Linda, I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit for the forgiveness of your sins. Amen.” The words came out with practiced ease, slightly slurred. We stood together in the baptistry, Linda beaming with joy, I in panic.
This wasn’t my first baptism. What caused my panic, what I couldn’t tell Linda and her parents, was that I was drunk. Not falling-down drunk, but drunk enough to be dangerous driving to church that night.
There we stood, a glowing teenager and her flushed pastor, ruddy for different reasons. A teacher of mine once said that if he could persuade the devil himself to baptize a truly penitent person, it would still be a sacred act. I was hoping (not daring to pray) he was right.
This was a private baptismal service, not uncommon in our tradition, and only the immediate family was present for this event.
As I lowered her, the thought had crossed my mind that I might drop her, and indeed the whole operation was a little wobbly. Abruptly, when she came up out of the water, I sensed the violent collision that had just occurred between my lifestyle and my calling. I began to weep. My tears of remorse were mistaken by the rest of the family as tears of joy, however, and we all cried together.
Beginnings of a Bad Habit
My father was an alcoholic, as was his father before him. I detested what I saw, but I drank anyway. It began with the sort of teenage drinking popular after football games and at drive-ins. I wasn’t a Christian, and my only regrets came in the morning, when sporadic, fragmented memories would explode like fireworks in my aching head.
My buddies observed that my capacity for alcohol exceeded theirs. Instead of taking pause, seeing that the apple was falling all too close to the tree, I took pride in it. After all, “real men” can hold their liquor.
At eighteen, Christ became my Lord, and I put that lifestyle behind me. I wanted to preach the gospel, so I went about preparing myself. After four years of Bible training, I landed in my first pastorate, a small church in a southern town. Six ideal years went by.
I moved to another church. During this time there was no recurrence of my alcohol problem, no craving, no reminiscing about “the good old days.” As far as I was concerned, those days were gone for good.
Three years into my second pastorate, I was stricken one day with a stabbing pain in my jaw so intense that I called my dentist, a close friend, and asked if I could come right over. A few minutes later he was examining me.
He didn’t find any surface cavities, so he shot an X-ray and went back into his supply room. He returned with a large white bottle, poured out two oblong pills, and handed them to me with a glass of water. That was the beginning.
The next day the pain recurred, so I went again to my dentist early in the morning. The X-rays revealing nothing. His tentative diagnosis was TMJ (transmandibular jaw disease).
“That’s fine,” I said, “but what can you do for the pain?”
Out came the white bottle. He dropped it in a plastic bag and said, “Take these when it hurts.”
The medication, I learned later, was a powerful dose of a codeine-based drug called hydrocodone. All I knew then was it replaced pain with a floating euphoria, the addict’s siren call.
The pain disappeared after two weeks, but I had come to enjoy, to savor, and then to depend on that medication-induced numbness I didn’t consciously decide to keep popping the pills. It was as if someone had pushed me on a bicycle, and the most natural thing in the world was to keep pedaling.
Pastoring Under the Influence
At first my ministry seemed enhanced. I felt I could concentrate more intensely, deal more patiently with people and problems. But these chemically induced attributes were as synthetic as their origin. Since one side-effect of the pills was extreme irritability, my floating calm quickly gave way to anger. Dr. Jekyll was introduced to Mr. Hyde.
Little by little trouble surfaced. A parishioner complained to the board about an encounter with me. He had remarked offhandedly about the length of my sermons, and before I could stop, I heard myself verbally assaulting him: “I’ll preach as long as God gives me words to say!” Afterward I felt awful and went to his house to apologize, but he remained in shock over my outburst.
When the chairman brought it up, I was furious but managed to control myself and give the appropriate conciliatory response. There was talk of too much stress and too many irons in the fire.
Normally I would have regarded this as a positive meeting, but that night their genuine concern sounded like thinly veiled accusations. In their voices I was hearing the familiar sound of my own condemning conscience.
During those increasingly rocky months, whenever the pressure mounted too high or my conscience screamed too loud, there were always the pills. Though I needed a higher and higher dose to achieve euphoria, when it came, nothing else mattered.
I began worrying about what I would do when the pills ran out. When they did, I turned back to my friendly neighborhood dentist. I lied with ease, describing recurring pain and assuring him of my judicious use of the first bottle of pills. “It looks like I’m going to need more,” I concluded, in twistmyarm style. That day he wrote the first of what would be dozens of prescriptions.
I gave no more thought to the lies and duplicity than I would to jumping out of the way of a bus. It had to be done. Afterwards I felt terrible remorse, but I learned how to deal with unpleasant feelings. Like a harried mother placating a screaming infant, I handed my conscience its chemical pacifier, and usually it worked.
To make the lie more believable, I spread out my prescription requests as far as possible, filling in the gaps with the drug of my adolescence: alcohol. It was harder to hide. I could only drink in secret, but a few beers did a fair impersonation of that marvelous euphoria I had come to know and love.
