I Am An Alcoholic – Part 1
Part one of six in a conversation between Caedmon Michael and Martin Luther on addiction, sin, brokenness, and restoration.
“My name is Caedmon. I am an alcoholic.”
Eight simple words in the liturgy of recovery. One complex mess of identity and theology. My name is simple enough. It’s the second sentence that has caused me – and many others – so many problems. I am an alcoholic. Not, “I suffer from the disease of alcoholism,” or, “I am in recovery from addiction to alcohol,” but “I am an alcoholic.” It is a statement of identity, a statement of being, encompassing my past, present, and future.
I fought against this statement for years. In my twenties, I knew I had a problem, but I didn’t want the problem to be something with me. I wasn’t broken, I just drank too much. Get rid of the alcohol, get rid of the problem. There was just one problem with this: I never could get rid of the alcohol. I could go months without a drink, but I always returned to the bottle.
By my early thirties, I had admitted the problem was in me and admitted the problem was alcoholism, but I still couldn’t accept it as part of who I am. Through Jesus, I am a new creation, right? If I’m a new creation, I can’t be an alcoholic. I can only be a person who once suffered under the bondage of addiction. It sounded like good theology and the inherent optimism was enough to keep me sober for a time, but not enough to break the chains of addiction.
I want so much to deny my addiction, to deny not only my addiction to alcohol, but to food, shopping, television, to the never-ending quest for “more.” I want to pretend there is nothing wrong with me, that North American consumerism is perfectly healthy, that it’s natural to be jealous of friends with bigger TVs and blu-ray, that my weakness to alcohol is a sickness – not my fault! – to be cured by medicine and psychotherapy. When denial of the fact of addiction fails, I turn to a denial of responsibility. I use my faith to make-believe the addiction has gone away. I say the right things and appear outwardly to be in control of my life, while inwardly I am a mess.
It can’t be my fault. It can’t be my state. If I can’t beat this, if I don’t have the power to overcome or a faith that restores me to glory, what am I? The only option left – that I am an addict who can’t clean up his own life – is despair. Why bother living if this is all that I am, all that I ever will be?
It’s been four years since my last drink, and yet it has only been four months that I have been able to speak the words, “I am an alcoholic,” and it took a document over four-hundred years old to teach me the hope in those four words.
Following the famous Ninety-Five Theses of 1517 Martin Luther wrote and presented the Heidelberg Disputation in April, 1518. An opportunity for Luther to present his new and controversial theology to his fellow Augustinians for debate, the twenty eight theses of the Disputation explains why our attempts fix ourselves will always come up short. But, in doing so, he offers a new way of looking at ourselves, the predicament we’re in, and a real solution.
For further reading:
Luther, Martin. “Heidelberg Disputation.” In Martin Luther’s Basic Theological Writings, edited by TImothy F. Lull, 30–49. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989.
Mercadante, Linda A. “Sin, Addiction, and Freedom.” In Reconstructing Christian Theology, edited by Rebecca S. Chopp and Mark Lewis Taylor, 220–244. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994.
When people seek barriers, they will find them. I know something about addiction, but I have no comprehension for the lure of alcohol you face. To me it’s not something which makes you alien, but an asset for understanding something I’ll never face directly, yet see again and again up close.
Caedmon, your strength is stronger than mine right now.
I’m at the point where I know I have a problem and I need help. Yet, I’m at the point of justification…stressful day. P.T.S.D. Or a disagreement.
I know that I need to open the door of exposure and admit it…I am alcho…what?! I cannot even say the words yet. My hands get shaky and I cringe.
Taking care of a young boy, making sure he is bathed,fed,clothed,healthy…yet, do I do the same for myself? Yesterday was an eye-opener for me.
Boundaries. Security. Love. Empathy. Forgiveness. Trust. I expect all that for an 11-yr old, and I do the same in return for him…but do I do the same for myself? The answer right now is: No.
It is said that “a man can go three days without water and nearly one week without food, but he cannot live 30 seconds without HOPE”. Is this a constant test for me to wage war with daily? The answer right now is: Yes.
Hope is what tomorrow brings. Hope is the dawn of a new day. Hope is the smile and sparkle in a child’s eye. Hope is watching your potential come to completion. Hope is what keeps us pursuing each day with full vigor. Hope is getting through every moment of each day. Fighting. Pushing ourselves to the point that we near giving up…yet, we don’t. Hope is not only getting to the finish line. It’s being able to cross it.
I will fight. I will have hope. I will allow God’s strength to be bigger than myself or my struggle. I will continue…because the reward is greater than the sacrifice. It’s not just for me, it’s for anyone who is willing to let go and let God.
I don’t want to say too much in the comments – there are 5 more installments to this conversation. The first step of AA is to admit I’m powerless over alcohol. It is to acknowledge the problem for what it is. Naming it does not give it power. Naming it recognizes the power it holds as long as we pretend it isn’t there. As we will see, it is only in recognizing sin as sin and naming it as such that we can address it.
Thanks for posting this Caedmon. This has to be a hard, but a very commendable step. I’m anxious to see how Luther speaks to this!
Your welcome, Tim. Hope you’re okay with me posting it here. I’ll write something else for you. This project turned too personal.
Ah, this was the series you were going to send me.
I always wondered what happened to that. Yes, bring anything else you’d like over to OFB.
Caedmon, even all those years ago when we got to know each other, you were already on the path of healing. It may seem to have taken a really long time, and looking back you might think, “If only I’d done something earlier,” but what strikes me is that God was always working in your life, albeit slowly (He always does seem to work really gradually, as far as I can see!).
And you know, you wrote about being a pastor… the image I see is very much the ‘wounded healer’. We hurt with others because we know what it’s like to be broken, and at the same time we testify to God’s amazing grace that He is so tender with the broken.