My mother was a drinking person ever since I could remember, a serious alcoholic that had been in and out of rehab centers, jails, and hospitals. It often seemed she had her own sense of direction to which she could never quite find.

When I was about 28 and hadn’t seen my mother for some 8 years, she began to come to mind every day, and I would often times sit in my living room window at night, wondering where she was and what she might be thinking at that moment. I would picture her as living a life of a person who was sober, emotionally strong, mentally clear, physically in good health, and spiritually able to remain calm and clear about the direction she would go for the rest of her life. To me, it always seemed a day dream, a game I played, and while picturing her like that I would pray for it to happen and send her my love and choose to KNOW that she FELT that love strongly, and not only felt it, but was able to stop drinking because of it. For a year I did this.

Then one day I felt this calling to move from Arkansas to Oregon, and in a matter of months had done so. But once there my life spiraled down, and trouble after trouble seemed to plague me. I had left my son with his father in Arkansas, and allowed the guilt to rip me up. After I arrived in Oregon, my Dad, who I hadn’t seen in ten years went into a coma before I got a chance to talk with him, and I watched him die. I began to have emotional issues, which meant that I couldn’t rally myself to get a job and keep it.

It got so bad and stayed that way for a whole year, so I planned to end my life. In my attempts to do so, every time I would get close to actually committing the act, my heart beat would get so loud that it would drown out my ability to think or do anything, and actually hurt my ear drums. I’ll never forget that feeling. It’s as if my body refused to allow me to kill myself.

After a year of all that, one day I got a letter from an old friend and she told me to, “Let Go and Let God”, to which I did. And all my troubles were gone just like that. Soon after I traveled to Washington to live with my step mother and hopefully get my life back together, and while there, my mother of all people found me. She lived in Germany as a spouse to an Army man, and had been looking for me for many months, and wanted me to come stay with her there. Apparently during the time that I had been losing my mind, my mother had quit drinking cold turkey, after 40 years of being a serious alcoholic.

I’ll never forget those nights of sitting in the window praying to God to help mother, stating that, “If it would help her become a whole person, then use my strength to do it.” Little did I know then of what I was intending. After I arrived in Germany and Mom talked about the days immediately after stopping drinking, she recalled almost to the letter all the things I experienced during my emotional breakdown.

I wouldn’t ever trade any part of my life… and after 14 years of being drink free, I have always been glad to have given up my strength to help my mother better her own life. But this whole thing made a believer out of me as far as the “Secret” is concerned. When you absolutely intend for something… you do get it. You don’t know how it will arrive, but it comes anyway.