Oct 20, 2026 Show with Larry Herzog, Jr. on “Alcoholics Anonymous, Celebrate Recovery & the 12-Step Programs for the Recovery of Addicts: Are They Truly the Best & Most Biblically Faithful Pathways to Achieve Sobriety, Rescue & Freedom from Addiction?”

Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend Jim Thorpe.

It's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today. Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us, iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have a view in conversation to make one another wiser and better. It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen.

Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this 20th day of October 2026.

And before I introduce my guest and our topic of the day, I am so thrilled to announce that we have finally got the speaker and the date nailed down, engraved in stone on the calendar for 2027 for the first of my two Iron Sharpens Iron Radio biannual pastor's luncheons.

The spring luncheon, which will be the first luncheon of 2027, will be held on Thursday, May 6th, 11 a .m. to 2 p .m. at Church of the Living Christ in Loisville, Pennsylvania. And my keynote speaker for the very first time will be Pouyan Mershahi, and he is an Iranian-born former Zoroastrian who came to saving faith in Jesus Christ by his grace and mercy and is now pastoring a Reformed Baptist Church in Cheltenham, England, Providence Baptist Chapel.

He will be our keynote speaker, and everything is free of charge as always. Admission is free, lunch is free, and every attendee will receive one and possibly two heavy sacks of free brand new books, personally selected by me and donated by generous Christian publishers all over the United States and United Kingdom.

So if you are a man in ministry leadership and you are able to get to Loisville, Pennsylvania, which is Perry County, Pennsylvania, by plane, train, or automobile, please try to be there on Thursday, May 6th, 2027, and it's 11 a .m. to 2 p .m. at Church of the Living Christ in Loisville.

If you'd like to register, please just email me your registration to chrisarnsen at gmail .com, C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-S-E-N at gmail .com, and give us your full name, the complete name of your church or parachurch ministry and its location, and the number of men who will be joining you.

Put 2027 Pastors Luncheon in the subject line. And you might be wondering, why is he already announcing this? It's so early. Believe me, I have had so many men over the years tell me, oh, I wish I could have attended the luncheon, but I already had something scheduled.

Well, now I'm telling you all, if you're a man in ministry leadership, reserve that date now. Unless it's a wedding or a funeral, you have no excuse not to be there Thursday, May 6th, 2027, 11 a .m. to 2 p .m.

So send me that email to chrisorensen at gmail .com and put 2027 Pastors Luncheon in the subject line. I'm looking forward to seeing you there. By the way, if you wanna hear my interviews with Pastor Pouyan Mershahi, I've interviewed him several times, just go to irontreppanzionradio .com and type in Pouyan, that's P as in Peter, O-O-Y-A-N, and I can assure you he is the only guest I've ever had with that name, and you will see several interviews with him in the archive at irontreppanzionradio .com.

Personal Testimonies of Alcohol Addiction and Sobriety

Well, today we have a first-time guest who has a lot in common with me. Anybody who listens to Iron Treppanzion Radio with any frequency knows that I, very sadly, have a history of drunkenness. I have a history where after 18 years of sobriety, after coming to Christ and repenting of habitual drunkenness in my mid -20s, after 18 years of sobriety, I backslid into habitual drunkenness once again, and in fact, it was a worse case of habitual drunkenness, much more scandalous than my previous bout with this addiction, and I will never stop singing the praises of not only, of course, first and foremost, our Lord, God, Savior, and King Jesus Christ, but Hebron Colony Ministries in Boone, North Carolina, where I found sobriety and have been sober since 2012, and have never even had the slightest bit of desire to drink alcohol again, although I do not seek to rob the liberty of my Christian brethren who enjoy drinking socially, moderately, and responsibly.

I can even be in their presence and having dinner with them while they enjoy a glass of wine or beer, or perhaps even a brandy or something stronger, but it doesn't affect me at all. I'm not saying that everybody who has the history that I have, after coming to sobriety, has that same tolerance for being in the presence of those who are drinking, but the Lord has blessed me with that, I'm not trying to give the indication that I am somehow superior to others in any way, shape, or form.

