Empty bottles and empty lives

The author with a full-blown case of the Blatz circa 1978.

You can tell when you're talking to a real alcoholic because they'll identify themselves as one, even after going years without drinking. The mechanisms that make them an alcoholic were there before they started drinking, as well. I consider myself an alcoholic who doesn't drink.

My father was an alcoholic. Well, he still is. But he stopped drinking many moons ago. It's been said that people use alcohol as an excuse to do and say what they want to do and say; it's okay because they were drunk or buzzed and didn't mean it. It's like kids saying mean things on the playground and then, "Just kidding," making it even worse because why are you crying when I was just kidding? It's a one-two punch. Well, my dad was a womanizer, too. Swore like I've heard no one else swear. In fact, I've never seen anyone get as angry as my father. I thought he was going to kill one of my brothers one time. I'm not even kidding. And at one point he threatened to kill us three boys, my mom and then himself. My mom, God bless her heart, stood up to him and said if he wanted to die, he could kill himself if he wanted, but the other lives were not his to take.

My oldest brother had a fatty liver so bad his doctor said it looked like he was an alcoholic. He didn't drink. Lots of foods have the same effect on your body, though. My other brother is, apparently, a full-blown alcoholic. It's strange to sit at a table with him and see him drink because I remember him being so adamant about not drinking for so many years. I remember him coming home one time when he was home from college on break and he was stupid drunk. I don't know how he even got home. Someone puked on his shoes. He was a mess. His example to his children now is being an alcoholic like his dad. If that wasn't enough, he told my father and mother that he "knows what it feels like" to be like my dad's dad, who was an all-around terrible human being, an alcoholic, and womanizer much worse than my father.

And then there's me. I was a full-time alcoholic for 16 years. I started drinking beer when I was a freshman in college. My next-door neighbor was 21 or 22 and brought some Red Dog (remember that awful stuff?) over to have with pizza. He used my computer to talk to girls sometimes. He went to see one in some other state once, spent a week there just having sex with her, apparently. The internet, helping college boys get laid since ... anyway. Then I snuck some 7-ouncers out of my parents' basement. What was that stuff, High Life? It, too, was awful.

I really started drinking when I moved to Ohio. I worked with a bunch of self-proclaimed alcoholics who didn't have a problem buying me beer. When I was 20 and living in our first apartment with my girlfriend, I bought a homebrew starter kit. Off to the races, my friends. I was fascinated by the process and culture of making beer. Here was a living, breathing entity I was feeding, and I was its father. Who knows how many carboys and buckets I filled and then emptied and refilled. This went on for years. I shared my homebrew, of course. Although my setup didn't change a lot, my skills advanced considerably. I wouldn't have a steep learning curve if I wanted to work in a brewery. The last few years I tinkered with Belgian ales and wild (sour) brews. I had finally found the holy grail of beer for me. Jolly Pumpkin was my favorite brewery, as their whole lineup was wild beer.

This post could go a number of different ways. I could talk about the seeds that were sown in me that caused me to choose this path. I could talk about the reasons why I drank or the reasons why I quit. I could talk about the loneliness I sought to banish on my days off when I was brewing or bottling beer, how I had to keep myself so ridiculously busy all the time so I didn't feel so utterly, hatefully alone. This was the function of alcohol in my life. It wasn't just the alcohol itself, but the whole brewing process that kept me busy. Even though we entertained plenty, there was something really big missing. It was God. My sin of alcoholism had separated me from Him in a big way. Even though I read my Bible every single day and even though I prayed every day, I was still so far from Him. 

There were deep rumblings in me for years about my behavior. I wanted to quit. I didn't know how. It had gotten to the point where I couldn't simply moderate. I had to quit. And I did, in April 2014. Sometimes when you make a big change in your life, it's helpful to incorporate other big changes with it. Why not? Intertia is on your side. So, when I moved from Ohio, I knew I was done with drinking. I made that clear to God, and I've been sober since.

