Escaping the Flatline: Dependency Defeated

By Archie Mitchell

This is an addict’s personal journey from absolute darkness to the light of a loving and merciful God. Through whispers to his heart, he has documented each step of the way in the most worldly relative ways. A spiritual journey to recovery designed to guide one completely lost on a step by step path to redemption, ultimately culminating in the love of a Savior.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Oct 6, 2022
• ISBN: 9781664278684

Archie Mitchell

An addict of over 15 years, Archie finally learned how to surrender control of his life to God. With the support of family and friends, he finally achieved the spiritual connection that would break down the addictive beast that controlled him.

Book preview

CAN’T LIVE WITH OR

WITHOUT YOU

T his is for those of you who may find themselves smack-dab in the middle of the most horrifying and challenging seventy-two hours of your physical existence. Detox is as brutal as it gets and there is simply no better way to put it. It is the deepest level of combined emotional, physical, mental, and spiritual suffering imaginable. The best thing I can tell you right now is that you are experiencing 72 hours of misery in its purest form, but it is an incredibly small price to pay. The sacrifices you are putting yourself through at this moment come with an unfathomable reward if you persist and stay the course. The clarity and wonder of life is unimaginable for you at this stage of recovery, but fasten your seat belt for a beautiful ride. If you look hard enough in the right direction, you will be able to see a light shimmering through where the darkness of your tunnel ends. Don’t you dare look in your rear-view mirror now, because the light you may think you have discovered is the same type of bulb that lures the unsuspecting bug to an electrifying death via the zapper. It shines with a pretty purple illumination but exists for the sole purpose of jolting you over and over until suffering and death win the day. Stay focused on the tiny light shining off in the horizon, and then take a moment to ask God to walk alongside you as you make your entrance into the ring for what just may be the fight of your life. Addiction is a beast and a persistent evil that is not willing to go away quietly, but there is a much greater power available to you if you only surrender control. As the storm rages on, just know that the lifeline you have called upon has already won the war over dependency in all of its ugly forms with thousands, maybe millions like yourself. On a much grander and significant scale, this divine power has forever defeated the powers of Hell that rule this fallen world we walk through in the flesh. This one I will keep short and to the point because I have trodden the path you find yourself on and know that you need all your strength to stay on your feet. Know this, only God has the power to break the chains that bind you, to empower you to slay the monster keeping guard over your prison cell. I remember in such hours of suffering while craving the drugs that this is a no-win situation, I can’t live with or without you. I promise you…. I promise you…. if you call on the name of God right now, learning to live without them becomes a pleasant reality.

"FALLING APART,

BARELY BREATHING"

I have decided to write this daily outpouring of emotion mainly for my own outlet, but if these devotions somehow help just one other lost soul break free from the death grip of addiction, then I honestly say Amen. I am writing to release and be freed from the overwhelming power of the one million thoughts and feelings that at this moment are being held captive inside the recesses of my mind and deepest part of my soul. Like the great philosopher, Anna Nallick, said, "If I get it all down on paper it’s no longer inside of me threatening the life it belongs to.’’ There Is an emptiness inside me left by the absence of the drugs, a hollowness that they never actually sealed; but their numbing effects would place a lid on the dark hole to keep its vast space from revealing its presence to everyone, including me. Unfortunately, it is there, and I’ve got news for you, it is there in every human being on this God created planet from the very second they take their first breath. It exists and Is fed due to the broken relationship of mankind with its wonderful creator. What we as human beings long for is love, peace, hope, and a reflection of ourselves staring back from the mirror that we discover true contentment with. Notice I didn’t use pride to describe this reflection of ourselves. Pride eventually leads to the barren branches of the life-giving tree that are broken and cannot receive the nourishment needed to grow and produce further, fruitful life. Today, I find myself in a strangely beautiful place, a beauty surrounding me that my family and friends just can’t wrap their minds around. Physically, I feel that if I were to go outside and look to the sky, what I would see is a band of vultures circling above my head patiently. Spiritually, I find myself finally almost ALL-IN! I am at this very moment almost in complete surrender to the will of God in my life and I am almost ready to dive into the pool of his mercy and grace. I just need to take the leap. Let me promise you one thing, when I do dive in, you can bet your bottom dollar I will spend some extra time basking in such divine beauty. Hey, I plan on soaking in it daily forever, but for these next few days, can you say human prune? I’m still wrestling with the voice inside trying to white knuckle through this struggle and remain in control, but through the readings of The Life Recovery Bible, I find myself breaking that beast down little by little each hour. I’m not afraid of that moment, when I will bathe in my own tears, when my heart of stone finally softens and cracks to pieces, when I find a suffering savior in the darkest corridor of my life. For I know, it will be here in this place of brokenness I never imagined that I will take his yoke upon myself. It will be here that Jesus and I will begin to walk through this harsh world yoked together, travelling the same direction for the first time in my adult life. I have fought against it for so long despite pretending. Today I feel nearly broken to pieces and I LOVE IT! Until Tomorrow…

