Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Addiction Recovery and Jesus: Warren Mayer's Story

Episode Date: May 28, 2020

https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/staff/warren-mayer/ (Warren Mayer) battled alcoholism and addiction for 20 years. Now, he is sober and helps others through their struggles with addiction. Hear his testimony in this interview with https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/staff/keith-simon/ (Keith Simon). Interested in more content like this? Scroll down for more resources, including information about our https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/counseling-faq/ (professional counselors). Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. To learn more, visit our https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/ (website) and follow us on https://www.facebook.com/TheCrossingCOMO (Facebook), https://www.instagram.com/thecrossingcomo/ (Instagram), and https://twitter.com/thecrossingcomo (Twitter) @TheCrossingCOMO.  Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now.

Welcome to 10 Minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. And I'm Patrick Miller. On today's episode, I'm going to visit with Warren Mayer. Warren's been a part of the crossing for a long time. I consider him and his wife, Shelly, good friends. He also happens to listen to 10 minute Bible talks, so it's kind of fun to have a listener on to share their story. Warren will share his story of addiction and becoming a Christian sobriety and now turning around and helping others who are in the condition he was for a number of years. I think you'll find it really enlightening and maybe even helpful. We'll get to some more practical stuff at the end of the episode, but we'll dive right into Warren's story. When did you first realize you were an addict?

I began to realize that I had a problem. I would not have used that term in my sophomore year at college. I was directing a play, which ironically is called, and Miss Reardon drinks a little, and had a few celebratory drinks that afternoon with a friend and passed out, blacked out, actually. I was still mobile. I was still walking around, but had more than a few.

And so I missed the start of the show, which is not okay. and I had several people come to talk to me about it later. So that's when other people began pointing it out to me. That was when I was 20 years old, and I've only been sober since I was 37, so that says probably something about my stubbornness. So 17 years between the time you realize this is serious. There's a problem.

And the time that you were able to beat it. And I was never able to beat it on my own. I tried and had varying bouts of sobriety. They would last three weeks. I had one that went for six months. But the problem with relying on something chemical or whatever is that eventually life is rough and you go back to it because it's what you know. So let's go back to your sophomore year. You're 20 years old.

You're directing this play. You black out. Friends talk to you. What's your response? Denial. I can take care of this. I've got this. This was just a slip-up.

It was a mistake. So I think that's the lie that I lived with for 17 years was that in my own power and because of my own intelligence or abilities or whatever other resources I have to muster, I'm going to beat this thing. This thing does not control me. I control it.

And you must have been pretty functional. I mean, you were directing a big play in college. You were in college. It's not like you were on the street, right? So how are you able to function at a high level while being, I guess we'd say, in hindsight, an alcoholic? I would say definitely in hindsight being an alcoholic. But I was on the honor roll every semester that I was in college.

So I was kind of able to fake my way through life and had all of the outer markers. of a successful student. And then later, though, it became obvious after graduation. It became increasingly difficult for me to take care of myself. So until, I don't know, 1993 or so, I had never held a job for more than six months. How old were you then? In 93, I would have been 32.

So let's go back for a second. When did you have your first drink? Probably 15 or 16 years old. That's not that unusual to be a teenager who is drinking beer or whatever. So what was the next step where you started to go down a road that led to blacking out when you're 20 and being confronted by friends? Through middle school, high school, there was a lot of fear in my life, a lot of instability. My mother, I think in hindsight, struggled with alcohol. I want to stop short of saying she was an alcoholic, but alcohol was presented in our home as something that helps you deal with the stress of everyday life.

