Speaker 1: Life Audio.
Speaker 2: I went from being like AA's biggest fan, all in
Speaker 2: on AA, like poster boy love AA can't get enough
Speaker 2: of AA. I went from that place to the more
Speaker 2: and more I read the Bible, the more and more
Speaker 2: I sat under faithful preaching. I'm starting to have the
Speaker 2: Word of God coming alive to me, and it's so
Speaker 2: clearly saying things that are in total conflict with what
Speaker 2: I am believing and teaching other people in AA.
Speaker 1: Hello, Hello, and welcome to the Confessions of a Christian
Speaker 1: Alcoholic podcast. I am your host, John Seitel. This is
Speaker 1: your home for real story, radical vulnerability, and remarkable comebacks.
Speaker 1: In the end, this podcast is a place for the desperate,
Speaker 1: the downtrodden, the destitute, and especially the drunk. But it's
Speaker 1: also a place of hope and healing. I know that
Speaker 1: firsthand because I'm the Christian who became an alcoholic, not
Speaker 1: the other way around. Today, I've found sobriety after decades
Speaker 1: of struggling. But more importantly than finding sobriety, I've found Jesus.
Speaker 1: My prayer is that as I interview people just like
Speaker 1: you and just like me, along with professionals in the
Speaker 1: fields of trauma, faith and addiction recovery.
Speaker 3: You will find.
Speaker 1: The peace that is available to you through Christ on
Speaker 1: the other side of whatever you're going through and whatever
Speaker 1: addiction that might be, because let's face it, we're all addicted
Speaker 1: to something so welcome. Let's get radically vulnerable as we
Speaker 1: explore what it looks like to be on this journey
Speaker 1: of MESSI sanctification. We'll be right back after this. What
Speaker 1: does it profit a man to gain the whole world
Speaker 1: but lose his soul? It's a very famous scripture in
Speaker 1: the Bible, and today's guest that scripture plays prominently in
Speaker 1: his life, and you could almost alter it a little bit,
Speaker 1: not to be heretical, but applying it to addiction and
Speaker 1: his story, it sounded like this, what does it profit
Speaker 1: me to gain sobriety but lose my soul? Today's guest
Speaker 1: is Brett Smith. Brett is a good friend. I've known
Speaker 1: him for years, and he has a story of addiction
Speaker 1: that like, in one instance, it's like, it's in a
Speaker 1: sense of your classic story, right, it's I dove headlong
Speaker 1: into drinking in college, was the party guy like alcohol,
Speaker 1: tried to quit, did quit for a little bit, went
Speaker 1: right back to it. But then Brett's story is that
Speaker 1: he really dove headlong into Alcoholics Anonymous and became like
Speaker 1: the poster boy, the poster child if you will, for AA.
Speaker 1: Those are his words. And as he was doing that,
Speaker 1: as he was like you know, sponsoring and setting up
Speaker 1: and taking the message and doing all the things, he
Speaker 1: started to realize, after sitting under what he calls faithful
Speaker 1: preaching and searching the scriptures, that something was off, something
Speaker 1: was missing. And as he did all that, he realized,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, like I have made an idol out
Speaker 1: of sobriety, Like I am worshiping sobriety. It's become this
Speaker 1: like works based religious system for me that if I
Speaker 1: just show up to an meetings, if I just do this,
Speaker 1: if I just do that, then I'm good. And he
Speaker 1: realized he was missing the true gospel. And so he's
Speaker 1: going to talk about that today. He's also going to
Speaker 1: talk about AA. He's going to talk about Alcoholics Anonymous
Speaker 1: and programs in the twelve Steps, and he's going to
Speaker 1: be honest about, you know, where those things led him.
Speaker 1: And he's even going to talk about in a sense,
Speaker 1: the false gospel that he feels like he that he
Speaker 1: embraced as a result of those for so long, and
Speaker 1: so I ask him some really important questions. He answers
Speaker 1: them with grace and compassion, And so I think this
Speaker 1: is a really important episode for a variety of reasons
Speaker 1: and for a variety of people, but especially those who
Speaker 1: either really are involved in AA and twelve step culture.
Speaker 1: I think it might give you a perspective that is important,
Speaker 1: or those who have just never felt really attracted to
Speaker 1: the AA or twelve step culture, that's me, I think
Speaker 1: it will be helpful. I'm not categorically against AA. Brett
Speaker 1: and I talk about that, we talk about the place
Speaker 1: that it can serve, but in the end, we always
Speaker 1: prefer and push, if you will, a gospel centered recovery approach,
Speaker 1: and so Brett will talk about what that means, what
Speaker 1: that looks like, and just kind of where this all
Speaker 1: fits in. And so I'm just so grateful and so
Speaker 1: thankful for his candor and his story and his boldness
Speaker 1: here real quickly, if you head over to Veritasrecovery dot org,
Speaker 1: you can see a variety of other resources that I
Speaker 1: have put together. That is the nonprofit that I have started.
Speaker 1: Would love for you to check that out. And you
Speaker 1: can also go to Christianlcoholic dot com to grab my
Speaker 1: book as well as get the the U Verse Bible
Speaker 1: app Bible study that's based on those principles. So felt
Speaker 1: further Ado Brett Smith Brett, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: joining the Confessions of a Christian Alcoholic podcast. This has
Speaker 1: been a long time coming because we actually at a
Speaker 1: little look behind the curtain. We've actually recorded a full episode,
Speaker 1: and I think both of us after and I have
Speaker 1: only re recorded I think one or two other episodes
Speaker 1: and that was because either like the file was corrupt
Speaker 1: or whatever. But you and I both after we sat
Speaker 1: with the episode for a while, we just felt like
Speaker 1: we could have said more, or we should have said
Speaker 1: something differently, or I don't know, we just both felt
Speaker 1: that way. And so this is actually our second attempt
Speaker 1: at recording it. And if people are hearing this, that
Speaker 1: means the attempt went well. And so I'm excited because
Speaker 1: you have been such a help in my life as
Speaker 1: I have approached you know, what we call gospel senate recovery.
Speaker 1: And it's not like a new term. It's not something
Speaker 1: that you know came up with, but it's an idea
Speaker 1: that's not really popular as some might think, even in
Speaker 1: the Christian community. And so we're going to talk about that.
Speaker 1: But first of all, before we get into your full
Speaker 1: on story, and you know, what I said in the
Speaker 1: intro is the concept of being saved from sobriety, which
Speaker 1: is kind of a really catchy and interesting title. Tell
Speaker 1: us a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I'm forty one years old. I live in Louisville, Kentucky.
Speaker 2: I am a member at Third Avenue Baptist Church. I've
Speaker 2: been doing heavy civil construction estimating project management for about
Speaker 2: twenty years now. So I live in Louisville. I work
Speaker 2: remotely for a heavy civil contractor in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. And
Speaker 2: I also am involved in the Chicago Course on Preaching
Speaker 2: the Charles Simeon Trust, which is a parachurch ministry that
Speaker 2: trains men and women to preach, teach expositionally and essentially
Speaker 2: like preach the word uh exege eat it faithfully, preach
Speaker 2: it faithfully, apply it faithfully.
Speaker 3: And so yeah, that's kind of a snapshot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, single, ladies, he's single, Yeah, very single, very very single.
Speaker 1: But and I say that because because Brett and I
Speaker 1: have joked about that for years.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's all good, so.
Speaker 1: Brett. Before we get into kind of what I think
Speaker 1: are some very important thoughts and distinctions and things that
Speaker 1: set gospel recovery apart from secular recovery, why don't you
Speaker 1: tell us your story, because you have a story of alcoholism.
Speaker 1: You have a story of what it looks like to
Speaker 1: get sober but then to still be in a sense
Speaker 1: miserable or still be missing something, and that led you
Speaker 1: into gospel sin and recovery. So take us through, first
Speaker 1: of all, your story of alcoholism.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's cool too.
Speaker 2: I'm looking at the date here at the bottom right
Speaker 2: of my computer screen. So we're having this conversation right
Speaker 2: now on January twenty six, twenty twenty six, Lord Willing,
Speaker 2: this Friday, January thirtieth will be five thousand days of
Speaker 2: sobriety from alcohol for me. So my sobriety day, by
Speaker 2: the grace of God, is May twenty fourth of twenty twelve,
Speaker 2: and so again this Friday is five thousand days since then,
Speaker 2: I think a little over thirteen and a half years or.
Speaker 3: Something like that.
Speaker 2: So it's cool, just the grace of God to even
Speaker 2: be able to have this conversation. If you would have said, Hey,
Speaker 2: at some point, you'll approach five thousand days of not
Speaker 2: taking a sip of alcohol. I would have thought you
Speaker 2: were crazy because I could not imagine a day or
Speaker 2: a week without alcohol, and so yeah, kind of the
Speaker 2: flyover version.
Speaker 3: I grew up Catholic.
Speaker 2: We were at church pretty much every Sunday, and a
Speaker 2: lot of great things in our home. They're also like,
Speaker 2: outside of my dad working full time, he was a
Speaker 2: rodeo cowboy, so there was that work hard, play hard mentality,
Speaker 2: and I think from a really early age I liked that.
Speaker 2: I liked like this lifestyle of the drinking, the womanizing
Speaker 2: and so like. Even as a little kid, like eight nine,
Speaker 2: ten years old, I wanted to be able to like
Speaker 2: take SIPs off of my dad and his friend's beers.
Speaker 2: I wanted to be able to drink a wine cooler.
Speaker 2: And then, especially as I got into high school, if
Speaker 2: my dad and his friends were having people over and
Speaker 2: they were drinking, I wanted to figure out, like how
Speaker 2: could I sneak some alcohol or maybe even try to
Speaker 2: take advantage of the adults once they had been drinking
Speaker 2: to where they're just letting my friends and I drink
Speaker 2: with reckless abandon and so I would just say from
Speaker 2: a young age, I was drawn to it. I wanted
Speaker 2: to indulge in it, and in high school, for the
Speaker 2: most part, I didn't. My dad was pretty protective of
Speaker 2: us in the sense that like, couldn't go stay the
Speaker 2: night at people's houses if the parents weren't going to
Speaker 2: be there. And so a lot of my friends in
Speaker 2: high school were partying pretty consistently. For me, it was
Speaker 2: more just kind of here and there. So I ended
Speaker 2: up getting a full ride academic scholarship to Arizona State
Speaker 2: University for construction management, and I as I started at
Speaker 2: Arizona State University, just went off the deep end immediately. So,
Speaker 2: like all of the stuff that I want to do
Speaker 2: in high school, now I'm living on campus at what
Speaker 2: was one of the top party schools. I'm sure it
Speaker 2: still is, but like it was notorious back then for
Speaker 2: like ASU is where you go if you just want
Speaker 2: to go wild. And so I'm like seventeen years old,
Speaker 2: a freshman at Arizona State University living in the Quadrangles,
Speaker 2: like one of the main apartment complexes on campus, and
Speaker 2: it's known for partying, and dude, I just went wild.
