Staring into the abyss.

“I drank not to party, but to annihilate an emptiness inside me.”

“When you stare into the abyss, don’t be shocked at what stares back at you.”

That’s how I open the latest episode of the “Confessions of a Christian Alcoholic” podcast, and it couldn’t be more fitting. This week, I sit down with deep thinker, theologian, and recovering alcoholic

Griffin Gooch

—whose journey into addiction began not with trauma or peer pressure, but with an overwhelming sense of meaninglessness. A nihilist by 13, Griffin plunged into alcohol in a desperate attempt to numb the philosophical weight of a broken world.

But it was in a jail cell—after multiple OWIs—that he finally encountered the God who battles emptiness. In this deep conversation, Griffin opens up about why alcohol stuck when other drugs didn’t, how his analytical mind became both a curse and a calling, and how community, confession, and spiritual rhythms have sustained him in sobriety.

Whether you're an overthinker, an academic, or someone silently struggling, Griffin's story reminds us that even intellectual doubt and …