In the beginning, I didn’t live to drink. Neither did I drink to live. At times I was convinced my only problem was a strict conscience trained in a funda mentalist tradition. But another part of me recognized my nose dive. When that voice nagged, I would plunge desperately into prayer and Bible study, trying to exorcise the demon. It didn’t matter. Neither the sincerity of my repentance nor the fervency of my prayers barred its return.
In time, pastoral tasks became too much for me. Most mornings found me sleeping off last night’s “relaxation.” Complaining of anything from stomach flu to migraine headaches, I called in sick at least once a week. On “sick days” the pressure of things undone would drive me to the office at 1:00 or 2:00 in the afternoon with a miraculous recovery from my morning ailment. Meanwhile guilt rode me like a cowboy on a bronco, spurring furiously and refusing to be bucked off.
Sermon preparation went from welcome challenge to crushing burden, but there was a paradox. In my emotional roller coaster, I was preaching with a fervency unparalleled in most earlier sermons; PUI sermons (prepared under the influence) surged with more emotion. At least I was more emotional. I also felt more confident and efficient. At those times I tried to believe I needed to drink occasionally for the sake of effective ministry.
Now, like a tightrope walker, I wavered in the center of the wire, every day struggling to keep my balance, juggling a family, a church, my emotions and thoughts, growing more and more aware of the distance I would plummet if I slipped. .
One day I typed into my computer journal, “If nothing else gets written, you’ll know what happened.” For nearly four years, I had been trying to escape pressure with prescription drugs and alcohol, and now I was flirting with the ultimate escape. How could I keep the drinking and drugs a secret forever? How could I give up the act without leaving the ministry? Preachers couldn’t have these problems! If they did, they were unworthy of remaining in the pastorate. Seeing those suicidal words glow dispassionately back at me from the screen, however, I realized more was at stake than my ministry.
I tried harder to overcome. With a determination born of desperation, I went about “recovering.” I read books. I went to counseling. I even attended Alcoholics Anonymous (across town, of course, lest anyone I knew should see me). I gritted my teeth and quit drinking..
I smiled my Sunday smile and gutted it out for exactly three months. On Day 92 of sobriety, without a hint of warning (that I could see), I strolled to the medicine cabinet and swallowed some pills.
For the next five months, I was in a tailspin, vacillating between grim resolve to stay sober and wild flights of abandon that left me gutted and guilty in the morning. I still had my family, I still had my job, but the wire was greased.
Divine Intervention
I’ve never put much stock in dreams I know the prophets and other biblical figures had them, but that was then and this is now. I was on a getaway weekend. A friend had invited me to a lake in the mountains. After he went to bed one night, I helped myself to the well-stocked liquor cabinet to relax. It worked, and soon I turned in and slept like a baby- until the dream.
In the early hours of the morning, I bolted upright in the bed, sweating and panting as if I’d run a race. The dream was so vivid I expected it to continue as my eyes searched the room.
I had been standing with God, or an angel, observing a group of people. They were committing unspeakable acts, indescribable not because of the explicitness of the acts but the lack of same. Although I didn’t know what exactly they were doing, I could feel the evil of it so profoundly that it still haunts me.
As I watched, aware of the holy presence beside me, I gradually discerned that these were Christians, worse yet, church leaders. A haze obscured their identities, but I somehow knew they were highprofile, “upstanding” men and women.
At that point the blatant contradiction between who they were and what they were doing horrified me. I turned to the presence beside me and asked, “How can this be?” He looked at me, but before he could answer, I awoke.
Sitting up in the bed, the meaning of the dream instantly became clear. I knew who the people were: “they” were me. And I knew what they were doing: living a life completely opposed to what they were professing. I knew, also, that it must come to an end.
For a brief instant, I considered staying on the wire, maintaining the illusion. After all, no one knew. I still had a job and a family and a church. But sitting there in a panic on that early morning, I knew my secret life couldn’t go on. Lowering my head, weeping into my hands, I gave up.
Into the Light
Over the preceding year, I had developed a relationship with Dr. Anderson Spickard, author of Dying for a Drink. He had counseled me all along to bring my problem into the open. He advised that I wouldn’t get better until I came out of the closet and allowed my church family to share in the struggle. I wanted no part of his advice: I can handle this! It isn’t that much of a problem. People just won’t understand.
After the dream, however, I called Dr. Spickard and told him I planned to inform the church elders and offer my resignation. He prayed for me and went the extra mile, traveling to Seattle to meet with my elders and me.
The elders refused to consider my resignation, focusing instead on getting help. They decided that the first step was a drug treatment program. I would check into an area hospital for twenty-four days. If everything went well, when I got out, I would resume my responsibilities.
On Sunday, July 22, 1990, I stood before the church and confessed my problem. The following day I recorded this in my journal:
Monday, July 23rd, 1990, 12:45 P.M.
“First day of treatment. Things feel good. Last night’s experience was probably the most amazing show of love I’ve ever experienced. We had a short devotional service and dismissed the visitors.
“All the deacons sat on the front row, showing their support. After a few minutes of awkward amenities, John just turned it over to me. I got up and for ten or twelve minutes told them that I was an addict and an alcoholic. I briefly traced the drinking and the drug usage up to the present.
