I registered to this site three years ago, during a time when I was trying to find repentance for my drinking problem. I thought this past Thursday was going to be my first day of sobriety, but it wasn't. I've had several, isolated days of abstinence this year, but the next day is always back to getting drunk again.
I've been going through substance abuse for over 20 years now. It was first smoking pot everyday and adding alcohol on the weekends. I met my wife back then, fell in love and I got her hooked on weed as well. We partied together, I grew the plants in our closet, we traveled all over, and had a time of it for several years. We smoked pot everyday and got drunk on the weekends. We got married after four or so years, then four or five years later, began having kids.
I'll back up further here and say that I come from a church family. Many would say I grew up in a Christian home. My dad was a preacher in Oklahoma around the time of my birth and Mom tried all our lives to keep us in church. I've always been drawn back to church. I've prayed regularly since I was a little boy. I can't say when or if there was a new birth moment to my life, but if there was, possibly it was sometime around 7th or 8th grade, maybe the summer between.
After my wife and I had been living together for some years, we got married, we then both got baptized within a year of the wedding. I decided we'd move to another state so that I could continue living the way I wanted, further from family, and in a more tolerant environment of my drug of choice. We'd been going to church together before and after getting married, and when we moved away, one of the first things we did was find a good church and began attending weekly. We've been attending church there purposefully for about 14 years now. I've been serving in a leadership capacity there for eight or so years now.
Back when we finally decided to have kids, I didn't want to continue in the criminal activity I had been in, so I turned off the grow lights, smoked up the last of the pot, and that chapter of my life was over. I just couldn't have kids in the house and be growing and smoking weed like that.
I was left with the weekend drinking, and upped the dosage. I drank beer primarily and I knew I had a problem. When my son was born, I didn't want to drink around my kids, I decided I couldn't financially afford to keep buying beer, so I stopped, but pride brought be back in. My wife told my parents that I'd stopped drinking, and I was given the prodigal son congratulations, which embarrassed me to death. I told my dad that no, I didn't stop drinking, I just didn't have the money to be doing it like usual. So I started drinking on the weekends again just to save face.
My drinking picked up over the next several years, and I seem to lose all kinds of control at the first of 2011. Up was down, right was left, I couldn't make sense of what was happening and I couldn't get a hold of myself. I tried to figure out logically what exactly I was going through, but I couldn't do it.
The weekend drinking moved into a weekday or two, especially if I came home and the wife and kids were gone or if she was going to leave for an event in the evening. If I was home alone, I'd drink. I knew things were getting bad and I wanted to stop what I was doing. That was three years ago. That's when I registered here and on another forum, to seek guidance, anonymously. The other place I registered was at carm.org, and I posted a prayer request there for repentance. One or two members there pointed me to SettingCaptivesFree.com and I quickly went there and began a course. I went all the way through the New Wine course, not improving at all. I used the Bible to debate my mentor and played word games and tried to make myself look like a Scriptural expert. It was all a show of pride and vanity. I wasn't even focused on killing sin so much as I wanted to show off my knowledge of the Bible. So I failed.
I signed up again to go back through Setting Captives Free, and I did another 90 days without improvement. Got to the end and I was no better than before. During each time through, I came to the determination that I was a false convert, that I wasn't a true follower of Jesus. When I finished the second course, I never went back. I knew this was going to be harder than I ever initially thought. I told my wife that I was an alcoholic, and she flat out did not believe me. She rejected that idea. That seemed to light up the pride in me again as if to say, 'Oh yeah, just watch. I'll show you that I'm an alcoholic'.
I thought admitting you have a problem was the first step. I thought calling it what it is, was the beginning of recovery. I don't really think so anymore. My dad had a bit of a drinking problem years ago. It was quite minor I think, but he was able to cut the head off his habit and walk away from it for good.
I kept drinking beer three or four nights a week, year after year. It continued in that trajectory until a couple years ago, the flood gates just burst in that I started drinking every single day after work. I knew I was in REAL trouble. I knew I had a BIG problem.
