The following was preached by a guest and former member of Holy Comforter:
Recovery Sunday – January 2022
“
Recovery Sunday – January 2022
“3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us”
Hello. My name is Drew and I’m an alcoholic.
That was the first scripture that I ever retained. I was around 30 years old, sitting in a pew at St Martin’s Episcopal Church. I was just now trying again to get sober. What was still left of my personal relationships, career, and health was teetering on further destruction. It was the first time I had been to church in a while, and even longer since I had been in church without a hangover or booze on my breath. Not only was I clear-headed enough to remember that scripture, I had all the motivation to as well. I was suffering and I needed hope. In the center of the terrible dance of not wanting to drink, not wanting to stop drinking, and fear of the uncertainty either way, was an abyss. It was despair. Fear that struck to the bone. It was the hopeless condition of mind and body, commonly referred to as alcoholism.
This wasn’t meant to be. I had grown up as one would hope. I was well-mannered. Polite and well-behaved. I tested into the gifted classes at school. I had friends and made them easily. I was athletic. So on and so forth. But not only is alcohol indiscriminate, it loves those with ability and confidence – they put up a better fight that alcohol wins every time! Because I cannot defeat the enemy within me, for I am my own enemy. The only way I can heal, recover if you will, is to find a way to let go and trust that a higher power may be able to take my illness on itself. So, needless to say, I was in church and paying attention.
I had begun drinking at 13 years old, becoming consistent around 16 and almost daily by 18. I was known as a man who could handle my liquor. I was a bit crazy. I took things a bit too far. But for a skinny guy, I could handle my liquor. As things grew tough in life, I would use alcohol to cope. When things were going well, I would use alcohol to celebrate. I could always find an excuse to drink, and I did. My family had a pattern with the men all working hard and drinking when they weren’t working. I couldn’t wait to grow up and follow suit, and for the beginning years of my career after school, I did just that. I would pride myself of a hard day’s work and then go to a happy hour and then go home. However, I rarely stopped drinking when I got home. The days at work would get longer as I longed for 5 o’clock to come around. It went from 5 o’clock being its own breath of fresh air, to wanting relief from the angst at 4:30, to wanting a relief from being antsy at 4:00 because I wanted to start drinking. At some point, I lost the power to choose whether I wanted to drink or not. I was developing a mental obsession and a physical dependence to alcohol. I grew a spiritual malady that fueled itself further each day.
Where did this alcoholism come from? What caused it? I had to drink heavily for my alcoholism to take hold, but if drinking heavily made you an alcoholic, all of my friends would have turned out just like me! They haven’t. I suffered tragic family losses. But most people suffer family losses and don’t end up being an alcoholic. I had come to learn that my alcoholism is a disease in the form of an allergy. I have an abnormal reaction to alcohol that does not occur in the normal drinker. I believe that alcoholism is a disease, and the roots of that disease are both in the form nature and behavior.
So there I was in the pew just hurting from life. I was beginning to realize that the problems in my life weren’t from a few bad breaks because of alcohol, but from my decisions regarding alcohol and its impact on my life. I still had a job. A car. A home. Most of my friends but by this point they wouldn’t drink with me. I had gone to rehab after an intervention a few years earlier. Those things tend to ruin happy hours. Why would going to rehab not stop me? Why didn’t the DWIs from a few years before that stop me? Any sane person would have stopped drinking or cut back significantly. I was divorced – that most likely would have happened regardless of drinking but at that time drinking was still a huge factor. I sure wasn’t going to stop to fix the marriage. I had children. Of course a responsible and loving father would stop drinking for their kids. There was my mom and sister who were equally as worried as they were angry. There were the threats at work and my waning energy in the office. A few days before making it to church, I was having to drink in the morning and at lunch to make it through the work day.
I spent the next few years going through cycles of building up a bright outlook for me and my family only to tear it down on its head. The rehabs and psych wards. Hospitals and jails. My life went from having structure to me moving a lot. Changing jobs. Over time things got worse, as alcoholism is a progressive illness. I eventually lost my children. I had actually been a pretty good father through all of this but, being an alcoholic, accusations are easy. I eventually ran out of money. I found out that as a practicing alcoholic I had no rights – society can do as it wishes with me and I can’t lift a finger to stop it.
