The importance of trusting God for healing & recovery

[Saint of Light]

I decided to create this thread to report on my recovery journey with God and encourage others who are suffering with addictions. Maybe you’re like me and deal with alcoholism and nicotine addiction, or perhaps it’s some other form of addiction that is afflicting your life. Here I am going to share how God is actively helping me recover from alcohol abuse, and how he is going to help me get off the smokeless tobacco addiction immediately after my alcohol detox is complete.

I’ve been an alcoholic on and off for quite a few years now, but during the last two years it became much worse. The other week I got some blood work results back from my primary doctor. She reported that my blood sugar level was at 6.2 (it needs to be 6.5 to be considered diabetes), and that my heavy drinking was responsible for these elevated numbers. Two years ago on my last report, though, showed my blood sugar level was at 4.5, which was totally normal and actually quite good considering that I’m massively overweight. The pre-diabetes and rise in alcohol consumption correlates strongly with my heavy drinking over the past two years, so the test results were essentially a wake-up call from God to never drink again.

I got my Librium prescription recently. It’s an alcohol-specific detox pill that gets you through the pain of withdrawals. I was given a 6-day supply of it (since a 30-day supply could harm my liver), and it has worked wonders so far: I’ve completely stopped drinking, and there was no misery from withdrawal because the pill is designed to get you through it painlessly.

I haven’t finished completely detoxing. It’s also important to go to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, which is basically group therapy for alcohol recovery with a sort of religious theme (although not specific to any one particular religion), after my detox is finished to avoid any potential relapse. Mind you, I’m absolutely positive that I never want to drink again, and part of me feels like I don’t need the meetings considering my sincere pledge to be alcohol-free forever; but if I can get encouragement to stay clean and it helps just a tiny little bit, then it will be well-worth going.

I’ve also been a smokeless tobacco addict for ten years now, having quit off and on from time to time during the last decade. I dip either the long-cut or pouches, but preferably the pouches because they don’t make such a mess. I bought some of those Nicoderm patches from Walgreens the other day, and let me tell you, these patches work wonders for people who have a hard time quitting nicotine. A Danish study demonstrated that 36% of all people who used the nicotine patches were able to successfully get rid of their addiction. However, it should be noted that roughly 30% of participants in the same study who received the placebo patch without any nicotine whatsoever were still able to quit as well, suggesting a very strong placebo effect.

As soon as my alcohol detox is complete, I’m going to tackle the nicotine addiction with the patches, and God is going to help me get through it. Admittedly the cold turkey option is “safer,” and I have been able to quit cold turkey before and stay off of it for quite some time, but my own experiences with quitting have taught me that using the patches will result in success much easier—I don’t want to disappoint myself if I fail at the cold turkey method. Basically, the nicotine patches take the head pain levels from withdrawal from ‘extremely intolerable’ to ‘sort of intolerable but bearable.’ I use the 14 mg patch, worn only during the day and not at night, and after 11 days pass I feel completely normal.

If you’re trying to quit something too, it’s always important to pray about it frequently and get help from God, help from sources (like AA meetings), and whatever help you can get. God does not want his believers to be oppressed by addictions. If you have quit an addiction in the past, maybe you can share your testimony on this thread to encourage other people who want to quit alcoholism, nicotine addiction, or some other addiction.

 

[marks]

If you have quit an addiction in the past, maybe you can share your testimony on this thread to encourage other people who want to quit alcoholism, nicotine addiction, or some other addiction.

I started drinking at 14, and by 15 I was drinking all day every day. When I was 26, I went to the "Schick Center" which was then at a local hospital. It worked exactly as they planned, and I never had another drink since, nor did I miss it or crave it.

Schick Center Treats Addiction

I started smoking at 15, and it must have been in my late 30's, after a year of cough-cough, I bought a box of nicotine gum, and stopped smoking. By the time I finished the box, I was done with it.

Praise God for your journey! I pray He deliver you from every evil thing!!

Much love!

 

[Chains Broken]

I’m going to tackle the nicotine addiction with the patches, and God is going to help me get through it. Admittedly the cold turkey option is “safer,” and I have been able to quit cold turkey before and stay off of it for quite some time, but my own experiences with quitting have taught me that using the patches will result in success much easier—I don’t want to disappoint myself if I fail at the cold turkey method. Basically, the nicotine patches take the head pain levels from withdrawal from ‘extremely intolerable’ to ‘sort of intolerable but bearable.’ I use the 14 mg patch, worn only during the day and not at night, and after 11 days pass I feel completely normal.

