​Last week, Dr. Mehmet Oz - Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services - responded to the federal government removing long standing guidance encouraging Americans to limit alcohol use:

Dr. Oz called alcohol a "social lubricant" - and said, "There’s probably nothing healthier than having fun with friends in a safe way.”

In fairness to Oz, he did go on to say, “In the best case scenario, I don’t think that you should drink alcohol.”

I think his remarks give us some things to think about. One, I am grateful for any doctor who will suggest there is nothing healthier than human connection. If more doctors would prescribe more relationships than pills, we'd be a healthier society.

The thing is, I think almost everyone knowingly or unknowingly craves relationship, but have a difficult time entering them. We used to be a culture that was built on relationships; we are now a culture trying to compensate without them. Relationship skills are not among our country's greatest competencies.

Alcohol, enter stage left. Alcohol can indeed make it easier for us to get out of our own way and into the way of human connection.

But some further questions need asking.

Alcohol may help us enter a relationship, but is it equally good at holding it together? If two people bond over drinks, will drinking be an equally good partner in solving the problems that arise when the bond encounters inevitable difficulties?

And another great question: once the bond gets going, does alcohol bring problems into the bond that would not exist without the alcohol?

Research suggests that anywhere from a third to a half of all divorces involve alcohol misuse. Research suggests a much larger percentage of inter-partner violence involves alcohol misuse.

But here's the thing, enough Americans have seen alcohol use in their families and in their relationships to know if alcohol is more lubricant than glue. We are our own research. I know I have personally met with many young people AND adults over the years who have wished people in their lives would drink less. I've yet to meet anyone who wished someone in their lives would drink more.

I have a personal story of romantic relationships ignited by alcohol. I have a personal story of alcohol playing a large part in blowing every one of them up.

Maybe alcohol is a social lubricant. But it's my experience that we need things to bring us together that are equally good at holding us together. I've just never seen alcohol be good at being one of those things.

I am glad we are having open conversations about social lubricant. I hope it invites us into more conversations about social glue.

​I am putting the finishing touches on my memoir. As such, I have spent a lot of time the last year writing about relationships. After all, at the center of almost all memoirs is relationships - the good, the bad, and the ugly.

The plots of our lives are ultimately shaped through the stories of our relationships. There are no meaningful stories without them.

In my writing and reading, I came across an article on the mental health challenges of marriage. The article outlined the 7 signs of a silent divorce. I want to share them with you here:

1. You stop talking about anything real. Conversations become transactional - about kids, bills, or chores, but never about emotions.

2. You feel lonelier with them than when you're alone. The emotional connection has vanished, leaving quiet emptiness between you.

3. There's peace - but it's cold. No arguments, no passion, just emotional distance disguised as calm.

4. You stop caring to fix things. The effort, hope, and fight to make it work slowly fade.

5. Affection feels awkward or forced. Hugs, kisses, and small touches start feeling like obligations, not intimacy.

6. You fantasize about being free - not in love. You daydream more about peace without them than life together.

7. You live separate lives under one roof. Different schedules, rooms and emotional worlds - you coexist but don't connect.

Why am I sharing this with you? A couple of reasons.

One, when my 22 year marriage ended in divorce, many people asked me - with good intentions (mostly) - what happened? As if some event - some unpredictable explosion - destroyed a union that had previously been held together by 22 years of bonding.

What kind of event, they had to be wondering, could destroy such a bond?

The reality is, when I read those 7 signs above, I related to every single one of them. And not loosely, but in direct alignment. All 7, every moment of every day, for at least the last decade of my marriage. And in the midst of all 7 of those signs, I came to accept they were just part of what needed to happen to hold my marriage together.

Yes, my unwritten strategy for holding my marriage together was actually 7 signs of a silent divorce.

Many will ask, how on earth could you have believed that. Felt that. And my only answer would be that I was in a dark place. But I am sharing this because I have come to know I am not the only one who has or will experience that dark place.

Living inside divorce under the illusion that you are living inside a marriage can be exhausting. It can indeed take a toll on one's mental health.

I am also sharing this because I didn't understand any of what I am sharing here until many years after my divorce. Obviously, had I understood much of this while inside the marriage, and if I - and we, because those signs require two people - had been in a healthier place and in earlier stages of those signs, they could have been seven things to work on to grow a marriage, and not the path to blowing one up.

