Episode 391 - Ericka Anderson, "Freely Sober: Exploring Christian Perspectives on Alcohol"

On this episode of Restoring the Soul, we’re joined by Ericka Anderson, author of Freely Sober: Rethinking Alcohol Through the Lens of Faith. Together, Michael and Ericka open up a thoughtful and grace-filled conversation about the complexities of alcohol use among Christians and the personal journey of overcoming dependence.

Ericka Anderson shares candidly about her own struggles with alcohol, the internal battles that come with trying to moderate or quit drinking, and the lived realities of seeking help within faith communities—where often the only solutions offered are extreme or stigmatizing. Drawing from her experience, research, and journalism background, she explores why so many people, especially women, feel pressure around drinking and why traditional labels like “alcoholic” can do more harm than good.

This episode dives into how self-medication, shame, and self-deception can keep us trapped, and why community, curiosity, and honest reflection—rooted in faith—are key to true freedom. Whether you’re questioning your own relationship with alcohol or supporting a loved one, this conversation offers hope, practical next steps, and a reminder that you’re not alone.

Transcript

Michael John Cusick 0:00

Hello, everybody. Welcome to another edition of the Restoring the Soul podcast. I'm Michael, and my guest today is Erica Anderson. She is the author of Freely Sober Rethinking Alcohol Through the Lens of Faith. And I couldn't think of a of a more important, maybe more pressing issue right now in light of a lot of the counseling work that I do. So Erica, welcome to the podcast.

Ericka Anderson 0:27

Thank you so much for having me on.

Michael John Cusick 0:29

Thanks so much for writing this book. It's really thoughtful. Uh it's filled with grace. And I think the the word that stuck out more than anything else is invitation. It was an invitation to engage with a process of reflection. If you don't mind, I'd like to read the opening paragraph to your book because I think it sets the stage for how this book got written. Would that be okay?

Ericka Anderson 0:53

Yes.

Michael John Cusick 0:55

All right, in your introduction to Freely Sober. Fifteen years ago, I sat in a moonlit room behind a locked door with a bottle of peach schnapps at my feet and a Bible on my desk Googling how to quit drinking. It felt like watching an X-rated movie in secret or hoping a doorbell ringing visitor wouldn't see I was home. Great words. So vivid. What's the story behind that for you?

Ericka Anderson 1:20

Yeah, I, you know, I think as I wrote that, I was really trying to be vivid and I was just like, what was it really like? And I thought back to one of those nights where I was Googling, and I think the uh the Google, am I an alcoholic? Do I have a drinking problem? How do I moderate drinking? I think that's something many, many people can resonate with. A lot of people that are currently sober or sober curious, um, because you want to have some kind of definition, you want to have some kind of black and white understanding of what's going on and what's happening within you, and do you really have a problem? And you want someone to tell you no, really, you want someone to tell you no, you don't have a problem. But um I think if you're Googling that, you at that point you probably do have somewhat of an issue. Um, but you know, that was uh after many years of having an unhealthy relationship with alcohol. It's sort of one of the many phases uh that I sort of label myself in. Um started drinking when I was in high school and um just never had a healthy relationship with alcohol. Like it was always sort of going in a destructive direction, um, whether it was binge drinking in college or within young professionalism, um, to drinking wine every single night as a mom with young kids. And so it had its many iterations, but all of them were pretty negative, pretty destructive for my body, heart, and soul. But um as a Christian and as a person who was always a churchgoer, I really compartmentalized that part of myself and sort of, you know, here's everyday life me that everyone sees. And then over here is this sort of addiction problem that I'm dealing with on the side that no one really knows about or is privy to besides me. But all the while it's sort of eating away at my heart and soul. And I'm not able to grow as a person, as a Christian, um, and really do the things that ultimately God has called me to do until the point where I was able to quit drinking, and that was over a little over five years ago, and have now sort of been on a mission to reach people that were like me, believers, um, who don't feel like they had a lot of resources specifically aimed at them in the sobriety world.

