I remember feeling my heart sink when I saw him come through the door. My wife and I were at a Christmas gathering at our church. My brother spotted me and made his way to our table. He didn’t have to say anything. I knew what had happened by the look on his face. My fears were confirmed with just two words: “He’s gone.”
 
That December 19th, 20 years ago today, made it a Christmas season very different from any I had ever experienced.
 
Dad had gone into the hospital that year shortly after Thanksgiving. The doctors soon concluded that his heart would not withstand bypass surgery. There were no other options. The goal now was to build up his strength enough so he could come home for what was to be his last Christmas.
 
Just as Jan and I were about to leave for our Christmas party Dad called to see how things were going with us. That was Dad. Literally on his death bed but asking how we and the kids were doing. As the conversation was ending he asked, “When am I supposed to come home again?” Jan answered, “Christmas Eve.” Dad asked, “How many days is that?” Jan told him, “Five.”
 
Dad’s response was peculiar. He said matter-of-factly, “I’m not going to make that.” Jan assured him that if he wanted to the doctors would certainly allow him to come home early. She told him we could come right then to pick him up. Not surprisingly, he declined the offer. Dad never wanted people making a fuss over him. He responded, “No, we’ll see how tonight goes.”  
 
A nurse later reported that, according to Dad’s roommate, he was “on the phone with someone, hung up, and died.” Turns out Dad was calling to say goodbye.
 
Most people who are close to me or have heard me speak or have read my writings know that due to my father’s drinking problem we a rather tumultuous relationship. Throughout my childhood I knew my dad as a verbally abusive alcoholic. The name of my ministry--Finding Father’s Love—suggests what my heart yearned for. The very title of my first book--When Father is a Bad Word—offers a glimpse into what my relationship with my father had been like.
 
Through the years I have shared many personal and painful stories about how my dad’s drinking affected me and my family. I have described my father to literally thousands of people with adjectives like violent, scary, mean, and shaming. One would think that news of his passing would trigger feelings of anger, hopelessness, and deep regret. Instead, I found myself overflowing with gratitude.
 
Many people know about the drinking problem my dad had when I was a boy. What they may not know is that my dad overcame his addiction when I was an adult. In what could rightfully be termed a miracle, my dad quit drinking. That in itself is not miraculous. People overcome addictive behaviors every day. It’s how my dad did it. You see, he did it with no visible help. He didn’t seek support from AA. He didn’t go to a counselor for direction. He didn’t rely on a sponsor for support. He just quit.
 
When our pastor got wind of the news he stopped by for a visit. “John,” he said, “I understand you quit drinking.”
 
“That’s right,” Dad said.
 
“I also understand that you’re not going anywhere for help.”
 
“That’s right,” Dad said.
 
“Well,” the pastor replied, “if you’re able to quit without help you’ll be the first person I’ve ever seen do it.”
 
Dad’s response took him aback. He grinned and said, “Then I’ll be the first.”
 
My dad never drank again. Turns out God’s help was the only help he needed. I don’t often speak of this because I don’t want to hold up Dad's story as the norm. For the vast majority of alcoholics, quitting drinking is just the first step. Then they must assemble and rely on a support network to help them maintain sobriety. For many, staying sober is an everyday, lifelong battle. My dad, virtually overnight, was transformed from the raging drunk I feared as a child to the kind and gentle man I was privileged to come to know and love as an adult.  
 
There were many tears during that Christmas season 20 years ago. But intermingled with my tears of sadness were tears of profound gratitude.

• I was grateful for the answer to thousands of prayers uttered in desperation by me and my family on my father's behalf.
• I was grateful for the years of sobriety that God had granted Dad at the end of his life.
• I was grateful that mom didn't break her wedding vows and kept our family together when it would have been easier to bail.
• I was grateful that my wife and children never witnessed that side of my dad.
• I was grateful to get to know my father for who he really was—a good man who happened to have a bad problem.     

 
While I struggled to sing Joy to the World on that Christmas after losing my dad, there were many other familiar carols that took on new meaning for me that year. Some still bring tears. But there are no longer tears of sadness. Only tears of gratitude.

