I’d like to introduce you to a Sioux Falls woman who has triumphed over adversity! Her name is Donna!   She is a recovering alcoholic who says the obsessive addiction took charge of her life and just wouldn’t let go.

 “My oldest son was about six years old.  I had been drinking all day and was lying on my bed.  He came home from school with a card to sign for a field trip.  He came in my room and asked me if I would sign the paper.  He handed me the pen and I was too drunk to sign my name.  He told me, ‘mom, you’re so drunk you can’t even sign my school paper.’  The solution I had to the problem was to get up and pour myself another drink.   That’s the only way I knew how to live at the time.  Alcohol had taken me by the horns.  I had to drink no matter what.  There was no way I could sober up.”

 For twenty years, Donna abused alcohol.  At times, she was convinced suicide was her only option. 

“Physically, I suffered from grand mal seizures.  Mentally I wanted to die.  But, I was too afraid to end my life.  Spiritually, I figured God had abandoned me years before and there was no way He cared about me.  I was in limbo.  The alcohol no longer worked.  It no longer had an effect on me.  I couldn’t drink enough to pass out or feel better.  There was no volume of alcohol that would help me.”

 Every minute of every day Donna was in a rage.  For the most part, it was directed at God. 

“I was angry that God would have allowed something like this to happen in my life.  I had always been a faithful Christian.  Once I attended 12 steps meetings and an out patient program, God was people with skin during this time.  He put very kind people in my life to show me there was hope and I was a worthwhile person.”

 Although she sought help and got it, Donna recalls the years when she firmly believed alcohol would rule her life until the day she died. 

“There was a point in my life where I wanted to drink.  I was 30 days sober and living in my home.  My husband was still drinking and I was obsessed with the alcohol.  I would have done anything to get a drink.  It was 3am and I was sitting in the kitchen.  I knew there was alcohol hidden in the cupboard and there was beer in the refrigerator.  I stood there with the literature from the program I was in and some numbers from Alcoholics Anonymous.  I knew no one else would know if I took a drink.  But, I would know.   It was then when I surrendered to the fact that I’m an alcoholic and I could no longer lie to myself.  I surrendered my life to someone bigger and greater than I am---my God.”

 Donna M., who has been free of alcohol for 25 years, lovingly lives by these verses from the Book of Psalm. 

“Give thanks to the Lord for He is good.  His love endures forever.  The Lord is with me.  I am not afraid.  The Lord is with me.  He is my Helper.  The Lord is my strength and song.  He has become my salvation.  This is the day the Lord has made.  Let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

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