Editor’s Note:
Every month, I share something from the heart—sometimes light, sometimes heavy, but always rooted in recovery. This month’s reflection is deeply personal. It’s about my journey back to faith and what it’s meant for my sobriety.

I know we all walk different spiritual paths, and that’s something I honor. If you’re curious about how we support people who choose a secular approach to sobriety, I invite you to visit our page on sober support without spiritual pressure.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

I am Bill…

After decades of anger, distance, and self-guided spirituality, I’ve started going back to Mass—once a week, every week—for the last three months. It’s sticking.

Why does that matter?
Because I care, and I believe God does, too.

For a long time, I rejected being Catholic. I was hurt and angry at the Church. Embarrassed by its scandals. If anyone asked, I’d say, “I was raised Catholic,” but I didn’t claim to be one anymore. I’d say something like, “I believe in God, but it’s between me and Him.”

Since I was very young, I’ve believed in God. It just made sense to my young brain. As I grew up, that belief in a higher power and a creator only deepened. It helped that much of my social life was tied to church and, by extension, faith.

I was in our church choir at age eight. I couldn’t sing well, but I was loud. I made great friends there. Fifty-five years later, my closest friends are still some of the kids I sang with—and the grown-ups who watched over us in that choir.

It was a men’s and boys’ choir. When I turned thirteen, I joined the men’s section, and eventually, the bell choir. I was immersed in church life.

Faith continued to grow in me. It always made sense that there was a God. I couldn’t believe this planet, with its creatures, ecosystems, and delicate balance of life, was all by chance.

When scientists claimed there was no proof of God, it sounded to me like they were promoting their own far-fetched ideas. That there’s no ultimate design? That seems silly—sorry, atheists. I love you and respect you, and I hope you respect my beliefs, too. But for me, logic supports a creator.

Here’s just one example: the A.A. Big Book. I find it hard to believe that two drunks wrote a book over 80 years ago that would go on to save millions of lives—and that divine intervention wasn’t somehow involved.

So what happened?
Well, if you don’t know what rocked the Catholic Church in the early 2000s, you’ll have to Google it. I’m not giving that any space here.

Two things brought me back to my Catholic roots.

First, my best friend—yes, one of the choir kids—who never strayed from his faith, gave me a book. He and his wife live their beliefs “in all their affairs,” a phrase we use in A.A. to describe walking your spiritual talk in every part of your life, not just when it’s convenient. The book was A Letter to a Suffering Church: A Bishop Speaks on the Sexual Abuse Crisis. In it, the author encourages Catholics not to walk away, but to stay and to fight for the Church against the evil that had overtaken good men. The book didn’t completely change my mind, but it opened a door. And not just any door—more like those floor-to-ceiling glass walls in fancy Hawaiian homes, the ones that tuck away completely so the whole room becomes open air, letting you step right out onto the sand. It was that kind of opening. Spacious. Unexpected. Transformative.

With my anger softened, I became Catholic Light—not to be confused with Cafeteria Catholic. I wasn’t picking and choosing doctrine. I just wasn’t paying attention to anything the Church had to say. I had faith, but not religion. I was spiritual, my way, with no structure or direction. I believed in God, but on my own terms.

To be honest, I looked at my Catholic friends and envied their faith. I envied the guidance and grounding their religion gave them. But I told myself I was too smart (read: self-centered), too busy (read: full of excuses), too sure I had a direct line to God (ego), and too strong to need a church community (lack of humility).

Then God sent me a call I couldn’t hang up on. My liver stopped working because I drank too much. That’s a story for another time. For now, let’s stick with the part where I found my way back to the Church.

I’m proud that even then, I trusted that God had a plan. I didn’t know what it was, but I was okay with whatever happened. I was ready to die. But then something shifted: I couldn’t leave my wife alone. I told God that if it were up to me, I wanted to live. But I’d accept His will, either way. And I meant it. I didn’t beg for my life—I prayed for my wife’s happiness.

Funny enough, the thing that brought me all the way back to Catholicism wasn’t officially religious at all—it was Alcoholics Anonymous.

A.A. insists it’s not a religious organization, and that’s true. You don’t need to believe in any specific version of God. Your “higher power” can be anything greater than you. That openness is what made it possible for me to reconnect with my faith in the first place. Ironically, the most nontraditional spiritual tool I’ve ever used has done more for my Catholicism than anything since my mom.