So it was more in that context that I began to understand what alcohol was, not in a couple friends getting together to watch a football game and having a few beers. It was when life is hard, alcohol helps. So that dynamic kind of followed me to college. and when I got to college, all the restraints came off. So becoming an alcoholic for you wasn't about enjoying a good party. Becoming an alcoholic sounds like it was a way of coping with inner pain, inner turmoil. Yes, absolutely. Alcohol provides a slick, fast, surefire way to deal with fear, anxiety,

social awkwardness, all of those things I still struggle with today. So it's something that I was not taught. You know, this is something that we take to God in prayer. And I don't mean, you know, formerly taught. I mean, what I observed in my environment was this is how you deal with difficult feelings or stress or disappointment. Why did you turn to alcohol versus any other drug? Any ideas? I turned to a lot of things. Oh, really? So alcohol wasn't the only thing you experimented with? Every addict that I've ever met always has multiple things going on. So the language that I've developed over the years is to ask somebody, what is the prevailing problem here? What's the number one issue at hand? So in my case, the drug of choice was alcohol, but other drugs,

illegal drugs, prescription drugs, if it provided relief, then I made a mental note of it. And And I think that's true in varying ways with everybody who struggles with a compulsion and obsessive thinking. Inability to appropriately process anxiety and fear is that if they don't have alcohol, they have something else. It's really common for alcoholics when they stop drinking to suddenly develop an inordinate fascination with sugar. And again, that's something that I struggle with to the present day.

So in other words, it just transfers substances that drive find something to satisfy it. That's exactly right. So you're 20 years old, your friends confront you for the first time. You realize you have a problem, even if you wouldn't call it an addiction. How old are you when you go to your first AA meeting? I went to my first AA meeting when I was 36. So between 20 and 36, what? What were some of the things you did to try to get out of this addiction?

I don't think I was actually trying for at least the first 10 years of that. So my first marriage was in 1990. And that was still, you know, deep in that culture of drinking, partying. That is actually one of the prime reasons why my first marriage came apart. So I would say I began pursuing sobriety when I began to start asking questions about God, meaning, morality, all these things that I didn't have an answer for. So your walk out of addiction, if that's the right way to say it, intersects closely with your exploring faith, coming to faith? It absolutely does, yes. What led you to consider deeper questions of life and Christianity?

I think it was the extreme turbulence of my first marriage, but it was also the birth of my daughter McKenzie in 1994 that things really started to change in my heart. I began to ask myself annoying questions like, would you be happy if your daughter grows up to live the kind of life that you're living right now. And the answer was obviously no. So I had to restructure the things that I had built my life on,

and I didn't really know where to turn. So that's one thing that I don't understand. Maybe other people don't is if I hear you right, you're saying that you were unhappy. You wouldn't want your daughter to live this life. And yet, you're stuck in a cycle that you can't get out of. you're not even in one sense trying to get out of it and yet you're unhappy in it yes help me connect those ads because to me not ever having had an alcohol addiction or anything quite similar i don't

understand the thinking i'm miserable and yet i don't want out of it i'm miserable but i'm comfortable with the devil that i've chosen and you're asking me to give up the one thing that I know for sure is going to relieve the anxiety that I feel. And you're asking me to do that with no assurance that I'm going to have to sit in these uncomfortable feelings and anxieties and fears for days on end, weeks on and months on it. So the unhappiness that alcohol led you to

wasn't as bad as the unhappiness is not having alcohol. That's right. There's always a mechanism in play where self-destruction becomes an obvious choice. It's not going to make sense to somebody who doesn't struggle with a compulsion and obsessive thinking, but it's the thing that I know that can relieve this brand of pain. Prayer, when that's suggested, that seems pretty ethereal and vague. and if you don't know Jesus, then who am I praying to and what assurance do I have?

This bottle over here, this is going to fix me. But you're offering me something that is not necessarily a surefire thing. Okay, so you have your daughter, and how old are you at this time when you have McKinsey? 33. So you're 33, and you're having to wrestle with questions, just having a child, has forced you to ask questions that you'd been able to avoid. And now... Willfully avoiding them. Choose to avoid, right?

Yeah. Take us through that. What are the steps that go from asking these questions at the birth of your daughter to ending up in an AA meeting, I guess, two, three years later? Well, I can see it now really clearly from the vantage point of Paul saying I will not be mastered by anything. But back then, I think there was enough pride going on that I don't have kind of. control over this and I want to get control over it. So the first few years from 1994 to 1997,

that's when I began fumbling my way towards sobriety under my own power. I began, you know, just making lists and, you know, engaging in behaviors that would support sobriety. But again, you know. So what are you doing? Be specific. Are you just trying to get more committed? Are you making promises to your then-wife? What are these behaviors you're trying to do? do to trust your own self to get out of the addiction? I'm making promises to my wife. I'm making promises to God as I understood him back then. I'm doing things like saying, I'll go to this party, but I'm only going to have two beers.