Jesus told his disciples to get rid of their possessions and go walk with him. I don’t think he meant to do what I did, but nevertheless I had no possessions and had plenty of free time to walk wherever He wanted to take me. My sister came to Houston to take me back to her house in San Antonio. What a blessing to have family to take you in when you do not have a home. Of course I wasn’t going to drink again. God had saved me!
Less than 24 hours later I am walking down the side of I-10 with a carry-on bag dragging behind me. I had been kicked out of my sister’s for drinking. My only option at that point was to check in to a 90-day rehab. It was there that I learned the recovery program well and how to live it. I found God there. It was not that God wasn’t with me the whole time. I had to seek Him. God doesn’t make too difficult a task for those who seek Him. I learned that Faith without works is dead. I read the Book of James and some of the gospel. More of Romans. I immersed myself in the recovery texts and took other patients through the process. I learned humility – I had remembered looking at a toilet a couple years before this and thinking how it had been since college since I had cleaned a toilet. By this point, I was cleaning two toilets that 32 guys shared throughout the day. I learned to see blessings in tragedy. It became apparent to me how heartbreaking the disease of addiction is. Tattered relationships with loved ones. Financial insecurity. Warped lives of blameless children.
I learned to let go. When you have no clue what to do when you get out in the real world because you have no options, it becomes easy to let go. There is nothing to hold on to. I learned that the dark past was the greatest possession I have. With it, I can assist, comfort, and inspire! Inspire!?! What a beautiful God-given gift! Inspiration is the spreading of hope.
With great zeal I went out from that rehab ready to change the world. I was a true crusader of sobriety. I had no option but to move into a sober house. I made it one month before getting kicked out for drinking. There are always hypotheses for why someone started drinking again. I think they are nothing more than speculation. The one truth is that something was missing. The program of recovery works. You see it in others. It is attainable. But I had grown fundamentally miserable there and I drank.
I somehow landed a job in my career field, which is recruitment, only to get fired soon after. I had just enough gas to get to my sister’s in San Antonio. I knew this time I really could not drink. The next morning, I woke without the shakes. By this point I had always been unable to stop drinking without going into a hospital to detox. God had to have intervened. Nothing had changed about me physically. I was not supposed to wake up “okay”. I believe that for some reason God gave me a footing that morning to turn my life around. Maybe it was because I still had a little bit of fight left in me. After all, suffering produces endurance.
I mowed their lawn to get gas money before I got a job at a coffee shop and a driving range. I also started my staffing practice again. So I was working 3 jobs and staying sober. I made enough money to get back on my feet in Houston! My place nor furniture were nice but they were mine. With my own roof (or at least the roof I was renting from someone). Once early on, I was one deal away from not being able to pay rent and God provided. I was finally getting a life back and it was because I just kept taking one step at a time, learning to trust the Lord more and more along the way.
I would have liked to say that was the end of my drinking career, but one more, and hopefully last, time I drank. I would sit at the back of the pews in the old sanctuary just praying. Listening and praying. And waking up one morning, it finally happened.
“That’s it. That’s it, I can’t take anymore!” I said. I felt something come over me. I don’t know what the feeling was. I don’t even remember exactly how it felt. I just knew there was some feeling there – physical, spiritual, or both. I rose up and started researching rehabs to go to. I was having to pay out of pocket because I had no insurance. What blessing that God had provided the means to pay for a rehab, and for the ability to talk them down $4,000.
I checked in at 11:45pm on May 13th, 2018. I have not had a drink since May 14th, 2018 and God willing I will never have to endure drinking alcohol again. I could barely walk at the rehab and it would take me forever to get up and downstairs but I kept going, and after a couple weeks I could walk reasonably well. Now, I enjoy playing volleyball.
I could not read when I got there. I could read to myself in my head but I could not audibly read words out loud. Every day I read Jesus Calling in our morning meeting. It took me forever to get through it. I would not let anyone help me and I slowly started getting my ability to read back. In December, I was a narrator for a City of Bethlehem program at my new home church.
