Johnny's Testimony

Well, everybody, my name is Johnny. I'm a grateful believer, and I struggle with alcoholism and codependency. I also have the privilege and the honor of being the pastor and global executive director of Celebrate Recovery. And it's my honor to be here with you to share my story about how Jesus Christ changed my life through this awesome ministry of Celebrate Recovery. I was born in December of 1975 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, forever making me a Packer fan, even though we moved before I was six months old, the cheese still runs through my veins. My family moved around a few times before ultimately settling in Orange County, California, where I still live today. My dad moved around a lot because of business. And when we got to Orange County, my mom basically said, listen, you can move again, but we're staying put. I went to elementary school through high school with the same group of friends and had a pretty standard childhood. In junior high, I was one of the only kids whose parents were still married. This made me stand out from my friends. And I often heard the same things from them. They say things like, you're so lucky your parents are still married. You have it so easy.

What they didn't know is we had a family secret that was hiding in my house. My dad was a practicing alcoholic. Now he wasn't abusive or mean. He was mainly just absent, but my parents fought a lot. And during this time, I found my first coping mechanism, which was escape. When they would fight, I would run to my room and I would blast heavy metal music, or I'd play video games, read, or do anything to just get away from the conflict. I also found other coping mechanisms of humor and being a good kid. Now to me, being a good kid meant solid, dependable, and strong. It was here that I started to feel torn. I felt like I needed to be perfect, but I also felt that I was so far away from perfect that I began to feel inadequate. This feeling would become a familiar friend over the rest of my life. And if I'm really honest, I still struggle with this feeling today. When my parents separated, I was 14 years old and I was aching to rebel. I still had this desire to appear and be perfect, but I also wanted to do the wrong things so badly. So I felt like my parents separating was a perfect excuse to start acting out with some of my desires. I started smoking, experimenting with drugs, and having sex.

It was a wild freshman year. Now as much as I enjoyed cutting loose, there was this huge problem. See, earlier I had committed my life to Christ. So not only did I have my own internal drive to be perfect, but I also had the misfortune of being in a legalistic church that taught that in order to achieve salvation, you had to be perfect. Now I'm willing to admit in hindsight that this probably wasn't the only thing that the church taught, but I left youth group most weekends and Wednesday nights feeling that good old friend of inadequacy. But the truth was, I was drawn to Jesus. For some reason, my parents, who at the time didn't go to church themselves, signed me up for a Christian preschool when we moved to Orange County. I loved hearing stories of Jesus, and my teacher noticed and told me that I should come back on Sunday. If I did, I could hear even more stories about him. She added, bring your family. So I went home and asked my mom to take me back on Sunday and said with the confidence of a preschool kid, and you should come too. We began attending church together and my love for Jesus grew, and I gave my life to him when I was very young.

So as I grew up in this church, Jesus stopped being a friend who loved me, and I began seeing him as a judge that I just could never measure up to. I'd lay up at nights knowing I was going to hell for the things that I was doing in my rebellion. I just knew that God was mad at me. It might surprise you to learn that this did not make me stop my behavior. In fact, this conflict dialed up for me the desire to numb and become another, that would become another core issue I would struggle with for years. After a year of separation, my parents renewed their vows, and our family had a new life. My dad began attending AA and became sober, and more importantly, his faith was rekindled. Although my mom, my sister, and I had began, although my mom, my sister, and I had been attending church, my dad stopped coming with us years ago. Now he was willing to go with us when we asked. If you know me and my family, you know this story. By this time, we had left that legalistic church and began attending Saddleback Church. I found a home in this new youth group, and my faith began to take on a new richness too. I stopped the sex and the drugs, but continued to secretly smoke for years. Now, if you've ever been a smoker or known a smoker,

you know that there's really no such thing as a secret smoker. At least I thought I had everyone fooled. For those of you who don't know, my dad came to Saddleback, heard Pastor Rick Warren speak, and knew he was home. He rededicated his life to Christ, and soon felt called to start a new ministry for him, our family, and people like us. That ministry was called Celebrate Recovery. And in November of 1991, we had our very first Celebrate Recovery meeting at a... Psychiatric Hospital in Mission Viejo, California. I was one of the first 43 people to attend that first meeting, as well as being the setup and tear down crew alongside my dad. Those were some great days. My parents' marriage had never been healthier. My dad was a changed man. He seemed truly happy for the first time in my life. And we were doing ministry together. I became the leader of the teens group, but we should have called it the sit around and complain about your parents for making you come to celebrate recovery on a Friday night, because that's really all that we did. Also, this group at the time was mixed gender. We did things there then that we would never do now. I wish my story ended there.