​Truly He taught us to love one another,
His law is love and His gospel is peace.
Chains he shall break, for the slave is our brother.
And in his name all oppression shall cease.
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,
With all our hearts we praise His holy name.
Christ is the Lord! Then ever, ever praise we,
His power and glory ever more proclaim!
His power and glory ever more proclaim!

There are three unspoken rules in families affected by addiction:

1. Don’t talk.
2. Don’t trust.
3. Don’t feel.

I followed them religiously as a child.

I didn't talk. I learned at an early age not to air my family's dirty laundry in public. I protected our family secret with the vigilance of Marine in combat. I never acknowledged my dad’s out-of-control drinking—not with my friends, not with my teachers, not even with my siblings. It was a deep and pervading shame that sealed my lips. I vowed to myself that no one would know the truth of what was happening in our house.

I didn't trust. Since children are, by nature, very trusting, I had to learn not to trust. When my father's promises were routinely broken--I'll take you fishing Saturday, I'll come right home after work, I'll be at your game, I'm going to quit drinking--I learned not to believe anyone or anything. After all, if you can't trust your own father who can you trust? I reasoned that by adhering to the don't trust rule you can guard yourself from a myriad of discouragement. My childhood motto was built on distrust: If you always expect the worst, you will never be disappointed.

I didn't feel. Since I couldn't talk freely about what was going on in my life, not to mention the fact that I had no faith in anyone around me, it should come as no surprise that I began to shut down emotionally. This process was accelerated when, in moments of weakness as a young child, my attempts to express how I felt were swiftly squashed with comments like:

• You shouldn't feel that way,
• Stop being such a baby, and 
• You're just too sensitive.

The strange thing is, following the don't talk, don't trust, don't feel rules actually helped me as a child. Not talking spared me from having my opinions rejected. Not trusting taught me to be self-reliant. Not feeling insulated me from untold heartache. But continuing to follow those rules in my adult life have done nothing but harm me. The very rules that protected me from hardship as a child have prevented me from wholeness as an adult.

It is God's desire that we experience intimacy in our relationship with Him and others. Three non-negotiable components of an intimate relationship: talking, trusting, and feeling. For many of us from addicted homes who deeply desire yet greatly struggle with intimate relationships, perhaps it is simply a matter of breaking the rules.

We must learn to talk about the things that caused and, more than likely, continue to cause so much pain in our lives. We must bring to the surface those things we didn’t or weren’t allowed to talk about. Our dark family secrets must be brought into the light if we are ever to strip them of their power. We can’t keep ignoring them. We must talk through them. If we don't give voice to them they will continue to clamor for attention in the form of anxiety, nervous tension, headaches, stomach issues, and/or depression.

The key to breaking the don’t talk rule is to first break the don’t trust rule. We must find safe people we can talk to. People who will facilitate our wholeness. Who will accept us as we are. Who will give us the encouragement we need. As we seek to find healing from our painful past we must assemble a support base of trust-worthy people and lean on them often. Yes, this involves risk. But it is a risk worth taking. Trust may not come easy, especially when it's been broken in the past by people close to us. But trust is the single most important element in a healthy relationship.  So find a counselor. Talk to a pastor. Confide in a friend. Learning to trust is crucial to our experiencing healing from damaged relationships.

And, finally, we must learn how to feel. When we’ve found people we can talk to and trust them with things we've kept quiet for way too long, we must then be prepared for whatever feelings may pop to the surface, as uncomfortable as that may be. We must acknowledge them. Accept them. Embrace them. We must allow ourselves to feel every feeling and feel it all the way through so that we can finally be done with them. That is the only way the pain of our past will no longer pervade our present.

Does the pain and trauma of a difficult childhood still hang like a dark cloud over your adult life? Does your inability to talk, to trust, and to feel prevent you from being intimate--truly intimate--with God and others you care about? Then maybe it’s time to break the rules.

I grew up in a home compromised by alcohol. Personal security was continually threatened. Our family never knew from one day to the next just what level of risk to expect when Dad came through the door.

There were those “high alert” days when Dad stayed too long at Alex’s Tap after work. On those days, he would come home and scream and cuss and throw dishes. I would often simply run for cover, seeking refuge in a closet, under my bed, sometimes even in the dog coop. Our fox terrier, Max, proved faithful in keeping me safe when I needed to flee the house.

