“I make the first move to come to you!”

That morning, on waking up, I said I wanted to go home. And that is when it hit me. I realized this was not a bad dream, but stark reality

When, in January or February of 2004, a copy of LOA fell into my hands, I was in a tragic situation. My life had to sense to it, and I had no prospect of things ever being otherwise.

I am an alcoholic. Admitting this fact, which is the condition of sobriety, did not come easily to me. I had to suffer a great deal and hurt many people before, after many years of hard drinking, I could look in the mirror and tell myself, “Yes, I am sick. I am an alcoholic.” Today I know that God gave me the strength to pick myself up after hitting rock bottom.

I have been sober for over six years, and, thanks to God’s grace, continue to lead a pure life. Life here on earth is a constant struggle, a never-ending process of conversion. For this reason, I cannot say I have overcome my problems once and for all. To say so would be untruthful and arrogant on my part. That is why I pray every morning to Jesus for the grace of sobriety and purity. My family has a problem with alcohol. My father also drank—and this certainly was not normal drinking. I often witnessed his negative behaviour under the influence of alcohol. I saw how my my mother suffered on account of it. Seeing nothing good in alcohol, I was sure I would never reach for it.

I have to say there was a lot of good at home as well. When I was a child, my parents prayed every day with us. On saying goodnight to me and my two sisters, they would trace the sign of the cross on our foreheads. Dad read us stories—from the Bible as well, the kind of bible stories for children, with a series of questions at the end. Our parents, especially my mother saw to it that we went to church. Thanks to her, I went for the rosary and the stations of the cross. Needless to say, as I got older, I did not always like this. I did not always feel like going. When our parents took us on vacation, the other children did not have to go to church on Sundays. I did not want to go either, but my mother would not agree to this. So I went. Sometimes I was ashamed to tell my friends I had been to church, since most of them did not go. On meeting them, once, after the rosary, I began telling them there was something wrong with my mother, and that she made me go. Quite simply, I renounced Christ. When I started to drink, I automatically began to distance myself from God. I stopped going to church altogether. But, in hindsight, I am very grateful to my parents for their example and laying the foundations of my faith.

My first experiences with alcohol were with wine. I drank out of curiosity, and to be sociable. I was very careful at first, taking only a few mouthfulls, and so was not aware of alcohol’s dire effects on my organism. Then I began going to soccer matches, and these were always an occasion to drink wine.

On March 5, 1997, I drank myself to unconsiousness for the first time. I know the date, since I still have the unused soccer match ticket at home. It was a Wednesday. It began as usual, with my friends offering me wine. It tasted good, and I gulped it down greedily. I do not know how much more I drank, but the effect was like a thunderbolt. I lost complete consciousness, got totally zonked, for the first, but not last, time in my life.

When I came to the next day, I had asphalt on my face as well as cuts and abrasions—clearly, the result of a fall. Apparently, I had fallen out of the streetcar on my face in the center of the city. I was denied admittance to the match because of my woeful state. I lay covered in my vomit under a tree near the stadium entrance. Someone mercifully carried me (or more accurately, my insensate body) into the parking lot, so that the police would not cart me off to the drunk tank. I vomited in the streetcar and train on the way home. Some boys from the apartment block (not my drinking mates) brought me home.

So began my drunken life. I was all of fifteen years old. I vowed then that I would never touch alcohol again. But clearly I did not drew the obvious conclusions from that first painful lesson. Two weeks later, I got drunk again. My dependence on booze grew, since drinking gave me great pleasure. In time my tolerance to alcohol increased. To obtain the same effect as before, I had to drink even more. I sought occasions to drink. Before long I no longer needed an occasion. Gradually, my life began to revolve exclusively around alcohol. I began to neglect my responsibilities and former interests.

