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.