The Bourbon in the Coffee

Nobody starts out hiding it.

It starts as a drink after work, which is the most ordinary thing in the world. Then it's two, because one stopped doing what one used to do. Then it's earlier, because the afternoon got long. Then one day a man pours a little bourbon into his coffee before he goes and does something completely normal, and he does not think of himself as a man with a problem. He thinks of himself as a man getting through a Tuesday.

That's how it goes. Not a decision. A slope.

Men waste years arguing with themselves about the amount, because the amount is arguable. Everyone knows a guy who drinks more.

So start with the hiding instead.

The second there's a bottle somewhere your wife doesn't know about, the second you're doing math about what's in the recycling, the second you have a mouthwash routine, you have your answer about who is running who. Nobody hides something that isn't running them. You don't hide your coffee.

But hear the other half, because the hiding is a tell and not a screen. If you drink heavily in front of everybody and hide nothing, you are not in the clear. You are just honest about it. The amount still does what the amount does to a body, and a man who never hid a bottle in his life can still be in real trouble.

Here's the sentence that a man needs, and Paul wrote it to a church full of people arguing about their rights.

"All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything." (1 Corinthians 6:12)

Notice he doesn't take the argument you expected. He doesn't argue the point at all. He isn't standing there calling you a drunk over a beer at a wedding.

He moves the whole question somewhere a man cannot argue his way out of. Not "is this allowed." **Who is running who.**

And he answers his own question three verses later. "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body." (1 Corinthians 6:19 to 20)

You are not your own. Somebody already paid for you. So the only question left is whether a bottle gets to act like it owns what Christ bought.

That question has one honest answer and you already know yours.

Before I give you the test, read this part first, because the order matters. If you have been drinking heavily for a long time, stopping cold on your own can be dangerous, and in some cases it can kill you. That is not a reason to keep drinking. It is a reason to have a doctor in this with you rather than doing it alone in a garage on willpower.

With that said, here is the test. Watch what happens when you go a stretch without it. Either it's nothing, or the days become the only thing you can think about. That answer doesn't require anybody's permission or a diagnosis. It requires the guts to look at it.

Now, the two lies. Both of them keep men in it for years.

The first: I have it handled. Told most often by the man doing the most concealing. Handled things don't need managing.

The second is worse, and it wears a Christian coat: if I were really walking with God, I would just stop.

So he waits until he's strong enough to quit before he tells anyone he's drinking, which is exactly as sensible as waiting until you can breathe on your own before you call the ambulance.

Hear this plainly. Your sin does not disqualify you from getting help, and neither does it disqualify you from Christ. That's the whole point of Him. A man does not get sober and then come to God, cleaned up and presentable. He comes as he is, on a Tuesday, with bourbon in the coffee, and God does not flinch. He has never once been surprised by what a man is carrying.

But grace is not a reason to keep this in the dark. It's the reason you can finally turn a light on it.

And be honest about what another year of the dark costs. It costs your liver, and it costs your marriage, and it costs the version of your kids' childhood where their father was actually in the room. God's patience with you is not the same thing as time standing still.

So here is the one thing to go do, and it's the smallest real move there is.

**Tell one person today, and make one call.**

The telling is not the whole story and not a plan. One person, out loud: "I'm drinking more than I've told anybody."

And hear the next part, because it's the part men skip. Telling somebody is the door, not the finish line. It is the beginning of getting help and it is not itself the help. If you only do one of the two today, make it the call.

**If this is you, call SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-4357.** That's the one for drinking. Free, confidential, answered 24 hours a day, every day of the year, and it will point you at real treatment near you.

**If tonight is darker than that, if some part of you wants out, call or text 988 instead. That's the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.** Two numbers, two different nights. Use the one that fits.

And one thing that is not optional. If the people in your house have learned to be careful around you when you have been drinking, that is not a thing to sort out later. That is today's call, and it is yours to make, not hers. Get yourself help and get between your family and the man you are when you drink.

I'm not writing this to shame you. Shame is a big part of how the bottle got into the coffee.

You've been managing this alone and telling yourself that's strength. It isn't. It's a man carrying something in the dark, and the only thing keeping it heavy is that nobody else has hold of it yet.

Tell one person today. Then make the call.