Bountiful Blessings in Recovery
Snarf Snarf
Thread Starter
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: ATL
Posts: 835
Bountiful Blessings in Recovery
I'd like to start this by saying that I attribute all of my recovery, and indeed my life, to the all-powerful God in which I believe and place my faith. I understand that many people who have been successful in recovery are not only non-religious but also do not believe in God in any way. I absolutely do not discount the beliefs or methods of those people, and neither do I feel that it's my way (more accurately God's way) or the highway. This is only applicable to what has transpired in my life and what can be possible in the lives of others. Sorry if this creates some sort of theological debate (one I'm happy to have, but probably best suited to a different forum).
On the night I hit my bottom, I was arrested for my second DUI. My fiancee left me a voice mail while I was in jail informing me that our relationship was finished and I needed to find somewhere else to live. When I arrived home the next morning, I was all set to drink a couple beers to take the edge off, when I experienced what I can only describe as divine intervention. Something, I believe the voice of God, told me that I needed to make a different choice. It was something I had intuited for years, the need to stop drinking, but this time I prayed to God to help me. To remove that obsession from me. I poured out the 2 beers, looked up an AA meeting and hopped in the car. I attended that meeting and 3 others that day, and many more in the months since.
I wanted to tell my fiancee I was done with alcohol and attending AA. But again that voice came, saying I had told her too many things in the past that never came to fruition, and this time I needed to just act, not talk. So after a week or so of my sleeping on the couch and us not talking, she asked me where I had been running off to at crazy hours. I told her about AA and how I hadn't had a drink in a week. That was the beginning of our healing.
At that point we had been together over 6 years and it looked like things were over for us. But I kept plugging along with my recovery and my fiancee noticed a change in me. She saw me behaving differently, so she stuck with me, probably curious to see the outcome.
Fast forward nearly 2 years. AA led me to my Higher Power, which I re-discovered in God. I have become a regular attender at Sunday and Wednesday services, I read my Bible and other Christian books (currently The Power of a Praying Husband...it's awesome), I watch and listen to sermons online and via podcast. I've gotten much closer to God and I try very hard every day to represent what I think He wants from me and my life.
My relationship, which was once on its very last thread, has never been better. My lovely fiancee and I will be married in the Dominican Republic on April 7, with 37 family and friends in attendance. (I am absolutely humbled beyond belief that so many of our loved ones are spending the money and time to travel to our wedding.) We have a little baby girl due to join us in this world on July 29. And we just went under contract on our first home, a beautiful white Southern plantation-style home with wraparound porch and a running creek behind the back yard...literally my dream home.
I am convinced of 1 thing: None of this, and I believe literally NONE, would have been possible without me turning things over to God and deciding to live life on his terms rather than my own. Again, this is not to disparage any other method of recovery or religious belief system or anything like that. But left to my own vices, I very nearly destroyed my life and everything in it. Once I gave it all up to God, the changes were immediate and drastic. I work hard every single day to be a better person than I was the day before, and that is all thanks to being rescued from my obsession by almighty God.
I was raised in the church, and I rebelled in my teenage/young adult years. I went from being a churchgoing, God-fearing believer to someone who said he didn't even believe in God. And looking back, those times when I allowed myself to drift further from Him were the darkest times in my life. Once I came back to Him, and His love and His teachings, my life became better than I ever could have imagined. And it just keeps getting better and better every single day.
On the night I hit my bottom, I was arrested for my second DUI. My fiancee left me a voice mail while I was in jail informing me that our relationship was finished and I needed to find somewhere else to live. When I arrived home the next morning, I was all set to drink a couple beers to take the edge off, when I experienced what I can only describe as divine intervention. Something, I believe the voice of God, told me that I needed to make a different choice. It was something I had intuited for years, the need to stop drinking, but this time I prayed to God to help me. To remove that obsession from me. I poured out the 2 beers, looked up an AA meeting and hopped in the car. I attended that meeting and 3 others that day, and many more in the months since.
I wanted to tell my fiancee I was done with alcohol and attending AA. But again that voice came, saying I had told her too many things in the past that never came to fruition, and this time I needed to just act, not talk. So after a week or so of my sleeping on the couch and us not talking, she asked me where I had been running off to at crazy hours. I told her about AA and how I hadn't had a drink in a week. That was the beginning of our healing.
At that point we had been together over 6 years and it looked like things were over for us. But I kept plugging along with my recovery and my fiancee noticed a change in me. She saw me behaving differently, so she stuck with me, probably curious to see the outcome.
Fast forward nearly 2 years. AA led me to my Higher Power, which I re-discovered in God. I have become a regular attender at Sunday and Wednesday services, I read my Bible and other Christian books (currently The Power of a Praying Husband...it's awesome), I watch and listen to sermons online and via podcast. I've gotten much closer to God and I try very hard every day to represent what I think He wants from me and my life.
My relationship, which was once on its very last thread, has never been better. My lovely fiancee and I will be married in the Dominican Republic on April 7, with 37 family and friends in attendance. (I am absolutely humbled beyond belief that so many of our loved ones are spending the money and time to travel to our wedding.) We have a little baby girl due to join us in this world on July 29. And we just went under contract on our first home, a beautiful white Southern plantation-style home with wraparound porch and a running creek behind the back yard...literally my dream home.
I am convinced of 1 thing: None of this, and I believe literally NONE, would have been possible without me turning things over to God and deciding to live life on his terms rather than my own. Again, this is not to disparage any other method of recovery or religious belief system or anything like that. But left to my own vices, I very nearly destroyed my life and everything in it. Once I gave it all up to God, the changes were immediate and drastic. I work hard every single day to be a better person than I was the day before, and that is all thanks to being rescued from my obsession by almighty God.
I was raised in the church, and I rebelled in my teenage/young adult years. I went from being a churchgoing, God-fearing believer to someone who said he didn't even believe in God. And looking back, those times when I allowed myself to drift further from Him were the darkest times in my life. Once I came back to Him, and His love and His teachings, my life became better than I ever could have imagined. And it just keeps getting better and better every single day.
recovering using AVRT
Join Date: Feb 2012
Location: Planet Earth
Posts: 294
Wow. Nothing less than WOW! Congratulations are in order all around for you! Congrats on your sobriety, your new found zest for life, for your renewed relationship with God and for your upcoming wedding! You did it! 
Snarf Snarf
Thread Starter
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: ATL
Posts: 835
Thanks sober4metoday, but I really don't feel like I "did it." I'm just trying to do it every single day. And as long as I never lose sight of the fact that I'll never fully be the person I want to and can be, then I'll always have something to work toward. Life, like recovery, is a daily process. I'll never really be where I want to be, but that just gives me more motivation to try and get there. As they say, it's all about the journey, not the destination.
recovering using AVRT
Join Date: Feb 2012
Location: Planet Earth
Posts: 294
Let's give credit where credit it due! YOU DID IT! It's not something you're trying to do, it's something you've done and something you're doing - and you're doing it well. I'm so happy for you and, at least to me, YOU DID IT! 
Your successful has me smiling for you!
Your successful has me smiling for you!
Thank you for your inspiring post. :ghug3
Administrator
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Australia
Posts: 211,439
Well I think you're a good person Snarf
Thanks for the inspiring post - congratulations on your sober time - and congratulations on your wedding and impending little one - that's fantastic
D
Thanks for the inspiring post - congratulations on your sober time - and congratulations on your wedding and impending little one - that's fantastic
D
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