Speaker 2: Like I wasn't even showing up to some of my classes,
Speaker 2: like did not care about anything. I was able to
Speaker 2: do whatever I wanted. I had a fake ID that
Speaker 2: scanned and essentially just was like a shaken bottle. Now
Speaker 2: the top has come off and it's just going wild.
Speaker 2: So really, my life from like that point seventeen, starting
Speaker 2: at Arizona State University up until twenty seven when I
Speaker 2: got sober, it was ten years of work hard, play hard,
Speaker 2: and for me, the drinking for the most part, was
Speaker 2: a weekend thing. So maybe it was thirsty Thursdays, like
Speaker 2: we'd go party on Thursday night, show up hungover to
Speaker 2: work on Friday, for sure, party Friday night, party Saturday,
Speaker 2: maybe sometimes on Sunday. But for the most part, it
Speaker 2: was just a weekend or a long weekend thing. Now
Speaker 2: I avoided so many consequences. I did get one DUI.
Speaker 2: I easily could have got dozens of duys. It's literally
Speaker 2: a miracle that I didn't hurt someone else or hurt
Speaker 2: myself drinking and driving so many times that I drove
Speaker 2: and had no recollection of driving the next day. I
Speaker 2: got multiple minoring consumptions before I had even turned twenty one.
Speaker 2: I had that fake ID taken, and I think I
Speaker 2: was threatened with legal action. So so many different things happening.
Speaker 2: What's is like, I am definitely not a Christian. Even
Speaker 2: though we had grown up going to Catholic mass, I
Speaker 2: had heard the Bible read, we prayed, I went through
Speaker 2: first Communion and some of the other sacraments. I had
Speaker 2: a belief in God, but it was definitely not the
Speaker 2: God of the Bible.
Speaker 3: It was not God for who he really is.
Speaker 2: It's definitely not who the Scripture reveals him to be
Speaker 2: and who he is revealed to be in the person
Speaker 2: and work of Jesus Christ. And so really just this vague,
Speaker 2: distorted conception of God. And I just really liked doing
Speaker 2: whatever I wanted to do, and so I ended up
Speaker 2: losing that scholarship pretty quickly. And even though I'm living
Speaker 2: this life of like unhinged rebellion, full blown sin, I mean,
Speaker 2: the drunkenness is just one part of it. There's rampant
Speaker 2: sexual immorality, strip clubs, I mean, doing anything and everything
Speaker 2: I wanted to do. Even in all of that, like
Speaker 2: I still was able to get a really good job
Speaker 2: at a construction company even though I had lost my
Speaker 2: scholarship for construction management, and by the time I would
Speaker 2: have graduated with a degree from Arizona State University's construction
Speaker 2: management program, I had already climbed the ladder pretty far
Speaker 2: in this construction company and was already way ahead of
Speaker 2: where anyone would be had they got a degree and
Speaker 2: were then trying to enter construction management. And so I
Speaker 2: say that to say, like, just God's kindness towards me,
Speaker 2: even in the midst of me living in full blown rebellion,
Speaker 2: or I.
Speaker 1: Wonder too sometimes like sometimes he just gives us over
Speaker 1: to what we want.
Speaker 2: Oh for sure, Yeah, definitely giving me over to what
Speaker 2: I want with the drinking, the sexual morality, even the money.
Speaker 3: And all of that.
Speaker 2: But to be able to keep a job and to
Speaker 2: do really well at that job, I think it's just
Speaker 2: it's like his rainfalls on the just and the unjust.
Speaker 2: I think it was just a kindness towards me that
Speaker 2: clearly I did not deserve, don't deserve anything. And so
Speaker 2: with the drinking though, it would really take center stage
Speaker 2: when I was in a relationship, so like if it's
Speaker 2: just me and all my friends we're partying, it's like
Speaker 2: we're doing the same things every weekend. I mean we
Speaker 2: literally would talk about like Saturday morning, Sunday mornings, like
Speaker 2: we're like getting away with murder, Like we are partying
Speaker 2: so hard, we're doing crazy things and we know that
Speaker 2: like we're flirting with death, we're flirting with legal consequences,
Speaker 2: We're flirting with all kinds of stuff, all kinds of disaster.
Speaker 2: When I would be in a relationship, I could usually
Speaker 2: start out like pretty disciplined and like the girls excited
Speaker 2: to be in the relationship with me. I'm excited to
Speaker 2: be in the relationship with her. At some point though,
Speaker 2: like me trying to manage the drinking, maintain composure, and
Speaker 2: really when I'm like drunk, not be a fool, not
Speaker 2: say hurtful things, not flirt with other girls or do
Speaker 2: stupid things like Eventually the relationship would start to unravel,
Speaker 2: And usually the common denominator was my drinking and just
Speaker 2: all the different ways that that impacted me and whoever
Speaker 2: I was dating. And so at one of these low
Speaker 2: points in a relationship that is now starting to fall apart,
Speaker 2: this particular girl, her parents were very gracious to me,
Speaker 2: very patient with me. Her dad had actually been sober.
Speaker 2: I think at that point for around twenty years, and
Speaker 2: he had been really involved in AA I think earlier
Speaker 2: in his sobriety. At this point, I think he's maybe
Speaker 2: attending a meeting a week or every other week, but
Speaker 2: he's just kind of sitting back as really, my unraveling
Speaker 2: is on full display. And at one of these low
Speaker 2: points in this relationship with his daughter, he very lovingly
Speaker 2: was like, hey, man, I don't know if you want
Speaker 2: to hear this, but I think you might have a
Speaker 2: problem with alcohol. And at this point, I might be
Speaker 2: around twenty two or twenty three years old, and that
Speaker 2: is the last thing that I want to hear. And
Speaker 2: even though there's like something inside of me that's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: this is a little problematic, like what I'm drinking, how
Speaker 2: much I'm drinking, like the consequences relationships just crumbling, Like
Speaker 2: there's there's an awareness inside of me, but kind of
Speaker 2: like you said, like the Lord gives us over, like
Speaker 2: if this is what you want, have your fill, we
Speaker 2: suppress the truth and unrighteousness.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back after this. Yeah, And I think
Speaker 1: I think it's so interesting because I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people I know I have this. I know a
Speaker 1: lot of people I've interviewed on this podcast, is there.
Speaker 1: If we're honest with ourselves, there is a point, likely
Speaker 1: very early on, where we're like, this is this is
Speaker 1: not good?
Speaker 3: Oh for sure.
Speaker 1: Now, if we were called if and when we were
Speaker 1: called out about it, at that point, we denied it,
Speaker 1: you know, up and down. But I think it's so interesting.
Speaker 1: There's something there, right that we just suppress.
Speaker 2: Oh for sure. Yeah, it's even if it's the faintest voice.
Speaker 2: I mean, unless someone has drank or used drugs to
Speaker 2: the point where like they've actually compromised like their cognitive
Speaker 2: abilities to like think rationally. I think that even if
Speaker 2: it's the faintest voice, all of us experience that at
Speaker 2: least at some point. Now, maybe it gets to a
Speaker 2: point where it's been so numbed and drowned that that
Speaker 2: you can't even hear the voice anymore type thing.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I agree with you.
Speaker 2: And so he's like, hey, like maybe you should consider
Speaker 2: going to an a meeting just to see like what
Speaker 2: you think. And so at this point, like when I
Speaker 2: would drink and especially like on the backside of like
Speaker 2: these weekend binges, I would feel anxious, I would even
Speaker 2: feel depressed, especially like if I got in an argument
Speaker 2: with my girlfriend and like I'm having to look through
Speaker 2: text messages to try to even piece together like Sherlock Holmes,
Speaker 2: what did I say the night before that has her
Speaker 2: so mad at me?
Speaker 3: Type thing?
Speaker 2: And so like in one of these low moments where
Speaker 2: like I'm definitely not willing to admit that I have
Speaker 2: a problem, or definitely not willing to admit that I'm
Speaker 2: an alcoholic. I'm willing to acknowledge that, hey, there might
Speaker 2: be some sort of a problem here, but yeah, just
Speaker 2: really not having any answers or any reasons to justify
Speaker 2: continuing to do what I was doing. At one point,
Speaker 2: I end up committing to doing ninety AA meetings in
Speaker 2: ninety days and really like that thing, right, it's called
Speaker 2: ninety and ninety Oh for sure, totally a thing. And
Speaker 2: he was encouraging me like, hey, like do ninety and ninety.
Speaker 2: You're going to hear people share their story. You're gonna
Speaker 2: hear people talk about alcoholism. You're gonna hear from the
Speaker 2: Big Book, which is the book that Alcoholics Anonymous is
Speaker 2: based on. It's actually just called Alcoholics Anonymous, as you know.
Speaker 2: And he was essentially was saying like, I'm not telling
Speaker 2: you you're an alcoholic, like you decide for yourself. And
Speaker 2: so really, I commit to do this ninety and ninety
Speaker 2: not because I think I'm an alcoholic, and definitely not
Speaker 2: because I'm planning to never drink again. It's actually to
Speaker 2: prove to them that I'm not an alcoholic and that
Speaker 2: I could not drink for ninety days and essentially just
Speaker 2: demonstrate that. Yeah, like, maybe this has been problematic at times,
Speaker 2: but it's not like an alcoholism problem. It's a lack
Speaker 2: of self control sometimes problem.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yep, which I think is so like I told
Speaker 1: myself that, and I think there's a lot of people listening.
Speaker 1: There's a different between problematic drinking and having a drinking problem,
Speaker 1: oh for sure. And I think we live on that,
Speaker 1: like we like that keeps us in bondage for a
Speaker 1: long time.