Just, you know, insider tip, that doesn't work for somebody with that kind of problem. So, yeah, I'm doing things like walking around town or driving around Columbia with making sure I have no cash in my pockets. because if I have cash in my pockets, I know I'm going to pull over and get something. So I'm putting all these barriers in place that will at least slow me down. So that seems reasonable. I mean, those seem like, to me at least,

like reasonable things a person who wants to break a habit would do. Yes. But they don't work for you. Well, you're appealing to reason. So your problems were deeper than just an intellectual, cerebral, reasonable kind of thing could have fixed? Well, I think that's kind of what we're talking about, because on the surface, anybody could look at this and say,

this thing is destroying you. You need to stop doing it. And a reasonable person goes, okay, yeah, I'll step away from this now. That's not what we're dealing with here. What we're dealing with is being mastered by something and an absence of alternatives that meet the need that is met by whatever, drug of choice, drugs, alcohol, pornography, shopping.

I mean, it can be anything, really. But if you can't walk away from it, if you can't stop doing it, then it has mastered you. At some point, you realize that you're human strategies, you're not carrying cash around or making promises, trying to set limits on yourself. It's not working. Was there a moment that you realized I've got to do something different than what I'm doing that just evolve over time? How did you come to the point where my plan isn't working?

I've got to take this more seriously. My first marriage effectively ended in January of 1997 when I moved out of the house. And that in and of itself triggered a lot of reflection and thinking about how did I get here. Why is my life spinning out of control at the very best now? I'm going to see my daughter half the time. That's the best possible outcome. And that summer I went to California. I flew to San Francisco to see a U-2 concert with a friend.

And it became obvious during that trip. I almost got run over. How? Oh, I was walking across one of those busy six-lane streets in San Francisco, and I was going to buy beer. And it was like 9, 9.30 in the morning. So I kind of put those two facts together. It's 9.30 in the morning and I want beer and I'm going to risk my life.

I almost got killed buying beer. And oh, by the way, my marriage is over and I'm now the father of a small girl. And so on the plane ride back to Kansas City, I prayed and I said, if it kills me, I'm going to worship you every day from this point forward by not taking a drink of alcohol. Looking back on it now, would you say that you had become a Christian at that point? Or is this a cry of someone who's seeking relief? Or how do you think about that now? I think of it both ways. Yeah. It was the cry of somebody seeking relief. And it was when I accepted Christ as my Lord. You know me well enough to know that in the intervening years, there were many different aspects of my life that I had to continue to surrender to Christ. But at that point, I surrendered the rest of my life in terms of every single day that I don't drink is a day that I'm worshipping you quietly. Even if I'm mad, even if I'm upset with you or upset with other people, one of the ways I'm going to worship you is by not drinking alcohol. And by this time, had you been to an AA meeting? I had, but I need to preface by saying, A.A. is a wonderful thing and it's helped millions of people.

It did not help me. And I've actually heard a lot of people say that. For me, it was just very depressing. And I think that's just I didn't go to the right meeting and I didn't meet the right people. I didn't make the right connections. But in hindsight, I realized that even AA wasn't going to do it for me. So I needed something bigger than AA. That was my appeal to God was, this is not working, the things I'm trying.

They always fail because life gets hard. So what was the path you took then? to sobriety. Is it as simple as I believe in Christ and therefore I'm healed of my addiction? Gosh, that would be great if it were that simple. No, my relationship with Christ began authentically with a daily act of worship. And at that time, all I was willing to do was just not drink. So I had, you know, help along the way. and there are two books that stand out in my mind as helping me.

Because you remember now, this is July of 1997. I didn't walk into a service at the crossing until the summer of 2001. So there was that, you know, period of years in between. And the two books that really helped me piece it together were purpose-driven life by Rick Warren. That's where I started. And then later on, a book by Ed Welch, Addictions, A Banquet in the Great. What I needed at that time was to close the gap between daily sobriety and a relationship with God, and why does it matter? Why is it important?

