My Testimony:
Overcoming Addiction
Sister to Sister

**Sisters in Yah share each other’s greatest joys and deepest sorrows. Wherever you are in this journey of life, know that you are not alone.**

Hello my name is Margaret and I am a grateful recovering alcoholic and addict.
I’ve suffered with addictions and addictive behaviors long into my childhood. My addictions and behavior have been my way of escape for so long that they have become a way of life and how I had cope with day to day living. When life isn’t going well I’ve always found myself a way of an escape, and If I can’t escape mentally I just run.

I am a runner have always been. My very first escape from reality was when I was about 4-5 years old. Where I went, I can’t really tell you to this day because I don’t know myself. On several occasions I recall being sexually abuse by my aunt’s husband. I remember how things started out that day and how the abuse started, but I can’t remember any events that followed in those days. I didn’t tell my mother about the abuse until I was in my early 20s. I held onto the shame and embarrassment for many years to come, and still this day I see the effects it had on my life. My second escape I remembered is always running away from home as little as 8 years old until I was 17 years of age.

I hated my home life, I hated my mother, I hated my stepfather the most. I grew up in an abusive home physically, mentally, emotionally. Growing up I saw horrifying things no child should have to witness. I’ve watched my mother be abused by my stepfather. I’ve seen him try to strangle her with a phone wire. Until this day I can hear her screams like it was yesterday, as I lay upstairs in bed fearful for her life and mine. I would sleep with a knife under my bed afraid that I would be next and how I would be able to protect myself from this drunkard monster. I hated being at home. Always walking on eggshells not knowing what’s going to happen from one moment to the next. Scared hoping my stepfather wouldn’t come home drunk that day or seeing my mother in a depression because he either hit her the day before or he was home putting her down calling her names and tearing her down emotionally and in the process he would in turn take his anger for my mother out on me by calling me names like tell me I was fat or called me a garbage can or even have my siblings taunt me as well.

I would try to stay out of the house as much as possible and in doing so I put myself in more shameful and embarrassing circumstances. All I did was run right into the homes of more sexual predators. Men who had preyed on me and took advantage of my vulnerable time in my life. By the age 12 with all the verbal and sexual abuse I began to form a self hatred for myself. I hated my body, who I was, everything about me I hated. So I found another escape from those feeling I was having toward myself. Food…

Food had started to become a comfort to me, but at times my worst enemy even till today. I would eat for comfort to cover up all the pain and loneliness I felt I would stuff myself. That’s when my stepfather would taunt me and call me garbage cans amongst others and have my sibling laugh and taunt me as well. As I am typing this I don’t think my sibling even realize how much that hurt me. Any how I started feeling guilty and shameful which brought me to my next addiction…my eating disorder. I would binge and purge all day starve myself on other days and exercise compulsively everyday, I would pop OTC caffeine pills to keep my energy up because of the lack of nutrition I would feel tired a lot. I did this from the age 12 all the way till I was 17yrs old. I had enough sense to know that I could no longer keep these habits if I was going to deliver a healthy boy.
Yes that’s when I had my first child. My teen years where typical Rebellious, Resentful and boy crazy. Love became one of my addictions. All I wanted was someone to Love me. Men came…

Men went and took little by little pieces of me. Seems like every man that entered my life has hurt me one way or the other. I struggled with this love addiction/co dependency all of my teen and adult life. Still find myself slipping into old habits. Through that addiction I found alcohol, drugs, more abuse by the men I chose. It had became a endless cycle in my life. Alcohol, drugs, men, sex, food, abuse, Alcohol, drugs, men, sex, food, abuse over and over I repeated the cycles. Heart ache after heart ache after heart ache.

One day in a moment of despair I just let out a cry. I said, “God, why me, why does it always end the same, why am I always the one left to hurt?” I had a Christian background and I believed there was a God out there somewhere, I’ve read the bible…well some of it, knew some of the things expected of me. Well now thinking back, he wasn’t that real to me; maybe just a distant real that’s all. So to my surprise he answered me, “You don’t obey my commandments.” Right away I knew exactly what he meant. It was like a light bulb went of in my head. I started thinking about my lifestyle with all these men, drugs and alcohol. I knew this wasn’t the life he would have for me to live and I had to make some changes.

So I got hooked up with a great church started studying the bible and praying,I got married and I got baptized. Finally I was able to breathe. For the first time I found peace and happiness. I have never felt this kind of calmness before.
Things seem to be going pretty well for the next 4 or so years. Until January of 2015. I had lots of life changing experiences. I had a 3 operations, 2 of them back to back in the month of January. One of them was a Gastric Bypass and the other Gull Bladder removal. So I was on pain pills for about 4-5 months total. I was forced out of my apt due to bed bugs soon after because my landlord didn’t want to take care of the problem,… my 16 year old baby tells me she’s having a baby, my stepson dies in prison, and I’m homeless for 2mo. Seriously, I am not making this up. People started to call me Job jokingly. I kind of was familiar with the story. I mean I knew he went through a lot but I never read the Book of Job until later. Boy I wished I did. Maybe I could have been encouraged to have the strength he did to endure with such faith, and maybe I wouldn’t have ran the way I did.

But anyhow, to me life was just moving to fast in different directions with the changes… mentally, emotionally,… even physically as I was loosing weight so rapidly that I didn’t even recognize myself, let alone anything around me. It was like I was outside of myself, looking into someone else’s life.

I became uncertain, unhappy, and depressed. So as I said earlier I like to escape when things get out of control. (Oh I forgot to mention I am a big CONTROL freak… part of my OCD.) My way of controlling things, so I thought, was to find comfort in a bottle of wine and my old friend MaryJane. Like all addictions, it is a slow progressive disease. I started becoming dependent on wine to get through the day and night. I would have endless sleepless nights, I was angry with myself and with God, and I was slipping into a great depression where I was contemplating suicide. I eventually came to the point that I needed help. Not only did I need professional help, I needed God’s help.

I left my family and my newborn granddaughter (who I truly adored) to seek help. It was the hardest thing I think I’ve ever done. I went to a rehab all the way across the country just to get help.

There God revealed so many things to me.

1. That he was always there faithfully even when I wasn’t.
2. The meaning of total surrender. I’m still working on it, this walk is a slow process.
3. That I can trust him to work all things for the good, no matter how bad it seems or looks.
4. That I do qualify! Yahshua came for the lost, and at that moment I was truly lost… but he was not to far away.

And many many more things…

But, most of all he showed me that he is mighty, faithful, long suffering and that he is full of love and faithful to forgive.

So I tell you my testimony to say this: If he can do it for me, he can do it for you! My God was mighty to bring me through, and he’s mighty to bring you through as well!

Today I no longer live in shame, fear or regret for I am who I am today because of all this and I know he can use me in many ways, including bringing Glory to who he is and always will be.

Margaret Crawford, Contributing Writer
Derek Echad Talmidah