Becoming Set Apart

Putting the bottle down was a beginning. Healing asked for more.

In Episode 3 of Becoming Set Apart, I’m talking about the space between stopping a destructive pattern and learning to live differently. Sobriety gave me clarity, and that clarity exposed other things I still needed to face: comparison, people-pleasing, shame, control, and wounds I had learned to avoid.

I share how church messages and Celebrate Recovery step study helped me examine whose approval was shaping my decisions, what I had actually surrendered, and where hearing truth still needed to become action. We walk through inventory, forgiveness, service, and the everyday choices that help change reach deeper.

This week’s challenge: identify one gap between what you believe and how you’re living. Write it down, then ask:

• What is true?

• What is mine to do?

• What do I need to surrender to God because I cannot control it?

Verse of the Week: 2 Corinthians 12:9.

Follow Becoming Set Apart and share this episode with someone who could use encouragement in their own becoming.

Faith for the Flawed. Faith • Recovery • Fitness.

I’m still becoming too.

Quitting alcohol was only the beginning.

In Episode 2 of Becoming Set Apart, I walk through my first full year of sobriety—from August 2023 to August 2024—and the life that started taking shape once I stopped running from everything I was carrying.

That year wasn’t one long victory lap.

There was growth. There was provision. There were answered prayers.

But there was also grief, broken trust, uncomfortable accountability, work stress, uncertainty, and moments where becoming somebody different required me to face parts of myself I would have rather ignored.

I talk about getting my first sobriety chip at Celebrate Recovery, learning to live one day at a time, the unexpected way God provided a truck when I needed one, damaging trust in my relationship even while sober, losing my father on Thanksgiving morning, walking away from jobs without knowing exactly what came next, watching my lawn business begin to grow, getting baptized with Heather, sharing my testimony publicly, and finally holding that one-year metal chip in my hand.

One of the biggest lessons from that year was simple:

Getting sober did not automatically make me whole.

It gave me the clarity to finally start doing the deeper work.

This episode is about what happens after the decision to change—when the emotion wears off, real life keeps moving, and you have to keep choosing who you are becoming.

Because breakthrough usually isn’t one moment.

It is a collection of decisions.

One prayer.

One boundary.

One difficult conversation.

One act of obedience.

One day at a time.

• The beginning of my first year sober

• Why “I will not drink today” became my approach to recovery

• Learning how to experience life without numbing it

• An unexpected answer to prayer when I needed a truck

• Why sobriety alone did not fix unhealthy patterns

• Breaking Heather’s trust and confronting lust and validation

• Losing my father on Thanksgiving morning

• Facing the strongest urge to drink I had experienced since getting sober

• Forgiveness, grief, and the letter I placed with my father

• Learning self-control through difficult work situations

• Going deeper through Celebrate Recovery Step Study

• The sermon that pushed me to finally “let it go”

• Walking away from jobs before I knew what was next

• How a simple Nextdoor post helped launch my own lawn work

• Getting baptized with Heather on April 21, 2024

• Celebrating my first sober birthday

• Sharing my testimony at Celebrate Recovery

• Building sober friendships and brotherhood

• Experiencing holidays and family gatherings without alcohol

• Receiving my one-year sobriety chip

• What the first year taught me about recovery, faith, discipline, and becoming

Write down the three biggest reasons you want to stay sober, change your life, or break whatever pattern has been controlling you.

Keep them somewhere you can see them.

Read them when things are good.

Read them when things get hard.

And when your mind starts negotiating with the version of you that you are trying to leave behind, remind yourself why you started.

You do not have to win the rest of your life today.

You just have to make the next right decision.

Becoming Set Apart is Faith for the Flawed—where recovery, fitness, and faith meet the everyday work of becoming who God made us to be.

We’re breaking free from what held us, letting go of who the world told us to be, and learning to walk in who we were called to be.

We’re not finished.

We’re becoming.

If something in today’s episode spoke to you, don’t keep it to yourself. Send this to somebody who might need to hear it. Also, like, comment, and subscribe.

SOURCES & FURTHER READING

National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA)

• Recovery Research Definitions

• Support Recovery: It’s a Marathon, Not a Sprint

• Alcohol Use Disorder: From Risk to Diagnosis to Recovery

• Treatment for Alcohol Problems: Finding and Getting Help

• Recovery from Alcohol Use Disorder — Overview

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)

• About Recovery

SCRIPTURE

• Philippians 4:11–13 — Verse of the Week

Scripture is used in the context of learning contentment, endurance, and dependence on Christ through changing circumstances—not as a promise that a person can accomplish anything they want simply by believing hard enough.

Broken crayons still color. And broken people still have purpose.

In the first episode of Becoming Set Apart, Kentrell shares the story behind the man and the mission—from childhood instability, anger, relationships, fatherhood, addiction, and destructive patterns to the night everything finally collapsed.

This isn’t a victory lap from somebody pretending to have everything figured out. It’s an honest look at what kept Kentrell bound, how God met him in the middle of the wreckage, and what it means to keep becoming who God created and called you to be.

In this episode:

• How childhood experiences shaped unhealthy patterns

• The gradual progression of alcohol and addiction

• The consequences of hiding pain instead of healing it

• The night everything changed

• How recovery, fitness, and faith became part of rebuilding

• Practical steps for identifying what may be controlling your life

VERSE OF THE WEEK

2 Corinthians 5:17 — “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here.”

YOUR NEXT STEP

Identify one thing that may be controlling your life. Name it. Write it down. Pray about it. Talk to somebody you trust.

Then ask yourself:

“If I stopped allowing this to define or control me, who could I become?”

Becoming Set Apart

Faith for the Flawed

Recovery • Fitness • Faith

Becoming Set Apart is about breaking free from what keeps us bound and becoming who God made and called us to be.

Recovery. Fitness. Faith.

No pretending that we’ve already arrived—just Faith for the Flawed and the ongoing process of becoming set apart.

Becoming Set Apart premieres September 27, 2026.