Some years ago, I was regularly binge drinking and struggling with depression as well as feelings of inadequacy and lack of fulfillment. There was very little joy in my life.

My mother is a student of Christian Science, and she shared the weekly Bible Lessons from the Christian Science Quarterly with me in the hope that I would absorb something that would bring me out of this slump. Almost every day she would send me citations from the Bible and the Christian Science magazines or Mary Baker Eddy’s writings. I would read them but did not understand them, totally missing the basic spiritual truth that each of us is the beloved child of our Father-Mother God, made in Her image, pure and perfect. 

Drinking caused me to wallow in self-pity. When I drove to work or took my children to school, it was often with a hangover. At one point, I even quit my job, as I thought I was meant to be doing something better. I tried many times to give up alcohol, but then something would trigger the depression, and I would start drinking again. 

I consulted a psychiatrist who dealt specifically with alcoholism and other addictions, and he showed me research that seemed to prove that alcoholism is rooted in genetics. He said that the available treatments—twelve-step programs and such—would not help me. I felt hopeless.

But I continued to read the Bible Lessons and gradually began attending services at a local branch Church of Christ, Scientist. The members there were warm and welcoming, and they didn’t judge me. They encouraged me in my study of and growth in Christian Science and offered me copies of Mrs. Eddy’s books, including the textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. 

During this period of searching for God—for joy, happiness, and fulfillment—I was sober but unemployed. I applied and was accepted for Christian Science class instruction. I also joined both that branch church and The Mother Church—The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston. I began to feel a glimmer of hope.

Class instruction was a wonderful two weeks of learning about God and taking an in-depth look at the practice of Christian Science. I made new friends in the class and felt supported by them and by my teacher. The more I learned, the more receptive I was to Christian Science.

However, even though armed with a deeper understanding of divine Love, God, I was still gripped by thoughts suggesting that I was not good enough. I started drinking again and, by mistake, took an overdose of sleeping pills. My cousins came over to support me during this low point but were unable to cope with my behavior. They felt I urgently needed hospitalization. Since I refused to go, they contacted my mother, who lives six hours away. She traveled that very night to be with me.

To encourage me, every day my mother would read to me the Bible Lesson as well as inspiring articles from the Christian Science periodicals. I also spoke with a Christian Science practitioner, who prayed with me daily. She asked me to write down three things I was grateful to God for. In my misery, at that moment I couldn’t think of even one. But by the next day, I had five. The following day, I had a full page, and by the end of the week, I had several pages.

I prayed with the truth that I am not guilty because God made every one of us in Her image and likeness and pronounced Her creation “very good,” as the first chapter of the Bible tells us (see Genesis 1:26, 27, 31). I thought about synonyms for God—Life, Truth, Love, Spirit, Soul, Mind, Principle—highlighted in the teachings of Christian Science and reasoned that I could reflect only qualities related to those synonyms. The practitioner promised that if I stayed with God, I would find my freedom. 

One day a friend from my previous employment visited me. She was a manager, and she asked if I wanted to apply for a different position at the same company. I did so and was hired. Returning to work felt different because my perspective on my work was different. Instead of finding things to complain about, I realized I had a lot to offer and saw my job as an opportunity to help people. 

I learned new aspects of this work, which prepared me to take on a better position with a bigger firm the following year. I began to truly see myself as the expression of God—Her blessed child. I began to love myself.

Christ Jesus identified the two most important commandments: to love God with all our heart and soul and mind and to love our neighbor as ourselves (see Matthew 22:37–39). Learning to love myself meant no longer abusing myself by thinking or speaking falsehoods such as “I’m not good enough” or by drinking alcohol and embarrassing my children. As I learned to love and respect myself, I became conscious of blessings I had overlooked. I found that the joy I knew when I was growing up was still with me. I felt joy in the beauty of the sunrise, in witnessing my children’s development, in health and clear thinking, and in managing my home and work. 

But my greatest joy was my newfound peace in knowing that there is only one Mind—God—and that Mind is in control. I could let go of doubts as well as sadness and trauma. I could let go of burdensome views of what society expected from me and live as Jesus taught us to live, knowing that we can never be separated from divine Love, which is our all-knowing, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent Father-Mother.

As I began to know more about my relationship to God, the stifling thoughts of unworthiness fell away. Once I let go of the belief that I was not enough, I lost all desire for alcohol. I didn’t need rehab or a period of drying out or cutting back. The attraction to alcohol just dissolved as I learned to see myself as God knows me—pure, perfect, innocent, and free. It has been more than seven years since this healing, and I am certain there is no benefit in drinking or in using anything that would alter my clear thought and calm trust in God as our only cause and creator. 

E. Nomi Naidu
Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa