Our Scars, God’s Grace: Sherry Hoppen & Tanya Glessner
Sherry Hoppen: There is no greater comfort than talking to that person that knows exactly what you’re going through no matter what your situation is, whether it’s addiction, grief, or whatever you’re going through.
This episode contains mature content and may not be suitable for all listeners.
Our Scars, God’s Grace: Sherry Hoppen & Tanya Glessner – Episode #431
Narrator: Welcome to the Jesus Calling Podcast. This week, we’re joined by Sherry Hoppen—author, speaker, recovery coach, and founder of She Surrenders. Sherry recounts her family history of alcohol abuse, and how she herself descended into a secret addiction to alcohol, all the while trying to paint the perfect picture of her life as a wife, a mom, and a Christian.
Later, we’ll hear from author and advocate Tanya Glessner, who also struggled with addiction’s grip, one fueled by the trauma and violence she experienced in her childhood. Spiraling into a life filled with drugs and crime, Tanya eventually went to prison, where unexpectedly, she had a personal and spiritual awakening.
Let’s begin with Sherry’s story.
Sherry Hoppen: My name is Sherry Hoppen, and I am an author, a speaker, a podcaster, a recovery coach, and the founder of She Surrenders, which is a ministry to help women escape and find freedom in Christ from addiction. And I’ve been married to my best friend, Craig, for almost forty years, and we have three children. I’m grateful that I get to celebrate every new day as a new creation in Christ.
A Generational Dependence on Alcohol
There is a strong history of addiction to alcohol in our family, and that knowledge alone should have been a huge red flag. But it was not really talked about when I was growing up.
And then later in life, alcohol took the life of my younger brother and his best friend in a drunk driving accident, and they were the ones driving. He was twenty-four when he was killed. I was very angry at God. I did not cope with that grief in a healthy way.
Alcohol has already hurt our family so much. But even knowing that, I still didn’t consider alcohol a problem for me at the time, and I did start developing some bad habits, and drinking was one of them. So now my drinking, it’s affecting me in my day to day life, and it’s taking over every aspect of my life. And you’re kind of living life guarded, wondering, Who knows? Who doesn’t know? Does anybody understand how deep you’re in this?
One day there’s a comment, either from my husband or a friend, that maybe I’m drinking too much. And the first thing I did with those comments was go on defense. And the second thing I decided to do was get better at hiding it so they don’t think I’m drinking so much. And what I really needed was to take their focus off me and my drinking.
But that’s where the hiding begins, and a little hiding escalates quickly into a lot of hiding. And my life turned into a complete lie. I was trying to keep track of all the lies I was telling around my drinking. I was constantly inebriated from the secret stash in my purse.
You become a detective. You write down things. I remember if I got a phone call and I’d been drinking, no matter what, I would just write as the person was talking because I needed to be able to follow up on that the next day, or I would leave myself clues so I could ask about something from the night before the next day, because I had a lot of blackouts and I lost a lot of memories. [I was] trying to cover up for myself and trying to pretend that I remembered what had happened or what didn’t happen.
I was leading a separate life that didn’t parallel with my place in the church or the ministry I worked in, the place I had in my family’s life. I was a football mom. I was involved with my children in their schools. I wanted things to look perfect. My kids needed to look perfect. They needed to excel. We had a business in the community. I didn’t want anybody to look down on us. And from the outside, yeah, it all looks pretty good. I wore the mask of everything: Christian, mom in the community, my husband was an elder. There was no place for me to stand up and say, “I’m an alcoholic and I need help.”
“From the outside, yeah, it all looks pretty good. I wore the mask of everything: Christian, mom in the community, my husband was an elder. There was no place for me to stand up and say, ‘I’m an alcoholic and I need help.’” – Sherry Hoppen
Addiction Grows in the Dark
Eventually, I left the ministry I worked for, and I lost any passion to do anything that I loved, and drinking had become the most important thing to me. And that’s when isolation really starts to kick in. One day you just find yourself alone and there isn’t very much of your old life surrounding you anymore. And you honestly don’t care because your best friend is still with you, and that’s alcohol.
Dealing with the weight of shame and keeping it quiet is exhausting, and I’m a strong believer that addiction grows in the dark. We’re afraid to talk to people because we have this deep belief that we should have known better, or that someone is going to say to us, “You’re a Christian, why didn’t your God help you?” And we’re not going to have the right answer.
