Paul DeLaVergne on July 23, 2013 at 8:28 pm said:

My name is Paul, I’m a believer who’s in recovery and struggles with Chemical Dependency. (Alcohol & Pot.)
“The Old Me” : For 33 years I was insane by trying to self medicate to mask my fears, short comings, and low self esteem though nightly drinking and pot smoking. It started when I was 16 and continued untill I was 49. So there I was doing the same thing over & over thinking each time I would have a different outcome.Being the youngest of 5 kids. My parents worked a lot as they had a mortgage on a house with a car payment. They were good at keeping food on the table, letting us be in sports all our life’s, and we all had a chance to go to college. pretty much were loving and caring. We went to 1st Christian church most Sundays in Forest Grove Oregon all my life till I was in 8th grade then they stop going, as a lot of my older brothers and sisters were in college. I guess they felt that page in life was over. In junior high I found that girls were one of the greatest things god sent to me. In my house I was having a hard time keeping up with my brothers & sisters grades in school, and trying to live up to there standards so socializing with girls was a fun outlet for me, along with sports. It was then that my relationship with god was waning as I didn’t go to church any more or my folks. Before this time I often wondered about Jesus, Joesph, and my favorite Paul. As my birthday is on December 30th I felt a special bond near the birth of our savior. I used to look out the window in December at all the Christmas lights at night and wonder about the life of Jesus. 

In Junior high though I fell away from our lord and unknowingly started gathering treasures of this world. I dated only the most popular girls in school thinking that somehow with them by my side I would feel better by boosting the ego. I slowly became selfish, liar, luster, and only paid attention if I thought something was in it for me. I stop hanging around my life long friends and started looking for more cooler friends in the in-crowd. 
In high school there was still hazing going on and I had a fear for what might happen as a freshmen. Fear was always lurking around the corner and I considered myself a coward. One day some senior’s found me and had me pushing a penny with my nose when my older sister walked by, who at the time was a cheer leader/ senior. She said, “Hey that’s my little borther” when suddenly they picked me up brushed me off and said, “Diane’s your big sister?” After that they never bothered me and actually treated me nice. My sophomore year in school is when I was introduced to pot. It took months of trying before I got high, but once I did I knew this was for me. I was hooked as later I found that I have a addicted personality. Booze was next and I was hooked on that too. I felt that I was accepted with upper classmates as well as my peers. Soon my grades went down. I got kick off the football team for smoking. Quit baseball, even though I had a chance to make varsity. I had been swimming for 10 years so I stuck with that as it was coed, in a sense and It came easy for me. I didn’t have to try much at it.
As I started my downward spiral in life/morals I always knew I had this bad feeling in me that something was wrong. I was hanging around people that were dropping out of school or who were taking LSD.  I graduated barely with a 2.7GPA. When I know I could have had a 3.5 or better. I went to college in southern Oregon. I wanted to go there cause playboy said it was the 3rd best party school in the nation. I set my sights very high.  After flunking out of college I went to work. I partied a lot. Always struggled with bill paying.  Landed in Bend Oregon, where I started a small business in reforestation and timber stand improvement. Never made much of it as my Alcohol & pot smoking pretty much undermined all that I was trying to build. I started thinking I was a failure and always would be. It’s just who I am. Then I found cocaine in the 80′s. Everybody was doing it and I found I could make money by selling it with pot too. I started to get into a network of drugs. My house was broken into 3 times. I became isolated. I looked at porn. Had lots of bad relationships with woman. Had affairs, even murdered. Three times in my life I funded abortions for my girlfriends so I could sustained my life style of garbage. After 10 years of that I moved to Leavenworth, WA. And got a job with the forest Service in timber. I had a good year round job. I was in charge of a 7 person crew, and contracted out tree planting and thinning. I got awards, for good service and was promoted. It was able to stop using cocaine, but continued to smoke pot and drink. I was in control. I met my wife who was a fisheries bio there. She ended up marrying her boy friend of 8 years, but less than a year I home wrecked that got her pregnant and we where married on dec 12th. While she was 4 ½ months along. There were some red-flags in our relationship. But I felt I could conquer them all with my love. We had two kids, a girl and a boy. They are 20 & 17 now and are huge in my life. We bought a house together, and then I got laid-off from the Forest Service due to the spotted owl and the fact there were too many white males in timber. So in 2000 I started my own forestry business. I worked part time as my wife was promoted quickly by the forest service. We agreed that rather use day care. I would be the stay home dad. And work around my wife’s career. It all seemed well, I started noticing our credit card bill kept growing and we seem to make just minimal payments. When we bought the house. I had zero out all credit card balances on all cards (7) and canceled 5 cards, so we just had two. Paid the truck loan off 2 ½ yrs early. Paid off our Rec property we bought in Hood Canal, WA 5 ½ years early. As so we could make our house payment easily. While being a stay home Dad I still was able to bring in a $800.00 to $1000.00 month. I was concerned about our credit cards ever mounting balances. My wife reassured me not to worry. I became more worried. Started drinking earlier in the day. Smoking more pot everyday. Since my wife didn’t share my feelings about a lot of things, we stop talking about the hard stuff in our relationship. We started to grow apart. My drug use got bad. Once we went to Canada and with my family and friends in another rig following, they found almost a once of pot stashed in the rig that I thought I had hidden real good. How sad…My wife was 5 months pregnant with our second child, and Clairissa was only 2 years old. Here I put all them into harms way and didn’t think much about it. I even got mad at the Canadian Gov as they had me pay $385 US and sent us home. I felt it was all about money then, and they should have thrown me in jail. We ended up at the San Juan’s and I moped pretty much about how I had no pot to smoke.  What a selfish fool!  Things got worse as my kids grew and we helped them get into school sports and band. I would pick them up high or drunk a lot of times always trying to mask it somehow. This became a way of life. I was lonely, unloved and hid it all.
