Barbara: Today's guest is Michelle Knight. I met Michelle at Wartburg theological seminary, where she's a final year student to become a pastor. Vicar Michelle serves at st. Paul's Lutheran church in Warren, Illinois. Prior to seminary, she worked in various fields, including investments, human resources, accounting and farming.
Michelle is especially focused on serving those in the addiction and recovery community. She's always been comfortable sharing her story of recovery with other addicts and alcoholics, and is sensitive to the spiritual needs of addicts and alcoholics. Michelle will share her resurrection story so listeners and viewers may receive the message of good news: There is hope and you're not alone. God is always with you, and so is the fellowship found in recovery if you choose to receive it. Her dream is to serve God and the church so that no one ever has to suffer in addiction alone, to create a recovery community and place of sanctuary for those on their spiritual formation journey.
Thanks for joining us today, Michelle, and for offering to provide an opening prayer for us.
Michelle: let us pray. Good and gracious God, we give you Thanks for bringing us safely into this new day. We give you thanks for the spiritual gifts you have given each one of us to use that bring mercy love and compassion to those in despair and suffering from addiction. Be with us in our conversation today. Inspire and encourage helpful discussion among your faithful servants- in Jesus name we pray. Amen.
Barbara: Amen. Today's Bible reading is from the book of John. The fourth chapter verses seven through 15.
John is the last of the gospels. So it's past the halfway mark in your Bible. I will read from the new revised standard version. A Samaritan woman came to draw water. And Jesus said to her, give me a drink. His disciples had gone to the city to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, how is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria? Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans. Jesus answered her. If you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying to you, give me a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.
The woman said to him, sir, you have no bucket. The well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well and with his sons and his flock to drink from it?
Jesus said to her, everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again. But those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give them will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life. The woman said to him, sir, give me this water so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.
Michelle, we'll talk about this Bible passage during our discussion today about addiction, but
I'm intrigued that you use the phrase resurrection story, please tell it.
Michelle: That is a term most associated with those that have been in the throes of it and recovery because we have been rescued from death and I think of in our confessions where you confess that Jesus died and descended into hell. And on the third day he Rose. So in that liminal space and that transformational time that Jesus was in the depths of hell, I believe that's where I have been rescued from that place and brought into new life, brought into the resurrection and it exists in this time, that my life has been joined with Christ and his resurrection to live life abundantly.
So, what was it like living in hell, living in the throes of addiction? I started drinking at a very young age- alcohol was introduced to me young, not only in communion at church, but I got to open my dad's beers and take the first sip. I would go into my grandma's refrigerator and take Peppermint schnapps and sneak that throughout the day. I had received a taste of alcohol very young. I was also suffering from childhood sexual trauma and I was hiding a story that I had not shared. It was healing that had not happened.
My teenage years connected the hiding response, the numbing response, the fear response with the behavior drinking and basically anesthetizing myself from feeling those feelings of shame, pain, insecurity, fear, and that sort of thing. So that continued into my young adult life and just in and out, bingeing drinking, hiding still- I don't like the term highly functioning because I wasn't functioning.
I was going to work. I never got into trouble. I never lost my driver's license. Had a really good masquerade going. I was a professional in the community- people did not know that I was suffering in silence.
Again, many relationships falling apart, abusive relationships. I was also getting into prescription drugs. January 5th, 2015 was my last drinking and drugging day; the next day I was found unconscious in my apartment after not showing up for work and taken immediately by ambulance to the emergency room and ICU, where I was suffering from alcohol poisoning and prescription drug overdose, and attempted suicide. And I honestly, I truly believe that I was ready to check out. I was in so much pain because I didn't know how stop drinking anymore. I was no longer able to go to work without a drink or a drug, engage in a conversation, leave my house. I had no control anymore. That behavior of drinking and drugging was so attached to all of my emotions around trauma, that I could no longer think or even look to another coping skill or even asked for help. So there I was in the emergency room, with doctors and nurses all around me and my pastor was called.
