Hair of the Dog

HOW COULD I NOT GO?

A year ago, I heard from a friend who had been on mission trips to Zambia many times. She had talked to a pastor there who had alcoholics coming into his church and wanted to know what he should do. My friend called me, knowing I was in recovery.

I went online to find a meeting. Realizing that the nearest one was over 50 miles away and very few people there have cars, I decided to prepare materials for them on how to start a meeting. I went to my recovery group meetings at my church and got funding to buy books to send. I packed up the books, included notes on how to run a meeting, and merrily sent off the package to Africa. The package got stuck in customs and never arrived. Four months went by. I was very disappointed.

Months later, out of the clear blue, I heard this distinct message from God, "I didn't want you to send books. I wanted to send YOU."

I did NOT want to go to Africa, but I knew in that moment I would go.

Not only was I in Zambia talking to women about alcoholism on the day I got sober exactly ten years prior, I was speaking on the hour I got sober. God was very specific about where I should be on that day. Not in a million years did I think that I would be talking to people in Africa ten years later about staying sober-I was just trying to stop drinking for that day in 2004!

While there in Zambia, I got to visit that pastor and to sit across from him in his dirt-floor church talking about his meeting for alcoholics. I realized that God had taken me halfway around the world to encourage this one man-and that was enough. My purpose now is to carry this message to other people who struggle with addiction as I have struggled in the past. And, to know there is a solution and there is hope.

My hope is that this book encourages you and lifts you on your recovery journey.