For the first installment of Gay’s story, click here.
My beloved Sisters, it is my great honor to bring you my sister, Gay’s, second installment in her mind-blowing, God-glorifying story of redemption. By all means, let your friends and relatives know to watch for these installments if they could really use this hope. Boy, have I ever been desperate for it in my own wrestling matches with the enemy. You do not need to worry that I am going to vacate the blog until her series reaches its conclusion. No such luck! I’ll still be right here in the middle of things. I also want you to know that her story in many ways is part of mine and my story in many ways is part of hers. As God would have it, our stories grow from the same roots and braid their ways like vines up the same tree. Before I send you forward to read this wonderful second portion of her story, many of you are requesting another livestream and I’m in the mood for another one myself! Aren’t they a blast?? We’ll do one next week – perhaps Wednesday so that I can give my solid attentions to Tuesday night Bible study. I’ll let you know the day and time several days in advance so we can plan. OK, my beloved fellow sojourners, I’ll turn this over now to Gay! I love you so much, my dearest older sister. God’s glory radiates all over you. Thank you for sowing into this blog community. They are so dear to me.
I sat on the side of our bed in 1986 and said to my husband, Tut, “I think I’ve got a drinking problem.”
Ladies, before I move on I want you to re-read that sentence and let the weight of the year 1986 sink in all the way down to your toes. I finally quit drinking, after profound suffering, in 2009, TWENTY-THREE YEARS after God gave me the first word of warning.
The single most significant event in my life to that date had occurred just six short months before: the birth of our first born son, our sweet, red-haired, smart as a whip Zachary. I was 31 years old. Mind you, I had not drunk a drop of alcohol during the entire pregnancy, not one. Yet a few months later I was beginning the most difficult conversation of my life. One that I would continue to have for the rest of my life, even in sobriety. I had an urgency inside of me once Zach was born to be responsible. Now, I have an inkling that most people, especially women, decide to be responsible before 31 years of age. But not me. To this day, I don’t know why I had a wild streak down my back that wouldn’t quit. I was a rebel from the time I can remember and wild as a March hare. I either didn’t think I would get caught or gave no consideration whatsoever to the consequences. I wasn’t scared of the devil himself and I sure wasn’t scared of my parents! Then.
Tut and I had been married 2-1/2 years at that time and we had a good marriage although not devoid of problems, mostly growing pains. Neither one of us had been raised in terribly functional homes and we were simply doing what we knew to do. We were partners, “teamies,” crazy about each other and we were drinking buddies. We drank every single night if we needed to or not and that was just the way we lived for most of our married life. I heard the words “drinking problem” come out of my mouth and I feared they were true but Tut casually disagreed and I was looking for any reason to believe otherwise. So I shut up and kept drinking, beer and wine thankfully, which wreaked little havoc in our lives other than the war that was beginning inside my head. Am I alcoholic, like those OTHER people who have to go to meetings or am I making a big deal over nothing? Surely I am overreacting. I should be able to control my drinking. After all, I’m me! I’m smart and fairly attractive and married and daughter of Al and Aletha Green who raised me in church where I gave my heart to Jesus, was baptized at 9 years old, sang in the choir and went to G.A.’s (a young girls’ mission organization). I know right from wrong and drinking excessively is wrong, especially when I have a child to raise. So there. Problem solved. I’ll cut down. I will control.
Five years later, age 36, I was sitting at my computer at the Fortune 500 company I had been employed by for many years, where I was well respected and performed with excellence. My head was spinning and fuzzy. I was accustomed to working with a hangover, it didn’t even phase me, but this particular morning I couldn’t think of ANYTHING except for the fact that I was baffled at this dad blasted drinking problem and the fact that it would not go away! I picked up the phone, dialed Charter Hospital of Sugar Land and made an appointment to be assessed by a substance abuse counselor. It was a radical move! After being accepted into the first of a long string of out-patient programs that I would not finish, I walked into my first AA meeting and received my first AA book which we most affectionately call the Big Book, not to be confused with the Good Book. I was scared to death to walk into my first meeting, afraid that I might see someone I knew or they would see me and think that I was alcoholic. I didn’t hear a word in that meeting but took the book home and began to read in the privacy of my own home, with a tall glass of vodka and cranberry juice. The Big Book was written in 1939 and sounded, well, hokey to me. In fact, it was the most ridiculous thing I had ever read in my life! I slammed it shut, gulped down the last of my drink, felt the love (the love it had for me, the love I had for it, and the love I had for myself), the elusive warm and fuzzy “everything is right with the world” magic of the first drink and I put that dang book out for my next garage sale.