I credit those two books in particular with helping me kind of close some of those gaps and understand that, no, actually daily worship is a really good thing. And here's why it matters. You work with a lot of people who have addiction. Yes. And you have for a number of years. Do they all have their own unique path to suburbism? or do you see some common themes in them? Different things work for different people.

And I would say that, you know, we're all infinitely complex individuals. So anyone's path to sobriety is going to be unique. But having said that, I would say that unless we can address the underlying fear and anxiety that fuels addiction, it's never going to stick. long term. So I see a lot of common threads in that people who suffer this way, who are mastered by something, typically had really difficult childhoods in one respect or another. Feelings of abandonment, fear, anxiety, just obsessing about the future. Am I going to be okay? Does anybody really love me? these kinds of things, if they don't get resolved, I mean, they show up somewhere.

And maybe that's behind every human problem that there is. I don't actually like the term addict or addiction. I prefer to go to Paul and his statement about being mastered by something other than Christ. So I see those themes over and over and over again. And I think the path that somebody takes, a lot of times it's just keep trying things. until something touches that nerve that caused you to get here in the first place. So let's get down into that then in your own life. You've said that it's the anxiety, the fear, shame that led...

All of that stuff. That led you to relieve the pain for a number of years, a long time. Yeah, 20. In alcohol. You still have all those things, though. You mean, you've made that clear that they're all the same. issues you struggle with now. Right. So how did you deal with them in a way that's maybe people might say healthier than alcohol? I don't mean now as a person who's older and looks back on this for a

number of years. I mean, in the middle of it, how did you find a different way to cope with your anxiety, fear, and shame and all these other negative emotions? The simple answer is prayer. And a lot of my prayers were unprintable. So a lot of raw emotion, a lot of processing that anger with God. Were you talking to another person in the middle of all this? Or is it just literally between you and God at this time? I like to tell people, because it's true, I had more than 50 friends, you know, that I could talk to. And then I stopped drinking and I had two. So when somebody says that they want to step forward and set aside some addictive behavior, I don't like to lie about it. I say, you know, in some ways, this is your biggest problem and this problem needs to end. But in other ways, some of your biggest problems are coming because you're going to have to adjust to the rejection that's going to come from your old cohort that you used to stomp around with.

So really, I did not have anybody, which is why I spent a good amount of time reading. And I did attend AA meetings. So when I was having a particularly bad week, I would just go to a meeting and I would listen more than talk. So I'm grateful that they were there. But did I have a lot of resources during that time? No, not really. I mean, I did in my prayer life, but not externally. So the fear, anxiety, shame, all the negative emotions, you, in your particular story that may or may not be the same as anyone else's story, but in your story,

you learned to process those, that pain, the anxiety with God. And you found that God, how would you have said it back then, soothed you, healed you, gave you hope? Hope is the main thing that any addict lacks. So I had to get to that point where I was willing to physically die rather than go back to alcohol. What do you mean physically die? How would you have physically died by not drinking alcohol?

Well, addicts are tremendous liars, and the people we lie to most often are ourselves. But by that time, I was using so much alcohol that whenever I stopped drinking, I started having problems. So, you know, you can see this in exaggerated form in like, you know, Nicholas Cage and leaving Las Vegas. You know, he kind of acts that out. not that bad, but it became necessary to drink during the day so that I would be normal.

I experienced that. And by the time it was 1997, you know, I had convinced myself that the fear, anxiety response that I feel primarily in my stomach, but throughout my body, that it could get so bad sometimes that I would feel like I was going to die. Now, medically was I going to die? Probably not. but it feels that way. The pull to whatever makes you feel better is so strong that you can convince yourself.

If I don't get this thing, I'm going to die. And so, you know, the logical response to that is, okay, I'll die. You know, if that's what happens, then that's what happens. How long from the time that you stopped drinking, which I think you said was when you were 37? 36. 36. Yeah. How long does it take for those intense cravings?

to diminish. For you? For me, it took about 18 months. So for 18 months, you feel like every day is a life or death battle. Yeah. The goal for every day is to put my head on the pillow, not having had a drink. So whatever else might happen, you know, I'm making no guarantees there, but just, I mean, I think there is a place in recovery for just white-knuckling it. I don't mean fake it till you make it. I mean, I'm moving forward and I'm going to trust God while I'm doing this. And if I perish, I perish. And you've got a job during all this time.

