The Spirit of Alcohol

It’s a Spirit

 I know there are people who have lost family and friends as a result of people being intoxicated behind the wheel of an automobile. For centuries we have referred to alcohol as a spirit. You can ride down the highway and see a flashing sign that says SPIRTS.  We know what that is. We know we can pull in and buy something to drink and it will change who we are.

I attend several college football games each year and I see the drinking that goes on especially with students who are in school. The universities are not only producing our next great leaders and educators but they are producing our next generations’ alcoholics. Nobody knows who is going to drink for the first time and then two years later develop a drinking problem that they cannot kick unless something supernatural happens in their life. Parents who are not addicted to alcohol but drink socially in their home are sending the message to their children that it is socially acceptable. You have no idea if your child will become an alcoholic or not. You are gambling with your child’s future. Remember, alcohol is called a spirit and spirits deceive which is what alcohol has done for centuries. Please do not fall into the trap of feeling that just because you drink sociably and can stop anytime that all an alcoholic has to do is just stop. That is not the case.

I wanted to drink two beers and stop my entire life and stop but never accomplished it. This spirit is deceiving humanity and will continue to do so. I want to encourage families out there to not accept what society says is okay. Your child may be the next that can’t stop and it started with a glass of wine at your dinner table that you said is okay. Let’s stop introducing the drug that is the number one killer of life in America to our children.

Alcohol, it is a drug.

An Emotional Experience?

After staying in a detox wing for two days from drinking and cocaine abuse, I was transferred to a semi-private room, a very nice room, as it should have been for a fee of $25,000.00 for twenty-eight days. This was in 1984. I am sure the fees are much higher now.  I was 21 and had checked into my first drug rehabilitation program. I had been raised in church. I need to place emphasis on raised in church. I never went to church because I wanted to and I never personally understood why I was going. I believe I may have been some sort of an agnostic…  One who is skeptical about the existence of God but does not profess true atheism.

I think deep down I might have believed; but, my life didn’t reflect any sort of belief at all.

Lying in this very expensive room reflecting on my future I knew that I was on a really bad road.  From the depths of my heart and soul I can remember saying the words…. God Help Me! Now you have to understand I am not, nor was I a crazy person, but at that moment I experienced something that the only way to describe it was: a very light dose of electricity went through my body. I was at peace with myself and I felt like I had some hope. That is the only way I knew to describe it.

Excited about this experience I went to my counselor the next morning to share with him what had happened.  He was nice and polite but he had to refer me to the Catholic Priest…who had gone through a secular treatment program for alcoholism. I was very excited about what had happened to me the night before and I shared with the priest what had happened. He looked at me and said “what you had was an emotional experience and you need to work the program and you are going to do well.”

This is a person that I am looking up to, I am going to listen to, and put my faith in what he says which is what I did.  It was because of experiences like this that I will share more of later in the book, and the deliverance from my addictions later in life that has driven me to write this book. As it turns out, it was not an emotional experience!!! That priest was wrong!!