1958 My oldest sister's wedding. The day of my first bottle of beer. I was eleven years old. The beginning of 19 years of death filled lifestyle. It progressed until 1977 when I was able to stop drinking altogether.
There were several of us who were too young to drink, but were watching the adults tip the bottles. In fact, we were the runners for them. The beer was stored in the milk can cooler in the barn. There were several cases of bottles there. Seemed like a busy day running bottles for the adults. My mothers side of the family were all beer drinkers with a family history of beer. Seemed like the thing to do at the time.
Some one suggested we swipe a few bottles and have a taste ourselves. Couldn't be too bad of stuff since all the adults were tipping them. So, plans were hatched and we proceeded to raid the cooler. We slipped out the back of the barn, through the back way to the back side of the house where the 500 gallon fuel oil tank was. We sat around the straw bales tat were there, sipping the beer. I thought at first that it tasted rather terrible. Like the stuff that ran out of the silo's during silo filling time. (Corn juice, stale and rotting. Smelled like it too.
As we sipped, I dumped some of mine out when no one was looking. Then, as the bottles were close to empty, someone started talking about how good it tasted. Of course, it was a hot day out, and the beer was cold. I got into the conversation, lying, saying how much I liked it and when it was suggested that it tasted like another, I voiced the same statement. Yeah, That sure tasted like another. [Famous lasting words.] And of course, we hiked out way back around the farmyard to get another. That seemed to cement my drinking ways.
After that experience, I began to always look for a way to have a sip of someone's beer. That wasn't something that was kept at the farm as my parents didn't drink except on a social basis. Like when they went to a family gathering, or weddings, or to the supper house. It wasn't done on the farm.
When I got my license at age sixteen, I was able to begin to find someone who would buy me beer. I didn't have much money, but since I didn't buy gas for the car, I could spend it on beer. That moved on to hard liquor during the next year. Then at seventeen, my girlfriend's father was very alcoholic, and he began to offer me a drink. Whiskey, beer, vodka, and whatever happened to be available.
I began to get drunk more in my eighteenth year. Senior in high school, President of the class, all that. After graduation, for the next two months, I drank every night. Enlisted in USAF in August of ‘65. Made a cook, I was shipped to Long Island, NY. That base was a large group of drunks. The night of the Famous Blackout of ‘65 I was drunk. Most of us were.
In the USAF, I drank to be sociable, as well as to get high, and just plain partied most of the time. Not much is remembered of those incidents.
Medically retired in ‘66 and sent home. I went to VOTEC, and became the supplier of booze to the younger. I carried a briefcase of 4 types of Drink in my car. So drunk at times it was difficult to walk up the school stairs. Even waking up in my car, sitting in a very deep ditch. No tire marks in the grass showing how my car got down in the ditch. Falling asleep (more likely passing out) while milking cows. My brother-in-law had to wake me several times as I was just standing against the cow sleeping
Drinking was the main ingredient of consumable fluid in my life through my twenties and until I was thirty. It was present during most of my sexual activity. In fact, it was the main active ingredient, used by me (power) in grooming my sexual partner.
As I progressed though, drinking until I had consumed too much and was near passing out became a strong pattern. I drank to be drunk. I drank to get rid of the beer so my wife wouldn't drink. I just drank....
I committed adultery while drinking.
In 1976 I was born again. I had believed that Jesus was real, and yearned for some kind of relationship with God, but had never looked to Christ to bring it about for me. What a relief, after opening the door of my heart, to have Christ enter in. The burden seemed to be lifted from my shoulders. Life became more than just existing. Grass was greener, the sky was bluer, or so it seemed.
The Spirit of God began to commune with me about my drinking and I explained how I had tried several times to quit and failed. I just didn't seem to have the will power to stop. He communed with me for more than a year about how I had given up my will power to my body, and how I could gain it back.
I had said that it tasted good when it hadn't, and my body began to believe that lie I had told it. I think that apologizing verbally to my own body (which seemed totally foolish) was the most important thing that I did at that time. To tell my body, "Hey, I lied to you when I told you it tasted good. It didn't. I just said that. I release you from those lying words you have believed all these years. It stinks! It taste foul and rotten!" Now that was the truth!
