"How could you do that?"

For anyone that has ever done something really, really stupid.

The pain crying out in my wife’s eyes was deafening. Her mouth was silent, but her eyes — those eyes — said it all.

As I’m writing my new book about being a Christian who became an alcoholic (not the other way around) I’m laying it all out there for you. I believe strongly that to understand the incredible work God has done in my life and where he has brought me, you have to understand where I was and how bad it had gotten. Chapter 3, then, is titled, “A Slow Fade.” I go into excruciating (but not gratuitous) detail about how addiction manifested in my life.

As I was writing that chapter recently, though, I realized there may have been something I hadn’t told my wife, Brett, about. Not because I was trying to hide it, but more so because I had tried (successfully) to forget about it. But when I sat down to write, it came back to me. So I wrote it out. I knew, though, that I needed to make sure Brett understood. That she was not surprised by anything in the book.

So a few Sundays ago, …