They may have helped put a stop to the erosion that was cutting a path through a marriage on the way to the explosion. Because in many cases, divorce is far more erosion than explosion.

Maybe someone will read this and see subtle hints of one or some or all of these signs in your marriage. Maybe they will be an avenue to sit down, review with a partner, have a discussion. A discussion that might feel like an explosion, but actually might serve to prevent one.

And maybe one day one of my boys will announce they are getting married. Maybe these signs will be an opportunity for me to counsel them - to guide them - to hand to them to use as daily guardrails, a daily taking of the marriage temperature.

Fevers can often be more manageable than the disease that follows.

Divorce rarely pops up as "it's over" - it more often spends years laying the fuse that will one day make a slow fade look like a bomb just went off.

Fuses can be undone.

More often than not, exploding bombs can not.

​Yesterday, I wrote about New England Patriot's coach Mike Vrabel, and how he made connection with his team a priority in his coaching style. I wrote he does that because that is what each of us requires - longs for - relationship.

I thought about that deeper yesterday in terms of Jesus - and Christianity. There's an old saying - a cliche' of sorts - that says 'Christianity is not a religion, it's a relationship'. What that is saying is the heart of Christianity is not about cleaning up your act, it's about drawing closer to the one who gave you your act to begin with.

It's about loving the one who gave the rules so deeply that rules feel more like a path to love than mandates that begin to feel like the price of love.

And this is how Christianity often gets distorted into something transactional:

“If I do this, God will do that.”

“If I behave, God will bless.”

“If I fail, God will punish.”

That’s not relationship. That’s spiritual management.

As someone who has experienced a failed marriage, I started thinking of this spiritual management in terms of marital management. How you can be committed to following every rule of marriage and still land in an emotional desert. How if you don't wake up every day centered on growing and nurturing the love in the connection, the rules of the connection can become quickly meaningless.

Behaving like a happily married couple doesn't always mean there is happy love between the couple.

And I think of it in terms of fatherhood. How a dad can raise children to fully understand the rules of a home so strongly that the child's greatest desire becomes leaving that home. It's easy for parenting to become about establishing and enforcing rules at the expense of not growing a connection.

Rules will never bring a child back home; connection will make it impossible for them to stay away.

I think that's what Jesus longs for - a connection that makes it impossible for us to stay away. And too often, it's breaking the 'rules and commandments' of Christianity that leaves folks believing they are unworthy of a connection with Jesus.

That's a completely upside down understanding of Jesus, and a repellent to those longing for a connection with something bigger than themselves.

Jesus came to help us understand that following rules is not the path to him, but rather, loving him is the path to following the rules. Jesus love is built on accepting that he came to love the flawed rule breakers, not the folks who believed they could become flawless enough to earn his love.

Following rules is rarely the path to a loving connection, but a loving connection is often a path to longing for guardrails and rules that will protect that connection.

Memorizing the rules of love will leave you in a constant pursuit of love. Getting to know someone - a never ending desire to do so - that is the path to love.

That, is the ONLY path.

​Mike Vrabel is the first year coach of the New England Patriots. He just led the Patriots to their first division title since a guy named Tom Brady was around - which makes Vrabel and his team quite a story.

Before their playoff game yesterday, one of the pre-game shows interviewed several Patriot players about "how did you do it?" The players referenced something that happened before the season, and off the field, as a big piece of their success.

In a team meeting before the season began, Vrabel asked each player to share their 4 H's. He asked each player to stand up and share their: History, Hero, Heartbreak, and Hope.

The players said initially they felt uneasy about the request - until Vrabel volunteered to go first. They said their coach being vulnerable felt like an invitation for them to do the same.

It's my observation that the leaders who don't lead well - who are leaders with far more subordinates than followers - skip this vital step that Vrabel put first. The step of connecting.

And the first step of connecting is always - "I want to know you."

Leading without connecting is managing. Or more honestly, it’s controlling. You can get compliance without connection. You can get motion without meaning. You can even get results for a while. But you will not get loyalty, trust, or transformation.

I see it often in the business world, in the pastoral world, in the coaching world - and really, quite often, in the parenting world. Leaders - those in some position of authority - who have no idea how to connect to another human being on a vulnerable level, so they overcompensate for it by doubling down on control. Intimidation. Fear-based guidance.

