Dear Lisa,

Thank you for sharing these videos of this mans incredible testimony about how he become saved from hell. It meant a lot to me personally as I could relate to his story in many ways.

I quit drinking 3 weeks, 1 day ago. What helped me was prayer to come to that decision and it's helping me every day since I believe.

It really hurts to hear people run down and call people names who have addictions. I am going to put myself out there and share my story that led me on the path to my alcohol addiction for the first time because it will help me and maybe others.

Here it goes.....

I came from a broken home, my parents split up and divorced when I was 12 years old. I was the eldest of 4 children. When they split up, my mother took my 2 sisters and brother to another province and I stayed with my father. Given my age of 12, I was the only one that had a choice and made my decision because of not wanting to leave friends and my school at the time.

My father had a girlfriend who was only 10 years older then I was, this is what destroyed my parents marriage. She moved in with the 2 of us and I hated her. I blamed her for the break up of out family. What I did to cope was never be at home. I stayed at friends homes all the time, the ones that had good families with no drama. This worked for a while to get me by for a year or 2.

Then around 15 or 16 I started drinking, this was like a cure for me to block the pain, bitterness and resentment I had bottled up in for so long. I always felt like I was running away from things until the alcohol.

I should mention that when our family was together, we were church going Catholics every Sunday. My father was a policeman as well. Our family until the break up looked like a model to follow from the outside but from the inside both my parents were heavy drinkers. They fought since as far back as I can remember almost every time they drank.

Back to my story...

I drank and partied all my teen years and eventually began to get in trouble because of it from my father. I eventually moved to where my mother lived and my siblings.
Ran away from the pressure really. I started my life over and ended up working a full time job with an airline as a flight attendant. I thought I had finally figured things out for myself. I ended up living on my own and carrying on an okay life. I still drank but convinced myself it was the same as everyone else I knew.

Life brought me moving in a direction that I ended up marrying and having 2 beautiful daughters and a home. Things eventually became to crumble in my marriage over mistrust. I was convinced my husband was cheating and accused him of it all the time. I'm sure now it had to do deep down over what happened between my parents and what I witnessed. Eventually he did cheat and he confessed it during an argument. I still remember the look on his face when he said, I was always being accused of it, I might as well go through with it. I ended up taking our girls (2 and 5 yrs) and left him over it.

I moved to another city and met another man eventually who I am married to today, 24 years this April 16, Monday. I swore when I married this time it was for the long haul no matter what. We had a son together as well who will be 19 this August.

My drinking over the years just kept on going through all of this and escalating to the point where I was hiding it from people. I knew deep down it was wrong and stopped for a bit at times, this made it worse because I convinced myself I had control. After all my kids left home it was a relief sadly because I could drink anytime I wanted.

I was the type of drinker that would drink 2-3 glasses of wine daily for a while, then binge, just wasted to a black out stage where I'd get a 2-3 day hungover. These were my last days of drinking lately in the last couple of years.

3 weeks ago, on a Friday I was drinking vodka straight in a shooter glass along with wine. Partying with my son and his friends that came home. I was sooo sick Saturday morning that I prayed/cryed to God make me die or help me. I felt that bad. After I did that, I felt something stir in me, like a hatred for alcohol, just the thought if it disgusted me and here I am today, still feeling the same.

I hope this is it for me, please pray for me that it is because I'm terrified to go back. I hated living the lies and feel I can have a way better life.

Thanks for listening.

Kate

PS: I'm sorry if there was any grammar and spelling mistakes in this, I am pretty emotional at the moment. :(