In September of 1998, my mother went to the Marian shrine at Licheń where she made a vow of perpetual abstinence from alcohol. She did this mainly for my father’s benefit, but in time this intention passed to me as well, since my situation was becomng increasingly worse. Needless to say, I made nothing of this at the time. In fact, I laughed the matter off. Sometimes I became violent after getting drunk. In March of 1999, my family got a big shock. I was arrested for my part in an assault on a number of Arabs. It began harmlessly enough. A friend of mine was celebrating his birthday and stood us to a bottle of vodka. We began by drinking in the basement of the apartment block. After that we went to the disco at the students’ residence. That is where it began, and without the slightest provocation. My attitude surprised even myself, since I had never beaten anyone up before. I am gentle by nature, but on that occasion, under the influence of alcohol, I went into a fit of rage. (When I recall the incident now, my hair wants to stand on end). First, I beat one of the unfortunates black and blue with a belt (actually with the belt-buckle), and then, when he was on the ground, I started kicking his head with all my might. I shudder to think of it.

The police arrested me on my way home. I lay on my chest with a shotgun aimed at my head. They took me off to the drunk tank. That morning, on waking up, I said I wanted to go home. And that is when it hit me. I realized this was not a bad dream, but stark reality.

My parents and sisters were terribly upset, but not I. When I went out later to see my buddies, I felt a sense of pride, since the entire incident had been reported in a local section of the national newspaper. I hadn’t snitched on anyone, given anyone away, or allowed myself to be intimidated. I felt like a hero. You might say I had come through my “baptism of fire.” Unfortunately, I learned nothing from this experience. I continued to drink and refused to admit that alcohol was causing me to spiral into a free-fall.

With my eighteenth birthday coming up, I needed money for the party (i.e. to buy a bottle of pure spirits), and so I pawned my bike to a friend. The day before my birthday, I drank with my buddies in the park. On our way home, one of these friends hanged himself from a tree. Nothing meant anything to me then. I drank away my birthday money. I came to my friend’s funeral drunk, since I could not imagine going through it sober. I was filled with anger and sadness, which only worsened my dissipation.

At a party at the home of a girlfriend, I wanted to prove to myself that things were not all that bad with me, and that I could drink temperately. I bought a 0.7 liter bottle of vodka for myself and the two girls that accompanied me. I did not mean to get drunk. But that is not what happened.

I started with a beer, which I downed in a single gulp, so as to feel better and more relaxed. Then I felt an uncontrollable desire to drink more, so I applied myself to the vodka bottle. After several glasses, I felt very sure of myself. I thought everything was under control. That was the last nail in the coffin. The next thing I knew—I was absolutely sloshed by this time—I had driven my fist into the face of one of the girls I had come with, convinced, as I learned later, that she had hidden the vodka from me, when the truth of the matter was that I had downed practically the whole bottle myself. A friend had to apply ice to her face to prevent a shiner. I was so drunk that my whole face was contorted and only whites of my eyes showed. My friends wanted to call an ambulance. As if this were not enough, I peed my pants while I was unconscious. When I woke up the next day and learned what I had been up to, well, surely there is no need to say more. It was beyond words. Nothing for it but to do myself in.

(…) After another incident, my mother convinced me to seek help at an addiction center. She had known for a long time that I was getting worse and had been seeking information on alcoholism and its treatment. She knew where I had to go for help. I recall undergoing an alcoholic’s test which proved positive. But I went to the center only once. After that I consulted several psychologists, who did not especially help me. I have to laugh when I recall how one of these psychologists suggested we draw up a contract. Since I was unable to stop drinking, why not agree to drink only on the weekends and abstain during the rest of the week? Needless to say, nothing came of this. Then my mother suggested we go to an AA meeting. At the door, she spoke with a member of the community. He told us this was a closed meeting, and that we should first go to an open meeting. So nothing came of this either. I decided this simply was not the place for me.

(…) On Mother’s Day, I was invited to a bonfire to say goodbye to a friend who going into the army. I handed Mom a flower, wished her a happy Mother’s Day, and told her I was going to this party. Mom seemed to have a premonition. She begged me not to go, since I never came home sober from such affairs. I tried to convince her that this time it would be different. In the end, I insisted I would go.