One huge problem is that I'm too prideful to seek help. I've asked my wife to help me, but she isn't able to do it. I've come up with a lot of different plans and ways to beat this thing, but I always fail. I've prayed ten thousand prayers for Jesus to rescue me from this, to give me the Spirit of Self Control. I pray the same prayers every morning, every single morning. I confess my sins to God, ask Him for His mercy and strength. I plead with Him to hear me, to save me, to help me!
I try and quit once or twice every week. I'll run out of beer and I'll say, "Okay, this is it. Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of my life. Lord, I want to turn away from this and back to you. Help me lay this down and be done with it". But as those of you who've conquered addiction know, temptation comes right back to you. Sin crouches at the doorway in waiting. Sometimes I'm able to skip a day, but it's only a day. The next day's temptation will be too great or I'll just be too rebellious and I'll return to my folly like a fool.
One of the things I remember from Setting Captives Free is the suggestion to have a destruction party, break all the booze bottles and pour it all down the drain. It seemed sort of silly, but I've been trying everything I could imagine. One morning last week, I thought the Lord was speaking to me. I remembered that suggestion and it really sank deep in as if God was asking me to go pour out that case of beer and he would hold me up. I prayed about it and I made a commitment to do it. I was a little afraid of failure because everything else had failed. I also knew that if it didn't work, I'd likely never do it again; once one thing doesn't work, I move on and try something else. But I wanted freedom, and I thought I'd heard from God, so I went out in the garage and I poured every single can out.
That was Thursday and I didn't go buy more beer or drink that day. But the next day was Friday and like a pig, I went right back to my wallow.
I'm an alcoholic. I drink 10 to 15 beers almost every night. I don't know if I can stop all by myself, but something in me wants to stop drinking. Something in me doesn't want to stop at all.
I've been going through substance abuse for over 20 years now. It was first smoking pot everyday and adding alcohol on the weekends. I met my wife back then, fell in love and I got her hooked on weed as well. We partied together, I grew the plants in our closet, we traveled all over, and had a time of it for several years. We smoked pot everyday and got drunk on the weekends. We got married after four or so years, then four or five years later, began having kids.
I'll back up further here and say that I come from a church family. Many would say I grew up in a Christian home. My dad was a preacher in Oklahoma around the time of my birth and Mom tried all our lives to keep us in church. I've always been drawn back to church. I've prayed regularly since I was a little boy. I can't say when or if there was a new birth moment to my life, but if there was, possibly it was sometime around 7th or 8th grade, maybe the summer between.
After my wife and I had been living together for some years, we got married, we then both got baptized within a year of the wedding. I decided we'd move to another state so that I could continue living the way I wanted, further from family, and in a more tolerant environment of my drug of choice. We'd been going to church together before and after getting married, and when we moved away, one of the first things we did was find a good church and began attending weekly. We've been attending church there purposefully for about 14 years now. I've been serving in a leadership capacity there for eight or so years now.
Back when we finally decided to have kids, I didn't want to continue in the criminal activity I had been in, so I turned off the grow lights, smoked up the last of the pot, and that chapter of my life was over. I just couldn't have kids in the house and be growing and smoking weed like that.
I was left with the weekend drinking, and upped the dosage. I drank beer primarily and I knew I had a problem. When my son was born, I didn't want to drink around my kids, I decided I couldn't financially afford to keep buying beer, so I stopped, but pride brought be back in. My wife told my parents that I'd stopped drinking, and I was given the prodigal son congratulations, which embarrassed me to death. I told my dad that no, I didn't stop drinking, I just didn't have the money to be doing it like usual. So I started drinking on the weekends again just to save face.
My drinking picked up over the next several years, and I seem to lose all kinds of control at the first of 2011. Up was down, right was left, I couldn't make sense of what was happening and I couldn't get a hold of myself. I tried to figure out logically what exactly I was going through, but I couldn't do it.
