Parked each morning outside the liquor store.

I had these three little boys that needed all of me. I just couldn’t do it. (not sober). I hated Sunday because the liquor store wasn’t open. That is a terrible thing to say but it is the truth. By that time I was at the liquor store, I was in the parking lot just waiting for them to open so I could get a little bottle of vodka to pour into some sort of big gulp. That was how I coped. I would try to hide the vodka bottles so that when my husband came home he didn’t find them. I hid them when I had been drinking so I couldn’t remember where I hid them. So, my two-year-old, at one point, brought me a bottle of vodka. He said; “Here’s your drinking bottle mommy.” That was just gut-wrenching. When I went to visit my kids, I had to have a little bit of vodka and I remember my husband telling me; “You’re just a waste of space.” I said; “You’re right, I am.” He was screaming and yelling at me and my son, (my oldest son) was trying to protect me and he got in the middle of it. I hit my knees. I didn’t know what else to do. I hit my knees in the kitchen at that house and I just said; “God, do something. If you are real, help me.” That was all I said because I didn’t want to drink anymore. I hated it. It was awful. It tasted awful. The feeling was awful but it made me numb because I did not know how to handle what I was feeling. Well, I didn’t expect things to get worse after asking God to help me but they did. My husband and I got into another argument and I had been drinking. I had been being yelled at. My children were crying. My son had called the police. When the police got there I went to jail for eight days while I waited for a bed at Teen Challenge of the Mid-South in Chattanooga. I thought, well anything is better than jail. Anything’s got to be better than jail. If I have got to go study the Bible then that’s what I will do. I had no idea to what extent that I would study the Bible and I had no idea that I would be taught how to walk with the Lord and I certainly didn’t expect to meet God there. I didn’t expect to have an encounter with the living God. I certainly didn’t expect, certainly didn’t expect for Him to find me worthy enough because He was perfect and blameless. I was everything but perfect and blameless. I have not had an urge to drink since the day I walked into Teen Challenge. I used to hear stories about deliverance and that God is a God of deliverance. I was like; “What does that mean?” I thought deliverance was a Clint Eastwood movie. I didn’t know. But I truly have experienced the grace of God and what deliverance is. I have not had a craving since I walked through those doors. When the stress comes and the urges to handle something on my own come, I pray. I pray constantly. I ask God what I am supposed to wear every day because I cannot make decisions on my own because when I do it on my own, I make a mess out of it. But with God guiding me, I do great.