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Don's
Story
I was born in Evanston, IL in 1950. Evanston is the
suburb on the Northern Chicago border, on Lake Michigan. I was an
only child. My parents both worked and my grandmother took care of
me during the day. My parents and I were very close. They didn’t
have much money so we were home most of the time. We were very
happy, but God was not part of our lives. Everything was fine
until my Dad died of a heart attack when I was 15. My Mom started
drinking heavily. The whole world turned upside down. I somehow
started cutting myself. I didn't know why it felt good, but it
did. When the kid across the street turned me on to Marihuana I
quit cutting and didn't even realize it. I learned from watching
Mom how to medicate myself, so I started stealing
alcohol from her. It wasn’t hard as she started having parties and
I would serve drinks to her guests. When I was seventeen she
signed for an apartment for me and she moved to California. There
I was a seventeen year old alcoholic with his own apartment in
1967 in a college town. It wasn’t long before I was using drugs
with the alcohol which was still my drug of choice. By the time I
was 20 I was a binge drinker, one week on, and a few days off with
only beer. By the time I was 22 I well knew what the DTs were and
had attempted suicide twice.
On 4/15/73 at 10:32am (I can still picture the
clock) I stopped the machine I was running at work, and called
Alcoholics Anonymous. They said someone would come to the house
that evening. I went back to work and got scared because I just
realized what I had done. That night two men came to the house and
took me out for coffee. We talked about sobriety, serenity, and
anonymity. I am not even sure if I knew what those words meant.
The next day they took me to my first AA meeting. I was very sick.
It was an open meeting on Clark Street in Chicago, with about 100
people in the room. I just remember having the shakes and sweats
and getting sick while the speaker talked about the words I didn’t
understand. I couldn’t sleep a full night for about 2 weeks. The
sweats and shakes tapered off but lasted for many weeks. I don’t
ever want to go through that again.
Now was the beginning of my life. I was married
within a year. I no longer went regularly to AA meetings. I was sober
what more did I need. I fell into a heavy depression for about 5
years. Those were probably the worst years of my life. I hated who
I was, and was treating everyone around me accordingly. I was in
the midst of a 23 year career of bill collections, and became a
workaholic, food-aholic, or just plain an obsessive person who
still acted like a drunk, only was sober. In 1986 I had emergency open
heart surgery. In 1987 my folks retired to Wisconsin, and both got
Cancer. We moved to Wisconsin to take care of them. In 1989 My
stepfather died, 1990 my father in law died, 1990 my Mom died, and
in 1990 my Brother in law died.
My wife and I were living in Wisconsin in all the
beauty, and only saw ugliness. In 1994 we separated.
This is when I really began to really understand
that there was a
God. I had some idea when I had the surgery, but now I was living
in a cabin on a lake, with the mice, red squirrels and whatever
else was living there. The snow was coming in the corners of the
building, and all in all was a rough place to live. I finally
decided it was time to try to end my life, or start drinking, or
start over. I cried out to God and let him make the decision. He
decided I would start over. I was remarried in 1997. I was in the middle of searching for God. I gave my life to
Christ in April 1998. I got serious about the 12 step program in a
whole new way and
did a 4th step that changed my life. I was cleansed by Jesus in a
way I didn't know was possible.
Sometime in my life I contracted Hepatitis C,
possibly as early as 1965. Being a new disease the doctors didn't
know it and kept telling me I just had stress. It got serious in
1999. This disease is horrible, with many side effects. But the
biggest one is how it affects your thinking. The doctor told me if
I took treatment it could kill me, and if I didn't I would surely
die. This brought me closer to God than ever. I prayed about it
for a month, and faced my faith. Once I was no longer afraid to
die, I was ready to take the treatment. God and I walked through
one of the toughest times of my life. Part way through treatment
my second wife
left. I almost died that month. I was giving myself the treatment
at home. That Christmas eve I sat there so alone and instead of
taking the shot I was tempted to mainline it. I figured lets get
this over with. So I again prayed to God do I live or die. The
decision was again to live. That next week God did what he always
does. He gave me some work to do. I suddenly was in charge of the
mailings for an on line recovery ministry called
Christians in Recovery. This became a passion, and serving God gave me the
purpose to get through those times. The disease turned a corner
the next month, and today it seems to be in control. Praise the Lord!
Through all of this I got into the Bible in a very real way. I
surrendered to God in a way I have never surrendered in my life. I
kept getting the urge to move to Colorado and work in a street
ministry. Through a series of spiritual events I ended up moving
to Colorado Springs in 2002 with little money, a beat up Buick,
and no job. Just trusting that God would provide and point me to
the work he wants me to do. And he has.
I guess the main thing I want to say is that
through everything God has been there even though I not only
didn’t know him, but denied that he existed. I had many close
calls in my life in my addictive life style, attempted suicide,
bill collecting, etc. but God kept me alive through it all. Now I
know that he is always there and I now know what the words
sobriety and serenity, and anonymity mean, only through the grace
of God. I understand today that living my life for God, and not
myself is how it is supposed to be. Once we accept our lives
for how they are today, and surrender them to him, he takes care
of the rest.
I have grown very close to
four verses that have become a pattern of
life for me. They are:
PHP 3:13-14
Forgetting what is behind and straining
toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to
win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ
Jesus.
1 Peter 5:10 And the God
of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after
you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and
make you strong, firm and steadfast.
1TH 5:16-18
Be joyful always; pray continually;
give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you
in Christ Jesus.
2CO 7:1
Dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that
contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence
for God.
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