For Richard Yasinski the depression began soon after he turned 40.
The Springfield, Missouri, coffeehouse church he had planted four years earlier didn’t seem to be growing beyond the few dozen tattooed and pierced teenagers who had been around since the beginning. Yasinski began comparing himself with other pastors his age that he viewed as more successful, which made him feel like a failure.
In addition to his career woes, Yasinski had medical issues. A diagnosis of ulcerative colitis resulted in surgery to remove his colon. His doctor had prescribed a narcotic to ease the pain, but Yasinski didn’t give any thought to the label warning that the drug shouldn’t be taken by those susceptible to alcohol addiction. Sure, his parents had been alcoholics, and he had been a heavy drinker in high school. But upon accepting Jesus at 18, Yasinski experienced deliverance from his vices, and he had sensed a call to ministry. He had successfully avoided alcohol.
But now the pain medication—along with his depression—triggered a powerful chemical reaction, something he hadn’t felt since youth. One day, as he shoveled snow, he recalled drinking a half pint of brandy more than 20 years earlier. What a great way to warm up and relax, he thought. Just once wouldn’t hurt.
Down the rabbit hole
Once turned into months of repeated episodes of drinking. A half year later, Yasinski found himself drinking a fifth of brandy, or more, every day. He hid the alcohol wherever he could—behind the water heater in the garage, in the attic, or in the toilet tank. He concealed his compulsion from everyone, even from his wife, Rebecca.
“I felt like I could not tell a soul,” Yasinski says. “No one would understand. I felt so guilty, but I couldn’t stop.”
After a year of drinking, he eventually told Rebecca and feared gripped her. Rebecca covered for her husband, telling people Richard missed church because of the lingering effects of his colon illness, which was partly true.
Yasinski promised himself and his wife over and over that he would quit drinking. And he did—for a couple of days. But the addiction progressed and he could no longer cope. With help from Rebecca and an elder, Wes Bowen, in whom he had confided, Yasinski checked into a five-day detoxification program at a local hospital. But almost immediately after being discharged, Yasinski began drinking again.
By June 2008, Yasinski made a decision: unable to kick his habit, he would quit the church he had founded. Yasinski called the key leaders to a meeting at his house. Around 30 people showed up. Still hung-over, Yasinski told the group about his addiction and that he wanted to resign. They needed a pastor with integrity, he told them, not a lying hypocrite. But rather than being greeted by jeers or judgment, Yasinski received tears and compassion. The group unanimously rejected his resignation and vowed to help him through the crisis, saying his job would be held as long as necessary.
“Instead of kicking me to the curb, they showed nothing but grace,” Yasinski says. By Monday morning, Yasinski was en route to a Christian rehabilitation center in Florida for a 40-day stay.
In his absence, Bowen and the other elders—all men in their 20s with full-time jobs—stepped in to assume pastoral duties. The trio took turns preaching during the rehab stay and the two-month sabbatical they implemented after Yasinski returned.
“That forced them—and me—to see that a church is not just about one man,” Yasinski says. “They held the church together.”
Safety in numbers
Addictions come in various forms: alcohol, gambling, drugs, pornography, overeating, and binge shopping, just to name a few. Whatever the particular vice, addictions thrive on secrecy and shame. And while addictions can be difficult for anyone to divulge, pastors face an even greater challenge in revealing their struggles. They risk losing not only friends, but their livelihood as well. As a result, many wander down the dark path of secrecy, isolation, and despair. But more are beginning to seek help.
David, a 41-year-old Lutheran minister in Southern California, has been free for more than a year from online pornography, although no one else on staff at his church even realizes he had a problem.
He kept taking bigger risks, escalating to a crisis point where he found himself in a chat room with video capabilities with an underage girl. David found help through anonymous weekly meetings of a church-based sexual addiction recovery group, Operation Integrity. The meetings, along with the help of online accountability software, helped him overcome his destructive behavior.
“Even though I realized other pastors had struggles, I still felt like I was the only one,” David says. “The Operation Integrity group has provided a place where I can make a public confession, find absolution, and not be condemned. There’s support, understanding, and encouragement for the road ahead.”
As with many pastors who have been stuck in addiction, David repeatedly prayed in private for the Lord to lift the burden, but remained in bondage. It was only as he sought help in a group setting that his addiction came under control.
“When I allowed others to minister to me I actually got the help that I needed,” David says. “When I was in denial I carried a lot of judgment in my heart. Now, God has given me a greater empathy for all kinds of people who struggle with sin.”
Masking the pain
According to Paul Foster, program coordinator at Testimony Life Resources, an addictions counseling ministry in California, accounts of personal redemption must be told by those in ministry as a way to encourage others.
