Many of our lives have been adversely effected in some way by alcohol abuse and addiction. Some of us have had parents that drank, and have endured an untold hell on earth because of it. We lost people we love to drunken driving, alcohol-related diseases, or we have seen someone’s marriage, career, or family destroyed because they could not stop drinking. Many children of alcoholics grow up and become alcoholics even though they vowed that they would never end up like their alcoholic parent. It is a vicious cycle and cancer that grows and spreads through whole families destroying everything in its path. Many families of alcoholics have just had to sit on their hands and watch the one they love, dwindle away day after day in a drunken stupor. Is there any hope for these people? I can most assuredly say, yes. No matter how bad your problem is, or how impossible it seems, God has helped everyone from the uttermost to the guttermost to get free, and stay free from alcohol addiction. And this is a lasting true freedom; all He needs from you is your complete surrender and your permission to help you.

You have probably read my story about how alcohol abuse and addiction affected my life and all that happened to me because of alcohol abuse, but I will just refresh you in a nutshell to fill you in just case you haven't. My biological grandfathers and father were alcoholics, my natural father died from an alcohol-related disease. My mother was a heavy drinker and was killed by a drunk driver one night while she was driving home from a bar, and I was an alcoholic and lost everything because of it. I went through two treatment centers and 11 detoxes in one year, usually with very high blood alcohol levels (.43 to .48%). The Air Force made me go to three AA meetings a day, and take antibuse (a drug that is supposed to make you really sick when you drink alcohol) in front of my commander twice a day. I was demoted several times, given humiliating extra duty, and finally released (honorably) from the Air Force for failing their alcohol rehab course. It was a nightmare beyond description and I hated every minute of it.

I felt doomed and hopeless to be an alcoholic for the rest of my life, and worried that if I died, I might not go to heaven as I had previously presumed, because the bible sais that drunkards do not inherit the kingdom of heaven when they die. So in utter desperation, I finally accepted the fact that my body would never be able to drink alcohol without getting drunk again, and if I got drunk, I would lose another cherished part of my life as a penalty. You will notice in the story of the Prodigal Son in Luke chapter 15, that the father did not go looking for the son when he was out partying and rebelling, He waited and watched for that son to finally come to his senses and return home to his father. God will not push his help on you either, He will wait until you come to the end of yourself and finally surrender to His plan and will for your life. Suppose that Prodigal Sons father had gone looking for him, and managed to talk the boy into coming home too soon, do you think that son would have been ready to repent and stay away from his sin?

God has allowed this problem to come out in your life in order to heal you of all the old emotional pain that you have been carrying around inside you for all these years, but that you were trying to medicate with alcohol. Your alcohol abuse is a symptom of a much deeper wound. You cannot fix yourself, but you must see that for yourself, and believe it in your heart to then fully accept God's help. Trying and thinking that you can beat alcoholism by yourself, is like thinking that you can get into a boxing ring and fight a professional boxer with both hands tied behind your back and win; it just isn't going to happen. The crazy thing about alcohol addiction is that we forget the horrible beating we got from that boxer last week, and we still want to jump back in the ring for another rematch. It sounds crazy, but that's what we do. We keep doing the same crazy impossible things, but hoping to get different results the next time. If you have been through a lot of severe withdrawals, then you know how beaten up you feel after a binge, it is horrible.

PR 23:31 Do not gaze at wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup, when it goes down smoothly! 32 In the end it bites like a snake and poisons like a viper. 33 Your eyes will see strange sights and your mind imagine confusing things. 34 You will be like one sleeping on the high seas, lying on top of the rigging. 35 "They hit me," you will say, "but I'm not hurt! They beat me, but I don't feel it! When will I wake up so I can find another drink?"

