Desperation


      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.
Woman, Desperate, Sad, Tears, Cry