confessions in sobriety

hello my name is Stephanie Augustine

i am a recovering alcoholic.

i need you to know this, because it is part of who i was.

this is who i WAS, no longer who i am.

my soul was beaten up and bruised, so i self-medicated. i used. i used the people around me for emotional support. i used cigarettes to help me cope. i used shopping for therapy.

all this did was muffle the sounds of my dying soul. she wasn't dead yet, she was just alive for all the wrong reasons.

pain causes people to function in strange ways. instead of handling things we tend to try and hide it. we lie to ourselves that everything is ok. we try and pretend that all is well.

the harsh reality is that when i "cope" it is not dealing with anything. my form of coping gets me into debt, gives me cancer, and takes away my inhibitions. this is not living.

coping is not living in reality. coping turns into a circus show. reality still exists, but i'm to busy coping to see it.

yesterday i wanted a cig. it was all i could think of. why? well, it is what i have always run to when things get bumpy. get in a fight with my dad: smoke, break-up with another deadbeat guy: smoke, go to another custody hearing about my siblings: smoke, have to deal with the realities of myself...

yesterday i didn't smoke. i didn't drink. i didn't cope.

yesterday i hurt. i stepped into the dark tunnel that is the fear of hurting. i cried. i prayed. i learned something about the character of GOD. how he speaks. how i'm not content to hear it. i listened to someone who knows more about GOD than i can properly parrot. i went on an hour long walk and prayed for you. prayed for me.

still i am learning how to live free. this is a process. there are still dark desires in my soul. they still exist to show me that i am infinitely human. that i am in desperate need of a savior. that i could not be here by my own choice. i cannot be here by my own will.

coping never got me anything, except more hurt.

so when JESUS stepped in and changed my life, it wasn't that my desires are suddenly changed. it is that he is something i cannot re create on my own. he has brought me to a place that i could never get to. freedom is not something i can attain on my own. it is a place that i could never see, nor would i ever be able to impersonate.

today my life is different. i want you to know that this is bigger than just a coping mechanism.

Galatians 5:1
For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

i am free today. no longer a slave. no longer a user. this i will stand firm in. i will be intentional in staying here.