Have you ever heard the voice of God?
Three times I have --
The afternoon, before the night I was arrested - as I was planning my bottle of wine to treat myself after work - I heard the voice of God -
“Don’t do that,” an inner voice, warned.
I didn’t listen.
I sure should have.
Another time - six months before -
My hands shake as my body and brain try to make sense of what is happening: where is this depressant substance that it has grown so dependent on? We are working on overdrive to compensate for its presence, but it’s no longer here.
I am in alcohol detox, experiencing symptoms of withdrawal. As I do so, I am reminded of the previous night as I lay in bed, exhausted beyond all words, anxiously unable to sleep, and hopeless, desperate, terrified.
I suddenly awake. Why am I awake? I don’t have to use the bathroom. My stomach sinks a bit when I look at the clock–2am. I’ve only been asleep for 3 hours. Still it’s better than nothing like it has been. But I want and need, my body craves, more sleep. I think about it.
That half empty bottle of wine in my refrigerator. I can drink the remainder, it promises sleep, or at least distraction, relief.
I don’t want to let go of the two days of progress that I have made in detoxing my body from the chemical substance it’s grown to depend on. But I am so exhausted. I want and crave sleep and I want to escape from reality.
Please God, I pray, please help me.
The night feels very dark and the room very empty.
And then–I hear a voice in my head, a strong one:
Go into the kitchen and empty the bottle. Pour it down the drain.
I freeze. I don’t want to, don’t think that I can.
I’m not strong enough. I feel weak. I need it.
Go pour it out. The voice repeats, insistent.
I walk to the kitchen and open the fridge.
I look at it. I close it. I can’t do it.
I walk back to my room. I lay down. I can’t. I’m scared that it is the only way that I can sleep. What if I can’t sleep? Can’t function, like mom? I can’t. I reply in my head, weakly, meekly.
That is your choice but this is what you need to do. Trust me.
But alcohol feels like my lifeline at that moment.
I pause. Take it all in. I can’t live like this forever.
I draw up the little courage and will that I have, walk to the fridge, open up the door, the bottle, and dump it down my kitchen sink.
I feel stronger, better. Calm.
I walk to the bedroom, lay back down on the bed, then–
What have I done? I wasted it. Stupid waste of money. Now how will you sleep?
Don’t worry, another voice says, you can go early when the liquor stores open and buy more.
But then you’ll be right back here, in the same cycle.
I lay on the bed hopeless, help me, God. Help me to trust you I lay flat on my belly. I’m incredibly scared and I feel so alone, that same deep terrible void that drives me to drink to escape.
Then I feel an overwhelming and sudden presence. Like a warm hug, a flood of energy that fills me with a calm that I have not known in days, not as my cortisol levels have risen and I started drinking again.
How can I feel this way? I was just so anxious. I don’t even have alcohol. My help. My lifeline.
Then–I feel that someone is there. I am comforted. I feel a deep inner sense of peace.
Trust me, it’s going to be okay. You’ll be okay and get through this.
At this moment, I am so thankful He spoke to me and I am so, so very glad I listened to Him.
I wish I never stopped; that I kept listening to Him.
But I didn’t.
I was scared. And I wanted escape and I felt incapacitated, unable I couldn’t manage it on my own.
And, I couldn’t. That part was true.
But the lie that I was fed and believed was that alcohol could help me, would help me.
It didn’t.
It came back, with vengeance, wreaking havoc on my mind and body, with worsened anxiety, insomnia, racing thoughts, shame, etc, etc - those are the effects of the hangover for me -
It was never a headache and nauseous, throwing up - not for me, almost never.
It was the mental state - exacerbation of poor sleep and anxiety and depression -
It took all my mental health struggles and exacerbated them ten-fold.
The other time I’ve heard the voice of God -
I have just gotten out of jail.
I am desperate, anxious, shaky, I feel dangerous and unsafe in my thoughts, because suicide ideation keeps creeping in -
I have just made a call about getting some help.
Tennessee Behavioral Health has asked me questions about my mental health history, my alcohol abuse, and I have been honest and outlined it all -
They recommended a place in San Diego- San Diego Mental Health for a dual diagnosis program of PTSD/alcohol abuse.
I bristled - at being that far away for a month or more, and I was stressed and stiffed by what it would cost, etc.
What should I do God? I have no idea what to do now, with the mess that I’ve made here -… Please, God help.
Go to California -
I pause - and I start to second-guess if it’s my own input -
Are you sure? What about the money? What about —
Go to California.
And so, I went.
And though others judged me at the time - that I was choosing some nicer place, I didn’t ask for that location, Nashville was full - I was anxious about what it would mean for me to go - but I needed help.
When I was San Diego, I was in a house with a whole group of workers, case managers and therapists and psychologists and social workers, and direct care people, most of whom - also had struggled with alcohol abuse, drug abuse, mental health, etc-
And with their kindness and assurance that I still had value, and I could recover from alcoholism, along with my online 12 step program -
I learned to love myself again.
While I am thankful that I had the insurance to go to a program like that -
And it was cush -y, for sure, compared to some other “institutions,” they also validated -
I needed a lot of serious mental health intervention that I had never gotten -
They heard my concerns - Am I bipolar? Am I “just an alcoholic?”
And they treated me and validated that serious traumas like this usually lead to substance abuse disorders and addictions.
I felt like a child at points, being given chores and fed home-cooked meals and having my meds administered, with bed times and wake up times, not being allowed nail polish remover —
I guess, because sometimes desperate recovering alcoholics people drink it- (??!!? - thankful I was never that ‘thirsty’ for a drink) -
It helped - being surrounded by others.
Others who took care of me.
Others who had been in rehabs and jail and had sober years and even others in the house who knew the way that house worked, who had just a little bit more time sober than I did -
The program wasn’t perfect; I didn’t get as much as therapy as I was promised and the types that I requested -
But -
It was an instrumental part of my healing journey.
People judge, but they don’t have the whole picture -
I am thankful that —because I don’t either —
That when I pray, God answers me, and intervenes sometimes when I ask for it -
With simple directives of what to do or not to do.
And I am always the better off for having listened.