On “moderate alert” days it was typical for Dad to polish off a six-pack while launching an occasional, outrageous allegation at me or my mom, then stumble into his room and sleep it off. On those days, we would tiptoe through the house so as not to awaken him and trigger any more serious verbal explosions.

Sundays were “low risk”  days. Dad rarely drank on Sundays. Sunday was my favorite day of the week. Dad was a great guy when he wasn’t drinking — kind, caring, a wonderful sense of humor. I have many pleasant memories of Sundays — family dinners that always included warm garlic bread; watching White Sox games on our Zenith black and white TV; and going to church, both morning and evening, armed with enough pink peppermints to offset our garlic breath. We never missed church.

I have never not believed in God. Even as a young child, creation just made more sense than evolution. But I have a confession to make. While I’ve never doubted God’s existence in all my years of being a practicing Christian, I’ve often doubted His word.

If we’re going to be honest, when a person lives with fear, shame, sadness, and the haunting belief that his or her life doesn’t matter, it’s often difficult to buy into what the Bible says about God. We may believe it in our heads that God is a God of love, that He accepts us just as we are, that He works all things together for good. But those attributes are nothing more than spiritual soundbites if they never gain entrance into our hearts.
 
Many times throughout Scripture God is referred to as light. The Apostle John refers to Him as the Light that shines in darkness. James calls Him the Father of lights. I remember singing as a seven-year-old in Sunday School, the Light of the world is Jesus. Problem is, I didn't believe it. I didn’t always see God as light. And not just when I was a scared little boy attempting to navigate through life with a drunken dad, but when I was an adult trying to make sense of all different kinds of heartaches and hurts.

I had come to believe that sometimes God was light and sometimes He was dark. Sometimes He was there for me and sometimes not. Sometimes I experienced Him as warm and caring and other times I viewed Him as dark and brooding. I was believing a lie. And it was a lie that stood as a barrier between me and the God I so desperately needed.

But one day, this truth dawned on me: You can’t possibly trust a God who is sometimes light and sometimes dark.

After decades of this cloudy thinking, God directed me to a Bible verse that gave me much-needed clarity on the matter. The aforementioned Apostle John, who was all about correcting false doctrine in the church, strips away all doubt about God’s luminescence with these straightforward words: God is light; in Him is no darkness at all (emphasis mine).

What an illuminating truth. God is light. God will always be light. The light of His love will flame through all eternity. It cannot be extinguished by the problems or pain we may encounter in life. Even if our circumstances are dark, our God is light. 

The truth is, this world can be a very dark place. When faced with world news about terrorism or political corruptness or having to deal with personal pain like depression or addictive behaviors it is easy to be overcome by darkness. But like a candle glowing in a cavern, God’s love shines brightest in the darkest of times.

Even on the cloudiest of days, we don’t question the sun’s existence. We know that above the clouds the sun still shines. The same is true of God’s light. It burns brightly whether we can see it or not.
​
It’s all about trust. Trusting that God is who He says He is. Believing that He longs to dispel our darkness so that we may bask in His wonderful, life-giving, wound-healing light.

It had been another rough night. Dad didn't come home for supper. Again. Clearly, the bar stool at Alex's Tap had much more appeal than sitting at the family table.

I was in my room feverishly working on my 7th-grade science project when I heard him come in the back door. Having developed keen hypervigilance at an early age I could determine my father's level of his intoxication simply by listening to him come into the house. When I heard his lunchbox scrape against the wall as he maneuvered the three-step landing leading to the kitchen I braced myself for a long night.

After eating his supper alone, all the while blaming my mother that his food was cold, he stumbled into the bedroom and shut the door. I prayed that this would be one of those nights when he slept until morning. I had to concentrate on my schoolwork. 

But as was often the case, my prayers, no matter how fervent, seemed to fall on deaf ears.

Dad got up every hour or so to drink more beer and to make sure my mom and I knew what worthless human beings we were. He would sit in the dark with his seemingly endless supply of of Stroh's and irately lecture us long into the night. Best I could tell, the reason he got drunk all the time was because my mom was a nag who didn't appreciate all he did for her and I was a lazy kid who would never amount to anything. It's funny how our brain tells us something is utter nonsense yet our heart believes it anyway. 