I hope your quitting goes well. You can also try getting tobacco/nicotine free dip and mixing it in with whatever you normally dip (I guess it wouldn't work with pouches), and over time decreasing the amount of real dip until it's all nicotine/tobacco free. I've tried brands like Smokey Mountain and they aren't too bad.

 

[Saint of Light]

I hope your quitting goes well. You can also try getting tobacco/nicotine free dip and mixing it in with whatever you normally dip (I guess it wouldn't work with pouches), and over time decreasing the amount of real dip until it's all nicotine/tobacco free. I've tried brands like Smokey Mountain and they aren't too bad.

Years ago, my mom bought me something called Jake’s Chew to help me quit. It’s an herbal long-cut dip that doesn’t contain any nicotine. I tried it, and yeah, I had the sensation of ‘tobacco’ in my mouth, but unfortunately it didn’t give me any relief from the extreme withdrawal head pain. The pouches are made with fine-cut dip, and it does seem like a good idea to mix it with the herbal stuff to get used to less and less of it. I probably should have tried that.

Alternatively there is something called snus, which is a type of tobacco product (but not actual tobacco) from Sweden. Most (but not all) of their brands generally have lower nicotine content than American dips, and the pouches are like half the size, sometimes even a quarter of the size. Using Swedish snus is another good idea for weaning off nicotine little by little.

For me, though, the patches have worked like a miracle. I wear the 14 mg patch for 11 days only during the daytime. They instruct you to wear it at night, but this doesn’t make sense to me: If I’m asleep and not able to feel the withdrawals, why add all that extra nicotine into my body? When I wake up on morning of day 12, I feel no horrible withdrawal sensations, no head pain, and no out of control rage. It’s as if I had never been a nicotine user. (Yeah, I get that it can take three months for your body and brain chemistry to return to a state of a non-nicotine user, the first month being the most significant for recovery, but here I’m talking exclusively about the withdrawal pains.) Mind you, the 11 day withdrawal period on the 14 mg patch is no cakewalk, but like I said, the patch makes the pain levels go from ‘horribly intolerable’ to ‘painful but bearable’, or something like that.

 

[Saint of Light]

I started drinking at 14, and by 15 I was drinking all day every day. When I was 26, I went to the "Schick Center" which was then at a local hospital. It worked exactly as they planned, and I never had another drink since, nor did I miss it or crave it.

Schick Center Treats Addiction

I started smoking at 15, and it must have been in my late 30's, after a year of cough-cough, I bought a box of nicotine gum, and stopped smoking. By the time I finished the box, I was done with it.

Praise God for your journey! I pray He deliver you from every evil thing!!

Much love!

I want to become a non-drinker in the worst possible way, and admittedly I envy the fact that you were able to become one. When I have more money in the future, I thought about going to an in-house recovery center in case I need the tools to stay off alcohol for the rest of my life. Certainly it won’t be a cakewalk. But most of those places are expensive, particularly the reliable ones that don’t contain criminals who are court-ordered to be there. Was it well worth the expense in your opinion? And how many months did you stay?

 

[marks]

I want to become a non-drinker in the worst possible way, and admittedly I envy the fact that you were able to become one. When I have more money in the future, I thought about going to an in-house recovery center in case I need the tools to stay off alcohol for the rest of my life. Certainly it won’t be a cakewalk. But most of those places are expensive, particularly the reliable ones that don’t contain criminals who are court-ordered to be there. Was it well worth the expense in your opinion? And how many months did you stay?

Here's the rest of the story.

I was called into the office at work after my boss discovered it wasn't water I was drinking at my desk, it was Schnapps. He was going to fire me. It took me about 2 seconds to read my future, being fired for drinking on the job wasn't going to improve my prospects.

I knew our insurance would cover rehab, so I asked if I could instead take a leave of absence to stop drinking. The Schick Center, then at Long Beach Memorial Hospital, offered a 10 day plus 2 weekends program, and I went. They use aversion therapy. It was a nightmarish process of taking Emetine, which causes nausea and vomiting, then drinking an increasing number of "drinks" (2 oz of liquor in 8 oz of warm water), then puking for a while, laying sick for the rest of the day in bed surrounded by booze soaked rags.

I was so bad off, they had to wait an extra day for me to detox. Then they added another day of treatment to make sure.

This was 1986. The total bill came to $14,700. My copay was only $1150. It was worth every penny.

When I returned to work, they had given my job (shipping warehouse mgr) to someone else, and were going to put me as press helper, so I quit. But I never touched a drop again.

Much love!

 

[Raccoon1010]

My problem is schizophrenia. I don't really want to explain as it is personal and virtually no one understands that disease and everyone's is different since every brain is different. Advice about schizophrenia from forums is the worst.