The weekend drinking moved into a weekday or two, especially if I came home and the wife and kids were gone or if she was going to leave for an event in the evening. If I was home alone, I'd drink. I knew things were getting bad and I wanted to stop what I was doing. That was three years ago. That's when I registered here and on another forum, to seek guidance, anonymously. The other place I registered was at carm.org, and I posted a prayer request there for repentance. One or two members there pointed me to SettingCaptivesFree.com and I quickly went there and began a course. I went all the way through the New Wine course, not improving at all. I used the Bible to debate my mentor and played word games and tried to make myself look like a Scriptural expert. It was all a show of pride and vanity. I wasn't even focused on killing sin so much as I wanted to show off my knowledge of the Bible. So I failed.
I signed up again to go back through Setting Captives Free, and I did another 90 days without improvement. Got to the end and I was no better than before. During each time through, I came to the determination that I was a false convert, that I wasn't a true follower of Jesus. When I finished the second course, I never went back. I knew this was going to be harder than I ever initially thought. I told my wife that I was an alcoholic, and she flat out did not believe me. She rejected that idea. That seemed to light up the pride in me again as if to say, 'Oh yeah, just watch. I'll show you that I'm an alcoholic'.
I thought admitting you have a problem was the first step. I thought calling it what it is, was the beginning of recovery. I don't really think so anymore. My dad had a bit of a drinking problem years ago. It was quite minor I think, but he was able to cut the head off his habit and walk away from it for good.
I kept drinking beer three or four nights a week, year after year. It continued in that trajectory until a couple years ago, the flood gates just burst in that I started drinking every single day after work. I knew I was in REAL trouble. I knew I had a BIG problem.
One huge problem is that I'm too prideful to seek help. I've asked my wife to help me, but she isn't able to do it. I've come up with a lot of different plans and ways to beat this thing, but I always fail. I've prayed ten thousand prayers for Jesus to rescue me from this, to give me the Spirit of Self Control. I pray the same prayers every morning, every single morning. I confess my sins to God, ask Him for His mercy and strength. I plead with Him to hear me, to save me, to help me!
I try and quit once or twice every week. I'll run out of beer and I'll say, "Okay, this is it. Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of my life. Lord, I want to turn away from this and back to you. Help me lay this down and be done with it". But as those of you who've conquered addiction know, temptation comes right back to you. Sin crouches at the doorway in waiting. Sometimes I'm able to skip a day, but it's only a day. The next day's temptation will be too great or I'll just be too rebellious and I'll return to my folly like a fool.
One of the things I remember from Setting Captives Free is the suggestion to have a destruction party, break all the booze bottles and pour it all down the drain. It seemed sort of silly, but I've been trying everything I could imagine. One morning last week, I thought the Lord was speaking to me. I remembered that suggestion and it really sank deep in as if God was asking me to go pour out that case of beer and he would hold me up. I prayed about it and I made a commitment to do it. I was a little afraid of failure because everything else had failed. I also knew that if it didn't work, I'd likely never do it again; once one thing doesn't work, I move on and try something else. But I wanted freedom, and I thought I'd heard from God, so I went out in the garage and I poured every single can out.
That was Thursday and I didn't go buy more beer or drink that day. But the next day was Friday and like a pig, I went right back to my wallow.
I'm an alcoholic. I drink 10 to 15 beers almost every night. I don't know if I can stop all by myself, but something in me wants to stop drinking. Something in me doesn't want to stop at all.
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I'm going to do something a little crazy, but necessary, and I was hoping nobody would wake up while I'm at it. I decided to get up, drive to my office, then to Walmart to get her an anniversary card. I slide out of bed like Mission Impossible, grab a pair of shorts, t-shirt, and float across the carpet without a sound. I couldn't dig in my dresser for keys or money because that would have woken her, so I grabbed her purse out of the living room and take it down stairs. I get dressed and take out her car keys that include a key to my office as it happens. I replace the purse and step to the front door, opened it hoping that the dogs don't go ballistic, and then, the hinges give out a loud squeak and squeal.
