A Journey from alcoholism to Christ
Tony Shelley tells the story of his coming home when God ‘touched this ordinary man’.
In the past I knew only what others had told me, but now I have seen you with my own eyes. Job 42:5. |
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Tucked away in Fox Lane, Leicester, is a café
called
Brucianni’s. Whenever I’m in the area, I always
stop and look at the colourful facade and view the customers coming and
going. Sometimes I go inside for coffee and observe the wonderful
interplay of life. There’s no better place in Leicester to do
just that.
It was within the confines of this popular venue that I met a man who
was to change my life forever. It was Valentines day, 1989, and thus
began my journey from the depths of alcoholic and drug despair, to the
serenity and peace I found in Christ far to the east of England, in the
great flatlands of Norfolk.
The road that led me to that momentous occasion in
Brucianni’s started at the age of sixteen, when after leaving
school and starting work, I began to indulge in everything that panders
to life’s worst instincts. Alcohol abuse became the norm for
my day to day living. Connection to the real world was by accident, as
the binges, and hangovers became more frequent as time went on.
Of course there were periods of what you would call
‘normality’, but most of that time was spent
covering up the true extent of my addictions - something which most
addicts of one kind or another become quite adept at doing when the
urge to ‘use’ grips you like a vice until the pain
is taken away. Like all addicts (without exception in my experience), I
didn’t accept that I had a problem. It was other people that
had the problems. I used to lay blame everywhere and anywhere except
the source - myself.
As I grew into manhood, the problems became more acute, as the teenage
indulgencies mutated into more adult themes of illicit sex and
violence. I lived on a very short fuse and very often innocent comments
directed towards me were used as an excuse to hit out at the world and
anybody who happened to be there at the time. In my late twenties I
began to experience ‘black outs’ (a term used for
lost time). To this day, I have no idea how or when I got to some of
the places where I woke up in. It was one of the most terrifying
periods of my entire life, but had no deterrent effect on me
whatsoever. I kept on drinking and using, but catastrophe was to
follow.
The reason I remember the Kings Cross fire so well among the bind weed
of my alcoholic memory is the fact that on that particular evening I
attempted suicide for the first time. Of course it didn’t
work, all that happened was that I passed out and awoke several hours
later, with a blinding headache and back pain from where I must have
fallen off the chair.
Another attempt followed, but in retrospect that was more of a cry for
help than a serious intention to end my life. In desperation, I called
the Samaritans, and that led to a meeting with James in
Brucianni’s. I haven’t touched alcohol or any kind
of mind altering substances from that moment on. When I first uttered
the words “My name is Tony and I’m an
alcoholic” I felt liberated in many ways, but taking
responsibility for my own life after years of being propped up by the
good nature of others was a daunting prospect. AA meetings became the
centre of my world. They had to be, for what I found there was a
programme which gave me a firm foundation on which to build a new life.
I kept on going, just taking one step at a time, and came to rely on
what the programme calls a ‘higher power’ to hand
over all your problems to. It was working, but I had to wait many more
years, before I found out the identity of that
‘power’. Little did I know what was to come.
It was a Sunday morning in the summer of 2004, when a dear friend of
mine, Cathy (a lifelong Christian, who was later to become my wife)
asked me if I would like to go to church with her. We were on holiday
in the tiny village of Foulsham, situated in deepest Norfolk.
Immediately I went into excuse mode, inventing all the reasons why I
should leave her to go alone. In the end I relented, and we walked
through the quiet village in the direction of the church bells of Holy
Innocents, a magnificent medieval structure that dominates the local
landscape.
As we entered the gate, without any warning, it happened – a
gentle, warm feeling of ‘coming home’. Peaceful,
saved, call it what you will, but it’s never left me. The
flame that was lit in that blink of any eye still burns bright within
me to this day, but with a much higher magnitude.
As a writer, I have never been able to find adequate words equal to
that momentous time when God ‘touched’ this
ordinary man, and led him into the realm of Christ and his teachings.
For the second time in my adult life, I had to concede that life would
never be the same again. Some time later, I was baptised and said
goodbye to my old existence. Emerging from the water, I felt cleansed
of my past and re-born into a world where faith and Christian values
would underpin every new day on God’s earth.
Tony Shelley, September 2007
