I grew up on a church pew. That’s what my mom always said. With her being so active in the church, growing up with God was just a part of life. I went to private Christian school until my freshman year. We went to church on Sundays and Wednesdays, and every summer I’d go to several different church camps. You would think, as my mom did, that I would have a pretty firm grasp on God and my relationship with him. The truth is, I never knew God as anything more than a word, and the expectations that were associated with him.

Sure, I’ve had some of those moments, proclaimed by Christians to be “a God thing”. One of my most remembered experiences was the day after I had seemingly overdosed when I was 18, only to be covered with a blanket and left in a room while the party raged on. When I arose from some sort of fog, assuming I had only napped a bit, I emerged from the bedroom to faces looking at me aghast. I’ll never forget what they said, “we thought you were dead”. I walked out of that house and ended up walking down to the wharf. Sitting there on a bucket in front of Ivar’s was a large homeless man who I’d seen on the streets before panhandling. He yelled to me as I passed. I assumed that he was looking for the change I didnt have. I tried to brush him off to keep stumbling on my tragic way, but he was insistent. He called out to me in desperation, “God wants me to tell you something!” he said. Annoyed, I turned back to him. He looked me in the eye, and said “go home” and I felt that. I called my parents collect from a payphone, and asked them to buy me a bus ticket home.

I’ve always rolled my eyes when my mother’s solution to all my problems was to pray about it. She would go on and on about God’s will for my life, and how I should be going to church, but I just didn’t understand. She caught many an eyeroll from me for her old fashioned ideas. I was a strong, independent woman, and I didn’t need no God! I didn’t need anybody, but myself. Yet, in times of trouble, and there were many, I would find myself pleading to a God, who I didn’t know, to save me. It was ingrained in me. I’ve always prayed to someone or something. I’ve always believed in something more, but that wasn’t cool, and that is where one could say the lies began.

When I first walked into AA back in 2013, I thought it was a cult. There was just something about these people that I couldn’t put my finger on. They were strange, but considering I had the planted idea that I was, perhaps, an alcoholic, I chose to endure. I was in no way ready to commit to such an extreme measure, but I had been dating a guy who was in recovery, and it only seemed natural to support him in that lifestyle. Poor guy…had apparently thrown his life away and lost nearly everything for a bit there, but had really turned the bus around. Surely, I was better off than that, but again, anything to support him. I just couldn’t part from my lifestyle as a fun, party person. I had been writing for a local mag centered around partying, so I would often find myself drunk on his doorstep late at night, justifying that it was just my job. I’ll never forget the conversations I had with him. It was like he just knew what I was going through. I knew I loved him. I knew my drinking was putting a strain on the relationship, but what I didn’t know, was that he would have a terrible accident, that led to him dying a sober man, way before his time. I had never lost someone I loved. There is no way to describe how it felt, and I just shut it off. Shortly after that, my father died, sending me into madness. For the next 6 years, I spent my life trying anything and everything to just not feel anymore. If there was a God, then I hated him.

When I hit my personal rock bottom, I knew I had to give up everything I thought I was. I had to give up all the friends I thought I had. I had to take action to make a change, or there would be no change. Bewildered, I stumbled into those rooms for the 2nd time. It felt foreign. I felt like an outsider that didn’t belong, somehow fake, but I knew I had to do something. I would go and sit in the meetings, and when they were over, I would immediately bolt out of the door. I would say, initially, I assumed that I could just somehow absorb the benefits of sobriety from them and leave. I didn’t get it. Irritated by their handholding and cliche sayings, I ended up doing exactly what they prescribed, and I kept coming back. Come to find out, a God, of my understanding, is very much required in this program of action, not only a suggestion. I know the thought of God has turned many off and away from AA, and there are still those that wrestle with the idea. But, the concept that God could literally be the ocean, was a new revelation for me.

Little earworms and catchy slogans started to infiltrate my mind. Maybe the answers I needed were really in this book. I dug out my father’s Big Book and began to read. If it really did work, as these people claimed, and I knew that I was powerless over my addictions, and I had already believed in some sort of God, then I knew I would have to turn my will over to this unknown source, because there was no other way. I had come to the point where I, too, had lost everything. I started praying even when I wasn’t in trouble. I started praying when I didn’t want to. I started telling God just how grateful I am for even the minuscule victories. Then, something amazing started happening. It started to work.

It’s just part of my ritual now. To my mother’s dismay, I still don’t know who I’m talking to, and AA has taught me that that doesn’t matter so much as my faith is real. This I can accept. The more faith I dump into it, the more blessings come from it. I’ve made a list of everything I lost throughout my life due to substance abuse, and one by one, I’ve gotten everything back. I don’t know about your God, but I can no longer deny the existence of this higher power in my life. All I needed to do was realize that my own will had destroyed everything good in my life, and that I could no longer sustain living this perilous lie that everything was in my control. It was my gift of desperation that led me to my first 3 steps. It was my utter hopelessness that restored my faith in a power greater than I.

Yesterday, my son’s prayers had been answered. He gets to finally come home to a mother who has been slowly rebuilding all that was lost. I told him that its okay to want things, but patience is required. Things don’t always happen on your time, but if you have faith that God will meet all your needs, it will happen in His time.

As for me, I am eternally grateful to cross another victory off my list.