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.