Sober Mercies

“Where do you turn for hope when you already have the answer, but it isn’t working?” A writer and editor in the Christian publishing world, Heather Kopp was also a self-described drunk who carried liquor in her purse and stashed more in her closeted boots. Never in twelve years did she miss a night of drinking. She thought she might actually, if possible, die of shame.

How could a professing, career Christian with a decades-old conversion experience drink to blackout night after night and not find the answer in her existing faith? Why couldn’t she just pray more and exert some willpower to not guzzle vodka in the Macy’s ladies room? 

Beyond the physical craving, “the hiding, the secrecy, the guilt were tremendous,” Heather said. “To live that way as a Christian feels like a betrayal of Christ’s work on the cross. So it’s this idea that I can’t let anyone know. I can’t ask for help. I need to fix this because, look at who I am!” 

Heather Kopp’s reality is shared with millions of people, Christian or not.  One out of every ten Americans over the age of 12 suffers from addiction. “I wrote Sober Mercies primarily for Christians,” Heather said. “I felt that in the church, there’s still such a fundamental misunderstanding of addiction. There’s still this idea that it’s a moral issue, that it’s purely a sin issue. Of course sin is involved, but there’s still sometimes a message that we should be able pray it away, repent harder, or get more convicted. There are people who need ongoing help and most of us don’t get ‘cured’ overnight.” As Christians it can actually take us longer to get help. We’ve got to get more comfortable with the fact that we too, can become addicted. Let’s get that out in the open and raise awareness that addictions are more complex than we think.”

“A consistent hallmark of addiction is that it divides us at our very core,” Heather writes in the book. “In that awful moment when we truly desire and determine not to drink, and then still do, we have begun to drink against our own will. The one of us has split into two, and it seems like the better of us has disappeared into the night.

“But two things can be true at the same time,” Heather said. “I still loved God, I still felt convicted, and eventually I had a huge miracle. Recovery was like starting over with God. It was the first time in life when I fully experienced and understood that I couldn’t save myself. I had never experienced complete powerlessness over my sin. For a long time I tried to hate myself sober. When I hit rock bottom in my drinking I had to admit, ‘Wow. I’m desperate for God.’ I’ve been, in a way, saved all over again.”

Heather generously shared with JBU a picture of her life as a writer and editor in the world of Christian publishing, a wife, mother, and raging alcoholic. 

JBU:

How did your drinking affect your marriage?

Heather: It wasn’t until I married Dave that I rediscovered alcohol. Before that I had experimented with it as a teenager, but in my 20’s and early 30’s, you’d consider me to be a good, conservative Christian girl. My drinking started because I thought it was romantic, “Let’s have some wine!” After work I would greet Dave with a glass of wine. What he didn’t know was that by then I’d already had four drinks, but I wasn’t drunk because my tolerance had gone way up. He would join me, then we’d have some wine with dinner — I’d have a lot — and then I might go up to the bathroom and secretly drink some more after that. Dave would occasionally bring up my drinking, what he called the elephant in the room, and I would go into a huge rage and get all defensive. When he started disapproving, I started hiding. Apparently we had some pretty rough fights, but the only way I knew that was from the scratch marks and bruises I’d see on Dave the next morning. Because I blacked out when I drank, my clues about the night before came from waking up in the guest room and the notes I took on what happened the previous evening. I’d apologize to Dave in an email and hope he’d give me some hints in his reply that revealed what I did and said. Yep, I actually took notes while I was drunk to chronicle the night before because I had no idea what went on. My drinking was actually ten times worse than what he saw.

JBU:

What about your career? 

Heather: It helped that I worked from home and was only in an office setting for a year.  Because I drank in the evening, I would compartmentalize what I was doing, repent and beat myself up in the morning. I know it’s hard to understand, “How do you do that?” I did it like I now work my recovery: one day at a time. No one in the Christian publishing world would have guessed because I did such a good job of being a high-functioning alcoholic. My greatest fear was being exposed as a huge hypocrite. Addiction is a combination of sickness and sin. I developed resentments about other people I worked with and then judged them. Being cynical about how they were acting made me feel better about myself. In my sobriety, I have made amends to those people.

JBU:

Who else knew about your drinking?

Heather:  Well, my children knew. They knew that I drank too much.

JBU:

Your son Noah was addicted to drugs and alcohol. How was watching his struggle  different than experiencing it yourself?

Heather: The worse I got, the more freaked-out I was for him. But truly, I’m astonished at my hypocrisy. By day I wrote books with Christian notables; at night I got blotto. At the same time I was using shame-based tactics with Noah. If only we could teach our children how to feel their feelings. Running to substances is escape and a means to numb our feelings. We try to love people out of their addictions, but I really think love has nothing to do with it. Instead of addressing feelings, we tend to go the route of “bad, bad, shame, shame, shame.”

JBU:

I love your description in the book of mothering an addicted child. “I was tired of feeling like I was about to watch my child fall from a high ledge, while knowing that no matter what happened, I wouldn’t be able to catch him.” 

Heather: Yeah, that powerlessness is twice as hard when it’s your child. When things came to a head with Noah’s addictions, I was sober and reconnecting with God. To trust God with Noah, “no matter what,” took my faith to a whole new level. I decided to trust God with Noah the same way I stay sober: one day at a time.

JBU:

How is Noah today?

Heather: He’s doing great. It’s just astonishing.  He’s a miracle— such a beautiful soul. I’m so grateful. I talk to many people through speaking and email, and there’s a lot of broken hearts out there. So many kids aren’t as fortunate. 

JBU:

What did you learn in treatment?

Heather: After 13 years of never not having a drink, I was excited. “Oh wow,” I thought, “there are other people like me.” I spent years not getting close to anyone because that intimacy would interfere with my drinking. I began to learn about the disease. As much as possible, I worked to gain an understanding of addiction.