I was not able to write because I had lost so much dexterity. But I had to take notes for my sponsor so I kept writing, and my writing improved. The other day my sister complimented my handwriting. That may seem simple but that meant a lot to me.
I found Holy Comforter. This church helped my spiritual journey take root. To be surrounded by wonderful people can give your life purpose. In a story called Freedom From Bondage, there is a quote that says, “The only real freedom a human being can ever know is doing what you ought to do because you want to do it.” I am free today and I thank this church for those opportunities. For this opportunity, in fact.
I now seek God and try my best to be of service to others. I hold on knowing that my two children will be back in my life one day. I now have two children with my wife Genevieve. Yes, I am happily married now to a beautiful woman. I have a lovely home with two cars. I moved to Georgetown, KY simply because I wanted to and I could – now that is freedom! I just found a home church there. I get calls for advice and have repaired relationships with friends and those in the business community. And when I get asked to come speak about recovery I can get on a plane and get to where I need to go. I get to have the opportunity to perhaps get to one person and help them change their lives; and that one person would make everything worth it. That’s just how we, as recovered alcoholics, are.
I have come to know the power and truth of Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior. Healing to the point of redemption. The words to Amazing Grace went from relatable to more of a memoir. I have comfort through my journey knowing He is with me. I have never been angry at God for my hardships. I knew He just needed time, and therefore, so did I. Unfortunately, my trouble has always been my patience more than my Faith. The nights of being blanketed in uncertainty are now some of my fondest memories. You meet Jesus easily when He is the only one left in the room. And He has given me hope that, through it all, He died for the forgiveness of my sin. I know the battle has already been won.
I can relate to many characters in the bible like never before. I feel that I have drawn closer to the Holy Spirit as He has worked in my life and shown me, firsthand, the beauty of His everlasting love. I know what it is like to be protected. I have gone down so many roads, taken so many paths, and crossed through so many gates during my alcoholic journey that there is a good chance I know what it is like to be you… to a degree, of course.
When I first faced sobriety, I thought I may find just enough hope to eek out the meager existence that was to be the rest of my life. But what I found was hope upon hope because of Grace upon Grace.
And for that I am truly grateful.
Thank you and Amen.
Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us”
Hello. My name is Drew and I’m an alcoholic.
That was the first scripture that I ever retained. I was around 30 years old, sitting in a pew at St Martin’s Episcopal Church. I was just now trying again to get sober. What was still left of my personal relationships, career, and health was teetering on further destruction. It was the first time I had been to church in a while, and even longer since I had been in church without a hangover or booze on my breath. Not only was I clear-headed enough to remember that scripture, I had all the motivation to as well. I was suffering and I needed hope. In the center of the terrible dance of not wanting to drink, not wanting to stop drinking, and fear of the uncertainty either way, was an abyss. It was despair. Fear that struck to the bone. It was the hopeless condition of mind and body, commonly referred to as alcoholism.
This wasn’t meant to be. I had grown up as one would hope. I was well-mannered. Polite and well-behaved. I tested into the gifted classes at school. I had friends and made them easily. I was athletic. So on and so forth. But not only is alcohol indiscriminate, it loves those with ability and confidence – they put up a better fight that alcohol wins every time! Because I cannot defeat the enemy within me, for I am my own enemy. The only way I can heal, recover if you will, is to find a way to let go and trust that a higher power may be able to take my illness on itself. So, needless to say, I was in church and paying attention.
I had begun drinking at 13 years old, becoming consistent around 16 and almost daily by 18. I was known as a man who could handle my liquor. I was a bit crazy. I took things a bit too far. But for a skinny guy, I could handle my liquor. As things grew tough in life, I would use alcohol to cope. When things were going well, I would use alcohol to celebrate. I could always find an excuse to drink, and I did. My family had a pattern with the men all working hard and drinking when they weren’t working. I couldn’t wait to grow up and follow suit, and for the beginning years of my career after school, I did just that. I would pride myself of a hard day’s work and then go to a happy hour and then go home. However, I rarely stopped drinking when I got home. The days at work would get longer as I longed for 5 o’clock to come around. It went from 5 o’clock being its own breath of fresh air, to wanting relief from the angst at 4:30, to wanting a relief from being antsy at 4:00 because I wanted to start drinking. At some point, I lost the power to choose whether I wanted to drink or not. I was developing a mental obsession and a physical dependence to alcohol. I grew a spiritual malady that fueled itself further each day.