Without connection, people don’t follow the leader, they follow the paycheck, the rulebook, or the exit sign. I hear a lot about 'burnout' these days - and in many cases, burnout is simply a case of not enough connection.

None of this is surprising. Our brains are wired this way. They are always seeking safety - they most often feel their safest inside connection - and inside that connection is where they are eager to listen, learn, and follow.

When you stand up in front of a room of teammates and share your biggest heartbreak, and your teammates listen with interest and compassion, you feel safe, seen, and known. And when this is all arranged by your coach, invited by him, you're suddenly a player who wants to not just play for that coach, you want to follow him.

Some days the world feels pretty chaotic to me. I feel like that's because we don't have enough leaders. And I'm not talking national level politicians - I'm talking leaders in our families, and businesses, and churches, and communities.

We have too many people in charge who don't know how to connect (often because they grew up without it) - who do not VALUE connection - so they lead with control. And eventually, too much control starts to look like too much out of control.

If you want to become a better leader today, maybe ask those you want to follow you about their 4 H's. And when they look a little uneasy about it - you go first.

You lead the way.

​Yesterday, a friend of mine shared some thoughts and feelings on a recent event. Before sharing, she prefaced that it had been a long time since she allowed herself to share something "political."

Those quotation marks are hers, not mine.

But it WAS the quotation marks that made me wonder, what exactly does it mean to be political today? I mean, she wasn't writing about elections or political parties or voter registration or current legislative bills up for debate in congress. She was sharing her thoughts and feelings about an interaction between humans that turned sad and destructive.

She was writing about humanity; can we do that these days outside of the context of politics?

When I was young - some five decades ago - I remember our politics being a reflection of our humanity. I think today more of us look at humanity through the lens of our politics. When I was young, who we were largely influenced how we voted; today, I believe more than ever, our votes are a starting point for determining who we are.

Today, I believe we see interactions between humans and allow the politics we identify with to shape how we see, think, and feel about those interactions. I guess that's how these interactions become more about "politics" than humanity. I guess that's how we look at news stories and let our "positions" lead the way more than we allow our compassion and empathy to create a space for curiosity and exploration.

Curiosity and exploration, after all, is the recipe for coming together. But politics, I fear, has made coming together some sort of mortal sin, a sin that puts one at risk of being disowned by their politics.

This is no small deal. Because for many - and research supports this - politics has become as central to one's social identity as ethnicity and religion and nationality. I believe partisanship has become at least as much about belonging as it is about a label for our policy positions.

And I get this, because the other trend I've seen decline since my youth IS people's sense of belonging. Again, research points to an American humanity that feels as lonely and disconnected as it's ever felt.

I spent decades working with some really good kids who'd been involved with some really destructive gangs and peer groups. Groups and gangs that influenced these kids' thoughts and choices - many of which were unhealthy, violent and self-destructive.

Why would really good kids make such really poor choices?

Because fitting in - belonging - is one of humanity's core needs. Maybe its core-est need. If one doesn't belong, they will always have a heart that longs to do so. A longing that leaves many people vulnerable to saying yes to a chance to belong first and then figure out the direction and price of that belonging later. (Side note: many marriages and romantic partnerships start this way...)

So am I suggesting that Democrats and Republicans and Libertarians and Independents have become gangs preying on the lost and lonely? Not necessarily, but in some cases - yes.

But I do very much believe there are many who are lost and lonely and disconnected, who, as a result, are more susceptible than ever to adopt positions about humanity before fully exploring the human impact of those positions.

I wonder how many of us have not allowed ourselves to be as compassionate and empathetic towards fellow humans for fear it might look like a position not in alignment with our voting kin?

I wonder how many of us would be brave enough to express some measure of that compassion or empathy if it put us at any risk at all of looking like one of them (insert opposing political party)?

I am not relatively bothered by our country's political divide. I do, however, have great fear that our political divide has come to define the character and direction of our humanity.

Politics used to be a big part of us.

Now, I fear, it is us.

​Elliott and I were watching Indiana and Oregon play for a chance to go to the NCAA football national championship last night. Early in the game, I looked at Elliott and said, "Indiana makes all the hard stuff look so easy."

