My biological father left after I was born so I never really knew him except for seeing him for a few months after my mom died. I learned later that he had been a life-long alcoholic and he died from long term alcohol abuse damage to his body. My mom remarried a man (my step-father) who had smoked and drank heavily and my parents would fight a lot late at night. My mother eventually divorced my stepfather and then we moved into the projects where my mom would be out almost every night partying. Many nights she did not come home at all and just left us kids there to fend for ourselves. It was a very hard time as a child to understand what was going on and why.  One night when my mom didn't come home we found out the next day that she died when a drunk driver hit her head-on on the freeway when she was driving home from a bar. My stepfather died from a heart attack due to being a chain-smoker for so many years. Looking back on things now, addiction played a roll in most of the more negative events of my life, especially as a child. I lived with different family members after my mom died, but nothing ever felt safe again.

   As a teenager, I experimented with various drugs. I smoked, drank, and played with addiction as many teens do. But I remember that when I drank alcohol, the world seemed to be made right for the first time in my life. The only problem was that I would always drink more and more until I got drunk. I entered the military and in time my addiction problems started to seriously affect my daily job performance and threaten my military career. My binges would last longer than I expected, and I couldn't show up for work. I ended up being AWOL and was demoted and punished several times. It was the most horrible and demoralizing experience of my life. I then went through two treatment centers, and 11 detoxes in 1 year. I went into detoxes regularly with .43 to .48 blood alcohol levels, and almost always once I started drinking, I could not stop. I was an alcoholic without a doubt. Even the military drug counselors made bets that I wouldn't live through the next weekend. Every day was like living in a nightmare that I couldn’t wake up from.

   The military made me go to 3 AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) meetings a day. I also had to go to my Commander's office twice a day to take antabuse, a drug that is supposed to make you violently ill if you drink, but I drank on it anyway and didn't get very sick for some strange reason. After completing the military in-patient alcohol recovery center program things seemed to have one last glimmer of hope, but I soon relapsed once again. I was "released" from the military with an honorable discharge because of all my good years of service, but basically I was kicked out of the military because I was an alcoholic and could not stop drinking.  Life seemed to calm down a bit after this, but I felt about as low as a person could feel. I felt hopeless and depressed and just wanted all the pain to be over. Even suicide started looking good, but I didn’t want to risk going to hell if I did it. I just saw no other way out of this horrible mess.

   I had become a Christian at age 17, but still I had serious problems with addictions and I couldn't understand why God didn't just miraculously set me free. But at the end of my striving, God stepped in to help me. The Holy Spirit then began to work with me and show me how to get free from addiction from the inside out. He showed me why I used substances (pleasure idols) for comfort and protection, and He took me back to the roots of my pain and fear that I was trying to deaden with drugs. Day by day, and little by little, I noticed that I was finally able to let something go without replacing it with some new addiction. I noticed that as He walked me through and healed all my old emotional pain that I didn't need all the "pain relievers" anymore like I used to. There had been so many lies sowed into me as a child that had created deep roots of fear that had kept me deceived and bound as an adult. God progressively set me free from my addictions one by one until I was finally free and no longer running to some new addiction just because things got tough. God's way worked and I just cooperated with it.

   Now I have been free from all addictions for many years now thanks to all of God's help, and I am so glad that I don't have to go through all the hard work and stress of practicing an addiction anymore. Your addiction problems may be impossible for you to fix alone, but it is not impossible for God to fix if you are willing to surrender to His plan fully and unconditionally and just cooperate with Him. He has helped many people with worse addiction problems than you believe it or not. God loves you so much more than you can see right now my friend. Jesus said that those that hunger and thirst after righteousness would be filled. That means that God has a specific plan just for you to set you free. You just have to truly want it from your heart, and then allow Him to lead you through it. I promise you that if you really want to be free from your addiction problem then God will help you to get free. God loves you "as is", but He loves you too much to leave you enslaved to an addiction. Addiction is voluntary slavery. With God’s help my friend, you will stay free from addiction for good this time. God promises to help anyone who really means business.

MT 5:6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.