Abuser Of Alcohol And Drugs example essay topic

Why Thirst John 4: 13 states "Jesus answered, Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life". Why Thirst grew up in a church congregation that taught of God's vengeance and not of God's love. I spent the majority of my pre-teen, teen and adult years in fear of God. In fear of what would happen when I sinned. And of course I did sin.

Instead of asking God for forgiveness for what I deemed unforgivable sins, I figured in my own mind, that since I was going to Hell, I might as well continue to sin. Today, I will share with you my life choices, my life circumstances and the plan that God had all along for my life to serve him. I Thirsted The summer before I went to fifth grade, my family moved. I was taken out of my comfort zone with my friends I had since before kindergarten and moved to an unknown. My Mom and Dad wanted me to be in a better school and since my mother worked for the Board of Education, she knew the school system she wanted me to be in. The neighborhood we had just moved to had just begun to be segregated.

That year I was called the "N" word for the first time and really the only time I could think of. I did find a friend before school started. This friend and my choice to remain her friend would begin to mold my life early on. The funny thing is the harder I try, I cannot seem to remember my "friends" name. She moved within the first year of my being there and besides I have a horrible memory.

We played with each other over the summer and went to school in the fall. Within the first week one of the "popular" girls told me that if I continued to be friends with this girl, I could not be in the crowd because they did not like this girl. I selected friendship over popularity and this affected my self esteem for the rest of my school years. The popular people begin avoiding me and out and out calling me names. They would taunt me telling me how ugly I was, how my face was filled with pimples, how I was smelly, how I looked like a giraffe, and so on.

My self esteem took a nose dive. I began to let them dictate how I felt about myself. I am an only child; I was shunned at school and only had one friend through elementary school. That's about the time I began to yearn for a family, for someone to love me for me and for children to love me because I had never learned to love myself. I wanted for my children what I never had, to be beautiful, to be popular and to be smart. I held on to this fantasy world throughout high school.

Since I was so unpopular, I dated older men. They were the only ones who found me attractive. When the first relationship failed with an older man (because I was young and a virgin), my self esteem took another nosedive. I was in love with him but he turned away for an older woman (better suited for his age) and I was devastated. I decided that the way to grow up was to stop being a virgin. I did and ended up pregnant at 18 and given a choice to have an abortion (which I do not believe in); move out and take care of my child (which I was not mature enough for) or get married (which I figured was the lesser of the evils.

I chose marriage. John 19: 29 A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they socked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus' lips. The drink of the world had finally got what I prayed for, a husband and a child. I knew that I was going to do good with this as this is what I had wanted for the majority of my life.

I will tell you that this particular husband was not what I wanted particularly. I had made the choice given my circumstances and did not love him as I should have but was content to make the best of it. When I joined my husband in Las Vegas (he was military) things went pretty smoothly for a few weeks. The physical abuse began over a trivial thing involving me not mailing and envelope for him to his mother. It worsened over the time I was there with him (3 months) in all to the point that I had to have the military police escort me to the airlines to come home.

When he tried to follow and find me (after having been dishonorable discharged), he was convicted of gang rape and spent 20+ years in prison. I still thirsted for a family. Husband #2 was another brief stint. We were married and together for approximately 3 months. He was physically abusive and bisexual.

Our marriage was annulled and I do not know where he ended up. I took another sip of the water of the world when I married husband #3. I married him because I was appreciative of what he had done for me. My daughter and I and a good friend of mine was living in a really beaten down house. I was dirt poor and depressed. I was drinking and partying.

Husband #3 had just lost his mother when I met him and we helped each other through the pain. Not the right way (Jesus) but all the wrong ways through alcohol abuse and sexual misconduct. When I was evicted from my house, I was homeless for a time. Husband #3 stayed with me through my homelessness and eventually found a home for us. There was a rift with my mother at the time (my fault) and I ended up pregnant again. We had two children and I decided to get married to him to appease my mother and do the right thing.

He was an alcoholic and I was an abuser of alcohol and drugs at that time. God never allowed me to be an addict but I was an abuser. Husband #3 began to become abusive, not as physical as the other relationships but still abusive. I began to have affairs and hang out in clubs. On one such occasion (clubbing), I was gang raped. Another blow to my fragile self esteem.

My husband and I departed ways and he is now a member of a good Christian congregation and a deacon in his church. He is remarried and happy now. God is really working in his life. I ended up moving out of town in the late 80's.

I started to establish myself and gain some self esteem. I was in my late 20's and began my college career in the early 90's. I had moved to Kentucky with a man I was living with and who for the first year was never abusive to me. When he began to get further and further into drugs, he became abusive. We parted too and I had met a man who would be husband #4. Husband #4 was not abusive to me.

He was abusive to himself. He was a drug addict and turned further and further inside himself to the point that he was not taking care of himself mentally, physically or even with any hygiene practices. I was determined to make this marriage work and even though I knew it was broken, I was going to keep going. During this time in Kentucky, I joined a Church that would become my life-saving experience. I would become a born-again Christian even though I had been baptized at a young age.

