I first began to drink in college, using alcohol to modify my mood in social situations and to "join in the fun." Over time, I began to look forward to meals, to outings, and to business travel because of the opportunities they gave me to drink. Sometimes I even changed my schedule to make sure a day included time for alcohol. Although I didn't recognize it, drinking had begun to affect my priorities.
During this time, I also smoked cigarettes occasionally. I'd tried many times to quit this habit, but hadn't been successful. Then, when my marriage ended in divorce, I started to drink and smoke even more in an effort to find relief from the mental pain I was feeling. Instead of helping me, though, the alcohol only made things worse.
My parents suggested I call a Christian Science practitioner to pray with me about my turmoil over the divorce. At first, I resisted the idea. I hadn't been an active student of Christian Science for years. But finally, after a particularly low day, I decided to give it a try.
The practitioner reminded me that the Bible says man—meaning both men and women—was made in the image and likeness of God (see Gen. 1:26, 27). He also reminded me that Mary Baker Eddy described man as the reflection of God. I remembered these ideas from my time as a student in a Christian Science Sunday School. But then the practitioner gave me a new idea. He said that the word reflection doesn't only mean that man is the image of God—like light reflected in a mirror—but it also means that God reflects upon His children, considers them, contemplates them, thinks about them, and meditates upon them; that they are the object of God's thought.
I realized God still loved me.
This idea was tangible to me. It made me feel that I was known and loved by God, even though my life had deviated from what I considered the straight and narrow path. I felt loved. With this new understanding, I got a new vision of how my life should proceed. This vision didn't include relationships and career moves, but a simple desire to be good and Christlike.
I found this vision so inspiring that I never wanted to lose sight of it. I knew that alcohol would cloud my perception, and I didn't want that. At that moment, I lost all desire for such drinks. It has never returned.
Two days later, while at work, I felt an urge to smoke. I decided that this addiction also needed to be healed. So I began to pray. I reasoned along the lines of "the scientific statement of being" from Science and Health (see p. 468). I knew that because I was spiritual, I couldn't be addicted to a material substance. I affirmed that smoking had no power over God and me, and that I was free. I felt relief immediately. I threw out my cigarettes and never had another pang of desire for them. Nor did I suffer from any of the withdrawal symptoms that had come with my previous attempts to quit.
At the same time, the pain I was feeling over my divorce also started to dissolve. I began to think about the spiritual qualities I would want in a wife and, within a month, realized that I already knew a woman who embodied all of those qualities. We've now been married for 12 years.
Hillsborough, New Jersey