Been there, done that, and didn't like it. There is nothing like being so hung over that you can't stop shaking long enough to get your bankcard into the bank machine at the 7-Eleven to get more money for more booze. Then while everyone is looking at you, and you are walking out to the parking lot with your cheap wine with everyone still watching, you to find out you locked your keys in the car, and then have to stagger home. That happened to me, and I will never forget it. It's an absolute nightmare that you can't wake up from; it takes, and takes, and takes, until you get so weary, that suicide starts looking pretty good. You may feel that your life is too far gone to ever come back again, but that simply just isn't true. God will take you right from where you are at right now, drunk or sober, and begin a new work of healing in you to set you free from the need and obsession you feel to drink. We drink to relieve old emotional pain and fear, but when you drink it just creates more emotional pain and fear to overcome, and it is actually giving you the opposite of what you are seeking. It is nothing more than a Satanic con job meant to kill you. Proper alcohol use is fine, but getting drunk all the time is a big problem.

PR 20:1 Wine is a mocker and beer a brawler; whoever is led astray by them is not wise.

Once you sincerely pray and ask God to help you to stop drinking, He will then begin to work in your life and heart to show you the pain that has been hiding in your heart and fueling your need to medicate. Then He will make you face that pain and separate what the truth and the lie is concerning that incident. We tend to believe a main lie that life is not safe, and that we must protect ourselves with a drug (shield). Alcohol doesn't actually protect you from anything, it can't stop someone from hitting you, or yelling at you, it actually just creates danger for you when you get drunk. You wouldn't let someone just come into your home, harm your family, and steal all your possessions would you? But that is what we do when we get drunk and lose all control over our actions. Plus if you have a genetic predisposition toward addiction, any alcohol will start the craving again. Another motivating factor to get serious about quitting drinking, is that you may die in a drunken state and wake up in hell, unable to get back into your body. Hell is not some scare tactic that was thought up by God, it is a real place in the earth where those who lived their lives in sin must go when they die. Some of our past friends and family are there right now, because they thought it was all just a big joke, or that they thought they would have more time to turn to God later in life, but ran out of time. Being a Christian doesn't give you an automatic pass into heaven, we must let God help us to repent of our sin-habits, or we will suffer the same fate as all unbelievers will.

LK 12:42 The Lord answered, "Who then is the faithful and wise manager, whom the master puts in charge of his servants to give them their food allowance at the proper time? 43 It will be good for that servant (a Christian) whom the master finds doing so when he returns. 44 I tell you the truth, he will put him in charge of all his possessions. 45 But suppose the servant says to himself, `My master is taking a long time in coming,' and he then begins to beat the menservants and maidservants and to eat and drink and get drunk. 46 The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the unbelievers. (Jesus is talking about Christians being assigned a place with the unbelievers (Hell) for getting drunk all the time)

1CO 6:9 Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. So as you can see, God set these alcohol addicts free, and He can help you too.

Rest assured, that if you really mean business with God, He will help you. He will guide you through a plan of recovery especially designed for you, and you will see a slow but steady change that will lead you to permanent freedom. Abstinence and freedom are not the same. When God sets you free from the inside out, you won't be just shakily saying no all the time, or spending your day sitting in a smoke-filled meeting listening to another drunkalogue or about someone’s latest relapse. You will not need it anymore because God has healed you at the root level. When you heal the roots of a tree, you heal the fruit that grows on the tree as well. Trust God to do what you cannot, and give up all your striving, planning, and resolutions, they will never work. Just sit back and let God walk you through this. He has helped hundreds of thousands of people just as bad, or worse than your condition. He has been with you the whole time, and has led you to make this decision so that you can finally be free from alcohol addiction. You will make it through this, and it is no coincidence that you are reading this now.

Here is a prayer to pray if you need it.

"Dear Jesus, please forgive me for sinning against you by getting drunk with alcohol and for making an idol out of it in place of you. Lord, I surrender completely right now to your leadership in all areas of my life, especially in the area of my alcohol abuse and addiction. I ask God that you would show me how to live, and that you would heal me from all the old buried emotional pain and fear that I have kept trapped inside my heart that has been poisoning my soul, and fueling my need to drink. Thank you for helping me God to get free and to stay free from alcoholism, and I also commit my life to helping others to get free from alcohol addiction and drug idolatry, just as you have helped me to get free this day. In Jesus name I pray, amen."

EPH 5:15 Be very careful, then, how you live--not as unwise but as wise, 16 making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. 17 Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is. 18 Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.