I put together my school project as best I could, all the while trying to ward off the unrelenting barrage of hurtful attacks and accusations coming from the kitchen. I really wanted to do well on this assignment. But the end result wasn't close to what I wanted it to be. It was a maddening metaphor of my life: not good enough no matter how hard I try. It wasn't fair.

I could feel the anger stirring in the pit of my stomach as I ate breakfast the next morning. Usually, that's where my anger remained. But on that particular morning, I let it out.

Without looking up from my bowl of cereal, I said to my mom who was tidying up the kitchen, "He can ruin his life if he wants to. But he's dragging you and me down with him. You need to get a divorce." 

Her response was immediate, as if she had rehearsed it a thousand times. Honestly, I was taken aback by the force of her words. Decades later I can still hear them in my mind, with the same intense inflection. With her hands on her hips she said emphatically, "I made a vow to him and to God and I'm not going to break it."

I had always viewed my mom as stubborn. And while that assessment was right on the money, these words weren't born out of hardheadedness. They emanated from a deep sense of conviction.

My mom was committed to husband. She made a promise to him in the presence of God that she would be his wife, for better or worse, till death did them part. Granted, she couldn't have known what worse was going to look like when she made that vow. But, to her, it didn't matter. A promise was a promise.

As a kid, I didn't appreciate her firmness. All I knew was I wasn't happy living with an alcoholic father and I was quite sure she wasn't too thrilled to have had an alcoholic husband.  But my mother's response made me realize something at age twelve that many adults still haven't figured out. God doesn't want us to be happy. God wants us to be holy. 

We live in an age in which personal preference often takes precedence over God's principles. Driven by our own desires, we are quick to disregard the will of God if we deem that it might make our lives unpleasant. The stark truth is, the Christian life is often unpleasant. Sometimes it's downright unfair. 
But we bring honor to God when we, through good times and bad, in sickness and in health, remain devoted to Him.

This is not to judge those who chosen divorce. I understand that all circumstances are different. But I also know that God is in the business of fixing broken things. He is truly able to do "immeasurably more than we could ask or imagine (Eph. 3:20)." And He most certainly came through for our family.

Some twelve years after my mom's declaration to me, God miraculously delivered my dad from his addiction. I was blessed beyond words to see my parents enjoy several years of life together, free from the effects of alcohol. I was able to reconcile with my dad and grow to love him for the gentle and kind man he really was. I came to understand that he was a good man who had a bad problem.

Before God took him home, I received Dad's permission to share our story with others who have experienced the horrors of alcoholism so that they, too, could discover hope and healing in the arms of a Heavenly Father who cares deeply for His kids. I have a sense that both of my fathers are proud.

I still find myself wondering, what if? What if my mom took the advice of her adolescent son? What if she decided to bail on her marriage? What if experiencing happiness in life was her primary motivator? And whenever my mind goes there I am overcome with gratitude for giving my mother the spiritual gift of stubbornness. Her uncompromising commitment to holiness has led to immeasurably more happiness than we could have asked or imagined.

I grew up with an alcoholic dad. And since denial and alcoholism go hand in hand, whenever my dad was confronted on his behavior he would shift the blame to others. My mere presence in the home made me a convenient target.

I was accused of be ungrateful. Unappreciative. Lazy. Irresponsible. I remember once being yelled at for not mowing the lawn like I had been told. I had mowed it that morning. My dad was just too drunk to notice. I knew the verbal attack was unwarranted. But I was only nine years old. He was an adult. So I accepted full blame.

Since children don't have the ability to reason like grownups, I concluded that it was my fault that my dad was an alcoholic. Dad kept getting drunk because I was bad. I came to believe that if I simply behaved better and never gave my dad anything to criticize he wouldn’t drink anymore.

And so it began. The insatiable need to be perfect. The self-imposed demand to perform flawlessly so that I could earn the approval of others. Relentlessly seeking a goal that could never be attained. And every day feeling like a failure.

There is no greater form of self-abuse than perfectionism.

But the guilt and shame that gnawed at my soul as I tried desperately to live up to the expectations of an alcoholic father were nothing like the guilt and shame I experienced trying to live up to the expectations of an infallible Heavenly Father.

