at 16. God sent me to AA when I was 27 and have managed to accumulate years of sobriety but recently picked up again. I now have a little over three months and am plugged back into AA and things are going well. I need the program because I firmly believe that God wants me there to help others and I've gave up trying to have God "heal" me of my addiction. The healing is in my work with other suffering alcoholics.

Jesus owns my heart and my walk with Him makes the program so much easier. The 12 steps are basically designed to bring us into relationship with Him and that's exactly how I came home to Christ. I used to wonder why God would allow me to be an alcoholic but now know there was probably no other way I would have sought Him out.

I'm new here myself and look forward to the interaction with like minded folks.

 

[Dean62]

Hi Dean;
Your story sounds a lot like my own. I've been an alcoholic all of my adult life beginning at 16. God sent me to AA when I was 27 and have managed to accumulate years of sobriety but recently picked up again. I now have a little over three months and am plugged back into AA and things are going well. I need the program because I firmly believe that God wants me there to help others and I've gave up trying to have God "heal" me of my addiction. The healing is in my work with other suffering alcoholics.

Jesus owns my heart and my walk with Him makes the program so much easier. The 12 steps are basically designed to bring us into relationship with Him and that's exactly how I came home to Christ. I used to wonder why God would allow me to be an alcoholic but now know there was probably no other way I would have sought Him out.

I'm new here myself and look forward to the interaction with like minded folks.

Yes Yadid! We are very much alike! Ditto on alcohol braking my pride and bringing me to my knee's where the only ones left where me and God. I would not have turned to Him otherwise. I also see the 12 steps as a path to the solution, Jesus. It helped set me free from the bondage of self so that I could accept the gifts of the Lord. And I also am at a point where I see helping others with addiction as the best way of doing God's will and staying sober. I believe it is the ministry He has given to us. God has created good from bad by making our pasts our greatest assets in helping others.

Thank you for sharing Yadid.

 

[madison1101]

I've been in AA for 24 years. I had struggled with a daily obsession with alcohol during a horrific relapse. I ended up in outpatient treatment for close to a year, and after a week long binge, I landed in the psych ward of the local hospital for a week. From there, I was sent to an inpatient drug and alcohol rehab.

I really did not want to stay in the rehab, because it was humiliating. Fortunately, God sent me other believers to have devotions with every morning. We used the Recovery Devotional Bibles the rehab chaplain gave us. During one of those mornings I truly surrendered my will and my life to the Lord. That included whether I stayed in the rehab. From that moment on, I have not had the thought, desire or obsession to drink.

Surrendering was when I took my 3rd Step, of the 12 Steps. Once I had surrendered, I realized that in all my years of AA, I had never made amends with some key people against whom I'd held resentments. I knew then that I had to rigorously work the rest of the Steps, and in spite of all my previous 4th Steps, I had never used the Big Book's format for doing it.

I've also found doing service, both in and out of AA, has helped me in more ways than I could have ever imagined.

God bless.