JBU:

Are you ever tempted to drink?

Heather: You know, I can now go for months without thinking about alcohol. I don’t have the obsession anymore and I haven’t felt close to wanting it. Dave can drink wine freely in front of me, and I’m fine with that. I’m not white-knuckling it and I don’t have to resist it as long as I’m in good spiritual shape. However, if I feel tense and raw and sensitive and fragile I think, “This is why I drank, to take the edge off.” Then I make sure and tell someone. I’ll talk to Dave, call my sponsor or someone else who understands, to talk that out.

JBU:

You wrote that when you got into treatment, you thought you could enlighten other patients, some of whom wouldn’t darken the door of a church. 

Heather: Yes. I thought, maybe I can help these clearly confused people get a better, more biblical grip on God. (laughs). But they came to faith the opposite of me, by their experience of God. I came with all the beliefs, and hoped for the experience. I needed a lot of healing in my relationship with God and a whole new way of approaching Him because after decades of being in the church and working in Christian publishing, you’ve heard everything so much that it begins to bounce off of you.

JBU:

Did you feel like the only one in the Christian workplace who had this problem? 

Heather: I didn’t know a Christian alcoholic except my friend Susan, who lived out of town. On one visit, I noticed right away that she didn’t drink at dinner. I asked her about it because I thought it was weird. She told me she was a recovering alcoholic. I was horrified, but it did plant a seed of hope. I couldn’t conceive of being happy without alcohol, and she was very happy and at peace. That hope was one of the things that led to my surrender when I hit bottom. Because I saw that Susan was living a full life without drinking, I had hope. 

JBU:

Shouldn’t Christians who struggle with addictions have a head start on everybody else?

Heather: My Christian background only increased my sense of hopelessness. On the one hand, I knew I was a phony, a hypocrite, and a liar. But on the other hand, I was convinced I’d experienced a genuine conversion to Christ in my teens. My spiritual arrogance was very intense when I first came into recovery groups during treatment. You can grow increasingly disillusioned and cynical about your faith. And finally, you decide you’re just too with it for any version of the Christian faith that doesn’t allow you to indulge in your addiction. There needed to be for me, a second breaking.

JBU:

Why did you write Sober Mercies?

Heather: I wrote the book because I couldn’t find this book. There were tragic stories of alcoholism but not with what happens after people get help. I couldn’t find a book about a Christian in addiction. I might have gotten sober years sooner if I had read a book that says, “You’re going to be fine. You’re not going to lose your faith over this. In fact, it’s going to make everything better.” The reality that needs to be told is that there’s so much joy and faith on the other side.  

JBU:

What are some ways you have seen God use your book?  

Heather: I get a lot of mail from pastors, worship leaders, and people in visible Christian positions all over the country who are living their secret nightmare. They can’t stop using and they don’t know where to go with that tremendous weight. My story offers hope. 

JBU:

Having gone through an addiction, what have you learned most in your faith?

Heather: That God is way bigger, way better, way more loving than I ever thought. That God loves me so far beyond whatever the issue is, whether it’s drinking or something else. My addiction didn’t teach me much about God, but my recovery has taught me to accept my human condition and realize that God’s forgiveness is always ahead of me.

JBU:

How is your walk with God different now?  

Heather: Part of my spiritual practice now is the emptying of my ego. It’s freeing to know that no one can hurt your pride because it’s gone. The idea of daily relying on His power was new to me, even though I’d been a Christian for many years. Before recovery, I would say that it was convenient to be a Christian. Had I not been so incredibly desperate for God in my 30’s — had I kicked alcoholism myself — I would have missed all that I have with God now. I continue to change because transformation is how we grow. I needed to find out how transformation comes through grace, not through a set of beliefs

JBU:

What wisdom would you give other believers who are struggling themselves or have loved ones who struggle?

Heather: You are not a bad person and you can get well. Alcoholism or addiction is not a moral issue. It hurts to be human and this is your way of coping — getting drunk or high. The shame you feel or think you feel is tied to a lie, it’s tied to the secrets. Yes, there’s that moment of terror in getting help. But alcoholism can be a gift if you reach for long-term recovery and a new way of life. It’s a spiritual path of work and dependence that will change you. Recovery is not the lack of something, it’s the gaining of everything.

JBU:

What can the church do to help?

Heather: The church can facilitate an atmosphere of vulnerability. Maybe the depth of community I experienced in recovery, but rarely in church, had something to do with the inclusive nature of those 12-step meetings. It was safe to be honest about your journey with God, because it was impossible to be “wrong.” The basis for acceptance began and ended with a mutual need for healing, which led to honesty and connection. It’s definitely something Jesus understood: people bond more deeply over shared brokenness than they do over shared beliefs. A good place to start might be admitting how often too many of us Christians care more about what people believe than we do about loving them.

JBU:

Your book dedication says, “For those who still suffer.” What do you do now to pay it forward?

Heather: The newcomers in recovery remind me of how it was and how I got well. I’ll never walk away from recovery because I have to be there for those who walk in. My duty now is to be as public as possible. I have to do my part and be that person in recovery that gives others hope. The lie shame tells you is to keep your addiction a secret. Yes, I was convinced I would die of shame to tell it, but on the other side is enormous relief. The invitation I extend is, “Come into the light.” The gifts I’ve gained by being in long-term recovery and in a recovery community are huge. To be in the midst of raw honesty, vulnerability, and ongoing growth — to have missed all that would have been so tragic. I’m grateful to God that He waited for me at the end of the diving board until I was desperate, and so ready to surrender. I’m so grateful every day that I am desperate for God. I am desperate for God to stay sober.