“Tears emerged all over the auditorium. Nods and shocked stares intermingled. I finished by telling them
I was entering the drug rehabilitation program.
“After I sat down, people came to the microphone one by one and spoke of their love for me, their appreciation for my work, and their unconditional support. I sat and cried.
“Afterward I must have hugged and cried with every person there. I don’t believe one person left without coming up and expressing love and support.”
As the days passed in the hospital, I wondered and worried about how the congregation would respond when I returned. The initial response had been positive, but after a few weeks, would they think twice about their “alcoholic minister,” whether recovering well or not?
I began to get cards, however, so many cards and letters that on most days “Matt’s mail” outnumbered that of all other patients put together. The others joked about it, but beneath the humor was wonder. This show of love and support gave some validity to “this Jesus stuff,” as one friend put it.
What awed them, and me, more than the cards the cards were coming to a minister. That a minister could be an alcoholic didn’t surprise anyone; they of i all people understood that alcoholism isn’t picky (my roommate was a respected oncologist). What astonished them was that church people hadn’t ridden me out of town on a rail. My church was encouraging me and anticipating my return.
Still, during the final days of treatment I felt apprehensive about returning. How would I act? What would I say? How would they act? What would they say? Had I lost my credibility? Would they have a harder time accepting me in person than from a distance? Would they always mistrust me and Q wonder whether I had resumed drinking?
Back to the Pulpit
I’ve been back for a little over a year now. I would like to say my fears were unfounded, but of course they weren’t. I would be naive to think trust would be automatic, acceptance unconditional, and credibility unquestioned. They weren’t, and I couldn’t expect otherwise. There was, however, a wonderful sense of mercy.
My ministry has been at once diminished and enhanced. As a direct result of the situation, one couple left the church. Some have difficulty respecting an “alcoholic minister” in the same way they do other ministers, and with them my influence has waned. I understand their viewpoint and bear no malice. Legitimate questions of credibility and leadership follow a breach of trust; such are the consequences of duplicity.
About a month ago, I missed work because of a back problem. When I saw one of my friends later, he said, “Listen, is this for real? Is something going on?” It surprised me, and bothered me somewhat, but it shouldn’t have. In my mind I knew things were okay, but he didn’t. He did the right thing to ask.
Some felt personally wronged. Before I revealed my problem, one person in the church had shared openly with me about abuse in her childhood. About six months after my drug treatment, I discovered she still resented the way I had been less than candid with her in return.
Even when people don’t say anything, I wonder sometimes what’s on their mind if they don’t, for example, respond to a hug or greet me as warmly as usual.
A ministry of weakness appeals to others (and they are more numerous). One woman, who had been attending the church for five months, suspected her son was taking drugs. When she talked with me about it, I said, “Are you aware of my past involvement with drugs and alcohol?”
“Yes,” she replied, “and that’s one of the reasons we’re here.”
“What do you mean?”
“My experience has been that many churches can mouth the words, I forgive you, but they treat the person who has sinned like a leper.”
My sin and recovery has made it easier for many to break the law of silence that surrounds sexual abuse, family violence, drug and alcohol addiction, and destructive compulsions in general.
Staying on the Wagon
The day after a recent hunting trip, I suffered an intense muscle spasm in my back. I went to a doctor. When the physician’s assistant questioned me, I said right up front, “You can’t prescribe me any addictive medications.”
The muscle relaxer they eventually gave me was not physically addictive, but it did bring a sensation of relaxation and sleepiness that caught my attention. When the pain receded to where I could choose between aspirin or the muscle relaxer, I had a few battles. A couple of times I was tempted to take the muscle relaxer to make me sleepy.
I knew that was abusive thinking. I said to my wife, “Cindy, I want you to count the pills in the bottle. I’m only keeping them around in case of more pain.”
I need accountability. We didn’t set up a formal system for that, and looking back now, I think that may be a mistake, though I haven’t regressed. There has been almost too much trust. Accountability would benefit me, and the people wouldn’t have to go on blind faith.
Two people are keeping in touch with me informally, though. I meet each week for a twelve-step Bible study with one of our elders who has a history of alcohol abuse in his family. And every week or so one elderly lady in the church asks, “Pastor, did you stay dry this week?”
As I have admitted my addiction to several friends in ministry, two have confessed drinking problems and one an addiction to pornography. A few years ago that would have surprised me. Not now.
Duplicity maintains those lifestyles; honesty strips them away. When I could no longer live two lives literally ripping me in half, I found healing.
What keeps a pastor on the wire? The fear that if he gives up the act, people will reject him. For most pastors, more than a damaged ego is at stake; they fear for their livelihood.
But Chuck Colson, in his book Loving God, shows the other side of the picture: “The real legacy of my life was my biggest failure-that I was an exconvict. My greatest humiliation-being sent to prison-was the beginning of God’s greatest use of my life; he chose the one experience in which I could not glory for his glory.”
I, too, have learned that by abandoning the highwire act, I could actually get closer to experiencing God’s glory.
Copyright © 1992 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