I honestly thought I wasn't going to come out of this. I remember my pastor saying it's going to be okay. No judgment, no words of condescension. Just being present and something clicked, and I believed her.
It was days in recovery, in the psych ward and talking with doctors and nurses. And I had a faith background. I've been raised Lutheran, but I didn't have a spiritual relationship with the triune God. I only knew of a God that I loved and who hated me, had to have hated me because of my life, had abandoned me, had no sense of God's presence in my life.
Had no idea that Christ died on the cross for someone like me, like this mess. It was an awakening in those days. And, talking with professionals and picking up my first 12 step program schedule and knowing that I wanted a different life for myself and knowing that I could not do this on my own, that it was a problem bigger than I could carry.
So the day that I was released, I walked into my first AA meeting. And it was a women's meeting and I was surrounded by the most loving mamas and grandmas in the world. And their stories are my stories. And for the first time in my life, I knew I wasn't alone. I no longer had to be ashamed to tell my story, all the ugly bits and parcels- things that I thought, nobody's going to believe this. Surely I am unique in my experience. I'm special.
Barbara: you're special, but not alone in those experiences.
Michelle: Right. I went to three meetings a week and I immediately connected with a sponsor and started doing the work. And I had a long ways to go.
As anyone in recovery knows those first few days, months, you're just a hot mess. Sixty days into my sobriety, my pastor asked me to do a via de Christo weekend- a living water weekend. It's a three day retreat. I had never heard of this before.
And you know, I'm thinking 60 days. And I had no idea what I was getting myself into. And I'm suffering from sugar cravings terribly from the absence of alcohol. I'm still trying to regulate my emotions, which are all over the board because I never allowed them to surface before still learning how to communicate and have even a healthy conversation or relationship.
So I'm plunked down into this retreat full of women and I'm like, what am I doing here? They're all singing Jesus campfire. I'm just like, Oh gosh, what is going on? And I just felt so out of place.
Cause I wasn't accustomed to being in community. I didn't know what that was like to allow other people to love me in that way. Strangers, nonetheless, just how you were and sober too. I remember there was like crafts and there's food and they're singing and there's worship.
Michelle: I was going to bail. I was at a really vulnerable point knowing that's where the Holy spirit seeks you out when you're vulnerable. And you're just at that point where your heart is ready to break open.
And allow the spirits to come in and allow Jesus to come in and walk with you. And I was right there and then Another gal that was there, came up to me, put her hands on my shirt. And she said, all of this, all of this is for you. Wow. He died on the cross or you. For you. And she just kept taking my shoulder and looking me in the eyes and telling me that over and over and over and first I'm like, lady don't touch me.
And then the words just sunk in and soften this hardened 40 something year old heart. And the words took seed, rooted. And just grew from there. And that's where I was raised from the dead. It was in that moment. It wasn't just the first day that I didn't drink a drug.
Right. It took time in that space. and then it was not long after that, that I had my sense of call re-ignited. I had a sense as a teen but rebelled terribly. I knew this was my story to tell- this is the good news that I bring to those that are suffering and addiction and need to hear these words of hope. All this, you are loved
Barbara: you and your mess, not you and your perfectness, which there is no such thing anyway, in your fake perfectness. Not you personally
Michelle: that's so true. And later in that week I learned as people were coming off of sharing their faith stories and witnessing, what I saw was these perky little makeup, perfect hair, perfect husbands and families, and just perfectness. It's just all the superficial stuff.
Barbara: Yeah. We wear social masks. Like my life is great.
Michelle: Yeah. But we are trained as a society to those social things even from a young age, don't let anybody see what's going on inside.
Barbara: I'm all in favor of gratitude and optimism. But at the same time, I think there's a loss in our relationships when we can't share or don't feel safe to share like, Hey, I'm having some problems. And then on the other end is, you know, whining all day long is a whole nother thing that not everybody wants to listen to that, but where's there a balance between sharing the truth and supporting each other.
