Hell and Back

“Are you Father Christopher Layden?” queried the three security guards at my office door on September 10, 2008. “Yes I am” I responded. Fear and confusion rushing over me like a torrent tide that was about to wash away everything I had come to know. They quickly identified themselves as the University of Illinois campus security guards. Most of the dialogue that came next is blurred in my memory, but the next question I remember hearing was: “Do you wish to speak to your lawyer?” I did. I was handcuffed and thrown down on a chair, then questioned further by the investigators while they searched my office for cocaine. It then became clear: I had been set up by someone I had considered a trusted friend. This was the day I entered Hell—dark, mysterious, filling me with and anxiety. I was arrested and had no contact with the outside side world and not even a phone call until the next morning. I was clad with a suicide-risk prevention jacket and thrown into a cell by myself with a blanket for protection against the cold concrete floor. I was left alone with the realization of everything that my life had become. I thought my life was over. In fact—I wanted it to be over. I did not wish to face what lay ahead of me; I knew I was in serious trouble. Flashes of what the informant had done to me in the preceding weeks became apparent. I knew that I had been set up professionally. I had little hope that anything would be resolved quickly, or for that matter, resolved at all. I remember thinking, “If I could only end it all now, my life and the lives of so many others would be easier.” Those thoughts, I realize, are the thoughts of a coward unwilling to face reality. Yet, at that particular moment, it seemed the only option that would take my pain away. Compounding my depression was the fact that I had been using cocaine that afternoon and well into the evening leading up to my arrest, and was stoned out of my mind. My overriding concern was that the story might end up making national headlines news. My own reputation would be ruined: What would my students at the University of Illinois think of me? What had I done to the Church? Out of desperation, I asked the arresting officers: “Will this be in tomorrow’s papers?” I did not want to believe that it would be, and I hoped that it would take a few days before the news would be widespread. I would have never guessed that by the weekend I would be fodder for late night talk show humor: The Tonight Show and Saturday Night Live. Friends who later visited me would say: “Damn! Saturday Night Live?” I simply hung my head in shame. It did not take me long to realize the scale of the scandal, and as I did, I knew that many people would be shocked and saddened. I knew that I was going to create pain and confusion, anger and heartache, in the hearts and souls of many. While I was using cocaine, I did not realize how many lives I was affecting and how many people cared for me. Churchgoers would now look upon me with disgust and frustration for the Catholic Church. Of particular concern to me were my students, whom I cared for deeply. For nearly three years I had been involved with campus ministry at the University of Illinois; thousands of students knew me from the altar on Sundays. I was considered a popular priest, known for giving a short and often humorous homily. I did not know all of the students who knew me, but I had gotten to know several hundreds of them, and with many I had developed strong, personal friendships. These were the students whom I worried about the most. Their faces flashed in front of me as I lay on the cold concrete floor. I could not sleep, and would not for many days. All I could do was think. It was hard to believe that I, a Roman Catholic priest for nearly eight years, was going into rehabilitation because I had been snorting cocaine—all for the immediate high, the instant gratification. I obviously knew better than this to do this, but I had ignored my conscience, and concerned myself only with what would take away my emotional pain. I had been living a double life: I was not practicing what I preached, and I had been acting against everything I had ever taught. I had been immersed in my own selfishness. Rather than being disgusted with myself, I chose to use more cocaine to relieve my sense of wrongdoing. I was incapable of admitting to myself and to others that I was powerless over cocaine, or that my life had become unmanageable and that the drugs were destroying my life. Astonishingly, even after my arrest and losing everything, I still could not admit what the real problem in my life was: my addiction to cocaine. There is no question that I was in Hell; at least it sure felt like it. How would I come back?