Is God Trying to Get Your Attention?

I’m a big believer in mystical signs that are put on our path to guide us and I have observed and received many such divine wonders in my lifetime. Some came in a vision, while others were more of a blatant, undeniable answer to my prayers. But the most profound manifestation and demonstration of God doing His damnedest to get my attention, came in the form of a visitation that changed my life deeply and profoundly. It was the day Jesus sent His mother to get me sober.

I wasn’t a fall-down drunk, but in my heart I knew I didn’t drink like normal people. I first became aware of that contrast during my senior year in college, when I took a semester off and backpacked all over Europe for four months. This wasn’t a student exchange or a study abroad program, it was a bare-bones, economy expedition that consisted of one backpack, Eurail and Youth Hostel passes, and Frommer’s, Europe on Five Dollars a Day guidebook.

There wasn’t enough money to drink the way I had become accustomed. Back home, I lived with my older brother and younger sister, three teenagers, just kids really, completely on our own. Our parents were dead and our two older sisters were married and had families of their own. Our house became the place to party and people showed up at all hours of the night and day with pounds of weed and cases of beer. Man, we were popular!

When I was In Europe, that ever-present and readily available buzz was non-existent, and while visiting some of the most beautiful and sacred cities on Earth, I became anxious and agitated, like a heat-seeking missile in search of my next high. Like the time I was in line at 7:00am at the Heineken Factory in Amsterdam because they gave out free samples at the end of the tour.

I had attempted to quit drinking several times on my own, believing that if I just got rid of that one problem, my life would be perfect. Once, I gave up alcohol for almost three years, but wasn’t really sober, because I was still numbing myself; smoking pot on a self-prescribed marijuana maintenance program. But on September 11, 2001, the day the planes flew into the twin towers at the World Trade Center, I was utterly defenseless against that first drink and felt like the planes flew right into me. I rushed to the liquor store and bought the biggest bottle of wine I could get my hands on, and just like that, I was off and running again. I read that alcohol consumption went through the roof at that time, so I justified it, because, after all, everyone else was drinking too.

This stopping and starting went on for years and I was just so mad at myself for my inability to stop once and for all. I didn’t know then that alcoholism was a disease and that it wasn’t a moral issue or a case of being bad and trying to get good, it was about being sick and needing to get well.

Fast-forward to the day I was sitting in a therapist’s office. Her specialty was childhood trauma and I had started seeing her to help me process the unresolved grief over my parent’s death, or so I thought. Somehow, during every single session, the topic always steered back around to my drinking.

After about a month of listening to me whine and lament about my struggles, she asked me point blank, “Do you think you’re an alcoholic?”

Of course I knew I was, but I couldn’t bear the thought of anyone else knowing my dirty little secret. I howled a gut-wrenching cry, wishing i could sink down into her couch and disappear. But she wouldn’t let me run away from this. She handed me a pamphlet and said, “When you’re ready, I know of a great women’s recovery meeting on Sunday evenings at Milton Hospital. I grabbed the meeting list booklet and shoved it in my purse and left, silently vowing never to return.

After that appointment, I headed straight to the baseball field to watch my son’s game. When I got there some of the parents were having a rather animated discussion that had nothing to do with the game. “Did you hear what happened at Milton Hospital?” asked one mother. “Some are saying it’s a miracle,” commented another.

God knows, I surely needed a miracle right about then, but I was also secretly hoping that Milton Hospital had burned down so I wouldn’t have to go to that stupid meeting my therapist had suggested. “What’s going on?” I asked.

“The Virgin Mary appeared at Milton Hospital.”

I nearly fainted. After the game, I drove straight to the liquor store and bought a bottle of wine and then, like doubting Thomas himself, I pulled into the parking lot of Milton Hospital to see for myself.

This apparition turned out to be nothing more than condensation between two panes of glass, but I swear to God, it looked exactly like the Virgin Mary holding baby Jesus.

There were throngs of people gathered beneath the window, holding flowers, candles and rosary beads. Some were praying out loud and others were weeping in awestruck wonder. I wanted to grab a bullhorn and yell into the crowd, “You may all go home. This is my miracle. Jesus sent His mother to get me sober.”

That night I drank the entire bottle of wine I had bought earlier, which miraculously turned out to be my last drink — eighteen years ago today. The following Sunday, I even mustered up the nerve to attend that recovery meeting and unbeknownst to me, I embarked on a whole new way of life and began my healing journey.

I’m not sharing any of this from a place of “hey, look what I did,” because it was all God—He did for me what I couldn’t do for myself. I’m so grateful that I didn’t have to wrap my car around a tree or wind up in jail to hit my bottom. I’m a miracle and I feel like one of the chosen few because so many never get it and literally drink themselves to death. Those aren’t just statistics, they were people I loved.

Just this past year, amidst a global pandemic, quarantine and extreme isolation, alcohol consumption exploded exponentially. Mommy memes get plastered (pun intended) all over social media and they spread like the virus itself, joking about it being, “wine o’clock” as if drinking is the only way to survive motherhood. I used to be that Mommy and none of it was funny.

I’ve learned that when it comes to alcohol, some can and some can’t. I’m someone who can’t. On some level we all know where we fall on that scale. If you’re like me and you’re sick and tired of being sick and tired, there’s a better way and you never have to feel like that again. If you’ve read this through to the end and can relate, perhaps God is trying to get your attention too. Let this be your sign and reach out for help.