Drinking Was the "Check Engine Light" of my Soul
When it comes to drinking, some people never quit until abstinence comes to them in the grave. Yet God sends us all a healthy way out. He gives us a chance. Nevertheless, "... many are called but, few are chosen." (Matthew 22:14)
Why are few chosen? What does that mean? M. Scott Peck in The Road Less Traveled offers this explanation:
"As is common with grace, most reject this gift and do not heed the message. They do this in a variety of ways, all of which represent an attempt to avoid the responsibility for their illness."
God gave me chance after chance to give up drinking, but I always came up with an excuse to relapse. The A.A. Big Book, in a personal testimony on page 293, observes, "I didn't want to drink that day but I took no action to insure against it. You see, I believe that we get more than one 'moment of grace' from God -- but it is up to us to seize the moment by taking action."
Dr. Peck wrote that some, including most of us alcoholics, try to ignore the symptoms of our disease by pretending they are not really symptoms. We try to work around them "by pain-killers, by little pills they've gotten from the doctor (Ever heard of the opioid epidemic?), or by anesthetizing themselves with alcohol and other drugs."
All this because we ignore our illness and the symptoms that accompany it. Illness and symptoms are not the same thing. The illness (character defects, emotional scars, etc.) comes before the symptoms (drinking, drugging, mental illness).
"Rather than being the illness, the symptoms are the beginning of its cure. The fact they are unwanted makes them all the more a phenomenon of grace -- a gift of God, a message from the unconscious, if you will, to initiate self-examination and repair."
Wow! Nailed me! I was ill and didn't know it until my addiction to alcohol told me "Whoa, Nellie!" Time to reassess my inner self.
By doing so I found God, accepted His gift of grace, and became a more loving, caring soul ready to accept God's will for me. Drinking was the "check engine light" of my soul. I thank God for that warning.
Why are few chosen? What does that mean? M. Scott Peck in The Road Less Traveled offers this explanation:
God gave me chance after chance to give up drinking, but I always came up with an excuse to relapse. The A.A. Big Book, in a personal testimony on page 293, observes, "I didn't want to drink that day but I took no action to insure against it. You see, I believe that we get more than one 'moment of grace' from God -- but it is up to us to seize the moment by taking action."
Dr. Peck wrote that some, including most of us alcoholics, try to ignore the symptoms of our disease by pretending they are not really symptoms. We try to work around them "by pain-killers, by little pills they've gotten from the doctor (Ever heard of the opioid epidemic?), or by anesthetizing themselves with alcohol and other drugs."All this because we ignore our illness and the symptoms that accompany it. Illness and symptoms are not the same thing. The illness (character defects, emotional scars, etc.) comes before the symptoms (drinking, drugging, mental illness).
"Rather than being the illness, the symptoms are the beginning of its cure. The fact they are unwanted makes them all the more a phenomenon of grace -- a gift of God, a message from the unconscious, if you will, to initiate self-examination and repair."
Wow! Nailed me! I was ill and didn't know it until my addiction to alcohol told me "Whoa, Nellie!" Time to reassess my inner self.
By doing so I found God, accepted His gift of grace, and became a more loving, caring soul ready to accept God's will for me. Drinking was the "check engine light" of my soul. I thank God for that warning.
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