For some reason, He has just blessed me with that ability. And so I am, by the way, I want to also just quickly give a shout out again to Hebron Colony by giving their website, hebroncolony .org, H-E-B-R-O-N colony .org.

It's in Boone, North Carolina. It is free, and it is the longest lasting, oldest recovery ministry for addicts in the United States. They also have a sister ministry for women with addictions in Santee, South Carolina.

And it just requires a $300 refundable deposit. It may have gone up since I've been there, I don't know. But that's just for pharmaceutical needs, if you require them while you're there. If you get sick, like I did, I got flu while I was there, and they needed to go to the pharmacy for me.

But I love that ministry, and it is not based on a 12-step methodology, like AA and NA and so on. But you can hear other programs I've done on that ministry. Just type in H-E-B-R-O-N in the search engine at irontripandzironradio .com.

But my guest today, who has a similar background to me, and we do have some differences. We have some in-house theological differences. He is a confessional Lutheran. I will forgive him that he was a Reformed Baptist and left the Reformed Baptist Church and became Lutheran.

But that will come up later on in our program as he discusses why he emphasized his understanding of the sacraments in his book that we will be addressing. But Larry Herzog Jr. is a confessional Lutheran layman, author, and adult Sunday school teacher at Grace Free Lutheran Church of Valley City, North Dakota.

And we are gonna be addressing Alcoholics Anonymous, Celebrate Recovery, and the 12-step programs for the recovery of addicts. Are they truly the best and most biblically faithful pathways to achieve sobriety, rescue, and freedom from addiction?

And we are going to be largely basing our discussion on the book that Larry has written, titled Kept, K-E-P-T, Sobriety, Grace, and the Hand That Won't Let Go. But it is my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to Iron Trip and Zion Radio, Larry Herzog.

Thank you. Thank you for having me, Chris. I really appreciate it. And actually, this is the first time I knew that you had struggled with alcohol. I did not know that you had that similar of a background as I did, because I, as you probably know by now, I was about literally over 20 years sober before I kind of slid back again.

And well, kind of slid back. It was epic, probably very similar to your situation. It was way worse than the previous time when I was in my 20s. But yeah, I did not know that we were that similar in our background, but now I do.

I do now know why you were attracted to my story. So that's good. That's good.

And we also have in common our hesitancy to recommend AA, Alcoholics Anonymous, and NA, Narcotics Anonymous, and even the Christian versions of the 12-step programs. That we will get more in depth in that momentarily.

We have a tradition on my program. Whenever we have a first-time guest, we have that guest give a summary of their salvation testimony, which would include any kind of religious atmosphere in which you were raised, if any, and the providential circumstances our sovereign Lord raised up in your life that drew you to himself and saved you.

So let's hear a summary of your story.

Okay. So my parents were, they identified as Lutheran, but we really didn't attend church when I was growing up, when I was younger, until I got to confirmation age. So then it became important, you know, they had some understanding, or at least from their background, that that was something that they should make sure their kids do.

So in eighth and ninth grade, I went through, we had a local rural Lutheran church, went through confirmation classes. And once that was completed, we basically stopped going to church and grew up pretty much in a godless family, and I don't say that in the fact that it was a bad raising.

You know, my parents, it wasn't abusive or anything like that, although my dad did have alcohol tendencies, but he was not, I guess, did not manifest as very abusive. But after graduating high school, I was basically, I was a self-proclaimed atheist, spent some time in the Air Force, and then when I got out of the Air Force, I was basically a card-carrying member of American Atheists for about seven years in my early, early, yep.

And it was actually during that time, yeah, I actually identified myself as having an issue with alcohol and had quit right before getting out of the Air Force.

By the way, did you know that I, years ago, arranged a debate with the man who was, at the time, the president of American Atheists, David Silverman, and Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries. They debated in my hometown of Amityville, Long Island.

