I gave my life to Christ in 1972. Shortly after I married a man who went to the same catholic high school I graduated from. My new husband seemed to honor my decision to change my faith. However, the economy seemed to be slowing down and my husband could not keep work so he called his brothers in California and they encouraged him to come there for work in the movie industry. In 1975 we moved to North Hollywood California and my husband started work at Universal Studio. Then slowly but surely he started into drugs and drinking. My walk with the Lord started diminishing. In 1978 after six years of marriage the Lord blessed us with a little baby girl. She was born with a heart condition. The many doctors and medical attention she needed seemed to pull my husband and I apart more than bring us together. Not to mention the drugs and alcohol. So when my daughter was one and a half years old my husband left for work one Friday and never returned. He had run off with a barmaid. For the first time in my life I was terrified and felt like such a failure as a wife. I wanted to die but my daughter needed me so I went on. However the same drugs that I hated my husband for doing suddenly looked very appealing to me. I started using cocaine saying that I needed it to stay awake to take care of the baby. I justified having wine at night to help me go to sleep. It is amazing how quickly I was on that roller coaster ride and didn’t even know how I got there. I hired a nanny to take care of my daughter so I could work more hours and drink and use drugs without worrying about her well being. This went on until my daughter was four and a half years old. She was now in preschool and since the nanny didn’t drive I took her to school. One morning after I had pulled my self back to bed from that porcelain throne I seemed to visit more and more each day. My daughter came in my room and asked if I was going to take her to school. I said “I’m sorry honey, mommy just isn’t feeling very well today” at which point she looked into my eyes with her little face and said “mommy this just isn’t fair”. It was like she took a knife and cut my heart out. It was at that moment I knew she was right. She didn’t ask to be brought into the world to have an alcoholic and addict mother. I knew that day that I needed to stop. I wish I could say that I stopped that day and never used again but that would be a lie. It was then that I tried to quit only to find out I couldn’t. After many attempts and promises to myself, God, and my daughter, I became hopeless with despair at the thought of ever stopping this way of life. Shortly I became suicidal and planned what seemed to be a great idea. I would just do as many drugs as fast as I could and have a heart attack and die. After all, my daughter was right she didn’t deserve this kind of mother and she would be better off without me. One thing I did not plan was that someone would find me and rush me to the hospital. It was in that hospital that night that the Lord put this annoying intern in the emergency room with me. He kept saying things like “you know you don’t have to do this anymore”. There are people struggling with cocaine addiction just like you and together they are staying sober. Of course, I kept telling him to shut up and that I wanted to die, and if he only knew what a bad person I was he would leave me alone to die, but he kept on with planting the seed of hope. The hospital made me go to thirty days of drug therapy. God saved my life through that therapist. She convinced me to check into a rehab hospital on December 21st, 1983. It was there that my life clean and sober began. I don’t know if it was the laughter I heard in those meeting rooms or the honesty shared there that gave me a new hope, but just maybe I could do this thing called sobriety. Maybe God could forgive me for all those horrible things I had done behind drugs and alcohol. I started to search for my lost faith. I believe that’s why one of my favorite scriptures is Matthew 7:8 “For everyone who asks, receives, everyone who seeks, finds. And the door is opened to everyone who knocks”. When I was five years sober I remarried and had a great life together with my husband and daughter until 1994 when the Northridge earthquake destroyed our home. My husband began drinking again the next day. He hid his drinking from me for months and then his drug use. We separated after he refused to go get help and became violent behind his drug and alcohol use. We divorced a year later and even though we divorced I hoped for a reunion but instead in 1999 he committed suicide. It was one of the most difficult times of my life. My best friend had taken his life and all hope of a life with him vanished. My pastor at the time insisted that I get involved with leading a women’s recovery meeting at our church. I am glad he guided me to stay so close to Christ in recovery. It saved my life in those dark days. For the next four years I became very involved in the recovery ministry at my church. The Lord blessed this ministry and through my willingness to give back what was so freely given me my life began to heal. My walk with the Lord only got stronger and stronger. God blessed me with a trip to Israel which made my bible come to life. I started to share what the Lord had been doing in my life with co-workers and friends. One of those friends is now my wonderful husband. I happened to be at a meeting and was talking about the Christ based recovery program I was involved in when my long time friend Tom said he wanted to do that at his church. Little did I know that a year later I would not only marry that man but be facilitating a Celebrate Recovery program at our home church! This program has only made my walk with the Lord stronger than before. It not only helped my sobriety but my new marriage. The scriptures are full of amazing answers for any hurt, habit, or hang up. I have worked all twelve steps and continue to apply the eight principles of the beatitudes to my walk with the Lord on a daily basis. I wouldn’t trade one day of my new life for any part of my old life. Jesus has saved me and until He takes me home to be with Him I will never stop carrying the message of His love and mercy to anyone who suffers. I will close with one of my favorite scriptures Galatians 6:9 “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”