I remember when I first thought I'd discovered the source of my problems, the source of all my woes. I looked down at the rock on the aluminum foil, staring at it for a time as I contemplated my life, or death, depending on how you choose to look at it. Finally I accepted the fact that my whole life revolved around meth. Every friend and acquaintance used meth, every trip I took had meth as its goal, and I saw for the very first time that if I didn't change I would certainly die, or be as good as dead. Knowing my life was hanging in the balance, I did something unusual. I wrote on a piece of paper everything I'd realized, all the heavy thoughts of this revelation, and I put it in my wallet, and every time I would think about doing meth I would just pull it out and read it.
And to take a step in the right direction I moved to a relatives house out of state with the hope of building a new life from the ground up. I made it about two weeks before I moved back. But even though I came back I stayed on the straight and narrow for about 4 more weeks, even went to church a couple of times. When it was all said and done, fifty-two days was my very best effort, and the piece of paper was never pulled from my wallet.
I resumed using meth as if I'd never missed a beat, spiraling further and further downward, losing more and more pieces of my life, avoiding the obvious truth, the truth that I was trapped with no way out. My best effort failed and I didn't have the strength or inspiration to try again.
It was there in the twilight between death and hope that I asked a much larger question. Is there a God? Was the God my mother taught me to believe in real? And if He was real, would He help me? I had been to church enough as a child and young teenager to know about Christ and the cross. I had even walked the isle and made a profession of faith at the ripe old age of eleven. But a lot had happened since then.
Since then I'd experienced the pain of abuse and neglect and rejection. I had a wounded spirit, therefore my self-destructive behavior was justified, at least that's what I believed. If it wasn't for my mom, or if it wasn't for my step-dad, or if it wasn't for God putting me here, I wouldn't be in such a mess. There was no way that all of this could have been my fault.
But something new happened that night as I looked toward God. I realized and admitted that it was no one else's fault but mine. I made all the choices that led me to where I was, and I could blame no one but myself for what my life had become. You see, my problem wasn't my drug abuse, my problem was me, and therefore I deserved whatever destruction I had coming, in this life or the next.
And somewhere in the midst of this time of honesty before God I made another choice. I went back to the cross of Christ I learned about as a child and somehow I found the faith to believe His death was for me, and seeing my selfish choices for what they were, I left them behind and chose to follow Him.
The spiritual, psychological, and physical recovery was long and difficult at times, and I may write more about that later, but all in all, Christ took what was left of my broken life and gave me a new life, not only one that is drug free, but also true, productive, and meaningful.
2 Corinthians 5:17 "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new."
By the way, its been more than fifteen years since I've used meth.
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