Addiction, according to Alcoholics Anonymous, involves three levels
Physical Allergy
Mental Obsession
Spiritual Malady
Looking at those in reverse…
The spiritual malady is about not coping with life. We are ‘restless, irritable and discontent’. We can’t accept life on life’s terms. We are forever wanting to force our way on others, or getting angry because things, people or situations aren’t as we wanted. We can’t cope.
The spiritual malady leads to mental obsession. We brim and stew over how others treated us. We feel the victim. We feel hard done by. Not recognised, not respected, not empowered. We engage in ‘stinking thinking’, feeling the world is against us, and we let it eat us up. And we start wanting an escape.
Spiritual malady and mental obsession give way to the physical allergy. This is about the effect that our drug of choice (alcohol for alcoholics) has on us. Alcohol destroys alcoholics. Drugs kill their users. And so on. The addict, enmeshed in spiritual disease and mental obsession, can’t have ‘just a little bit’ of their drug. They give themselves to it in ways that others don’t.
I’m not an alcoholic, but I relate to this. And I think we all can actually.
At some level, we all wish we ran the world.
At some level, we all stew on how unfair life is.
At some level, we all escape into some ‘drug’.
Even if we don’t engage those ‘drugs’ in compulsive ways, they can still be problematic. And even if we aren’t proper addicts, the reality of addictive tendencies in most or all of us means we can use the wisdom of recovery.
Step 1 deals to the physical allergy
Step 2 deals to the mental obsession
Step 3 deals to the spiritual malady
Step 1 says ‘we were powerless over alcohol’ (or whatever drug). It’s not that alcohol itself is the problem, but the powerlessness over it. It’s the allergic reaction that the drug causes. For the social media user, it’s the endless hours wasted – high quantities of scrolling and low quality of living. Step one is about admitting this. The physical situation isn’t good.
Step 2 says we can ‘be restored to sanity’. It’s not just about behaviour, it’s that we have problems at the mental level. Some level of ‘insanity’ is at work in our thinking. Addict or not, we can get into endless feedback loops, self-fulfilling prophecies and eternal victimhood. Mentally, we are not well.
Step 3 says we ‘turn our will and our lives over the care of God as we understood God’. This is not behaviour modification. This is nothing short of spiritual surrender. My will for my life isn’t working. I need a new plan. I need a new power. I need a new life. More of ‘me’ won’t help.
These are some of the deep parallels between Recovery and Christianity.
Not surprising given the Christian roots of the recovery movement.
These are some of the ways that kingdom flourishing is recovered in our lives.
Recovering the Kingdom 