​And if that wasn't desperate enough, it actually got worse.  Oh, sure, I had times of feeling good and moving along in life, but more like a programmed robot than a person loving what they're living.  My drinking escalated, and in 2019 I started entertaining thoughts of suicide.  I really believed that my children, my siblings, the whole world in general, would be a better place without me.  Shoot myself?  No, I don't do guns.  Hang myself?  No, I'm too chicken.  Jump off a cliff?  Still, too chicken.  I know, cyanide!  Drink, suffer quickly, goodbye world.  So I researched places to find cyanide; but at every turn, I was denied the purchase.  At one website, a picture of a skull and crossbones came onto the screen and actually started blinking at me and then these big, bold black letters said, "YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED HERE!"   That really scared me, and I stopped looking.  Like a lightning bolt, it occurred to me that God just might be saying, "Stop this foolishness!  You still have work to do!"
 

And I can't say with any certainty what "shifted" for me.  But I'd like to think that I had pretty much hit rock bottom and that God felt I was ready to evolve.  In June of 2020 I decided to take the biggest step toward healing by getting sober.  I had been through years of quitting for short periods, a stint at a rehab facility, and AA meetings, but I just didn't want to do any of that again.  I simply wanted to be accountable to God and to one person who would talk to me everyday and make sure that I had gotten through another 24 hours without a drink.  And there was only one person in the world who I knew,  without a doubt, would walk with me.  I called my daughter-in-law on Friday, June 5th, and said, "If I don't stop drinking, I'm going to die."  

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I will be forever grateful to my daugter-in-law.  She called me every night for 6 months, generally half-hour sessions, and we worked through Celebrate Recovery, the Big Book, and other healing tools.  Almost instantly, my life got better.  I felt more engaged when I was around others and I became so much more aware of the presence of God in everything I did, especially in nature and in quiet moments.
 

I believe that Dark Night of Soul, though extremely painful, is a necessary part of spiritual evolution.  You shed false parts of yourself and you emerge from it into a transformed state of consciousness.  You awaken from an old sense of reality into something much deeper.  It is a kind of rebirth.  

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We would love to hear about your "Dark Night", how you came through it, and how it transformed you.  Please send your story to sandra@soul-in-control.net so that we can share it with others.  Anyone going through this time can use as much support and encouragement as we can give.  Thank you!