A lot can happen in a year, a sentiment to which Logan Saunders can attest — 14 months ago, he was reaching, if not sitting at, the proverbial rock bottom.
“A little over a year ago, God was an old friend that I didn’t intend on catching up with, my wife was separated from me, I was jobless, my family was suffering from wounds I’d provided, and I was in the deepest valley of addiction I’d ever seen,” the Buford/Sugar Hill resident said.
In the game of golf, there’s a second-chance shot, an opportunity to replay a stroke when the first shot has gone badly — a mulligan. This is the story of Logan’s mulligan.
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A pastor’s son, Logan grew up in his father’s church, The Crossing, part of a musically talented family. Logan started teaching himself piano at 12 and guitar at 15.
“Around 15 is when I met Jesus through worship and began leading worship at church and anywhere else I could,” he said.
A student at Buford High School, Logan played running back for the Wolves until dislocating his shoulder multiple times shifted his focus from sports to music. Logan graduated from Buford High School in 2012 and was accepted to Georgia State with plans to major in music business.
“I moved to Atlanta the summer after my senior year and began working in restaurants to fund ramen noodles and cheap beers,” he said. “At Georgia State I met some young and hungry Atlanta rappers who desperately needed people to sing ‘hooks’ on their songs and I volunteered to help them out.”
Logan began visiting hip-hop studios, where he met an up-and-coming music mogul who was intrigued by his work and offered him a record deal.
“The second I got signed, I dropped out of school and focused on music full time,” he said.
After about a year negotiating a contract, Logan decided, at the advice of legal counsel, to decline the record deal. His passion then shifted to managing restaurants and craft-cocktail-bartending.
“I was fascinated by the craftsmanship some of these amazing cocktail programs had and the way guests felt when they watched their drinks being prepared; not to mention all of the history that goes into the recipes and products themselves,” he said.
Logan began drinking daily.
“… to some extent, it was my job,” he said. “Testing out cocktail recipes, trying new methods for cocktail creation, making up drinks for cocktail competitions were tasks I was doing in the mornings.”
In the evenings, Logan worked as a bartender — a restaurant he worked for was nominated for a James Beard Award for outstanding Bar Program.
“For those who don’t know, getting a Beard Award is like getting an Oscar in restaurants,” he said.
But after years of balancing drinking and work, the alcohol began to take a deeper hold.
“I grew up with a loving, Christian family. Good friendships. No trauma. I started drinking because it looked fun and seemed normal,” Logan said. “I guess that old saying is true, ‘Too much of a good thing is a bad thing.’ For me though, it was much worse than just a bad thing; it was a self-destructive thing that I couldn’t live without.
“I lied to myself, saying, ‘If God puts a beautiful, Christ loving woman in my life, I will slow down my drinking.’ God, of course, called my bluff but I was in way too deep to stop now,” Logan said.
Logan reconnected with a Buford High School classmate, Elsie Medina.
“… what I initially thought was catching up with an old friend immediately sparked into a romance,” Elsie said. “I was attracted to his charismatic personality, confidence, ability to make people feel good about themselves, and how well he cultivated joy. He is a passionate person and because of that I could take his feelings for me seriously. I knew he meant what he said, because that’s just how he is.”
Logan began trying to find his way out of addiction.
“I began looking for jobs outside of restaurants because I used that as a scapegoat for my own poor behavior,” he said.
Logan’s parents were having lunch at a Buford restaurant, Rico’s, where they met Trey Lewis, the founder of the faith-based addiction recovery program Good Landing Recovery.
“They asked Trey to reach out to me so he and I had lunch at Aqua Terra where he offered me a job at Good Landing Recovery,” Logan said. “I knew I was too far off to work at a place like that.”
Logan then found himself struggling to keep a job. He managed a T-Mobile store for a while and considered starting a furniture refinishing business.
“… unfortunately, my addiction to alcohol did not care about my occupation,” he said. “Eventually, it got to the point where I was being fired from all of the jobs I had due to drinking.”
Logan’s marriage also started to fail.
“After about a year of marriage, two withdrawal induced seizures, and two failed attempts at a rehab, Elsie had about enough of me,” he said. “And I don’t blame her. I had about enough of me too.”
“Inconsistency is the hardest part about loving someone in active addiction,” Elsie said. “It’s like loving two people at once because you just never know what version of them you’re going to get.”
