"Out of the depths I have cried to thee, oh Lord."
(copy of transmittal to an on-line friend)
I have been thoughtfully reading your last E-Mail. I printed it off and it took me back to my past when I was attempting to make similiar decisions as you are.
I went through many in house treatment programs and they dryed me out, gave me tools to stay sober and a bridge the gap program into AA. Let me say the tools were there, but is it easier to go back into the old ways or by effort and disipline, use the tools each day?
I have found that each and every person develops their own program for staying sober. You can hold others up as an example but it comes down to having a humility developed from being sick of being sick and tired. One friend told me that he would rather be shot full in the chest with a 12 guage rather than go back to his old drinking life because he would have a better chance of recovery from the shotgun blast. Was he over dramatising for effect? He didn't think so.
XXXXX, the news is that there is no good news about recovery until the alcoholic makes a full and honest appraisal of his condition.
Hope is our mainstay. God is our strength. The paradox of alcoholism? One has to lose in order to win. I know you have heard about the concept of total defeat; the jumping off place. We have to reach this stage and make a decision to get off the merry go round before our health is totally ruined, before we lose our family, and all the other things on our list of it hasn't happened to us, yet.
My friend, I can promise you that if you are as alcoholic as I was, then if you continue to drink, it will sap everything out of your life worthwhile. You know that alcoholism is progressive until the point of death just like any other disease and the only way to avoid the final outcome is to not drink for the rest of your life.
Please forgive me for being blunt but as a Christian that dearly loves Christ I will tell you from my own experience and the experience of hundreds of others that I have observed. Christ will save your soul. AA will save your ass.
My advise to a brother in Christ. Go to AA, find a sponsor and use him. God will see that all things and concerns will fall in place and He will give you direction in your life. Your priority. Stay sober.
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You and your precious family will continue to stay in my prayers.
From one who has been there.
Jim
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