As a child, I was faithfully taken to a Christian Science Sunday School. Although my parents were good people, I left home at an early age and adopted a fast-paced life. I found myself indulging to greater degrees in drinking alcohol. At length I would drink until I could not function, and this would occur several times a week. I was also enslaved to cigarette smoking.

As this lifestyle continued, a dangerous and subtle evil took hold in thought; the lower my self-esteem plummeted, the lower became my self-restraint. Finally any whim of desire ruled the day. I eventually began using cocaine and very strong forms of speed, which induced a false sense of security. I had no idea just how I was being manipulated until much later when I read the article "Ways that are Vain," in which Mary Baker Eddy speaks of animal magnetism's effects, stating: "The victims lose their individuality, and lend themselves as willing tools to carry out the designs of their worst enemies, even those who would induce their self-destruction" (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 211). Although I was married, and had always abhorred disloyalty to the commitment of marriage, the temptation to flirt with other women became more and more alluring, until I was stupid enough to begin this; and then, accepting the temptation as my own thinking, walked blindly into the immoral act. My life was in total disarray, and all I had once held precious I found I had thrown away. Although she tried to forgive my behavior, my wife, who had truly been my best friend for eighteen years, lost all respect for me. She tried to see past my behavior, but I gave her no hope of improvement.

Then two very significant things happened.

The first was seemingly a small thing, but it ultimately saved my life. As I was moving some of my belongings, I found an old copy of The Christian Science Journal. As I leafed through it, sentences and phrases jumped out at me, although nothing seemed to mean much. However, I did sit down in the middle of the floor and read for a while. Then I slipped off into a quiet, restful sleep right there on the floor.

Then came the turning point. The next morning I woke up feeling panicked and enraged about my life. I went to work, and later that day my estranged wife called requesting an immediate meeting. She informed me she was pregnant, and had waited to tell me in hopes that her prayers would be answered and I would come to my senses. She also informed me that she was seriously considering giving up the child unless I had a better resolution. I reacted callously and stormed out of the restaurant we were in. I went straight home except for one detour—to a liquor store.

Later that night I finally reached the absolute lowest point of my life. Self-pity rapidly gave way to a definite disgust with myself and what I had become. I desperately called to God for His help. Then I thought of that old Journal. Like a drowning man reaching for a life preserver, I scrambled for it. It fell open to the listing of Christian Science practitioners, and I immediately saw a familiar name. I went straight to the telephone and called her.

In the middle of the night, talking to a woman at the opposite end of the country whom I'd never met, I pleaded for help. I told her the entire story and asked if I could straighten my life out, and how to do it. She responded with something very surprising to me—she proceeded to tell me of God's great and unconditional love for me, and that it was because of this love that I was in such discomfort with error. She spoke in a deliberate, firm, yet very loving tone. She warned of the danger of my lifestyle, and said I must immediately do what I honestly knew was right. She wouldn't tell me what that was, but affirmed it would be clear to me.

Within hours of that conversation, my consciousness was spiritually enlightened. I did know what was right, and firmly committed myself to changing my practices and life.

I contacted my wife the next morning and asked her to meet with me. I shared these recent events with her, and we began a long journey back to where we had started, back to the arms of God, back to what was good and right. We renewed our commitment to our marriage.

I wish I could say I was instantaneously healed, but that was not the case. It took three years of prayer, trials, successes and failures. My sincere prayer to be conscious of God's goodness and presence carried me through moments of human weakness.

My desire to know God—a seed that was cultivated in Sunday School—finally superseded my desire to find pleasure in alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, and sin.

The intuition that there was something better and higher than I had ever known, I recognized to be an impulsion of the Christ. It was this Christ which was enabling me to do mighty battle with many self-destructive inclinations, and bringing me to the acceptance of the truth that I am indeed worthy of God's great love. When I understood the powerlessness of anything opposed to God's goodness, the mesmerism of sin and addiction broke. I lost the desire for things I could never truly have enjoyed.

Once immorality and self-centered thinking were healed, our home, supply, and many other aspects of daily life progressively improved.

When I have consistently turned to God in any facet of my life, He has never failed to reveal the spiritual truth I need to know, and to conform to, to find healing.

Steven F. Scheiern
Westlake Village, California