I’m in Grand Rapids to read the audio versions of my first book, Coming Clean: A Story of Faith, and my next book, The Book of Waking Up: Experiencing The Divine Love That Orders a Life. I’m reading them in order, starting with the one sharing how I woke to my dependence on alcohol and how I moved into what I call “inner sobriety.”

Coming Clean represents my journal from the first 90 days of my sobriety journey, and revisiting this material all these years later hasn’t been easy. It’s taken me back into the experience, into the days where I woke from my gin-induced stupor and into the hard questions of faith. I’d used liquor (with a side of theology) to anesthetize myself, to numb myself to sleep. And as I read my entry from November 2, 2013, I remembered why.

Consider the journal entry below and ask yourself: What do I use as a sleep-inducer, as a narcotic to numb myself to the areas of my own non-conformity?

November 2, 2013

On most mornings, I wake early, brew a pot of coffee, and find my way to the plush blue chair in the corner of the living room. This is the quiet space for listening or sorting things out. Sometimes I hear the wind blowing through the trees outside. On this particular autumn morning, I hear it blowing through the trees, hear the acorns pelting the skylight, the squirrel fodder undone from their branches and sent flying like wooden hail.

The wind rustles the mesquite tree branches of my memory, the essence of my young faith, the place I’m trying to return to. Go into the pain. This is the advice of therapists, sages, and poets. Eleventh-century Persian poet Rumi wrote, “The remedy for the pain is the pain.” Starting your morning with a steaming cup of coffee and a side of pain, however, can be a jolt more than one can bear, so instead, I reach for a distraction: Robert Mulholland’s book Invitation to a Journey, a book about spiritual formation.

Distractions—aren’t they all around? When life slides its shiv into the soft spot between two ribs, when the pain shoots through every nerve, common sense dictates that we run to the doctor or therapist. Common sense dictates that we allow them to take it out and bind our wounds. Why, then, do we so often ignore the shivs? Why do we allow them to bleed us dry while we reach for our man-made salves?

I open to chapter 3 of Mulholland’s book, where he writes,

“The process of being conformed to the image of Christ takes place primarily at the points of unlikeness to Christ’s image. God is present to us in the most destructive aspects of our cultural captivity. God is involved with us in the most imprisoning bondage of our brokenness. God meets us in those places of our lives most alienated from him. God is there, in grace, offering us the forgiveness, the cleansing, the liberation, the healing we need to begin the journey toward our wholeness and fulfillment in Christ.”

This is the challenge, I think: to find the places of unlikeness to God, the places where I am most alienated from him. …

Most mornings, my reading and prayer hour wakes at a slower pace. I begin in the chair, eyes closed and smelling coffee while the remnants of dreams linger. Often my attempts to wipe the groggy fog of sleep clean with prayer feels more like an exercise in effort, in the application of mental elbow grease. Often my prayers turn to nonsensical gibberish about long-lost aunts or churches I never attended or pasta or the like. This morning, though, the fog is being cut, being blown away by a sharper, cleaner wind. The words of Mullholland—they are like smelling salts awakening the unconscious.

In what ways am I most alienated from God?

In what ways am I alienated from God? I am a Christian who has used systems of theology and liquor—both addictions in their own right—to numb the pain that God might not answer my prayers, that he might not heal, and that ultimately, he might not be present in my life. The pain is evidence of this area of nonconformity, and I have used these vices to dull the pain.

***

Wake Up?

My next book, The Book of Waking Up: Experiencing the Divine Love that Reorders a Life* is available for pre-order NOW. (Amazon, Barnes & Noble) It’s a book that explores true, inner sobriety, and how to attach to and adore Divine Love. Pre-orders are vital to the success of a book, so please do not wait. Order today. And if you do, let me know via email. I’ll send you a sample along with the 3-part video series that gave rise to this book!

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