I used to sit in church and I would look around and I would ask, “God, is there anyone here like me?” I wondered what would happen if I passed around a Sharpie and everybody had to write their addiction or their secret sin on their forehead. What would happen? I’m pretty sure the marker would just get passed and nobody would write on their forehead. And when the marker came to me, I don’t think I would have written it either. Because we carry that shame so deeply.
I’m struggling. I’m looking for answers. I had gone to meetings, different kinds of meetings, and I wasn’t hearing the answer—granted, I wanted to hear that I didn’t have to stop drinking completely. So I was like, “These meetings are no good.”
I tried a lot of things on my own. I just remember thinking, There’s got to be something else. And I felt like I was still talking to God all the time, and I was walking alongside Him. I think that so many people feel that God just deserted them in those last years of addiction. And I know I was getting closer to God, and that’s possible. I think the lesson that I needed to learn to carry on after I sobered up was God was with me this whole time. He was just waiting. He was just waiting for me to get my act together.
The Road to Sobriety Isn’t Always Straight
I was working at the time for a ministry that was doing a fundraising bike trip from Michigan to Texas. I was not a biker, and I had no intention of being a part of anything like this. But one day I was taking some messages up to our executive director, and he was also a pastor. And when he asked me how I’d been, something happened, something broke. I started to cry and just started kind of unloading what I’d been going through.
At the end of it, though, he just sat there and looked at me and I thought, He’s going to give me some scripture. Maybe he’s going to pray over me, send me to a friend of his to talk to who’s been through this, I don’t know, but whatever it is, just give it to me. And instead he said, “You need to join the Ride 4 Life.” And I actually laughed and gave him a very quick and hard no.
But God had different ideas, and woke me up every night for like ten days to think about it until I finally gave in. I had fifty-one days to get a road bike and start training and I was in no shape to do this, believe me. But I had this hope. I thought maybe this bike ride would be the thing that would finally be strong enough to break me free from the grip of alcohol. And I left on that bike ride with a true desire to find freedom from alcohol and daily bondage of my own thoughts. And I wanted to come home without the desire to ever drink again.
I had been praying for rescue physically, emotionally, and spiritually. And this bike ride did check all those boxes. It was a test I never wanted to take, but I learned that I was both physically and mentally stronger than I had given myself any credit for. And those two weeks showed me that you can be genuinely who you are sober, and this is who I am. And it gave me that confidence that I had been lacking that life will still be good without alcohol.
But mostly, I gave God all the glory for reaching the finish line. I had grown so close to Him on that trip. I had almost two weeks free from the endless monkey brain of addiction and just hours on a bike with nothing to do but talk to Him. And when I crossed that finish line, I was exhilarated, I was alive. And I was sad that it was over because I was so full of fear. I didn’t have a plan beyond the end of that bike ride, because life was easy on the bike. I was removed from my daily struggles, and I was around this wonderful group of Christian bike riders who knew nothing about my past, and they loved me for who I was sober. No mask required.
And sadly, I went home and started drinking again. I told myself I just wasn’t ready.
A couple of years have gone by and my drinking is destroying everything around me. My family is aware of how bad it’s gotten. My husband and I were not in a good place. Our marriage was pretty much over. And we were not hardly speaking at that point.
I had a weekend where everyone was gone and it was just me and my best friend, alcohol, and it was alcohol poisoning, but I didn’t know what to do. I called a friend. She came over and stayed with me all day until she knew that I was over the worst of it and made sure that I’d eaten and that I was going to be okay. But she also made me promise to tell my husband, and that was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done because I knew no matter what, this was going to be it. And I was really sad about it.
And I spent most of the day writing him a letter. And then somewhere during the day, I put that letter away. And I just started talking to God and just crying and just confessing that I can’t do this anymore. And I remember that the song “Revelation” by Third Day came on, and then I found myself on my living room floor. I am on my hands and knees, crying my eyes out into the carpet. And I’m just saying, “Give me a revelation, Lord, show me what to do.”
I laid there for a long time, sobbing. I didn’t know what to say because God’s heard it all before. So I finally got up, walked into the kitchen, and I dug out the bottle from the back of the cupboard. I knew that that liquid that remained had the power to take away everything I love, every single thing. So I raised one hand in the air to God and the other unscrewed the bottle over the sink. And I said, “God, take it. I surrender my life with this demon and I give it to you. I’m yours. I’ll do whatever you want.” And I poured it down the sink.