Speaker 2: Oh for sure, for sure, especially as Christians, because like, yes,
Speaker 2: even if a problematic drinker is not an alcoholic, if
Speaker 2: you're flirting or even drinking past the point of drunkenness,
Speaker 2: whether you're an alcoholic or not, you're in sin. So
Speaker 2: then it's a whole nother thing for the believer. But yeah, man,
Speaker 2: I essentially commit to do the ninety and ninety. I
Speaker 2: do ninety and ninety. I go to a meeting every
Speaker 2: single day. I don't drink for ninety days. And I
Speaker 2: actually paid attention, Like I didn't just sit in there
Speaker 2: and try to fantasize about anything and everything like other
Speaker 2: than where I am in that moment, Like I actually
Speaker 2: paid attention. AM listening. So I'm hearing people read from
Speaker 2: the Big Book. I'm hearing people read the steps and
Speaker 2: talk through different steps. I'm hearing people share their testimonies,
Speaker 2: and I'm definitely relating to some of what they say.
Speaker 2: I'm definitely encouraged by the vulnerability. I'm encouraged by what
Speaker 2: is a clear intentionality to help other people. I refused
Speaker 2: to identify as an alcoholic, so like in every meeting
Speaker 2: you have to essentially say, like, Hi, my name is Brett,
Speaker 2: and I'm alcoholic. I think I said, I mean this
Speaker 2: was almost fourteen, Well no, this was almost twenty years
Speaker 2: ago now, because this was before I actually got sober.
Speaker 2: I think I said, like, my name is Brett, and
Speaker 2: I have a desire to stop drinking, which that wasn't
Speaker 2: even truthful, Like I did not have a desire to
Speaker 2: stop drinking. But it was better than saying my name
Speaker 2: is Brett and I'm an alcoholic. And I had some
Speaker 2: people come up to me during those ninety days and
Speaker 2: they're like, what are you even doing here? And I'm
Speaker 2: like i'd get like offended, Like I'm just like, man,
Speaker 2: I'm just figuring stuff out, like like.
Speaker 3: What does it matter to you? Type thing?
Speaker 2: Is there essentially like oh, if you're here, you've got
Speaker 2: to be an alcoholic type thing. So anyway, dude, Day
Speaker 2: ninety one, like literally, I'm at a bar as the
Speaker 2: clock strikes midnight with some friends and we have a
Speaker 2: few victory beers and I end up like in that
Speaker 2: moment like I don't get drunk. I don't even think
Speaker 2: I got buzzed. I just had a few beers. This
Speaker 2: is now, it's a Sunday, so Saturday night at midnight.
Speaker 2: Now it's Sunday morning at like twelve thirty am. Bars
Speaker 2: are open until two in Phoenix. So having these few
Speaker 2: victory beers, go home later than that same day there's
Speaker 2: an Eric Church concert. This is all like in Tempe, Arizona,
Speaker 2: and we go to the bars on Mill Avenue, which
Speaker 2: is like the main street at Arizona. State University with
Speaker 2: a all the bars, and dude, I get absolutely annihilated,
Speaker 2: and by the time I get into the concert, I
Speaker 2: don't even think I'm in there for thirty minutes before
Speaker 2: I get kicked out of the concert for being so intoxicated.
Speaker 2: Now what's crazy is like I went into that not
Speaker 2: planning to get annihilated. I thought, for sure, I'm going
Speaker 2: to go to the bars, control it, obviously, have fun.
Speaker 2: It's not like I'm not trying to get drunk, but
Speaker 2: I'm going to be a controlled, know what I'm doing,
Speaker 2: drunk having fun type thing. And so you want to
Speaker 2: talk about the next morning when I had done the
Speaker 2: ninety and ninety, I had heard them talk about its
Speaker 2: language from the Big Book, incomprehensible demoralization, and like I
Speaker 2: felt incomprehensible demoralization because now I'm like, oh, I have
Speaker 2: a problem, Like it's clear that I'm not in control.
Speaker 2: And really, from that point up in until I got
Speaker 2: sober at twenty seven, because it was probably another three
Speaker 2: four years, I'm continuing to drink, essentially running from the
Speaker 2: very clear awareness in the back of my mind that
Speaker 2: I am an alcoholic.
Speaker 1: So can I ask you about that? Because I've had.
Speaker 1: I had I don't know if I've had such as
Speaker 1: clear of a delineation in my story, but I know
Speaker 1: there was a point that I realized I can't really
Speaker 1: control this. Yeah, I mean my rock bottom moment. I
Speaker 1: finally admitted that right out loud if you will, or
Speaker 1: finally accepted it maybe, But okay, So you have that realization,
Speaker 1: you're like, man, I really can't control this, and then
Speaker 1: is it just like well, I mean drinking, that feeling
Speaker 1: and that thought away for that next three years or
Speaker 1: what is really the thought process over that three years
Speaker 1: of where you come to that realization and then until
Speaker 1: you get sober? For sure.
Speaker 2: One of the things that clicked was I assume that
Speaker 2: the alcoholic was the person living under the bridge that
Speaker 2: can't stop drinking and has lost everything. One of the
Speaker 2: things that I heard in ninety meetings in ninety days
Speaker 2: is it's not how much you drink or even how
Speaker 2: often you drink that makes you an alcoholic. It's what
Speaker 2: happens the majority of the time when you drink, even
Speaker 2: if that's once a year. So again, not about how
Speaker 2: much you're drinking daily or even how often you're drinking
Speaker 2: does matter. Obviously, if someone is drinking every single day
Speaker 2: tons like, then that's a pretty clear indication that they're
Speaker 2: likely an alcoholic. But this what happens when you drink
Speaker 2: the majority of the time. And I mean for years
Speaker 2: and years, I would go out with a genuine intention
Speaker 2: not to get annihilated. Don't get me wrong, I wanted
Speaker 2: to get buzzed. I even wanted to be drunk, Like
Speaker 2: remember the whole night drunk, had fun, drunk, didn't burn
Speaker 2: bridges drunk. Like again, I'm not a Christian, so like
Speaker 2: I'm thinking drunk in all the best ways and time
Speaker 2: and time again. The next morning, I have no idea
Speaker 2: what happened the night before. And even though I had
Speaker 2: went out with a genuine intention to not get annihilated
Speaker 2: and so learning like, oh man, once I start drinking
Speaker 2: more often than not, I will drink to access to
Speaker 2: where even I would say that makes no sense to
Speaker 2: drink as much as I did last night, and you
Speaker 2: do it again and again and again, and really, as
Speaker 2: I continued to drink even after that moment, kind of
Speaker 2: like you said, like what happened when I finally got sober,
Speaker 2: it was just me running from the truth. I knew
Speaker 2: it was true, and I did not want it to
Speaker 2: be true, and I wouldn't have had this language back then.
Speaker 2: But alcohol and what it did for me, it was
Speaker 2: my God. My life was oriented around the worship of
Speaker 2: alcohol and probably even more alcohol as a means to
Speaker 2: an end of peace of mind, escaping from the stress
Speaker 2: of life. Like there's all types of things that I'm
Speaker 2: sure I was using alcohol as a means to an
Speaker 2: end to get, but it really it was worship. Like
Speaker 2: life outside of work did not make sense to me
Speaker 2: if it wasn't centered on drinking and enjoying yourself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely, Okay, so take us to when
Speaker 1: you finally, you know, do get sober.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So, at this point, still not a Christian, I had
Speaker 2: paid attention in the ninety meetings, like like I had said,
Speaker 2: and so so I knew like in the back of
Speaker 2: my mind, if I ever did get sober, I wasn't
Speaker 2: going to mess around. I was going to I was
Speaker 2: going to do everything that I had heard them talk
Speaker 2: about when I went to ninety meetings in ninety days.
Speaker 2: I was going to do another another ninety and ninety
Speaker 2: at a minimum. I was going to get a sponsor immediately.
Speaker 2: I was going to start working the steps immediately. I
Speaker 2: was going to sign up for service commitments immediately, like
Speaker 2: everything that was suggested I was going to do. And
Speaker 2: so fast forward to I'm twenty seven years old. I'm
Speaker 2: in a different relationship with a girl, and again it
Speaker 2: just crumbles, largely due to my drinking. And on the
Speaker 2: backside of that relationship, I had this like reality or epiphany,
Speaker 2: if you will, where like if I ever wanted to
Speaker 2: be married, there was no way that that would ever
Speaker 2: happen if I was drinking, and like it still might
Speaker 2: not happen. I mean, I'm still not married. I'm forty
Speaker 2: one now, but like there was just this clarity, like, man,
Speaker 2: no relationship is ever going to work if I'm drinking. Now,
Speaker 2: relationships might not work for other reasons, but I didn't
Speaker 2: want them to no longer work because of the drinking,
Speaker 2: and so like really me getting sober, it's it's just like, okay, well,
Speaker 2: alcohol and what it did for me was uppermost in
Speaker 2: my affections. Now it's like this hope of marriage is uppermost.
Speaker 2: So the new worship, if you will, the new object
Speaker 2: of worship is like I want to be able to
Speaker 2: get married someday and not have it not work because
Speaker 2: of alcohol. So dude, I just immerse myself in AA
Speaker 2: and everything that I had learned years prior I do.
Speaker 2: I probably went to well over one hundred meeting in
Speaker 2: the first ninety days, immediately got a sponsor, start working
Speaker 2: the steps. I start sponsoring other guys. They're sponsoring other guys.
Speaker 2: I'm hosting like big book studies, so like similar to
Speaker 2: how people at Bible Studies were like studying the book
Speaker 2: Alcoholics anonymous, like at my house having coffee with like
Speaker 2: guys that I sponsor, guys that they're sponsoring. I'm starting
Speaker 2: to speak at meetings. I'm serving at meetings, maybe setting
Speaker 2: up tables or like setting up coffee or taking out trash.
Speaker 2: Like outside of working full time, I was as all
Speaker 2: in on AA as you could possibly be. Like everything
Speaker 2: that you could do, I am doing and I get sober,
Speaker 2: and by the grace of God, almost five thousand days later,
Speaker 2: I'm still sober.
Speaker 3: Now where all of this to get real.
Speaker 2: Interesting in the best way is it was around this
Speaker 2: same time, I think even before I had actually quit drinking,
Speaker 2: I had started occasionally attending a faithful church in Tempe, Arizona,
Speaker 2: is called redemption temp. I had none of this language
Speaker 2: back then, but it was a church where complementarian in
Speaker 2: terms of it's like church polity, reform theology, expositional preaching.
