Continuing the Word on Fire Conversion series, today we feature the story of Heather King, a particularly insightful Catholic writer (author of Parched and Redeemed and moderator of the blog, Shirt of Flame) who is also the newest regular contributor to the Word on Fire blog. Read about her journey below.
My New England mother saw to it that I was baptized and attended Sunday school but at the time, I wasn't much interested. Coming of age in the ‘60s, I read Sartre's No Exit and adopted as my personal creed, "L'enfer, c'est les autres." Hell is other people--it was always the others--and the twenty-year bout with alcoholism that followed, the irresponsibility, sexual license and corrupted moral values, only cemented my view of the universe as cold, random and cruel.
If sin is separation from God, then the disease of alcoholism is sin in its purest form. I became incapable of choosing anything but drink, and the resulting alienation was savagely, pitilessly complete. Deprived of free will, I was not naturally good; I was compelled to choose, over and over, the path that separated me from God, my fellow man and myself. Even after earning a law degree, alcohol kept me chained to waitressing work...