I wish I could say I stayed in for celebrate recovery for the rest of my life. I never developed any more hurts, hangups or habits, but I think you know that's not true. I decided after a couple of years that this was great for my parents, but I was okay. I'd been in groups for a while. I worked the steps with my mentor and I was ready to do something else on Friday nights. It just so happened to match up with me getting my driver's license. I know, weird, right? I'm so glad that I had that base of celebrate recovery though because spoiler alert, it comes in handy later. After high school, I floundered in junior college, not really sure what I wanted to do with my life. When I turned 21, I decided I wanted to try my luck in Hollywood and pursue an acting career. I was a drama kid in high school and I did sketch comedy at Saddleback and other places. A friend and I split a one bedroom apartment and began to go on any auditions we could book, which for me wasn't much. I did a few background or extra parts in movies and no, I won't tell you which ones because even if you went through them frame by frame, you would never see me. And mostly I auditioned for commercials. I never got a callback. My agent began sending me on fewer and fewer auditions

and the writing was on the wall. Although I never made it as an actor, I did become something almost as cool during that time, a full blown out of control alcoholic. Okay, maybe those two things aren't the same thing. Due to a number of conditions, both internal and external, I turned to alcohol to numb the feelings I was feeling. I felt inadequate again. I felt like a failure. I felt bad all the time until I had drank enough to not feel anything at all. Soon I was drinking during the day and what I considered as an acceptable time to start drinking got earlier and earlier. I moved home after a year and I continued to flounder. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life other than drink and have fun. During the time when I was in LA, I drove home every weekend to go to college ministry at Saddleback Church and attend church. I would often do skits during big church services and had a double life that I was very protective of. I'd go to church, act like a church kid. But when I was in LA, well, that was very different. When I came back home, I continued to drink, now mostly late at night, alone or with a small group of friends. Then something unexpected happened. I met my future wife, Jenny. We started off as friends mostly because I didn't believe

that I deserved to be with someone like her. As we began dating, she would hint or sometimes outright say she didn't like drinking and that she wasn't fond of being around drunk people. So I did the only logical thing. I told her I was the same. I told her that I never drank. I was already hiding my drinking for everyone and I began hiding it from her as well. I told her that I rarely drank and if I did, it was maybe one or two beers or something like that. I was afraid that if she knew the real me, she would decide she didn't want to be around me. When we started dating, we spent every minute we could with each other. But when I drop her off at home or say goodnight, I'd head out and get what I needed from the liquor store. It didn't take me long to realize that Jenny and I were going to be married. I think it took her a little bit longer. After all, she was only 19 at the time. But we got engaged in 1999 and set our wedding date for May of 2000. In December of 99, I was arrested for a DUI at 3 a.m., three days before Christmas. I'd been out celebrating my birthday with my drinking buddies and instead of crashing on the couch like I'd done countless times before, I decided I'd drive home.

The problem is, is that at 3 a.m., three days before Christmas, the only people on the road were drunks and cops. I was stopped and eventually arrested. I'll never forget making my one phone call. At the jail I went to, they had these old school, well, they weren't old school at the time, but now old school pay phones to make our calls. They had the handles taken off, so it was more like a speaker phone. The officer asked me what number to call and I gave him my parents' home phone number. My dad answered, it was now around 4 a.m. And I think when he answered, he already knew what was coming. The phone was at waist level and so in order for me to hear him and be heard by him, I had to get on my knees to talk to my father. I was so ashamed during this call. After all, not only was I calling my dad, but I was also calling the pastor and founder of Celebrate Recovery. I should say, he didn't make me feel shame. He was great. He told me, sit tight. And he said he'd see me soon. A few hours later, he and a friend of his came to pick me up. He didn't lecture me, he didn't yell, he didn't even tell me he was disappointed in me. He said, kiddo, I think you need

to take a look at your drinking. You know where to go when you're ready. He left it up to me. Now you'd think that this is a turnaround moment, wouldn't you? I mean, after calling him, I had to call Jenny, my now fiance, and tell her. I was sure she was gonna call off the wedding, but thankfully she didn't. And I had to face the fact that my drinking had become a problem. I had to do a bunch of meetings and classes and I lost my license for a year. Can you feel the butt about to happen? But the problem is, the officers who arrested me that night did a number of things that, let's just say, weren't by the books. I won't get into all of it, but I got an attorney who almost started salivating when he looked over the arrest report and heard my story. He told me I never should have been arrested. I believed him at once. Are you kidding me? This wasn't my fault. These guys did it wrong. See, I don't have a problem. I'm fine. So when I went to the mandated meetings, I went with a smile because they weren't for me. I wasn't an alcoholic.