Speaker 2: I know that everyone listening to this may not align
Speaker 2: with that or may not even know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2: That meant a lot to me, Like I didn't even
Speaker 2: know what it was, and I'm like, yes, yes, yes
Speaker 2: to this, and it's still what I value and believe.
Speaker 2: And so anyway, the point is, I walk into an
Speaker 2: incredible church. And even though I had grown up going
Speaker 2: to Catholic Mass pretty much every Sunday for the first
Speaker 2: seventeen years of my life, since moving out and going
Speaker 2: to college, the only times I ever went to church
Speaker 2: were on like Christmas or Easter, and it would typically
Speaker 2: be Catholic Mass, like with family. So now here I am,
Speaker 2: at twenty seven years old, going to this non denominational
Speaker 2: church because I want to, because I'm curious. Now I'm
Speaker 2: not yet a Christian, but I'm curious about Jesus. I'm
Speaker 2: curious about the Bible. And when I go to this church,
Speaker 2: like I am starting to hear very faithful gospel proclamation.
Speaker 2: Now as I get sober and I'm all in on AA, Like,
Speaker 2: outside of working full time, ninety nine percent of my
Speaker 2: activity is in AA. But I'm starting to pretty consistently
Speaker 2: go to that church on Sundays. I also start reading
Speaker 2: the Bible for the first time in my life. Had
Speaker 2: never read the Bible, and I just start reading. And
Speaker 2: this is probably six months or a year into sobriety.
Speaker 2: I'm thinking, like, yeah, I know that AA says like
Speaker 2: came to believe in a higher power, like as you
Speaker 2: understand him to be, like God is whoever you want
Speaker 2: God to be. But like I'm thinking, like, yeah, Jesus
Speaker 2: is my higher power. I'm going to that church, I'm
Speaker 2: reading my Bible. I'm thinking at first that like all
Speaker 2: of this is going to play super nice in the sandbox,
Speaker 2: Like I'm not anticipating any sort of rub or conflict
Speaker 2: between everything I'm.
Speaker 3: Doing in AA and learning.
Speaker 2: Really about the God of the Bible and Christianity. And
Speaker 2: at this point I probably would have told you I
Speaker 2: was a Christian because I'm going to church and I'm
Speaker 2: reading the Bible, and I'm doing those things because I
Speaker 2: want to do them. But I was convinced that point
Speaker 2: I was not yet a Christian. And so kind of,
Speaker 2: like you said at the intro, and even where we're
Speaker 2: at now, like saved from sobriety is appropriate because this
Speaker 2: is kind of where all of that started to come
Speaker 2: to a head.
Speaker 1: So and maybe we'll kind of get here, but well,
Speaker 1: I'll save that question. I'll save that question, all right,
Speaker 1: keep going, So you start bring us to the point
Speaker 1: where because if your story is saved from sobriety, right,
Speaker 1: I think, and I'm not going to ruin the ending
Speaker 1: for people, but one of the things that you have
Speaker 1: become passionate about is and it's something I'm passionate about, right,
Speaker 1: is that sobriety cannot be the ultimate goal. And and
Speaker 1: so what I talk about in my book, what I
Speaker 1: talk about on this podcast a lot, where I talk
Speaker 1: about in my ministry is that Jesus has to be
Speaker 1: the ultiate goal. It's not that you can't get sober
Speaker 1: without Jesus. Certainly millions of people have, oh for sure,
Speaker 1: But you're missing out on two things. You're missing out
Speaker 1: in the most flourishing, fulfilled life now Indian eternity. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So bring us to the point where you start to realize, hey,
Speaker 1: it's not enough just to be sober.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I would even raise the stakes a little
Speaker 2: bit as I'm like reading the Bible more and more
Speaker 2: and I'm attending that church consistently and hearing faithful preaching.
Speaker 3: What I'm.
Speaker 2: Learning, and even teaching others in AA is starting to
Speaker 2: rub with what I'm reading in the Bible. And so
Speaker 2: you've got the last chapter before I think it gets
Speaker 2: into like the stories in the Big Book where it's
Speaker 2: like this, this invitation to join join us on the
Speaker 2: broad Highway to happy destiny. And AA is not ambiguous
Speaker 2: at all. It is a universalist program. God is whoever
Speaker 2: you want God to be or it to be like
Speaker 2: there's there's total clarity from AA that it is regardless
Speaker 2: of the Christian influence. It's not a Christian program. It
Speaker 2: is a universalist program. So that's where I wanted to
Speaker 2: go earlier.
Speaker 1: And so so now we're here and I would say, okay,
Speaker 1: So what I hear from so many people is, well,
Speaker 1: AA is is you know the Oxford Group, Bill w
Speaker 1: the Good Doctor. It is based in Christian principles, It's
Speaker 1: based in the Book of James. And so many people
Speaker 1: use that and say, look, there's nothing wrong with it.
Speaker 1: Then how do you. What's your response to that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so.
Speaker 2: I actually would say that the influence of the Oxford Group,
Speaker 2: which I'm not second guessing the Oxford Group at all.
Speaker 2: From everything I understand about the Oxford Group, they were
Speaker 2: faithful believers. So it's more dangerous in the sense of
Speaker 2: you've got this original Christian influence. You do have some scripture,
Speaker 2: like from James, faith without works is dead. You clearly
Speaker 2: have biblical principles throughout the book, and even if you
Speaker 2: read the Twelve Steps, there's like these echoes of biblical principles.
Speaker 2: But essentially what Bill and doctor Bob did was they
Speaker 2: took the Christian influence, but they removed Christ. And whether
Speaker 2: or not Bill and doctor Bob were Christians, I have
Speaker 2: no idea, due there are so many people, like if
Speaker 2: you go down those rabbit trails, there are people who
Speaker 2: would stake their lives on them being believers, and there
Speaker 2: are other people who would stake their lives on they
Speaker 2: were not believers. I obviously hope they were believers. What
Speaker 2: is indisputable is that Christ, the gospel of faithful Christian worldview,
Speaker 2: was removed from the program and from the Twelve Steps,
Speaker 2: and so whatever the Oxford group was trying to do.
Speaker 2: I'm assuming that was totally christ centered, even faithful to
Speaker 2: the Word of God. If you just read the Big Book,
Speaker 2: it is totally not like complimentary to the Word of God.
Speaker 2: It's totally a different worldview. I mean even just think
Speaker 2: of this. So I mentioned that chapter that is kind
Speaker 2: of like at the end of the first part of
Speaker 2: the Big Book where it talks about join us on
Speaker 2: the broad Highway to happy destiny. And what they're saying
Speaker 2: is like, it doesn't matter who or what you believe in,
Speaker 2: just practice these principles with us, walk this joyful path
Speaker 2: of sobriety. And it's this broad path, broad highway to
Speaker 2: happy destiny. As in, like, this is going to be
Speaker 2: a great life and we're going to journey it together,
Speaker 2: and the next life is going to be great too,
Speaker 2: whatever happy destiny is. Jesus says in the Sermon on
Speaker 2: the Mount literally his words are the path is broad
Speaker 2: that leads to destruction, and those who find it are many,
Speaker 2: and the way is narrow that leads to life, and
Speaker 2: it's hard, and those who find it are few. And
Speaker 2: like even just reading the Twelve Steps, it's making Gospel
Speaker 2: promises that you can be reconciled to God without the Gospel,
Speaker 2: and so.
Speaker 1: Explain that You've I've heard you say that before, and
Speaker 1: I think it's a really powerful statement. Yeah, And let
Speaker 1: me just say before we go any further, I haven't
Speaker 1: done a right so people listening to this, and I've
Speaker 1: had people on here who are big proponents of AA.
Speaker 1: I wanted to have Brett on here because I think
Speaker 1: you offer a perspective that is important and I think
Speaker 1: you have insight that I simply do not have. Right,
Speaker 1: I have not gone through the twelve steps. People who've
Speaker 1: read my books say, hey, they're they're kind of all
Speaker 1: in there, right, like greatly, I'm not anti twelve steps,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna talk about that in a second. I
Speaker 1: want to get I want to get there, but talk
Speaker 1: about that whole Gospel promises without being able to really
Speaker 1: deliver for sure.
Speaker 2: I mean, dude, even if you just think of the
Speaker 2: story of the Bible, and I'm I'm I'm kinda specifically
Speaker 2: referring to like the Old Testament Genesis three, like the
Speaker 2: serpent deceives Adam and Eve by getting them to like
Speaker 2: distrust God. Did God actually say? And then if you
Speaker 2: just look at the whole story of the people of Israel.
Speaker 2: They're constantly worshiping false gods. And that's like the main
Speaker 2: problem of the Bible sin and the way that sin
Speaker 2: plays out is in the worship of false gods, whether
Speaker 2: it's people or things, anything other than the true God.
Speaker 2: And so like when you even just think of Ebi
Speaker 2: Thatcher's question to Bill Wilson, why don't you come up
Speaker 2: with your own conception of God? And then you think,
Speaker 2: explain that for people who don't know that, explain that. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: So Bill Wilson in the Big Book, he shares his
Speaker 2: story and he's kind of talking about his life, and
Speaker 2: I think he's making it pretty clear that he's got
Speaker 2: frustrations with religion as he understood it. And I'm not
Speaker 2: even saying that those wouldn't be legitimate frustrations. There are
Speaker 2: horrible things that have done in the name of God.
Speaker 2: But as he's sharing his story and really all of
Speaker 2: these objections that he has to believing in God, and
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure he's referring to the God of the Bible.
Speaker 2: The watershed moment for him, like when the scales fall
Speaker 2: from his eyes, as he says, is when his friend
Speaker 2: Ebbie Thatcher said, Okay, I understand you've got all these
Speaker 2: hang ups with religion and what you've learned since you've
Speaker 2: grown up. Why don't you come up with your own
Speaker 2: conception of God? And so literally this watershed moment that
Speaker 2: Bill Wilson describes where the scales came off his eyes.
Speaker 2: He felt the nearness of his creator for the first time. Like, dude,
Speaker 2: that question, why don't you come up with your own
Speaker 2: conception of God? That is a satanic question, Like Jesus says,
Speaker 2: I'm the way the truth in the life. No one
Speaker 2: comes to the Father except through me to encourage someone
Speaker 2: to to reject God as he's revealed himself in the
Speaker 2: Bible and in the person and work of Jesus Christ,
Speaker 2: and just to essentially make a God in their own image,
Speaker 2: one that they're good with, one that they actually get
Speaker 2: to mold and shape, like it's just antithetical to Christianity.