Alas, Mom was right. I drank myself into unconsciousness. All I remember was kicking with incredible fury at someone lying on the ground by the bus stop. The police caught me in the act and arrested me a second time. Back to the drunk tank. The next day, in the hallway, I met my friend with whom I had gone to the bonfire. His clothes were all  stained from the blood of the man we had attacked at the bus stop. Seeing my friend in this state gave me a terrible shock. This time, I felt, things might not end well, that I, at age nineteen, might find myself in jail. At the police station I learned that the man we had kicked was in danger of losing an eye. I felt my life was getting out of hand. Fortunately for me, the police did not detain me. The injured man did not lose his sight. I was placed under police supervision and allowed to go home. My father, who met me on the way, told me he did not know if my mother was still alive, since she was so distressed by it all. (She had already had a stroke and been told to avoid stressful situations.)

(…) That is the kind of person I was. I lacked humility. Once again I learned nothing from my behavior. I was totally addicted. I thought constantly about death. I felt my life lacked all meaning. (…) I realized I was walking on thin ice. All the time I was playing with my life. I was caught in a vicious circle—no way out of it. In November of 2003, I broke my leg—needless to say, after another drunken spree. To this day I have no recollection of how it happened. That very Sunday morning, right after they put my leg in a cast, I hobbled over to the bar on my crutches. I was delighted, since now I had three months off from work.

During my sick leave, I continued to drink hard and often. But this time something happened to me that would change my life forever. It was during a terrible night, one of many—a sleepless night, full of fears, remorse, a sense of futility and deep despondency. I was lying on the bed with my broken leg. I had the runs, my hands shook, and I suffered from muscle cramps. I was afraid of having a heart attack or a stroke. I sweated profusely, and my arms were numb. I saw no help for myself. The situation was hopeless.

For some time now, I had had to drink alcohol in order to fall asleep. This time I had drunk nothing. It was a Wednesday night, and the light was on, since I had a horror of the darkness. My younger sister had passed me a copy of Love One Another Magazine so as to have something to read. That was a laugh for a start, but since I could not sleep anyway, I began to leaf through the magazine. There I came across the personal stories of people who had met God in their lives. They wrote about how He had changed their lives. “It’s all right for them,” I thought to myself. Then I alighted on a page with an image of Jesus Christ on it; below it was the inscription, “Jesus, I trust in You!” I began to read an article entitled, “A Conversation between the Merciful God and the Despairing Soul.” It began with the words: “Be not afraid of your Savior, O sinful soul. I make the first move to come to you, for I know that by yourself you are unable to lift yourself to me.” When I read these words, something incredible happened to me, something I cannot explain in rational terms. I read on: “Child, do not run away from your Father; be willing to talk openly with your God of mercy who wants to speak words of pardon and lavish his graces on you. How dear your soul is to Me! I have inscribed your name upon My hand; you are engraved as a deep wound in My Heart.” It was as if these words were directed to me personally, as if this entire conversation were occurring here and now. I felt an incredible sense of peace and bliss. Something burst within me. Before I knew it, tears began welling up in my eyes. I started to cry as never before. I wept and was unable to stop. The words spoken by the soul in the dialogue became my own words: “Lord, I hear your voice calling me to turn back from the path of sin, but I have neither the strength nor the courage to do so.” To which Jesus replied: “I am your strength, I will help you in the struggle.” At this time I was powerless, unable to live, and here was Almighty Jesus telling me that He was my strength. The soul went on: “Lord, I recognize your holiness, and I fear You.” And Jesus replied: “My child, do you fear the God of mercy? My holiness does not prevent Me from being merciful. Behold, for you I have established a throne of mercy on earth. This throne is my tabernacle, and from it I desire to enter into your heart. See? No retinue or guards stand around Me. You can come to Me at any moment, at any time; I wish to speak to you and desire to grant you grace.” To these words, I replied, reading: “Lord, I doubt that You will pardon my numerous sins; my misery fills me with fright.” And Jesus replied: ”My mercy is greater than your sins and those of the entire world. Who can measure the extent of My goodness? For you I came down from heaven to earth; for you I allowed myself to be nailed to the cross; for you I let my Sacred Heart be pierced with a lance, thus opening wide the spring of mercy for you.”

