COFFEE WITH GOD by RANDY RAN-THE EXPANDED EDITION (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781489503442)

In June of 2007, I finally decided that I was done with the relationship I had so intimately developed with the disease of addiction. I had been courted, engaged and married to an entity that had no actual physical body, but it had a spiritual malady that had taken over my life. I had no idea that it was capable of such devastation, pain, manipulation and death, and not just actual death, but the death of my soul. I noticed the change in my heart and the things that I had once cared about, the compassion I once had for others in my life. I found the quality of my life no longer existed and that the only thing that ultimately mattered was the mind altering substances that I needed to put into my body. At first it was a subtle introduction, watching others as they would drink beverages that I wasn't allowed to drink, and how they would change their spiritual and mental being. I watched as the consumption of these beverages became a staple at social gatherings, and they were served in special glasses, or served in colorful cans with a pop top. I noticed that many people would change their attitudes and they would laugh loudly and have lots of fun with whatever they were doing. I was just a kid at the time, but I wanted to have fun like the adults were having fun. So much that we as kids sometimes "acted" the way some of the adults were acting after a few drinks. At an early age I heard the word many times but I had no idea "alcoholic" would someday be a word to describe the person I had become. I heard the word not so often but I had no idea the word "addict" would someday be used to describe what I am. In 30 years I learned a lot of things about my life and who I had become, I am not proud of the things I did, but I am proud that I can now admit that I made lots of mistakes. I know that my parents raised me to be a responsible and respectable child of God. They tried to instill in me the qualities of a compassionate, honest and trusting human being. I took all those qualities and traits, and used them to manipulate and become a "soul" controlled by mind altering substances, because my disease made me to think that it was a way to overcome my "identity crisis". My disease taught me, if I wanted to be somebody, I had to act like somebody else.