Where did this alcoholism come from? What caused it? I had to drink heavily for my alcoholism to take hold, but if drinking heavily made you an alcoholic, all of my friends would have turned out just like me! They haven’t. I suffered tragic family losses. But most people suffer family losses and don’t end up being an alcoholic. I had come to learn that my alcoholism is a disease in the form of an allergy. I have an abnormal reaction to alcohol that does not occur in the normal drinker. I believe that alcoholism is a disease, and the roots of that disease are both in the form nature and behavior.
So there I was in the pew just hurting from life. I was beginning to realize that the problems in my life weren’t from a few bad breaks because of alcohol, but from my decisions regarding alcohol and its impact on my life. I still had a job. A car. A home. Most of my friends but by this point they wouldn’t drink with me. I had gone to rehab after an intervention a few years earlier. Those things tend to ruin happy hours. Why would going to rehab not stop me? Why didn’t the DWIs from a few years before that stop me? Any sane person would have stopped drinking or cut back significantly. I was divorced – that most likely would have happened regardless of drinking but at that time drinking was still a huge factor. I sure wasn’t going to stop to fix the marriage. I had children. Of course a responsible and loving father would stop drinking for their kids. There was my mom and sister who were equally as worried as they were angry. There were the threats at work and my waning energy in the office. A few days before making it to church, I was having to drink in the morning and at lunch to make it through the work day.
I spent the next few years going through cycles of building up a bright outlook for me and my family only to tear it down on its head. The rehabs and psych wards. Hospitals and jails. My life went from having structure to me moving a lot. Changing jobs. Over time things got worse, as alcoholism is a progressive illness. I eventually lost my children. I had actually been a pretty good father through all of this but, being an alcoholic, accusations are easy. I eventually ran out of money. I found out that as a practicing alcoholic I had no rights – society can do as it wishes with me and I can’t lift a finger to stop it.
Jesus told his disciples to get rid of their possessions and go walk with him. I don’t think he meant to do what I did, but nevertheless I had no possessions and had plenty of free time to walk wherever He wanted to take me. My sister came to Houston to take me back to her house in San Antonio. What a blessing to have family to take you in when you do not have a home. Of course I wasn’t going to drink again. God had saved me!
Less than 24 hours later I am walking down the side of I-10 with a carry-on bag dragging behind me. I had been kicked out of my sister’s for drinking. My only option at that point was to check in to a 90-day rehab. It was there that I learned the recovery program well and how to live it. I found God there. It was not that God wasn’t with me the whole time. I had to seek Him. God doesn’t make too difficult a task for those who seek Him. I learned that Faith without works is dead. I read the Book of James and some of the gospel. More of Romans. I immersed myself in the recovery texts and took other patients through the process. I learned humility – I had remembered looking at a toilet a couple years before this and thinking how it had been since college since I had cleaned a toilet. By this point, I was cleaning two toilets that 32 guys shared throughout the day. I learned to see blessings in tragedy. It became apparent to me how heartbreaking the disease of addiction is. Tattered relationships with loved ones. Financial insecurity. Warped lives of blameless children.
I learned to let go. When you have no clue what to do when you get out in the real world because you have no options, it becomes easy to let go. There is nothing to hold on to. I learned that the dark past was the greatest possession I have. With it, I can assist, comfort, and inspire! Inspire!?! What a beautiful God-given gift! Inspiration is the spreading of hope.
With great zeal I went out from that rehab ready to change the world. I was a true crusader of sobriety. I had no option but to move into a sober house. I made it one month before getting kicked out for drinking. There are always hypotheses for why someone started drinking again. I think they are nothing more than speculation. The one truth is that something was missing. The program of recovery works. You see it in others. It is attainable. But I had grown fundamentally miserable there and I drank.
