I write this every once in a while because I need to remember.

When I was 28 years old I had been living in an abusive (common law)marriage for 12 years. My life was so bad that most of you wouldn't believe it if I told you how bad it was and those of you that have been in that type of relationship don't have to be told how bad, you know.
I was a drug addict. I was an alcoholic. I was mentally and physically abused. I lived in a place where I feared for my life most of the time not only because of the abuse but because of all the gangster activity and crazy druggies who wondered in and out of our house day and night. Most nights I took my son and locked us in my bedroom and always kept a gun within reach.

I didn't know how to get out - I tried.

But, that's not the story I have to tell - this is:

There was a night, like a lot of other nights when I walked away from the house to hide, to keep from getting hit, to go sit alone and cry.
This night I walked to end of the drive, it was a long drive way, and sat on a huge sandstone boulder at the end of the drive watching the clouds move across the full moon while I cried and rocked myself.

You have to understand that I had been in this for 12 years and I wasn't just a victim, I was a horrible person myself. I did bad things.

I had been in church as a child but not since I was 12, I say that because I want you to understand what happens next is in no way connected to church or religion. It was something that happened between me and God.
I hated church. I hated Christians. I had nothing to do with either, but I always believed in God. I remember sitting in bars having drunken conversations with people about God.

That night as I sat there on that rock and cried out to the heavens there was a strange sudden "knowing" (that is the only way I can explain it)that the thing that was wrong with my life was the absence of God.

This was the beginning of the end of that life.

It didn't happen suddenly but it began. For the next year I tried to stop the drugs and drinking. I tried and failed and then the addiction got worse - much worse. I tried to read my Bible, but, it made no sense to me at all. I promised Charlie that someday soon we would start going to church - we didn't.

About a year later, in December, I had another one of those "knowing" moments. I remember telling someone that I was going to party hard on New Years that year because it would be the last time I ever did.

and it was.

After 3 days of being in a drunken, drug induced stupor I have bits and pieces of the memory of going to buy drugs from some guy. I bought a lot of them and I went out drinking. I took all of those drugs that night. I can't tell you if I intended to end my life on purpose or I just didn't care anymore if I lived or died.

I took 10 Quaalude that night and drank a boat load of whisky.

I should have been dead.

Instead, I remember waking up outside of my house, walking in and turning on the bedroom light to see my "husband", another man, and a woman rolling around naked in my sons bed. I just stood there at the door staring at them a moment, then I turned around, walked into the other room rolled Charlie in a blanket (he was 11 years old)picked him up and walked out - stoned cold sober.

The moment I stood in that doorway I saw not only my "husband" for what he really was but I also saw myself and my life for what it was was and at that moment it was over, I was finished. Friends, that was the bottom of the barrel for me.

I went to my sisters house and slept in the car in her driveway. The next day I told her that I wanted to give my life to God.

There is no way for me to explain these events other than to just tell the facts and let you come to your own conclusions.

From that day I never took another drink of alcohol or did any drugs - NONE!
I slept for almost two weeks(no withdrawals, just peaceful sleep) and when I was finally able to get out of bed all I felt was an overwhelming sense of peace and my head felt like a fog had lifted off of it.

I was free.

My life began at this point.

just as a side note - it was 10 years later and a whole 'nother story before I ever took another drink and that was only a sip or two of beer to prove to myself that I truly was free. I was not a recovering alcoholic, I was totally free of the desire and still am.
Today I might drink a beer once in a while or have a margarita when we go out but it is not often and not important.

Like I said I am free.

Through all the things that have happened since then - 20 years of being in church - leaving church - almost walking away from God because of what I saw in church, I still come back to this story to remind myself of what is real.