Hi matt
Claudia gave a wonderfull prayer which I repeated for you.
I share only to uplift. So I will share where I can if I have had the experience. Those two monkeys, depression and alcohol abuse I know very well. I also know that they can turn into mountain gorillas if left unchecked.
I battled with the former because I did not understand what it was. thought I was going nuts, so I used the latter to treat the former and we know how that works out.
The path to healing was simple but so very hard. No matter how I felt when I woke up in the morning I thanked God. I thanked Him for the previous night, for my situation just as it was. I thanked Him for the day ahead even if I had a hangover the size of Alaska or that dreadfull heavy dark cloud that comes with depression.
And Matt, I smiled, even if my jaws ached with the effort. Cutting TV, newspapers and negative people out of my life helped bigtime. And the negative people I could not avoid I smiled at, even if I wanted to strangle them. And slowly but surely God made that smile happen on the inside as well.
The gorillas are now the size of hamsters, thanking God took their power over me away. they try to sneak back every now and again and I sometime succumb. But then I thank and Praise those critters right out the back door.
God bless
J