Speaker 2: And so tying that in with the Twelve Steps, like
Speaker 2: first step we admitted we were powerless over alcohol and
Speaker 2: that our lives had become unmanageable. Did our problems are
Speaker 2: infinitely worse as humans than our lives being unmanageable and
Speaker 2: us being powerless over alcohol. Those are symptoms and just
Speaker 2: outworkings of an infinitely greater problem, which is our sin
Speaker 2: and our separation from a holy God. So like even
Speaker 2: step one, the diagnosis is already wrong. We have a
Speaker 2: infinitely worse problem than alcohol. It's called sin. So then
Speaker 2: you come to step two. Came to believe that a
Speaker 2: power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Now
Speaker 2: that's that sounds nice, but it's this vague power greater
Speaker 2: than ourselves. And then step three made the decision to
Speaker 2: turn our will and our lives over to the care
Speaker 2: of God. And here you go as we understood him.
Speaker 2: Like it is literally the twelve steps. It's you get
Speaker 2: to decide who God is. And dude, if I have
Speaker 2: the power to literally decide who my higher power is,
Speaker 2: I'm the higher power. Like if I get to choose
Speaker 2: like whether God jumps or sits, or runs or walks,
Speaker 2: or as a man or as a woman, or is
Speaker 2: all loving and no judgment. I mean, dude, Literally, the
Speaker 2: assignment that my sponsor had me do for my step
Speaker 2: two Step three was like, write a pros and cons
Speaker 2: list of what I want my God to have and
Speaker 2: what I don't want him to have almost like treating
Speaker 2: my higher power like Chipotle, like I want two scoop
Speaker 2: of grace, two scoops of love. Definitely, no judgment, Definitely
Speaker 2: no wrath. It's like, literally, we get to choose who
Speaker 2: our God is, and this is the God that we
Speaker 2: believe in. And then you get to step twelve and
Speaker 2: it says, having had a spiritual awakening as the result
Speaker 2: of working these steps, we seek to practice these principles
Speaker 2: and all of our affairs and carry the message to
Speaker 2: the alcoholic who still suffers. Now, like for Christians to
Speaker 2: have a spiritual awakening like that is very clearly to
Speaker 2: be born again. It's the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus,
Speaker 2: like you can only be born again by grace through
Speaker 2: faith in Jesus. And what's so wild again this language
Speaker 2: of step twelve having had a spiritual awakening as the
Speaker 2: result of working these steps. We're literally Ephesians two when
Speaker 2: it's saved, we're saved by grace through faith, not the
Speaker 2: result of works. So it doesn't matter what steps you work.
Speaker 2: We're saved, not the result of works, So that no
Speaker 2: one may boast. But it's literally a gift that we
Speaker 2: could never earn, we could never work, for it's by
Speaker 2: grace through faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 2: And so like this is where like it's I think
Speaker 2: it's helpful, especially like for Christians in AA where like
Speaker 2: maybe what I'm saying right now, like it's just hard
Speaker 2: to wrap your mind around or maybe even just like
Speaker 2: how could this possibly be true? Like it's not spiritually neutral,
Speaker 2: And I think it's helpful for people to remember also
Speaker 2: talked about in Ephesians that like our wrestle is not
Speaker 2: against flesh and blood, but like there are spiritual realities
Speaker 2: behind the scenes in all of this. And if you
Speaker 2: just read the twelve steps verbatim, it's making the promise
Speaker 2: that only the Gospel can actually keep, the promise that
Speaker 2: you can actually be reconciled to a holy God and
Speaker 2: repenting from your sin and believing in Jesus alone, not
Speaker 2: the God that you create in your imagination that is
Speaker 2: nowhere in the twelve steps. And so to promise people
Speaker 2: that they can be spiritually awakened, i e. Born again,
Speaker 2: whether or not Jesus is in the picture at all,
Speaker 2: whether or not they believe the Gospel at all, that's
Speaker 2: a false gospel, and this is where it's it's understandable
Speaker 2: to me, but it's also very confusing to me how
Speaker 2: Christians in AA who think AA is like actually a
Speaker 2: gift from God, how they can't see that.
Speaker 1: Let's go there because I think that's My next question
Speaker 1: is do you think that Christians can participate in AA
Speaker 1: in good conscience?
Speaker 2: So I definitely think because of the conscious component this
Speaker 2: Romans fourteen whatever doesn't proceed from faith to sin. It's
Speaker 2: going to vary for everybody. The way that I would
Speaker 2: kind of talk about it just quickly is my preference
Speaker 2: would be that someone would be involved in a gospel
Speaker 2: centered recovery ministry where it's unapologetically centered on the person
Speaker 2: at work of Christ. If that's not available where they are,
Speaker 2: I would, without hesitation, send them to celebrate recovery. If
Speaker 2: there's nothing around them. We've obviously got the internet now
Speaker 2: there are online gospel centered groups that they could like
Speaker 2: join and be active in weekly. I would definitely want them,
Speaker 2: assuming they're a believer, to be plugged into a local
Speaker 2: church Lord willing a member serving in that church, being
Speaker 2: discipled in that church, known by people in that church.
Speaker 2: And let's say if all of that is in place,
Speaker 2: but they're still just like they need more structure. I
Speaker 2: would tell them, like, hey, if none of these other
Speaker 2: in person like Gospel Center, recovery ministries or see our
Speaker 2: ministries are an option where you live, you could definitely
Speaker 2: go to AA meetings. They can be helpful in the
Speaker 2: sense of you're around other people who are struggling like
Speaker 2: we do, and there's the structure of like, hey, on Mondays,
Speaker 2: I don't have anything with the church or my online
Speaker 2: group doesn't meet, so Monday's is kind of a vulnerable
Speaker 2: day for me, so I am going to hit an
Speaker 2: AA meeting on Mondays. I would just encourage them. Again,
Speaker 2: this assumes this person as a Christian that like, when
Speaker 2: you're in that meeting, it's probably helpful when you hear
Speaker 2: someone share, especially if they've just relapsed and like your
Speaker 2: heart breaks for them. That's good reminder for you not
Speaker 2: to drink again. So it could be helpful in that way.
Speaker 2: Now when people are like teaching like from the Big Book,
Speaker 2: or maybe they're sharing their story, but really they're they're
Speaker 2: also teaching like what AA teaches, just wanting that person
Speaker 2: to understand, like you, you are not hearing a message
Speaker 2: that is complimentary to the Gospel. You are hearing an
Speaker 2: anti gospel message, like because Jesus either is who he
Speaker 2: says he is, he's away the truth in the life
Speaker 2: and no one comes to the Father except for him,
Speaker 2: or he's not. And to be pushing steps and a
Speaker 2: program that is unapologetically like with joy, encouraging people to
Speaker 2: make a God of their own image, however they want
Speaker 2: this God to be. I mean, if you just imagine
Speaker 2: in the Bible, like people saying like, go make your
Speaker 2: own God, whatever you want it to be, Like, it's
Speaker 2: just it's just so insane, it's so so antithetical to
Speaker 2: what Christians believe. And yeah, I think that's where because
Speaker 2: like I've even thought about this recently. Dude, I haven't
Speaker 2: been to an AA meeting maybe in over a decade.
Speaker 2: I don't even know if I've been to one meeting
Speaker 2: in the last ten years. And if I was in AA,
Speaker 2: I don't even know if I could do it because
Speaker 2: of my conscience. But if I did do it and
Speaker 2: I was going to sponsor someone, I would have to
Speaker 2: tell them up front, like, hey, there's a lot in
Speaker 2: the Big Book, and there's a lot that is said
Speaker 2: in these meetings that as a Christian I one hundred
Speaker 2: percent and unapologetically disagree with and like, if you want
Speaker 2: me to sponsor you, I'm not going to talk about
Speaker 2: God in a general way. I'm only going to pray
Speaker 2: to and talk about the God that I believe in.
Speaker 2: I believe the true God, and like our counsel is
Speaker 2: going to come from the Word. And then if someone's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm just not interested in that, then that's totally fine,
Speaker 2: Like they don't have to be interested in that.
Speaker 3: But I think.
Speaker 2: It is going to be a case by case for
Speaker 2: a person of whether or not they would want to
Speaker 2: serve in AA and try to sponsor people. I think
Speaker 2: you could, but I think you would have to make
Speaker 2: things very clear up front, like what you believe, and
Speaker 2: be careful that you're not co signing what really is
Speaker 2: full blown idolatry and encouragement of idolatry.
Speaker 1: Do you think as a Christian you can work the
Speaker 1: steps and like, do you think they can be a
Speaker 1: tool for discipleship?
Speaker 2: Man, I I would much rather take someone through steps,
Speaker 2: Like I know that you're familiar with the Steps program
Speaker 2: that's at Citizens' Church in Plano, Texas. I mean we
Speaker 2: have gospel centered christ exalting curriculum, and if I met
Speaker 2: someone in a A that wanted to do like truly
Speaker 2: Christ centered discipleship, to me, there's no point to even
Speaker 2: use any of the AA stuff or try to make
Speaker 2: it work. I would just want to use stuff that
Speaker 2: unapologetically is oriented around the Lord. Like for someone let's
Speaker 2: say it's someone who's a Christian and they're they're in
Speaker 2: AA not because they're like wanting to sponsor and evangelize,
Speaker 2: but they're there because like they need help and they're scared.
Speaker 2: I get that again. I would just want them to
Speaker 2: understand that they're not in spiritually neutral meetings. Like, dude,
Speaker 2: I've probably been to over a thousand meetings. Like I know,
Speaker 2: I said, I haven't been to a meeting in over
Speaker 2: ten years, but for the first few years of my sobriety,
Speaker 2: I went to hundreds of meetings, probably over a thousand meetings.
Speaker 2: This kind of gets it what I was talking about earlier,
Speaker 2: with like we don't wrestle against flesh and blood, but
Speaker 2: like the spiritual realities behind the scenes in a thousand meetings,
Speaker 2: I never one time heard anyone tell someone else to
Speaker 2: stop talking about their higher power, because like you've got
Speaker 2: the twelve steps, but then you also have the twelve
Speaker 2: traditions of AA.
Speaker 3: And so usually the twelve traditions will.
