SHALL WE BEGIN HERE?
An Open Invitation

In the late summer, some years ago, I woke one morning to a lavish Christian hangover.

This is the truest way I know to begin this exposition of coming clean, and though it’s still difficult to accept the moniker alcoholic, I know that I am, in the most colloquial sense, dependent. Yes, I am an enjoyable, joyous, exuberant dependent.

I have found that at my most drunk, I am also my most fun. This would be the second truest way I know to begin this exposition of my coming clean. When the numbing of the liquor set in, when it deadened fiery anxiety and inhibitions, a permanent smile washed over me, and the clever, quippy comments rained. I felt less angst; I felt the dissipation of life’s groaning.

In this age of Christian liberty, of the disentanglement of the Christian ethos and prohibition, I found myself stretching deeper and deeper into the bottle in an effort to avoid pain. I found myself dependent upon something other than the God in which I professed faith.

Why? We’ll get to that.

For now, though, know this: this is a journaling of my days of coming clean. It is not a book as one normally thinks of a book. Perhaps you’ll find a narrative arc. Perhaps you won’t. What you’ll find, I hope, is an honest piece of writing that tracks my first ninety days of sobriety, one that deals with pain, with healing, and ultimately, with the mystery able to help us all come clean.

We’ll get to that too.

Know this also: this is not a book about alcoholism or alcohol dependency. It is a book about the human experience. We’ve all felt the pain in this groaning and grinding of life. We all cope in different ways. Some drink, some abuse prescription drugs, some overeat, some undereat or puke or have sex or amass wealth or give all their wealth away. Some overintellectualize life, build superstructures of theological certainties so that they do not have to confront the real, abiding, fearsome, mysterious God.

We all have our vices, see.

Know this three: this is not a program; it is not the last chapter of a journey. This is the beginning—my beginning. Maybe even yours. It is the shedding of the first garment on the way to naked. This is an exposition of my process of stripping off the falsities, of coming clean.

Read this less as a book about alcoholism and more as one about the pains and salves common to every life. My alcoholism is not the thing, see. Neither is your eating disorder, your greed disorder, or your sex addiction. Your sin is not the thing. The thing is under the sin. The thing is the pain. Sin management without redemption of life’s pain is a losing proposition.

There is an antidote for the pain. It was taught to us, commanded of us, modeled for us. It is simple in word and sometimes impossible in deed. It is free, but it isn’t cheap.

Are you ready to explore with me? Are you ready to find the medicine?

This is an open invitation to come clean.