I almost walked out of church the first time I went back. I was maybe five weeks clean, standing in the lobby of this nondenominational place near my apartment, and everyone looked so... together. Nice clothes. Nice families. Big smiles. I had a stain on my shirt I'd tried to hide with my jacket, and I couldn't remember the last time I'd smiled without faking it.
I stood there for probably thirty seconds thinking, These people are not my people. I don't belong here. And I was about halfway to the door when this older woman — short, gray hair, reading glasses on a chain — walked up to me and said, "You look like you need coffee. Come on." And she walked me to the coffee station in the back like it was the most normal thing in the world.
Her name was Diane. She didn't ask me what my deal was. She didn't interrogate me or try to save me. She just handed me a Styrofoam cup of bad church coffee and said, "Sit wherever you want. I usually sit in the back."
I sat next to Diane every Sunday for about three months before I told her anything about my past. That's the kind of patience that changes people.
What Addiction Does to Relationships
I need to back up and explain something. By the time I walked into that church, I had systematically destroyed every relationship in my life. And I don't mean "we drifted apart." I mean I lied to people's faces, stole from them, disappeared for weeks, and then showed up expecting everything to be fine.
My family was exhausted. My mom had done the tough love thing — changed the locks, stopped answering calls — because a counselor told her that was the only way. She was right, but it didn't feel right at the time. My friends? They'd given up years ago. I don't blame them. I would've given up on me too.
The only people who still returned my calls were the people I used with. And those aren't friendships. Those are partnerships in self-destruction.
So when I say I didn't know what community looked like, I mean it. I literally didn't know how to be in a room with people without lying, manipulating, or hiding. Church was like trying to speak a language I'd forgotten.
The Guy Who Broke Through
I went to a small group because my sponsor told me I had to. (In recovery you do a lot of things because someone tells you to, and you trust them because you clearly can't trust yourself.) I sat in someone's living room eating store-brand chips and trying to be invisible.
And then this guy — Dave, I think, or Dan? I'm terrible with names even now — starts talking about how he's five years sober and he still thinks about drinking every Thanksgiving because his family makes him crazy. He didn't dress it up. He didn't end with a tidy lesson. He just said, "Yeah, it's still hard sometimes. But I'm here."
Something in me broke open. Not in a dramatic, fall-to-your-knees way. More like a lock clicking. I thought, Oh. I'm not the only one. Which sounds so obvious, but when you've been hiding for as long as I had, realizing you're not alone is like oxygen.
I started talking after that. Not much at first. But I stopped performing "fine."
What Church Actually Is
The early church met in people's houses. They ate together, shared money, told each other the truth. Church wasn't something they attended on Sunday — it was how they lived. Somewhere along the way we turned it into a production with a stage and a fog machine and a gift shop in the lobby, and I think we lost something in the translation.
I'm not knocking Sunday services. I go every week. I need the preaching, I need the worship, I need the reminder that I'm part of something bigger than my own head. But the stuff that actually saved me? That happened in living rooms. In parking lots after meetings. On phone calls at 2 AM when the cravings were bad and I needed someone — anyone — to talk me off the ledge.
My sponsor answered the phone every single time. I called him once from a gas station bathroom because I was standing ten feet from a guy I used to buy from and every cell in my body was telling me to walk over. Mike talked me through it. Twenty minutes. Didn't hang up until I was in my car driving the other direction.
That's the church. Not the building. The phone call at 2 AM. The bad church coffee. Diane and her reading glasses. The guy in the small group who said, "Yeah, it's still hard sometimes."
If You're on the Outside
Look, I know what it feels like to stand in a church lobby and think you're too broken to be there. I know what it's like to look at the happy families and feel like an alien. I know the voice that says, If they knew what you've done, they'd kick you out.
Maybe some churches would. I'm not going to pretend every church gets this right. But the real church — the one Jesus actually talked about — was built for people like us. He didn't come for the healthy. He said that out loud. He came for the sick. And brother, I have been sick.
If you're standing in that lobby right now, literally or figuratively, don't leave. Find one honest person. You don't have to spill your whole story. Just stop performing "fine." That's the first step. The rest comes.
And if you can't find a Diane, be a Diane. Hand somebody coffee. Sit in the back with them. Don't ask questions they're not ready to answer. Just show up.
That's what the church is supposed to be. People who show up.