AMAZING STORY
Rosemary Fisher: Beating the Bottle
By Jewel Graham Taylor
The 700 Club
CBN.com-As a child, Rosemary Fisher received nothing from her alcoholic father but abuse. When he died in a drunk driving accident, she did not grieve. She only felt relief. Rosemary says, “It was very sad to say there weren’t tears shed, there wasn’t an explosion of, ‘Oh my goodness,’ you know, ‘He’s gone now.’ It was like, ‘Wow, no more beatings, it’s over.’”
Despite the abuse she witnessed at home, Rosemary still longed for her father’s love, which she now knew she would never receive. “It hit me the hardest when I saw his casket being lowered into the ground. I am nine years old. Here it was over. There was never a chance of him holding me, telling me I’m beautiful and that he loves me and would fight for me,” she remembered.
Her home life changed drastically after her father died. Rosemary said, “My mother went completely 180 degrees. She was excited now that she was free and now there was no fear in the household at all. So, me, at nine years old, and my brother, at 11 years old, had no authority. We could stay up as late as we wanted, do whatever we wanted and it was party time now! I started selling drugs in school and my grades dipped. I did not care anymore about my education. When I was 14, my mother took me into the bars. She allowed me to drink with her. She started dancing with strange men and because I was around the atmosphere I also started dancing with strange men.”
At the age of 16, Rosemary returned home drunk at three in the morning. Three hours later, her brother woke her in a panic. He had found their mother dead in the garage. She had committed suicide.
“She was already in rigor mortis and I jumped on her trying to bring her back to life. I kept crying out, ‘don’t leave me; don’t leave me. Just please, don’t leave me.’ I didn’t know what else to do.” Rosemary said the note she left said, “You’re capable of taking care of yourself, you’re strong, you can just keep on. I know you’ll be better off without me.” She remembers that was the worst day of her life. “I was just in shock,” she said, “I just left and I walked around the neighborhood in my nightgown. I could not believe this happened to me. ‘How could this happen to me? How could she just leave me?’”
From that time on Rosemary had to support herself working in local bars and restaurants. She was a wreck. “I looked great on the outside and knew how to put on my makeup, wear my great clothes and go out and put on the front. But deep down I was that little tiny girl that did not know what real love was. All I did was medicate it. If I kept medicating it then I was okay. And if somebody called me out on it I would say, ‘Well, you’d drink too if your father died and he beat your family in front of you and then your mother committed suicide.’”
Rosemary justified her behavior for 15 more years. A dear friend and business partner saw how desperate Rosemary was and encouraged her to get help. “She had tears coming down her cheeks and she said, ‘If you don’t quit living like this, you are going to die. And I can’t watch you die so I’m going to have to let you go.’” Rosemary stopped, “Because I respected her and loved her more than I loved myself, she caught my attention because it was sincere.”
Christine began taking Rosemary to AA meetings. The stories she heard form others opened Rosemary’s eyes to the devastating truth in her own life. Rosemary said, “I realized I was totally alone. I realized I did not have God in my life – I had no family members in my life. And that is when I broke. I lost it.” Rosemary got down on her face and knees, no longer wanting to live, no longer wanting to breathe, and cried out to God that night. “If you’re really up there, I need you right now, right now to show up because I’m done,” she said, “I started crying and all I remember at that point was this warmth presence just coming all around me in peace and holding me like I never was held before in my life. I did not know what it was. I did not even ask any questions. All I know is that my cry out was sincere.”
Rosemary wept for three days. “I would gush tears just cleansing me from all the things. The drugs and the alcohol and the promiscuous sex and the junk, just the junk that was all layered and layered and layered and layered. It was even still a cleansing process after that.”
Rosemary says she went looking for God. “I started going from church to church just wanting to pray. Here I was sitting there and heard the message of the Gospel and how He died for that and me I am forgiven and I wanted it! I wanted it! I did not know exactly what it all meant. All I heard was he died for my sings; they are washed away and he wants to give me a new life and a life that’s full of abundance and favor and blessings.” Rosemary said a prayer and says her whole life changed at that point. She became very hungry for God and starting changing personally. She started seeing life from a whole new perspective. “I was taken out of the dark and am now in the light and I’m excite because everything looks alive,” she said.
Rosemary says her faith; family and ministry have far surpassed what she ever thought possible. “I love God, I love Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit and me run together. I cannot get enough of him. He is so amazing to me. I mess up all the time, but I tell you what, his loving, forgiving grace is just magnificent and he’s awesome and he’s coming back.”
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