Speaker 2: Be used to correct someone when they're sharing something that
Speaker 2: isn't in line with someone's interpretation of the twelve traditions
Speaker 2: of AA. So what I'm getting at is in a
Speaker 2: thousand meetings, dude, you hear people talk about my God
Speaker 2: is nature, My God is astrology, the stars, my God
Speaker 2: is this group like literally people would say the acronym god,
Speaker 2: group of drunks. So like this gathered presence of people
Speaker 2: in this meeting is their God. So like your God
Speaker 2: could be anyone or anything, and you're not getting corrected.
Speaker 2: But if you say that your God is Jesus, the
Speaker 2: vast majority of the time you will have someone say,
Speaker 2: don't talk about your God so specifically. And so like again,
Speaker 2: just like Christian zoom out, Like Jesus is not welcome
Speaker 2: in the majority of those rooms. Now, maybe you go
Speaker 2: to an AA meeting in the Bible Belt and maybe
Speaker 2: a lot of the people in the room are Christian.
Speaker 2: Sure they probably talk about Jesus openly, unapologetically, But like
Speaker 2: I'm talking about the normal air of other meetings, people
Speaker 2: can talk about whatever God they believe in. No one's
Speaker 2: going to say a word you talk about Jesus, the
Speaker 2: majority of the time, someone is going to tell you
Speaker 2: to stop. And what's interesting, they're telling you to stop
Speaker 2: because it could be a stumbling block to the new
Speaker 2: person in AA who had a bad experience with religion.
Speaker 2: So like, not only is Jesus like being silenced in
Speaker 2: the room, but they're referring to him as a stumbling block,
Speaker 2: which is just like again, as a Christian, to say
Speaker 2: that Jesus is a stumbling block to somebody again is
Speaker 2: totally satanic.
Speaker 1: You're not the first and only person to bring that
Speaker 1: up that you know, there's a lot more room for
Speaker 1: the light socket to be a higher power than there
Speaker 1: is Jesus especially, And this is like the secularization of
Speaker 1: everything is only getting worse, right.
Speaker 3: Oh for sure, for sure, we're not.
Speaker 1: We're not trending towards a more Christian, a more holy society, right.
Speaker 1: And so I think even if you could say, like
Speaker 1: in the beginning, it was a lot better, like it's
Speaker 1: just it's it's not there anymore, yea, Or even in.
Speaker 2: The beginning, if it was an even in the beginning.
Speaker 2: If a lot of the people, including Bill and doctor
Speaker 2: Bob were Christians, no matter how Christian it was in
Speaker 2: the sense of these people were genuine believers, which again
Speaker 2: I hope they were. I hope they were. Yeah, it
Speaker 2: does not matter how many of them were Christians. The
Speaker 2: program that they finalized that is still available today is
Speaker 2: an unapologetically universalist God is whoever you want God to be,
Speaker 2: making gospel promises without the Gospel program, and there's no
Speaker 2: way around very clearly telling what it is, which is
Speaker 2: a false gospel.
Speaker 1: There are some authors Richard Roor is one of them,
Speaker 1: oh for sure. Ian Morgan Crone is another one who
Speaker 1: have written books that have basically said, hey, we can
Speaker 1: use the twelve steps to bring us closer to Christ.
Speaker 1: Do you think that's possible? Do you think they're misguided?
Speaker 1: Do you think what are they missing?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I would say they're severely, even spiritually dangerously misguided. I
Speaker 2: would have to double check this. I'm fairly positive. Richard
Speaker 2: Ror is quoted as saying that if the Gospel is
Speaker 2: true and that God the Father sent God the Son
Speaker 2: willingly to die on a cross in our place, that
Speaker 2: he is a cosmic child abuser. So I'm pretty sure
Speaker 2: Richard Rhor totally rejects the Christian gospel. Anyway, that's a
Speaker 2: whole other conversation. I've actually got books written by him.
Speaker 2: I hope to engage with more of that down the road.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I would say that these guys are very misguided.
Speaker 1: I want to go back to something you said, and
Speaker 1: we're just I mean, we're just stepping on land mines
Speaker 1: in a good way. Like I think, like, let's go
Speaker 1: for it right.
Speaker 2: Well, and and and I'll tell you too, at one
Speaker 2: point after you asked this next question or wherever you
Speaker 2: want to take us, why I am so passionate about
Speaker 2: being very clear with what I'm saying, even if I
Speaker 2: know it might be hard for some people to hear it.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, all right, we'll get there. You made this distinction,
Speaker 1: you said, Hey, listen, my first my first preference would
Speaker 1: be Gospel Center Recovery, a Gospel send and recovery program.
Speaker 1: If not, then Celebrate Recovery. If not that, then AA
Speaker 1: what is the difference between something like Gospel Center Recovery
Speaker 1: and Celebrate Recovery. Can the Celebrate Recovery be Gospel Sending
Speaker 1: recovery why'd you draw that distinction. We'll be right back
Speaker 1: after this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So at the end of the day, if a
Speaker 2: celebrate recovery ministry was like the best option that someone had,
Speaker 2: I would tell them to go for sure. The reason
Speaker 2: I make a slight distinction is I've noticed that in
Speaker 2: Celebrate Recovery because essentially what Rick Warren Saddleback Church did
Speaker 2: was let's take the good things in AA and make
Speaker 2: them the best by clearly centering all of this on
Speaker 2: Jesus Christ, which is fantasy.
Speaker 1: So I think there's a lot of people like, what
Speaker 1: do you mean that's not gospel center recovery. Yeah, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: for sure, I think where I would say there is
Speaker 1: a little bit of a distinction, and why I would
Speaker 1: just encourage people more towards this gospel centered recovery ministry
Speaker 1: that we're talking about. We could even give examples.
Speaker 2: I'm sure you've given examples of churches and ministries that
Speaker 2: are like this, But I've noticed that there's still a
Speaker 2: tendency in Celebrate recovery for there to be like a
Speaker 2: quote unquote righteousness related to length of time and so like,
Speaker 2: even though it works right like if you're and works yep,
Speaker 2: and I've also noticed, and this to me again points
Speaker 2: out the spiritual realities behind the scenes and why this
Speaker 2: is so important. There are a lot of AA people who,
Speaker 2: based on how they carry themselves and what they say,
Speaker 2: seem to be more allegiant to AA than to Christ,
Speaker 2: but who give lip service to Christ in the rooms
Speaker 2: of CR. And again, that to me is just kind
Speaker 2: of highlighting a spiritual danger. Now, don't get me wrong,
Speaker 2: Like I go to a faithful church here in Louisville, Kentucky,
Speaker 2: Like there are probably wolves in sheep's clothing in my
Speaker 2: own church, or there have been at times. So like,
Speaker 2: I'm not saying that is a problem that is like
Speaker 2: only related to CR. I'm just saying that I've met
Speaker 2: a lot of people in those meetings where as you
Speaker 2: start to just ask questions, it seems to be that
Speaker 2: the program AA is uppermost in their affections. And like
Speaker 2: some of them, even unapologetically, will say, like I don't
Speaker 2: have Jesus without the twelve steps, and yeah, the program
Speaker 2: just gets elevated. And so yeah, in CR, like you said,
Speaker 2: there there can just still be this focus on works,
Speaker 2: this focus on like sobriety, righteousness, and that honestly ties
Speaker 2: in with what I was going to say, and kind
Speaker 2: of why I'm passionate about all of this. So like
Speaker 2: the breaking point for me because remember I went from
Speaker 2: being like AA's biggest fan, all in on it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: like poster boy love AA, can't get enough of AA.
Speaker 2: I went from that place to the more and more
Speaker 2: I read the Bible, the more and more I sat
Speaker 2: under faithful preaching, and I'm just reading these things like
Speaker 2: Jesus and the Sermon on the Mount saying there are
Speaker 2: gonna be those on that day who say, Lord, Lord,
Speaker 2: didn't we cast out demons in your name and perform
Speaker 2: miracles in your name and prophesy in your name? Only
Speaker 2: for him to say, depart from me. You work as
Speaker 2: a lawlessness. I never knew you. And so like I'm like, okay,
Speaker 2: you could talk Christian, walk Christian, look Christian, and according
Speaker 2: to Jesus not be a Christian. And so like I'm
Speaker 2: starting to have this like holy spirit, like the Word
Speaker 2: of God is coming alive to me, and it's like
Speaker 2: it's so clearly saying things that are in total conflict
Speaker 2: with what I am believing and teaching other people in
Speaker 2: and then really the Lynchpin for me. And this is
Speaker 2: why I'm so passionate about this and why I'm willing
Speaker 2: to speak unapologetically about it. Is when Jesus says, what
Speaker 2: is it profit a man if he gains the whole
Speaker 2: world but forfeits his soul? So like, if you're listening
Speaker 2: to this, like hear me loud and clear, I love sobriety.
Speaker 2: I am eternally grateful to God for sobriety. Sobriety is
Speaker 2: a really good thing. I hope to be sober for
Speaker 2: the rest of my life. If I get to live,
Speaker 2: Lord Willing another forty or fifty years, I hope, by
Speaker 2: the grace of God, alcohol never touches my lips ever again.
Speaker 2: So like, I am as pro sobriety now as I've
Speaker 2: ever been. Love sobriety. It's a good gift. Jesus says,
Speaker 2: what does it profit a man if he gains the
Speaker 2: whole world, which includes everything good like sobriety? What is
Speaker 2: it profit a man if he gains everything, including good
Speaker 2: things like sobriety, and forfeits his soul? And that was
Speaker 2: for me, I think probably the day of my conversion.
Speaker 2: I'm reading that at home, and it was in that
Speaker 2: moment where the Holy Spirit immediately as I'm reading that
Speaker 2: verse substituted the word sobriety for the world. And I'm
Speaker 2: sitting there on my couch thinking, what does it profit
Speaker 2: Brett if he's gained sobriety but has actually forfeited his soul. Now,
Speaker 2: this is where it's even scarier for me. At this point,
Speaker 2: I would have told you I was a Christian. I'm
Speaker 2: reading the Bible. I'm going to church on Sundays. I'm
Speaker 2: telling people in AA unapologetically that Jesus is my higher power.