The “functioning years” rocked on through elementary school, middle school, the birth of Zach’s brother, Joshua, my parents’ move to Sugar Land, membership at a prominent neighborhood church, teaching preschool Sunday School, PTO, Cub Scouts, basketball, soccer, the Houston Rockets winning the NBA championship two years in a row (I had to put that in!), 9/11, etc. I stopped at the liquor store right after work every day, never missed even one day and never repeated the same liquor store in one week. I bought a pint of vodka, never more than that because I knew I would finish the bottle no matter what size it was. I either poured myself a drink in the car or simply twisted off the cap and drank it straight from the bottle. I couldn’t wait to get home which was only about 2 miles. I floated in and out of AA meetings yet never ever thought any of that stuff applied to ME. I was living my life right (except for this pesky drinking problem which I was trying my best to HIDE). I was doing the right things. I came from a good family. I went to work every day and never drank before or at work. I kept the laundry done, family fed and got the kids to school. I taught Sunday School, for Pete’s sake. I prayed to God many times to take away my desire to drink alcohol but, for reasons I know NOW but did not know THEN, He didn’t. I would arise hopeful each morning only to make the decision to quit tomorrow over and over and over again until tomorrow never came.
On August 7, 1998, my mother died right in front of our eyes. She had been diagnosed with breast cancer three years prior to that and somehow I thought I was prepared. I was a little, ok a LOT, mad at God because I had gotten on my knees many times and prayed that He would spare my mother’s life yet … He didn’t. We didn’t only lose our mother that dreaded day but we lost our glue. All five of us scattered to the wind and dealt with her loss in our own way. I drank. It worked. It took away the pain and if your mother had just died, you would drink too!!! I gave up trying to control my drinking the day my mother died. It seemed acceptable under those circumstances. I was too sad, too lonely and, frankly, too broken without her. I had talked to her 6 times a day on the phone and seen her daily for 8 years. She had raised Zachary while I was working and had come back to life herself at the news of our expecting another baby. Josh’s middle name is Cage after Micajah Rountree, my mother’s father, because I wanted to name him after HER. She wasn’t perfect but she was Mom and we adored her. She was the Queen of Everything. I still feel her loss deeply and I’m fighting back an all-out cry as I write this — but I’m not drinking (ha!). Praise Jesus of Heaven and Earth!!
That was the beginning of the end. It was when I stopped caring if I controlled or not. I am quite sure that the devil was jumping for joy on that day! He’d gotten me and he was about to carry me away. That was August of 1998 and I finally put down my last drink on April 19, 2009, more than ten full years later. Ten years of dwelling in the pit, ten years of spiraling out of control, ten years of the descent into the maelstrom. Hell.
Fast forward to August, 2009. I was sitting on a park bench outside a Methodist Church in Pasadena, Texas in the early warmth of a beautiful summer morning. It was beautiful instead of South Texas hot because I was grateful to be alive. As I let the sun shine down on my face, I thanked God for my life and four months of sobriety. It was a miracle! A dark car with tinted windows drove up slowly in front of me and the window lowered only halfway. The woman inside spoke quietly, “I’m looking for an AA meeting.” I said, “This is it. Don’t be scared. I’ll go in with you.” She parked and joined me on that bench for a good five minutes before we walked inside. Her name was Diane and she shared with me that she had come to realize she had a serious drinking problem. She was married to a man she loved like crazy and had a son about twelve years old. She said, “I know the stories of some alcoholics, the losses they suffer and the bottoms they have to reach. I love my husband and son so much and I don’t want that to happen to me, to our family. I know I’m alcoholic and I want to stop now.” I was able to tell her in a nutshell what God had done in my life and was continuing to do through the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. We walked into that meeting together and I introduced her to my sponsor. She was no longer quiet but felt welcomed and accepted. I had breakfast with Diane and our mutual sponsor on New Years Eve Day 2011, just a month ago. She’s been sober 2-1/2 years now and her family is stronger than ever before. She never picked up another drink after she walked with me through those doors. She found God in that room and never looked back. He’s so good, isn’t He? Everyone doesn’t have to pound the hot concrete with bare feet, somehow they are able to listen to the early warnings and learn from the journeys of others. They are able to humble themselves enough to listen and apply. They are able to see God intersect their lives long before the madness begins. And have life, and have it to the full.
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” John 10:10 New International Version (NIV)
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