Michelle: as a person in recovery, I can tell you, I need community every day. I need my spiritual connection with my higher power- God, as I know God to be. I also need community.
Barbara: our Bible passage has a little slice of community in it, an unusual community. And I feel like acknowledging some of the words in the Bible might sound, not off, but somehow it's not intended to sound judgmental, but it's sort of a social factor of the day.
These two ethnic groups didn't talk to each other, but then something really special happened. Can you share about your selection of this Bible verse in relation to your resurrection story and our theme for today?
Michelle: this text resonated with me right away, especially the lines about thirst- the living water. And as an alcoholic, I can tell you I was consuming more and more alcohol at each sitting because thirst was never quenched. That thirst was a God-sized hole in my heart but my behavior was telling me, wow, well, let's just switch to something harder. I was buying a case a day and then moving into harder. I mean, the thirst was just never quenched. So it's understanding what's that thirst on a deeper level? What am I longing for? Where am I spiritually dry? And for me, sobriety is like a three legged stool, for me to be successful in sobriety.
I address body, mind and spirit, and those are three different areas and as, a vicar or pastor. I know the spiritual realm is my lane and I stay there. But it's important for me to have my body addressed to my medical doctor, my mind addressed to my therapist or psychiatrist, and then the spiritual work with my pastor and my sponsor to the program, the thirst, I had to understand where that thirst was coming from.
And for me, it was doing the mind work. And in talking with my therapist and getting to the root of my trauma and talking about it. And I worked specifically with a sexual abuse professional and really talk about this and flush this out. And I was diagnosed with PTSD.
So I can deal with that. You're standing where my thirst came from then also spiritually and where this disconnect happened with God. And it comes back to relearning who God is in my life. The God of my understanding as a child being one who was punishing and wrathful. And I wasn't welcomed to the Holy table because I was a pregnant teenager.
All of those understandings of God had to be addressed. I had a lot of come to Jesus moments. I had a lot of moments where I got angry with God. Where were you when I was thirsty? Where were you when I was longing? And it was through that work and prayer meditation, and in conversation with my pastor that understood that Jesus was there along and in my suffering, I was connected to his suffering on the cross for me, that there were moments of safety and grace- things that I was involved in our events that could have been much worse- that I was brought out and saved from worse. I was reconnecting with an understanding that longing of thirst and knowing that Jesus is my source of life provides the living water.
So I never thirst again- there's an acronym in recovery H.A.L.T.: am I hungry, angry, lonely, or tired? Yes. I'm going to be thirsty. So it's been able then also to identify my emotions and I do spiritual practices and involve mindfulness meditation, where I just sit and be still and let thoughts and emotions pass through like clouds and name them.
Barbara: That takes a long time to practice. And I don't know if mastery ever comes- and HALT can be used for anyone. People eat their emotions, people sleep their emotions. I heard that emotions pass through our body on average, about 90 seconds, and they may come back. I'm not saying they're gone and never come back after 90 seconds, but if you can just sit and tolerate it and let it be. It'll fade.
Michelle: we're uncomfortable with emotions, especially if we're completely honest with ourselves. We don't like to feel all the feels because it's painful. It's anxious making- we like to stuff it all down. And especially now in the state of our nation with pandemic and crisis after crisis and natural disaster, we are such a high awareness, but we don't even know what emotions to name first. It's all happening. We have a serious problem, being able to meet around the tables in person, is not always possible for everybody. So our whole lives have been upended, right? We're in this sense of disorder. but I strongly believe that the Holy spirit is doing something with all of this and pandemic, and I've seen some beautiful and wonderful things come out of our creativity and imagination and those who are thirsty and know the steps to take.
To be connected with their higher power and be connected with community. I spend three to four hours a week just in community online, either with the fellowship, those in recovery. One-on-one with my sponsor on top of this spiritual practices that I do as an individual. And you said this early it's progress not perfection. I don't always get it right every day
Barbara: and we don't have to do it alone either. I think that's sort of an American cultural icon to just figure it out, suck it up, just do the best you can- but we don't have to do it alone.