I was a victim, a victim of a dirty system. Now, this might've been the very worst thing that could've happened for me. This allowed my already very thick armor of denial to get even stronger. I remember the leader telling me one night as we neared the graduation of the alcohol education classes I had to take, think driver's ed, but with alcohol, that they'd see me again. She said, you'll be back. I took that personally and as a challenge. I decided I would prove her wrong. How? By not drinking? Don't be silly. No, by not driving after I was drinking. See, the problem wasn't drinking, it was driving. So I didn't stop drinking, but I did stop driving even after having one sip of alcohol. That's addict math right there. Jenny and I got married on May 21st of 2000 when we recently celebrated our 23rd anniversary. Because she didn't like having alcohol in the house, I slowed my drinking down when we got married. It became more of a social thing until one night I convinced her we needed to make margaritas for the taco night we were about to have in our little apartment. I told her our friends would expect it.

A few nights later, when I couldn't sleep, I snuck out of bed and took a few shots, trying to cover it up with mouthwash and quietly get back into bed. She said, did you just have a drink? I don't remember how now, but I minimized it. It was the first time since we got married that I drank behind her back, but it wouldn't be the last. We had different schedules. She worked days and I often worked nights as a waiter, so I would sneak alcohol into the house. I thought I had her fooled. It wasn't until years later when she shared her recovery testimony with me that I learned she knew about it the entire time. Now she was worried that if she called me out on it, I would leave her. While at the same time, I was worried that if she ever knew about it, she would leave me. Thankfully, something finally happened that made me take a good hard look at my drinking. Jenny got pregnant with our first child, Maggie. I remember one night right after we found out she was pregnant, I was celebrating with a few drinks alone in the bathroom with the tub running to cover up the sound of the cans and bottles opening. Sounds like a party, right? I started to think that if Jenny were to go into labor and I'd been drinking, I couldn't drive her to the hospital. Remember my plan of never drinking and driving again?

We'd have to call her mom or my parents. This was years before Uber and my facade would be up. I knew I needed to stop drinking and I knew that Celebrate Recovery was the place to go, but I was too ashamed. I was worried that if I were to show up at Celebrate Recovery, I would make my parents look bad. I thought people would say, wow, not even the bakers can keep their kid from drinking. Now all these years later, when I say that, I hear such freedom. After all, Jenny and I have three kids and all they haven't yet, not even the bakers, me and Jenny, can keep our kids from drinking if they decide to. But I was worried that my parents would be embarrassed by me so I decided that I would do it on my own. After all, I thought I was a better alcoholic than my dad so I could show him that I could stop drinking on my own too so I went cold turkey and I was miserable. I'd think about drinking all day. Even when Maggie was finally born, I would fantasize about drinking on those hard nights when sleep was hard to come by. Finally, a friend of mine looked at me and asked why I didn't just go to Celebrate Recovery. So I did. I began attending and guess what? Some people did give me a hard time about being Pastor John and Cheryl's kid and drinking.

They told me they saw me out while I was drunk and how sorry they were for my folks. Nice, huh? Can I literally beg you not to do that to people? I should say most people were gracious and kind and loving and acceptable, but the one or two who weren't really stuck out to me. I jumped into recovery with both feet. I attended every week and I did step studies and I eventually felt called into ministry. I thought I was probably disqualified and I started to feel that old inadequacy again when I applied for jobs. after job at Saddleback and was turned down every time. Finally, after my dad found out about me applying for a particularly unsuitable job for me, my dad said, if you're willing to do that, would you be willing to come work for Celebrate Recovery? It was the moment I'd been dreaming about for so long. We both hoped the other would bring it up, and I'm so glad he finally did. I came on staff as his assistant's assistant, and I answered phone calls and emails. I set up our training conferences and worked the bookstore at those events. I began helping little by little in our home Celebrate Recovery and began to learn everything from the ground up. The first time I taught a lesson at Celebrate Recovery, I think I finished in about 12 minutes

because I spoke so fast. Over time, I began to feel that teaching and speaking were part of the call in my life. I began to teach at the training conferences and summits, and eventually, after a few years, became the ministry leader at Saddleback Church and then the Celebrate Recovery pastor at our church, all under my dad's leadership. Jenny and I had two more kids, Chloe and Jimmy, and one of the biggest victories in my life is when I tell them stories of my past life. They say, it's so weird. I can't picture you like that. After a few years, Jenny began her recovery journey. She did step studies, and a joy of my life has been growing in recovery together. As I continued to take on more and more leadership at Celebrate Recovery, my parents and I began to plan the day that they would retire, and Jenny and I would step into leading the ministry. We were pretty sure that we had a plan that would allow us to do a graceful transition. Of course, nobody could have predicted COVID. The COVID years were hard for all of us, and we were no exception. We made changes to Celebrate Recovery we never thought we would, like allowing online meetings, and we were getting so excited as it appeared that life would be getting back to normal soon.

