My testimony

I gave this at Celebrate Recovery last September. Am posting now for anyone who might be interested:

Before Christ

In one sense my “story” is all about trying to “make it through works”.   I spent the majority of my life thinking that the major goal in life was “success” ... and that one could “achieve” this and all goals through hard work and maybe some luck.   This success, measured primarily through financial means, could make (or, at least allow, one to be “happy”).  Words like “Grace”, “Salvation”, & “Faith” did not come up as a useful term in my vocabulary.  While the love within my family was important, that was never quite enough for the “success driven life”.

I was born in 1943 at the end of WWII .  I lived the first 23 years in Wilmette, Illinois, an affluent suburb in Chicago’s “North Shore”.  My childhood was a pleasant and warm environment except for the occasional turmoil created by my father’s evening and weekend bouts with whisky. My only sibling, a brother 4 years older, maintains emotional scars from growing up. I took it all in stride (or perhaps repressed them).  While very smart (according to high SAT’s), I was a fair-to-good student in a high school where 90% of the 1,000 seniors went on to college.  Initially it was sports, then wine & the pursuit of women that were targets of my interest.  With some luck in the category of physical appearance and with encouragement from my Mother and grandfather (who I idolized), I developed a good-sized ego – some called it “large”.  To the Egotist.  Egotists have fragile self-worth / low self-esteem.  I always felt most comfortable as a “Big fish in a little pond”.

I was brought up in the Episcopal Church, Baptism & Confirmed. I don’t ever recall my Dad going – my Mom rarely.  But for me it was a major social outlet – I wound up as Senior Warden of our youth group by my senior year.  Nevertheless, if I thought of myself as a Christian then, I forgot all about it by my freshman year at Northwestern University (in nearby Evanston.)

During the summer of my freshman year I had started a painting business.  When my Dad’s business took a downward turn, I found I had enough cash to get myself through my sophomore year at the University of Illinois downstate. Away from home for the first time, bored and lonely, I put a focus into my studies that ultimately yielded a 3.0 average over the 4 year span. The next summer brought more success at painting and I finished up the last two years at Northwestern.  Due to success with the house painting business, I went off to Stanford to embark on an MBA.  Away from home, lonely again, and without real focus, I dropped out after one quarter.

The reality of the Draft during Viet Nam caused me to join the Naval Air program in 1966 wherein I became an Aircraft Maintenance Control Officer, met and married Pat, and fathered Laura (1969) while on shore duty in Okinawa.  And Janice back in Chicago 3 yrs later.  Following discharge in 1970 I was led to believe that sales was the fast track to success. After some mis-starts in life insurance and the like I began climbing the corporate ladder as a computer salesman with Burroughs Corporation.  It seemed to me that everyone in Burroughs drank. The sales organization was in some respects an extension of a college fraternity. It’s about here that the early signs of “much too much” showed up and the prideful denial ensued.  (Did I mention my Dad & his Dad both were alcoholics?) 

My corporate career aspirations were very ambitious but never satisfactorily achieved.  Chicago Salesman, Detroit Marketing Manager, Dallas Branch Manager, Detroit International Group (World traveler). Pretty good on the resume, but never up to my aspirations – never as good as the next guy.  After 12 years with Burroughs, competitive, but thin-skinned, never really a team player, I finally found a way out (and up).  I was recruited out to Philadelphia as VP Sales in a company which was growing from $50 million to  $120 million and thought they needed a “Fortune 500 type” like me! to help them.  The semiconductor slump of 1984  allowed me to drive sales back down to $50M.  I was out, ego wounded, and on the market again.   I recovered quickly with a Strategy Director position at neighboring Sperry (a competitor of Burroughs).  This was a position on the rebound.  Within 5 months, Burroughs bought Sperry – and I was out again.

Full of wounded pride, I found an Atlanta company to buy with 3 other investors – I was really an entrepreneur, wasn’t I?  It took every penny I had to get ¼ of the company. Further we had to personally guarantee $4M in corporate debt.  We folded within 7 months. At 45, I lost the house, was bankrupt, and had two daughters ready for college.  

