During my brothers upbringing and the first several years of my sister and my childhood, my parents were what some would call social drinkers. There was plenty of weekends where friends and family would gather at our home for the friendly card games and along with that came the alcohol. Needless to say the social drinking turned into the disease of alcoholism for both my parents.

Our parents did everything they could to give us a normal childhood. They provided everything we needed, as well as most everything we wanted growing up, sometimes too much. Never mistreated us physically, yet the emotional scars caused by their disease are still with us.We witnessed arguing and fighting quite a bit during this time and moved several times due to the separating and re-uniting in their marriage.

Around the age of 11 I believe is when they finally divorced. My mother and us two girls moved into a duplex with her mother and we finally settled for a few years. The drinking was still present, but the violence had gone. We were enjoying our life and becoming comfortable in it.

Then the worst change of all happen. I was 14 and mother tells us she is going to get married again, to a man we hardly knew and if that wasn’t bad enough we were moving again. I was not a happy camper.

Along with this new marriage we obtain way to much freedom and with my rebellious attitude I started on a path of destruction that stayed with me up till 18 months ago. My sister was blessed with a calmer personality and was nothing like her headstrong sister. If she ever got into trouble it was because she followed me into something I got us into. Consequence was a word that never existed in my vocabulary until now.

It didn’t take too long for my new lifestyle to bring on serious bad habits. One of them was skipping school, to the point where the school officials became involved. It resulted in the removal of us from our mother’s home. Our brothers and their wives were willing to give us a home.Both families are Christians. Both brothers deacons in the church and their wives working for the Lord as well. While this is mostly likely the most important part of my life. It had it’s ups and downs. Imagine a young family taking in a 15 year old who knew nothing about rules not to mention responsibilities. I ended up leaving them at 17. Probably the worst decision I ever made. I did recieve Christ as my Savoir at the age of 15 while in their home. If it hadn’t of been for them introducing me to Christ I wouldn’t have this testimony to share.

So there I was back at home and with that more freedom than I had before. I was pregnant and married at 18. The marriage was filled with problems, mostly because I was too young to know what love was and the perception I gained about it growing up was a bit distorted. We were together long enough to have 3 beautiful daughters and divorced. I married again within a couple of years and had yet 1 more beautiful daughter. Well. this marriage didn’t last and neither did the next 4. ( for the life of me I couldn’t figure out what these men were doing wrong). I know now that most of the fault was mine. My daughters hung in there with their crazy mother and still today along with God are my source of strength.

It was during my marriage to my 4th husband that I was introduced to what would control and almost destroy my life as well as the lives of my family. It was CRACK COCAINE!!! One hit and I was hooked for 15 years. The pain I caused my family over these years can not be expressed. Stealing, lying and manipulating to support my addiction. I was in a living hell and I drug everybody that cared about me into it as well. There was several feeble attempts on my part to get help, only to fail time and time again and break my families hearts over and over. Then the day came when they had to cut me out of their life. They could not handle the pain any longer.

In March of 2009 having already lost both parents and my older brother, my other brother became seriously ill and the Lord seen fit to take him home. This event created in me one more time a desire to attempt recovery. But it didn’t happen until one more relapse. I had been living up until that time in a home where alcohol and cocaine use was consumed on a daily basis. I had been living this way for 6 years. I left this home after my first visit to my brother in the hospital and moved in once again with my sister and her family.They too had reached out to help me in the past over and over again.

I stayed with my sister for awhile, then I went to live with our cousin who was going thru chemo for the prevention of breast cancer re-occurrence.Well, there I was with very little clean time and I was going to redeem myself by helping someone else. That was truly the intention from my heart, however my cunning addiction had other ideas brewing in the back of my MIND. I hung in there for several months and finally relapsed. It wasn’t that hard my old home and the drug dealers weren’t but 3 blocks away.

The relapse was so severe I stole from my sick couisin to feed my addiction. It had finally gotten to the point where that was the reason I woke every morning. Finally, thank God, her son found out about what I had done and came and threw me out. As I walked away devastation struck. No where to go, no one to turn to. My only reason for living was to get high. I decided I couldn’t deal with my life anymore. But God intervened once again and I ended up in the Thomsville Hospital when the medication I took to end my life wasn’t as strong as Gods’ will for my life.Thank you Father.

I had closed all the doors between myself and my family and I believe that God allowed this to happen so that I had no one to depend on but Him. I had to realize that God was all I had in order to know who God truly was.

He went to work on me swiftly. 4 days into the hospital I recieved a phone call from my daughter Cindy. In tears she tells me that their father had been killed in an automobile accident the night before. There I was at what I thought was the bottom and I had to go home and help my daughters bury their father. It was truly the most difficult time in their life. As I watched them go through this pain and looked upon their fathers face laying in that casket God showed me that my daughters had been watching me die slowly on a daily basis for the past 15 years and that at any time that could have been me they were looking at.