I arranged it and hosted it, and it was on the theme, is the New Testament evil, I think, or something close to that. It was, it was taken, the theme was taken from a chapter in Christopher Hitchens, one of Christopher Hitchens' books, The World's Most Notorious Atheist, I think, next to Madeleine Murray O 'Hare.

And Christopher Hitchens had agreed to participate in the debate with Dr. White. By the way, our phone conversations while arranging this debate were nothing but wonderful and pleasant and gracious. He was a very kind and charitable man.

Unlike very often what you see on TV, he seems a lot more caustic. But then I got a call from his publicist, or his agent, actually. His agent told me that Christopher had to bow out of the debate because they discovered he had esophageal cancer, something that eventually took his life.

And sadly, from all counts I have heard, it is unlikely that he came to Christ before departing this world. But anyway, that's not the topic of our discussion today. I just thought I'd bring that up since you were in that very organization of American atheists.

Yeah, you'll find the next part interesting. I will mention that I do have a thing, vocal cord thing. So if I start sounding like RFKJ, don't worry about it, it's not painful. I didn't volume through it,.

It might sound a little hoarse. Just so your audience is aware. Okay, well, pick up where you left off there. I think the last time you were speaking, you said that you actually initially reached sobriety while in the American atheists, is that correct?

Well, before I was in there, I had identified as an atheist, but I hadn't joined the organization yet. Yeah, so basically, I was in the Air Force. I did one tour in the Air Force during the first Gulf War.

When you're in the military, you're typically an alcoholic amongst many other alcoholics. That's very rampant in the military. But even I got to the point in that environment where it was like, it was untenable.

So I quit drinking. And after getting out of the military, I pursued some college and got involved in American atheists. And that time, they had, this is pre-internet, they had a dial-up BBS that you could get information from.

And that's how I signed up to become a member. And actually, during that time, I was into the local bulletin board scene in Grand Forks, North Dakota. And for those that aren't aware, pre-internet used to be, people would stand up PCs, systems, and they would basically dial up to other ones and exchange messages and so forth and just kind of a message package exchange.

There were some networking and so forth involved, but it was basically kind of the pre-internet way to kind of exchange information and exchange ideas and so forth online. I had a friend that was in the Air Force stationed up in Grand Forks near me.

And I'd heard through the grapevine that he had gone home on leave and he had gotten saved. And this was very concerning to me because I didn't like, he's a smart guy. He's smarter than this. And so I made it my mission to set him straight.

So he got back. Yeah, so I, and the Lord was working on me even then because I decided the way to do that was to have a debate on the validity of the Bible. So even in my fallen, unrepentant state, I understood that it all hinged on God's word or what was claimed to be God's word.

So we set up a debate, basically exchanging messages back and forth online for all the local community to see that were involved in the BBS community. And yeah, I would set up a straw man arguments and pit verses out of context, just grabbing stuff off the American Atheist bulletin board and throwing it out there and he would reply back and he would knock things down.

I think at the time he was really engaged with some of Josh McDowell's materials, both from a textual criticism and manuscript availability standpoint as well as his background as a former atheist. So yeah, it just, I always say it didn't go well for me but really it did go well for me because at the end of it I was a redeemed believer in Christ.

So I had a, he had said, I was kind of meditating on something he had said and he said to me, that there's no sacrifice in the intellect where a belief in God is concerned. And I was just thinking about that.

And then I had this idea in my head, I'm like, maybe it is true, I'm going through all this scripture and stuff that he's presenting to me, a very gospel rich, gracious things that he's claiming that God has done for me and has done for sinners.

And that was probably the biggest hurdle for me is being an intellectual person is like, thinking that is blind faith, but no, this idea that someone that I knew was intelligent that could engage their mind and that there was logic and so forth involved in apologetics and that this wasn't something that you had to kind of take your brain and throw it off to the side.