You have other responsibilities, so you're able to white knuckle it, hold on for dear life from day to day while functioning fairly normally in the world. Yes, fairly normally. More problems with anger because I am not. medicating myself. So the anger that was there all the time begins to surface in more visible, pronounced ways. And again, that's something I struggle with to the present day. But I had never dealt with the underlying issue. And if I started to feel angry, I would drink and didn't feel angry anymore. Right. So yes, I was able to hold down a job, was going through a divorce, raising a small girl. But yeah, for the first 18 months or so, it was, there was a lot of

of white knuckling. The thing that Alcoholics Anonymous gave me is the biblical truth of just one day. You see these bumper stickers all over place, right? One day at a time. And that's absolutely true. So that's how my relationship with God and my entrenched sobriety took root was just saying, I'm making no promises about Saturday. Today it's Thursday, and today I'm not going to drink. and, you know, Thursday becomes a week, months, years. So I've heard that before, and I be honest, in my naivete, I haven't always understood it. But there's this sense in which it seems like people who have an addiction can't say, I'm not going to drink for the rest of my life, or I'm not going to drink for a year.

They seem to have to take it one day at a time. That's right. Because... it's too overwhelming. To say I'm never going to drink again. Look, I'm in the middle of drinking, right? And you come to me and you say, Warren, I don't want you to drink again for the rest of your life.

And I'll just look you square in the eye and say, that is not happening. I can't make you any promises. And to this day, I can't make promises that I won't relapse. I'm sober 22 years now, but I still have to take things day by day. I mean, I plan for the future just like everybody else. And, you know, I hope to die sober.

But I also know myself well enough to be wary and to be cautious. The part of the Exodus that makes the most sense to me is God giving his people bread one day at a time. If you store it up, it gets moldy and full of worms. So I think there's all kinds of biblical precedent for living that way one day at a time. Don't worry about tomorrow. Your father knows what you need today and gives you that. Pray for your daily bread.

That's right. So to the addict who says, I can't stop drinking for a year, I'm like, how do you know you're not going to be dead in a car wreck a week from now? I'm not asking you to not drink next year. I'm asking you to not drink today. So you've been working with people who struggle with addiction through the crossing for how long? About 15 years? And how long after you had become sober did you start that? So that would be about seven. Seven years?

Yeah. So tell me about that. what drives you to help others. Because addicts are not the easiest people to help. Right? I mean, I've only tried a little bit, and it's a little bit overwhelming. So that's why I asked that question, is this isn't like serving on the parking team at church. You come and you go. No, it's not like that. This is a lot more involved. Working with people who have compulsions, obsession. and addictions is very painful. And the reason it's painful, and I'm just going to be honest, is because most people won't

recover. And so when you enter into relationship with somebody, you want to have a triumphalist approach. We're going to work together, and we're going to read this book together. We're going to go to this group study together, and by the grace and power of God, you're going to be healed. But that's not in our power, and it's arrogant to think that way. So honestly, it's been a lot of getting close. close to somebody only to see them fall away and go back after the thing that gives them

comfort and pleasure. And you're not going to talk somebody out of that. So I think the only thing that we have to offer people is our own sobriety, our own walk, and the truth of God's word, and a willingness to accept them the way they are. What do you notice about people who do make it out, who do follow a path of sobriety versus those who don't. Are there any key indicators that you see, any key markers that say, hey, this person made it out because of X, and this person didn't make it out for the same reason? Again, I'm not an expert, but in my personal experience, what I have seen is the people who tend to recover are the people who have stopped making excuses who have owned whatever it is, wherever they are, have owned it entirely.

And when I see people talking about why they do this, that, or the other thing, I know that we're not there yet. So desperation is really helpful. That was really helpful for me. And it's been helpful for other people that I've known who have long track records of sobriety. a willingness to surrender. I think the most damaging thing that people can do, and I'm guilty of it, is I'm going to manage my recovery.

