In my active addiction, I had great difficulty with the word surrender. My ego was attached to a persona of who I used to be. As a soldier, I was trained to fight, endure, and never surrender. Addiction is a different kind of war. It is a struggle that can’t be won through willpower or strategy. In that battle, my own will was the enemy. My pride, ego, and self-reliance became the weapons that turned on me.
For me to live, my old self – the one driven by fear, resentment, and selfish desire, had to die. This death does not happen once; it comes daily. Each morning when I wake, I face a decision: to feed my ego or to surrender my will and my life to the care of God as I understand Him. When I choose surrender, I live. When I don’t, I start dying again – slowly, silently, from the inside out.
Addiction was my false god. The honeymoon of ecstasy that filled every cell of my body with bliss was short-lived. It promised relief but demanded my soul, and took away everything I held dear – my family, purpose, trust, and peace; and replaced them with chaos and moral injury.
Sobriety, sober + recovery, is a spiritual program of action where resurrection begins at the grave of self. I had to let the man ruled by addiction die so that the man guided by faith could be born.
The death of the old self is not dramatic; it’s daily. It happens when I pick up the phone instead of isolating. It happens when I pray instead of controlling. It happens when I make amends instead of justifying my behavior. Every act of humility and service is a small burial of ego, and every act of love is a resurrection.
Turning my will and life over to the care of God isn’t passive. It’s an act of faith in action – courage, trusting in a power greater than me, guiding my steps, even when I can’t see the path. It means allowing that power to shape my thoughts, words, and actions to serve others before me.
There are still moments when the old self whispers the voice of fear that says that I won’t measure up, or that says, “You’ve got this; you don’t need anyone.” That’s when I know I’m drifting toward the grave again. But through prayer, meditation, meetings, connections, and service, I return to life. God breathes purpose back into my spirit through the people I serve, the hands I hold, and the words I write.
I’ve learned that dying to self doesn’t mean losing who I am. It means becoming who I was meant to be in sobriety – a servant, a man of faith, and a good husband, father, and friend. In this death, there is peace. In this surrender, there is freedom.
To live, I must die – not once, but every day. And with every surrender, I’m reborn into a life of grace, gratitude, faith, and service. That’s not just recovery; that’s resurrection.
