SUNDAY: Bible Study - 9:00 AM | Worship - 10:00 AM | PM Worship - 6:00 PM WEDNESDAY: Bible Class - 7:00 PM ~ 8110 Signal Hill Road Manassas, Virginia | Office Phone: 703.368.2622

 Dear Reader,

Our brother, Terry McCarty was recently restored to fellowship following a successful battle with alcoholism.  It was a battle he nearly lost.  The following is a letter he wrote to alcohol as an exercise in recovery.  When he shared it with me several weeks ago I was moved by the power of it and asked if he would share it with you as well.  The elders felt just as strongly that the following is a great testimony to the power God provides to overcome, and a great encouragement to those in the midst of the struggle.  We hope this is a help.

Barry Bryson

 

JournalDear Alcohol;

It is with great pleasure that I inform you that we have parted ways.

Alcohol, you have been a steadfast friend over the years – you have always been there for me when I needed you, you never failed to “do your magic” and chemically react with me as expected.  I have no quarrels with your faithfulness and your unwavering attention to my most detailed needs and desires.  You have been faithful to your true nature, you have helped me escape from reality, you have helped me hide from uncertainty, you have clouded my judgment every time I asked you to do so.  I am not happy, however, with your side effects.

The reason we must part ways at this time is not only straightforward but also intense and irreversible – you are killing me.

I have always known, on an intellectual basis, that your morbid chemical addiction eventually would catch up with me.  Year after year, as we continued our relationship, I looked for signs of pending doom as a result of your dilatory defects on my mind and my body.  Unfortunately I did not see them, even if they were present.  A clouded mind cannot focus on the clouds that cause the clouding in the first place.

Alcohol, if I had seen the warning signs arriving, I might have terminated our relationship earlier; but alas, your actions were not only hypnotic but also seductive as they snuck up on me via a steady stream of self-generated complacency, escapism and denial.  I will not say “it was fun while it lasted” but I will say it seemed like it – how cunning and deceptive you have proven to be!

So, now here I am in the waning years of my life, faltering physically and emotionally from the effect of continuing to associate with you.  Alcohol, you have been very successful in twisting my psychological make up and causing me to be depressed.  You have also been very successful in compromising my liver, pancreas, stomach, and who knows what other organs, not the least of which is my brain.

The depression and physical degradation you have caused me has now reached a point where life with you has become intolerable.  True to your nature, you have delivered on the destruction the scientific literature says you have always promised.

I will survive.  I walk away from you and our relationship now, never to look back, and never to allow my life to be at your disposal again.

Alcohol, in closing, I admit that it is a little awkward to think I have actually given you a personality, what with you having always been an inanimate object, a chemical, with no real soul or life in you.  My personification of you gives me the opportunity to address you as if you were a real person.  Alcohol, you are not a person, you have no will of your own.  Not only do I control you but I now abandon you forever.

I am more powerful than you, I once gave you life within me, a personality, and a power to influence me; I gave you these things, these powers over me, and I now take all of that away from you – (as from the Aramaic language, I say to you, “I will create, as I see fit” and “what I say has now been done” Abracadabra ++POO.f.++) – you no longer exist in my life.

To those who either read this letter to Alcohol or hear it being read – this letter is really to and for you so that you may understand and realize your own personal power and your own potential for self control.

Sincerely,

Terry

NewManassas Side

8110 Signal Hill Road | Manassas, Virginia

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