Do you drink and drive? Listen to this man’s message to you
Philip Stoneman has learnt from his mistakes: he no longer drinks and drives.
In fact, his negative experiences with alcohol have lead to him not drinking at all.
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The City Times last week reported how the Benoni Agricultural Holdings resident was slapped at the Sasol filling station on Pretoria Road on August 12, by a man who appeared to be drunk
The incident took place after Stoneman asked the motorist not to get behind the wheel of his car.
The chaplain and church minister is grateful that his drinking episodes did not result in anybody else being injured.
When he was 27, Stoneman was forced to resign from his job as he used to arrive at work drunk from the previous night.
Two days after moving to Gauteng and telling himself that he would change his drinking habits, he was involved in an accident in Boksburg.
He fell asleep behind the wheel of his car and crashed into a substation.
“The next morning I realised I needed to change things, and I started going to Alcoholics Anonymous,” he said.
“I realised I had no control over what I was doing when I was drinking and that I had no control over my life.”
This realisation prompted him to enter church ministry, where he became a youth pastor and later a chaplain.
Seven years ago, he resorted to drinking again.
“Unfortunately, I made the same mistakes I had made when I was 27,” the 46-year-old said.
He made another turnaround.
“Fortunately, I never messed up in such a way that it was splashed all over the news, or that I crashed a car and injured somebody. I was able to look at myself and say that I can’t handle alcohol. I was able to admit to the way it affected my life and my ability to make decisions, so I stopped again,” he said.
“Now I don’t drink at all.
“I try to use that experience to help people through my mistakes.”
He said he is still traumatised by an accident three years ago in which three teenagers died after being knocked over by a suspected drunk motorist near Tom Jones Street.
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