Michael John Cusick 3:30

Yeah, because it feels like uh it's you are an alcoholic or an addict and you're in that category, and then you have to get treatment, which is often in the extreme form, uh inpatient treatment or go to Alcoholics Anonymous or 12-step group. And although those are helpful, that dichotomy or lack of a broader range of options is actually not helpful to people. Talk about that.

Ericka Anderson 3:54

Yeah, I mean, I think they're I think labels are a huge deterrent for people from ever getting help, or you know, because uh so so much of a quote drinking problem is really on a spectrum. You could have more of a dependency issue where you're using it unhealthily in in sort of a specific time frame or a specific reason, or you could be all the way to the kind of person that is drinking every day and feels like they can't stop. But because we have these labels of alcoholic or addict, people don't want to put those labels on themselves. They don't think, you know, going to AA is very intimidating. I know that's always the answer, but to go show up at a place that you've never been and find a secret room with a bunch of strangers that you don't know and just be there, like that is something that I wasn't going to do back then. Um, it took me a really long time to ever go to a meeting. And so I think we have to have these uh in-between beginner steps to take for those that aren't gonna do that. Because if if the only step is go to an AA meeting, like there are people that are never gonna do that and never gonna get help. And so I think having books, having other groups, having um communities and just sort of um mediums where people can just begin to have these conversations is a really important. Otherwise, we're gonna leave people out that feel like they just don't have the courage or they don't have what it takes to step into that.

Michael John Cusick 5:20

Put a theological word on on what you just said, and that is incarnational incarnational, incarnational. I'll just stop there. I was gonna put I was gonna put ITY on the end of that, but I don't think I can pronounce that.

Ericka Anderson 5:32

But that would be too long.

Michael John Cusick 5:33

Yeah. But uh so what you're describing is people need to be met where they are. And one of the things I see in the story of the scriptures with God putting on skin and becoming among us is that he meets us where we are. And he in and too often in our circles of faith and church, etc., we're we're trying to preach to people for where they should be and not where they are. And that's one of the things I love about your book as well. It's like here's this invitation to look at where you are, and as you open the conversation in response to those first three sentences in your book, you didn't say, I realized I was an alcoholic or I took a test and it said that I was 100% an addict. You said my life wasn't working, that my my behavior and my relationship with alcohol was actually getting in the way of the life that I actually wanted. And I think that's when people go from, oh, this like feels like something I, you know, am required to do to be good enough or to, you know, be a spiritual Christian, to something like this is holding me back from abundance and from freedom and from joy and from feeling like the kind of mom or parent that I want to be.

Ericka Anderson 6:44

Yeah, no, I mean that's the that's the whole reason I titled the book Freely Sober, which could be taken two ways. I mean, a lot of people have taken it to mean like you're free when you're sober, which is true. Um, but freely sober really uh is I'm intending to convey the fact that we can choose this freely without feeling compelled, without feeling like this is something we must do as Christians or we must do as the kind of person that we want to be necessarily. Um it's it's a choice that we can make as educated people that have really um kind of explored what the problem is with drinking in our lives. Not just that it's bad and that's the end of the story, but um, why is it bad and what is it keeping us from? And what myth, like what myths do we believe about it? Um, are we kind of living our lives according to lies that we think about alcohol? And if you don't investigate some of the things that you think and the experiences that you've had, um you might just keep on going on without realizing that there are things you can do to empower yourself to step out of that if you think this is gonna be a better thing for my life. Um, and I think people are afraid to investigate that sometimes. They're afraid what the answer is going to be. Um, but they what they don't realize, I think, is that sometimes the answer um is going to be the empowerment itself that you need. Um you're it's going to draw you closer to God. You're going to um to get what you need out of that exploration, but you can't figure that out unless you actually take the journey to do so.

