Article February 4, 2008 Issue

A TOTAL TURNAROUND

BY DAVID J. MATHER

IN MY HEART, I think all I'd ever wanted was to feel valued and loved. But there I was in jail again for drunk driving. I'd lost my marriage, a good job, and friends. It had been a downward spiral I'd felt helpless and unable to reverse—that is, until right there in my jail cell, while suffering extreme withdrawal symptoms and hallucinations. Suddenly, the words "God is Love" kept coming to me over and over again, even though I didn't really understand what those words meant for me.

My parents had sent me to Christian Science Sunday School, but it never interested me. I thought drinking alcohol would make me funny, likeable, cool. It wasn't anything anyone had said about me, but I'd simply accepted a negative image of myself. Deep down I knew I was an OK person and I felt I should be content, but I never was and didn't know why. So much of what I did was about trying to fit in and feel that people liked me.

Years later, when I had all the things I thought would make me happy—a wonderful wife and son, a good job, money, a nice house and car—I still wasn't content. I looked outside my marriage for love. But that didn't help, and the resulting guilt I felt for my infidelity was so overwhelming that I simply drank more to try to forget it. I felt out of control.

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