Speaker 2: I'm inviting other guys that I'm sponsoring in AA to
Speaker 2: come to church. So like, dude, I look like I'm
Speaker 2: a Christian. I talk like I'm a Christian. I think
Speaker 2: I'm a Christian. And when I read that verse about
Speaker 2: gaining sobriety and forfeiting my soul, it was then I
Speaker 2: realized that I was just as dead in my sin,
Speaker 2: probably around a year sober at this point, with this
Speaker 2: cleaned up life helping other guys get sober. They're helping
Speaker 2: guys get sober. I'm taking them to church. I'm going
Speaker 2: to church. I'm reading the Bible. I was just as
Speaker 2: dead in my sin, just as separated from God as
Speaker 2: I was when I was a drunk, chasing women without
Speaker 2: a care in the world, and could care less about
Speaker 2: following Jesus because the only thing that had changed was
Speaker 2: the object of my worship. I went from worshiping alcohol
Speaker 2: and everything that that was a means to an end
Speaker 2: to get to Now I'm just worshiping at the altar
Speaker 2: of sobriety. So I go to my meetings, I work
Speaker 2: my steps, I call my sponsor, I sponsored my guys,
Speaker 2: I serve, I go to church on Sundays, I'm reading
Speaker 2: my Bible. Like, dude, how could the Lord not be
Speaker 2: so stoked with all of this fruit in my life?
Speaker 2: Like my life looks so radically different? How could this
Speaker 2: not be proof of God's intervention in my life? And dude,
Speaker 2: I was just as destined for hell if I would
Speaker 2: have died that day as I was when I was
Speaker 2: an unapologetic enemy of God.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's what I get really passionate about
Speaker 1: as well, in the sense what you said there is
Speaker 1: we can't just swap idols. No, And so when people
Speaker 1: ask me, Johnna, you antia inti twelve steps, you anti
Speaker 1: celebrate recovery. I think what I say is what I
Speaker 1: have seen, okay, is that there is is a proclivity
Speaker 1: to worship programs and steps with people who are the
Speaker 1: biggest fans of those programs.
Speaker 3: Oh for sure.
Speaker 1: And that's I don't want that for you. Yeah, if
Speaker 1: you're listening to this, I don't want that for you.
Speaker 1: If you're listening to this and you that doesn't mean
Speaker 1: Like one of my one of my close mentors, she
Speaker 1: is a woman who runs a CR but she runs
Speaker 1: it in a way that I would say is gospel centered. Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: I believe it is gospel centered, right. And and We've
Speaker 1: had these conversations, and in fact, I've had to uh
Speaker 1: unwind certain conversations that I've had. One of the most
Speaker 1: destructive conversations early on in my sobriety was with a
Speaker 1: regional director of a celebrate recovery who you know, I'd
Speaker 1: reached out to a bunch of different ones and and
Speaker 1: felt like the Lord was like telling me, hey, reach out,
Speaker 1: offer to share your story. I reached out to I mean,
Speaker 1: I want to say, twenty crs in my area. Only
Speaker 1: one of them invited me to speak, and the regional
Speaker 1: director got on the phone with me and basically was like,
Speaker 1: stop it, stop calling and emailing people. She goes, if
Speaker 1: you are not doing the program, you are not really
Speaker 1: in recovery. And I was like, what what are you
Speaker 1: talking about? Like what do you mean?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 1: It was so confusing, and it was like you've you've
Speaker 1: swapped iitles, like you're just you're still worshiping a pro
Speaker 1: Like you're not. You're not about what does it look
Speaker 1: like to get to the root, What does it look
Speaker 1: like to excavate? What does it look like to let
Speaker 1: Jesus into all those areas and worship him exclusively? You know?
Speaker 1: And and so that's why I think that's why I
Speaker 1: think this is an important cover, this is an important conversation,
Speaker 1: is because what doesn't want what I don't want. If
Speaker 1: you want to go to a CR, great, if you
Speaker 1: want to go to an AA right with the caveats
Speaker 1: of bread has explained, which I think seemed very wise.
Speaker 1: Right again, I haven't gone to I haven't gone through AA,
Speaker 1: and so I defer to him. But everything that he
Speaker 1: has said, uh, makes a lot of sense to me.
Speaker 1: If you disagree, shoot me, shoot me a message, like
Speaker 1: maybe we could have another episode where where where where
Speaker 1: we answer questions right, We answered things where you're like, hey,
Speaker 1: what about this, what about this? Like let's do it right.
Speaker 1: But I think the point is is that is that
Speaker 1: Christ as a Christian, this shouldn't be controversial bread, but
Speaker 1: it is.
Speaker 3: It shouldn't and and I want to speak to that
Speaker 3: if I can. Yeah. So, the the.
Speaker 2: The clarity just backtracking real quick, as I realized I'm
Speaker 2: just as dead in my sin in that moment, with
Speaker 2: this cleaned up life, sober, going to church talking about Jesus,
Speaker 2: I'm just as separated from God as I had been
Speaker 2: in the past. The clarity that the Holy Spirit revealed
Speaker 2: to me was I was equating my sobriety from alcohol
Speaker 2: with righteousness and essentially believing that I'm right with God,
Speaker 2: not because of and only because of what Jesus has done,
Speaker 2: living a sinless life in my place, dying the death
Speaker 2: that I deserve on the cross, Like it wasn't me
Speaker 2: trusting in that, it was me essentially trusting in this
Speaker 2: new way of life, this sobriety, all these good things
Speaker 2: I'm doing, and so like, that's why I say saved
Speaker 2: from sobriety. Ultimately we're saved from sin. But our sin
Speaker 2: is like playing out in all different kinds of ways,
Speaker 2: all different forms of idolatry. And I had an idolatry
Speaker 2: of sobriety. I was worshiping sobriety while giving lip service
Speaker 2: to Jesus. And like, dude, when you think about the enemy,
Speaker 2: he does not care how much we miss Jesus by
Speaker 2: as long as we miss Jesus. Yeah, and so like
Speaker 2: think of the people. And this is where I say this,
Speaker 2: Like this is with a broken heart. You've got all
Speaker 2: these people in twelve step programs who think they're right
Speaker 2: with God as they understand God. Some of these people
Speaker 2: explicitly want nothing to do with Jesus. Some of them
Speaker 2: are probably indifferent to Jesus. Some of them don't really
Speaker 2: know about Jesus. But they all think they have a
Speaker 2: relationship with the God of their understanding.
Speaker 3: They pray to their God.
Speaker 2: They attribute the blessings in their life to their God.
Speaker 2: Like they're sober now, their marriage has recovered, business is
Speaker 2: going great, they're healthier than they've ever been. So like,
Speaker 2: if I was to tell them, hey, if you actually
Speaker 2: haven't repented of your sin and put your and Jesus
Speaker 2: alone for salvation, you actually are not reconciled to God,
Speaker 2: and you actually don't have a relationship with God. Like
Speaker 2: whoever you think you're praying to you or whatever you
Speaker 2: think you're praying to, is actually not God. They would
Speaker 2: think I'm insane now, and this is why. And again,
Speaker 2: like I would have done, they would point to their life.
Speaker 2: They would say, look at all the evidence of my
Speaker 2: God's presence in my life. So again, the enemy does
Speaker 2: not care how much we miss Jesus. By as long
Speaker 2: as we miss Jesus. I don't think there's much more
Speaker 2: that pleases the enemy than for people to spend decades
Speaker 2: of their life sober, living a without a doubt, better
Speaker 2: life than they did when they were drinking and drugging,
Speaker 2: thinking they're totally fine with God as they understand God,
Speaker 2: only to get the end of their life, and they
Speaker 2: spend all these decades sober, they helped all these other
Speaker 2: people get sober, and it was all in this general
Speaker 2: God that they essentially defined or came up with. And
Speaker 2: then I say this like tragically, not like in a
Speaker 2: way that's like, oh, this is what they get. I
Speaker 2: say this like with tears. Then they go to hell,
Speaker 2: like that is exactly what the enemy wants, like, if
Speaker 2: the Bible is true, then people are either going to
Speaker 2: spend eternity with God by grace, true faith in Jesus alone,
Speaker 2: or they're going to spend eternity in hell. I believe
Speaker 2: that the Bible is true, and so when Jesus says,
Speaker 2: what is a prophet of man? If he gains the
Speaker 2: whole world, be forfeits his soul. I want people to
Speaker 2: stay sober, for sure. I want people to get sober.
Speaker 2: I want your soul to be reconciled to God infinitely
Speaker 2: more than I want you to be sober, because if
Speaker 2: you get sober and you miss Jesus, you might enjoy
Speaker 2: the next decade or several decades, but you are on
Speaker 2: a path to destruction and you don't have to be.
Speaker 1: You know, there's one thing that I know that one
Speaker 1: of your mentors says a lot who's become you know,
Speaker 1: a mentor in a way of mind, and that is
Speaker 1: in all of this conversation. I don't think I know
Speaker 1: Brett's not saying this because I know him and I'm
Speaker 1: not saying this. That doesn't mean that you know that
Speaker 1: the Church has done this like perfectly right? I think
Speaker 1: sure part of the reason that AA that twelve step
Speaker 1: recovery has had to be there is because the church
Speaker 1: hasn't fulfilled its role, agreed. And And so when we
Speaker 1: talk about gospel centered recovery, which I want you to
Speaker 1: define that as kind of our last segment here, when
Speaker 1: we talk about gospel centered recovery, it is it's as
Speaker 1: much calling the church. And when I say the church,
Speaker 1: I'm especially talking about the local church and the local
Speaker 1: churches to invest in what it looks like to have
Speaker 1: thriving gospel centered recovery ministries. So with that said, Brett,
Speaker 1: how would you define what does it look like? What
Speaker 1: is gospel centered recovery?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and even just the way that you articulated that,
Speaker 2: I'm thinking like every single local church should be a
Speaker 2: gospel centered recovery ministry. Like if there is healthy discipleship
Speaker 2: and preaching and accountability and encouragement, then all it is
Speaker 2: is everyone as we struggle with sin until we either
Speaker 2: die or Jesus comes back, like you talk about in
Speaker 2: your book Messi Sanctification, all of us are going to
Speaker 2: struggle until we die or Jesus comes back. And so
Speaker 2: gospel centered recovery is learning how to apply the gospel
Speaker 2: specifically to every form of sin and suffering that we
Speaker 2: struggle with. And we had talked earlier too in one
Speaker 2: of the I guess taglines, if you will, from Recovery
Speaker 2: at Citizens Church in Plano, Texas, is like, sobriety is
Speaker 2: a byproduct of the main goal, which is a heart
Speaker 2: reconciled to God by grace through faith in Jesus' period,
Speaker 2: and so gospel centered recovery, whether it's sobriety anger, I mean,
Speaker 2: it's not just our sin, it's even our suffering. So
Speaker 2: it's grief, physical illness, I mean any form of sin
Speaker 2: and suffering where the healing, the relief, the comfort is
Speaker 2: all always the overflow of being reconciled to God first
Speaker 2: and foremost, and then enjoying life with Him, like enjoying God,
Speaker 2: living with God, living with the people of God. And
Speaker 2: then the overflow, the byproduct of that is often getting
Speaker 2: the very thing that brought us into quote unquote recovery
Speaker 2: in the first place. You had also said real quick
Speaker 2: here like this this stuff about Christianity and is like controversial,
Speaker 2: but it shouldn't be. And dude, I know why that is.