Ephesians 5:18: Don’t be drunk with wine because that will ruin your life. Instead be filled with the Holy Spirit.

Oh how I long for the type of faith it takes to stand toe to toe with a giant while holding a simple sling and a stone.

STANDING ON A ROAD

I DIDN’T PLAN

L et me cut thru the ice right off the rip and tell you a little bit about myself. I am forty-one years old at the moment and have been thru a lot of self-inflicted bad luck in my adult life. I was married at twenty-one, divorced at twenty-six, and am now on my second marriage while still struggling to be the man of God that personifies the husband my wife needs. My actions from my mid- twenties until today probably resulted in many, many promotions for the demons who Satan assigned the destruction of my soul. Here I stand on a road I never imagined being lost on, a road that was never even on the map of my plans and surely not God’s plan for me. I grew up in a loving Christian household and accepted Jesus Christ as my personal savior at the ripe and wise old age of five. By age eight, I was memorizing half the Bible, winning the vacation bible school coveted Prize Bible for attendance, bringing friends, and learning God’s word. I was even being shown on the big screen at church for being loaded down with AWANA medals based on biblical knowledge. Let me tell you, I was so proud of myself. The best part was on the streets of my neighborhood, I was a childhood version of Billy Graham, an evangelist who had my friends and playmates on their knees also accepting Christ into their lives as their Lord and Savior. I knew God’s plan for my future then, but my lustful heart had other things in mind. Let me save you some time and just hit the fast-forward button to some thirty odd years later. At twenty-one I conceived a child out of wedlock, and used everyone I knew like pawns in a chess game towards my own personal agenda. I have done many things that made the devil smile with great feelings of accomplishment for his work on my heart, and somewhere along the broken road I decided to abuse painkillers to cope with the person I had become. For the better part of eleven years, I lied to my wife, deceived my children, my parents, my boss, my pastor, friends and anyone I came across that it was necessary to keep this double life from. There was that void the drugs seemingly and temporarily filled, but ironically over time they just empowered the empty space inside me to grow and grow and grow and... well, you get the picture. I lost our homes, a great job, respect of family, money well into the six-digit range, and I induced an untold amount of pain and suffering on the people I love most. Are you ready for the worst part? I had not yet let go of what deep down inside me was God’s constant gnawing at the core of my heart. I was in seminary studying to be a pastor. An addict, a liar, a thief living a double life, pastor to be by day, drug seeking addict by night. Talk about one’s inner conflict resting on both ends of the spectrum. But I realized something today, just read the book of Hosea in the Old Testament and see how amazingly faithful God truly is. He will NEVER give up on you no matter what you have done or how far you have fallen. His love for you is limitless and unconditional and now I know that the abyss that cuts thru the middle of my soul has always been there. When I wore a younger man’s clothes, it was completely filled by the Holy Spirit and my constant walk with God. When I grew older and turned my back on him, choosing instead to travel the path I wanted, lusting after money, big homes, fancy cars, women, and the rest of this world’s temptations, that gaping hole grew with each lie just like Pinocchio’s nose. It mattered not what I bought or what goals were accomplished as nothing could keep the hunger or pain satisfied. The drugs would cover the misery up temporarily, the pain of who I had become absent God in my life, allowing me to avoid facing the spiritual battle inside me, nor would I be forced to feel anything at all. Ultimately what they did do was give Satan more and more of the power over me which he needed to destroy the life inside. Well, one of my favorite, movie lines of all time began the path of my renewal and I encourage you to use this one to kick-start your own recovery. It comes from the Karate Kid II when the villain’s uncle says to his misguided nephew, Now to you...l am dead. Hey, I just threw the word Satan at the very beginning and let that deceiving creep know, " NOW TO ME HE IS DEAD!"

