Out of Control

Over the years Chuck and I partied a lot, he eventually quit drinking alcohol completely because it usually caused a big problem when we partied and we had both had too much alcohol.

But I didn't quit; in fact I got worse and sometime after Bo was born I had gained a good bit of weight. The new miracle diet pill was available, the little green and black beauty called Dexamyl, which was really nothing but an amphetamine. They were legal back then, and I got mine at the Navy Hospital, but they later became a street drug.

I started taking them and of course I began to drop the weight. At that time I had no idea how addictive they were. Mixing them with the alcohol I was consuming, my life soon spun out of control.

I became so addicted to the alcohol and the pills and soon I needed downers (barbiturates) because I would get so wired out, I would not eat or sleep for two or three days at a time, till my body crashed from exhaustion. It was a vicious cycle. I lost so much weight I was gaunt and I began to look like death warmed over.

I was so out of control of my life, and I knew I was, but I could not make myself stop. During the next eighteen months, I started seeing the Psychiatrist at the Navy Hospital and it didn't seem to help, and then I began seeing the Psychologist at the Mental Heath clinic.

Again it didn't seem to help and then I tried the Chaplin at the Navy Hospital. No help there either, can’t say it was anyone’s fault it just wasn't the right time.

Eventually Chuck reached his saturation point and he gave me quite an ultimatum.  He also gave me a week to think about what he said to me before giving him my answer.

He said, “I’m watching you die by degrees daily and I can’t stand it any longer, I love you more than anything in this world and I will do anything to help you get over this.

If I have to borrow money that it takes the rest of my life to pay back we’ll find help for you someplace; it’s either one life down the drain or four and I will not let you take me and the kids with you, and it's up to you to decide.”

In those days there was not a lot of help out there like there is now. There was AA, but the problem with that was me, from what I had heard I knew I could not stand up before strangers and talk. Many years later I did get involved in AA.

For the next week I was probably the most miserable person on the face of the earth. At this point in my life I had shut God out, and I was at the place I wondered if He was real or a myth. I soon discovered He is very real.

I will never forget it was on Wednesday night and Chuck had the duty, I put the kids to bed and I knew it would be a sleepless night for me. My concept of prayer was; if your speech was flowery enough, and "IF" there was a God he might hear you.

I tried some of those flowery speeches which didn't work, and I became so frustrated, so finally I just yelled out, “I don’t know how to pray so I’m just gonna talk to you, okay!” 

I have since come to understand this is prayer, just talking openly and honestly to Him about what is in your heart. My talk seemed to turn into a wrestling match for the next couple of hours.

At one point I was on my knees in the middle of my bed shaking my fist and yelling “I love my husband and children and I don’t want to lose them; I need your help like I’ve never needed help, and if you really exist I challenge you to reveal yourself to me in a way I can understand, because I don’t understand the mean God I always heard about.”

Suddenly wave after wave of pure peace began to wash through me, and I fell asleep and slept like a newborn baby. Two nights later I had a dream that changed my life forever, and I learned that LOVE is the greatest motivator in the entire universe.