Hello again, beautiful people! Today I have a testimony to share with you and because I didn’t want to shorten it, I will keep my words short. I hope as you are reading, if you’re someone who struggles with alcoholism or addiction, that you will find a hope for yourself in Elaine’s story.

I have never personally struggled with alcoholism, but I certainly had my own pit of muck and mire that Jesus pulled me out of. I’ve known the pain and shame of feeling trapped in a cycle, and powerless to drag myself out. I’ve also known the gratitude that can pour from a heart transformed in the potters hand. I said in the beginning that I was keeping my words short, so the most important thing I can tell you is that freedom can be yours. It starts with simply asking for help.

I did not know Elaine before she was sober, so I cannot speak personally to her transformation. However, I can say with some authority that sober Elaine is a wonderfully kind, caring, and knowledgeable woman. She has so much to offer the world, and I have the privilege of calling her a friend.

“The corruption that was in us from birth was expressed through the deeds and desires of our self-life. We lived by whatever natural cravings and thoughts our minds dictated, living as rebellious children subject to God’s wrath like everyone else. But God still loved us with such great love. He is so rich in compassion and mercy. Even when we were dead and doomed in our many sins, he united us into the very life of Christ and saved us by his wonderful grace!”
‭‭Ephesians‬ ‭2:3-5‬ ‭TPT‬‬

“For me, addiction is the enemy using the flesh to wage war against the spirit.

“Daddy, please help.”

Three small words compose such a simple sentence, yet they can have an immeasurable impact on a human heart. I was never one to ask for help and as I got older, I certainly wasn’t asking a man for help. On the outside I had a privileged, happy life, but on the inside I was convinced the good Lord broke the mold the day He made me. After all, why would He want a human like me traipsing around the Earth, destroying everything in her path? I never felt comfortable, I never fit in.

Well, except at Memom’s and on the back of a horse. At Memom’s I felt a love, hope and peace I could not explain. I just knew, at Memom and Pop Pop’s house, life was ok and I could be someone, someday. On the back of a horse, I was in control! There I could disconnect and prove to everyone that I was something. On a horse I could show the world that I was top dog & no one could hurt me, except the horse on occasion. Horses can be humbling like that.

I  grew up acutely aware of addiction and alcoholism.  I had seen their effects play out on both sides of my family.  Alcoholism was not going to get me though.  I was too strong, too independent and too committed to a relationship with God.  Little did I know, I was heading down alcoholism’s dark path from an early age.  

I also grew up aware of God, although I had no idea what a relationship with Him meant or how to rely on Him.  Memom, Mom, my brother and I attended a small United Methodist church near home.  There I met a wonderful minister who showed a love and compassion I will never forget, but certainly did not understand at the time.  

Unbeknownst to me, I was developing a spiritual sensitivity that I would later try to drown with alcohol. My first recollection of this unexplainable “feeling” came in a demonic recurring dream. The setting was Mom Mom’s house. The actors were an uncle and Mom Mom. The feelings the dream left me with became tangible when we’d visit my Mom Mom and Uncle’s house. Those days there was a smell in the house I couldn’t place. The dream was one of horror films.

I would later come to know the demon of those dreams through my own choices and experiences.  I would later allow that demon to take up residence in my heart.

Memom and Pop Pop’s house was where I went to “run away”. Memom, as we called Mom’s mother, was always kind, but stern, loving, and could hold her own. She knew who she was and was unapologetic about it, but gracious. Pop Pop was quiet, reserved, smiled a lot, but always went to bed early. It wasn’t until I was 14 that I realized the clear liquid in his raw egg and orange juice was vodka, and the wine box in the fridge was his as well. I knew he battled cancer most of my life, but did not understand the depth of the demons he battled, yet.

On December 14th, 1993 my world changed, forever! The gracious woman I so looked up to was gone in the blink of an eye. Life seemed to stop that day, although by all appearances I was coping well. I wrote an award winning poem about that day, and succeeded in most of my life. In hindsight, I stopped really maturing that day and began checking off tasks on life’s success to-do-list. I stopped going to church shortly after that and dove full force into my life “in the barn.” I had stopped enjoying life for all that it had to offer and become entirely self-reliant, my self will began running riot. I unknowingly walked away from a Father who loves me unconditionally and into a spiritual downward spiral.

“I love you.”  

Three little words with such immense depth and weight, yet I did not say them. We did not say them in my home, though we showed them. I do not remember hearing them after that December. However, I remember the other things that were said, untruths that would stick with me and become just another reason to drink. I remember not wanting to feel the way I did or feel anything at all, so I spent as much time as possible on the back of my horse or in the barn. I had goals and I was working hard to achieve them. Goals that could have easily been whipped away by any number of my poor choices. I had begun fighting a war I could not win, on my own.

While I had stepped away from the church, I knew somewhere in my heart that I needed God. So, I choose to attend a small Southern Baptist Counsel affiliated private college in Virginia. I left my small home town with no intentions of ever returning. I went far enough away that I could come home on weekends, but could escape.

I learned a lot at that little college! I found God again and dedicated my life to Him during the summer of 1999. I found a Father who loved me so deeply He chose not to “take me home” the night I’d made a deal with Him in my third floor dorm room after a few wine coolers and some stinking thinking. I found a new identity, but I was far from ready to give up entirely on my old one. I was talking the talk, but I was not walking the walk. I spent some weekends holding a drink, witnessing to friends, telling them all about my God, and other weekends out-drinking friends in an effort to not feel. I was learning about a God who loved me unconditionally and just wanted me to turn to Him, and yet I was turning to alcohol to cope with life instead. I could not see that shortly after I proclaimed to my friends I was never going to drink, I opened the door to a habit I would later be powerless to stop. The war was in full swing.