Michelle: No, we don't have to do it alone in addiction. I'm sharing my story of alcohol and drugs, but addiction encompasses so many other. Poor coping skills. And it's all behavioral response to this trauma, to this pain, to things that haven't been fleshed out that have been stuffed down so deep. And you mentioned eating, I just finished leading a four week online spiritual practice group called honoring the body.
And it was a nutritional program. We looked at the practice of preparing our food and eating. And sharing meals and we did body blessings We talked about emotional eating and abusing as an addiction where most of us could fall into that category.
If we start asking ourselves some questions, and this is not just food, alcohol, and drugs, but it could be gambling. It could be pornography. It could be gossiping, shopping. Scrolling through Facebook. If we're getting to a point where we can no longer say no to ourselves and are able to stop this behavior.
If it is a knee jerk response to go to this substance or action, we need to take a closer look at, do I have control over this or does this have control over me? You know, the obvious signs of addiction with alcohol and drugs, are you blacking out? Is it keeping you from going to work and functioning in your family?
Are you abusive to yourself and others, or as you lost your driver's license, have you spent time in jail? I mean, those are the obvious ones. Are you now homeless? But there are things that we also don't see.
Barbara: Let's talk about the elephant in the room - if you appear to be functioning, what about underneath? And this is not meant at all to be judgmental. This is not to say, Oh, I'm so glad you're listening to this podcast. Guess what? You have a problem!
What do you suggest that people might want to prayerfully consider? If they're like I don't have an addiction. That's not me.
Michelle: I am immersed in people who do have problems and have not hit rock bottom, or have not had the self realization that they are no longer in control of the substance or behavior. So some questions are asked are, is it your first thought of the day to get up and have a drink or take a pain pill?
Has someone else brought it to your attention? Is it keeping you from functioning, fully functioning at work? Where is it causing you to say or do things that are out of character for you, but you don't have control over? Are you having to apologize a lot the next day or things that you have said or done, or don't remember you've said or done cause you can black out from drugs or alcohol and still be awake. If your go to thing, when you are emotionally anxious, scared, afraid, if you're going to what type of food. I also have people keep journals, start tracking your emotions today.
I was joyful in celebrating this. What did you do? You do call a friend and the news. Did you pour a drink today? I was really sad because this happened. What did you do? Did you pray to call your pastor? Did you call your therapist or did you go to the fridge and eat a box of chocolate? I was really anxious about this, right.
Did you go online and start scrolling pornography? It's just a matter of journaling and tracking and being mindful. And it comes back to that mindfulness practice, being aware and connecting what's going on in your heart center, what's going on in your mind. And then what is the action coming out of that?
Barbara: It sounds like self-medication, and as a social worker, I also want to acknowledge that sometimes dealing with your pain can be painful. I'm not going to say, just go get counseling for a couple of weeks and all your problems will be gone and you'll never be thirsty again. Again, metaphorically speaking- is it worth the pain to get through the pain, to get to a place of healing? And I also don't mean to say, every time you go to counseling, it's going to be miserable and agony. That's not fair either, but I don't want to be all Mary Poppins and just say, Oh, get some counseling. You'll be fine.
Michelle: I encourage people- please connect with a professional or with a recovery community in your area and get educated- please be educated on the body, mind and spirit.
What does addiction do to the brain? What is the longterm effects of the brain? Because some of these drugs have lasting effects. The brain is permanently altered with heroin and opioids. So please understand that even though your person, your loved one, or you stop taking a drink or a drug does not mean that you were the same person physically, that you were before.
And it's a long process- for myself, I am just little over five and a half years sober. I see my therapist every other week. I meet with my sponsor every week, I talk to my pastor every week
Barbara: I think that's great. And that's normal. That's not weird within the recovery community, that kind of support is very appropriate. So you're not the only person who continues to have those supports on a regular predictable basis.
