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"It reminded me of how women in the Nation of Islam dressed back in the 1960s. When I put the sheets on, I felt like a bride, and honestly, I loved it. It made me feel like I was part of something; something exclusive, something unique. At the same time, I was a little bit scared because I thought the prophets there could read my mind or know all my sins just by looking at me. That was the kind of thing I’d heard about their supposed gifting and ‘powers’.

One of the deepest wounds I carried was the quiet, corrosive belief that I had somehow become damaged goods.

It is a work that defies genre and expectation: part memoir, part reckoning, part dialogue between a survivor and the man who violated her.

It was as if my mind replayed a reel of all the ways I’d been seeking God, often unknowingly. And in that moment, an overwhelming rush of love washed over me, undeniable and profound. I knew, without seeing or hearing Him, that I had encountered God. It was a quiet, personal revelation - an inner truth that forever changed the way I understood faith, identity, and the divine.

His conversion, he later writes, was “the most painful thing [he] ever did,” costing him friendships and familial bonds.

Not only had the other driver accumulated a long list of driving-related charges over the years, but he had also never obtained a driver’s license. He was drunk and high on cocaine, driving at nearly 100 miles per hour. As is often the case in these situations, he only sustained minor injuries from the crash.

While this book is not about theology, it offers profound lessons for the Church, particularly for those engaged in ministry to the suffering and vulnerable.

Written by a minister who has spent decades walking with individuals and families entangled in the grip of addiction, this book refuses both reductionism and sentimentality. In an era when addiction is often reduced to a clinical diagnosis or a moral failure, Aaron White's book stands out as a work of rare theological depth and pastoral insight. It offers a clear-eyed yet deeply compassionate account of what addiction is, why it holds such power, and how communities of faith