Romans 8:38: And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries for tomorrow, --not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love.

GOD BLESS THE

RAVAGED ROAD

I know God has an amazing plan for my life, not grandiose necessarily, but it will be wildly amazing whatever path he plans to take me down. It is really difficult for me to understand how such a regrettable, sinful past can have any purpose at all. I mean, God did not will for these things to happen, although he did allow my free will to drive me to my place of brokenness. You see, at the very bottom point of my suffering, I discovered that Christ himself had walked there before me, the ultimate suffering servant. It was there in that exact moment that I finally truly understood a verse from one of my favorite books of the Bible,

Job 42:5: I had only heard about you before, but now I have seen you with my own eyes.

In other words, Job discovered the loving, merciful, all powerful, faithful creator of the entire universe. No matter how hard I try, I will never be able to understand how wasting the valuable, coveted years of my 30s could fit into God’s plan, nor am I going to question his divine ways. What I do know is this ...... God works all things together for the good of those who love him. The suffering I have and will continue to go through is in reality a blessing and a privilege, because through it I am growing much closer to God than I ever would have been able to without it. Here is the truth, God cares so much more about your character development than your comfort level. As strange as this may seem to many people reading, the resulting humility which I find myself engrossed in at this moment of total surrender to God’s will and denial of my own, if it is God’s will for me to pastor a flock of his people as I once felt, will make me a far superior shepherd to the church than the prideful, self-serving, and do it all my way persona I was prior to this insane blur of a decade. My road was not paved, it was not plotted with step by-step directions by Google maps, it was a cold, harsh, dark, broken reality, but because of such misdirection, today I can honestly fall to me knees and say with conviction …God bless the ravaged road that brought me into his presence.

MY ANCHOR HOLDS

I ’m going to include one of my favorite one liners into this memoir simply because it is perfectly fitting in describing how I am feeling at this moment. I am on day thirteen of complete abstinence from the opiates although it seems like I am approaching month thirteen with the exhaustion from the minute-by-minute battles.

Weak made strong in savior’s love

Today my weakness came charging out of the gate like an angry, destruction-minded bull to a cocky, young matador. I have never once considered myself a man who has the luxury of good fortune residing in his corner and coming down with a massive headache, sore throat of epic proportions, and other flu like symptoms just two weeks into the recovery process is flat out NOT COOL. My wife is working her beautiful self to death trying to come to grips with the current state of financial affairs and decided to open up that discussion first thing in the morning. It was starting to feel like the honeymoon phase was coming to a vicious and crashing halt. The lies that had controlled me for years began to find space to squeeze past the great wall of positive thinking I worked so hard to build. The addiction reared its ugly head from the prison I had created for it and started having its own voice. Hey, bro... remember me? Is facing this ridiculous level of stress really worth it? Do you really feel even the slightest bit better? Yet they call me the liar. I’m here to tell you my old friend that this battle for recovery just is not worth it. Have I not always been there for you when life seemed to be dragging you in one hundred different directions? When the walls seemed to be rapidly caving in all around you? Did I not comfort you when you had nothing left to give and just felt like throwing in the towel altogether? But the funny thing is, amazingly God always seems to find a way to squash and silence those voices inside