She Would Never Expect Healing to Feel Like This!

Pele recalls, “The picture that I’m looking at, I’m looking at a hurt woman. This was me when I was broken. This was me when I was an alcoholic.”

Pele Hunkin was in pain. struggling with an addiction she didn’t know how to overcome. Before the addiction took hold, Pele was a soldier, strong and in control.

Pele says, “Serving my country meant honor. It meant courage and it meant love to do what I’m gonna do and that’s to serve.”

Pele enlisted in the army in 1994. During her enlistment, she was deployed to Kuwait and Iraq where the harsh realities of war left her with deep emotional scars.

Pele shares, “I witnessed soldiers missing limbs, and it did something internally for me. It was painful to see that’s my sister and my brother in arms.”

In 1997, Pele married Dean, a government contractor. together, they happily built a life and raised their children. Then, everything changed. In 2006, while stationed in Balad, Iraq, Dean suffered a catastrophic brain injury when a tire he was repairing for a five-ton military truck exploded. Pele who was serving in Tallil, Iraq remembers the day she received the devastating news.

Pele recalls, “To identify your spouse by the tattoos, it was something no wife would be prepared for a moment like that. I remember I just whispered to Dean to hang in there and to fight for us, to fight for our children. I had asked God to pull him through.”

For six months, Pele prayed for a miracle as her husband lay in a coma. Dean never recovered. Pele’s world was shattered.

Pele says, “It was hard as a widow, as a soldier, as a mother. I was angry with God because of what I was going through. I never stopped believing in God, but I stopped trusting Him. I stopped praying, I stopped going to church. I just didn’t wanna do anything that pertains to God.”

Brokenhearted and struggling with grief, Pele searched for a way to dull the pain. she found it in alcohol.

Pele shares, “It numbed what I was going through. I thought that was the solution, I was burying all my pain and all my frustration of life everything. instead reaching out.”

What began as a way to cope quickly took control of her life. Her children witnessed the change.

Pele recalls, “The lowest moment for me when I was drinking was when my kids witnessed how I was drinking. I was drinking so much to the point where I didn’t remember, me telling them that they don’t love me. That’s not the kind of mother I wanted to be.”

Seeing the pain in her children’s eyes only fueled her drinking. She retired from the military after 19 years of service. Exhausted and desperate, Pele sought help through the Wounded Warrior Project. For a while it worked until at a family gathering, she relapsed.

Pele says, “I was having negotiation with God with alcohol telling God at the time, like, ‘If you just make my life easier, I would stop drinking.’ But because, my life was shattered, I just felt like, you know, God is not hearing me.”

The decades of drinking had taken a toll on Pele’s health. In 2021, a cardiologist warned Pele she could suffer a heart attack or stroke at any moment. It was the wake-up call she needed and she cried out to God for help.

Pele shares, “I want to live long for my children. They are my why in life. I got on my knees, and I asked God for forgiveness, I asked God to help me. I didn’t wanna negotiate no more with Him because I’m surrendering it to Him. The heaviness that was on me. I felt it lifted, and I just felt God’s warmth in my heart is what I felt. And from then on, I knew that I was gonna be okay. The taste of the alcohol was no longer with me. The wanting to, to party, to drink, and all that is, is all gone, and that’s because I have surrendered it all.”

Pele learned to process life’s challenges in a completely new way.

Pele says, “Turning to God and not turning to the bottle has been the greatest gift of my life. Without Him in my life, I wouldn’t be where I am today.”
After 30 years of drinking, Pele says God gave her proof of His grace and mercy.

Pele recalls, “When a doctor told me that my kidneys and my liver had no issues after all these years of drinking, it just made me believe even more that God never left me.”

Pele loves encouraging others trapped in addiction that no matter how far you fall, God can restore you.

Pele shares, “He will deliver you from everything that you go through. If you are in a dark moment of your life, I just want you to know that God is the answer.”

To learn more about Pele Hunkin or to purchase her latest book, Heart of a Warrior: The Humble Journey of a Samoan Woman, click the LINK!