My Christmas Miracle

For those who are not familiar with the incredible gift of sobriety bestowed upon me by God in September of 1989 I'll brief you. I had already sobered up during the year of 1974 but lacked the maturity to withstand the shocks in life that befell me and I started drinking again in 1983 with a defiance against God for the loss of my employment at the White Pine copper mine and other reverses and subsequent job layoffs from other business interests.

I was mad as hell then because I assumed that I had lived as the Bible prescribed for a Christian life. And this was how God rewarded me! I crawled into a fog of self pity and took my comfort in booze once again and I did not feel guilty. but I loved the quagmire of my self-pity. That's tough if God didn't like it.

God didn't retaliate and He stopped me short of my self-prescribed demise. He let me suffer the abdominal pain which I later discovered was indicative of liver degeneration and He let me have the grand mall seizures that scared the hell out of my wife, Lois. But these seizures marked the 'Big Bang' of my recovery.

I was in rehab the entire month of September of 1989 and my attitude during the detox period was flint-hard. I observed with scorn the cock-eyed optimism and of those patients who were now in treatment, having completed their detox phase as I sat at the table assigned for the detox smokers.  A short unexpected  stint in the Psych Ward. Plumbing issues over the Labor Day weekend necessitated the evacuation of the rehab facility to the hospital proper. Detox patients were ushered, as if under arrest, to the Phych Ward.

That was an epic wake-up call! I saw the scourge of mental illness as the young pretty girl who sat curled up on the couch staring out the window, oblivious to her surroundings. She never engaged with others, just sat and smoked during the entire day. An elderly woman just kept running her finger up and down her leg. A handsome man in his twenties went from patient to patient asking childishly, "What time Bullwinkle?"

As I matriculated for detox to the treatment population I slowly improved. My hands no longer trembled and I was able to sleep in a peaceful, restorative fashion. There was one more thing; the monkey was no longer on my back. I shared this with a counselor who had involuntary twitches from his years of drug use and he debunked my lost desire for the booze. It was real and it has lasted over these past twenty-nine years. I shared this with a doctor after I had left the treatment facility and he rejected my claim of a God-given miracle. He  concluded that my drinking had fried the brain sells that caused my addiction. In other words I cured myself by drinking.

We were celebrating Christmas with family in West bend just over two months after I graduated from rehab and I was suffering with a cold in my head and deep in my chest. After the exchange of gifts Lois and I joined the family at Christmas Eve mass at the historic St. Augustine chapel  in the farm setting  where my wife Lois was reared. After the the Christmas Eve lunch and everyone had retired I lay coughing. I struggled to breathe and begged sleep  to visit me.

I got up and sat alone in the darkened living room and stared at the  Christmas tree silhouetted against the window. The idea hit me that a couple of shots of whiskey would sedate me sufficiently, facilitating my badly-needed rest. There was a variety of open liquor bottles atop the refrigerator and if I just took a little from several bottles to fill a shot glass twice no one would know. After much deliberation I returned to bed without taking any liquor and eventually fell asleep. 

When I got up on Christmas morning the tight chest and the miserable cough dragged me down. Then I remembered last night. If I had taken those drinks I would be excusing myself so to go find a cold remedy - at the nearest liquor store. The suffering would have returned and I would revisit the misery of addiction.

A counselor at Lutheran Social Services had reminded me that autumn that when you climb back on the Booze Train you get on exactly where you got off. "George, never forget how close you came to death late in August. You may have another drunken episode but I seriously doubt if you will have another recovery.."

That was such a close call and I hadn't been sober very long. I was weak and I was rationalizing, justifying a drink that I knew would lead to my demise. God had not only given me the gift of sobriety; He had saved me from myself. A Christmas miracle!