A Cruel Illusion

Stop the madness or be swallowed by it.

Soon I will be the same age my father was when he died in a prison cell. I wonder sometimes if he knew who he was? He certainly didn’t know who I was, nor I him.

His cell was more familiar to him than his own sons.

He never played catch with us, never disciplined us. He wasn’t there for birthday songs or to teach us to drive. He never knew us. I don’t know if he ever really wanted to. I hope he did, but that is all I can do. Hope.

I find solace in hope. In tragic times it can provide us with optimism.

My father’s alcoholism stole a childhood from me. It stole everything a father is supposed to be from me. His vice deprived me of an earthly father to guide me. Having experienced that vice myself, I forgive him. I can only hope that he asked Jesus to forgive his sins before he drew his last breath.

Sometimes I wonder what kind of man I am now and try to compare it to what kind of man I might have been if our mother hadn’t saved us from his sinful influence.

Alcohol slowly stripped away his life and like so many before him, he didn’t notice. His poisoned mind was unable to see it through the drunken existence. Unable to see the pain he caused as he ran from his problems. He thought, like many alcoholics do, that it helped. Helped him to cope. Helped him to forget. Demons do a good job convincing the alcoholic that the alcohol is a cure for whatever troubles them. Posing as the medicine and not the disease.

Alcohol convinced my father that it was the answer and not the cause of his problems. Like so many before him, and so many after, he ran into the arms of his own destruction. He believed it provided relief from his problems. In reality it was the cause of them. All the while the demons laughed.

Demons will do that. They twist reality as they work in the shadows to convince broken people that evil is good and good is evil. They invert reality and spin our moral compass. They don’t tell us lies, that would be too crude, too easily to detect and reject. Instead they manipulate us into crafting our own delusions. They don’t need to lie to us. Instead they convince us into being the architects of our own deceit.

These demons broke my father. Dying alone in a cold prison cell.

Years later I found myself on the same cliff’s edge. My footing was clumsy as the ground under my feet almost seemed to be pulling me into the abyss below. I could see bodies strewn about below me. Lives destroyed and ended by the demon of addiction. I could see my own fathers wasted life. I could feel the pain that his addiction brought upon our lives. That pain still lingers and it is real.

What alcohol stole from me even before my own first drink would walk with me for the rest of my life. These choices we make matter and effect other people. Our choices can continue the cycle of destruction and damage for lifetimes and generations. Because of the choices of others there is a cold empty place in my heart where a father should be.

I spent much of my life running. I yearned for the numbing embrace of drugs and alcohol to quiet my restless heart. I sometimes even secretly validated my drinking as way to feel closer to him. To understand him better. My sober mind can see how silly that sounds. I was really just making excuses and chasing a shadow.

For over 20 years I allowed it to infect my life. It poisoned my mind, body, and spirit. It destroyed my aspirations and almost destroyed my family.

I tried to quit. Rehab failed. AA failed—not because I didn’t try, but because I found its approach hollow. Only God was able to save me. Not a vague “higher power,” but Yahweh, the true God. On my knees, behind locked doors, clutching a worn Bible, a lifeline in one hand and a grim temptation of a loaded Glock in the other, I hit rock bottom. I’d pushed away everyone who loved me to avoid facing my failures. Their absence only deepened my regret, pulling me closer to the edge. In that sacred, broken moment, I poured out my soul in prayer, seeking redemption in the only place I knew it could be found.

We cannot depend on those who love us to save us from these demons. They cannot. We must walk unassisted. We must make a choice to stop the madness or be swallowed by it. Put the fire out or be consumed by it. Demons can convince us that the fire is the only option left. That recovery is impossible and that we are irredeemable.

Sometimes when animals sense that death is near they will instinctively seek out a quiet place to die alone. Alcoholics do the same thing. I pushed away those who cared because of my own regrets and mistakes. Wanting only to be isolated with my poison as it slowly killed me.

The demons, they trick us. They tricked me in the same way. Convincing me to lie to myself and blame others for my own actions and failures.

I spent a lot of my life angry and lost because of the choices of my father. Then I almost did the same thing to my own children. I almost destroyed my own family the way he did ours. I caused my wife to cry the same tears my own mother did. My own sons shrank from me and I couldn’t see it through the haze. I was what I was teaching them not to be. A hypocrite does not make a good teacher.

I cannot begin to explain how close to the end I was. I knew that night behind locked doors that it was time to make a choice.

Life or death.

It wasn’t just my life that hung in the balance, it was my family as well.

I chose to fight, and only by the grace of God, I won.

For years my mother pleaded with me to stop drinking. I never realized the pain it brought her until I was sober. It must have been heartbreaking. She tried so hard to save us from our father’s demons. Only to be forced to watch as those same demons hunted down and tormented her sons.

Alcohol is a thief and it stole much from me. Yet God, through His unending grace, just kept laying down unearned blessings. It is only by His grace that I can now see it and be truly thankful for what I have.

Now I turn my sights towards others who need that help. The people losing their footing at the top of the cliff I once stood on. I want to stand on that precipice once again only this time not in despair, but rather as a beacon calling out warnings to the lost and stumbling souls in route to their own destruction. I know that the bitter truth is not all will listen and the pain of seeing so many fall may be unbearable for me to witness.

I know the soul crushing despair and lonely hopelessness of wanting to break free of those chains. Convinced by the years that I could not. However, we are all able to shed the chains. The demons have simply convinced us, to convince ourselves that we cannot. This is simply another cruel illusion.

The hole is too deep they say as they continue digging. I was there. I did it. I know the only thing that ever worked for me was Jesus. His grace. His forgiveness, which made it possible for me to forgive myself. You have to do that first. The demons will fight it and often they will win.

Yet I found that when I asked for forgiveness and then God’s help. When I committed to Him that I would quit but I would need His help. That I knew I couldn’t do it without him. When I said those words, when I made that vow. I was at my rock bottom. God has a way of waiting until we have stripped away everything else. He is patient and He is purposeful. He waits in the wreckage of our lives for us to discard the sinful armor and the false crutch. When we have “torn our garments” and lay naked unable to mend ourselves. Unable to save ourselves but wanting salvation desperately. When we are surrounded by our demons and the end feels but a breath away. Hope remains.

His hope is everlasting and is powerful enough to mend a fractured world.

Even yours.