Michelle: Yes. It's about knowing that I can't do this on my own. All of these connections are grace from God. And my ability to get through this 24 hours without responding to any emotion that I'm feeling with a drink or a drug and carrying my story to other alcoholics and addicts. That's the beauty of it. But it's definitely a journey and with twists and turns and the step work, isn't easy because if it was easy, we all be sober, but there are a few that just aren't able to get through it.
Barbara: it really seems to me. I can't go out my front door and there's alcohol everywhere on billboards. Restaurants have these special little things on the table with pictures of all these fancy drinks. Like literally everywhere I go. I honestly can't think of any place at all. Maybe the library doesn't have alcohol. What are your thoughts around our American culture and folks either kind of on this path, to, or already in addiction and then in recovery.
Michelle: I love this topic. Y'all might want to be sitting down,
Barbara: sit down.
Michelle: we'll be real- our society romanticizes alcohol, there are some of the sexiest commercials on TV, around alcohol and all of our social get-togethers and gatherings or center around alcohol. Our fundraisers usually include alcohol. I was the one buying all the drinks all the time. So I had all the friends and I had people like me. And that's what, society told me to do.
Barbara: They liked you and they liked your full bar.
Michelle: They liked me, they liked my full bar and in my sober living, finding community is difficult. I got sober. I lost half of my friends. More than half, because they didn't feel comfortable in inviting me to the girls nights out anymore, that were all around alcohol. Nobody could think of any other activity that didn't include alcohol that would be “fun” Quote unquote fun. So I got left out of a lot of stuff.
Now I'm struggling to be in community with people outside of the program, which thanks be to God that I was connected to some wonderful groups that after the meeting, we would go to the local coffee house where there was live music and it was a safe place to go. So if you were in a community where you have access to resources and career to create these sober, safe places for people like myself or people who don't want to engage in drinking and drugs.
Please put your heads together and be creative and create these social places for us, because we want to have fun too. We're really fun people when we're sober and we're really looking for community and there's not enough of that in our nation right now in our, even in my own town. I'm in a context where if I want to socialize, I have to go to one of the three bars.
So I don't socialize because it's not a safe place for me. I've become an advocate for myself. And when I entered seminary. I thought, for sure this would be the safest place for a person in recovery.
Barbara: That sounds good to me.
Michelle: it's not, because unfortunately we are not exposed to safer spiritual practices; instead there's beer and theology. There are a host of addictions happening. So typical college experience,
Barbara: but not what we'd hope for where you want spiritual safety.
Michelle: there needs to be more emphasis on prayer and spiritual practices and healthy coping skills. These are soon to be clergy and we're already not getting a good, healthy start in how we're dealing with our own stress now.
But what are you going to do when you're dealing with stress and ministry? But my other experience was attending worship in my Bishop's office. It was a one day get together meet and greet each other and mutual support. We had worship. But being offered only wine and they knew I'm an alcoholic. And I had to abstain three years later. I'm still having to remind others If you're going to have worship, you need to have grape juice. And there's also practices within congregations that have not fully embraced having grape juice as an alternative, but let's go one step further.
Don't ask me to walk across the room as I've done in seminary chapel to receive grape juice and be singled out because now I'm different.
Barbara: probably everybody knows you're in recovery, but what if you're kind of like, man, and do I want to go all the way over there for the grape juice? I've had it in the same tray. Like there's a different color, but it's in the same tray so nobody knows
Michelle: I have a local potter who crafted a split chalice for dipping your wafer into. So much change needs to happen. And so much advocacy. So I take my seminary booth stuff and I said, I'll set it up as I'm there. And in the background, had a picture representing my seminary as craft beer of seminaries.
Barbara: So even the language, like why?
Michelle: please don't get me wrong. I love my seminary and I'm not trying to throw them under the bus. This is just the level of education that has not happened and needs to happen
This is my call and serving God in the church and in the world is to be vocal about this and advocate for change advocate for education and advocate. For those of you who are still suffering in silence so that you can come forward and receive the hope a God.