We started thinking about doing our summits and training conferences in person again. Then, in February of 2021, my dad suddenly and unexpectedly passed. When the initial shock began to wear off, it would come back off and on for a long time, I knew I needed to start telling our family and friends. I called Jenny, my sister Laura, and then I got my dad's phone and began calling his friends and coworkers. It was one of the longest mornings of my life. As I said the words, I wanted to let you know my dad passed this morning, or some version of those words, over and over. Pastor Rick Warren called me, and after spending time with me crying and grieving, he said, Johnny, I know this isn't how we wanted it to happen, but you are now the leader of Celebrate Recovery. As we grieved, we began to plan the upcoming summit. I was ordained, and Jenny and I were commissioned as the global executive directors of the ministry. We continued to plan coming out of COVID, and we were meeting with the team. I don't know how I would have survived this time without our forever family. I experienced pain I never thought possible, and these have been the hardest years of my life. I remember the day my dad died, telling the Celebrate Recovery team that I was sorry I couldn't be him,

that I wouldn't be the amazing leader he had been. Sounds like inadequacy has decided to show up again. The team reminded me that I wasn't alone, that we were all in this together, and Jenny reminded me of the many times my dad would stand on a stage and say something like, Celebrate Recovery is not John Baker's ministry, it's God's ministry. He'd say that Celebrate Recovery works because of Jesus, not because of him. Somehow, I had believed him when he said it, but I believed that it would be up to me to keep it going. My fear was that I would ruin Celebrate Recovery. I was afraid that what took 30 years to build, I would destroy in 30 seconds. I am so thankful of how gracious God was with me in these dark days. Because of recovery, I learned that if I keep my feelings down and don't feel them or express them, I act out in destructive ways. And although I have now been sober for close to 20 years, I have hurts, hangups, and habits that still impact me on a daily basis. I came to Celebrate Recovery because of my addiction to alcohol. I stay because of all the issues that keep being revealed. Most recently, I've learned that I still struggle to be rigorously honest in all situations. I get scared that if people know who I really am,

they would decide not to love me. That's one thing if I was talking about total strangers, but unfortunately, I'm not. I have to daily fight against the desire to hide part or all of myself, even on small, insignificant issues. This is now my new area of recovery and one that I am just now embarking on. I have learned countless lessons through Celebrate Recovery. I've learned that if I want real healing, I have to face my problems head on. I've learned that there is power in feeling and expressing my feelings, but that I can't allow myself to stay stuck there. I've learned that when I try to do it on my own power, I fail, but when I count on Jesus, I have the power to do all things. I've learned that when I isolate and withdraw, I make myself an easy target for the enemy. I've learned that thing that I'm most afraid to say in a group is the most important thing for me to share. I've learned that so much of the power of open share groups comes from the listening, not just the few minutes I share each week. I've learned that hurts are the foundations of hang-ups and habits, and that if we really want freedom, we have to deal with our hurts. I've learned that the steps and principles work. I've learned that at my core, I still want to numb and hide and escape from negative feelings. I've learned that to find healing from my core issues, it's going to take continuing on in recovery in Open Share and Step Study, as well as counseling and therapy.

I've learned that we're better together, and that God has placed people in my life at just the right time to support and encourage me, and for me to do the same thing for them. I've learned that God has a plan and a purpose for my life and for yours, and that following Him is the best decision that any of us can make. I've learned that God shows us our ways step by step, so I've learned that when He tells us that His word is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path, He means that He only shows us the next step, not the entire way, like Apple Maps. I've learned that when someone says, I've never told anyone this before, it's time to lean in, because whatever follows that phrase is about to set that person free. I've learned that if this is your first time experiencing Celebrate Recovery, and you feel like it's hopeless and your life is over, get ready, because your life is just about to begin. I've learned that God restores and recovers the lost and broken. I've learned that He heals our wounds, He makes us whole, and that He can do what we think is impossible. I've learned that the same power that raised Jesus from the grave is available to us if we put our trust in Him. I've learned that the best thing that any of us can do is to give our lives and our wills to Jesus and to trust Him that He has the best in store for us. I've learned that God is trustworthy, that He will do it, and that your best days are ahead of you. I've learned that with God, all things are possible. I've learned that it's hard, but it isn't impossible. I've learned that if God can work miracles in my life, He can do them in yours as well. I've learned that the only one, the real higher power,

the only power that doesn't just get us sober, but who sets us free, has a name, and I've learned that His name is Jesus. I've learned that it's possible to experience freedom from our hurts, hang-ups, and habits. It's happened and happening for me, so it can happen for you too. Thank you for letting me share.