“I knew that that [alcohol] that remained had the power to take away everything I love, every single thing. So I raised one hand in the air to God and the other unscrewed the bottle over the sink. And I said, ‘God, take it. I surrender my life with this demon and I give it to you. I’m yours. I’ll do whatever you want.’ And I poured it down the sink.” – Sherry Hoppen
From Self-Destruction to Surrender
I was scared. I didn’t have a plan. I didn’t know why this day one would be any different than any other day one. I told my husband about it that night, and slowly we began to heal. And day by day it became apparent that this was for real.
After I quit drinking, I did devotions every day [in the] morning. And instead of it being a curse because I felt so horrible, it became a beautiful time with the Lord, and Jesus Calling was a big part of it. My journals are filled with excerpts from Jesus Calling. And I would look up those scriptures and they were just perfect for me every time, and I’d write them on notecards and keep them with me throughout the day. I found so much encouragement in those.
The grace that God showed me each and every day, even while I was drinking, was the only thing that rescued me from complete self-destruction and saved my life. When I go back through my journals of the past fifteen years, I can see how much I’ve learned about myself, but mostly how God stuck with me to guide me to this place, because He never left me alone.
I recall waking up so many times and asking God, “Why do you keep saving me? I didn’t go to jail. I didn’t lose my marriage, my family, or my life because of my drinking. And I should have.” I was spared, but God was extremely patient with me.
“The grace that God showed me each and every day, even while I was drinking, was the only thing that rescued me from complete self-destruction and saved my life.” – Sherry Hoppen
Deep in my heart, I knew that every time I drank, I was turning my back on the plans He had for me. So when I did quit, I knew there was more, but I have to admit I was scared to find out what those plans were because I knew that God was powerful enough to remove the desire to ever drink again for me. But what I was wrestling with was if He’s that powerful, why didn’t He stop it from happening in the first place? And that’s where trust comes in that His plans are always better than mine. Like Jeremiah 29:11 tells us, “For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” And that’s what He did. But that would not happen until I had completely surrendered my life, all of it, to Him so that He could use it for what He had intended it to be all along.
Change is possible, and God is more powerful than anything you carry, especially our secret sins. I recently celebrated ten years of sobriety, and I have to say that I still just marvel at how I even reached that milestone. It’s just a miracle to me, because it comes back to trust, and trusting that every day will get easier and that God will give you what you need just when you need it.
Narrator: To learn more about Sherry and her recovery coaching, please visit www.shesurrenders.com, as well as www.selahhouserecovery.org. And be sure to check out her book, Sober Cycle: Pedaling Through Recovery One Day At A Time, from your favorite retailer.
Stay tuned to Tanya Glessner’s story after a brief message.
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Our next guest is Tanya Glessner, an author and advocate living in Fort Scott, Kansas. From a troubled childhood that led to an adulthood spiraling out of control, Tanya tells a story of hope that reassures us that no one is too far gone for redemption.
Tanya Glessner: My name is Tanya Glessner and I live in Fort Scott, Kansas with my husband. I have two sons, three stepchildren, and three grandchildren. I’m a Christian author and advocate for recovering addicts and those behind bars.
I was born in Kansas City, Kansas, and I grew up in a home that was always in chaos. My parents argued a lot, and sometimes those arguments escalated into physical altercations. My dad struggled with addiction and my mom knew how to push his buttons. They finally decided to call it quits when I was eleven years old, but not before I found out news that would change my life forever.
I went to stay the night at my grandma’s house on my dad’s side, and she was pretty bitter about the divorce. No one had given me the news about their plans to separate yet, so to me it was just another day. My grandma had been drinking a lot that night, and decided to let me know that the only dad I had ever known wasn’t my biological father, and that he and my mom were getting a divorce, so I was absolutely crushed. My mom and the man I thought was my dad had two sons, both younger than me, and I came to find out that I also had two younger half sisters on my biological dad’s side. The message I felt at this point was that I was unwanted and I didn’t belong.
After my parents’ divorce, I lived with my mom and my two younger brothers. She continued to choose men struggling with addiction and violence. When their violent attentions turned on me, I decided it was better to become the monster than to be the one subjected to it. I started beating girls up at school and being rewarded at home for my victories. I was eventually expelled from school and had to complete my schooling that year in the mental health ward of a hospital.
