Delivered from Addiction the Night I Asked for Help

I had been addicted to opioids for four years following a back surgery that led to a prescription that led to something I never intended. By the time I understood what had happened to me I was already dependent. I had tried to stop three times on my own and failed each time. The fourth attempt I did something different — before I tried to white-knuckle through withdrawal again, I knelt on my bedroom floor in Memphis and prayed with the most honest words I had ever spoken. I did not perform faith. I told God exactly where I was and exactly what I needed. The withdrawal was still real and still hard. But something was different from the first three times. A peace settled over me that I cannot describe in clinical terms. I called a recovery ministry the next morning. I have been clean for twenty-two months. People in the program talk about the moment something shifts internally — when the obsession lifts. Mine lifted that night on the bedroom floor in Memphis before I made a single phone call.