But that God did give us intellect and did want us to question things and that he does give us answers and that looking at general revelation and creation and so forth, there are answers and there is undeniably intelligent design there.

And he used that to bring me to a saving faith.

Relapse, Christian Liberty, and the Call to Sobriety

Amen. So now bring us to the point where you are a professing Bible-believing Christian. What were the circumstances? And of course, you and I have not discussed this before the program, whatever you are comfortable telling me, and then I don't know if you've disappeared and gone off the air, but you've vanished.

Yeah, you're back.

Oh yeah, you froze for a second. So yeah, I probably froze on your end. Yeah.

What were the circumstances, whatever you care to share with me and my audience, that led to you after 20 years of sobriety, two more years than I was sober before backsliding, what were the circumstances that led you back to the bottle after 20 years of sobriety?

Now, I think this is probably a good environment to discuss. I don't go into this part that deeply in the book because it's not really the purpose of the book, but given the fact that you reformed, I have a reformed background, and I do know that having listened to some other episodes and so forth of your radio broadcast, in the reform camp, there is sometimes some abuses of Christian liberty, not necessarily with people partaking, but maybe not being as sensitive to brothers that struggle.

Oh yeah.

I have noticed that, and I have chastised in social media and gotten taken heat for it. I have chastised our brethren, and this would be true for both reformed Presbyterians, Reformed Baptists, and Lutherans, can't leave them out.

Yep, absolutely. The flaunting of liberty that can be a part of our lives is a very evident, and even social media posts and things like that, a flagrant lack of concern for those who are struggling around them, the weaker brethren, if you will.

And sometimes, and I'm not saying this with all of our brethren who do this, but some of these men reveal that they are actually sinning in the area of at least occasional drunkenness and not thinking it's all that serious when it's listed amongst damning sins by the Apostle Paul.

But anyway, I interrupted you, so you may continue.

Yeah, that's fine. And I think it was really during the early 20 teens or late aughts where we kind of had the whole resurgence, I guess, of reformed faith, but you had the whole kind of young restless and reformed kind of movement.

And it was almost like a part of the promotion of the reform movement, much to my dismay now. But you have people, as you mentioned, that don't struggle at all. Maybe you've had an issue and then you don't struggle with it, but there are a lot of people that in that camp would say that if you can't drink to the glory of God, then you're in sin.

So they believe that maybe you struggled with before, but if you can't overcome that, that's a sanctification issue. So I think if someone has not struggled with a specific besetting sin, I think they lack a clarity maybe in the situation.

It's not different than any other besetting sin, but the problem, or I guess maybe even I sometimes see as a blessing is that with drunkenness and so forth, for the most part, your sin is public and out there, where someone may have, their idol may be their reputation or money or other things, where it's not gonna affect their public persona, but where if you struggle with addiction or alcohol and so forth, for the most part, that typically ends up being something very public, something very destructive for your family and friends if it continues, and you really have to face it.

But just, I'm not gonna call it any specific churches or anything, but it was involved in a church that they refused to do an alternative to wine, which some people that's fine with if they struggle with drunkenness, they have a little bit of wine and that's fine, but it was, and I don't think if it was just that, it would have been much of an issue, but it was very much a kind of environment of every Sunday evening you get together in a deacon's house and there was a table full of alcohol, and there weren't people getting sloppy drunk, but there were people definitely feeling buzzed, and I would not say they specifically were in sin doing that, but the fact that they knew that I struggled but they desired for me to get over that instead of simply identifying that that's something maybe I shouldn't be doing.

So that really kind of helped, and it was my choice to take that, so I'm not gonna try to push off responsibility for my sin. So you were being encouraged. You were being encouraged. Was what I embraced and could not handle it.

And you were being, so in other words, you were being encouraged by your brethren in Christ to socially drink. Yes. Yes, I had one, I can only can think of one brother who did that decades ago after I had first come to the Lord and was sober, and he knew that I was refraining from any level of social drinking, moderate drinking, and he told me that I was sinning because I was doubting the miraculous work of salvation and sanctification that the Lord had granted me, and I was shocked by that.