Speaker 2: So I say this, this this is not like condescension
Speaker 2: at all. We have a biblical alliteracy like disaster in
Speaker 2: the Western Church where people do not know the Word.
Speaker 2: And again I'm not saying this like in a talking
Speaker 2: down way. I'm saying like, we have a discipleship like
Speaker 2: disaster in the sense that people have not been taught
Speaker 2: how to read and study and apply the Word of
Speaker 2: God for themselves. Like I can't remember if it's Barna
Speaker 2: or Leganier, but one of them or both of them.
Speaker 2: They do these annual or biannual, massive surveys about basic
Speaker 2: Christian doctrine, like basic stuff about what Christians believe, and
Speaker 2: the results are horrifying, and so it is zero percent
Speaker 2: surprising if we don't And again I'm not saying that
Speaker 2: to be a Christian you've got to be able to
Speaker 2: pass a Christian doctrine test. That is not what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: What I'm saying, though, is it is zero percent surprising
Speaker 2: to me that Christians, who sadly are failing, if you will,
Speaker 2: for lack of a better word, these basic like surveys
Speaker 2: of what do Christians believe? Eve zero percent surprising that
Speaker 2: they're then in a room like AA and not understanding
Speaker 2: what the problem is so I say that to our fault,
Speaker 2: like those of us who, by the grace of God
Speaker 2: have been discipled well and are learning a lot. I
Speaker 2: know you just completed seminary. I've been taking seminary classes.
Speaker 2: I'm in a preaching course. I'm learning have to study
Speaker 2: the Bible from some of the best Bible teachers on
Speaker 2: the planet. Like it is our responsibility, not in a
Speaker 2: way that only God can shoulder, but as much as
Speaker 2: we can to disciple and teach others what it actually
Speaker 2: means to be a Christian and like, what do Christians believe?
Speaker 3: What does the Word teach?
Speaker 2: And then that would take care of all of this
Speaker 2: downstream confusion, where well, what's the problem with a universalist
Speaker 2: program that encourages you to believe in whatever God you
Speaker 2: want to and the exclusivity of Jesus being the only
Speaker 2: way to the Father. It's almost like I don't even
Speaker 2: know where to start. It's like you've got to go
Speaker 2: back up stream to just learn the basics of Christianity,
Speaker 2: and then that will take care of all this other stuff.
Speaker 3: Really, the Holy Spirit will take care of all this
Speaker 3: other stuff.
Speaker 1: The final thing I want to say is that I
Speaker 1: think when we talk about gospel syner recovery, which I
Speaker 1: think for me, you know, just just riffing off what
Speaker 1: Breadth said is is shooting for Jesus, getting sobriety thrown
Speaker 1: in that Jesus is the ultimate answer to the deepest
Speaker 1: issues that cause you to drink in the first place,
Speaker 1: that cause you to drink like an idiot, to drug,
Speaker 1: to porn to whatever. Right, is like, those are symptoms
Speaker 1: of a root cause that only Jesus can heal. Right,
Speaker 1: that is the result of the brokenness, sin and suffering
Speaker 1: that is in the world. Right, But that said is
Speaker 1: like is like I remember I was speaking down in
Speaker 1: Georgia and there was a place where like the there
Speaker 1: were some people that were afraid that what I was
Speaker 1: going to say was, well, all you need is Jesus
Speaker 1: and you don't need the you don't need anything else, right,
Speaker 1: And I think on one hand, you might like there
Speaker 1: might people be like, well, isn't that what you're saying?
Speaker 1: Are you saying you like Jesus? And I would say,
Speaker 1: it's like there's nuance there, right, Like, yes, I'm saying
Speaker 1: that Jesus is the ultimate answer, but that's not to
Speaker 1: the exclusivity and Brett, you can chime in, but that's
Speaker 1: not to the exclusivity of Like what I'm not saying
Speaker 1: is that there's no room for detox facilities, that's no
Speaker 1: room for sober living houses, that there's no room for
Speaker 1: treatment centers, that there's no room Like that's not it's not. See,
Speaker 1: I grew up in a faith healing background that when
Speaker 1: you said all you need is Jesus, it was like,
Speaker 1: you know, don't take medication, don't don't say that you
Speaker 1: have a cold, because that's confessing you know, bad things
Speaker 1: over you, and and and and that's not what we're
Speaker 1: saying here, right, Like it's there's room for that stuff,
Speaker 1: but it's not the ultimate goal.
Speaker 2: Right Yeah, yeah, there's there's not only room, but those
Speaker 2: those are all I would say, like a detox facility
Speaker 2: where it's purely medical, we're not talking about someone teaching
Speaker 2: something that's God's common grace now, like a secular treatment center,
Speaker 2: like if if they're pushing the twelve step agenda, like
Speaker 2: then you're getting into something different. But like if I've
Speaker 2: got someone and they've got to go to rehab and
Speaker 2: their only option is this one particular rehab, and and
Speaker 2: I know that they're pushing AA and they're of course,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna say go to the rehab, like if they
Speaker 2: need to detox and just get like separation from the
Speaker 2: people they're around, the drugs or alcohol they're around, of
Speaker 2: course I'm gonna say go there. What would be even
Speaker 2: more amazing, and I know that you're aware of our
Speaker 2: dreams as it relates to this is imagined facilities where
Speaker 2: just like we talk about gospel centered recovery, imagine gospel
Speaker 2: centered treatment centers where they've got all the medical stuff
Speaker 2: for detox and medication for people who do have mental
Speaker 2: health struggles, where medication is again it's not ultimate, but
Speaker 2: it is needed, even it's helpful, but it's ultimately supplemental.
Speaker 2: But then where the underlying message that's being taught in
Speaker 2: therapy and group counseling sessions is not something antithetical to Christianity,
Speaker 2: but actually the Gospel and the story of the Bible.
Speaker 1: So yeah, well, brat Man, this has been awesome. I
Speaker 1: think it's an important episode. I think it's one that
Speaker 1: I hope everyone listens to with open ears, that you know,
Speaker 1: it is one that you hear the heart behind what
Speaker 1: we're saying and what we want for you, which is
Speaker 1: ultimately we want we want Jesus for you, we want eternity,
Speaker 1: We want the flourishing that he offers, the best life
Speaker 1: that he offers, not the easiest. Right that doesn't mean
Speaker 1: a life devoid of hardships, or devoid of mental health
Speaker 1: issues or or or of you know, health, wealth and wisdom.
Speaker 1: Right like it is, however, the life that that Roman's
Speaker 1: eight twenty eight talks about, right that authors where all
Speaker 1: things work together for the good of those who love
Speaker 1: him and are called them called according to his purpose.
Speaker 1: So Brett, thank you, thank you, Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: And if people, you know, if you have questions, if
Speaker 1: you have thoughts, like, send them in. Like I said,
Speaker 1: we would love to do another episode. I'd love to
Speaker 1: have Brett back on again to answer your questions, your
Speaker 1: your angry emails, your loving emails. Right, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I think I think it's an important conversation. So Brett,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us for it. I
Speaker 1: really think what Brett said about like the devil doesn't
Speaker 1: care how much we miss by right, And that was
Speaker 1: really true in my life, right, Like I I was
Speaker 1: doing things for the Lord, and I was I was
Speaker 1: listening to the Holy Spirit in plenty of aspects, right,
Speaker 1: Like I don't talk about this a lot, but like
Speaker 1: I donated a kidney to a stranger and really felt
Speaker 1: like the Lord, you know, laid it on my work
Speaker 1: to do right. And yet I had this this thing
Speaker 1: that I just kept turning to and and I had
Speaker 1: as an idol in my life. And so I think
Speaker 1: what I think the Devil's you know, some of his
Speaker 1: greatest work, if you will, is done when he can
Speaker 1: take a good thing and just twist it enough to
Speaker 1: turn it into an idol. And so when Brett talks
Speaker 1: about being saved from sobriety, it's like, man, I just
Speaker 1: see so many people make an idol out of sobriety,
Speaker 1: and I just think, oh, you're You're like you have
Speaker 1: just enough to convince yourself that you have everything, and
Speaker 1: yet you don't and the main thing you're still missing.
Speaker 1: I have friends, I have Christian friends who do AA
Speaker 1: and they approach it from a gospel lens, and I'm
Speaker 1: excited that they can do that right, and in some
Speaker 1: ways they are they have a mission field in front
Speaker 1: of them, right. Like I live down in the South
Speaker 1: and we say all the time, the churches down here
Speaker 1: have a really hard time because here in the Bible Belt,
Speaker 1: everyone says they're a Christian, everyone thinks they're a Christian, right,
Speaker 1: and yet so many people are just culturally Christians. And
Speaker 1: I think it's the same thing in that AA culture
Speaker 1: is like, hey, I'm good, I'm sober, everything's great, and
Speaker 1: yet they're missing the main thing. And so if you're
Speaker 1: a Christian that does AA, I would say use it
Speaker 1: as a mission field to draw people to Jesus. And
Speaker 1: I think the harvest is plenty there. Shoot me your
Speaker 1: thoughts on what you think. I would love to hear them.
Speaker 1: I talked in the intro about Veritas Recovery. If you
Speaker 1: appreciate this podcast, if you appreciate what we're saying here,
Speaker 1: if you are on board with aiming for Jesus and
Speaker 1: getting sobriety thrown in, you can make a tax deductible
Speaker 1: donation at Veritasrecovery dot org to keep this going. We
Speaker 1: are five oh one c three recognized by the IRS,
Speaker 1: and I would really appreciate it five ten thirty sixty
Speaker 1: one hundred whatever. I would really I would really covet
Speaker 1: that so that we can keep this going. Love you all,
Speaker 1: We'll see you back here next week.