Since a life-changing evening four years ago, I have not once experienced alcohol-withdrawal symptoms or cravings.
I came to know Blessed Solanus Casey 63 years after his death in July 1957 and three years after his beatification ceremony, held in Detroit in November 2017. Providentially, my lack of familiarity with the humble and virtuous Franciscan Capuchin friar, whose feast we celebrate July 30, did not prevent him from hearing my silent yet desperate pleas, or, like he had done so often when he was alive, responding with compassion and healing.
It was the autumn of 2020, and after 40 years of self-imposed exile, I was newly reconciled with the Catholic Church and determined to make amends for the faith I had squandered. Despite my sincerest desires and best intentions, however, there remained a major stumbling block to my total surrender to God and his Church: an obstacle that had become an idol to me and was slowly, and most certainly, killing me — an idol by the name of red wine.
I had begun drinking heavily as a freshman in college, and by the time I graduated, my addiction was on full display. In the decades that followed, which entailed far too many humiliating episodes, including a car accident that nearly killed me, I never truly wanted to stop drinking.
I simply wanted the power to regulate myself, to enjoy one or two glasses, and then put the bottle away for the night. Unfortunately, I was incapable of moderating through sheer willpower. By 60 years old, I was a full-time passenger on a nauseating teeter-totter that had me either drinking to intoxication or swearing off alcohol altogether.
After my return to the Church, I regularly confessed my bouts of drunkenness in the sacrament of reconciliation, but my physical and emotional health continued to suffer. I existed in a near-perpetual state of fear and anxiety: fear that I would get so drunk that I would forget — or, worse yet, regret — something I did, and anxiety that, by not drinking, I might miss out on the false promises offered in a bottle of wine.
Despite my seemingly insurmountable failings, I still sought to fully reclaim my faith by studying the Bible and reading other spiritual works that spoke of God’s boundless love and mercy. Hoping against hope that, as Oscar Wilde wrote, “every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future,” I looked for inspiration and consolation in the stories of the saints.
On the evening of Oct. 22, 2020, which is notable for being the feast day of Pope St. John Paul II, I opened Patricia Treece’s book Nothing Short of a Miracle: God’s Healing Power in Modern Saints. Chapters 3 and 4 detail the story of Solanus Casey, including the account of Luke Leonard, an “alcoholic bum” who was healed after his encounter with then-Father Solanus.
As I read how Solanus asked the man, “When did you get over your sickness?” my heart began to beat furiously, and I was overwhelmed by a sense of hopeful optimism. If Blessed Solanus had healed Luke Leonard, why couldn’t he heal me?
No sooner had this thought materialized when I heard a voice ask, “Carolyn, when did you get over your sickness?”
Compelled to answer, I whispered, “Tonight.”
And I did. That very night. Just like that.
It has been nearly four years since that evening, the details of which are memorialized in my frenzied journal entries from the hours and days that followed, and I have not once experienced alcohol-withdrawal symptoms or cravings. There has been no sense of loss or missing out. The desire to relax or unwind after a challenging day no longer leads me to the bottom of a wine bottle. I am — thanks to God’s merciful love and Blessed Solanus Casey’s intercession — clean, sober and, at long last, healed. God willing, I will remain so until he calls me home.
Solanus Casey’s canonization now awaits the investigation and verification of one additional miracle attributable to his intercession.
According to Father Ed Foley, the vice postulator for the cause of canonization of Blessed Solanus, the healing favor I received cannot be considered an official miracle “because of the difficulty of creating a direct medical cause and effect between [my] sobriety and Solanus’ intercession. Objectively there are other explanations for [my] ongoing recovery.”
I, however, know what took place that night. Blessed Solanus knows. God knows.
Prayer for the Canonization of Blessed Solanus Casey
O God, I adore You. I give myself to You.
May I be the person You want me to be,
and May Your will be done in my life today.
I thank You for the gifts You gave Father Solanus.
If it is Your Will, bless us with the Canonization of
Father Solanus so that others may imitate
and carry on his love for all the poor and
suffering of our world.
As he joyfully accepted Your divine plans,
I ask You, according to Your Will, to hear my prayer for … (your intention)
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
“Blessed be God in all his designs.”
Imprimatur:
Most Rev. Allen H. Vigneron Archbishop of Detroit, May 2017
