Storm Stories: A New Day

Happy New Year!  And welcome to Storm Stories, where you will very quickly realize that Christians “have all the same issues and all the same problems.  All the same fears, or whatever, that anyone else does.  It’s our approach in these matters, I think, that makes all the difference.”

I am TheNorEaster.  And I’ll be your host throughout the difficult days ahead.  Let me say that again:  It is going to get tough around here, people.  But if you can stick with me through these storms you will see a great sunrise from our FINAL STORM Storyteller.

The Storm Storytellers link list on the right will grow as the month goes on.  If you have a blog, a link will be provided in your byline–unless you’re one of the anonymous contributors, in which case you might not have a blog at all.

So why talk about the tough times?  Simple.  ”When you know what to expect, you’re not thrown by [the storms] so much, and you’re going to be better able to recover.”  And since our very first contributor knows all about recovery, Storm Stories starts off with a tale told with tears of joy…

ONE DAY AT A TIME

by Anonymous1

Where do I begin?

Hmm.  You know what?  That’s a tough one.

I know my mother used to drink the hard stuff a lot when I was growing up and me and my brother used to steal swipes of her rum after she passed out.  She soon found out and started marking the level on the label, but we’d still steal her drink and then fill the bottle back up with water and salt to try to hide it.  Most of the time, Mom was so drunk she had no way of knowing how much she drank so it didn’t matter.  But it did when she’d drink so much she’d beat me and my brothers and that happened a lot after Dad left because of her drinking of course.

The first time I had to go to the hospital for alcohol poisoning I was in eighth grade, hanging out with some friends.  I had a lot of friends back then, but as my drinking got worse and worse then one by one they all left or moved on.  I don’t remember anything about the night I went to the hospital, except what my friends told me and then waking up in the hospital and coming home and getting in trouble again and that only vaguely.

I had to move around a lot when I was a teenager because I couldn’t stand living at home any more.  I went back and forth between Mom and Dad and even stayed  with my aunt and uncle for a while or I’d just move in with a friend for a while.  After I got sexually abused and no one believed that I had been sexually abused I just started drinking more and more.  I just couldn’t face the pain or the shame and it’s tough to talk about today, especially since my abuser killed himself not too long ago.

When I was a teenager, I got pregnant and the father, who was married, skipped town and left the state.  I was adopted so I didn’t want my baby to grow up not knowing who her biological parents were and I couldn’t have an abortion.  I just couldn’t do it.  Eventually, I did get married and had another daughter, but my marriage didn’t last very long.  My ex and me would go out like kids do but I’d have too much to drink or he’d have too much to drink and as usual that’s when the trouble started.  He got beat up once by a big fat guy and spent the night in prison once so my marriage soon fell apart.

After the divorce I just started drinking more and more and one night I totalled my car because my blood alcohol level was sky high.  I had dreams for my kids, but my drinking took its toll on them as well.  My oldest daughter’s birthday party had to be cancelled because I couldn’t find anything to drink so I chugged two bottles of cooking wine and ended up at the institute.  I didn’t take it seriously.

Eventually, I lost custody of my kids to my ex and he and his wife ended up filing a restraining order against me.  A mother’s heart breaks over her kids and they were my world so when my drinking got so bad they didn’t want anything to do with me anymore I just kept drinking.  When I was thirty-two years old, I had to go to the hospital again because I had cirrhosis in my liver.  The doctor told me that if I ever had another drink again then I was going to die.  “Not on birthdays, not on holidays, not on special occasions.  Never!”

He warned me good all right, but I still couldn’t stop what I was doing.  Being an alcoholic comes with two demons–the drink and the shame that comes to you afterwards when you know you want to stop but you just can’t.  People spend a lot of time telling you you’re wrong and you need to stop and still you can’t stop so the shame you face the next day just led me back to drinking.

And then my childhood friend was beaten to death with a sledgehammer by her roommate, who was an addict.  I went with to court with the family and the killer made faces at us and stuck her tongue out at us like it was all a kids game.  I kept drinking but quickly realized that no matter how much I drank she was still dead.  I was found stone drunk at her grave one morning.  I had lost my boyfriend, lost my house, lost my kids, and was now living with my mother and my stepfather.

They met my kids for lunch one day and my brother went with them.  I couldn’t go because they didn’t want to see me so I gave my mother cards to give to them with a note and some money like I always did asking if I could have their school pictures.  I was at the house wrapping presents when the doorbell rang.

My daughters had come home.  And I wept tears of joy just because they wanted to see me again.  My brother even wept.

After that, I got serious about AA.  Which means I had to get serious about God.  As of today, I have been sober for five years and two days.  One day at a time.  And I have learned the most important lesson of all:

“Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.”
(Joel 2:32)

I have called.

And He has answered.