If you're always looking for lessons in life - like I am - you can miss a big one by thinking what looks easy to a team like Indiana has COME easy to the team.

I've watched several Indiana football games this year, and if I had to offer one takeaway from the games I've watched - it's that Indiana does not make mistakes. No false starts. No offsides. No holding on third and long. No panic throws. No sloppy exchanges. And I'm not sure they even know what a fumble is.

It's been a long time since I've seen a college football team look as much like perfection as this team looks. As a big Notre Dame football fan, I've watched a lot of football games living with at least an underlying fear of the next mistake.

Yet, I watch Indiana and get lulled into believing they are immune to mistakes. And after last night, I'm not sure they aren't. But where does that immunity come from - bringing in players who are immune to mistakes?

I think we all know leaning on human perfection to produce perfect outcomes will always be a failed strategy.

Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza gave an answer in a post-game interview last night that I found telling. When asked how they were going to get ready for the national championship game after the big win he said, "We'd love to crack open a couple of beers, but we have to get ready for the national championship."

In other words, he was saying we'd love to do what is fun, but we need to do what is required.

Because here's the thing, what looks like discipline and even perfection on game day is usually boredom in practice. It’s doing the unglamorous things so often - over and over - that they no longer require adrenaline or getting up for.

When you demand and practice perfection, you don't have to ask it to show up in big games - perfection will quietly tag along as the biggest part of your game.

Many of us watch people show up to big games and make big plays that lead to big achievements and we think - these are simply people with the very biggest of big time talent.

And maybe there is some truth in there.

But I think it is truer that what looks big to us - easy even - is often the showcase of talented people who have spent much of their lives doing little things so often that those little things show up on game day as powerful as slings and stones.

It's talented people who are tempted to crack open beers - but instead choose a seemingly less exciting route.

It's too easy to witness an exceptional performance and think it's the product of exceptional people. The reality is, though, we all have the path to exceptional right in front of us - we just many days decide it feels too long and boring to follow.

Some people make hard look easy, and usually, it's because they've spent a lot of time choosing hard over easy.

We will all have similar choices today.

Hard or easy.....

​Some of our greatest unhappiness lives in the gap between who we are and who we pretend to be.

When how we act looks like how the world wants us to act, the world tends to applaud. It gives us likes, promotions, invitations, belonging.

It says, “Yes, that’s it. That’s how you’re supposed to be.”

But applause and peace are not the same thing.

Most of us learn early how to read the room. We learn what gets smiles. What gets approval. What keeps us safe. So we become fluent in performance long before we become fluent in ourselves.

But there is a price to be paid when our performance becomes more of a show for the world than a show of ourselves.

For a while, it works. People think we’re doing well. We look functional. Responsible. Put together. We are being what the world needs from us. But slowly something else begins to ache. Because there is a quiet cost to living as a version of yourself that was built for everyone else.

I’ve had many sleepless nights in my life, lying awake, wrestling in the dark with the man I dragged home from the light of day.

It's exhaustion. It's a nighttime of the body and soul screaming "This isn't me. This is who I learned to be."

But when the man in the dark gets committed to looking like the man in the light, something different happens.

Relief. Alignment. A sense of peace and contentment and joy that no amount of approval ever gave us.

Our nervous systems thrives under the cloud of truth. As does our heart and soul and spirit. From the moment we stop asking, "How should I be?" and start asking, "Who am I when I'm not afraid to be who I am?" life changes.

The world might be happier when you look the way it wants you to, but chances are YOU will be happier when you finally look like you. The question then becomes, whose happiness are you most committed to serving?

And I should say, I am not a big believer in chasing happiness, but when happiness becomes a natural consequence of living in your truth, it starts to feel like happiness has been chasing you.

And that is a chase I can fully embrace.

In the light AND in the dark....

​Jesus once told a gathering of people:

If you are not for me you are against me, if you are not gathering you are scattering.

Jesus was telling the people there really is no such thing as neutrality.

There is no middle ground.

Passivity is a choice, and there is no such thing as an inconsequential choice.

Maybe you are not a Jesus follower, but I think the implications of his words here are applicable to all.

It is a reminder that being passive does not freeze outcomes in our lives, it simply hands them over to the forces that are already the most active.

