A Mind Made Up

Have you done it? Have you made up your mind yet? God has made up his mind about you. But have you? There is in recovery what they call the “Rock Bottom”. This is the lowest point of addiction. We feel the worst; we have suffered and have caused suffering, it feels like a pit too deep to crawl out of. Now this is a terrible place to be, every addict has their version of what this looks like. I would venture to say some out there would compare these situations to others, but that is a very dangerous game to play. Regardless, there is potential for a blessing in the brokenness of this experience. If you have hit “Rock Bottom” you can only go up from there.

Now an important decision is made here. The one that makes up your mind. Will you decide to go back up? Or stay at the bottom until there is no more time left in this life? I will give my personal reflection of this as an example. In August of 2023, I began to feel “spiritually dead”. Now I grew up in faith, I believe in my Jesus, I knew he would forgive me. Forgiving myself however, was an entirely different matter, a resentful matter. But this Friday afternoon, I had gotten home from work, and I felt as though I had two options left. Either get help and start the climb upwards out of that pit, or let my spirit die in that hole, and me with it. I praise God that I had heard of this recovery group beforehand; I am unsure where I would have been now without it. But I went to the website and sent in the request for help, and I got it.

That was day one of having my mind made up. I was not going to let this addiction continue to chew me up and spit me out, repeatedly. Now my journey has been far from perfect in the past couple of years, but each one has been immensely better than any year I ever spent in addiction. None of this, however, would have happened had it not been for the “Rock Bottom” stage of my life. Utterly crushing, but absolutely necessary. Think of lemonade per se, you must crush, squeeze, and slice the lemon in order to extract what is needed for lemonade to be produced. We must be broken in the sight of God and ourselves for him to produce something good in and out of us. We must go through this process, for progress.

When we make up our mind, when we begin to climb back up, we will find that there are others waiting to pull us along. It does not have to happen alone, and rarely will that ever succeed either. Other men will share their experiences, their trials, and the solution or the outcome of such. Recovery works if you work it. Addiction crumbles underneath the feet of honesty and accountability; sin flees in the sight of another when you ask for help. Rock bottom is not the end; it is the beginning. Choose LIFE today.

Gaven F.

A grateful believer in Jesus Christ.