Trauma, Addiction, and the God Who Didn't Leave is a field report from the middle of a spiritual battlefield. Drawing on his own history of inherited violence, opioid dependence, Anonymous-era digital vigilantism, and a custody war that went public, community chaplain Eric C. K. Fortner walks readers through a brutal question: What if your deepest wounds came wrapped in God's name? Part memoir, part clinical reflection, part theological street-fight, this first volume in A New Gospel for the Spiritually Abused refuses tidy answers and cheap repentance. It traces how trauma rewires a nervous system, how addiction becomes survival, and how a very real God keeps showing up anyway-through albums on repeat, courtroom transcripts, scarred-over memories, and small, defiant acts of mercy.
Written as a series of essays, case studies, and "catechisms" voiced by archangels and demons, this book is not an invitation back into the church machine. It is an invitation back to the God who did not leave when institutions did. For survivors of spiritual abuse, people in recovery, burned-out ministers, and anyone who has ever flinched at the phrase "The Bible clearly says," this is a map for interrupting generational curses without losing your soul. The only thing you are asked to believe at the start is simple: your scars are not a disqualification. In the right hands, they are weapons of war.
Chaplain Eric C. K. Fortner is a U.S. Army veteran and former staff sergeant, a community chaplain, and the founder of Dad's Naloxone & Needles, a harm-reduction nonprofit based in the Ohio River Valley. After nearly two decades of military service and a long personal history with trauma and addiction, he now spends his days handing out Narcan, court filings, and stubborn hope in roughly equal measure.
Eric holds degrees in counseling and family dynamics and is pursuing a Ph.D. in Counseling & Psychological Studies with a focus on addictions. His work sits at the intersection of clinical psychology, spiritual formation, and street-level chaplaincy for people who have been burned by both church and systems.
Through Feral Christian Ministries, Eric writes, teaches, and shows up for people who flinch at church words but still suspect God did not leave. He lives in Ohio, parents six kids, listens to loud music, and believes that scars-when healed-can become weapons of war against despair.