The whole point of drinking for me was to hide. I was hiding from God. I wanted to disappear. He patiently waited until I had, like the prodigal son, gotten to the end of my rope and started to cry out. When I got to that point, we started having some conversations. We had those conversations for years. At one point I asked, "How long (will I suffer like this)?" and His answer was clear that I would have to wait a bit. I think He was making sure I was really desperate for the next step because it required quite a bit of faith.

There are sins that impact primarily us; there are sins that impact primarily others, but all of our sins separate us from God. I'm done running. Unless I'm running into my Father's arms. I'm done hiding. Unless I'm hiding in the cleft of His rock. I'm certainly not done sinning, but I don't ever want to be out of my Father's care. I won't wander away again. The reason is I love God with my whole heart, and I can't stand to spend a day without Him. I need to talk to Him about what's on my heart and the hearts of those around me. I need to soak in His word. I have a thirst for His truth. Many times the thoughts come to me to stray, but it's a ridiculous proposition. Where would I go? He has the words of life. When you've had everything else cut out from under you, you realize it was all just a bunch of nothing you were feeding and relying on. Like the beauty of youth, it's gone before you know it. Those who depend on it start to look pretty silly when they age. So, too, does a person who is wildly grabbing at sin to fill the holes in their life. A missionary explained once what it's like to have a God-shaped hole in your life. When he was in the rainforests, going to meet with natives, someone in his party shot a monkey from a tree (for meat) and the monkey fell to the forest floor and instinctively started shoving leaves in its wounds. He knew he was bleeding out and would die soon. It was a picture of self-preservation. Those holes in his body are like the God-shaped holes in our lives. Here we are, stuffing everything we can think of in those holes, even the vilest of sins, to staunch the bleeding. It's a startling picture, but it's the most accurate I've heard.

My heart cried out to God, and He saved me out of many troubles. Through no greatness of my own did real, solid, positive change take place in my life. I have only God to thank for those changes. I am eternally grateful and indebted by the sacrifice his Son made for me, but God always goes the extra mile. If He didn't do anything else but offer us salvation, it would still be the greatest thing that's ever happened in all of human history and would be a debt we could never repay. But, He doesn't stop there. He cares moment by moment about us, thought by thought, fear by fear, worry by worry. He's right with us and sees all, and understands more than we'll ever know.

The Song of Solomon is oft-derided as not belonging in the Bible. It's like softcore pornography, some say. And, to someone who has just cracked open their Bible and has little knowledge of this triune God who loves us, it could be a little shocking. But, to those who really know their Savior, it's a perfect picture of His never-ending love for us, His great care, His (godly) jealousy toward us, and how much we are desperately in need of Him. Even a moment without Him is deeply disturbing. Those who have a real relationship with their God understand that book well, as they have a personal relationship with their Creator. It's not something I feel I can accurately describe, but it is the most real thing in my life. How do you explain perfect love to those who only know the flawed human kind? The Song of Solomon does it well.

When I started asking God to get rid of things in my life that were preventing me from giving and receiving love freely (especially His love), I knew I was going to be in for a ride. What I also wanted was to feel the love of my Father without any middleman, without needing another human because, let's face it, I'd been hurt too many times by those close to me. Human love is imperfect, and I wanted perfect agape love, the unconditional stuff. And I wanted those around me to feel it as well. I didn't know I'd see so many awful changes in my life, but, looking back, it makes sense now. God was cutting things out. In God's math, it's addition by subtraction and multiplication by division. If you want to follow God, you will spend considerable time alone. Count on it. I say "alone" in the worldly sense, as you are never alone when you walk with Him. When you realize you need no one else, you're starting to get there. I'm not going to be called a friend of God anytime soon; I'm not Abraham. But, it's in my heart to want that. Desperately, more than anything else, that's what I want. After all, where else would I go? He has the words of life.