We moved into a rented a house. After 18 years as a stay at home Mom, Pat went to work as a customer service representative.  I started selling voice mail systems and tried to medicate my guilt in failure through alcohol. After 3 years we were doing “OK” and Pat could quit – she hated it, and I am the compulsive workaholic / alcoholic.  I was now a full blown alcoholic and I did not deny it.  But from time to time I would embarrass myself so much around the family, I would will myself to stop.  I quit for periods of 1 year and even 2 years.  But I was miserable as a dry drunk.

By 1998, we moved to Bogart in order to be close to our daughter Laura who was pregnant with her first (of 7).  I was compulsively continuing to go about my obsessive behaviors – workaholic, due to fear of failure; alcoholic, due to whatever inheritances can be blamed on my Dad’s and his Dad’s similar “disease”.   The business succeeded, but the sense of accomplishment was rather hollow.  I was busting my butt, apparently trying to make my own salvation, with no clue as to where I was going. 

I quit again in February 2002.  Though not a believer, the Lord was blessing my business. During a 2 year period of sobriety I managed to complete our largest installation at ADOT and was able to build the big house in Bogart with the proceeds.

I had been sniffing around, attending Church on some Sundays.  I was impressed with the message(s) of the Word I heard articulated by our pastor Bob McAndrew - both directly in Church and indirectly by listening to CDs of the sermons I missed.  Somehow, the Lord told Bob that we needed to talk.  We didn’t solve all the issues on the spot, but he helped my on each of them – especially not to debate the Creator as to what he does and doesn’t do and why. 

But by March of 2004  I was again (still) miserable from the pressures:

·        At work: a large contract with the State of Arizona was just concluding

·        At home the pressures of building and moving into the new house in Bogart

·        Personal apprehension over my brother’s visit

By May I decided to re-introduce my old friend alcohol into the situation. Of course it was not my friend (The epitome of insanity is trying to do the same thing over and over again … and expecting a different outcome).  I slowly sank into a kind of depression from which I had not vision of any light at the end of the tunnel.  I continued to listen to the CDs – although I would not attend Church under the influence.  I was totally unaware of the prayers on my behalf emanating from the Saints at Faith church.

Toward the end of the week proceeding Sunday, September 12^th I had all but decided I could not quit on my own. Pat checked with a local doctor, but got no help.  Sunday night we decided to call a friend from church. She witnessed to me about her years of addiction to both drugs and alcohol.  I could feel the love and the opening of my heart. As I hung up, I told Pat I wanted to become a Christian. She mildly explained that, in her understanding, by asking for Christ to come into my life, I was already there.  We then read the Bible and she witnessed to me throughout the night.  I began to understand just how simple Grace is to receive.  We talked and read through Monday.

On Tuesday Pat was buying me a Study Bible while I sat in the car listening to Pastor Bob’s own amazing testimony from ~1966.  The concept of Grace was sinking in! On Friday on the way to Atlanta we were reviewing his two CD sermons on Ephesians – first being DEAD – then discovering “What a difference a Grace makes”.  Friday, at dinner at Longhorns, I was witnessing to my daughter Janice’s boyfriend who was not a believer, but has subsequently been converted.

2 Corinthians 5:17

If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!

The subsequent outpouring of Love from everyone at Faith Presbyterian has been unbelievable.  Although I was on very shaking legs, they (with God’s guiding hand of course), have allowed me to keep my face pointed toward the light, and my Faith grows daily, if not hourly.   Janice’s boyfriend has even asked me to select material to read/listen to.    We pray that the Lord will speak to him through me.

I know that the Holy Spirit dwells within me and protects me.  Since that first night, I  find that all of a sudden I actually like people; my feelings of resentment & hostility have subsided; I’m addressing business situations better; I don’t feel any need to drink;  and I actually look forward to each new day with joy.  It’s not surprising that people say “You’ve really changed”.  And, I know inside that I really have.

Galatians 2:20

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.