    Over the next twenty years I worked to figure out “what was wrong with me”.  Fear, shame, hurt and denial kept me from being completely honest with anyone in my life.  After all, no one would want to know the real me.  I’d become quite the block mason, building walls as if my life depended on them.  Building walls around the room I swore I would never open the door to, but was in fact barricading myself in.  

    As I look back over that time I realize, life was a lot different, better, when I spent time seeking the Lord.  When I spent time sitting with the Lord.  Psalm 91:1 rang true “Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.”  I experienced periods of sobriety walking closely with the Lord and walking in the gifts of the Holy Spirit.  The battles of the war were spread out, for now.

    After I lost post college job number three, I found work in the field the Lord tried directing me to over 15 years before.  In my new role I met someone on fire for the Lord.  She suggested I try out her church.  My husband and I had been searching for a new church and came to love Freedom Church, but I was still building walls.  In fact, the war ramped up with a new ferver.

About a year later the same friend “interrupted” an insanely busy week with a text. “You should go to the women’s conference next month. Registration is open.” By the time life slowed down, the conference was full, but they opened a few more spots and I was in. There I learned other women believed the lies people spoke over them, other women felt crippling shame, remorse and guilt. I was NOT ALONE! I always believed my story was nothing like other women’s because it wasn’t as bad, I hadn’t done that, yet, or I was actually walking with God when all this stuff happened “to” me. I completely believed I was alone in my experience. NOT AT ALL! Other women felt all the same things I felt and got past it, but how?

Fast forward six months….

    Life was interrupted, again! 

“Do you think I’m an alcoholic?”

“How do you know if you’re an alcoholic?”  

“I don’t drink that much.”  

“I haven’t done this or that.” (yet) 

I continued to lie to myself, just as I had since the first time I tasted alcohol over twenty years before.  Just as I had all those years leading up to my first drink.  But… I began asking for help, all-be-it against “my nature.”  

The war raged on!

I took a different position at work and loved aspects of it, but working with troubled youth triggered more difficult feelings within my own troubled soul.  I began arguing with my husband over everything. I found myself thinking my life insurance policy was more valuable than I was, again.

Another six months later, along comes my faithful friend, gently encouraging me to join a Freedom Group, then to actually attend the Freedom Conference.  

“and He will wipe every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying or pain; the first things have passed away.” – Revelations 21:4 NASB

“And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” – Romans 8:28 NASB

Well, there was crying, but He wiped away my tears.  There was pain, but He is using that for good.  And, there was a huge revelation!  When I got home from the first night of the conference, for the first time in quite a while, I decided not to have a drink.

Then came the last session of the conference.  I went up for prayer without knowing what to ask for.  Simply asking the Lord to show you what you need is a simple, yet powerful prayer.  Boy, did he show me what I needed.  

“Hi, my name is Elaine and I’m an alcoholic.” Do what?!!

Nah, not me, I’m not an alcoholic.  “What are you talking about God, alcoholism is other people’s problem, not mine!”

I DID NOT walk through that door and I CERTAINLY did not barricade myself in that room!

    After some restless nights, a lot of reading and some time in my pajamas outside at 1:30am in the snow (yes, I was actually sober), I came to realize the war was over.  

Yes, God was right, I am an alcoholic, of the hopeless variety.  Well, hopeless until I was led to a conference where God clearly informed me I made alcohol my higher power.  Somewhere in those twenty plus years I walked away from God, I stopped turning to God for direction and strength and turned to alcohol to heal me.   I sat quietly with alcohol a lot and rarely with God.  I did not want to feel emotions or deal with life and alcohol allowed me to avoid everything.  Those years of building walls caught up to me.  I couldn’t hide at Memom’s or on a horse any more.  I had to face reality and admit I did not have control of alcohol; instead, it had control of me.  

I committed to 4 meetings with a fellowship of folks like me.  By the second meeting and somewhere around the third chapter of the Big Book, I conceded I was in fact a pickle. I had lost complete control of my drinking and could never again pick up another drink.  After all, one is not enough and two is too many.  By the third meeting a wise woman asked me if I was ready to commit to actually making something better of myself.  I knew when I walked out of the first meeting, I found my people, but my stubborn mind needed some convincing.  I finally found somewhere I fit in.

“In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace.” – Ephesians 1:7 NASB

His grace covers me and fills me with a peace I can not understand, but I am beyond thankful for.  Without His grace I would have been left in the miry pit of self despair with no hope of ever finding His joy.   My renewed understanding of His redemption and grace allows me to actually feel emotion, deal with life on life’s terms and begin to process all of my junk.  However, I can not do this on my own.  I can not go through another twenty four hours without picking up another drink if I do not rely on God and my new family.  

On December 6, 2019, my flesh stopped waging war against my spirit.  I chose to say “Daddy, please help!” then He picked up the sword.  I actually listened to the still small voice that simply said “alcohol” as a faithful woman prayed over me at a conference I tried to avoid.  My disease wanted me to isolate and avoid feeling.  However, God knew His plan for me included a few nights each week in a church basement, actually opening up to someone I now call my sponsor, dismantling the walls I worked so hard to build and rebuilding a life beyond my wildest dreams.  While I still occasionally feel my flesh try to pick up the battle again, my spirit wins, when I turn to God.  With His help and the help of a fellowship I tried so hard to avoid, I am now finding peace, love, grace, understanding and purpose by simply humbling myself and saying… 

“I am an alcoholic.”  

“Be still & know that I am God…..” -Psalm 46:10

In the stillness He can fight the battle I can not fight.”

“The Lord is compassionate and gracious, Slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness.”
‭‭Psalms‬ ‭103:8‬ ‭NASB