That brother is with the Lord now. He went home to be with the Lord after a bout with leukemia, and I remember he, knowing of my position, would have gatherings at his home and he would not invite me.

He would invite almost everyone that was close to both of us except me, and that was because of the reason he wanted the drinking to be like a highlight of the gathering. But anyway, once again, I interrupted you.

Yeah, and when I hear about situations like that, and I've had other brothers talk to me about, maybe where they didn't, either they were perceived as not wanting to partake in alcohol or tobacco and those sorts of things, or maybe they had issues with it, and they will have gatherings where people say, hey, we're going to be smoking cigars and drinking, so if that's something you're not interested in or you struggle with, then don't come.

And what that tells the brother is that the drinking and the tobacco are the non-negotiables. Fellowship with you is negotiable, but the actual indulgence of those substances, that's the non-negotiable, and that's just sad.

Yes, those that behave as if drinking alcohol and smoking cigars are the sixth and seventh points of Calvinism. I don't know what the parallel would be in Lutheranism, but something close. Maybe third and fourth sacraments, I don't know.

Yeah, maybe something in regards to potlucks and casseroles.

So, because of that urging of your friends, come on, loosen up, have a drink, you fell back into drunkenness, and you had already told me during this program that it was worse even than before, when before you were sober for 20 years.

Yeah, when you wrap behavior in a halo, it can get pretty bad, and you've got a whole nother level of excuses and around the behavior that ultimately is not good for you, especially once you start losing days and drinking when you shouldn't be, and at work and those sorts of things.

So, yeah, it was bad. And I've heard you talk about this before, and I like to talk about addiction and drunkenness and so forth. It is like many other sins in that sometimes God will simply take something away from you completely.

It sounds like with you, there's no desire and so forth. I see this a lot in sexual proclivities of those that struggle with same-sex attraction and those sorts of things where you have people that, I know several people that God took that completely away from them.

They're married, got kids and so forth. And I know some other people that they've led a separate life and it's something that is a besetting sin. They have victory over it through God's grace, but God, for one reason or another, doesn't take that immediately away from them.

And I think we would do well as a church to understand that God doesn't deal with our sins the same way. And there's a reason that when we become believers and our identities in Christ, that we aren't sinless, because I believe it largely is because if we were sinless, then we would not continue to understand our need for your Savior.

You know, when you have to wake up in the morning, it may not be addiction or alcoholism and so forth, it may be other sin, pride, et cetera, but you got to put the old Adam to death daily. You wake up and lean on Christ.

You have an appreciation for Christ that otherwise we wouldn't. So I think it would be, yeah, we should definitely be understanding of the fact that not everyone's sins are dealt with the same way.

Now, did your brethren who were encouraging you to imbibe realize that they'd made a big mistake ever?

I don't know now, but there was not reconciliation in the fact that things got better in that church. I ended up having to leave that church and ultimately ended up with a confessional Lutheran church in town.

And, you know, I guess the rest is history from a theological standpoint. But yeah, and we can get into that. But yeah, it was a position that they did not come off of.

So even though you were found to be abusing alcohol and they were the ones that encouraged you, there was no, and they knew this, I'm assuming, that you were doing this. And there was no recognition that they helped push you through that doorway of drunkenness.

Yeah, no, it was just pushback on me that I was in sin, that I was not handling alcohol appropriately like I should be.

Interesting. Who would have thought you would have found a safer place to be in a Lutheran church? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. But so when did you actually re-enter into sobriety?

And I understand that was five years ago.

Yeah, about four and a half years ago, May, 2022.

Where were you? And tell us about the circumstances behind that.

