Decision Points

here since Elijah.”
    Soon I started to take the sessions more seriously. As I read the Bible, I was moved by the stories of Jesus’ kindness to suffering strangers, His healing of the blind and crippled, and His ultimate act of sacrificial love when He was nailed to the cross. For Christmas that year, Don Evans gave me a Daily Bible, a version split into 365 individual readings. I read it every morning and prayed to understand it more clearly. In time, my faith began to grow.
    At first I was troubled by my doubts. The notion of a living God was a big leap, especially for someone with a logical mind like mine. Surrendering yourself to an Almighty is a challenge to the ego. But I came to realize that struggles and doubts are natural parts of faith. If you haven’t doubted, you probably haven’t thought very hard about what you believe.
    Ultimately, faith is a walk—a journey toward greater understanding. It is not possible to prove God’s existence, but that cannot be the standard for belief. After all, it is equally impossible to prove He doesn’t exist. In the end, whether you believe or don’t believe, your position is based on faith.
    That realization freed me to recognize signs of God’s presence. I sawthe beauty of nature, the wonder of my little girls, the abiding love of Laura and my parents, and the freedom that comes with forgiveness—all what the preacher Timothy Keller calls “clues of God.” I moved ahead more confidently on my walk. Prayer was the nourishment that sustained me. As I deepened my understanding of Christ, I came closer to my original goal of being a better person—not because I was racking up points on the positive side of the heavenly ledger, but because I was moved by God’s love.

    I realized something else. When Billy started answering questions that night in Maine, I was on my third glass of wine, after a couple of beers before dinner. Billy’s message had overpowered the booze. But that was not always the case. I had long been a social drinker. I liked to drink with friends, with meals, at sporting events, and at parties. By my mid-thirties, I was drinking routinely, with an occasional bender thrown in.
    We had a saying in West Texas: “Last night he thought he was a ten, when in fact he was an ass.” That applied to me more than once. I like to joke around, but alcohol has a way of turning a quip or tease into a slash or insult. What seems funny with booze can sound so stupid later. One summer night we were having dinner in Maine after a great day of fishing and golf. I had worked up a thirst, which I quenched with multiple bourbon and Sevens. As we were eating, I turned to a beautiful friend of Mother and Dad’s and asked a boozy question: “So, what is sex like after fifty?”
    Everyone at the table looked silently at their food—except for my parents and Laura, who glared at me with disbelief. The lovely woman let out a nervous laugh, and the conversation moved on. When I woke up the next day, I was reminded of what I had said. I instantly felt that morning-after remorse. After I called the woman to apologize, I started asking myself if this was really the way I wanted to lead my life. Years later, when I turned fifty, the good-natured woman sent a note to the Texas Governor’s Mansion: “Well, George, how is it?”
    Laura saw a pattern developing, too. What seemed hilarious or clever to my friends and me was repetitive and childish to her. She wasn’t afraidto tell me what she thought, but she couldn’t quit for me. I had to do that on my own. At age forty, I finally found the strength to do it—a strength that came from love I had felt from my earliest days, and from faith that I didn’t fully discover for many years.
    I haven’t had a drop of alcohol since that night at The Broadmoor in 1986. There’s no way to know where my life would have headed if I hadn’t made the decision to quit drinking. But I am certain that I would not be recording these thoughts as a former governor of Texas and president of the United States.
    I’ve been asked if I consider myself an alcoholic. I can’t say for sure. I do know that I have a habitual personality. I was drinking too much, and it was starting to create problems. My ability to quit cold leads me to believe that I didn’t have a chemical addiction. Some drinkers are not as fortunate as I was. I admire those who use other methods to quit, such as the twelve-step process of Alcoholics Anonymous.
    I could not