GOD IS GOOD

Twentyone years ago I came home to pour my first drink of the evening. It would be a normal evening of drinking and smoking pot until I passed out then waking up with a hangover, going to work and getting through the day until I could start the cycle all over again that evening. Weekends were more of the same except less constrained.
I had stopped going out to drink and carouse two or three years earlier, it seems there's a point beyond which even alcohol and pot can't blot out the shame of permissive, licentious behavior. So, I stayed home and drank.
That particular night was during the week between Christmas and New Year. As I poured the first drink I speculated about how long I could keep a New Year's resolution to quit drinking. Mentally, self responded to self, "Don't be stupid, you'll be doing this the rest of your life." I probably sighed with exhaustion at all those empty years stretched out ahead of me, acknowledging I was powerless to do anything about it. At least that was the mood and substance of the moment. From behind me I heard a voice, "Do it now". There was nothing scary about it, it was broad daylight and I was looking out the kitchen window at people coming and going. But there was no doubt about the voice or what He said.

That drink never got poured. I dragged the chair over to my cupboard and began emptying the shelves of brandy, gin, vodka, tequila, etc. I emptied them all into the sink and filled two or three garbage bags with empty bottles. Next came the pot and paraphernalia and finally even the cigarettes. I guess it took three or four trips to the garbage dumpster and several searches through the apartment before I was satisfied it was all gone. I even scattered the pot among several dumpsters in the area so it couldn't be traced back to my building. I didn't give much thought to what I was doing - I just obeyed that voice. I knew what to do. I didn't think about D.T.s, withdrawal, hullucinations, I'd had them in the past, horribly, but I didn't anticipate I just responded to His voice.
I woke up the next morning without a hangover, the first time in years. No shakes, no hullucinations, I didn't even want a cigarette. The cupboards were bare of bottles, the top of the refrigerator was empty of cigarette cartons and I felt so good, so healthy, so content. I thought of my Grandparents who had given me what religious background I had and began reading my Bible. Soon I began looking for a church.
God has been with me since then, even when I forget to be thankful, when I let the tongue slip into gossip, or fail to love as He loved me. I know His voice and I follow. @copyright 2006 Karen's Passage