Once I returned home, I ran away repeatedly and would stay with friends until their parents would turn me away. My mom finally had enough of me and sent me to live with her mom in Fort Scott, Kansas to start my freshman year of high school. I was kicked out of school my freshman year for a confrontation with my teacher, and finished the school year out at another school. I moved back home with my mom my sophomore year, and we got along like rabid dogs. So when my sixteenth birthday came along, I went to school, dropped out, went home, packed my bags, and moved in with a friend in Fort Scott, Kansas. This lasted about two years before I started bouncing back and forth between Kansas City and Fort Scott.
One Addiction Leads to Another
Over the next twenty years, I gave birth to two sons of my own and married a man that was the sum of every man I had ever known. He was wild, abusive, addicted to anything that made him feel good and promiscuous. I became the mirror image of my mother. I knew how to push his buttons, and I kept trying to convince myself that I could change him. It took over a decade for me to realize that it was a war I was never going to win. I filed for divorce and finally left him for good.
At first, I did well. I went to work, I raised my boys, and occasionally had a girls’ night out on a weekend when the kids were with their dad. I kept myself busy to keep my focus off the pain I was going through. Eventually, it made its way to the surface and I began to unravel. Girls’ night turned in every weekend. Every weekend turned into a meth addiction, which in turn caused me to lose my job. Now, bills were piling up, and I had to find a way to make money without interfering with my addiction.
I made a phone call to a friend I grew up with in Kansas City, and decided to get my own source of meth so I could sell it and make some money. Everything moved quickly from there. Within a few months, I was making a few thousand dollars a day and spending it just as quickly. My house was a revolving door of addicts, boyfriends, guns, and drugs. I started using the needle and decided it was best to send my children to live with my grandmother.
After a boyfriend had broken both my wrists, I had a lawyer draw papers, leaving my children to my grandmother in case something more permanent happened to me. I knew I was either going to end up dead or in prison. My addiction took precedence over everything in my life. At this point, all I wanted to do was die.
Three years into my addiction, I found myself at a complete stranger’s house. I was suicidally depressed, injecting a needle filled with a large amount of meth into my vein. As the needle fell to the floor and landed in the old carpet like a dart, I fell to my knees, on the verge of losing consciousness, and I cried out to God to save me. I wasn’t prepared for how He would respond.
As a child, I had attended various Catholic and Christian schools alongside public schools, and my grandmother was a strong believer in Jesus. So having spent so much time with her, I knew in that desperate moment that salvation could only come from God.
A few weeks later, I made a stop at a house to drop off some drugs. When I arrived, there was a woman there that I had bad history with. So I confronted her and wound up putting her in the hospital. I was arrested a week later and found myself facing twenty-one years in prison.
The Impact of True Reconciliation
As I sat in county jail for several months, my mind began to clear from all the drugs. I found myself extremely overwhelmed with remorse for what I had done, and I wanted the opportunity to make amends with the woman that I had hurt. So I went back to my cell, and I remember sliding my back down the cold, white cinder block wall. I adjusted my orange jumpsuit. I pulled my knees into my chest and I clung to my Bible. I looked up with tears running down my face and I asked God to make the way.
The next morning, an officer pulled me into the hallway to inform me that the woman who was my victim had actually just been arrested, and because of my good behavior, they didn’t feel it was fair to get me to another county to be held until I was sent to prison. They were giving me the choice to decide if I wanted to be housed with her, or to be farmed out. My head spun in disbelief because this is not something that normally happens. I knew right then that God had heard my prayer, and He was giving me an opportunity to put up or shut up. As my victim entered the jail pod, you could see the fear all over her face. She went straight into her cell and crawled up into her bunk. I gave her a few minutes and then I made my way over to her door. I told her she was safe and I invited her to eat with me. In the following weeks, I managed to reconcile with her. We both expressed our apologies and started setting aside time every day to explore the teachings of the Bible. We exchanged scripture passages that resonated with us, and we even marked, signed, and dated our favorite verses in each other’s Bibles. Occasionally, I still glance at those pages and it never fails to bring tears to my eyes, witnessing how God worked within the confines of that jail.