So I did end up going to a rehabilitation center in California. It was not a Christian-based one. It was like, it was what my work in health insurance offered to me. It was a blessing in that I was able to kind of, well, one, I was pulled out of my family's environment, so they at least had me kind of a waif as I tried to get a handle on things, but also being able to unplug and study the scriptures and have that kind of insulated time was definitely a real benefit to me, even though that, you know, it kind of exposed me as well to a greater understanding of where, you know, 12-step programs and stuff fall short.

And that's something definitely, I'm sure we'll definitely get into. Well, we have Yeah, so that was summer of 2022. I was in Southern California, and yeah, that's when I got sober and then came home and have been sober ever since.

And we are gonna go to our first commercial break. If anybody has a question, submit it to chrisarnson at gmail .com. Chrisarnson at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence and your country of residence, if you live outside the USA.

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And we have, if you just tuned us in, with us today for the entire program, the first time guest, Larry Herzog Jr., a confessional Lutheran, layman, author, and Adult Sunday School teacher at Grace Free Lutheran Church of Valley City, North Dakota.

We are discussing Alcoholics Anonymous, Celebrate Recovery, and the 12-step programs for the recovery of addicts. Are they truly the best and most biblically faithful pathways to achieve sobriety, rescue, and freedom from addiction?

And Larry is, like myself, someone who has been rescued by our Lord out from drunkenness. And this was not only before salvation, but even after a time of backsliding. If you have questions, please submit them to chrisorensen at gmail .com.

Give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence. Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. And we will also be momentarily exploring Larry's book, Kept, K-E-P-T, Sobriety, Grace, and the Hand That Won't Let Go.

You've reached the point where you have come to the place of sobriety again. And as you said, this was four and a half years ago. Did this occur while at the Free Lutheran Church or prior to that?

No, I did go to the Free Lutheran Church and then it was probably, I mean, it was definitely like less than six months there before I ended up going. I was still in active relapse when we had pulled out of the other church, but I hadn't gotten a handle on it.

At that point, I'd known that it was an issue, but I had not even remotely got a handle on it. But that's why I ended up going to rehab. But yeah, we were under the Free Lutheran Church at that time.

Okay, and what, if at all, was the circumstance that led you to become acquainted with Alcoholics Anonymous, Celebrate Recovery, and the 12-step program methodology that you were to later become a critic of?

And I know that you have some kind things to say about people involved in those things, as I do, even though I disagree with all of those things, the AA, NA, Celebrate Recovery, and the 12-steps. I wholeheartedly applaud the motivation of people involved.

I know Christians who were involved in AA, even as active leaders in AA, who refused to offer people the option to surrender to a higher power of their own choosing. They insist it must be Jesus Christ.

And I know churches that have adopted their own 12-step programs that are Christian, but I still find them inconsistent with the scriptures on this, and do not believe that they are the appropriate methodology to be using.

But tell us about your own story with that. And if you, after you tell us how you became acquainted with them, you can also tell us what you think positively about them.

Okay, yeah, I mean, in general, the success rate of people coming out of addiction is very low. And the reason most of the recovery organizations and rehab centers and stuff embrace 12-step programs is because they're just slightly better.

People who are engaged in those programs are slightly better, and that's really been, in many ways, kind of a crutch of those, in lieu of a real answer, like Christian, Biblical-based, like Hebron, that you would be a blessing in being able to participate in.

They reach for what they think is going to work, and the 12-step programs, like I said, they have more success than nothing. And so that's kind of what, that's why court systems embrace it, and you have to get your card signed and so forth, because it's really the only option that God's solution has, a worldly solution has.

And there are, you mentioned that you have a lot of brothers who are in AA or other 12-step programs that say, okay, this is just, it's the higher power is Christ, and that's what we accept, that's what we embrace.

I know some Christians in the past who were Freemasons. They say, hey, the grand architect of the universe is just Jesus, right? So it's kind of the same sort of deal. You have this kind of broad idea of, okay, it's a generic God, but in my case, and in my sphere of influence, it's going to be the God of the Bible, but at the same time, the whole thing is built on something other than Biblical truth.