I began working the Twelve Steps. The first three can be summed up by a simple prayer I heard somewhere along the way:
 “I can’t. He can. So I’ll let Him.”
That’s really all we Catholics need to know, isn’t it?

When I was a kid, I heard a priest say, “All for the love of you, my God.” I started saying it too, probably ten times a day for 40 years.

But now? I realize it was mostly lip service. God knew the truth even when I didn’t. All for the love of God? That’s more of a Mother Teresa thing. That’s not me. Not yet, anyway.

But I’ll tell you what I can do: I can live by “Thy will be done.” That one, I can get behind.

The Big Book says, “We are not saints. The point is that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines.”
 That, I can do.

As I moved forward in recovery, I saw how central forgiveness is to sobriety. Holding onto resentment is just renting your sobriety—you won’t own it until you let that stuff go.

How do I let go? I do what A.A. and the Church both suggest: I pray for the people who’ve hurt me. I look for my part in the pain. There’s always something. Even if it’s just holding onto anger, or failing to pray for someone, I have a part.

And slowly, as I started living more like a sober man, I started living more like a Catholic again. I prayed more. I listened more. I walked into a church one day, not angry at the priest on the altar for the actions of others. I listened to the Word. I was moved. I felt something I hadn’t in years—faith, without the filter of resentment.

I told my very Catholic friend about this, and he was nothing but supportive, just like he had been when I was lost. He always knew I’d find my way back, and he was right. Now, I go to church every week. If I can go to five A.A. meetings a week, I can go to Mass once.

I go on Tuesdays instead of Sundays. There’s a reason, but that’s another story. It’s not about avoiding scandal or old anger—I’ve put those resentments to rest. Those responsible will meet their Maker. It’s not my job to judge. It’s my job to pray for them, and for God to restore them to who He meant them to be before evil got in the way.

I love Mass now. My parish has a school, so the kids are there during weekday Masses. It’s a joy to hear them sing. Every Tuesday, we sing Immaculate Mary as the recessional hymn. And look at that—I’m a “we” again at church. I didn’t think I’d ever say that.

Immaculate Mary has always had special meaning for me because my mom loved the Blessed Virgin deeply. The first time I heard that song again, I saw those kids turn toward the statue of Mary, and I felt the peace in that sanctuary. Tears came to my eyes. I knew I was in the right place. I felt my mom’s hand on my shoulder, from heaven. It took a while, but Mom, I made it back.

I’ve come full circle.

I still need to go to confession. Even when I was a young, committed Catholic, I never liked that ritual. It’s not about telling the priest my sins—that’s easy enough. It’s the idea of a man delivering my penance. But I’ll find the divine in that. I will.

In A.A., the Fourth Step is a moral inventory. The Fifth Step is sharing it with God and another human being. Kind of like confession, but we usually share it with a sponsor. And no, they don’t hand out ten Hail Marys and fifteen Our Fathers—but they do tell you to read the Big Book. It’s not penance, exactly, but it sure feels like it sometimes. And like penance, when you finish it—if you’ve been truly honest—you feel free.

I’ve loved the Church. I’ve hated it. I’ve flirted with it. I’ve made excuses. But the truth is, the Church doesn’t demand anything from me that I can’t give. If I perceive flaws in it, that’s my opportunity to reflect on my part in that disappointment.

At its heart, the Church is about Jesus Christ. And my job is to stay devoted to Him. If anything gets in the way of that, it’s on me—and I owe God an amends.

I’ve made those amends. To God. To His Son. To the Holy Spirit. And every day, I rejoice that I am one of God’s kids, playing in the sandbox with the rest of His children.

At A.A. meetings, you start by identifying yourself.
 Hi, I’m Bill, and I’m an alcoholic.

At first, that was easy—it was just something I said. Then it got harder because I realized it was true. Now? I say it with a bit of pride. I have a disease. I take my medicine. And I’m winning against something relentless.

My Catholicism was a lot like my alcoholism. I hid it. I pretended it didn’t exist. I was embarrassed to belong to a church that had witnessed such ugliness. I was ashamed of how the Church treated gay people. You can even look through history and find wars and murders done in its name.

But in the end, all that is the weakness of men. It has nothing to do with the glory of God.

Now I know who I am.

 I am Bill.
 And I am a Catholic.