John Baker is the author of Life’s Healing Choices (Howard Books, 2007) and the founder of Celebrate Recovery, a ministry he created in 1991 at Saddleback Church. The program—a biblically based approach to recovery from hurts, habits, and addictions—is used in thousands of churches nationwide, and more than 600,000 people have completed the program. Life’s Healing Choices is the product of Baker’s collaboration with Pastor Rick Warren, whose 10-week sermon series on recovery formed the foundation of the book.

John Baker recently talked with PurposeDriven.com deputy editor Patton Dodd about his own journey to recovery, and about his hopes for others’ journeys.

How did you end up being the guy who is leading this conversation about recovery?

I was born in a small midwestern town and had a great childhood. My parents were members of a small Baptist church. I asked Christ into my heart at age 13, but as I went through high school, I thought I had to be the best at everything I did because deep down inside it never felt good enough for my parents, my girlfriends, my coaches, my teammates, my classmates, teachers . . . you name it.

If I wasn’t good enough for them, how in the world could I ever be good enough for God? I struggled with . . . almost non-existent self-esteem. I tried to cover up by over-achieving. It’s not a very comfortable way to live. . . but I did that for a lot of years.

I went to the University of Missouri, and (when I left for college) I packed that non-existent self-esteem right along with me and joined a fraternity. With my first drink of alcohol I felt like I finally fit in, like I finally belonged, like I was one of them . . . and that emptiness, that pain, started to go away. I was majoring in business administration and minoring in partying.

I met my wife at a fraternity-sorority football game that I arranged; I was president of the fraternity and she was president of her sorority. We got married in our senior year because of the war—Vietnam was in full swing and I knew I’d be called into the service, so we got married and I joined the Air Force and was chosen to be a pilot.

The war ended and I went into business. I had achieved every one of my life, financial, and career goals by the time I was 30 years old. There was a song that was popular then . . . “Is That All There Is?” The pain and emptiness just kept increasing along with the drinking, and it worked for a lot of years. But finally I crossed the line.

The day that I crossed the line was they day I realized I couldn’t stop drinking. I can remember going into a bar and praying, “God please don’t let me drink today,” and . . . what I ended up doing was drinking. What I would try to do is just not feel, if that makes any sense. So I was emotionally unavailable for my kids and my family for a lot of years and . . . my wife and I ended up with a 13-month separation and that’s kind of what . . .

You bottomed out?

Yes, I was dying physically, and my health was in jeopardy from the drinking, but most importantly I was dying spiritually and . . . so I finally did hit my bottom and started going to Alcoholics Anonymous during the separation.

They would talk about their “higher power,” but my higher power had a name—Jesus Christ.

My wife, Cheryl, and the kids had begun attending Saddleback Church. At that time the church met in a gymnasium, and I was visiting the kids one Saturday night, and they asked me to go to church with them the following day. I heard Pastor Rick Warren’s message and the music, and I knew beyond a doubt I was home.

Five months after that God opened our hearts, and my wife and I renewed our marriage vows. This October we’ve been married 40 years.

Photo: iStockphoto

I tried to join a men’s small group at Saddleback because at AA I couldn’t talk about Christ. Saddleback at that time was running around 6,000 people, and I tried several different men’s small groups. But every time I would start sharing about my struggle with alcohol, they didn’t want go that deep. They’d say, “Hey what about those Dodgers!”. . . you know . . .

I couldn’t put my recovery from addiction and my church together. So I wrote Pastor Rick a 13-page, single-spaced letter outlining the vision God gave me for Celebrate Recovery. It’s a Christ-centered recovery program for the entire family, not only for those struggling with alcohol or drugs but for any kind of hurt, hang-up or habit.

There was a period of time for six weeks that all I did was, at 2 o’clock in the morning, whatever time, I would get up and start working on this 13-page letter.

Within a week I was in his office, and he said, “Great John, do it!” I served at first as a lay pastor in 1991, and then I came on staff in 1992 and I’ve been here ever since.

What’s in that letter is exactly what we still do 18 years later in Celebrate Recovery—and now in 12,000 churches.

It’s one of these moments of clarity that people talk about that so many deep religious experiences of the faith have formed from. You had a moment of clarity where you basically received this whole message.

All I did was be willing to say yes, and I truly believe that if I had not been willing, there still would be a Celebrate Recovery today, and you’d be talking to somebody else. This is not my program. This is God’s program.

You said you never felt good enough for God. Can you describe that?

I had a misconception about freely given grace and unconditional love. I didn’t understand it until years later—that he loved me in spite of me.

