by: Debbie Wicker

Dear Jason,

The pain in your story is palpable and the horrific effects of addiction in your life immeasurable. I certainly appreciate your honesty and hope that it helps anyone reading it to realize they need to avoid drug addiction at all cost.

Drug addiction has ruined our life to this point but I’m wondering what you’re willing to do to end your addiction?

Are you you willing to go to AA or NA meetings daily and work the 12 steps with all of the energy that you have left? Are you willing to connect with a sponsor and work with him to try to end your addiction?

I have seen addicts who have been using for more than 20 years end their addiction completely using the 12 steps. I know it is possible and worth the effort because freedom from addiction is worth whatever effort is needed.

You may also be suffering from a co-occurring mental health problem that makes your addiction far more entrenched. I worked with a woman who was alcohol and drug addicted for 25 years until she realized that she was also mildly bi-polar.

She began taking the meds for the bi-polar, worked the 12 steps and is now living a much better life free from both of her addictions. Prior to taking the bi-polar meds and getting counseling, she failed whenever she tried the 12 steps.

Please consider going to a psychiatrist and getting a complete psychological assessment. They will be able to help assess why your addiction is so entrenched and also develop treatment options for you that work.

Also, start individual counseling and begin working the steps. This process has got to be better than the current experience you’re describing.

Good Luck!

Debbie

by: Felix

I drank since I was 14. I attended numerous rehabs and was in and out of AA for 20 years. Nothing, no one, not my health, the loss of a home, career, my beloved wife or my children, my dignity, my humanity…nothing could stop me from drinking.

I believed I was doomed to an alcoholic death. I wore a ball cap with the words No Way Out Emblazoned on the front because that is what I truly believed. Utterly broken, spiritually destroyed and DESPERATE for help I unconsciously fell to the ground and asked a God I had heard of (but had no understanding of) to help me, that I would do anything, that I had abandoned ALL my plans and ideas…Everything. Then strange behaviors, ideas, thoughts, perspectives, motives began to take over during the year. I can only describe this as being “a puppet” with the strings being pulled by this entity…new, vibrant behaviors, not just thoughts but driving, earth moving revelations of purpose, what my position in the world is.

No longer did I go against but I became with a universal energy-a vast unseen current of “a power” which was inside me from the very beginning…its in all of us. Disingenuous behaviors which went hand in hand with addiction …which had been with me so long they became second nature were replaced by “dare I say it” moralities, consideration of others and an obedience to God.

Remember, no one told me this previously..I was dying and called out to anyone…anything. Man in his arrogance tends to over intellectualize and apply his methods of science, psychology etc. Though I am now an active member of AA I can say this change occurred prior to seeking a sponsor and doing the work. It was that quick that simple. We suffer from something unseen which can only be remedied by the unseen.

Come to Jesus Christ…faith will be your breakthrough and mind you I have no religious upbringing and my parents are vehemently atheist. Logic and reasoning availed me nothing in combating this thing. I gave my life in complete desperation to this God I had heard of but not known.

Out of the several hundred addicts/alcoholics I have lived with in this treatment facility only 8 of us are sober several years later. We are all involved in the various fellowships and make our relationship with God #1. Everything else radiates from there.

The power you lack is inside you. There IS a great life after drugs and alcohol but it is impossible for us to comprehend that. Jesus completely turned my life around. The decision is yours. If you are tired of war then you will seek peace…with an incredible and consuming thirst. I am living proof. Anyone who knew me could tell you I could not get sober. You have nothing to lose. ..nothing. May you find God my broken friend. I have been there.