Every Act of Creation is First an Act of Destruction #meth #drugabuse #redemption #recovery

 I wrote Innocent Blood to help me sort out the issues of drug addiction that happened in my own family. There is a mystical quote that goes out of chaos comes creation NOT opportunity which is what we usually hear. All I know is eventually peace comes. One way or another. The law of nature is one of survival. You can see it yourself when you watch a bird in flight or a storm creeping across a dry and barren land. Creation has many meanings: formation, foundation, initiation, fabrication, origination. In my life it is about redemption which allows the one to whom mercy is given a new life and a new beginning.

While Innocent Blood is fiction the emotions are not. They are very real and the healing that comes with time and recovery helps me face the future.  My husband and I lived with a drug addicted teenager and then again when the boy became a man. It is a hard path to walk. It is overwhelming to almost lose a child. It cuts to your very soul and as parents, we walked each step with him, felt his pain and his anguish. It created chaos between him and his wife and children who were left to drift and to wonder why.

It happens and sometimes to very good people.

Addiction, whether to food, drugs, alcohol or whatever, activates the pleasure centers in the human brain.  As long as the addiction is fed the brain is happy. But the brain wants more and the pleasure center turns into a greedy monster that will stop at nothing to find the good feelings it seeks. It takes over and the addict will either find a way out of the addiction or the addiction will destroy lives or bring death.

There was a time I thought we were going to lose our son. We watched our child commit suicide right in front of us and there was nothing we could do to stop him. The helplessness generated is either faced and accepted or insanity will find you. We gave our lives to Christ and whether or not you believe in Him he is as real as anything gets.  That day our lives turned around. Am I saying that the only way to freedom from drug addiction is through Christ? I am saying that it was for me, for my family, and for our child. Do I believe that all drug addicts will be saved if they give their lives to Christ? I have no idea. I am still new to this. It's only been five years, yet we have witnessed the miraculous happen.

Our son gave his testimony at church last Friday at Celebrate Recovery in Grass Valley. As I sat there  watching him I realized he is a natural born speaker. Although he may be nervous inside, outside he appears very relaxed and calm. He talked about everything that had happened to him and yes, his father and I listened, understood, and accepted the part we played in his addiction. It wasn't easy, but it was worth it.

As we sat there, I flashed back on the first day I stepped into Twin Cities Church. I had absolutely no doubt that this recovery process would not work. I remembered imagining his wife and kids sitting next to us then my other kids all of us together on one pew. This vision of family unity was to my way of thinking clearly impossible. The other two siblings had given up on him.

Yet it happened.

The day of his testimony, I sat amazed watching our precious daughter-in-law embrace our son with arms filled with love and forgiveness. It was amazing to see our other son and daughter-in-law embrace him with tears on their faces. They had given up on him, yet here they were, here we were, a family again. What was even more amazing is that now, both our kids live just a few blocks from us and that we have the daily pleasure of being in our grandchildren's lives. What has happened since the day we fell on our knees is that life changed in a remarkable way.

During the bad times, my husband and I often wondered: How will our son survive? How will our family survive? 

Our family and our son have done more than survive--in fact--we have thrived. Do I honestly believe it has anything to do with Christ and His church? 

Yep, I do.

What struck me after my son's testimony was when they passed around the bucket for people to put money into.   No government money supports Celebrate Recovery at least as far as I could discover. The addicts support it. And their families and the people who hear about them and come to recognize their contribution to society. We have no support system for drug addicts to recover in our world. You can go to $30,000.00 treatment centers but their attrition rate is sky high.

Not so for Celebrate Recovery. They are phenomenal at helping addicts get and stay clean and their bucket has very little in it. Not much to keep them going at all.

On that note, I would like to ask for your help in support of the Celebrate Recovery community of Grass Valley. Even a dollar will help. I will donate all proceeds from my book Innocent Blood thru December 31, 2015 to this wonderful community. They really need a BBQ and some new chairs and tables and while the church loans them their room they need money for outreach. They have so little and yet what they do has far reaching effects.

I know people like to donate to their favorite charity during the holidays, but maybe for this one season, you might throw a little bit at Celebrate Recovery.

These people change lives.

The link is here or copy and paste here: gofundme.com/jw9mksfg

I hope you join me.