In a relationship, silence hands things over to the status quo. In organizations, inaction empowers the loudest or most entrenched voices. In culture, disengagement rarely preserves values - it dilutes them.

Many people think passivity is neutrality. Not so. It's usually more about avoiding a price to pay for engaging. It's avoiding conflict, responsibility, being misunderstood, or a loss of comfort or belonging. But avoiding cost doesn’t avoid consequence, it just delays the price to be paid and lets others decide the price.

I am not suggesting that we all should be actively engaged in everything. But I am suggesting you can't say something is important to you and then not move in directions that look like importance.

Jesus was telling his followers that SAYING you're a follower doesn't make you a follower. Following looks like movement, like action, like GATHERING.

What's important to you?

What truths or principles or obligations are big enough in your life that you would call yourself a follower of them?

And maybe here's a bigger question. Do others know you are a follower of such?

I think what Jesus was telling us is that we can't take a stand by sitting. Sitting is too easy to confuse as no stance at all.

Sitting might not feel like a direction, but it surely is.

​I had a conversation with a work colleague yesterday. The conversation was almost over when, somehow, we found ourselves talking about Chinese zodiac symbols. Actually, she did all the talking and I did all the listening, because I honestly know nothing about them.

But as she talked, I started getting goosebumps. It was as if our planned conversation had only been the warm-up, and this unplanned direction was what we were actually meant to talk about.

She told me that according to the lunisolar calendar used in China and much of East Asia, last year was the Year of the Snake and this year is the Year of the Horse. So what exactly does that mean?

As she described it, the Year of the Snake is associated with shedding skin (transformation), introspection, inner work and healing, patience, and renewal after loss. Snake years are often described as seasons when what was hidden becomes clearer, old identities are shed, and people process deep emotional or spiritual layers of their lives.

Nothing could describe my 2025 better than that.

So what about the Horse?

The Horse, she told me, is all about movement. Courage. Momentum. Taking risks and making decisions in line with your calling and purpose. It’s everything you might imagine in a horse in full gallop.

The Year of the Horse is when clarity turns into direction. It’s the year people feel called to run, build, act, launch, or leave. It’s when constraints loosen and energy feels uncontained and alive. As I’ve imagined my 2026, I have imagined it feeling like exactly that.

When our conversation ended, I didn’t feel an urge to run out and buy a Chinese zodiac calendar, but I did feel like God had put my friend on the other end of my screen for a reason. As I’ve stepped into this new year, I’ve felt an urge to climb on the horse in many areas of my life. Yesterday I heard God whisper:

“What are you waiting for?”

Did you shed anything last year that has left you feeling ready to gallop? Did you have a “snake year” that now has you ready to embrace the Horse?

If so, let me ask you:

What are you waiting for?

​If we’re not careful, winning can quietly sabotage our future.

Winning feels like proof that what I’m doing works. Which is great, unless it freezes us there. Unless it makes us stop experimenting, stop questioning, stop being curious.

Complacency rarely shows up as someone who is lazy, it more often shows up as someone who thinks they have it all figured out. I have heard it said that success breeds success. This is sometimes true. But it is also true that success can breed stagnation.

Losing begs you to have some conversations winning never begs for. Where am I weak? What am I avoiding? What habits do I have that are not sustainable? What coaches or mentors in my life have I stopped listening to?

Losing strips away the illusions we build around ourselves. It removes the idea that “I must be fine because it worked.” Sometimes winning can be dishonest, while losing tells the truth we don’t want to hear but desperately need.

Why am I writing this?

Because many of us are in the first week of a new year, already committed to “win more.” I don’t want us to become overconfident with the first win and assume we’ve arrived. And I don’t want us to be undone by the first defeat and assume we never will.

Sometimes losing is a better path to winning than winning is. Maybe even most of the time.

And maybe winning isn’t even the best goal. Maybe the better goal is becoming. Becoming demands that whether we’re winning or losing, we keep examining ourselves.

There are valuable lessons in both winning and losing. It’s just been my experience that we tend to ignore them when we’re winning, and we’re afraid to face them when we’re losing.

I truly hope you experience many wins in 2026. Just don’t be caught off guard if, along the way, you occasionally feel like a loser.

That feeling might be the very thing that grows you.