Corelle Peach
Recovery: When God thing happened!
Throughout my childhood in Missouri, I was given the gift of having to believe in a God! The first "tangeable" gift I ever received was given to me the day I was born. It was a James King, the Bible New Testament. In my cache of things that have survived addiction, it is the Bible. In addition, he is a survivor bracelet Beads baby blue and white, the Presbyterian Church, we have seen. There is a blue ribbon for each year that I've never missed a day the Sunday school, and each is separated by a white pearl. It has 9 blue beads. Somehow these two things have survived when I lost everything else, I mean everything, repeatedly. The 9 blue beads are very important, because when I was 9 years we have moved California. My parents have continued to go to church every Sunday. I was given the choice to go or not go. I went but I'm not very often.
At 10 I started to spend time away from our house with friends a little older than me. At eleven years, I experimented with alcohol for the first time, often coming home late so that nobody feels the alcohol. When I was 12-years, I smoked marijuana with the new neighbor. I started moving away from what I learned and the people who taught them to me, my parents! Right now I do not go to church at all. Thanks to my early teens, I think I have thought God more. When I was a sophomore John Kennedy was assassinated (November 22nd, 1963, Dallas, Texas) and all American to question anything they had ever believed in. God only returned my thoughts to the end of the school. In 1963, the Civil Rights Act was passed and I came to know the Reverend Martin Luther King. Before I graduated from high school, Bobby Kennedy its close relationship with Reverend King had brought fresh hope, despite the fiasco of Vietnam. On November 17, 1967, Los Angeles, California, I the oath to join the U.S. Navy. I resorted to enlisting in the Navy to avoid being conscripted in the army, and try to get away from my growing drug. At that time, I started thinking on the concept of higher power together again, trying to make sense of the confusion associated with the thing any Vietnam.
Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated April 4, 1968. I was at the naval school in San Diego. I was devastated. Shortly before the end of my second school in the Navy, June 5, 1968 Senator Robert Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles. At this point, I lost faith in the entire human race! I really started to question my being a member of the U.S. Armed Forces. The worst was yet to come me. I grew up faster than I ought. I was 19 years old and very, very confused. In 1969 there were over 500,000 soldiers in Vietnam and another half a million on forces. The war has split the United States in half, the opinion turned against our involvement. I become political, and any member of the armed forces began to take a position supporting the resistance project. It was very risky because I had security classification "Top Secret and has worked for the commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet. I could not help thinking that if there was a God, what happened in this war could not happen. I was very confrontational and everything was going justified the use of drugs more. The drug was in fact an accepted behavior in the civilian sector, equal rights, anti-war, all question of culture.
My remaining time in the Navy would completely put me in freefall, philosophically! I came to see the atrocities of Vietnam as they came to America TV and us in reality. I began to hate myself and what I was part of. I started to live inside my head and it was a very precarious place. When I was released, I was completely anti-social, self-proclaimed atheist, drug addict! I was completely atheist living in a world without God, full of people without God. At least that's what my life experiences led me to believe.
From the time I was 21 until I was 45, I lived life carelessly, with various drug addictions, multiple failed marriages, and possibly many Travel in prison, while thinking about-I was justified in my lifestyle and that everyone is essentially a group of greedy, unprincipled, or other object that that get their piece. So what's the point! Of course, that I spent 25 years in a drunken stupor of drugs! In my last incarceration, I literally no longer wanted to live. Then something happened … something happened that I could not foresee … something has past that I never thought!