“So often we’re afraid to tell people what we’ve been through and what God has done in our lives,” says Foster. “We just need to share a portion of our story to let others know they’re not the only ones struggling.”
In 2000, Foster became a mission pastor in a remote area of southeast Alaska. The Baptist church grew to 100 followers by 2007, and Foster, a bivocational pastor with no other staff, started sensing pressure to do better.
As with Yasinski, Foster slipped into a depression partially caused by medical issues. Two surgeries to try to help him regain muscle control in his leg, arm, and neck left him struggling not only physically, but emotionally and spiritually as well. Foster, 41, who had struggled with insecurities since childhood, felt like a failure as a pastor, husband, and father. He began to isolate himself.
While exercising in 2009, Foster felt a sharp pain in his lower back. A doctor prescribed a narcotic, which took the edge off the physical symptoms. But Foster soon discovered it helped him cope with life’s other pains as well. His physician complied with repeated requests to refill the prescription.
“When I first took a pill or two, it would give me a buzz so I could converse with people like I normally couldn’t,” Foster says. “I was connecting with people like never before. I began to take pills based on planned social interactions.”
Initially Foster was able to hide the addiction from his wife, but by February 2010 she figured out his secret. She confronted him and quickly arranged for a 30-day treatment program in Southern California. Foster wrote a letter to the congregation explaining that he needed counseling, and the elders stepped in to preach. When he returned, Foster confessed everything to the church body. Though many in the congregation were shocked and hurt by his confession, most wanted him to stay and to work through to recovery. Yet Foster decided to resign, and he found a new ministry at Testimony Life Resources.
“I’m able to help people from a perspective I never had before,” Foster says. “I know so many pastors are in a dark place, and they don’t know where to turn. It’s easy for a pastor to become isolated. People don’t think pastors are supposed to have these problems, and they don’t feel safe in sharing problems because they can lose their jobs.”
Pain for the partner
Ministry and ministers aren’t the only ones that suffer. Addictions also take a heavy toll on marriages. Seven years ago, Judge Pippen’s wife, Jackie, discovered pornography on his laptop computer. She knew it wasn’t the first time, and she told him to move out of the house.
Pippin, then an associate pastor at a Baptist church in Knoxville, Tennessee, had been in a six-year downward spiral of porn addiction, depression, and isolation. Jackie mistakenly thought he had recovered because of the local sex addiction support group he attended and the intensive one-week recovery program he completed.
But after 19 years of marriage, Jackie lost patience with Judge’s fits of anger and periods of withdrawal. She no longer wanted her husband in the home with their two teenage sons. She refused to go to marriage counseling.
“It jolted me to the core when she demanded a separation,” Pippin says. “I didn’t want to live anymore.”
In desperation, Pippin revealed his struggles to the rest of the pastoral staff and the deacon board. He enrolled in a six-month treatment program at Pure Life Ministries in Dry Ridge, Kentucky. The stay proved life-changing.
“Teaching about pride and selfishness opened my eyes to what had been driving my sin,” Pippin says. “God stripped me of attachment to my forms of escape.”
Upon graduating from Pure Life, Pippin resigned from the church and went to work selling cemetery plots and volunteering at a homeless shelter. He joined an accountability group at a Christian counseling center. But his marriage had suffered too much, and Jackie filed for divorce. Two years later, the marriage officially ended.
Second chances
Meanwhile, Pippin began working full-time at a Knoxville rescue mission, where his duties included teaching a recovery program class on sex addiction. He also began doing phone counseling sessions for Pure Life Ministries and co-facilitating a purity ministry at the Evangelical Free church he now attends.
In 2009, after being divorced for two years, Jackie remarried Judge.
“There are very few people in my life now who don’t know my story,” Pippin says. “I want people to know what Christ has done for me. This has opened a way to create genuine engagement with other people.”
Back in Springfield, Missouri, Yasinski is still pastor at the coffeehouse, which has been renamed Center City Church since relocating to an area rife with homelessness, drug abuse, and alcoholism. In addition to drawing young professionals, the church is home to dozens of recovering addicts. Alcoholics Anonymous meetings are held on site twice a day. In addition to pastoring, Yasinski spends much of his time mentoring and counseling people with little or no church background. From the pulpit he is transparent in relating his failures.
“What I went through gives me validity in their eyes,” says Yasinski, 47. “Now I don’t have to worry about hiding anything. I’m glad God used me in that terrible situation. If I had been allowed to resign, I would be in prison or dead.”
John W. Kennedy is pursuing a master’s degree in counseling at Assemblies of God Theological Seminary in Springfield, Missouri. Since 2009, he has been an elder at Center City Church.
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