A Better Medicine Than Alcohol: God

“I started to really realize,” Josh Clendenen recalls, “hey, alcohol provides me a release. Alcohol numbs my feelings for right now, I may wake up tomorrow and not feel good, but I'm not feeling depressed like I was.” Josh was 15 when he turned to alcohol to numb his depression. Three years earlier his parents divorced and Josh was living with his dad.  When his dad remarried, Josh was forced to change schools leaving him feeling isolated and abandoned. He says, “I really started to feel like, okay, my life is all over the place. There's no anchor. There's nothing steady about my life. I didn't think, God, where are you? Why is this happening? I just didn’t think about it.” Josh grew up afraid of God from listening to his dad’s ‘hell fire and brimstone’ sermons. After the divorce his dad stopped preaching and Josh’s view of God turned from fear to indifference. He recalls, “To be honest, I just didn't even think about God at that time. God wasn't even a factor in my life.”

Life was fine until junior high and his dad’s second marriage. That’s when the isolation and depression hit. Josh says, “I remember drinking to, to numb my feelings. Prior to that, it was just partying and going out and just having fun. I started to realize that there's a, there's a spot when I'm drinking that my cares would fall away, and I wouldn't cross into severe depression. So, I, if I could just find and maintain that spot, then, you know, I'm, I'm good.” After graduation Josh drifted from job to job. By now he was a budding alcoholic. Then, at 23, he joined the Air Force and married soon after. Josh recalls, “We just did not have a healthy marriage at all. We were basically just two people residing in the same place. Once we added our, our daughter, my oldest daughter, once we added her to the mix, it became a little bit more difficult.  I was still drinking, I should say, consistently through that time.”

A couple years later, he was selected for the elite Air Force squadron: the Thunderbirds. With Josh now on the road most of the year, his already struggling marriage ended bitterly. Josh says, “The hardest thing for me was that she took my daughter with her. And that was, when I really started to like drink, because I needed that numbing of my feelings.” After his divorce Josh started dating a fellow Thunderbird crewmember, Yvonne. They married in 2009 after both were honorably discharged. To them, life was a party, that is until, their first child was born.   Yvonne says, “I wanted a better life for our son, and I was determined to bring Jesus into it.” Yvonne had also grown up in church and like Josh, she’d never experienced God’s unconditional love. Still, she knew church is where they needed to be. Josh recalls, “I said, look, we can go to church, that's fine, but don't expect anything from me. I went to church because, I loved her. And because it was something I knew that she wanted.”

They found a church where Yvonne heard about God’s grace for the first time and rededicated her life to Jesus Christ. Yvonne recalls, “It was the first time I actually felt like he doesn't hate me. He's not mad at me. He actually loves me? To see yourself as forgiven. Like that's, that changes your life. Changed my life.” Josh says, “When I saw her light up, it made me happy that she was happy. But inside of me, there was this internal struggle. I didn't want her to be happy because I wasn't happy. I wanted her to be in the same place that I was in, with the same sorrow, with the same heaviness.” Meanwhile, Yvonne started to see the depths of her husband’s addiction. She recalls, “My thinking was, if this continues the way that it's going in the way that it's going, as fast as it's going, he's gonna die.” Josh says,  “I was so hooked with addiction that I couldn't get out of it. I was drinking a half gallon of vodka and a 24 pack of beer every two days.”

So, she started praying for him; hoping he could know the joy she’d found. Yvonne recalls, “I would anoint anything, any, anywhere that he would be, anywhere that I would be in this entire house. My biggest prayer was, whatever it takes God, do whatever it takes.” Then…. On January 5^th, 2014, while Josh was nursing a hangover in church, the pastor’s message got Josh’s attention. Josh recalls, “He's preaching out of Hebrews and he said these words, basically what Paul is saying is it's time to put down the bottle, grow up and be a man. And that hit me like an arrow straight to my heart.” Yvonne says, “I knew it had happened at that moment. I knew it got to his heart.  I was like, oh, thank you Lord. Thank you, Lord.” Josh recalls, “I told her, ‘I think the time has come for me to stop drinking.’ You have to understand that I had told God, look, if you ever want me to stop drinking, here's a laundry list of things. There can't be anything in my house that I can drink. I can't get alcohol. I don't want any hangovers or any cravings. I don't want any of this stuff.”

When they got home, Josh discovered there was no alcohol in the house and since it was Sunday, blue laws prohibited him from buying any. Josh recalls, “I said, God, you know, if this is really you, and you've really done this for me, then I will live my life for you, and I'll do anything that you ask me to. And from that day on, I never had one craving for alcohol.” That afternoon, Josh rededicated his life to God. He says, “When I felt God's grace and mercy in my life for the first time,  I was awestruck.” Yvonne says, “And it was like, I had met this new person, like I'd never met this guy before. I've never met him sober, ever. So, this was a totally new experience for me.” Today, Josh and Yvonne love to share that God’s grace is there for everyone who asks. Yvonne says, “Do not stop hoping that God's gonna do what He said He's gonna do 'cause He will, it may not be in the timing that you want, but don't give up because He is working whether you see it or not. He's working.” Josh concludes, “All you have to do is just say, God, can you help me? God has never left nor forsaken you. He is always right beside you. God is always right there. There's always hope for you. And He's just waiting. He's just waiting for you.”