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In
my experience as a Medical Doctor practicing in New York
there are four ways to take care of it:
1-
Doctors and Hospitals.
2- Alcoholics Anonymous, and in-residence institutions.
3- Divine Faith Healing.
4- Relatives and friends.
1- Doctors
and Hospitals:
As
a Medical Doctor I have helped to quit alcohol to dozens of
patients that keep dry after 5 years.
All of
them came to my Office not to quit alcohol, but suffering
from the liver, stomach... and my approach, in general was
triple:
1- I
gave them a stern warning: If you keep on drinking, alcohol
is going to bring you to the grave, and soon!... your
children will be left without a father or a mother... and
you are 35 or 40?... whatever...
2- If
you want to quit, do it now and totally: Do not drink a drop
of alcohol for the next week, not even a regular cough syrup
that usually contains small amounts of alcohol...
nothing!...
It will be better for you to take rat poison than a sip
of beer or wine... because the rat poison testes bad and you
will spit it out, bet if you take a sip of wine, the whole
bottle will go after it!...
3- When
the next week they came back without testing a drop of
alcohol, I explained them that it's got to be that way for
the whole life... and all of them were advised to get in
contact with Alcoholics Anonymous.
2- Alcoholics Anonymous,
and in-residence institutions:
I
am convinced Alcoholics Anonymous is the best place to take
care of alcoholics for their lifetime.
When
there is a health problem, of course, doctors,
psychiatrists, or hospitals, are the place to go... but in,
general, most of doctors and hospitals do not take care of
alcoholism itself, until there is a serious health damage...
and institutions like Alcoholics Anonymous are the ones
doing a great job to stop alcoholism in the first phases of
it, when there is not yet a serious health problem, and the
best job in maintaining the patient alcohol-free for his or
her lifetime.
3- Divine Faith
Healing:
I
have seen people quitting alcohol after doing a Christian
Retreat: Charismatic Retreat, Cursillo in Christianity...
and quitting it for good, for more than ten years. Look at Amazing Genuine Testimonies of Quitting
Alcohol
The divine healing for
alcoholics follows the same guideline as for general
Divine Healing of the Sick in the Bible as shown in the
Book of Sirach 38:9-11 and James 5:14-16 (The book of Sirach
or Ecclesiasticus is often not included in the Protestant
Bibles).
1- Do not get
impatient, trust in the Lord... always trust in
God, in Jesus.
BE
ENCOURAGED: Neither be disturbed by what you see around you,
nor by your own thoughts. Don't look at your own
limitations, abilities, disabilities, or qualifications. The
Lord desires your surrendered will. Give Him ALL your
burdens, great and small. Give Him the opportunity to create
something beautiful out of your frustrations, your
disappointments, your grief, your troubles. Allow Him to
heal, to restore, to deliver, to raise you up. Let Him
change your weakness into strength. Become a VICTOR in the
power of the Holy Spirit.
Grab the VICTORY in Jesus Christ.
2- Pray to the
Lord, and He shall heal you! that's a great
promise!... and the first prayer should be of thanks-giving,
giving thanks for your alcohol habit!... because we have to
give thanks to God for every thing and in all circumstances
(Eph.5:20, 1Thes.5:16-18). .
3- Call the
elders of the Church, and let them pray over you,
and anoint you with oil in the name of the Lord... and the
prayer of faith will make you well, and will rise you up!...
and will stop your habit!... that's a big promise of
Jam.5:15, alleluia!... Make a Christian Retreat:
Carismatic, Cursillo in Christianity...
4- Make a good
Confession of Sins:"Turn away from sin and
order thy hands aright, and cleanse thy heart from all
offence." (Sirach 38:10)... "Therefore confess your
sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may
be healed." (Jam.5:16, Jn.20:23)...
Confess all your sins, including alcohol, and most
specially the sins of rancor, resentment, hatred, grudge...
because if we don't forgive others, we can't even pray the
Our Father where we ask God to forgive us the way we forgive
others (Mat.6:12-15, Jn.20:23).
Confess to God your sin, surrender your will to Him. Do
what you can do and what you cannot do, let Him do it.
Simple like that... If you mean business, He
will do what is needed!!!.
5- Offer the
Holy Mass,"Give a sweet sacrifice, and a
memorial of fine flour, and make a fat offering" (Sirach
38:11)...the memorial we have in Christianity is
the Holy Mass, to offer the Father the Lamb of God, Jesus
crucified and risen, praise the Lord!.
6- Call the
Physician, it is usually the first thing we do, but
it should be the last!... and in the quotation of James 5 it
is not even mentioned!... by the time you go to the Doctor
or AA you may be already healed!, praise the Lord!.
But most of the times the habit will not be stopped by a
miracle, this will be the extra-ordinary... the ordinary
way, the usual way, it will be healed by God, but using
yourself, your determination and will power, and the good
care and compassion of a doctor, a nurse, Alcoholic
Anonymous or the other institutions already mentioned, of
relatives, friends, neighbors...
No one can overcome a
habit who doesn't really want to do so. You must seriously
want to change before you will be motivated to take the
steps to freedom.
We may be
limited, but He can and will do the IMPOSSIBLE, if we
surrender our ALL to Him. Selling out to Jesus Christ, is
the way !
God does not need our abilities or
qualifications to do things, He needs our surrendered will.
He is quite capable of working everything out in our lives,
if we allow Him to. Thank you Jesus !
4-
Relatives, Friends, Neighbors:
Fundamentally, alcoholism is a health
problem — a physical and emotional disease — rather than a
question of too little willpower or of moral weakness. Just
as there is no point blaming the victim of diabetes for a
lack of willpower in becoming ill, it is useless to charge
the problem drinker with responsibility for the illness...
... the alcoholic must learn to stay away from alcohol
completely in order to lead a normal life.
Often an alcoholic is
the last person to know he is an alcoholic...or the last
person to admit it!... Relatives, friends, neighbors, can do
a great job in pointing it out to him, and in getting him in
contact with Alcoholics Anonymous or any other institution,
or for divine faith healing...
A frequent component of
the disease is the alcoholic's belief that drinking is
necessary to cope with life. In an alcoholic's confused
mind, the need to drink may literally seem like a matter of
life or death.
What can you do?:
Knowing that more than one and a half million problem
drinkers have attained sobriety in Alcoholics Anonymous, you
may be impatient to "do something" for the alcoholic in your
life. You may want to explain that alcoholism is an illness
and urge the alcoholic to read A.A. literature and head
straight for the nearest A.A. meeting.
You are badly
needed by your spouse, or child, or parent, or friend!...
... The alcoholic may be
rebelling outwardly against the idea of A.A., or any other
institution, but may actually be close to accepting your
encouragement and support and making a decision to join A.A.
or any other institution, or to make a Christian Retreat,
or to pray the way the bible suggests, or at least listen to
what various recovered alcoholics have to say about the
different ways that helped them... |