Anything that falls into that sort of junk door thinking, I'm in charge, and I'm going to manage the aspects of my recovery. And here are the things that I'm willing to do. What are the other options? If you're not managing it, who is? If you're not in charge, who is? I think, well, God. and those that you've selected to help you?

Because you can be not a Christian and be an alcoholic or an addict and become sober. So when you say the answer is God, I am a little bit want to push back and say a lot of people find sobriety without God in a picture in their life. Well, okay, for me, it's God and accountability. I can't speak for other people, but accountability is a key thing. You're asking me about common traits. And so I would say there has to be an aspect of surrender. There has to be an acknowledgement that I can't think my way out of this. It might be the smartest person in the world.

But I'm not going to figure this out. A good friend of mine likes to say that his very best thinking about alcohol will put him in a pair of handcuffs within 48 hours. This is a smart guy. But again, you're talking about reason and thought. and rationalism. And I think that sums it up really well. I think that fits with my experience, because I've had some friends, people that I've known who have had to lose almost everything. Yes. Before they'll deal with it. And at least deal with it at the level you're talking about.

They might go to rehab. They might come to a Bible study. They might join a group. But the reality is that they really won't deal with it at the level you're talking about. until they've lost their marriage or their business or their house or their finances or something. Why is that? Is there an answer to that why question? Because it drives you crazy as you talk to people you care about. And in some sense, you think they see it. In another sense, they don't.

And they have to hit absolute rock bottom before they will be desperate enough to surrender and feeling like they can manage it. Is that just human pride or is there more to it to that? pride is definitely part of it. I think there's a huge component of knowing that your own story is not big enough to justify sobriety. So I can't get sober for Keith Simon. I can't even get sober for Warren Mayer. I have to get sober for something that's bigger than both of us put together. And that's the piece that I think is critical for a long-term recovery. Why are you getting sober. What is the reason? If you don't know why, then you'll lose your grip on it. It's just a

matter of time. I think that's really good. If you don't know why you're getting sober, it's probably not going to last. So if a guy's trying to get sober because he wants to save his marriage, it's not enough. He knows, I think, and I'm just going to extrapolate, he knows deep inside his own story and the story of his marriage. It's not big enough. It's not worth it. It's not sustainable over the long haul because there's things about his marriage he likes and there's a lot he doesn't like. So do I want to stop drinking

just so I can stay in this marriage? Probably not. That's why I think you have to connect sobriety to a bigger story. If you don't, those other external markers of happiness and success will eventually fade or slip through your fingers.

So there are probably people who are listening to us who are addicts to one or another who are, like you said, being mastered by something to one degree or another, and they don't realize it. What are signs that might help them see their addiction as it's playing out in their life right now? Again, these are people who are probably addicted to something, being mastered by something, but who don't realize it. They think they're still in control of it. Yes. They think this is something they can manage.

age. They think that this is maybe a problem or maybe they are like where you said earlier, denial after your friends confronted you. So I think questions that we can ask ourselves. And again, I'm ripping this off of Rick Warren. At the end of the month, look at where you spent your money, look at where you spent your time, look at what you spend your talent on. So time, talent, treasure, look at those things, where those things are being spent, ask questions of other people, and be ready for them to give you answers that you don't really like. That's been a huge one for me. Other people can see things about you that you can't see about yourself.

Right. If my best thinking about alcohol puts me in a pair of handcuffs, then I need somebody else who's got maybe slightly better thinking about the subject of alcohol. Who sees you more objectively? Yeah. Who can say, actually, I do think this is a problem. And I'm concerned about you. That's the hard thing about these addictions, though, right?

