Alcohol

Connie’s Instant Deliverance From Alcoholism

       Nothing but alcohol was effective in helping Connie cope with her panic attacks. So severe was her condition that when all else failed, doctors resorted to four sessions of shock treatments, later followed by a further eight sessions. Nothing worked. Connie endured two years of torment before discovering that alcohol prevented the attacks, allowing her to live a fairly normal life. Few of us could imagine the horrific experiences of repeated panic attacks that forced Connie into the only solution she could find.
       She writes:

       I drank for ten years. By then, alcohol had a hold of me. I remember a two week period when I stayed drunk all of the time, and I didn’t want to live any more.
       Although raised in the Catholic church, I was not a born again Christian. I had tried praying a lot in the early years of my illness but figured that God didn’t hear me.
       I knew I probably wouldn’t live much longer drinking the way that I was, and I couldn’t believe that my life had turned out the way it had. So one day I decided I had better talk to God. As I did, I saw things in myself that I had never seen before; how I had held grudges against people and never really forgave. I told God about my life and that I didn’t know how I got to be that way, but I didn’t want to be that way any more. I told him that I just wanted to love people. When I got up from my knees, I was a different person. He delivered me from alcohol, nail-biting, bad language, fear, and probably things I don’t even know about. It wasn’t as if I said to myself, Well, I have had this talk with God, so now I have to clean up my act. I could not have done that. All of it was just GONE. I thought, Oh, there really is a God, and I’m probably the only person this has ever happened to. (Really, now! I am still amazed at thinking those things.)

An Atheist’s Battle with Alcohol

Greg Bond writes:

       I was an atheist my entire life. I really hated the idea that there was a God, let alone the Christian one. By having that opinion I had only myself to depend on for everything. At age 24, however, I found myself drowning in the depths of alcoholism.
       For two years, each weekday after work (Monday-Thursday) I was drinking at least a twelve pack of malt liquor and a pint to a fifth of a gallon (16 to 26 shots) of whisky. On the weekends I drank more. I was blacking out and losing all memory of what I had done every day.
      My wife pressured me to join Alcoholics Anonymous. I decided to give it my best shot. My sponsor in AA told me I had to pray to God every night and thank Him for my sobriety. Now I didn’t mind being a hypocrite in every other aspect of my life, but I had to draw the line somewhere! I said I didn’t believe in God and that by praying I would be a hypocrite. He said something to the tune of, ‘How nice. Just do it.’ So I prayed daily and I experienced about six months of sobriety. Then my wife left me.
       Shortly after, the night came when I knew I couldn’t resist the call of the drink. I found myself outside of a bar weeping. I was completely demoralized. I decided that other than suicide I only had one avenue of escape, if one existed at all. I prayed to the God I didn’t believe in. I told Him I didn’t believe in Him, but that I had nowhere else to turn. So if He in fact existed, I needed His help. As I finished praying a feeling of peace and comfort came over me and the obsession and desire to drink left me and has never returned. (I have now celebrated eight years of sobriety.) That night convinced me that God does indeed exist. It also demonstrated to me that He cares immensely about me. A year or so later, after looking into all sorts of religions trying to discover just who God was and what He wanted from me (if anything), I became convinced of the truth of the Bible and accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior.
       It’s an incredible demonstration of God’s power that I have not once so much as desired to drink alcohol since the night he healed me. Yet even that astounding feat of God pales alongside my amazement that the God whose standard is absolute perfection overlooks my faults and treats me as his best friend.

       Comment: Greg’s gradual discovery of God is typical of most spiritual journeys. If the Lord waited until we had a perfect knowledge of him before moving in our lives, we’d have no hope! However, the deeper our knowledge of the true God, the more likely it is that we will experience his power.

Even the phenomenal success of Alcoholics Anonymous rests more on the supernatural than is commonly realized.

        As of 1996, Alcoholics Anonymous, had two million members worldwide. This highly respected organization is founded not on some vague, impersonal Higher Force, but a loving God. Proof
       Of the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, six refer to God. The second step refers to ‘a power greater than ourselves,’ so it clearly is not referring to the power within, that some people vainly look to. These steps have proved so effective that Psychologists, Dr Ralph Earle and Dr Gregory Crow state that these Twelve Steps ‘serve as the foundation of virtually every effective self-help group that addresses addictive, compulsive, or co-dependent behavior – from Gamblers Anonymous to Overeater’s Anonymous, from Al-Anon to Nar-Anon. The most successful recovery programs for any addiction – including sex addiction and co-dependency – use them.’ (Reference)
       Drawing upon the power of a loving God accounts for much of the phenomenal success of Alcoholics Anonymous. Sadly, for many members this remains a vague concept, and this dilutes the effectiveness of the program. Those who fail to tap into the supernatural are much less likely to succeed.
       In the early days of Alcoholics Anonymous an astounding 75% to 93% percent of its members recovered from alcoholism. Dick B. devoted at least six years to extensively researching this phenomenal success rate. He has written profusely, delving back into the early history of Alcoholics Anonymous and he is convinced that the higher success rate hinged on a higher proportion of its members relying on the Christian God and basing their relationship with Him on the principles of the Bible.
      For more about Dick’s research, see www.dickb.com

 Heroin/Opium

Ralph, a former heroin addict, had been off drugs for quite a while. One day he got discouraged and shot up heroin. He remained as sober as a judge.