I thought this was a God that I had to please, and always fell short. I had to be the number one sales guy, I had to be the vice president of marketing and you know, continue trying to get . . . to find the peace that I was looking for and fulfilment that I had never found until I surrendered to Christ. I accepted him when I was 13 but I never completely surrendered until I was in recovery.

Can you talk about the difference between sin and addiction?

I don’t want anybody to think that I’m putting down AA because they do not pretend to do anything except help people not to drink. However, the true sobriety that we are all seeking, no matter what we’re struggling with, can only be found through a personal relationship with Christ.

I didn’t see that in those early years when I was sinning. I saw it as trying to stop that pain and fit in. I knew that drunkenness was a sin, but that was a choice through all those years I made.

There was actually a time where I wanted not to drink, but I could not stop myself. I did not have the power to do that, and that’s where the addiction came in.

Can you give examples of the range of issues that are dealt with by people who go through Celebrate Recovery?

We’ve had over 11,500 people go through the program here at Saddleback Church. And of those 11,500, only one out of three were dealing with drugs and alcohol.

Wow, that’s interesting.

The rest were dealing with codependent relationships. The fastest-growing thing we’ve got now is sexual addiction, due to the Internet. Financial issues and anger are other big ones. Food. You name it, we’ve got groups for it. It’s not just specifically for an addiction or compulsion—it’s biblically based, so it works for any hurt, hang-up or habit.

Describe the good things that you drew from AA when you developed this program, but also the important points of distinction.

Bill W and Bob Smith’s whole intent was to help people not drink—that’s why they didn’t specify God or Jesus Christ. But when you do that you take away the greatest power, the greatest strength, and that is in God and Jesus Christ to help you get through it.

The principles of the Beatitudes and of Celebrate Recovery and Life’s Healing Choices are really a spiritual maturity program. There are so many people that are going to hear that word “recovery” and they’re going to think two things: number one, it’s for drugs and alcohol, or number two, “I’m not that bad off, I don’t need recovery. I might have sexual addiction, I might have a gambling addiction, I may have a relationship addiction but I’m not that bad.”

Hopefully with the Life’s Healing Choices campaign, they’ll read the book and they will go through the small group and they’ll discover, “Hey, I do have some hurts, hang-ups and habits that I didn’t know about that have been holding me back, and now at least I know why.” Some will go on to recovery, some will just continue working on their issues, depending on the severity of the issue.

So you run this primarily out of churches?

Yes. When I turned that letter over to Pastor Rick, I just imagined this at Saddleback Church, and very honestly I didn’t see myself running it. However, in 1999 a gentlemen told me they were using Celebrate Recovery in the state prison system in New Mexico. Since then, it is in 42 states in the prisons and jails, and we just started four or five months ago in Camp Pendleton in the military.


You mentioned earlier that Life’s Healing Choices shows us the eight choices that we make to produce happiness and wholeness in our lives.

And freedom from our hurts, hang-ups and habits.

Yes, and you said these are all connected to and inspired by the Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount. Could you explain that?

Let me give you examples: The first choice is that I realize I’m not God, I admit that I’m powerless to control my tendency to do the wrong thing and my life is unmanageable. The Beatitude that goes with that is “Happy are those who know they are spiritually poor.” And what that says is that I cannot run my life on my own power. I’ve tried, I’ve failed, and I’ve got to realize I’m not God.

The third choice is to consciously choose to commit all my life to Christ’s care and control. The Beatitude there is “Happy are the meek.” Meek doesn’t mean weak. Meek means under control and this is the under control of Christ.

I made the decision when I was 13 and turned my life over, but I held on to my will and it wasn’t until I got into my recovery that I could turn over my will.

The key last choice is to yield myself to God, to be used to bring this good news to others, both by my example and by my words. The Beatitude there is “Happy are the persecuted because they do what God requires.”

What is so great about recovery, what is so great about the Beatitudes, is its not that we go through this and then we say, “Oh I feel better, thank you God, now I’m going to back about my life.” No, we need to help other people. There are 7.7 million alcoholics, 3.8 million drug addicts, there are over 15 million sex addicts in America, and they all affect other people.

My favorite parts of the book are the 16 stories, the 16 changed lives of people here at Saddleback.

And that’s all them living out that last choice, to recycle their pain.

You betcha, that takes courage, to put yourself in a book.

Getting help, making initial changes, repairing relationships can seem more do-able after that initial period of admitting need. What do you recommend for maintaining momentum?

I think it is getting yourself surrounded either by a small group or having people in your life that are going to hold you accountable.

And you have to realize it’s not something that is a one-time fix. You need to reserve time with God for self- examination . . . what did I do well today, where did I blow it God. Get into the Word and pray to follow his will daily.