Someone said to me, Ray, did you ever do the worm test with alcohol? I hadn't heard that one. They put an earthworm in a glass of water and it swam around. They put the same earthworm in a glass of beer I was drinking, and it died. DEAD. So much for having fun. One dead worm. I sat and stared at that worm a while thinking, 'that could be me.' I started to feel like it.
Someone else handed me an article that was written to show the death effect of alcohol. In it, they made a statement that has stayed with me these 23 years. "The amount of alcohol in a shot of Brandy kills about 10,000 brain cells. DEAD. I thought about that. BRAIN DEAD. I didn't feel giddy and drunk, my brain was being killed and I was loosing contact with the world in those dead brain cells. Couldn't get away from that one, EVER!
Once, while nursing a hangover, I had said something about it being worth it because I'd had so much fun the night before. Suddenly, the Spirit of God spoke to my heart, "Did you really?" "Absolutely," I replied. "Would you like me to show you how you really did last night?" he said. Of course, in my arragance, I challenged Him to do that. Suddenly, my mind was filled with the night before. I saw how I had gotten intoxicated and mad a fool of myself. That was hard to face. Yet, He seemed to comfort me during that time. "It is only truth that I am showing you," he said. "It won't kill you like the alcohol will."
Telling Him how I had tried to quit, but always seemed to fail. Oh, I could go for a while, but the pull back was always there. He took me back to the first drink I ever had, in 1958. How I had lied about the taste. How my body had begun to believe what it heard me say. He told me that my statement about it "Tasteing like another" was a snare to me. I needed to tell my body that it really did NOT taste like another. Actually, it smelled rotten and tasted the same.
He began to build my confidence that perhaps I should repeat myself when in a circumstance concerning alcohol. If I said that I wasn't interested in a beer, perhaps just repeating the same statement until those offering just gave up would be the solution. That small gem seemed to stick in my mind, as though cemented there.
Looking back at my attitudes and my behaviors while under the influence was a very hard thing for me to do. It seems to break down the barriers and let a person see the real pride that is his biggest hinderance to victory. My pride was my defense. It was my walls to keep everyone away from the insecure man inside. The man who felt like nothing. The man who believed he was a total failure in life. The man who believed that alcohol buzz gave him courage.
In a quiet time with the Lordd, He made this statement to me, "Grace, is MY Boldness and Courage, given to you. It is a substance that you can draw from to enable you to stand strong. Using it daily, will cause you to walk the same way I walked on this earth. Boldly and courageously. Draw from it and use it as much as you wish. It won't run out. your buzz will run out. you will need another bottle, and another bottle. Trust me, Use it freely." My heart heard and clung to those words.
I was without a job for a while, and finally got one working construction. Laying sod, scooping black dirt, hard, tiring work. During this time, I worked with men who were hard drinkers. I didn't drink on the job, and began to watch their habits as well as their hangovers. It was like looking into a mirror. Most of the time, it just appeared disgusting and revolting as I realized that most of my drinking was just like that. I began to hate what I saw, and started reflecting on my own actions and behaviors while drinking.
I began to do what was necessary to regain my will power, and to actively use it. As I obeyed, this process, I continued to drink, though with a bit of moderation and the knowledge that one day I would be free.
In July of 1977, on a HOT day, after 3 hours driving on dirt roads delivering papers, I headed for the State Fair Grounds, Horse Barn, to meet a family we were helping. They were showing Arabian horses and Barb worked full time for the wife. I was just along. As I walked towards the Barn, the Spirit of Christ in my heart spoke to me in a quiet voice, "Remi, if you give up the old wine, I will give you the new wine." I made the decision in my heart.
As I entered the barn, the man I was going to help was coming down the isle with two bottles of COLD beer in his hand. I could see the dew drops on the glass. I was incredibly thirsty in the heat. He looked at me and pushed the beer towards me saying, "You look like you need this." My hand was reaching for the beer, but out of the abundance of my heart my mouth spoke, "No Thanks.." I closed my hand in mid reach. He said, "Ray, you look like you're having heat exhaustion, you better drink this while it's cold. I remember something the Spirit had taught me. "Always repeat your decision. Do not be distracted from your words, therein lies your power." I kept my words, repeating them, "No thanks." Then I added, "I'm going to get a cup of coffee." It turned out to be a terrible cup of coffee, but I was free indeed, from the old wine. No more did I have the longing to drink, or the compulsion's that had fed my bondage.
