ADDICTION & THE ADDICT:
Towards a More Compassionate Understanding

By Rev. Jeff Bonzelaar, DMin

The following is the understanding of addiction from which Life Challenge Ministries works and serves those in its care.
Executive Director, Rev. Jeff Bonzelaar, DMin.
Adult & Teen Challenge: Life Challenge Ministries
Copyright© 2023 All Rights Reserved

INTRODUCTION
What follows is NOT a comprehensive overview of addiction and the addict but simply a highlighting of a few general points of understanding that can be helpful when working with those in addiction-recovery.

UNDERSTANDING ADDICTION
First, addiction is no respecter of persons. There is no particular mold that an alcoholic or addict fits. They come from broken, dysfunctional homes as well as healthy, loving homes. They come from religious and non-religious backgrounds. Intelligent and capable, extroverts and introverts, socially well-adjusted, financially successful, and all other categories are at risk. In fact, if we are honest, each one of us has unhealthy attachments, and while we may not suffer from drug and/or alcohol dependency, as the late Christian psychiatrist Gerald May quipped, “To be alive is to be addicted.”^[1]

Second, addiction is not the problem per se. Drug and/or alcohol abuse may be the presenting issue (complicating and exacerbating the problem) but is never the core issue at hand. People use drugs and/or alcohol for a variety of reasons including:

• to escape from pain (rejection, guilt/shame, bitterness, hopelessness);
• to fit in and belong (insecurity, loneliness);
• to deal with loss and grief [2](death, betrayal, job loss);
• to cope (conflict in relationships, stress of work);
• to rebel (anger towards an authority figure);
• to experience adventure (boredom, lack of purpose);
• systemic influences—it is part of the immediate (family) and/or surrounding environment (neighborhood).

Fruits come from roots. Drug and alcohol dependency are merely symptomatic of much deeper issues. Once an addict is clean and sober, the real work can then begin. The questions now become: What is driving the addiction, and how must this be addressed? Only when these deeper issues are dealt with does real recovery start taking place.

Finally, addiction is complex in its origins and treatment. There is a multitude of streams that can feed addiction—neurological, biological/chemical, psychological, sociological, cultural, spiritual, systemic, and etc. We must never oversimplify the problem (e.g., “You need to pray and fast more,” “Just stay away from those people,” “If you would just learn to forgive,” “Reading this book/attending this conference will help you immensely,” “Discovering your true purpose will dramatically change your life”). Of course, all of these suggestions can be helpful, but there is no one, easy answer. To treat an addict as if there is such a solution is, at the very least, misguided (disrespectful) and, at the very worst, destructive (unloving).

UNDERSTANDING THE ADDICT
While there are widely varying types of addicts with accompanying attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors, some common characteristics include:[3]

• Addicts are master manipulators—con artists extraordinaire. Most will do whatever is necessary to get what they want through smooth talk, lying and twisting the truth, and flattery (“Nobody understands me like you.”). Many will play on the emotions of others to make friends, family, and caregivers feel sorry for them. Many have learned how to pit one person against another in order to take the spotlight off themselves. Addicts are resourceful; they are survivors. They know how to control. They know how to play the game.
• Addicts are extremely selfish and narcissistic. Their worlds revolve around themselves. The psychological term is called “grandiosity” (otherwise known as the “king complex”—where the addict, as one alcoholic puts it, seems to “organize the universe around the perpendicular pronoun.”[4] People in pain naturally think of themselves. This breeds an attitude of entitlement. Their personal insecurities make them hypersensitive to criticism and the reactions of others. They are quick to take offense. They have difficulty empathizing with others. They see life through only one set of lenses . . . their own.
• Addicts are pain-avoiding. They have developed unhealthy patterns of thinking and behavior relative to stress. They do not handle pressure or discomfort well. They are quick to run from conflict and difficulty. They may contend that they are fine when unconsciously they have suppressed uncomfortable memories and feelings such as anger, loss, fear, and etc. They will do whatever they can to escape problems and avoid responsibility. Cross-cultural anthropologist Donald Horton contends, after a study of many so-called primitive cultures, “The primary function of alcoholic beverages in all societies is the reduction of anxiety.”[5]
• Addicts are impatient. Immediate gratification is the mantra. Addicts want quick fixes and instant answers and are easily frustrated when denied. Unable to deal with pain and with a world revolving around themselves, they expect people to cater to their needs. They have difficulty waiting and little tolerance for the normal times it takes to heal and work through things. The longer they have used, the more conditioned they have become to expecting quick results.
• Addicts are emotional and reactive. It can be next to impossible to reason with addicts as they think with their feelings. They act in highly irrational ways. They are impulsive and rash in their decision-making. They are temperamental and subject to large mood swings (from ecstatic joy to anger outbursts). They can be engaged and excited one day and apathetic and totally withdrawn another.
• Addicts are distrusting. Most addicts have been “burned.” They have been let down by those closest to them. Promises were broken; betrayal was experienced. Many have been violated in very traumatic ways (i.e., physically, sexually[6]). The world has not been a safe place for them. The natural result of such a history is to keep others at a distance, to not trust others and/or to be ever suspicious of others’ intentions.