I’ll always cherish the memories of how God started to mend my brokenness. I spent the next seven years in prison. I earned all of my good time. The experience was overwhelming, but I used the time to grow closer to God, and I established a godly reputation among the prison staff and my fellow inmates. I became a leader of a women’s Christian ministry inside the prison, and I started prayer groups on the dorms. Women sought me out for guidance, friendship, and prayer. I also tutored women for their GEDs, filed their taxes, I cut their hair. God used me in countless ways and continued to grow me in the process.
“I’ll always cherish the memories of how God started to mend my brokenness.” – Tanya Glessner
Catching Up for Lost Time
I was released in 2020, and soon afterwards I married my high school sweetheart who works as a captain paramedic. Adjusting to his schedule took some getting used to. As did the experience of being a stepmother. During my husband’s absence for forty-eight hour periods, I readily assumed various responsibilities. Each morning, I woke up to prepare breakfast and lunch for the children before driving them to school. I helped them with their homework. I took them to sports activities and took care of them when they were sick. It was really important to me to create a healthy routine as a family during this period.
Over the next three plus years, I began mentoring incarcerated men and women, as well as recovering addicts in my community. I served as the president of the Fort Scott Salvation Army and Compassionate Ministries, where I participated in organizing fundraisers and volunteering. Additionally, I initiated a fundraiser to raise awareness about mental health issues because I strongly believe that addiction often stems from this. My goal was also to contribute to eliminating the stigma associated with seeking mental health assistance. Just as we seek medical care when our bodies are unwell, I believe it is equally important to seek help when life becomes overwhelming.
I am living proof that no one is too far gone to be saved. God never wastes a hurt. He is using my past to write others’ futures. God uses my words to give a voice to those who need it. When God pulled me out of the darkness, I used one hand to cling to Him and one hand to pull someone else out.
“I am living proof that no one is too far gone to be saved. God never wastes a hurt. He is using my past to write others’ futures.” – Tanya Glessner
Someone You Can Always Count On
My prayer life during my incarceration was something I always looked forward to every day. For me, it was a place where I could find peace in the middle of the constant chaos that was around me. It was a way that I could connect with God that made me feel safe, in a time that felt extremely uncertain. My prayer time behind bars helped me to create a regular prayer routine throughout the day that I still use in my everyday life now. Prayer is like picking up the phone and calling the one person you know you can count on in any situation, no matter what time it is. It’s a way to tell God thank you for all His goodness and push the devil out of the conversation that is your life.
“Prayer is like picking up the phone and calling the one person you know you can count on in any situation, no matter what time it is.” – Tanya Glessner
I remember after I’d been in prison a couple of years, a ministry group came in and handed me a Jesus Calling devotional. I immediately went back to my bunk and I started reading it. And I read it every day and every year after, so many times that the pages fell out and I had to stick them back together. It was an inspiration that helped water the seed of the gospel that God had planted in me.
We are empty vessels, so we have to fill ourselves with something. And if we’re not filling ourselves with God, we’re filling ourselves with the world. And we know that the world is way off in the wrong direction. The only way that we’re ever going to get anything right is when we stay in His word and fill ourselves up with Him.
I’d like to close with a reading from Jesus Listens, June 18th:
My Savior-God,
I rejoice that You have clothed me with garments of salvation:
Your robe of righteousness is mine eternally! Because You are my Savior forever, Your perfect righteousness can never be taken away from me.
This means I don’t need to be afraid of facing my sins — or dealing with them. As I become aware of sin in my life, I can confess it and receive Your forgiveness in full measure.
I delight in Your assurances that I am precious in Your sight. I’m so thankful I don’t have to prove my worth by trying to be good enough.
You lived a perfect life on my behalf because You knew I could not do so. Now I want to live in this glorious freedom of being Your fully forgiven follower — remembering that there is no condemnation for those who belong to You!
In Your forgiving Name, Jesus,
Amen
Narrator: To learn more about Tanya Glessner, check out her book, The Light You Bring, wherever you buy books.
If you’d like to hear more stories about finding freedom from addiction, check out our interview with Ryan Sheckler.
Next week: Sabrina Greenlee
Next time on the Jesus Calling Podcast, we’ll hear from author and mom of NFL star DeAndre Hopkins, Sabrina Greenlee. Sabrina shares stories from her traumatic past that helped shape her into the woman and mother she is today.
Sabrina Greenlee: There are going to be things that are going to come our way, that God says He gives us the tools in the biblical sense to conquer everything that we went through. All we have to do is just tap into that.
