Impossible to comprehend is probably an understatement…

Disappointed and angry with myself is more like it. Angry I let three plus years of sobriety go by the wayside because of my selfish desire to have a drink by ignoring everything I learned entering recovery in 2016 and convincing myself I wasn’t an alcoholic anymore, that somehow I could relax with a drink “responsibly” now, be normal. My built in forgetter striking again. Slowly but surely (after abandoning the disciplines, routines and principles that got me into recovery I believed I was cured. 

January 3rd after drinking myself into a black out I heard the gut wrenching sound of the cell door closing behind me just 3 years, 8 months and 22 days after I heard it the first time for a DUI. Starting to panic about the future I began to pray (not knowing God would listen, it had been so long since I had called out to Him) and God gently spoke to my heart. He reminded me HE was holding my hand and would walk me through the things ahead.

In my cell was a torn up bible, I wanted to read something in the new testament but the front of the bible started somewhere in the middle of Genesis and the last page was Psalm 37, the last verse Psalm 37:5. For some reason I started there. “Commit everything you do to the LORD. Trust him, and he will help you.” I knew to commit everything I do to the Lord meant I had to have a willingness to surrender my will to Him. It’s step 3 for goodness sake, I’ve recited it 500 times if I’ve recited it once!

STEP 3- We made a decision to turn our lives and our wills over to the care of God.

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your  spiritual act of worship. Romans 12:1 NIV
https://www.celebraterecovery.com/resources/cr-tools/12steps

In his book The Cycle of Victorious Living, Earl Lee said, to commit is hands down with fingers open so you can hold nothing in them. To commit something is to lay it at the feet of Jesus and not pick it up… I picked it back up. To commit is to put it in the hands of GOD and leave it there… I didn’t. To commit is to go to the point of no return. It is to say, “God I can’t go back.”

I find committing to anything right now given the discouragement and overwhelming feeling of hopelessness difficult. I’ve failed so many times, and there are those who wish to see me destroyed. Thankfully I’m surrounded by a group of people who love me, believe in me, and know my character. Children who have seen me at my worst and dealt with things no child should ever have to deal with who have forgiven me, and a beautiful wife who continues to embody Christ’s sacrificial love.

So that’s what I’m doing…
Leaving this disease at the feet of Jesus and not picking it up.
Putting my recovery and my future in the hands of God and leaving them there.
Surrendering to the point of no return, I will not go back.

My name is Ben and I’m an alcoholic