LOVE LIFTED ME
I don’t think anyone sets their goal in life as becoming an addict or alcoholic, at least I didn’t. My name is Rose Rickard, I am a believer in Jesus Christ and I struggle with drug and alcohol addiction. Prescription drugs became the monkey on my back, and when I couldn’t get them anymore I got what I could where I could. I started taking the pain killers in 1989 when I ruptured a disk in my back and had to have surgery.
But I found that the pills could stop more than just back pain, they could numb everything I didn’t want to feel or think about, and so began a nightmare from hell itself. When I could no longer con the doctors into giving me what I now had to have, well, you soon learn where you can get what you need. And so I ended up on Methadone, very strong, very addictive and very deadly. I had lived that way for years, had stopped going to church and thought God had given up on me.
I only went to Celebrate Recovery to see if I could find a little comfort for my troubled soul, not with the intention of getting off my drugs, just maybe to see if there could possibly be some hope there. What I found was much more, people just like me, who had a life and hope, because they had found a reason to get off drugs and alcohol. And people who really cared about me, loved me just where I was.
Well, I discovered with help from my new friends that God still loved me, right there where I was, I didn’t have to be perfect first, just had to trust Him one day at a time. He saved me, set me free, and now I want to see others set free, and come to know this Jesus, and these wonderful people in Celebrate Recovery, who can love you right where you are. To come to know a life free from the furtive, restless, desperate searching for something to fill the emptiness within you.
Thank God someone cared enough to see the me inside and not the ugly on the outside, thank you, Lord, and thank you guys, I’ll never forget what you gave me, you gave me your love.