Testimony of Healing December 28, 1912 Issue

It is with deep gratitude that I express my thanks to...

John P. Anderson

It is with deep gratitude that I express my thanks to divine Love for my cure through Christian Science of the drug and drink habit. Being a traveling man, while in Atlanta, Ga., a number of years ago, I drank a glass of a popular beverage, never thinking that before six years had passed I would become a mental wreck. But such was the case, for in that time I experienced all the mental, physical, and business troubles possible for any one. Shortly after the habit became fastened upon me, I began to notice that unless I took a drink of this supposed nerve stimulant my spirits were so depressed that I could summon no ambition to work. All my thoughts were on pleasure; when the evening came I sought the company of dissolute people, and when the early morning hours rolled around I would often find myself in a drug-store taking a "last" drink.

Since I could not work intelligently and my mode of life required much money, the collections secured during the day were gradually used to satisfy the unnatural desires which this habit had produced in my weakened mentality. Eventually my beloved family were called on to make these shortages good. It was then that I deluded myself into believing that if I mixed the drug with whisky I would obtain still greater pleasures from the result, and after five years of this wicked life health of mind and body gave way slowly but surely. All this time my mother and sister kept asking me to attend the Christian Science church, but I felt as though it would be no use, for I was satisfied I could never overcome the desire for a stimulant. It was, however, my sister, a Christian Science practitioner, on whom I eventually called for treatment.

Finally, acquaintance with the circumstances of a dreadful deed impressed me so deeply that I realized my own helpless condition. The fall had come after a summer which had been an orgy of dissipation, race-track speculation, gambling, etc., and I was prostrated with a severe attack of illness. I also began to be morose. When I tried to stop the drug habit (and I began to realize that I must do so, before I became an outcast), I found myself as helpless as a babe. The indulgence had so increased that at the time Christian Science lifted me out of this curse eight or ten glasses a day were required to satisfy the appetite. After Christmas I decided that if possible I would go South, and when I reached New Orleans I wrote my sister, admitting my weakness and craving for this drink, for I had concealed as far as I knew the fact of my troubles from her and my mother. She wrote that she would start treatment at once.

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