Michael John Cusick 8:15

Yeah. Yeah. Um, in my counseling work, um, I've seen, I've seen since uh just at the beginning of the pandemic, just an explosion in the amount of believers that are drinking uh to excess. And what I mean by that is to a point where they regret their behavior and they're questioning it. And then I've also seen, probably post-pandemic or maybe in the middle of it, this movement of people that are looking at the health reasons, not addiction per se, and that it's uh fundamentally problematic. But more and more Christians I'm hearing refer to, you know, alcohol as poison and toxic and things like that. This brings up the issue, you know, that it's the life, it's the I've been a Christian for 40 years and and this debate has been around should Christians even drink? And that's the name of one of your chapters. So let's not spend a lot of time on this because, you know, if it was resolved by now, uh we're not going to resolve it in five minutes. But how do you address that? The idea of, well, I'm a Christian, should I even drink?

Ericka Anderson 9:21

Yeah, I think in that chapter, I go kind of a little bit into a history lesson of what alcohol was in biblical times and what it is today, which was a little different. Um, some of the alcohol back then was um was much less potent. Sometimes it wasn't potent at all. Um, a lot of times more alcoholic wine and things that was used more in just celebratory cases. Today, of course, like so many other things in the world, alcohol is like to the nth extreme in terms of like what's inside a bottle of alcohol and what we think is acceptable to drink. Like what is a portion size? Um, people are often miscalculating how much they're drinking just based on that. Um, but I think uh should Christians even drink, I I do believe it's a personal freedom issue, as so, you know, as many churches and many Christians um believe. Um, but I think since we've put it into the the category of personal freedom, we have like completely neglected talking about it at all. Um almost like, okay, well, this is your choice, so whatever. But churches and um I think the Christian community at large sort of never gets into specifics because it is not a black and white issue, and because it's not like, well, this is sin or this is not sin, which is why we, I think, have a responsibility as individuals to to kind of hash this out in our own lives and pay attention to how we're using alcohol, how we're drinking alcohol, and how it's affecting us. Um, we have a responsibility to what we put in our bodies and to the choices that we make, you know, as a result of those things. Um, and we need to be attentive to that and we need to be intentional about that. And, you know, if you don't think that alcohol is causing you any issue, any discernment problems, any kind of problem in your life, you probably maybe you're fine. But if it's causing you to question, if if it's causing you to see that your discernment is down or your judgment is down or question the amount that you're having, um, that is worth thinking about because that is, I believe, the Holy Spirit convicting you to think about this because of the seriousness of what this substance is. We look at alcoholics, it's just a drink, right? But it's it's really not. It is it is a drink that has uh ruined families. It has, you know, kids have been taken away from their parents for generations. It's been a curse. We have millions of people, just an al-Anon, which is, you know, for just family members of people that suffer from alcoholism. And so this is not something to take lightly as a Christian. Um, and so I just think we need a lot more attentiveness to how this is used in our families and our lives and our churches and and and then some.

Michael John Cusick 11:58

I'm going a little bit sequentially through the chapters here, but you are a woman, and I didn't know that the book, and you correct me if I'm wrong, but that the book is actually addressed at women, and yet it's very helpful for me in the categories, and I'm gonna pass on some of the process later in the book about how to begin to reflect on this. But you wrote a chapter called The Pressures That Women Face Around Alcohol.

Ericka Anderson 12:23

Yeah. Yeah, sure. So I mean it is, yes, targeted at women. However, there's a lot of great, I mean, there's a lot of journalism in here, um, a lot of just great information for anyone. Um, I think targeting it at women is sort of like, well, you got to market the book somehow, right? So women, we we chose women and I'm a woman. But um what I will say about that chapter is just the way that alcohol affects, number one, the way that alcohol affects a woman's body is different than the way it affects a man's body. Um, and recent research has shown just like the long-term effects of alcohol consumption, regular alcohol consumption, um, is more detrimental to a woman long term in terms of how it's connected to cancer, heart disease, all of these different things. I mean, it affects men too, but it just affects women even more so. Um, so that's one thing. Um, the other thing is women are also affected more like short term, like they're going to have higher effects in terms of the hangover, how they are um, how they're affected in the immediacy, the way that the it chemically gets into their body. So women, I mean, it's it's dangerous for both in this way, but women just have an extra sort of um vulnerability to alcohol. Uh, so that's one piece of it. The other piece of it is um just the way that uh women's bodies are wired biologically. When the one of the most interesting things that I uh read and wrote about in the book is the fact that women in high pressure positions, like lawyers, neurosurgeons, things like that, are much more likely to be addicted than men in the same uh profession. So if you were to look at, you know, male and female neurosurgeons, you're gonna see that, you know, 30% more of the women are the ones that are addicted, you know, versus the men. Um and I just thought that was really interesting, the way that women maybe are more prone to addiction in these high pressure situations. Um, and then the third piece of that I would say um is just that when you look at women, and some of this is anecdotal and this is sort of a cultural conversation, but women tend to be multitasking with more stuff on their plate in terms of the family, um, child rearing, um, and just sort of taking on more things in the course of their life. And because of that, may be more likely to reach for something to numb out because they are trying to do too much. And so those are sort of the three pieces that come into play in that chapter for how alcohol can be affecting women more deeply than men. Not that it doesn't affect men, but just you know, the distinction.