This Church taught of God's love and his mercy. This church taught the true meaning of Christianity. Even though I was still young in my faith life and still doing the things of the world, I knew that God loved me. Even though I was still into drugs (cocaine was the choice at this time) and I was on drugs during church and singing in the choir, I was learning about God's forgiving nature. God was showing me that even though I did not love myself; even though I thirsted for what the World was bringing me that he had a drink that would never leave me thirsty again.

I thank God for bringing me in at the right time. But I still had a long way to go. We eventually moved to Indianapolis and I still sought out good churches. I was still a believer but still doing some things of the world. My husband and I relationship was doing much better. He had stopped the drug use for a time and had gotten a good job but things began to slide again.

He was accused of sexual misconduct on the job (this was the second time - the first time he was accused was in Kentucky and was fired from that job as well). He began the drug use again and got hooked. He was depressed and manipulative. My daughter would tell me some years later how he exposed himself to her and came on to her sexually. During this time my mother was also getting sicker. She had an advanced case of Parkinson's disease.

One evening I returned home to find all of my husband's belongings packed and by the door much to my surprise. I begged him and begged him to stay but he would not. He left and I sank into a deep depression. I tried to figure what was wrong with me that I could not keep anyone and no one loved me. I started playing the tapes from my school life and I just figured out that my life was not worth living. I tried to commit suicide.

I took a bottle of prescription pain pills along with a good amount of alcohol and waited to die. During the middle of the night, God woke me up with a desire to use the restroom. I was disappointed that I was not dead but I tried to get up to go to the bathroom. I was so drugged up that I had to roll off the couch and crawl into the bathroom. God then purged my system of all the drugs I had placed there. The next morning, I was okay but still pretty ill.

But the devil wasn't through with me yet. That day, I was sexually molested by a relative during one of the lowest and most vulnerable points of my life. For months after that day, I prayed for God to take my life (it was the devil working in me). I would wake up each morning depressed and angry with God that I had lived. I would carry this anger in me for a long time and it would begin to affect me on what I did.

I began to be lifted from the depression and decided to throw myself into my career. I would never depend on anyone else again for my happiness but would do what I knew I could do and that was my job. I also kept up in the Church because I did believe in God's love but I never thought I was good enough for it. I still thirsted As I continued to do my job and study God's word, I still realized that I had a thirst for a family life. I was still sexually immoral and I wanted to be bonded with someone so that I could not sin that way anymore. I figured that if I sought the spouse first and as Christians we both were to worship, I would be made whole.

I did not follow Matthew 6: 33 "But seek ye first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well". I thirsted after the family and spouse that I wanted before I thirsted after God's word. I became involved in the Church to a higher degree in the late 90's. I was in the choir, I was a Sunday school teacher and I was on the committee to get my Pastor elected as Bishop in the AME Church. I was a steady worker and I began to get deeper into God's word. I was doing good work with the Church and with my job.

I was trying my best to raise my young boys (my daughter had since graduated high school and moved back to Kentucky). My boys were teenagers and were surrounded with the worldly ways and easily influenced. The devil knows what your weaknesses are. During the time when my boys were in and out of the juvenile court system, I met Husband #5.

What a charmer. He was a bible carrying, Christian speaking man who I knew was a blessing from God. We were married five months after we met. Three days after we were married the mental and verbal abuse began; Three months after we were married the physical abuse began. I was so angry that I lashed out at him and mentally was abusive to him as well.

Both of us were affected with things that had gone on in our past that were never resolved but pushed under the table just waiting to come out. We were both adulterous and unstable. We did a lot of damage to our relationship both being Christians and both knowing better. We divorced but are trying to get back together if it is in God's will. Throughout my life, God had been calling me into the ministry.

I put him off so many times. I am not sparkly enough, I have a dry wit, and I'll just get up and talk in circles. I do not deserve and cannot teach what I have not fully grasped. God would tell me that my life of abuse and where he has bought me would be a witness to others to bring them to him. I was to be used to help bring broken women into his fold and into his comforting arms. My ministry began when I wrote Husband #5 a letter about how God expects something in return and how we as Christians who are made in God's image should expect something in return as well.

I sent a copy of this letter to a Bishop in Florida who preached a sermon about this. Then God lead me to his word Psalms 5: 3 "In the morning, O Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation". I then began an avid reading of the bible and to understand his word. My life is still being attacked by Satan on a daily basis but I have the spirit of Discernment and pray away Satan's attacks. Because I know it is not about me but it is about God and it is the Lord's battle. I am human and I will continue to be hurt when Satan attacks me, but I know to turn it over to God and he will fight the battle for me as he has done all of my life even when I tried to fight him myself.

John 19: 30: "When he had received the drink, Jesus said, "It is finished". With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit". When I realized that the battle was not mine to fight, I humbly gave up my earthly body and gave my spirit to the Lord. He is the sustainer of my faith. He alone is my weapon against Satan. He alone has and will keep my spirit whole.

You too can be filled Matthew 5: 6 "Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled". Whatever you have gone through, are going through, or will go through, you will be filled. Whenever you feel empty, know that God will fill your cup until it run neth over. Know that Goodness and Mercy will follow you all the days of your life and you will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

I this no longer.