Is that if I don't see I'm addicted, then I won't even see the need to ask someone else. You know, so in some sense, I want to say, well, maybe it's job performance, but we all know a lot of high-functioning alcoholics who can keep a job and maybe even progress up the corporate ladder while having substance issues. So it's one of those things that allows you to deceive yourself for a long time. it appears. I like to ask people, what do you look forward to? There's a lot in that because with addictive behavior patterns, it's not just the act of drinking. It's everything that leads up to the act of drinking. And it's the internal mechanisms of, boy, if I can just get my boss off

my back and make it to five o'clock, I'll stop it. You know, so it just starts moving before anything has actually occurred. So to ask somebody, what is it you look forward to, it reveals a lot. So let's imagine another kind of person who's probably listening to this. And this is a person who knows they're an addict and they've tried some things and it hasn't worked. They just keep in the same cycle of getting more committed, making more promises, setting more limits. And then falling back into it. They're full of guilt and shame, despair, disappointment. What do you say to that person? I'll typically ask them, what's off the table?

What things in your life are you unwilling to surrender? Because that reveals where their heart is, who their God really is, and what they think they must have to make life worth living. And I'm talking big-ticket things, right? Like your job, your marriage, your kids. I'm not talking about, you know, your weekend activities. I'm talking about the whole thing. So generally in that conversation, you'll find out what that person values.

And you can then ask them why. So then am I right? And I might not be. So correct me if I got this wrong. But am I right in saying that you believe that the person who is in the spin cycle of trying to get out of it and falling back into it over and over and over, is holding something back, is keeping something to themselves that they're unwilling to give up, unwilling to surrender.

And that's what causes them to relapse. Shame, a sense of unworthiness, a deep-seated conviction that my life isn't really that important, and I've chosen to waste it. And so nobody really cares. it's this slow snowball effect of shame just kind of builds these thoughts and then it just takes over. And when you're in that kind of a cycle, I think spin cycle is a really good term. You go for what you know works.

Which is your substance of choice? Of choice, yeah. So there's another kind of person out there who has a friend, a family member, someone they care about, a parent, a child, whoever. that they think might be an addict, or maybe they're confident they're an addict. What advice do you give them? What can they do for their friend, the person they care about? Well, I have lost more friendships over the answer to this question than probably anything else. Maybe we should have started with this.

Maybe you should have started here. Honestly, the answer is, let go. Keep loving them. Keep being in their life. but stop giving them a mattress to fall on. Let them, let them fall. I see so many people who mean well and have a deep, deep love for their child or their spouse. And they just run around all day long, you know, fixing everything that that other person is messing up, making problems go away.

Fixing relationships, helping up. relationships, paying tickets, showing up in court, talking to lawyers, you know, just doing whatever they have to do so that little Johnny is going to be all right at the end of the day. And what they don't realize is that they're actually delaying the inevitable and they're going to only make it worse for that person when they do fall. So I don't like to use the term natural consequences, but there's something there. You know, you've been given your first DUI. Do you stop now?

Or do you keep going? A lot of people, the answers keep going. But those kinds of things are the things that we try to rescue people from. And well-meaning parents, well-meaning spouses, they can make the problem infinitely worse in my estimation by not allowing natural consequences to take their toll because they're just delaying that person coming to the point where they go, I've wrecked it.

Something needs to change. I can see maybe a husband or wife who is trying to keep a family together. They say they have kids, young kids. And so they're trying to make family life work. And in some sense, what you're saying to them is, no, you've got to let it just all kind of fail. And they feel like what you're saying is, I've got to make my kids suffer the consequences of my spouse's addiction. Yeah. And you don't want to say that. It's not like that's what you intend to do is to hurt these kids. You're just saying that as long as this person keeps fixing and keeps propping things up, they're actually enabling the addiction. Yes, absolutely. And again, their best thinking about helping their spouse or child has contributed to a problem. So they also need somebody outside of themselves to look at it and say,

This is on what you are doing is unwise. So the scripture that I go to in thinking about this issue is when Jesus warned us about speaking the language of our father, the devil, when we lie, when we cover things up and when we patch things up and tell the person, you know, it's going to be all right. We're actually lying to them and we're speaking the language of the devil. And it's not helping that person. That person needs to hear truth. Now, maybe that truth won't come from you, but somebody needs to tell them truthfully, this thing you're doing, it's actually destroying you. And most people aren't willing to do that. But it seems like there's a kind of person out there who might say hard things behind closed doors, but then fixes things on the other side of that door.

