On February 6th, the day after the Super Bowl, I woke up in the emergency room having no idea how I got there. This was my fourth hospitalization as a direct result of my drinking, and I left feeling scared, small, and worthless. This day was miraculous though: after years of convincing myself that I didn't have a problem with alcohol, I finally said "yes" to God's will for me. I can remember the exact spot I was lying in my bed, miserably sick, when my heart changed. God's love for me and my happiness finally got through to me and through what I believe to be Divine Intervention I was able to say out loud, "I'm done with this. I'm done. I'm done." Christ's mercy on me continued to show itself through my mother as I called her weeping and she, along with my father, scrambled to make a plan to get me to a treatment center.

It's amazing how once you have been opened up, miracles begin to appear all around you. I remember being at an art museum a few weeks before this episode, admiring one of Monet's haystack paintings with a sunrise in the background. I thought to myself, "Wow, that's so beautiful. I'd love to watch the sun rise. But I'll never wake up early enough to see that until I'm really old" (All the sleepless nights from my partying led me to sleep most days until 11 AM). But God answered my somewhat sentimental desire much faster than that: at the treatment center, I lived at an off site house where we had to wake up at 5:30 to get to groups every day, and every day I got to watch the sun rise over rolling fields on the drive to the main building.

I have been sober now for almost two months and every day I feel more like a little child, fascinated by everything. Being honest with myself has made everything new: going to Mass, my relationships with my family, even running errands by myself. I have stopped trying to control everything, and I feel peaceful for the first time I can remember. It is so beautiful to me how mysteriously Christ works in my life: even my disease of alcoholism, which brought me to some of the darkest places in my past, is a gift. It is exactly the channel He used to open my eyes and fix them on Him.

Maggie, USA