Michael John Cusick 14:49

Yeah, so helpful. And I appreciated your journalistic uh bent and integrity throughout the whole book because this isn't just your story. This is not a memoir. You dug deep into those kinds of facts, and your background is in journalism. You've you've written articles in the New York Times, Christianity Today, and other places, and the writing is wonderful, clear, succinct. Uh, so many, so many books you can get bogged down into. You talk about self-medication. Most people are probably familiar with that idea, but you call it the self-medication delusion. What's delusional about the self-medication idea?

Ericka Anderson 15:23

Well, it's not actually medicine, so that's one thing. But I found that self-medication was the term that resonated with me the most. Like I still would feel very uncomfortable saying, hi, I'm Erica, and I'm an alcoholic, or I'm an addict. Like those still sort of just like don't feel right for me. Um, I don't get so bogged down in labels, and I will use those if it makes sense in the context, but um, I really felt like self-medication was was the word to describe how I was using alcohol. And I I really um focus on that term using um because that's what I was doing. I say, you know, I would take a Tylenol for a headache and I would drink wine for my anxiety. And that's kind of how it was. It was sort of like come home and I have that feeling, that feeling, that feeling of discontent or overwhelm. And it's like if I could just, you know, as soon as I can get that wine going, um, that's going to sort of stop the feeling. Um, like the Tylenol would stop the headache. And I feel that a lot of people, that's how it starts, or that's where it ends up. Um, it's sort of a medication. And in an in a culture where we are really addicted to so many kinds of like pharmaceutical pills, and there's always an answer to everything in a pill form. Um, it makes sense that people would be using alcohol in that way. It doesn't even seem wrong. It's sort of, and we're even told to do that, or even told to go home and relax with a glass of wine. I've even been told by a doctor who didn't realize I had an issue, but was just trying to be kind, like, hey, maybe just like go home and have a glass of wine. It's like, that's not the answer. Um, that is a recipe for training yourself to turn to something that is going to mess up the neural pathways in your brain, um, to where you need more next time and to where that's the only thing that um sort of gets you to the point that you want to be. And um it just begins to distort the way God made our bodies to naturally heal and to naturally find um sort of solutions to these problems. And not only that, to like maybe put something down, or maybe you know, you you are on a path doing something that you're not supposed to be doing, but you're using the wine to numb out and not really recognizing the signals that something needs to change.

Michael John Cusick 18:17

You have a chapter also on control. And I think this was one of the chapters I could identify the most because for so long as a Christian, my approach to dealing with what I did have to come to terms with as addictions, uh, that it was there's something wrong with me that I can't control this. And if I just had more faith, if I just trusted God, then He would give me the strength. And yet we know through many of the models of recovery for the person that is an actual addict that one perspective, and it is just a perspective, is admitting your powerlessness. So talk about this idea of control in general. You call it bad theology, and then what that looked like in your journey.

