I was
talking recently with two friends who wanted to drink again. This has affected
me. I am trying to figure out why they want to drink. Neither of them could point
to a reason. After talking with them
further I realized that they are not desperate and never were desperate about drinking.
They are happy, and were happy while drinking. They have not lost anything. They
were not humiliated or embarrassed by their drunkenness. They didn’t lose relationships
or daily functioning.
This makes me grateful that I did find out
what desperation feels like. I did find out that God was there for me in brokenness.
He is there for us all when we finally give up. He is even there before we give
up when we are saying, “I don’t want to stop drinking!” We must come to the end
of our own strength. We must reach a point of giving up. We have to want to
stop drinking more than anything. It is a place of utter neediness. All the
circumstances that led to that place were necessary.
I want to help these friends. Does sharing my
experience help them? Maybe, but there is a spiritual transformation that takes
place in surrendering that cannot be learned anywhere else except through
living the hopelessness.
I will pray for
them and ask God to keep them and reveal His power to them. I will pray that
they can understand the seriousness of addiction without yet having gone to the
bottom. I pray that He will remind them of the despair of feeling trapped into
drinking. We all hope for joy and ease
in our lives, but sometimes too much of these good things rob us or our necessary
desperation. We can easily become complacent and over confident.
May I be a desperate
person daily. May I always remember the pain. Pain serves a purpose.
