My friends know me as a happy guy, always there with a smile and a handshake or a hug. They know me as a devoted husband and a loving father. They see the time I dedicate to my daughter and sons and many other kids in the community. My church friends hear my monthly children’s sermons and see the joy it brings me to help my wife teach Sunday School. My customers feel the warmth of my greeting and my sincere appreciation for their business. My neighbors know I always offer a smile and a wave as I maintain my house and tend to my lawn. They all know I am eager to help anytime they need a favor. They all know me. At least, they think they do.
None of them know the defining characteristic that almost destroyed it all – my marriage, my business, my reputation. No one knows the shameful secret that would eventually have killed me. No one knows I
Life is just one big list of priorities that starts with our highest priority like faith or family and dwindles down through the ranks to things that are decreasingly important to us such as paying bills or washing the car until there is no time or energy left and our lowest priorities, thing like reading junk mail or trimming our ear hair, are all but ignored. At the end of my drinking, alcohol held a very elevated place on my list of priorities second only to my closest family members that depend on me for survival. Everything and everyone else had slowly and over many years relinquished its place on my list of priorities to one of the deepest loves of my life – alcohol.
The morning after
My eyes blinked open. Before I could distinguish 3:07am from the blurry-red glow on my bedside table, a paralyzing wave of panic washed over me. A bucket of ice water thrown in my face would have been a more peaceful wakeup. Again! I had failed again! The Pit, as I called it, was more dark, deep, lonely, inescapable and depressing than ever. I had to start another week – another Monday morning – without a shred of pride or self esteem.