A Play in Three Acts

Someone out there needs to read this.

Act One

Twenty-seven years ago this morning I woke up hungover for the last time. The plan was to end my life. Alcohol had convinced me that I had no reason to go on. 

I was twenty-seven. 

I’d spent twenty-seven years wandering in darkness, trying to find a reason for living. Hope was gone. And on this day, it would all mercifully end. 

But then, in my darkest moment, light appeared. Along with a voice. And then everything changed. 

No one I know today knew me at the end of my first act.

Act Two

Today marks twenty-seven years since my last drink. Twenty-seven years of living life on life’s terms. Being tested. Facing adversity. The downs. The ups. Life. And for twenty-seven years I’ve somehow avoided the one thing that wanted me dead. The one thing that convinced me I had nothing to live for. 

For twenty-seven years I’ve held firm to the idea that I’ve had nothing to do with this change, and I reject the notion that somehow my life today is the result of my will. All I’ve done is trust God—a concept I knew nothing about twenty-seven years ago. 

Act Three

If I’m lucky enough to make it through today without a drink, tomorrow begins a new act.

I’m not going to lie, I’m pretty excited. Nervous, even. It’s like walking through a door into an unknown room. And it feels so hopeful.

God has never spoken to me like He did that day twenty-seven years ago. It’s different now. Today I hear Him through ordinary people and ordinary acts. Little miracles throughout a normal day. Things that for twenty-seven years before my enlightenment, I never noticed. 

Only today I seek them out. 

Epilogue

Somewhere out there someone is in the same place I was twenty-seven years ago. This post is for them. The peace you seek is within you. You simply have to believe. To trust. To look the world square in the eyes and reject it as a gauntlet of pain. There’s more to life. There’s more for you.

I am living proof that there’s another way. And I had nothing to do with it. Yet, here I am like a kid on Christmas morning full of wonder and hope for what happens next.

I’m so fucking lucky. 

***

Jim