Thanks for your kind words. It's my joy to share my story, since sometimes people reach out to me -- and then I can share my experience, strength and hope.
Yes, Whitney messed up by marrying Brown, but once she allowed herself to be seduced into his evil lifestyle of drugs, her life was not her own. It really surprises me when even Christians fall into the trap of drug abuse. (I’m probably naive in this way, I know.)
Let's see if I can help you understand from my story: I was ALWAYS uncomfortable in my own skin, right from childhood, as a Christian or with any other faith I explored. Didn't matter. Laz just didn't fit ANYWHERE.
Until I drugged. Suddenly, I was okay. Suddenly, I could relate to people. So I went on using.
Then the drugs that had helped me so well, turned on me. They became my master, my life, my GOD. My entire life shrank to about one square foot on a desk, as I packed more cocaine into my system.
As Trent Reznor said in the song called Something I Can Never Have, "I'm down to just one thing, and I'm starting to scare myself....."
Once I scared myself sufficiently, I began to reach out to others for help.
I can’t imagine going through the disease of addiction, and then trying to gain control of it, in the public spotlight. The scrutiny would be unbearable for most.
You know, Laz, I got devastating news this evening in the snail-mail that sent me back to the bottle. I too have an “amazing voice”, but no one will start a half dozen threads on FR in my memory filled with prayers and cliches about how great and amazing I was, I ain’t no semi-literate ghetto celebrity, promoted by the politically correct media and accepted by the public guilt ridden over race, eating up tabloid magazine reports about that celebrity’s private life. Sorry, I know much better, or in any event, more interesting singers who are not dead.
The bottle is the only thing that has not let me down.
I managed to avoid the “BIG A” early in life, unlike many I knew. Living on the California Coast in the early 80’s, Cocaine was literally king, and if you weren't doing it, you weren't “cool”. I tried it twice, and liked it so much that it scared the hell out of me, and I never touched it again.
Maybe it was watching acquaintances spiral completely out of control from it, or maybe it was knowing I could destroy my budding Air Force career, but looking back, it was likely the words of a now long-dead flying priest who told me at 14 that I controlled my own destiny, not my family, and not their addictions.
Thanks to Civil Air Patrol, and a great basketball coach in high school, I had great role models at a very impressionable age, learning that what was considered “Cool!”, usually wasn't.
"I had arrived"...and yeah, eventually, my *god* turned on me, and i had to accept the True Lord...
she/we did what drunks and addicts do...very few survive and actually find *Life* rather than stumbling on to the bitter end...
keep serving Brother...