Posted on 11/20/2003 10:39:47 PM PST by Texas Termite
Edited on 11/22/2003 8:52:31 AM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
With that sentence, Tiki, I know you have been there.
Most spouses would rather say, "My husband used to be an alcoholic..."
You learned through Al-Anon that once you're a pickle, you'll never be a cucumber again.
God did perform a miracle with you and yours - not on your timetable, but on His. He works in mysterious, wonderful ways!
Thank you, friends, for being here for my birthday celebration.
In remembering God's miracles, I have to tell you one more:
The lady who first knocked on my door in Singapore (and the one whom I had called, "bitch", just a few minutes earlier on the telephone) was the largest woman I had ever seen.
Mattie stood six feet, eight inches tall and weighed probably 250 pounds. She was an alcoholic.
Her husband was about five feet six inches tall and might have weighed 120 pounds before he dried off. He was a regular member of Al-Anon.
Mattie had a voice that sounded like a semi being driven across a gravel bed.
About six years before I met Mattie she had tied her husband to a chair in their home in Liverpool during a drunken rage and burned the house down around him.
Her husband escaped, but they sentenced Mattie to ten years in prison for attempted murder.
Mattie found God in prison, and she got sober - physically, mentally and spiritually.
She formed the first AA group in that prison, and shared her story with countless people.
She was released after only five years served because of her work with the inmates who were alcoholics.
Her husband waited for her those five years.
I heard Mattie speak a number of times at Speaker's Meetings, and the transformation which came over her when she began to share was awesome.
That very deep, gravelly voice became soft as cotton, and her eyes shined with the love of God.
She had the ability to let her voice roll over the audience like a warm blanket, and everyone knew that everything she said was straight from the heart.
We never left one of her talks with dry eyes.
The last time I saw Mattie and her husband, they were wrapped in each other's arms like always.
She held him to her enormous breasts like a child, and it was plain to anyone that they shared a love that few achieve.
God can and does work miracles in people's lives.
Let go and let God.
Along with the heredity, he was probably more affected than his younger brother by the dysfunction in the home. God's contiunuing miracle was that he married a wonderful woman who treats me just like I was her mother and she was willing to listen and learn and between them, they seem to have risen above the addiction. My son has been sober for 8 years and I am so proud of both of them.
I will continue to pray for your son and hope for a very wonderful Christmas for you and all your family.
(((((BIG HUGS)))))
Merry Christmas TexasCowboy.
Remember when we couldn't even imagine twenty-eight hours much less days or weeks or....(gasp!) YEARS??!
Isn't it strange that we remember those little one line zingers the rest of our lives - the ones we learned when our brains couldn't understand anything with more than a few words??!
"Let go and let God"
"One day at a time"
"KISS - Keep It Simple, Stupid!"
"First things first"
I'm sure you can think of a lot more.
Have a blessed Merry Christmas, old FRiend.
Isn't it strange that so-called analysts don't have a clue about the misery of alcoholism?
Only people who have been there understand.
It is a family disease, and everyone in the family is infected, whether they drink or not.
What you won't find in scholarly articles about alcoholism is that the drinking of alcohol is not the problem - it's only a symptom of the problem, in much the same way that an elevated temperature is a symptom of the flu.
The problem is much deeper than getting drunk.
It's a mental and spiritual disease that manifests itself when the inhibitions are weakened with alcohol, but the problems are there, drunk or sober.
We concentrate on leaving that first drink alone because only in that way can we face and conquer the problems which cause the addiction.
After we get "dried out" we MUST work on the problems, or we will never have comfortable sobriety, and, more than likely, we WILL drink again.
Very few people have the spiritual awakening which took place in my soul on that alter twenty-one years ago, and I feel very blessed for having experienced it.
For most people it's a gradual acceptance of God's will, and the persistent use of the tools He provides for us to conquer this disease.
For most people, getting sober is the easy part.
Living sober requires constant and lifelong adherence to the principals involved in living according to God's will.
No one among us ever achieves spiritual perfection.
We simply claim progress on a day by day basis.
I love this time of year, and I can say that even though I'll be working straight through Christmas Day.
I love it because so many people remember and talk about the Birth of our Lord, Jesus Christ.
I see it more this year than I can ever remember!
People coming by my rig mention it, and we discuss it.
That's happened very seldom in the past.
God's people are waking up!
There's a spirituality in the air that amazes me and fills me with wonder at His power.
In the oil field it's never been a common thing for someone to say, "Merry Christmas, brother. May God bless you", but it's common today.
I praise God for this blessing, and I look forward to seeing so many more manifestations of His love and grace.
God bless you, Sister in Christ.
May you have a blessed Merry Christmas.
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