As I returned to the hospital I was more determined than ever before to allow God to deliver me from my addiction. The first couple of weeks the doctors checked me out physically and mentally. By the grace of God I was in pretty good shape physically, but would you believe they had the nerve to tell me that I had a Bi-Polar disorder. Well go figure! No seriously I knew about this diagnosis but like a lot of areas in my life I was just to hard headed to go along with it.

Well I knew I definately had a thinking problem.I began focussing more and more on the word of God and allowing the Holy Spirit to direct me. After finally allowing the Lord to take control of my life I started realizing a desire in my heart to live the rest of my life serving him. Awesome huh? With this desire I began to focuss on what the Bible had to say about a persons MIND. Because the MIND produces thoughts that come from the desires in your heart. Then your thoughts produce the words from your mouth and the actions of your body.

The first scripture God brought to my attention was Phil 12:5 ( let this MIND be in you that was also in Christ Jesus) and then Rom 12:2 ( Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your MIND, so that you may prove what is that good, acceptable and perfect will of God). Most recovery programs use the motto “One day at a time” I use ” One thought at a time”.

I thank God for the 7 months I was away and I’m thankful for programs that are available for people who have problems. But, I am very concerned that these places are becoming less and less available. I’m positive satan is behind this. That is why I believe that one of Gods’ purposes for my life is to share my testimony. In order to strive to have the MIND of Christ is to forget self and focus on the needs of others. Christs’ heart was evangelism and so should be the hearts of every born again Spirit filled Christian. As Paul states in Phil 1;12 (To live is Christ and to die is gain) I have to die to myself daily in order to live.

The Lord has blessed me greatly over these last 18 months of living for him. I have a restored relationship with my family with more commitment than ever before. I am becoming more and more the mother and grandmother, sister,friend and most importantly the person God intended for me to be in the beginning. If there is any doubt in anyones MIND that God still performs miracles I assure you he does. My life is a living testimony. I ask that you remember me in the work that the Lord has for my life as well as those who are still lost in a world of addiction and alcohol or anything else that might hinder them from surrendering to God and fulfilling the life God has intended for them. I thank my God and each of you for allowing me this opportunity to share my story. God bless you all. Love in Christ, Vicki Sirmans Shaw

My Mom taught at the church school. Childhood memories are extremely happy ones.  Our lives revolved around church and school, so I knew only Christians.  Accepting Jesus as my Savior at the age of five, I enjoyed Sunday school, church, Awana, soul-winning, and Christian school throughout my elementary years.

Aware of a “world” out there somewhere, I had no clue what it was all about.  My parents were careful to shelter us from outside influences.  When I was in 8^th grade, my mother quit teaching to home school my brother and me.  As I grew, I felt overly controlled.  Although I was taught to obey and honor my parents, sometimes I didn’t understand all their rules. When I asked “why”, no reasons were given except that that’s what you do to be a good Christian.  During my home-schooled high school years, it became very important to act right, speak right, and look right at all times.  That’s when the games began.

I began “playing” Christianity because it seemed like the easiest solution.  I went to a Christian college where my way of life was reinforced.  By then, apathy had turned to rebellion-I was tired of playing church and just wanted out.  I didn’t know what was out there, but I wanted whatever it was.  Dropping out of Bible College my senior year, I went to bars; but I hated getting drunk and didn’t like all the superficiality I felt there.  I needed substance, and there was a big emptiness inside of me.  That’s all I felt day in and day out. I started searching, reading different philosophies, drawn to free thinkers like Leary, Burroughs, and Thompson.  I sought other people engaged in the same way of thinking. They were, of course, “drug people.”  I started experimenting with hallucinogens that made me even more confused and the big empty hole even hollower.

Then, one day, at a Wide Spread Panic concert, my little brother gave me my first line of coke.  I remember it like it was yesterday, thinking “I finally found what I was looking for; I’m finally home.”  Growing up so sheltered, I did not see how predictably the next ten years would play out-going from $50 to a $1000/week habit.  Selling myself out, stealing, lying, and manipulating everyone I knew, produced guilt and the need for more drugs.  Losing job after job, trying to quit, out of control, hiding my habit, more guilt, more drugs, losing all self-respect, my morals going down the drain, doing whatever I had to do just to get high.

One night, at 4 a.m., after a 3-day, $900 binge, I was flat on my back in a hospital bed.  God gave me a wake-up call.  With my life out of control, I went to a secular outpatient program. It helped me understand how addiction works, but that big gaping hole that was so poorly patched for all these years was back inside my heart.

This led me to RU. I learned that, in spite of everything I knew about the Bible and Christianity, I did not have a growing, personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I cannot do it in my own power.  It’s Christ in me.  And that big empty hole in my heart is being filled with “the peace that passeth all understanding.”

(from RUI blog)