For my birthday I bought and drank a bottle of wine. I ended up in a christian chat room where there was a young lady that had drug problems someone in there had told her about CIR and I took down the site wondering if it wasn’t also a message for me to reach out for help.
I ended up coming to CIR I was scared half to death not knowing what to expect. I attended a few online meetings before I had the courage to share. I started to share and found out I wasn’t as different as I had suspected. I posted soon after for a sponsor and luckily got one. She’s been a blessing to my recovery and has supported me threw my first year.
My first six months of sobriety I was sick and spent a lot of time in the doctor’s office. It was one thing after another. In February I started to get into some bad things my thoughts were far from walking with God I was walking and praying Lord show me your will for me. I looked up and saw a man walking ahead of me with a picture of Jesus and his head in thorns and a cross on his t shirt. I said OK Lord. I knew He was saying that He wanted me to follow Him and not be going in the direction I was.
Then I was going through those type of storms you read about in the Bible. It seemed every where I turned there was a problem. I was in church and the pastor said sometimes you just have to tell the devil to flee. As I was walking home I started to talk to the devil saying “I Am A Child Of God You Can’t Have Me!” to Satan. Things really changed did an turn about.
I have been so blessed to be here at CIR and have the support of all you and to be able to come to a safe place to share. I have started volunteer work with delivering food to low income & seniors in my area. It was a temporary thing at first while the guy who usually does it was on vacation. When he came back he asked me if I wanted to continue and I said yes.
Then one day I was praying and asking the Lord to use me and all of a sudden I realized he was trying to use me. I had been delivering groceries to people and all that day people kept talking about being sick everything from migraines to cancer and I realized he wanted me to pray for them. What a blessing to be used by Him.
I had prayed for Him to use me for so long and thought he never would. But what I think is that He wanted for me to get clean/sober first.
I have learned a lot in the last year. The lesson of acceptance has been a good one for me. I daily use the Serenity Prayer and have learned more acceptance. I have recently found out that I have other defects as well so I have a lot more to learn and grow. I’m still working on some of my relationships. Its hard when you have hurt the people you love. It takes time to repair the damage you’ve done. But I know if I put it in the Lord’s hands that is the very best place to leave anything.
~ Anne, a CIR Member