Time to Lay it Down

~My Worst Enemy~

I was 47 when I realized that I had been drunk, high, or hung over - or some combination of the three - for more than half my life. Twenty-nine years to be exact. I started drinking at the end of my high school years (1993), smoking weed a couple of years later, and I didn't stop until the spring of 2022. Harder drugs stuck around only for a few years; it was mostly drinking and smoking. I loved doing both. With alcohol I could shove reality aside; with weed I could pretend I was happy. The combination of the two made time pass without me actively participating in it. And I accepted that. So I did both. All the time.

At a very early age, drinking and smoking became a way of life for me. I incorporated both into every area of my daily life, and soon it became a habit that I couldn't live without. It was like a crutch, something to lean on when I had nothing else, something to make life more tolerable like a good friend does. Once I made friends with alcohol and weed, I thought I could get through anything life threw at me - jobs, breakups, moves, deaths, the bad and the good. Even when my friend turned into my worst enemy I knew I could still count on it to be there for me.

~A Normal Day~

For nearly 30 years, I stayed oblivious. I didn't want to be sober. Ever. I felt my life sucked way too bad, and I was powerless to change it. So I didn't even try. Instead I threw all of my energy into making my substance abuse a way of life. Because what else does one do when one sees herself as powerless and hopeless? She becomes just that.

So instead I willingly succumbed to the grip of addiction. No matter what I was doing, who I was with, what job I had, where I lived, or what I thought of myself, I brought my addiction with me. I fit it into my daily routine and made it my normal. It was a part of me and was very comforting.

During the latter years of my addiction, a normal day for me ended with smoking weed, ingesting alcohol and junk food while watching TV, and falling asleep on my couch with my dogs. The preparation for this behavior would begin around midday; I had to make sure I had everything I needed: weed, alcohol and junk food, money for all of these things, and good shows to watch on Hulu. It all had to be timed perfectly too, so if a trip to the store was necessary then I had to figure that into the equation. The goal was to numb my brain as quickly as I could as soon as the workday ended and the dogs were walked and fed. Weekends were different; I could do what I wanted when I wanted, and it didn't matter. It may seem like a lot, but the thought of not doing any of these things and actually living with myself stressed me out far more than the ritual itself. Plus I liked how it felt being unconscious. Besides, I was powerless to change it by this point. It had complete control over me.

~February 4, 2022~

It was a normal weekday. I stopped work for lunch and was walking my dogs like I always did. We were coming towards the end of the trail when I said aloud unexpectedly, "I'm about to lay it down." I stopped. My dogs looked back at me as if to ask Why are we stopping? I didn't know what it meant or why I said it; it came out of nowhere and didn't even feel like me saying it. Confused, I looked down at them and asked, "Lay what down? Where did that come from?" It seemed like a declaration, but of what I didn't know. I wondered and started walking again. My lunch break was about to end.

We got home from our walk; I sat back down at my desk and continued working. Back then I had a job that I really loved, so I was pleased and willing to go to work. I felt useful, needed, productive. I was helping people, and that made me feel good about myself. These were feelings I had never experienced in previous jobs, so it was super new to me. I liked it. But even with this job and despite all the good feelings it created in me, in my mind I still needed something else when the work day ended, something I could use to pass the part of the day when I felt worthless, empty, not needed.

The work day was coming to an end, and I suddenly had the realization that my preparation ritual was not occupying my mind. Work was at the forefront and nothing else. I felt compelled to continue what I was doing and not participate in the daily ritual. I was stunned, and not just that I wanted to continue working but that I didn't want all the things. It almost felt like a choice, like I was deciding not to go, but I knew better than that. The thing that drove me to these substances had ceased being a choice years before that day. By now, I was acting on auto pilot and had been for years. The only thought I put into it was the question of "Which? Which alcohol; which food; which TV show?" Whether or not I would do it was no longer a conscious decision. Until February 4, 2022.

~Out of Nowhere~

I questioned it again like I had on the walk earlier,"Is this what I'm laying down? Could that have been Holy Spirit? Did He actually use my voice to tell me He is about to deliver me?" Because how could I believe that God would deliver me out of nowhere on a random, normal day when I had been praying for this for years? And when I say praying I really mean begging, literally crying and screaming and even bargaining because I felt and I knew that my life depended on it. I didn't know how a relationship with the Lord worked. I didn't know that He does things on His time and not ours. I should've known because I heard it all the time, but I didn't.

I wouldn't say I was in the very beginning stages of my relationship with the Lord, but I had been pursuing Him for a few years. I had a church home and a church family; I went to church events, volunteered at church, and had been reading my Bible routinely. By my own free will, I even stopped doing some of the things I was convicted about doing. One could say with certainty that I was on the right path. But this was different. This was the type of miracle that I only read about in newsletters or heard about on the Christian radio station, the type of miracle that happens to someone that has way more faith than me, a far more loyal church-goer and Bible-reader than me, a better Christian than I was at that time for sure. But it was true. And not just true but true for me. Out of nowhere, God delivered me.

~Change of Heart~

I wish I could say that February 3rd was the last day I drank alcohol and smoked weed and that February 4th I stayed home and didn't go get all the things. I didn't get all the things after work that day, but 2 days later I did. I was back at it with a bottle of wine and some junk food, passed out on the couch with Hulu and my dogs. Four hours after the binge I awoke with a terrible stomach ache and everything I had previously eaten and drank made its way out. Needless to say I didn't get much sleep that night, but as I'm laying there half asleep and half awake I heard a voice. It said,"It is my desire that you stop drinking."

I wasn't sure at the time if it was me, a dream, or God. Rationalizing it, I eliminated the option of it being a dream because I felt more awake than asleep, and it made zero sense that I would say that to myself. I knew I had the desire to stop; I'd had it for years. Leaving only one option left, I decided to pray. I said, "God, if that's you speaking to me then I need your help. I need you to make it where I don't want to drink - I don't want the cravings; I don't want the taste for it; I don't even want to think about it, and if I do I want to be repulsed by the thought of it. I want a complete change of heart and mind. I can't do it otherwise; you have to do it for me." And then I went to sleep.

~A New Journey~

This is where a new journey began for me, a journey of sobriety. It hasn't been a perfect journey, but it's my journey. It's my testimony. I've wanted to share my testimony with the world since this happened. This is me doing it now with this blog.

The story continues, and my hope is that you'll continue along with me as I tell it. Thanks for reading. Feel free to leave a comment and even subscribe (once I figure that part out).