Many years later, my wife though her sisters told them that she was going to give me a ultimatum. This got back to me and so I waited, and waited…six months went by, and on July 21st 2007 she told me one morning that she needed to talk to me. Oh boy I thought. Here we go. I was ready to blame her as she worked 12 hours a day. Was always gone on business trips for the Gov for 3 days to weeks at a time. When she came home she brought her work with her and come to find out worked at home for free. And those credit cards. We zeroed the balances on them twice, just to have a running balance again months later.  Well the ultimatum became a confession, as she confessed to having affair with a workmate who was a friend of the family. He was married as well. When she told me, I felt like a huge burden was lifted off my shoulders. My first thought was she was a sinner like me and so what I’ve done was not as bad. Well after the talk the pain started to set in. I wanted to ask her a bunch of question that I really didn’t want to know, but felt compelled. My head was spinning. That day I took my son fishing as planned. I when he was not looking I still sneaked a hit of weed. Had some beer. As I started to get buzzed. I just didn’t have it in me anymore to carry on this life style and really got down at myself. What a loser I said. Boy I’m a addict!
9 days later (07-30-07), I thought to give it a try to quite drinking, and smoking pot. It never worked before, but something was a little different. I had to as I felt out of control for the first time. I wanted to show myself that my wife & kids really did matter. The first thing that came to mind was find a church to belong to. (thank God) After two churches I found one I liked. The people greeted me nicely and were loving, something I had not experienced in a long time. I cried sitting in the back of the church for months. I started to bring my kids. I started to see a therapist who was a pastoral. I really felt I needed God if I was to repair all the damage I did to myself and my family. I confessed to my new pastor and he shared with me about Celebrate recovery. That his church and two others were gonna start soon. He also said something that amazed me. He said that he thought as he got to know me that I could help people though God with there problems. I was amazed to hear that, as with a very low self esteem I always wanted to help folks, but thought not to as I was a huge sinner.
My wife and I tried to repair our relationship, all the time she would say “ I don’t think I can be with Paul “ Her lover, she said, are just friends and that I didn’t have to worry about it anymore. Yet they went to training together, field work alone together. This made me hurt more inside and it was a real changeling not to get angry or controlling. With god and CR I held it together the best I could. I found myself talking to a network before I even figured it out that what you call it. I caught my wife going over to her lovers house a few times. She said they were still friends. He was getting a divorce and had a apartment. You’d think I would give up on her but no though God I kept trying to put the marrage back together. I had moved out of the house. (court order) when I was stopping by to get some things and there was my wife and her lover getting into the car together after hugging and driving off to Portland for some training. I was at my wits in by then. I ran, right to the church that we had CR at. There was a pastor there who was our Ministry Leader. I sat there in front of him crying out all my pain. Then I went home and called my pastor and did it all over again. I really was starting to hate my wife, and wanted to get back at her for all the pain. But something kept me from acting out on that. Something called God, and CR.
A year and a half went by trying to repair a marriage that the other spouse did not want repaired. This too was hard for me to swallow. I slowly came to terms somewhat that I had to move on. I made amends to my kids, wife and all who I hurt. . Forgave the ones that hurt me. Making amends is all about timing for some. I rushed though one without praying about it first and it came out bad. The person blamed me and got angry. It was a bad scene.
I started to volunteer more at church, and Celebrate Recovery. I went to advance training for CR in Gig harbor. Met John Baker the founder of Celebrate Recovery. He signed his book “Life’s Healing Choices” for me. I became a small group leader, then a step study leader, and then a Encourager Coach.  With all that came a bit of responsibility. Number one remembering not to push my will but god’s will.
After a year in CR I found step 12 to be my reward as each time I help someone, though God or gave my service for free. I had a peaceful felling in me. I have since learned that when I feel up-tight I just volunteer somewhere and I don’t have to organize it just go do it. God always repays me in more than one way. Outreach is great way for me to help too.
I know now that God does not cause our pain, but will use our pain to bust us out of our denial. When I hit my low point in life, (wife admit affair) It was then that my pain exceeded my denial. And I was then ready to be accountable for myself. How do you spell BLAME? B-LAME……..
33 years of drinking & pot smoking, sexual addiction, is hard to erase. I’ve learned to take one character defect at a time……Life by the inch is a cinch, life by the yard is hard!
God has taught me “give us today our daily bread” he didn’t say give a month of bread or a week. That’s because he wants us to ask for him daily. I’m glad my wife had an affair, as I wouldn’t be here today, a believer / born again, helping others with the help of God. It had to happen so I could be the person you see before you all.
I still struggle with looking over my shoulder, rear view mirror, and a lot of other things. But I like who I am today. I have a lot of victories, and not so many failures. When I do get knock down, now I get back up and don’t stay down. I also have a network to help me keep standing. “ A strand of three is better than one”
Thanks for letting me share, (Count your blessings, not your problems)  Paul