It is also important to note that addicts are developmentally arrested. Most addicts stop maturing emotionally at the age when their addiction began.[7] Consequently, a man or woman who is chronologically 40 years of age may only be in his or her mid-teens in terms of social-psychological maturity. Thus, caregivers must learn to adjust their expectations of the addicts whom they serve.

While such a description can be highly discouraging (and frightening), caregivers must not forget that all men and women—however broken and marred—still bear the exciting and wonder-filled imprint of God’s image. And while no one can know just how God’s likeness will be reflected in a recovering addict, Dietrich Bonhoeffer reminds his readers, “That image always manifests a completely new and unique form that comes solely from God’s free and sovereign creation. To me the sight may seem strange, even ungodly. But God creates every man in the likeness of his son, the Crucified. . . That image certainly looked strange and ungodly to me before I grasped it.”[8]

Two major harmful misconceptions about addiction and addicts must be dispelled:

1. “They could stop if they really wanted to.” No individual in his or her right mind would consciously decide to live a life of bondage and shame. We cannot make moral judgments. An addict’s “chooser” becomes broken. The drugs and/or alcohol take over a person’s “free will.” Culpability is something only God can determine.
2. “If they just got saved, read their Bible, prayed, went through exorcism, etc. they wouldn’t use anymore.” Again, there are many factors involved in addiction. There is no single cause and thus, no single solution. Recovery involves healing of the body, mind, heart, soul, and environment. One addict’s recovery may require more physical and bio-chemical intervention, another’s more psychological attention. Mental-health issues are just that—mental-health issues and should not be made into spiritual issues (or vice versa).[9] Yes, persons are addicts because fundamentally they are sinners, but that reality does not displace the need for proper therapy, medicine, and other forms of treatment.

CONCLUSION
Understanding paves the way toward compassion. It can be difficult to feel accepting and kindly toward those who have conducted themselves in ways that are naturally offensive to us if we have little understanding of what dynamics have been at work in the person. Putting yourself in another’s shoes can help you understand how she sees the world, how she feels, and ultimately why she acts as she does. We learn from the Scriptures that Jesus’ compassion was rooted in his understanding and knowledge of the human predicament. Hanging on the cross in utter agony, he prayed, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.” Christ’s conviction—“they know not what they do”—opened doors to compassion.[10] In the same way, as we come to understand addiction and the addict, our capacity to feel for and with him/her increases.

Working with addicts can be exhausting. Your heart will often get broken. Time and again you will see a person progressing all to suddenly return to his or her vomit. Recovery is never a straight line but full of ups and downs, unexpected twists and turns. “Three steps forward and two back” is a good day. Relapse is more the rule than the exception. There are countless reasons for the difficulty in staying clean and sober, but the late Gerald May’s comments from the medical and psychiatric perspective are instructive: “The brain never completely forgets its old attachments, so the absence of conscious desire does not necessarily mean attachment is gone. In fact, because of the tricks our minds play on us, many of our addictions are able to exist for years completely outside our awareness”^[11] Thus, at Life Challenge, we never refer to someone as “recovered” (implying past tense, once and for all) but rather, as “recovering” (implying present tense, continuous and ongoing).

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“When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them,
because they were like sheep without a shepherd.”
(Mark 6:34)

[1]Gerald May, Addiction & Grace (San Francisco: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1988), 11.
[2]Howard Clinebell writes, “Unhealed and infected wounds of the spirit from alienation and grief are among the most prevalent psychological-spiritual causes of addiction. While he directed an addiction unit in a state mental health facility, a pastoral psychotherapist estimated that at least one out of every five patients suffered from one or often several unhealed grief wounds.” Taken from Understanding and Counseling Persons with Alcohol, Drug, and Behavioral Addictions (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1984), 71.
[3]These characteristics are a compilation of multiple interviews conducted with staff, volunteers, and residents of Life Challenge and were the reoccurring themes again and again. These characteristics—by no means expressive of every addict—represent hundreds of years of practical, experiential knowledge.
[4]Clinebell, 66.
[5]Clinebell, 68.
[6]Howard Clinebell writes, “It has been estimated that seven out of ten incest survivors are chemically dependent, illustrating how post-traumatic stress disorders are among the precipitating causes of substance addictions.” Taken from Understanding and Counseling Persons with Alcohol, drug, and Behavioral Addictions, p. 70.
[7]Jennifer McBride, Radical Discipleship: A Liturgical Politics of the Gospel (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2017), 119.
[8]Bonhoeffer, 93.
[9]Ultimately, addiction (and for that matter, all that is dehumanizing) finds its roots in a spiritual condition called sin. Sin separates us from God and thus, from what is good, beautiful, true, and lovely. Sin leads to death. This sinful bias (i.e., nature) is something we inherit from our first parent, Adam.
[10]Psalm 103:13-14 suggests that even God’s compassion is grounded in his understanding of humankind’s weakness: “As a father has compassion on his children, so the lord has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust.”
[11]May, Addiction & Grace, 25.

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