In the late sixties, long before I committed to follow the Lord, God delivered me from an intense IV Meth addiction. There were no withdrawal symptoms of any kind, I simply stopped.
In the mid-seventies, I lived in a hippie-type community in Pennsylvania. I smoked as many packs of cigarettes a day as I could get my hands on. Filtered or non-filtered, it didn't matter. When I ran out of cigarettes, I rolled my own with Blue Bugler, the cheapest package tobacco you could by at that time. I looked physically fit, but every morning, I woke up congested with phlegm and I could not walk up a flight of stairs without stopping several times to catch my breath.
One day, while I cleaned a bushel of cherries, a friend stopped by and left an unopened, fresh pack of Pall Malls on the table. Normally, I would consider this like found money, a rare and glorious event. But for no obvious reason, I had no desire to smoke and never opened the pack. After that day even the smell of tobacco was revolting to me. I remained baffled by this dramatic release that was not achieved through any effort on my part. However, I continued to smoke pot.
A few years later, we settled down in New Jersey. My husband worked hard at two jobs and I worked for a major airline. We had a new house, bought a new car and both daughters attended a good school. We traveled often and stayed at the best hotels, all practically for free, because of my job benefits. But in fact, I drank too much, smoked dope and struggled with my inability to stop. Thinking clearly was getting harder for me, even when I wasn’t high. Then at one point, whether I was at home or at work, I could not seem to control sudden bursts of tears. I was deeply depressed, believing that there was no real meaning to life, just a succession of disappointments and painful events. The evening I secretly considered suicide, my husband said, "Jesus Christ is the answer." Incredibly, for a moment, the pain stopped. I wanted to know more about this Jesus, but he just said, " you know" and left the room. I wondered what this meant, and asked God if He was real to make Himself real to me.
The next morning, I got up with a new feeling of expectancy. At work, I spotted a hand-written sign: "Jesus" on someone’s desk. After I introduced myself to the lady sitting at the desk she patiently answered all my questions about Jesus. She also told me about a promiscuous, young woman, who had been in a mental hospital eight times with nervous breakdowns. When I asked her what happened to this unhappy, angry woman, she told me that she was the woman before she asked Christ to take over her life and make her a new person. As I looked into her kind face and observed her crisp, professional appearance, I became excited. If God could do that for her, He could help me too! At lunchtime, in the cafeteria, she asked me if I wanted to accept God’s gift of eternal life. We prayed together, and I eagerly accepted the Lord Jesus as my Savior!
That night, I sat at my vanity table looking in a drawer filled with "tops," the most potent part of the marijuana plant. With newborn faith, I told God that I couldn't’t free myself from this addiction and simply asked Him to help me. Softly I "heard" in my spirit, "Go ahead, roll a joint and smoke it," I was surprised, but without hesitation, I rolled one, took a deep drag, waited and then I laughed. The pot, as potent as it was, significantly decreased my sense of well being! This thrilled and amazed me. I thought, " I felt more elated and at peace before I smoked. So why would I do anything that would " bring me down?"
Thanking God for His gift of deliverance, I knew it that as long as I trusted the Lord to keep me clean, He would. If I chose to relapse, He wouldn’t interfere but somehow I sensed that the following addiction would be even more destructive than previously.
A couple of days later, my husband bought a bottled of our favorite white wine. Suspiciously watching me since my spiritual conversion, he was not sure if he like this "new" person. For one thing, I had always been his "party buddy". After I stopped "getting high" my memory improved immediately as well as my peace of mind and I didn’t want to drink. I dreaded a confrontation, but God whispered in my spirit again," Just go along with him." A scripture came to mind about winning the unbelieving husband without a word (I Peter 3:1).
My husband poured us each a glass of wine, but in the morning both glasses were still full on the kitchen counter with the half-full bottle of wine. We talked and laughed the night before and forgot all about drinking. This had never happened before. We always drank a whole bottle at the time. I thank God that I haven’t had or craved an alcoholic drink or any drug since then, over 23 years ago.
