Life & Work with John Eklund of Selma, NC

Today we’d like to introduce you to John Eklund.

Hi John, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
Growing up, my parent’s marriage fell apart when I was 10 or 11 despite both of them becoming Christians. Unfortunately, it was, in fact, the church they were attending that may have been the greatest contributor to their marriage failing. The pastor they were following was caught having an affair, and suddenly nothing made sense to either of them. My mom left my dad and was remarried and suddenly nothing made sense to me and my 3 siblings either.

I tried to find a new normal, tried to find level ground amidst constantly shifting environments, but after several moves, a second divorce by my mother, and then multiple boyfriends in and out of our apartments, duplexes, rental houses, I fell into a depression that started in late grade-school and lasted until early high school. My dad had remarried and had a son – they seemed to be his “new family”, and though he stayed strong in his Christian faith, I felt rejected and abandoned by him. More accurately, I felt abandoned by both of my parents, though today, through recovery, I have accepted that they were doing the best they could with the cards they were dealt.

My first year of college, that same sense of rejection and abandonment returned with a vengeance and I began trying to drown it with alcohol, with predictable results. I dropped out of college and ended up in an upstairs apartment working graveyard shift cleaning offices while attempting to drink myself to death.

At twenty one years of age, after polishing off the last of the alcohol in the house, I loaded a double-barreled shotgun that had been passed down to me from my grandfather and began working up the “courage” to end my life. In that place of hopelessness and despair, I reached out in a last desperate prayer, “God, if You are there, I need an answer, a sign, something, anything to know You are with me, that You can help me, that You care about me. I need to know that you haven’t abandoned me too.”

In that dark lonely room of hopelessness, He did answer me. It’s hard to describe, but as true and real of a thing as if a friend or a family member walked into the room, I felt His presence, and His love. In just as real a way, He reminded me of the story of Jonah, which is a story of a man running from God. He hadn’t abandoned me, I had abandoned Him. He reminded me that He said in His Word that if I draw near to Him, He will draw near to me. I was ready to stop running from God, and from His purpose for my life.

I had taken the first 3 steps in recovery without even knowing it. Step 1-3 of the 12 steps read this way: “We admitted we were powerless, and that our lives had become unmanageable. We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity, and we made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God.”

I ended up finishing college where I met my wife. I became a social worker earning my masters and receiving a license in clinical social work allowing me to practice counseling which I have been doing now for 2 decades. I concurrently began working in full-time ministry 20 years ago laboring in various areas of outreach with a focus on recovery. Recovery began in earnest for me in 2005 when I was given the task of starting a recovery program in a church in Delaware. Recovery was an attempt to help people who went through some of the same struggles I did, felt some of the same hopelessness and abandonment I had felt. However, when my wife, who had been battling a life -threatening eating disorder, ended up in a treatment facility in Arizona, I hit another bottom in my life. I felt like I had failed to take care of my family. We had 4 daughters and suddenly their mother was whisked away with the explanation, “mommy’s sad and she went away to see if she could feel better.”

Through her process of recovery (and I am glad to report she has had freedom from her eating disorder for over 10 years), I realized my core struggle was not with alcohol, depression or even abandonment. I realized the real battle of my life was with something called codependency. Codependency for me took a form of people pleasing behavior and approval addiction that attempted to fix what seemed broken in others so what was broken in me would be fixed. I realized that my adult life, my ministry, my career was an attempt to make everyone happy, to make everyone “better”, to ultimately control others so I would feel in control. That’s when I stopped thinking of recovery as something for “those” people, and started working recovery myself.

Last year, after working in social work and recovery ministry for what has seemed a lifetime, I made a decision to create and launch my own recovery program called “Recovery Alive.” I took the knowledge and personal experience I have accrued, and put together a curriculum to help ANYONE suffering with ANY individual or relational struggle with the process of the 12 steps. Every single Friday night at Temple Church in Selma, NC 300- 400 adults, children and teens show up to work their recovery in a program that is transforming Johnston County one changed life at a time. We start dinner at 6pm, and then begin our program itself at 7pm with live music. We then share a talk about the 12 steps, or have someone share their story of recovery. Finally we break up into safe, confidential, same gender, issue specific small groups to work through the recovery process. Through this program we have seen marriages restored, folks freed from addictions, anxiety, depression, anger, resentment, abuse and loss.

It is not a class that has a start and end date, which means you can show up any Friday and begin your healing. It has been incredible to see the ministry thrive and grow as people all the way from Raleigh-Durham to New Bern attend and find hope through the program. We have a separate teen (Young and Alive) and children’s (Adventures Alive) ministry that meets at the same time and in the same location (separate building).

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
oh boy. No – the road has not been smooth OR straight! I have found the path God has me on is rarely clearly marked, and is certainly not without its detours. I have been thrown off course pretty painfully twice in ministry when my ideas and vision hit the brick walls of people with more power and influence.

I have wanted to give up when my marriage looked like it was failing because my wife was losing her battle with her disordered eating.

And just generally working in recovery can be heartbreaking. Watching someone struggle and fail is not just about relapse… it can be fatal.

In my personal life, struggles have always been more about my response to hardship than the hardship itself, but codependency is tricky. I have gotten tripped up constantly with a savior complex- feeling and taking responsibility for other’s decisions. In recovery and counseling it’s been hard to remember that individuals are ultimately responsible for the change that they are seeking. My work is to compassionately supply tools and encouragement for change, but I am not responsible for the change itself. The words I live by were given to me by my sponsor in a parking lot in California in 2007… I will never forget them. 6 words: “Just do the next right thing.” That’s all I can do, and it is enough.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I have just written my first book. I have dreamt about writing since I was a teenager. I love reading and have always been intimidated by what others have been able to create with words. My passion forced me to take a step of faith and put my own words out there- A recovery resource that I am very proud of. It is something that I think will have an impact, I pray, in many lives. It pools together what I have learned over my years in the helping world, and dozens of stories of those who have been changed through the recovery process and the power and love of God.

Do you have any advice for those just starting out?
It may be a little cliché, but courage is not the absence of fear, but the overcoming of it. Feel the fear. Don’t ignore it. I tell people in counseling that feelings are like the gauges of a car. Ignore them and everything breaks down. Feel the fear, don’t judge it. And then work through it. You may need help… don’t be afraid to ask for help. And then… Try it.
Do it.
Attempt it.
Dream, and then invite others to help you. Put wheels on your dreams. Don’t run from what God has created you to do.

Contact Info:

• Email: ra@templerepresents.com
• Instagram: @recoveryalive
• Facebook: @recoveryalive