Confessions of a Christian Alcoholic with Jon Seidl

“I feel like I’m seeing colors now that I didn’t know existed.”

There should be a study done on how many recovering addicts say this exact thing (or something similar) about colors and their senses. It's what I said after getting sober and pursuing Jesus, and it's what Eddie Brett told me happened to him after he did the same thing. 

“Hope does not know how to leave. It just stays and quietly whispers, 'everything’s going to be okay. I know everything isn’t okay right now. Everything’s going be okay.'”

That's from Tanner Olson, an absolutely incredible poet who has a lot to say about the things that plunge us into addiction in the first place. His poetry isn't un...

“Forgiveness isn’t condoning what happened. It’s choosing not to let it destroy you anymore. … I forgave my dad more times than I can count, and I’ll probably keep forgiving him forever.”

Those are the beautiful words from Stephen McWhirter. You might not know McWhirter's name, but you do know his songs. Especially one of the...

“You are not stuck because of what happened. You’re stuck because your brain keeps running the same play. And your brain is always ready to run a new one the moment you tell it to.”

That's just one of the incredible insights from practicing neurosurgeon Dr. Lee Warren, who joins us today to talk about a practice he calls "self-brain surgery." I...

“Addiction promises control, comfort, and rescue—but it actually strips all of those things away. It intoxicates you so you can no longer discern what’s really happening.”

Is addiction merely a personal struggle—or is it part of a much larger spiritual battle? In this episode, Joel Muddamalle ...

“It wasn’t about how much I drank—it was about how much mental and heart space it occupied. I loved it more than I wanted to admit.”

That realization for Ali Kennedy didn’t come during a dramatic rock bottom. Instead, it came after years of managing, moderating, and justifying a relationship with alcohol that looked fine on the outsi...

“I got prideful. I was like, ‘I’m never going to drink again.’ And then all of a sudden… it looked really good.”

This conversation with Jeramy Houghton is a reminder that recovery is rarely clean or linear. Jeramy shares how growing up in an unsafe home shaped his sense of stability long before alcohol ever entered the pict...

“Alcohol is a poison disguised as a remedy.”

That’s the wisdom Ericka Andersen brings to this conversation—wisdom that developed after years of a quiet struggle that slowly took ahold of her and wouldn't let go. Like many evangelicals nowadays, she assumed drinking was neutral, normal, and largely harmless. But over time, she began to noti...

“When I numbed anxiety and uncertainty, I also numbed beauty and joy.”

That moment of clarity from Ericka Graham came after years of abusing prescription drugs, when God met her in a beautiful way involving a bumble bee and a flower. The point? Substances numb the bad, sure, but they also numb the good.

But addiction...

“If you think you have an issue, you probably do.”

That sentence from Carol McCracken gets to the heart of this week's episode. Carol didn’t fit the picture she had in her mind of what an alcoholic looked like. She was a Christian. A Bible study teacher. A ministry leader. A good mom. And for years, she told herself the same thing many of us do:...

“We can think and act our way to a new feeling. We cannot feel our way to a new way of thinking and acting.”

That line from therapist and author Nicole Zasowski cuts to the heart of anxiety, addiction, and the stories we tell ourselves when life feels uncertain. Nicole is the author of

“I don’t want to be 60 years old having the same issues I had when I was 25.”

What an honest and important statement from this week's guest, Brandon Ricks. Because the truth is, too many of us have just resigned ourselves to always being the way we are now. The fight for something different is hard, and so...

“Trauma does not reside in the bad event. Trauma is what becomes embedded in your body in the wake of a bad event when there’s no one there to comfort you.”

What if you've been viewing trauma all wrong? And what if you don't think you've experienced trauma but you actually have? My guest this week is renowned trauma therapist Adam Young, and we...

“We all just have different medicines that we reach for.”

That’s how Tim Sexton describes the real story behind the affair that blew up his life. Even though at one point that affair led to his downfall as a pastor, today it's not something he hides from. Instead, he's leaning into it in hopes to help oth...

“Our hypocrisy is our testimony. That’s God’s glory on display.”

That truth from Faith Womack is exactly what those of us with messy sanctification stories not only need to hear, but embrace and embody. We all fall short. We all stumble. And yet, God uses our weakness—not our polished moments—to reveal His power and his grace.

“I was tormented. Literally tormented. I'd look in the mirror and go, ‘What are you doing? That’s not you.’”

Brandon Puffer had everything, or so it seemed. He was a Major League pitcher with a World Series ring and was even being groomed to be a big league coach. But beneath the success were so many secret wounds that he refused to ...

“Sin’s power is disconnection.”

That's one of the essential ideas that runs through what therapist and author Chuck DeGroat talks about in this episode. A longtime pastor and counselor, Chuck isn't just commenting on burnout and addiction from afar—he's actually lived it. In fact, he opens up about h...

“Sin doesn’t care who you are or what you’ve seen—it’s coming for all of us.”

That theme runs through Kirby Kelly’s story. See, she's part of a group of women you don't often hear about: females that struggle (or have struggled) with pornography addiction. Kirby's story is heartbr...

“Getting sober without salvation is like giving a painkiller to a cancer patient.”

That’s how John Elmore describes the difference between behavior modification and true transformation. He'd know. He was on the verge of ending it all with a shotgun when he finally realized his problem went deeper than just the alcohol. In this powerful and deepl...