      David Wilkerson is founder of Teen Challenge, an organization with centers in many countries helping drug addicts and other people in need. In his multi-million best seller Cross and the Switchblade (also made into a film with Pat Boone playing Wilkerson) he relates an amazing incident.
      Ralph had been on heroin for three years and was mainlining it. After becoming a Christian and being freed from the power of drugs, Ralph went fine for quite some time. Then he decided to get a fix. He injected good quality heroin into his veins and it had no effect.
      It was the real thing, but it might as well have been water. Stunned, Ralph knew this had to be the hand of God. The heroin neither sent him high, nor got him hooked, it simply made him want to go to find the nearest church and ask God’s forgiveness! He learned that God is not someone to be toyed with.

Though it should be medically impossible, Jackie Pullinger has seen very many opium addicts set free without withdrawal symptoms, through the power of prayer alone.

       Teenaged English girl, Jackie Pullinger felt sure God was telling her to go. The weird thing was that she had no idea where she should go. In desperation, she bought a one-way ticket on a ship, hoping that God would guide her. She ended up in the most lawless part of Hong Kong, working among opium addicts.
       One of the first to tell Jackie he would give Jesus a try was Winsom, a Triad gang member tragically addicted to opium. Within half an hour, he had painlessly and completely passed through withdrawal without any of the usual symptoms.
       As Jackie prayed for others, many more came off opium cold turkey (without medication, immediately ceasing all drug intake) with no withdrawal symptoms. This painless withdrawal of chronically addicted junkies should have been medically impossible, but it happened over and over and over. If withdrawal symptoms began, they would simply pray and the symptoms would go.
       The success of Jackie’s work among opium addicts has been acknowledged by the Triad, (‘the Chinese Mafia’), by the Hong Kong government and by the Queen of England, who awarded Jackie with the high British honor of an MBE. Secular newspapers around the world have hailed her work and she has at least two books to her name.

 Tobacco

Jon’s life literally depended on him giving up smoking, but he still couldn’t quit. Then the impossible happened. He writes:

      Habit, addiction, pleasure, need, whatever you want to call it, smoking is for life. That’s the way it was for me and no amount of willpower was going to change it. My attempts to stop smoking for good were all just temporary lulls in a habit acquired before I was 16.
      Even after being hammered by congestive heart failure in a big way, my smoking never slowed down. I once made it five days with only one or two smokes a day. That fifth day, as I sat on the patio, sucking smoke into my tired lungs, I felt my heart rev up like a Formula One racer – the problem being that this car’s motor was on its last legs. I had to stop smoking or die. That simple. Did I stop? No. I could not do it.
      God called me to follow his Son a short while before this time, and I was still an infant Christian, too timid to ask for help in things spiritual.
      One day, I got down on my knees and confessed to my new-found God that I was weak, helpless and just plain stupid. I needed to quit smoking and couldn’t. Would my new friend Jesus, please help me? Please? I just can’t do it, I said, please help me or I will die . . . The very thought made me sit there and cry.
      Hey, I’d like to tell you about the big, fiery miracle that Jesus whammied onto my head, and the lightning and the voice from heaven that knocked me down and made me shake, but it just ain’t so. It was far more impressive than that could ever be. I simply never wanted another cigarette. Ever. Not once. To this day – and it’s been over a year.
      Not that I fought temptation and never smoked another one, you understand. Remember, I tried that and failed miserably. I have never WANTED to smoke another cigarette. If you have ever smoked, you have some idea of the mercy and the true love behind this miracle. There was no kinder or more impressive thing that my Lord Jesus, my new best friend and owner of my heart, could have done for me.
      It was a show of power to which no bolt of lightning could ever compare. Calm, sure, unwavering power. The kind of power that never needs to boast or openly display itself for the sake of proof or pride. Absolute power.

Jon’s experience has been repeated in the lives of countless other people who have looked to Jesus for supernatural help. Here’s just one more example:

       When Judy Littrell had her first encounter with God she had been a smoker for 38 years. More times than she could count she had tried and failed to break her sixty-a-day habit. Soon after finding a new life in Jesus, Judy began frequenting her church’s prayer room. Concerned that the smell of smoke on her clothes could disturb other pray-ers, and desiring to enter God’s presence with a body undefiled by tobacco, she prayed for God to free her from the habit. In her own words, ‘One day I smoked, and the next I did not.’ There was no tapering off. Interestingly, many times since then, especially after putting on 25 pounds, Judy has wished she could smoke, but has been unable to. The very smell makes her nauseous.
       Judy has now been free from tobacco for three years.

Bob Lydiate’s story is quite different. He loved smoking, but found God is not someone to be messed with. Bob writes:

      I challenged my Lord, telling him that I did not want to quit smoking and that I enjoyed it. If he wanted me to quit, then he was going to have to make me.
      He did.
      Shortly after my challenge, I came down with pneumonia. When I still didn’t stop smoking, I came down with strep throat and the pneumonia reached the point where I was told not even to get out of bed. Physically, I could not smoke. It hurt too much, and I was too weak anyway. By the time the strep throat disappeared, my body no longer craved nicotine.
      Stubbornly, I still tried to light a cigarette. It tasted so awful that I stubbed it out and haven’t smoked since. That was over 16 years ago. I have had no desire to begin again, and it doesn’t bother me to be around smokers (beyond the smell, if there are too many of them!).

Comment: It is unusual for God to use sickness, but note how exceptional the situation. Here we find someone committed to serving God determined to continue smoking and at the same time issuing a challenge to Almighty God. Rather than let acts of defiance multiply until they threaten Bob’s spiritual life, God in his kindness revealed a fraction of his power by making a non-smoker out of someone who had no intention to quit.