Ericka Anderson 19:02

Yeah, so it it really was so much. I can just look back and I can almost viscerally feel myself like sitting there doing a morning devotion and just being like, okay, if I just really ingrain this scripture in my head, I'm gonna be able to like push through and like, you know, I'm gonna white knuckle my way through not drinking today and and get there, and constantly blaming myself, a lot of blame and shame for not living up to the faith I claimed to live by, and um feeling like if I just had enough self-discipline, if I just had enough um willpower, willpower is the other word, um, to do this, I could, you know, I could overcome. And it was really just so much putting it all on me. And so then when I would fail, the failure was also all on me. And so it was this very uh destructive cycle of honestly focusing, it's really a focus on yourself too much. It's like not looking at God enough um to recognize that, you know, he says in our weakness he is stronger, which is, you know, one of my favorite verses to go back to. Um, and and I wasn't allowing that to be true in my life. And I wasn't um, I was putting it all on me. And, you know, like you said, in AA, it's you know, we are powerless over this thing. And there's a reason that that's the first step because um you have to, you have to recognize that, which is really hard because you want to control everything. Like as human beings, like we just are like, well, you know, here are the 10 ways that I do this and I'm gonna check this off, and then the next thing, you know, but we we can't do it and we do have to allow God to step in. Um, and that's not a cut and dry thing to know how to do. But it requires sort of like a mental shift of stepping back, and I even say, like symbolically, or actually getting on your knees and like lifting your hands up and just being like, I can't do this anymore. And um, it reminds me so much of how, you know, we often talk about how Christians in persecuted nations or Christians who live in extreme poverty are like so faithful and so close to God in a way that we aren't here in America. And it's because they many times, it's because like what other choice do they have but to to believe that God is going to be there and rescue them? Um, and that's kind of the position we have to take, like at the end of our rope here when we're not, when it we can't do it on our own, like there's nothing left. And I don't know why we wait till the end to do that. Um, but ultimately you get there. And and I ultimately I got there. And I now am much more able to um more healthily think about not only this, but you know, other things that I struggle with in life. Um, and so we have to recognize that um it's it's human we're fallen humans and uh we need God.

Michael John Cusick 21:49

I will on this podcast frequently quote uh Dr. Gerald May, the late psychiatrist who was also a spiritual director. He ran the Shalem Institute in Maryland for a number of years. He wrote a book among many called Addiction and Grace, and he lists five characteristics of addiction. This was not uh per se a clinical description of addiction, but he said that the chief characteristic of addiction is self-deception. So, what's the role of this idea of self-deception, which the scriptures talk a lot about, right? Don't be deceived. Don't be deceived. We hear that in first John, we see that in James chapter one. And um how do we how do we utilize God and community to break through self-deception? This idea that we can't really see what we need to see?

Ericka Anderson 22:37

Yeah, well, I mean, I think if you are Locked in uh your own mind and you are not sharing your struggles with anyone, like that really is like a toxic thing. Like a like you're seeing things through your own prism over and over and over again, and they're never seen clearly as they would be, you know, were they talked through with someone else, or um sort of like if you were looking at someone else's problems, like you don't see your own problems in the same way. So I think, I mean, obviously, I think God created us for community. I think for many reasons, whether that's coming together just to worship together, or coming together to help help each other heal and and and see God's truth in other people. I think um, I think God works so beautifully in um the church, in the local church, in how he um can express his truth and express his love to us through other people. Um and so that's why the turning point for me, not knowing this at the time would be the turning point, but looking back was the moment that I first shared my struggle with my small group as a prayer request. I felt really nervous and I was like, I actually was, I say I felt stupid because I was like, I feel weird even saying this out loud. Um, but I look back at that moment and see it truly as the real turning point for me in finding full healing. Um, even though at the time I just thought, oh, I'm finally gonna share this. I didn't realize how powerful it was going to be. And the moment that you share something, um, this is something we hear a lot, is that um is that shame cannot thrive in the light. And we, you know, are the darkness and the lies that we believe about ourselves and about the addiction become exposed when you bring them out into the light. And they can't, they can't survive there. Um, and so the moment that you do that is the moment things begin to change. And so that was one pivotal moment for me. Another pivotal moment for me was sharing with my church family and then also uh joining a group, a support group online, which was huge for me because it took this. I don't know, I almost felt like I was, it was, it almost feels like alcohol issues are more shameful than another issue. Like, sure, you overeat, but like I drink it, like I have a problem with alcohol, as well as the stereotypes that people have about people that have a drinking problem. But when I entered these meetings, even though they were secular meetings, um, you know, I was introduced to all this spectrum of people on all different in all different stages of recovery. And I started to realize how um I wasn't alone, I wasn't weird. Um, there were so many people that were battling this each day with me, and God used that so much to strengthen me. Um, and that was when I really, really got on a pathway to being able to do this um for good.

