Reframe Your Shame: 7-Day Prayer GuideChikamu

The Difficult Conversation You’re Avoiding

Opportunities for growth and change line the road to recovery. Usually, a loved one will ask the right question or plead with us to get the help we need. But when we are thinking with an addict brain, it is hard to listen during these conversations, much less respond in a way that fosters change. For example, on several occasions, people asked if I was willing to give up or cut back on alcohol. My response was a simple no. Over the course of a year, none of my counselors or close family friends could convince me to give up alcohol. I would try to drink less, and I could stop for periods of time, but when I drank again, I was back to the same place in blackout city. Many people rationalize they don’t have a problem, just like I did, because we convince ourselves that since we can stop for periods of time, it must mean we have it under control. We are deceiving ourselves.

Then there was the last straw with Jimmy.

“I can’t take it anymore, Irene! You have got to get help! You have a problem!” Jimmy yelled. He could no longer contain his anger toward me and the deep-seated hate he felt for the craziness I was causing our family.

“How can you choose alcohol over me? Our children?” He begged me to stop drinking, and he explained to me that he couldn’t and wouldn’t allow my obsession with alcohol to run our lives anymore.

“If you do not go to rehab, it will be the end of our marriage.” This broke me. Again, I thought, How could he do this to me? My mind had me believing he was the enemy.

I had no idea my trip to Ohio to talk to Jennifer about my next steps would radically change the trajectory of my life. Jennifer and her husband, Jim, were longtime friends whom Jimmy and I agreed would be our safe couple that we could share anything with. In the safety of my friend and her home, Jennifer asked me important questions. “How do you feel about the state of where your life and marriage are?” She listened intently. She cried with me when I described my inner turmoil and the pain I was experiencing.

She confronted my crazy-making, irrational thoughts, false beliefs, and blame-shifting lovingly, not in a harsh or angry way. She asked me open-ended questions to force me to say out loud how unmanageable things were in my life. Hearing her say back to me what I was expressing helped me let down my guard a bit. I did sound a bit crazy; I admit it!

As I sit and ponder what impacted me most in our conversations and created a turning point in my life, a few things stand out. Jennifer had empathy toward my pain. She reminded me of God’s love for me and that God wanted to heal me (James 5:15). Jennifer specifically was the one who reminded me of God’s promises of forgiveness. She said, “If you seek forgiveness from Jimmy, your family, and the kids, you will get forgiveness from them too. You made a commitment to God through your marriage vows. You can’t give up on that now. Remember the days when you weren’t drinking and how you felt Jimmy’s and the kids’ love for you? You can have that again. But if you choose not to get help, you stand to lose that.”

Finally, she reminded me of how the treacherous arguing at home over my drinking had reached a tipping point, impacting our children deeply.

Through this conversation I really didn’t want to have, the truth was beginning to sink in: I needed help. It was right in front of me all along.

“So what are you willing to do? Stay the same and lose everything, or give up something you love [alcohol] for something you love more, your family?” Jennifer didn’t speak after asking me that question, and the room was silent for what seemed like hours.

The addictive cycle is subtle until it’s urgent, my friend. One minute you are drinking or using a substance, person, or thing for fun or relief, and the next thing you know it has developed into something you feel you need in order to survive and cope. For me, it was as if I added alcohol back to my life, and then I blinked, and suddenly I was faced with an ultimatum from my husband and had hit rock bottom. The consequences were urgent, and my response and decision to change my behaviors would ultimately determine the course of the rest of my life, for the better or for the worse. Thank God I chose better and got help.

Second Corinthians 4:8–9 promises, “We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. We are hunted down but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed” (NLT). Troubles will come from all directions, and we may feel helpless to control the outcome of our situations. But God promises that we will not be crushed or defeated by the enemy. Because God loves us, He will never abandon us. We don’t have to despise the past or look back on it with regret. We can become thankful for our struggles and our crises, no matter how painful, because without them, we never would have found our strength or experienced the grace and mercies of God in our lives.

Prayer Guide

• Thank our Father God for the family and friends in your life.

• Ask Jesus to show you the hard conversations you need to have in your life.

• Request that He give you the opportunity and the words.

• Ask Jesus to lead you to Scripture that will help you identify changes He wants you to make in life.

• Seek the peace and direction that comes from reading and meditating on God’s Word.

Prayer for You

Father, Thank You for friends and family who are willing to have difficult discussions. They are a gift from You. The choices and the consequences of those choices can be hurtful—even destructive—to those we love. May we be open to listening to those we love even in the midst of our struggles. Lead us to Your Word as we seek to change our lives and become healthy for our families. We love You, and we commit our loved ones to You. We commit ourselves to You. We want to be used by You and ask that You would help us to embrace all that You have planned for us. Amen.