It felt good not to drink.
An incident happened a few weeks later that made my freedom very solid. A relative stopped over with a case of beer. Of course, it was our custom to drink it all, and then get more. When he offered me one, I told him "No thanks, I don't want one." He began to insist that I have one. Gee, I thought, just like the man in the Horse Barn. I began to use the same insistence in saying the same statement. "No thanks, I don't want one." And I didn't want one...
He began to insist with more control. In my thoughts, I knew that I had to say the same thing until victory prevailed. I wasn't going to give up my will power to someone else again, and I recognized that they got it by keeping me talking so I would agree with their statements.
Finally, he used the fact that I had been Born again. That I had found Christ with my heart. Of course, he only knew that I had gotten "religious". He made a snide remark that he had heard that I'd gotten ‘Religious". That seemed to irritate me, and I could see that he wanted me to take the bottle he was offering. But I had this thought, "Always do what I want to do. Be Active, make a decision and stay with it. So I made a decision and followed it with an action.
"OK, I'll take a beer." I said. He gave me a smug look as I took that beer, but his look changed to shock, as I took the bottle, popped the top, and began pouring the beer down the drain. "Hey", he hollered, that's my beer your dumping down the drain. I replied, "NO, it's mine. You gave it to me. I told you I didn't want one, but you kept insisting, so I took it. This is where it would wind up anyway, in the septic tank (sewer). Only it's not going through MY body in the process. From now on, whenever you offer a beer to me, I'm going to take it. And this is what I'm going to do with it. Is that clear?" Boy was He mad. Of course, I wasn't offered any more beer that day. And the surprising thing that occurred, is that people stopped offering me beer from that day onward. It was as though a message preceded me.
Now, at the time of this writing, I've been free from drinking twenty two years. Have I ever had a sip? Yes. Once in Romania, in a Hungarian-German couple's home. We were invited off the street to come and share their table. Since drinking their water was out of the question, and I had no stomach for their Schnapps's, the only other liquid was a cheap wine. I had about 2 ounces to wash the salty bread and cheese down. When there is nothing safe to drink.... what do you do.
The second instance, on another trip to Romania, in the City of Galatia, I was given Tang for the supper meal. The hostess forgot to tell me that she had used their tap water, which my stomach could not tolerate. Within the hour, I began to suffer severe stomach cramps, followed by diarrhea. She graciously gave me Tums and Pepto Bismol. That stopped the diarrhea. However, in the morning, I still had stomach cramps that were quite painful.
The hostess didn't speak English, so through her daughter, who was learning the language in school, we managed a bit of communication. She translated the word "disinfectant" for her mother to me. I was given a teaspoon of what I thought was whiskey from the husband's cabinet. Within 5 seconds, all the cramping stopped. And that, folks, was the last time that substance has ever passed my lips. I have no craving, nor any longing to destroy my body. An after thought, that woman was a Doctor, who was forced to resign from her practice because she had tuberculosis. She was allergic to the only type of medication available in that country. She was miraculously healed when I prayed for her that day. "Have a little wine for your stomach's sake," is the scripture she gave her daughter to translate to me that day. Perhaps Paul and Timothy had been to Galatia.....
The concepts that were used in this story will work for anyone who has given away their power and self control. It can be regained in such a way to enable you to be free. Jesus said, "If you continue in my Word, you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." Indeed, I had continued in Him. I found out the truth, and that truth had made me free. I can say something, and back it up. Self control. Free.
If you have found inspiration reading this, or know of someone who may be helped by this information, please write to me, or make a copy of this and give it to them.
Write me: Remi Springer, P.O. 48208, Coon Rapids, Minnesota, 55448-0208 Email me at my web site. Remi@spwom.com Web Site: http://www.spwom.com