The miracle happened … This is the first written … One person has experienced it …
On January 28, 1995, in court, I took a plea bargain for a year in prison and one year in rehab, instead of a sentence imprisonment of three years. I did it, even if for the last week I was seriously questioned if I could do day even more confined. Coincidentally, my father was in hospital in a doubtful state, and it was his birthday the next day. I could not see why I should be alive, and was in a black depression. When we were locked at 6:00 PM, I sat on my couch, deep inside my head, sorry for myself … and disgusted with myself … until they shut the lights at 10:00 PM. As light has disappeared, I started crying and tears to sobs … I broke and went to crying in agony, with tears streaming down my cheeks, dripping on my bare legs, and I could not stop. I myself was completely silent out of control where others could me here, but I was nearly convulsing my thoughts left me and I moved into a state of emotional pain total. I was not thinking, I just wanted to disappear … entered a state of being somewhere between being conscious and unconscious, without possibility control of the mind! Suddenly, with a sigh, the control of my lungs came to me. Tears were streaming down my face and the words just came to my lips without effort or conscious thought. I said "the Lord's Prayer." It must have been for decades that I had not thought of yet. And now I do not think he was just coming from somewhere inside. As the prayer came to and end, I started to pray that God help me. As I cried and prayed the corner of the room about 20 feet of me began to shine a white light as I have made promises that I swore to keep it if only I could get help. I had no connection with the area around me was just like the world I was and that corner and all the rest was black and darkness. As light intensity increased spectacular, and I begged and cried to God for help, a figure began to become visible in the middle of the light. Although unclear, the clothing and beard, I realized he was God as I had imagined him all my life. He began to speak with a deep voice, soothing, and I started to listen but I was still crying uncontrollably. He answered my prayer grant me forgiveness I'd been request. Her voice penetrated me to my soul! Then he told me that if I believed in him, signs would guide me to change this happened in my life for so long. This was not a conversation with him, though. I asked, now it has been answered. As he assured me that my life would be better, the picture started fading, and I do not cry. Soon I was sitting on my bunk exhausted, breathing deeply, conscious of the vote, and I looked to my right, where the clock was, and it was 12:05 AM, January 29, my birthday Dad. My head was lite, and I was tired, and I more or less vanished. Words can not do justice to my experience last night. It was life changes and crazy, and he was inside a prison! When the lights came on at 4:30 in the morning, I had just woken up. I felt so different that I could not then, now I can not really define exactly the feeling. It was … it was "changed". Something I had fundamentally changed. I've never been the same since! I was hungry, though, and got dressed and ready to lock and unlock the queue for breakfast. There was no I could tell what had happened and I do not know exactly what happened, anyway. I'm not really good because I felt better than I ever remember feeling, and I was in prison. Early this morning, after returning from breakfast, a policeman came to fetch me, and led me into the office building and the office of the chaplain. Here, the chaplain said he had received word from my mother my father had taken a turn for the better and would be able to return home soon. I immediately felt a coreli between this and my experience the previous night. I felt a compassion for the chaplain that I had not felt for a very long time. A million thoughts spun in my head for the rest of the morning. I asked and received permission to go to the library after lunch. There was no normal reason for requesting library, it was just the most private place I could think of that prison. I tried to resolve my thoughts at a time whether I was really still asleep, and everything was just part of a dream. My life has completely changed from there!
In fact, at this time, I was relieved to feel like the drug. One time after that, someone gave me a beer. I took a couple of swallows. It was March 24th, 1995. I do not used since. I have not had to do a full year in prison. On April 8, 1995, I entered the treatment program for chemical dependency VA Hospital, Fresno, California. I was there for 6 months and then returned to the company, over 3 years felony probation. I completed probation without incident, and had become friends with my probation officer. Years later I was sitting in his office, answering matters for approval of a treatment program that I became director of!
In my prayers, shortly after my radical spiritual experience, I say God I would really appreciate to learn to live for 10 years clean and sober. It was a little over 13 years since the change took place. Is more than 10, right?
It is not now and has not been all peaches and cream, though. I am not an autobiography, it should suffice to say, I take two medications to control my blood pressure. I have the lung disease COPD (emphysema). I recently discovered that I suffer from diabetes. And last but not least, I suffer from an addiction to food (binge). While out on disability with the appearance diabetes, the company I was working, let me go, for compliance with contract requirements. Shortly after, my insurance was canceled, naturally. The poor economy has virtually eliminated the subsidies, which is related to my profession. So I have 2 weeks left on disability and I do not employment. But you know what? Even if his was the last time more than once, God always sees that something is broken for me. And it will be New!
About the Author
I am a certified substance abuse counselor, and recovering addict, in California. I have 12 years clean time and have been a counselor most of that. I have served as a treatment program Director. I have worked going into prisons recruiting inmates for aftercare drug treatment programs. I am WebMaster of the site Addiction: Why Me? @ www.mydavecarroll.com