Privately say hard things publicly keep enabling. So it's so counterintuitive because you think. think you're helping this person by fixing things. But really what you're saying is we're hurting them. And it's so helpless to feel like I've got to watch this person I love destroy their life. And yet sometimes that's the most loving thing I can do. Speaking the truth in love, we have to step up and say, this is not your first DUI. This is your third or whatever it is. So it has to be seasoned with grace. People make mistakes, people do stupid things, people say stupid things all the time. So there has to be grace.

I'm not saying, I'm not saying that. I'm saying that when it becomes obvious that it's a pattern and it's a destructive pattern, when other people start allocating time, talent, and treasure to somebody else's self-destruction, they are denying those very things, time, talent, and treasure that other people need. So when I run around, trying to fix my spouse's problem with alcohol, I'm expending energy that I don't even have for my kid when I get back to home. And you can see this all the time. That actually was really helpful to me to look around and see, as I'm engaging in this destructive behavior, who else is being robbed of what little I have to offer? Most people, they become blind to that. So Al-Anon is a good

resource for people. You know, there are plenty of other resources for this, but again, it's the same mechanism as in play. I'm blind to what I'm doing that is contributing to this person's destruction because I love them so much. I can't see clearly. So I need somebody outside of myself to say, actually, you know, that money you just gave him to pay the light bill, he's going to use that for drugs. So you need to stop paying his electric bill. You can now see maybe why I've lost a lot of friendships over the years. Yeah, I can see that because that's not what people want to care. And I'm totally sympathetic to it.

I get it. You know, we love these people. We want them to be healed from the inside out. But we're not capable of that. Only God's spirit is capable of that. I don't know what percentage of the population or the church or people listening to this are addicts, whether they know it or not. But my guess is it's a minority.

and yet I also think there's probably something that people who aren't addicts can learn from people who are or can learn about themselves or can learn from recovering alcoholics, people who've been sober for a number of years. As we kind of start to wrap up, are there anything that you've thought of that people like me could learn from someone like you? Me being a person who hasn't struggled with addiction and you who has that as part of their story? I think the main thing that we could all learn from a recovering addict is an emphasis on gratitude to daily ask yourself, how am I being blessed today? How am I being loved by God?

Most of us speed through life so fast that we don't pause to take stock of all the things that we do have, we're more focused on the things we want to acquire or accomplishments that we want to put on our list. So I would say maintaining a daily practice of being grateful, I start all my prayers by thanking God for life and breath because I don't take those things for granted. And that just kind of cascades into other things. Now, you know, I get caught up in the business of life like everybody else. But I think it's important to slow down and to be grateful for 22 years of sobriety and all of that that's yielded. Thanks, Warren. Before we go, would you mind praying for us knowing that there are people here

who are addicts and don't know it, people who are addicts and struggling, people who are trying to care for addicts? And then a lot of us out there who, that's not part of our race, but it's not because we're any better. It's just that's not a challenge we've had to face. but with your experience of working with people and knowing the human heart and what your own struggle has been, I'd love it if you just prayed for us as we close out. Sure. Heavenly Father, thank you for today. Thank you for granting me your gifts of life and breath.

Thank you for this time with Keith. Thank you for the many ways in which you have blessed me and have prospered me in the 22 years since I, in desperation, came to you and asked you to free me. Lord, I pray for everyone who is listening to this that is either struggling with being mastered by something or knows somebody who has been mastered by something. I pray that they would seek out Jesus as their master, that your spirit would be at work in their hearts and minds,

and that you would enable them to see with the eyes of their hearts, the truth that they are loved, that their past is something that has an influence over them, but it does not have the final say. You have the final say, and we can trust our lives to you. I pray that those who need help will get it, we'll seek it, will ask, and I pray against the tendency we all have to try to master things ourselves and to think that we're in charge. true recovery and true healing and true discipleship can only come when we acknowledge that we are weak, we are foolish,

we've strayed off the path many, many times, and we will do so again, apart from your grace, your mercy, and you're coming after us. Thank you for coming after us. And I pray that you would strengthen all of us to do your will. Pray it in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.

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