Quite simply, my heart had softened. I had no doubt that my Lord, full of love and mercy, was speaking to me. With my entire being I felt He was listening to me in my abject poverty, so as to draw me out of the darkness I was trapped in. He was telling me that for me, for this piece of trash that I was, He had come down from heaven, allowed Himself to crucified, in order that I might be saved. This was incredible. Yet, then and there, I believed. I believed that God existed, and that everything I had been told about Him in church and at home was true. God loved us. He did not despise us. For our salvation He had sent His only Son, Jesus Christ, to redeem us and enable us to gain eternal life. This was no fairy tale for children or old women. From that moment on, I had no doubt about this.

I was as if someone had suddenly kindled a light within me. Without hesitation, I can say this was the most important moment of my life. In my state of euphoria and bliss I wanted to wake up the house and tell everyone how God had just touched my heart. I wiped my tears then realized that my soul needed purification. All this time I had been in a state of mortal sin. I felt the weight of my wicked deeds. I feared that if I should die this moment, I would go to hell. For, since God existed, then so did the devil who hated human beings and desired their destruction. I wanted to make a sacramental confession without delay, but clearly this was impossible in the middle of the night.

From that moment on nothing was ever the same. I had received the grace of hope. I believed that not everything was lost, that my life had a purpose, and that I did not have in the state I had always been, i.e. vegetating and sliding deeper into the abyss. From now on I had an unimaginable support in the person of Almighty God. I went to confession, having written down my sins on a number of cards, so that God might cleanse my heart. Later I discovered that the words I had read in your magazine came from the diary of St. Faustina, whom God had chosen to reveal His mercy to the world. She had written down everything God had said to her, including this conversation between Himself and the despairing soul (Diary, 1485).

The best thing is that my sister Monica who had passed me the copy of LOA is alive today thanks only to my mother’s decision to carry her despite the advice of her doctors and other supposedly wise people. Because of a serological conflict and the fact that my own birth had been a “roll of the dice,” they had advised her against having a third pregnancy. My mother had taken an incredible risk in carrying the pregnancy to term. They told her the child would be sickly. That was 1982, when we did not have the technology and know-how that we have today. And so they urged her to abort my sister. Even my father, who informed me of the whole situation, had had moments of doubt and suggested to my mother that perhaps the doctors were right. Fortunately, my mother thought otherwise. Throughout the pregnancy, my parents prayed for a happy outcome. Even though they were aware that what the doctors had to say might indeed come to pass, they chose to entrust everything to God’s will. And it paid off. God heard their prayers and proved that with Him all things were possible. Monica was born healthy. The doctor himself admitted this was a miracle. So if it had not been for my parents’ faith, there would have been no one to pass me that copy of LOA!

After this decisive moment in my life, everything changed. God opened my eyes and stirred my conscience. Regular confession, prayer, and frequent reception of the Body of Christ in Holy Communion became the mainstays of my life. Ever since that time, I cannot do otherwise. Of this, I am most convinced when I fall into sin, especially grave sin. At such times I experience emptiness and inner pain. Everything loses its meaning, and my only recourse is immediate reconciliation with God.

As for my alcoholic addiction, I continued to wrestle with it for some time yet, until the moment I met people on my journey, who were able to help me. At the AA meetings I met a friend from our old apartment block, who had been off alcohol for a year. He was living proof to me that it was possible. I began to sober up. I went for therapy and attended AA meetings. It was a time of intense work on myself, on the sick emotions and behaviors that had plagued me while I was on the bottle. It was a time of rebuilding my sense of self-worth, of putting in order my relations with other people. Everything began to fall into place, even in the area of purity. No more appearances before the judge; and then my greatest dream came true (…). On July 19, 2008, I got married. My fiancée and I remained chaste throughout our engagement, since it was obvious to us that God knew better what was good for us. Before getting married we joined the Neocatechumenate. In April of 2009, we brought the fruit of our love, little Magdalena, into the world. We feel God acting palpably in out lives. While showing us our sinfulness, He also manifests His great love for us. Glory to the Lord!

Bartosz