“Why doesn’t she just stop! She’s killing herself!” “His alcoholism is destroying his family. How can a man be so selfish?!” “I’ve have had it with his drugging. If he wants to ruin his life, that is his choice!” These can be some of the sentiments of those who in particular have never known what it is like to have a drug and/or alcohol problem.
I know. I am a recovering Pharisee.
I have never experienced the nightmarish horror of having a drug or alcohol use disorder (DUD, AUD). I do not know what it means to crave a fifth of vodka as soon as I wake up or go into a state of panic after I have taken my last hit of heroin and wonder how I will procure my next round. I cannot identify with those who have crashed their marriages, wrecked their careers, depleted their finances, and damaged their bodies due to some substance to which they could not say no.
This does not make me better, stronger, smarter, or in any way more worthy than those who know firsthand the enslaving power of substance addiction. It does, however, make me more ignorant experientially and more likely to develop erroneous and harmful biases. It also makes it easier for me to be less compassionate towards those who suffer from this devastating malady. And if you, like me, have never been addicted, you share the same risks.
I have lived and worked with addicts all my life—fifty years. My academic career has been devoted to understanding the psychology and theology of addiction, sin, recovery, and redemption. Some of my best friends are recovering addicts. Three graduates of our program stood in Lori’s and my wedding thirty-five years ago. I have learned so much from thousands of honest and courageous men and women who have faced the dark reality of their powerlessness and gotten to work tackling their demons—many, sadly, having lost the battle but who had given it their all.
There are some things I believe that need to be more clearly understood by a large segment of the population of which I represent . . . the “never-addicted.” And I think I have earned the right to speak on this subject. If you are someone like me who has never had a drug and/or alcohol dependency issue, would you allow me to share some insights that might be of help to you in your quest to not only be a better support to those who do struggle but to simply being a better human being?
To begin, I want to level the playing field. We are all beautiful but broken . . . addicts. None of us has arrived and is perfectly free. We all have our go-to attachments, things which get in the way of our ability to love well—whether sweets, caffeine, salty chips, gaming, social media, sports, FOX or CNN news, etc. That late psychiatrist Gerald May contended, “To be alive is to be addicted.” Yes, some addictions are more culturally acceptable (consumerism, gambling, cynicism—technically called process addictions). Others are less noticeable and obvious (pornography vs. food). Some are more dramatic and life-threatening. One slip with fentanyl can be fatal.
Addiction is complex. It is moral and medical. Sin and sickness. Decision and disorder. Physical, chemical, psychological, neurological, and environmental. The streams which feed addiction are legion, and just what mix they constitute in each person is a mystery God only knows. One of the mistakes often made in the church is to make mental-health issues spiritual issues (of course, the opposite is true as well). Telling an alcoholic who meets the criteria of clinical depression that he needs to read the Bible and pray more is borderline spiritual abuse.
Because addiction is so multi-varied and individually unique, not all decisions are equal. Just saying “No” is not as simple as it sounds. (Try fasting from food for a week and see how that works for you.) A person’s bio-psycho-social-spiritual condition makes “response-ability” fluctuating and dynamic, ever on a continuum. Autonomy is further impacted by an individual’s temperament, emotionality, cognition, trauma history, season of life, economic status, support system, life-circumstances, spirituality, etc. Christian philosopher James K.A. Smith remarks, “Not all sins are decisions.” What began at some level as an act of freewill can quickly evolve into a state of total bondage. Accordingly, we are in no position to judge another whatever their addiction(s) (e.g., Percocet, tobacco, gum, Netflix, complaining, etc.).
Addiction is also habit. There is no thought involved. No rationality in play. Muscle memory takes over. I experience this every time I get in my vehicle and proceed to go somewhere. From the opening of the door to the positioning of my body, feet, hands, and the placement of the key, etc., all of my actions happen without any reflective thinking. This kind of automacy happens in countless areas in our lives (e.g., morning rituals, dressing, bathing, eating, exercising, using our phones, etc.). There are deeply ingrained patterns of behavior that get “hard-wired” into our brains and bodies. For a smoker, reaching for a cigarette after a meal is no different from a middle-aged woman whose habit is whining having learned the efficacy of pouting decades before as a little girl. These ways of being do not die suddenly or easily.