I somehow landed a job in my career field, which is recruitment, only to get fired soon after. I had just enough gas to get to my sister’s in San Antonio. I knew this time I really could not drink. The next morning, I woke without the shakes. By this point I had always been unable to stop drinking without going into a hospital to detox. God had to have intervened. Nothing had changed about me physically. I was not supposed to wake up “okay”. I believe that for some reason God gave me a footing that morning to turn my life around. Maybe it was because I still had a little bit of fight left in me. After all, suffering produces endurance.
I mowed their lawn to get gas money before I got a job at a coffee shop and a driving range. I also started my staffing practice again. So I was working 3 jobs and staying sober. I made enough money to get back on my feet in Houston! My place nor furniture were nice but they were mine. With my own roof (or at least the roof I was renting from someone). Once early on, I was one deal away from not being able to pay rent and God provided. I was finally getting a life back and it was because I just kept taking one step at a time, learning to trust the Lord more and more along the way.
I would have liked to say that was the end of my drinking career, but one more, and hopefully last, time I drank. I would sit at the back of the pews in the old sanctuary just praying. Listening and praying. And waking up one morning, it finally happened.
“That’s it. That’s it, I can’t take anymore!” I said. I felt something come over me. I don’t know what the feeling was. I don’t even remember exactly how it felt. I just knew there was some feeling there – physical, spiritual, or both. I rose up and started researching rehabs to go to. I was having to pay out of pocket because I had no insurance. What blessing that God had provided the means to pay for a rehab, and for the ability to talk them down $4,000.
I checked in at 11:45pm on May 13th, 2018. I have not had a drink since May 14th, 2018 and God willing I will never have to endure drinking alcohol again. I could barely walk at the rehab and it would take me forever to get up and downstairs but I kept going, and after a couple weeks I could walk reasonably well. Now, I enjoy playing volleyball.
I could not read when I got there. I could read to myself in my head but I could not audibly read words out loud. Every day I read Jesus Calling in our morning meeting. It took me forever to get through it. I would not let anyone help me and I slowly started getting my ability to read back. In December, I was a narrator for a City of Bethlehem program at my new home church.
I was not able to write because I had lost so much dexterity. But I had to take notes for my sponsor so I kept writing, and my writing improved. The other day my sister complimented my handwriting. That may seem simple but that meant a lot to me.
I found Holy Comforter. This church helped my spiritual journey take root. To be surrounded by wonderful people can give your life purpose. In a story called Freedom From Bondage, there is a quote that says, “The only real freedom a human being can ever know is doing what you ought to do because you want to do it.” I am free today and I thank this church for those opportunities. For this opportunity, in fact.
I now seek God and try my best to be of service to others. I hold on knowing that my two children will be back in my life one day. I now have two children with my wife Genevieve. Yes, I am happily married now to a beautiful woman. I have a lovely home with two cars. I moved to Georgetown, KY simply because I wanted to and I could – now that is freedom! I just found a home church there. I get calls for advice and have repaired relationships with friends and those in the business community. And when I get asked to come speak about recovery I can get on a plane and get to where I need to go. I get to have the opportunity to perhaps get to one person and help them change their lives; and that one person would make everything worth it. That’s just how we, as recovered alcoholics, are.
I have come to know the power and truth of Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior. Healing to the point of redemption. The words to Amazing Grace went from relatable to more of a memoir. I have comfort through my journey knowing He is with me. I have never been angry at God for my hardships. I knew He just needed time, and therefore, so did I. Unfortunately, my trouble has always been my patience more than my Faith. The nights of being blanketed in uncertainty are now some of my fondest memories. You meet Jesus easily when He is the only one left in the room. And He has given me hope that, through it all, He died for the forgiveness of my sin. I know the battle has already been won.
I can relate to many characters in the bible like never before. I feel that I have drawn closer to the Holy Spirit as He has worked in my life and shown me, firsthand, the beauty of His everlasting love. I know what it is like to be protected. I have gone down so many roads, taken so many paths, and crossed through so many gates during my alcoholic journey that there is a good chance I know what it is like to be you… to a degree, of course.
When I first faced sobriety, I thought I may find just enough hope to eek out the meager existence that was to be the rest of my life. But what I found was hope upon hope because of Grace upon Grace.
And for that I am truly grateful.
Thank you and Amen.