Quitting Alcohol And Divine Intervention?

When I used to drink years ago I assumed I'd always drink---my entire life. I liked it so much. I depended on alcohol and didn't want to think about ending my relationship with drinking. But after several years of drinking with the boyfriends and losing relationship after relationship it wasn't funny anymore. Drinking was serious business for me.

I wasn't the happy-go-lucky girl anymore having a good time while she was drinking. I was a mean woman after I went "over the line" (for me that was about 13 beers). The guys I dated all said the same thing---"you are Jekyll and Hyde." I was so nice when I wasn't drinking but I became an angry drunk when I drank too much and I would scream at my boyfriends and get in hitting and slapping fights with them. To this day I don't know why I did that. But there was something inside me that was so affected by the alcohol.

I thought of God over the years and really wanted to be close to Him again like I had been years before. But I wanted to drink too. So I put God on the back burner until I decided how my drinking was going to turn out.

After 12 years of drinking and going to jail twice--once for hitting a policeman when he arrived at my boyfriend's because the neighbors said "someone was yelling like a maniac", and the other for falling down drunk in front of a bar---I woke up on my 31st birthday with a terrible hangover. As usual I got up, took a few aspirin then got my coffee. Coffee tasted horrid when I had a hangover but I still needed it in my body just to function.

But this day was different. I didn't have the music blaring while drinking my coffee. I sat on my bed---in silence---and thought about my life. How could I keep going on like this? Something clicked. I realized I had the capacity to quit drinking that day. Oh, my God! I could do this! I could finish college (I had a 2 year degree). I could go to the gym and lose the rest of the weight (I had about 20 pounds to lose). And the most important thing was I could finally---finally stay consistantly close to God and learn hopefuly who and what God was. I wouldn't be drinking anymore so I could dedicate more time to God......and to things that were important.

Well, when I tell this story (it's exactly the way it happened) people ask me "what do you think really made you stop drinking?" I now say that..in all honestly, I can't say for sure. But I believe God or divine intervention was there to help me stop living such a destructive life.

So I did finish college and got a B.S. in Management, I lost the rest of the weight and God is a big part of my life. And I haven't had a drink in almost 21 years.