Barbara: when we're talking about what can people of faith or what can congregations do to support people? You talked about needing to learn to love yourself and that you thought, how could God love me when I'm a mess? So then coming to the realization, God can love us in all of our messiness- yes, there is law, but there is gospel, and we're gospel people and we're not throwing the law out.
Michelle: Holy communion is open to everyone. No questions asked. It's not my place to ask It's my place to steward the gifts of that God has given for all. And that's made very clear in our scripture. And when I talk to folks about providing spiritual accompaniments with those in recovery, and I use the word spiritual accompaniment specifically, there has been so much damage done to people in the church. So faith and religion is one expression of spirituality.
There are several expressions of spirituality going to church is just one of them. So when you're providing spiritual accompaniment, please do not tell people their only out is to go to church- go to them. What I love about what's happening pandemic right now is our building doors are closed and we are doing church in the park, outdoor worship, but a lot of people are being creative in where we are understanding that we are church, the building isn't that we are the church, but we have this beautiful opportunity.
Get out on the streets and be Jesus in amongst all those who are suffering and take them the word of God. I just saying, I love you. I'm here for you. I want to hear your story. Let people share their stories and receive it without judgment, without condemnation, without trying to fix it, but just be present.
I have been blessed with so many people that will just sit and listen and wipe my tears and give me a hug. A lot of times, that's just what I need.
The more I sat with this text from the gospel of John, that I realized that Jesus asked for a drink of water from the woman's vessel, from her container. He wanted to take something from her that she was providing.
And how little do we in learning to love ourselves come to the realization that this body, this being is a vessel worthy of caring, love, and nourishment, and the word of God? I would've never seen myself in this role six years ago. Never seen myself worthy to be a vessel of God's living water, but we all are.
Barbara: How about for families who are worried about their loved one, or maybe even a church member- Al-anon is that one place where folks can go to get some support?
Michelle: There's a fine line between loving and enabling. And I've had to learn how not to enable others. And it's hard because you love your person and you want the best for them. And our first thought processes. Okay. I'll just clean that mess up for you. Let's just keep that in the family
Barbara: again and again
Michelle: and again. And there are those that are continually abused either physically, emotionally, verbally by loved ones in addiction for those people may be easier to shut the door, kick you out. but there's all kinds of circumstances that I know addiction causes collateral damage.
Words matter. And time is of the essence for a lot of these people. Do we need to call nine one, one? Do I need to take this person to an emergency room? So learning to tell those signs, working with families. Al-anon is a great resource.
Barbara: I've heard of alcoholics anonymous, so I thought Al-anon is the same thing and it's not, it's for families.
Michelle: www.aa.org is alcoholics anonymous, narcotics anonymous is Na.org. Adultchildren.org
Barbara: I just want to give a shout out because ACOA has alcoholism, but there's some similarities around other types of behaviors, check it out even if you don't think anybody in your family was an alcoholic.
Michelle: Alalteen. There's co-dependence www.Coda.org if you are a clergy a pastor with any type of addiction, I encourage you to visit F R LC, the fellowship of recovering Lutheran clergy.org (www.frlc.org ) you can visit, addiction and faith conference. It's all one word addiction, www.faithconference.com
Barbara: And all of these will be listed on the website for this podcast, which is 40 minutes of faith.com.
Michelle: one book that I recommend everyone pick up and read, Coffee House Contemplative by Jeffrey Nelson is wonderful. Especially if you are struggling with a spiritual disconnect or a poor church experience helps bring you back into a spiritual connection and understanding who God is and your spiritual self. And then The Sober Journey by Dirk foster,
Barbara: Thank you so much for your wisdom and your bravery and your mission to support people with God's love Michelle.
Michelle: It's all with God's grace.
Resources:
John 4:7-15
Michelle welcomes people with addictions and in recovery