Glad you are all having success with your addictions. God can and does help to overcome addictions.

 

[Raccoon1010]

I hope your quitting goes well. You can also try getting tobacco/nicotine free dip and mixing it in with whatever you normally dip (I guess it wouldn't work with pouches), and over time decreasing the amount of real dip until it's all nicotine/tobacco free. I've tried brands like Smokey Mountain and they aren't too bad.

I quit smoking for 10 years and I did it by tapering down so I understand what you are saying.

 

[MorningDance13]

I decided to create this thread to report on my recovery journey with God and encourage others who are suffering with addictions. Maybe you’re like me and deal with alcoholism and nicotine addiction, or perhaps it’s some other form of addiction that is afflicting your life. Here I am going to share how God is actively helping me recover from alcohol abuse, and how he is going to help me get off the smokeless tobacco addiction immediately after my alcohol detox is complete.

I’ve been an alcoholic on and off for quite a few years now, but during the last two years it became much worse. The other week I got some blood work results back from my primary doctor. She reported that my blood sugar level was at 6.2 (it needs to be 6.5 to be considered diabetes), and that my heavy drinking was responsible for these elevated numbers. Two years ago on my last report, though, showed my blood sugar level was at 4.5, which was totally normal and actually quite good considering that I’m massively overweight. The pre-diabetes and rise in alcohol consumption correlates strongly with my heavy drinking over the past two years, so the test results were essentially a wake-up call from God to never drink again.

I got my Librium prescription recently. It’s an alcohol-specific detox pill that gets you through the pain of withdrawals. I was given a 6-day supply of it (since a 30-day supply could harm my liver), and it has worked wonders so far: I’ve completely stopped drinking, and there was no misery from withdrawal because the pill is designed to get you through it painlessly.

I haven’t finished completely detoxing. It’s also important to go to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, which is basically group therapy for alcohol recovery with a sort of religious theme (although not specific to any one particular religion), after my detox is finished to avoid any potential relapse. Mind you, I’m absolutely positive that I never want to drink again, and part of me feels like I don’t need the meetings considering my sincere pledge to be alcohol-free forever; but if I can get encouragement to stay clean and it helps just a tiny little bit, then it will be well-worth going.

I’ve also been a smokeless tobacco addict for ten years now, having quit off and on from time to time during the last decade. I dip either the long-cut or pouches, but preferably the pouches because they don’t make such a mess. I bought some of those Nicoderm patches from Walgreens the other day, and let me tell you, these patches work wonders for people who have a hard time quitting nicotine. A Danish study demonstrated that 36% of all people who used the nicotine patches were able to successfully get rid of their addiction. However, it should be noted that roughly 30% of participants in the same study who received the placebo patch without any nicotine whatsoever were still able to quit as well, suggesting a very strong placebo effect.

As soon as my alcohol detox is complete, I’m going to tackle the nicotine addiction with the patches, and God is going to help me get through it. Admittedly the cold turkey option is “safer,” and I have been able to quit cold turkey before and stay off of it for quite some time, but my own experiences with quitting have taught me that using the patches will result in success much easier—I don’t want to disappoint myself if I fail at the cold turkey method. Basically, the nicotine patches take the head pain levels from withdrawal from ‘extremely intolerable’ to ‘sort of intolerable but bearable.’ I use the 14 mg patch, worn only during the day and not at night, and after 11 days pass I feel completely normal.

If you’re trying to quit something too, it’s always important to pray about it frequently and get help from God, help from sources (like AA meetings), and whatever help you can get. God does not want his believers to be oppressed by addictions. If you have quit an addiction in the past, maybe you can share your testimony on this thread to encourage other people who want to quit alcoholism, nicotine addiction, or some other addiction.

Awesome
Congratulations for tackling the demons of Alcohol Use Disorder and nicotine addiction.

I used to be addicted to smoking tobacco and nicotine.
I haven't smoked tobacco since November 17th 2016 by G-d's grace and no patches and gum since 3 weeks after.

I used to have Alcohol Use Disorder and Substance Use Disorder but thankfully I've been delivered from that also -- 32 months of 100% abstinence & the 5 years previous to that I had 99.5% abstinence.
(The five years previous to that I was under the influence of some nefarious thing or another probably 97% of the time.)
The 24 years previous to that I might have had about 70% of the time physically sober.

Unfortunately when I first started my New Life Journey in February 1988 I got involved in a toxic, abusive, recovery cult that teaches all kinds of lies.
I finally by the L-rd's grace broke free from that in October 2015.
I started deconstructing/unbrainwashing myself/'recovering from recovery'.
Things have been bumpy but are getting better all the time now that I know that there's no such thing as alcoholism, AUD is not a disease, I won't have it till I die.