Well into my adult life, and long after my dad was delivered from alcoholism and our relationship was restored, I was still living in fear. I was afraid to make a mistake; afraid of rejection; afraid I would never be deemed worthy of love; afraid to get too close to another father I couldn't please.

But one day, as I was searching through the Bible for nuggets of truth that would calm my fears, I came across five words in the book of First John that I was familiar with, but honestly hadn't paid much attention to. Five words that God clearly meant for me at that juncture of my life. Five words that give hope and healing to wounded souls who are fearful that they are too flawed to ever be loved: Perfect love drives out fear.  

The Bible says that God is perfect in all of  His ways. He is a perfect Father. And He loves His children with a perfect love.

Perfect love is love without condition. Perfect love has no strings attached. Perfect love looks beyond people's imperfection and sees their need. Perfect love is the kind of love we read about in 1 Corinthians 13: Love that is patient, love that is kind, love that does not envy, love that does not boast, love that is not proud, love that does not dishonor others, love that is not self-seeking, love that is not easily angered, love that keeps no record of wrongs. 

The wonderful, freeing truth I have discovered is that there is no room for fear in a heart that is filled with the Heavenly Father's perfect love. Because my Heavenly Father's love is perfect I don't have to be. 

Every family has rules. Many family rules are spoken, some of them often. Look both ways before crossing the street. Come when you're called. Don't talk back. Tell the truth. Be in by ten. 


Some family rules are unspoken, yet just as clear. Don't bother your father when he's watching sports. Kids who get Cs and Ds in school are losers. You must go to church every Sunday. Don't think outside the box. Hang around with people who look, act, and dress like you. 


In family systems infiltrated with serious dysfunction--divorce, alcoholism, abuse, depression, workaholism--children often strictly adhere to three unspoken family rules: 

1.  don’t talk
2. don’t trust
3. don’t feel
   

Children from troubled homes learn at an early age not to talk about family problems. We keep them to ourselves either because we are embarrassed about what’s going on or because we’re convinced no one could possibly relate. So we stuff our family stuff.

We learn not to trust others. Children are, by nature, very trusting. Not trusting is a learned behavior. When children are unable to trust it is most often the result of their trust having been violated by the people closest to them.

When children find they can’t talk freely about what is going on in their life and when they are distrusting of those around them, they tend to shut down emotionally. They “turn off” feelings like anger, fear, frustration, loneliness, or sadness because they have nowhere to go with them anyway.

As children, following these three rules makes sense. Kids somehow believe that by not talking, not trusting, and not feeling their suffering will be lessened. But continuing to adhere to these rules as adults can have serious consequences. The rules that help us as children harm us as adults. The same rules that protected us from hardship as children prevent us from wholeness as adults

The first step in overcoming a painful childhood is to break the rules.

We must talk about the things that caused and, more than likely, continue to cause so much pain. We must bring to the surface those things we didn’t or weren’t allowed to talk about. Our dark family secrets must be brought into the light if they are ever to be stripped of their power. We can’t ignore them. We can’t pretend they aren't there. We must talk through them.

The key to breaking the “don’t talk” rule is to first break the “don’t trust” rule. We must find safe people we can talk to. People who have our best interests in mind. People we can be comfortable confiding in. People we can trust. 


As we seek to recover from a painful past we must assemble a support base of trust-worthy people and lean on them often. Yes, this involves risk. Yes, risking is scary. But trust is the single most important element to a healthy relationship so it is well worth the risk. Find a counselor. Talk to a pastor. Confide in a close friend. Learning to trust is not easy. Know that going in. But it’s crucial to our recovery.

And, finally, we must learn how to feel. When we’ve found people we can trust, when we’ve discovered that we can talk about things we may have never talked about before, we must begin to deal with any feelings that may pop to the surface. We must process those feelings we have spent a lifetime trying to suppress. We must feel our feelings and feel them all the way through if we are ever to be done with them. That is the only way the pain of our past will no longer pervade our present.

Does your painful childhood still hang like a dark cloud over your adult life? Life-giving freedom comes from breaking the rules.

This is a cable TV interview I did recently for Crossroad Bible Institute, a prison ministry based in Grand Rapids, MI. My life was affected by my earthly father's alcoholism. But my life was transformed by my Heavenly Father's redeeming grace.