Sabotaging Everything Good In My Life

How a Prayer Request Helped Me Answer My Own Prayer

"So how did you know it was time to quit?"

It's the most common question I receive. Since I didn't hit the proverbial rock bottom before deciding to quit drinking, how did I know when it was time to stop?

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I read somewhere that your heart recognizes the end long before you head does. There were signs in the months (years?) leading up to the day I decided to end the debilitating cycle of drink, sleep, wake up with regret, and repeat.

It's funny, but today as I was dropping my kids off at school, I had a flashback. A few months before I quit, I attended church. The church had prayer request cards you could write on and hand them back for someone in the congregation to pray for you. I had never done it before, but something that day drove me to pick up a card and write "I am sabotaging everything good in my life."

I remember writing those words exactly -- vague as the message was -- not completely sure what I meant and yet, I see now that deep down, my heart was crying out about my drinking.

I need to thank whoever read my prayer request and prayed for me. Because about two months later I quit drinking. I decided to stop sabotaging my own happiness with my choices and to proactively make this change.

If you asked me that day at the church what I meant on my prayer request, I probably would have side-stepped the real issue. I would have said something about my destructive anger and my anxiety that feeds into everything. I wasn't ready to admit, even to myself, what was really behind those words. 

Today I can finally understand what my heart was trying to say that day. My heart knew what I had to do. It was simply waiting for the rest of me to catch up.

Look for the signs, and pray or reflect like your life depends on it. If you want validation that quitting is the right choice, the signs will be everywhere. You'll see them from your loved ones, at work, in the streets, and from the universe.

But more than anything else, they will come from within. Trust your heart. It already has the answer.

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