The Couch Experience

Have you been so drunk that you tried to climb under a couch with no legs?

I have! That was also one of the nights I almost died from my desire to drink. You see, I was an alcoholic.

I could go without drinking for days and even weeks at a time. But it was always in the back of my mind. My drink of choice was not Crown Royal, though it is good, but rather Jim Beam. Two of best things ever created in my mind, at the time, where Jim Beam floats and Flaming Dr. Pepper. I loved Flaming Dr. Pepper so much that I could have 6 and not feel a buzz. But I could also drink a case of beer and not feel anything either…back in the day. I could also take a shot of Everclear and just keep trucking like it was nothing. I am NOT bragging by any stretch of the imagination. That is just how far it had progressed..my drinking to numb whatever I was feeling at the time.

One thing I learned through all my drinking, though, is that all the problems I was trying to drown were still there when I got sober.

But I was not a mad drunk. I was not a crazy drunk, or a sex finding drunk. I would just chill. Never got crazy, mean, hit anyone, or had sex while drunk….well, not that I remember anyway. I know those around me at the time would not have let me do that anyway just for protection sake. But I have had sex before getting plastered. And I regret those..for there was no love involved just straight up sex.

But back to the original story before I go completely off the train of thought I started with…lol.

A gallon of Beamer. That is what we always bought and it stayed right there by that couch. My roommates and I would share that gallon between us and friends. But on this particular night I lost control and just kept drinking till I passed completely out.

I woke up many hours later on the floor in the living room. My head is pounding. But not just from drinking…I have a knot on my head. My best friend explains to me what transpired after I went lights out.

I did pass out but kept doing stuff.

We had a couch in the living room that had not legs on it. Well, apparently I tried to crawl under said couch. Couldn’t…for obvious reasons…duh!!

He then tells me I was sleeping on my back and that I had started vomiting. And that I had started to suffocate on my own vomit. One of our other friends, who stayed with us, kicked me in the head with his boot so the vomit would go out of my mouth and onto the carpet. Hence the knot on my head upon waking up.

That was the night I put a limit on my drinking!

But it was not until my now ex-wife, was pregnant with our first child that I made the vow to quit for good…fourteen years ago. I have had a beer here and there since then and even a little Crown. But it is one beer or one glass of Crown and Cola.

Here is why I quit. No revelation from God saying “Stuart, you will die if you don’t quit.” or “I will take your child from you.” It was the fact that I did not want my daughter to have an alcoholic for a daddy. Plain and simple. I had lived through that as a child and did not want my children to live through it too.

I have a lot of memories of my childhood locked in my head. Many good ones and many bad ones. The memories of the bad days I did not want my children to have to experience as I had, if I can help it.

Are there days where I walk by the beer section and just look with wonder…YES! Are there days where I just want one…YES! But then there are always those days when I smell the alcohol on someone and I almost get sick to my stomach. Or I go to get coffee for the drive to work and there are people buying beer at 7 in the morning..and I’m like..what the freak, for real?!?

Can I tell anyone to not drink? Of course not!

Can I tell anyone that drinking is a sin? No, because nowhere in the Word of God does is say that it is. It does say this though:

Romans 13:13-14
13. Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in reveling and drunkenness, not in immorality and wantonness (without regard for what is right), not in strife and envying.
14. But put on the the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.

Ephesians 5:18
And be not drunk with wine in which is excess, but be filled with the Holy Spirit.

1 Peter 5:8
Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, the devil, like a roaring lion walks about looking whom he may devour.

And many others in Titus when he is giving the description of service hood.

My prayer is that those who do drink to drown their sorrows, struggles and emotions realize that they ARE being devoured. That they seek counsel. Be drunk in the Word of God and allow Him, through the Holy Spirit, to tell them that it is time to be courageous and face their hurts, their pains, their struggles with help.

God bless,

Stu

Originally posted April 14th, 2014