Coming Clean Quotes

“I am learning forgiveness is not often a single, shining event but a continual, repetitive act. A letting go, followed by another, and another.”
― Seth Haines, Coming Clean: A Story of Faith

“recovery will be tied to routine; risk of relapse tied to noise. God is hard enough to find in the quietness.”
― Seth Haines, Coming Clean: A Story of Faith

“Forgiveness, I am learning, cannot stand as a single, once-and-for-all event. Every morning brings a fresh coffeepot, and a fresh chance to get back to this messy and necessary work.”
― Seth Haines, Coming Clean: A Story of Faith

“Somewhere, my thirst for distraction from the pains and poverties of life grew into a sweltering, parching thing. There are always feelings to be numbed, anxieties to tamp down, and panic attacks to avoid. The people of the Shire knew this, and so do I. I suppose I could have turned to things eternal—didn’t Jesus promise us rest?—but we seem to have a way of losing ourselves in our manmade salves—the bottle, the pill, the cheeseburger, self-inflicted starvation. I suppose we’re all drunk on something.”
― Seth Haines, Coming Clean: A Story of Faith

“To ask for relief from God—this is human. To pray through the pain, to live in it instead of numbing yourself to it, to subjugate your will to the will of God, even in the face of potential suffering—this is what it means to be like Jesus. This is what it means to yield to the mystery.”
― Seth Haines, Coming Clean: A Story of Faith

“I have been told that this kind of unraveling of nerves is natural, that It'll be around for a while. But if this is meant as consolation, it brings no cheer.”
― Seth Haines, Coming Clean: A Story of Faith

“Forgiveness, both its extension and receipt, requires a lower, humble position before both God and man. Forgiveness, both its extension and receipt, is not the natural inclination of man, and I must fight for it.”
― Seth Haines, Coming Clean: A Story of Faith

“I’ve become dependent upon something other than the God I claim.”
― Seth Haines, Coming Clean: A Story of Faith

“Perfection is an illusion, a glittering plastic package of false hope. Karl Marx was wrong: it’s the illusion of perfection that’s the opiate of the masses.”
― Seth Haines, Coming Clean: A Story of Faith

“We, though, cling to the wrongs wrought against us. We cuddle our pain like a newborn pup, hold to bitterness against our brothers and sisters, our mothers and fathers. We internalize it, adopt it as part of our identity. We nurture loyalty to our wounds, count it as some grand virtue of being human. Yes, we develop a fierce affection for our poison.”
― Seth Haines, Coming Clean: A Story of Faith

“Not every pain is the result of ill intent. There are fewer sociopaths and more broken, confused, flailing folks than any of us would like to admit.”
― Seth Haines, Coming Clean: A Story of Faith

“This, I think, is the hallmark of childhood faith. Untouched by pain, by death, we see with the simplest eyes, take things at face value. We are most alive.”
― Seth Haines, Coming Clean: A Story of Faith

“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will” (Rom. 12:2).”
― Seth Haines, Coming Clean: A Story of Faith

“But the human heart is an awkward mess, and the brain even more so, at least as far as mine are concerned.”
― Seth Haines, Coming Clean: A Story of Faith

“recovery will be tied to routine; risk of relapse tied to noise. God is hard enough to find in the quietness. In the noise, it seems an impossibility. And the specter of this impossibility brings epiphany: the bottle is a negative pole and I am positive; I cannot control the attraction.”
― Seth Haines, Coming Clean: A Story of Faith

“We’re all alone together, no matter what shiny face we might be wearing. We are all just people trying to work out our first, best, and only possibility.”
― Seth Haines, Coming Clean: A Story of Faith

“Sin management without redemption of life’s pain is a losing proposition.”
― Seth Haines, Coming Clean: A Story of Faith

“There are so many distractions, I think. Commerce, materialism, entertainment, the endless chase of perfection—aren’t these also ways to avoid the restlessness rattling in our bones? Aren’t these just another way to numb? Aren’t these another sleight of hand? We become entranced people, zombies longing for the stuff of earth without thought of the truest perfect—the unity of home.”
― Seth Haines, Coming Clean: A Story of Faith

“This is a book about alcohol; you can practically smell the gin coming off the pages, the lime, hear the ice clinking, the crack of the new bottle opening. But it’s not a book about alcohol. It’s about whatever thing you use to cover over the pain—sex, food, shopping, perfectionism, cleaning, drugs—whatever you hold out like an armor to protect yourself instead of allowing yourself and your broken heart to be fully seen and fully tended to by God.”
― Seth Haines, Coming Clean: A Story of Faith

“I've found comfort in the notion that David-man after God's own heart-was often tortured and confused.”
― Seth Haines, Coming Clean: A Story of Faith

“Wasn't it Jesus who noted that children have special insight? (Luke 18:17) Perhaps it'd do me good to climb a few trees and listen more for the wind these days.”
― Seth Haines, Coming Clean: A Story of Faith

“It's in the doubt, the ways we murder God when we most need him.”
― Seth Haines, Coming Clean: A Story of Faith

“Dependence, see, is not always so ill-placed. Dependence can be a good and holy thing.”
― Seth Haines, Coming Clean: A Story of Faith

“If I cry for help, will the wind hear me? If I turn my thoughts upward, will there be the invisible father? Will he be here? I'm still not sure I'm ready to find out. I'm not quite sure whether I'm ready to be unstuck.”
― Seth Haines, Coming Clean: A Story of Faith

“Here's what I'm not supposed to say: sometimes I do not see an active God in the world around me,”
― Seth Haines, Coming Clean: A Story of Faith

“I suppose we're all drunk on something.”
― Seth Haines, Coming Clean: A Story of Faith

“the toasting of joys and the drowning of sorrows are closer kin than one might imagine.”
― Seth Haines, Coming Clean: A Story of Faith

“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Visit me in my affliction; give me a sense of oneness in you, a home in you. Do not let me escape.”
― Seth Haines, Coming Clean: A Story of Faith

“Moderation in all things, including moderation.” This is the logic of a future addict. Looking back on it, perhaps I should have resorted to another quote by Wilde, who perhaps was speaking with the wisdom of retrospection himself: “Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.”
― Seth Haines, Coming Clean: A Story of Faith

“In Mark, Jesus taught, “And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins” (Mark 11:25). In Luke, after his teachings on mercy, Jesus preached, “Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven” (Luke 6:37).”
― Seth Haines, Coming Clean: A Story of Faith