Note – This section is out of order and should be read after reading, “The heat that broke me”

The heat had broken me — but not all the way.

That sweltering afternoon run exposed something I could no longer hide. It was the beginning of confession, the start of a deeper unraveling. But healing doesn’t happen all at once. And even after that breaking point, I still clung to old patterns. I still believed I could manage the mess.

I looked fit. By then, I had lost nearly a hundred pounds. My mile splits were getting faster, my long runs more consistent. People were noticing — at work, at church, online. They called it inspiring.

But they didn’t know I was drinking.

Not since college — not since I gave it up after becoming a Christian. This was the first time I had picked up a drink in all those years. And it wasn’t like before, not out in the open. This time it was controlled. Measured. I told myself I deserved it after hard runs. Just a glass. Just enough to wind down. Just enough to lie to myself again.

Running had become a kind of refuge. It gave me goals, structure, even peace. I thought it could save me from everything else — my shame, my exhaustion, my slow spiritual drift. But it couldn’t. Not completely.

Because running doesn’t deal with the heart. It can strengthen the body and clear the mind, but it doesn’t confront pride or self-deception. It doesn’t pull hidden bottles from the back of cabinets.

That took something else.

That took a crossroads.

One road led deeper into performance — stacking habits like armor, chasing control. The other led into the dark woods of confession, of surrender, of admitting I couldn’t fix myself. I hadn’t walked either road fully before, but that season forced the decision. The drinking had only just begun — a slow unraveling that would stretch across a decade — but already I could sense where the paths would lead.

And I didn’t sprint into healing. I limped.

The thing about addiction — at least mine — is that it starts in silence. I hid my drinking at first, because I knew it didn’t belong in the life I had built. It didn’t fit with faith, with family, with the man I believed I was trying to become. But stress has a way of blurring lines. And when the pressure at home and work built up, alcohol offered a shortcut to numbness.

I’d run in the late afternoons, and when I came home, I’d grab a sport bottle. Not for hydration — for hiding. The same bottles I filled with electrolytes were now filled with something else. I told myself it was fine. I wasn’t driving anywhere. No one could smell it. No one would ask.

But sin has a smell.

One evening, my daughter found the bottle. It was tucked in the kitchen — where I thought no one would look. But she was doing the dishes, and saw a sports bottle in the back corner of the counter. She opened it, smelled it, and knew. Knew it was mine. Knew it wasn’t Gatorade. Knew the lie.

She went to my wife — “my lovely wife,” as I’ve always called her on my blog. She told her what she’d found. My wife was devastated — frantic, confused, and heartbroken. She had no idea I was drinking, let alone hiding it. And I’ll never forget what my daughter said:

“Mom, nothing has changed, it’s just now you know.”

That line has stayed with us ever since. We’ve used it in other hard conversations. It reminds me that truth doesn’t create a new problem — it simply uncovers the one that’s already been there, festering in the dark.

That moment was the beginning of a long fork in the road — not a clean break, but the first time I had to truly face what I had become. I could keep running with secrets, or start walking — slowly, painfully — in the direction of truth.

But I didn’t take the better path right away.

Even after being found out, my drinking didn’t stop. It just went deeper underground. I’d apologize, make promises, string together a few dry weeks here and there. But life didn’t stop throwing punches. Bills, stress, relational strain, the weight of being the steady one for everyone else — it piled up. And when I didn’t know how to process it all, I reached for the one thing that made the noise in my brain go quiet.

At first it was one drink to take the edge off. Then two. Then three. I wasn’t falling-down drunk. I was fully functional. Still running. Still showing up. But every day I was slowly drifting from the man I wanted to be.

Running had taught me how to endure pain — but it hadn’t taught me how to face it.

And that’s the lie I believed for a long time: that discipline in one area could excuse damage in another. That because I was improving physically, I was okay spiritually. But deep down, I knew I was medicating my mind instead of renewing it. I wasn’t surrendering stress — I was sedating it.

Years went by like that. I could run ten miles but couldn’t face ten quiet minutes alone with my thoughts. I could track my pace down to the second but couldn’t name the spiritual weight I carried.

And yet… God was still there.

Not storming in with condemnation, but whispering. Offering something deeper than escape. Something more costly than self-help. Freedom — not from running, but through surrender.

I didn’t stop drinking right away. In fact, I kept drinking for years. But even in the middle of that long wandering, God never left. He didn’t pull His presence away because I wasn’t getting it right. He stayed. He waited. He loved me through the slow return.

Every small crack in my denial, every moment of conviction, every whisper of grace — those were His footsteps beside mine. And looking back now, I can see it clearly: I wasn’t strong. I wasn’t faithful. But He was.

He always is.