Ch 2. - God's Good Man

Ch 2. - God's Good Man

What drives someone to seek a life without alcohol? This chapter of *Dry Dock of a Thousand Wrecks* focuses on faith-fuelled transformation in the gritty setting of New York’s old Water Street Mission. You’ll hear how Samuel H. Hadley, described as “one of the greatest men in the city of New York, if not in the whole of the United States,” helped shape a mission where chronic drunkards were never written off. Mr.

Wyburn, the superintendent who followed him, sums up the Mission’s attitude in one simple line: “We never give a man up in Water Street.” That single sentence could sit on the wall of any recovery centre today. The heart of the chapter is John H. Wyburn’s own story. An Englishman who came to America, made good money, joined a church, and then slid slowly into alcoholism, he shares how his life was torn apart by drink and legal trouble.

His account of arriving at the Mission planning to hustle ten dollars and instead meeting Christ is raw and direct. When Hadley told him, “What you need, my dear brother, is Jesus Christ as your friend and saviour. He will sober you up, and you will never want another drink,” Wyburn took that seriously – and says the craving left him that very night.

He also talks frankly about giving up tobacco later in his recovery, choosing to drop a habit he “dearly loved” as an act of love for Jesus. From there, he moves into service, becoming superintendent of the very Mission that helped him and offering hope to “poor dying drunkards” across the country.

If you’re curious about faith-based recovery, or just want to hear a no-nonsense account of someone who says their desire to drink vanished in a moment of surrender, this chapter gives you plenty to chew on. Could a story like this spark a new sense of possibility in your own journey?