Addiction is a chronic condition. This point may be hard to accept for many, especially Christians. Chronic means longtime or lifetime. Chronic also implies that while a condition cannot be cured, its symptoms can be treated and managed. We understand this when it comes to arthritis, asthma, high cholesterol, and diabetes. I have had eye astigmatism since I was a teenager. Thankfully, glasses have made my life good. Without my spectacles, I would run around like Mr. Magoo.
Can God heal someone suffering from chronic fatigue, hypertension, or epilepsy? Of course. Can God deliver an addict? Yes. Does it happen most of the time? Not that I have witnessed. We live in a world infested with thorns and pain. That is why, as the Apostle Paul puts it, we groan but not as those without hope. One day we will experience full redemption as God’s sons and daughters. Until then, the tricycle of treatment, remission, and relapse may be the experience for most who suffer with a chronic condition—whether cancer, allergies, eczema, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, autism, or drug and alcohol dependency. That is why recovering addicts must be ever vigilant. There can be long seasons of glorious respite, but alcoholism and drug addiction can be triggered and re-ignited in a flash by a simple smell, sound, or picture. Dr. May warns, “We may joke about never forgetting how to ride a bicycle, saying, ‘Don’t worry; it will come back to you.’ But the permanence of addiction memory is not funny. It stands ready to come back to us with only the slightest encouragement. . . Years after a major addiction has been conquered, the smallest association, the tiniest taste, can fire up old cellular patterns once again . . . The brain does not forget.”
Post Script
Addiction does not define a person. Our behaviors may describe us, but they do not define us. We are infinitely more than what we do. Our identity is grounded in our creation by a personal God and in the sacrifice he made for us through his Son at the cross. Those struggling with an alcohol and/or drug addiction are first and foremost fellow image bearers, dearly loved children of God for whom Jesus shed his blood. And let us remember, too, that every man and woman who has a DUD or AUD is a son or daughter, husband or wife, brother or sister, . . . a person who is treasured and needed by others. A person like you or me who lost his or her way in the mess of life.
Addiction is not a character issue. Alcoholics and cocaine addicts are not morally degenerate, lazy, selfish, proud, and rebellious people . . . at least not any more than anyone else. What may appear to be an act of cruelness, narcissism, irresponsibility, foolishness, and unruliness is an expression of insecurity, loneliness, guilt, shame, fear, and self-hate. Those suffering with addictions are sick people who need to get well rather than bad people needing to become good.
If you like me have never been addicted, count your blessings. The pain, humiliation, and hopelessness an addict experiences is beyond description. So, thank God every day for your sobriety and God’s mercy. Nobody in their right mind would ever choose this path. I earlier stated that everybody has an addiction(s). To compare my “addiction” to Dove dark chocolate to a man’s suicidal craving for a fifth of vodka, however, sounds not only trite but blasphemous. I frequently revert to my unhealthy ways (rationalizing that dark chocolate contains antioxidants and boosts my immune system), but the pain and repercussions of my relapses are nothing in comparison to my drug and alcohol addicted friends.
One more thing: NEVER say “never.” (Yes, that is a paradoxical statement!) There is always a chance that you or I could succumb to the temptation. Early in my ministry I remember one of my most wretched moments. We were conducting a service at a local church, and I was interviewing a resident in our program. I was thinking in my head while this gentleman was talking about his past discretions and the shipwreck he brought on himself, “What a dummy!” God immediately sucker-punched me (I should have been zapped) with this warning, “But for my grace, you are only one-step away from doing the same.” I immediately repented in my heart for my arrogance.
I recall reading once this comment from a Bible teacher, “Any sin any sinner ever committed, every sinner under proper provocation could commit.” No telling what awful things you or I could do under the right circumstances at the wrong time. No wonder Paul wrote, “He that thinks he stands, take heed lest he fall.” C.S. Lewis put it like this, “Can we be quite certain how we should have behaved if we had been saddled with the psychological outfit, and then with the bad upbringing, and then with the power, say, of Himmler? That is why Christians are told not to judge. We see only the results which a man’s choices make out of his raw material. But God does not judge him on the raw material at all, but on what he has done with it.”
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“I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle,
because I persecuted the church of God.
But by the grace of God I am what I am,
and his grace toward me was not in vain.”
(1 Corinthians 15:9-10)