The couple separated and Elsie moved out of their Buford home, where Logan was left “alone, drunk, and full of regret.”
But Elsie didn’t give up on Logan.
“One day I heard a knock on the door, and there stood Elsie in what used to be ‘our doorway.’ She told me that if I went to Good Landing Recovery to start treatment, that our marriage had a chance,” Logan said, “not a promise to get back together by any means, but at least a chance.”
“The glimpses of God that I saw in him early on started to become the only thing that I saw,” Elsie said. “I knew most importantly, that if I was going to give him a second chance, his actions needed to follow his words. I needed consistency.”
On Aug. 23, 2023, Logan’s wife drove him to Good Landing Recovery’s Gainesville detox center. There, he began to focus on his goals — “Get my wife back. Get my parents to be proud of me again. Get some money so I could be proud of myself,” he said. “And do all of this while downplaying how big of a problem I really had.”
But something happened at Good Landing Recovery that had never happened in other rehab settings — “I started to hear God’s voice again,” he said. “Like I did all those years ago in my father’s church services.”
Logan said one day, he was walking up a large hill at the detox center after morning devotionals, pleading with God to help him achieve his goals.
“I felt God reach out to me and felt him tell me, ‘Just worry about growing, and I’ll take care of the rest.’ So that’s what I did. Grew. I began growing closer to him spiritually. I started reading leadership books. I began writing all of these big, beautiful lessons God was showing me internally in my journal. And after a few months of extreme and disciplined growth, all of those goals I had were already happening. My wife and I were more in love than ever, my family became my biggest fans, and Trey re-offered me that job that I was too broken to accept the first time.”
Logan spent 30 days at the Gainesville detox center, followed by a 90-day partial hospitalization program in Dacula.
“After graduating, I spent the best holiday season I’ve had in my adult life with my mended and strong family,” he said. “Then on the 1st of the year I began working as a Behavioral Health Tech at the same detox where it all started for me. I got to be on the front lines of people’s recovery and show them what God did to my own broken life.”
Logan began leading a morning devotional at the detox center.
“At first we just read out of a recovery devotional together, but I started to feel a little convicted about finding something more pointed for these detox clients,” he said. “After all, I went through the same daily routine, ate the same food, had the same emotional battles, and got the same night’s sleep as them, at that point, not even a year prior. I understood that they really just needed one more second chance, just like I did.”
Logan started writing his own devotions, printing the words out for clients to read every morning. After writing about 20 different devotions, he was encouraged to compile his writings in a book.
“The main encourager was my now mentor, friend, and boss Trey Lewis,” Logan said. “I decided on a name, ‘Mulligans: Recovery Thoughts for Those in Desperate Need of a Do-Over,’ and God provided, by making the publishing process effortless and easy. Trey wrote a review for the back of the book and now Good Landing uses ‘Mulligans’ for every program’s morning devotional. 300-plus clients a day are taught something that God was kind enough to teach me in a time when I certainly did not deserve it.”
Many of the devotions Logan shares are based on lessons his father taught him at the breakfast table before school.
“He was instilling things in me that I would remember and cling too much later down the road,” Logan said. “I am so thankful for those breakfast devotionals.”
Logan, who turned 31 on Nov. 1 — and shares the same birthday, even the same birth year, with his wife — has since been promoted from behavioral health tech to detox administrator, overseeing the Good Landing Recovery’s detox program.
“God took me by the hand and gave me a huge second chance,” he said. “So that’s what I’m about now. Helping people get closer to God so they can have their own mulligan. Just like me.”
A lot can happen in a year.
“Today, God is the captain of my ship. My wife and I own our first house together and we’re more in love than ever,” Logan said. “I strive to lead my family in a way that reflects the love of God. My parents get separation anxiety. I’ve published a book. And I get to watch people heal the same way I did every single day, offering them guidance along the way.”
“Mulligans: Recovery Thoughts for Those in Desperate Need of a Do-Over” is available on Amazon.
FEATURED PHOTO: Buford/Sugar Hill resident Logan Saunders holds out a copy of his book, “Mulligans: Recovery Thoughts for Those in Desperate Need of a Do-Over,” which contains devotions for those recovering from addiction. Photo courtesy of Logan Saunders.