I got saved in March or April of 1988.

 

[MorningDance13]

Years ago, my mom bought me something called Jake’s Chew to help me quit. It’s an herbal long-cut dip that doesn’t contain any nicotine. I tried it, and yeah, I had the sensation of ‘tobacco’ in my mouth, but unfortunately it didn’t give me any relief from the extreme withdrawal head pain. The pouches are made with fine-cut dip, and it does seem like a good idea to mix it with the herbal stuff to get used to less and less of it. I probably should have tried that.

Alternatively there is something called snus, which is a type of tobacco product (but not actual tobacco) from Sweden. Most (but not all) of their brands generally have lower nicotine content than American dips, and the pouches are like half the size, sometimes even a quarter of the size. Using Swedish snus is another good idea for weaning off nicotine little by little.

For me, though, the patches have worked like a miracle. I wear the 14 mg patch for 11 days only during the daytime. They instruct you to wear it at night, but this doesn’t make sense to me: If I’m asleep and not able to feel the withdrawals, why add all that extra nicotine into my body? When I wake up on morning of day 12, I feel no horrible withdrawal sensations, no head pain, and no out of control rage. It’s as if I had never been a nicotine user. (Yeah, I get that it can take three months for your body and brain chemistry to return to a state of a non-nicotine user, the first month being the most significant for recovery, but here I’m talking exclusively about the withdrawal pains.) Mind you, the 11 day withdrawal period on the 14 mg patch is no cakewalk, but like I said, the patch makes the pain levels go from ‘horribly intolerable’ to ‘painful but bearable’, or something like that.

I'm surprised that your patches suggested wearing them at night.
I used them on and off for over 15 years and every brand was emphatic that they not be worn while sleeping.
It was recommended that if the nicotine withdrawal or something else woke us up and then we couldn't get back to sleep to go sit in a dark room and chomp on a piece of nicotine gum briefly.
My addiction was so bad that I couldn't sleep more than 4 hours tops before the withdrawal would wake me up and I would go out front in the middle of the night like a dufuss.

 

[MorningDance13]

I want to become a non-drinker in the worst possible way, and admittedly I envy the fact that you were able to become one. When I have more money in the future, I thought about going to an in-house recovery center in case I need the tools to stay off alcohol for the rest of my life. Certainly it won’t be a cakewalk. But most of those places are expensive, particularly the reliable ones that don’t contain criminals who are court-ordered to be there. Was it well worth the expense in your opinion? And how many months did you stay?

Your comment made me think of the old adage, "but for the grace of G-d there go I".

Those expensive ones are full of folks who are court-ordered too.

2 very helpful programs to learn coping mechanisms, skills, and tools are SMART RECOVERY and Women For Sobriety .

G-dspeed

 

[MorningDance13]

I want to become a non-drinker in the worst possible way, and admittedly I envy the fact that you were able to become one. When I have more money in the future, I thought about going to an in-house recovery center in case I need the tools to stay off alcohol for the rest of my life. Certainly it won’t be a cakewalk. But most of those places are expensive, particularly the reliable ones that don’t contain criminals who are court-ordered to be there. Was it well worth the expense in your opinion? And how many months did you stay?

Prayer is key.
Specifically I have found that asking the L-rd to take away the desire to drink and also to give me the desire to not drink.
Those are actually two different things.
That's been one of the most helpful prayers for me in the last 36 years.

That and, "Abba help!?!?" (No joke).

G-dspeed

 

[Hepzibah]

I want to become a non-drinker in the worst possible way, and admittedly I envy the fact that you were able to become one. When I have more money in the future, I thought about going to an in-house recovery center in case I need the tools to stay off alcohol for the rest of my life. Certainly it won’t be a cakewalk. But most of those places are expensive, particularly the reliable ones that don’t contain criminals who are court-ordered to be there. Was it well worth the expense in your opinion? And how many months did you stay?

Many trauma experts believe that, any addiction is caused by unhealed childhood trauma. This expert Tim Fletcher, an ex-pastor:

Tim Fletcher Co. | Understanding and Overcoming Complex Trauma

Tim Fletcher Co. offers compassionate, insightful, and practical resources to understand and overcome the effects of Complex Trauma. Explore expert-led courses, articles, and tools designed to empower individuals on their recovery journey.

www.timfletcher.ca

has a course specifically for the addict and brings in biblical examples to make his points, for example Nehemiah and the rebuilding of the wall.