Michael John Cusick 25:29

I know that this term is uh likely overused. I hear it a lot, sober curious. So for somebody who is sober curious, for whatever reason, uh whether it's that it's holding them back or whether they just think there may be health issues or their friends are getting sober, what would you say are the first steps? Because there's a lot of online resources. And uh, in the back of your book, I loved how you had all kinds of books, Annie Grace, who I'm familiar with, and and other people that have written about their journey. What are the first steps and where would you direct people?

Ericka Anderson 26:04

I would say if you're sober curious, to just to follow that. Um, don't push it off, don't push it aside. I think there's a reason that that's coming into your mind and don't put any pressure on yourself. Um, you know, follow that curiosity without expectation. Don't tell yourself you're gonna have to quit drinking at the end of this, that's gonna put you off. Uh, that road will put some people off. It certainly would have put me off. Um, you kind of just have to walk walk into it um with an open mind, an open heart. I would say pray that God would like sort of lead you in the right direction and open your heart to what He has for you. Um, because you know, everybody that quits drinking or is on the other side of this will tell you it felt impossible to do that before. And so before, in the before, it does feel impossible and it feels scary and maybe like something you don't want to do. Um, but just when you walk forward with the possibility of what God could show you in that um, you know, kind of hands open, like He will provide what I need when I need it, type of mindset, I think that's that's the way to go. And again, going back to why I called this book Freely Sober, um, it wasn't until I realized I had a choice that I could actually choose it, um, choose it freely. Because there was a period of time where I was struggling so much and I would almost I would question my own salvation and I would think, am I living in unrepentant sin every time I drink? And I would even get on an airplane and feel like, what if this plane crashes and I'm like, I I drank before I got in this plane. Like I had these very irrational thoughts, but I had to come to grips with the fact that that I am saved by grace. And um, you know, the struggle, we are going to struggle throughout our lives. But um, you know, my whether or not I get sober and never drink again for the rest of my life is my salvation is not dependent on that, even as I should faithfully continue to pursue what God has for me. That kind of went off kilter of your question about sober curious. But I would just say there's just so much out there these days. Um, whether it's from the wellness side um or not, like there are a lot of great podcasts, ton of great books. Like I said, I have recommendations in the book. I also have um a place where you can go. I have like a free download at sobrietycurious.com where you can just like go download some of my best recommendations and resources. Um, and just like let it let yourself explore a little bit without putting any kind of expectations on it and just see what you learn. Uh, one of the things I say about Freely Sober my book is that uh I I promise by the end of this book you won't ever think about alcohol in the same way again. Um, and that's not because I'm saying you'll get sober. It's because I'm saying when you know better, when you when you know something that you didn't know before, you're not gonna forget that. And that information and that knowledge is going to probably direct you to make different choices. Not because you have to, but because now you want to, because you've learned something about this that you didn't know before.

Michael John Cusick 29:05

The book is called Freely Sober: Rethinking Alcohol Through the Lens of Faith by Erica Anderson. And Erica, thank you for your work. Thank you for uh how this is gonna help so many people to rethink and think about their relationship with alcohol and for your time today on the podcast. Blessings to you.

Ericka Anderson 29:23

Thank you so much.

Michael John Cusick 29:26

So we've wrapped up another episode of Restoring the Soul. We want you to know that Restoring the Soul is so much more than a podcast. In fact, the heart of what we have done for nearly 20 years is intensive counseling. When you can't wait months or years to get out of the rut you're in, our intensive counseling programs in Colorado allow you to experience deep change in half day blocks over two weeks. To learn more, visit restoring the soul dot com. That's restoring the soul.com.