Tag: addiction

the human connection between anger & temptation

~ dwc ~ Leave a comment

The sermon on the mount is the best teaching on human living. It lays down the patterns for full and complete humanness. After the Beatitudes and opening statements, the first two issues that Jesus deals with are a) anger leading to murder, and b) lust leading to adultery. It won’t do to simply label murder and adultery as unlawful, immoral or wrong. Jesus knows we have to get to the heart of these matters and deal with our anger and lust.

The early chapters of Genesis are also profound in their statements about humanness. Every human is like Cain, who gets ‘very angry’ and is tempted into taking actions that violate the humanity of his ‘brother’. In chapter 6, we see the moral devolution of humanity is so degraded that the beautiful daughters of men were being treated like sexual property. The Creator is grieved to the point of being willing to uncreate the whole creation.

Anger and Sex are connected. We need not illustrate all the ways that this interrelation plays out through rape and pornography.

Their interrelation also shows up in another text that is likewise profoundly awake to the realities of human nature: The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, written by Bill Wilson. The Step 4 inventory (see chapter 5, ‘How it Works’) of ones own life invites an addict to reflect on a) Resentments, b) Fears, c) Sex conduct and d) Harm to others.

Anger and Fear can be understood as a natural pair, just as Sexual dysfunction and Harm can be. For example, consider Resentment and Fear. When I resent another person, I am looking down on them in judgement (perhaps sometimes justified judgement); and when I fear someone, I am looking up at them. When I process my resentments (and fears) properly, I discover that I need not look down on (or up at) others. I can look them in the eye as equals. This humane equality is a profoundly disturbing idea for someone whose identity is dependent on feeling superior to others.

The same is true for the Sex and Harm pairing. Healthy sexual relations is a mutually helpful matter of freely giving and freely receiving. Literally ‘intercourse’. Harm, by nature, including sexual harm, is the opposite of giving and receiving. Instead of giving it forces itself on someone. “You will have this whether you want it or not.” Instead of receiving it is taking. “I’ll take this whether you’re giving it or not.” It is violent and violating.

So therefore, according to Jesus, Moses and Bill, it seems to be a human reality that when we feel resentment towards someone who we feel has wronged us we sooner or later are tempted to some kind of violence or dysfunction.

This connection between anger and temptation, finally, is seen within The Lord’s Prayer, which is – not surprisingly – the humane prayer in the structural centre of the humanising Sermon on the Mount, preached by the one Christians see as the True Human. I am instructed to link my own forgiveness from my Father in heaven, with the forgiveness I am continually working at with others who have ‘transgressed against’ me. Immediately following (and linked to) this, is that I must be on guard against being led ‘into temptation’.

Whether our resentment is justified or irrational, political or personal, sharply focused or a foggy haze; we are reminded of an important moral human truth. The longer we allow anger to fester and burn the more tempted we can be to find our way into a fix, escape, or treat. This could be in the form of a verbal insult, a preachy self-righteous Facebook comment, some form of sexually energising daydream or exploration, or any other drug of choice (working late hours, over-eating, gambling, numbing myself with drink).

And so, the journey to full humanness must include humane prayers where we lay our vulnerability to anger and temptation before the Lord.

Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the Evil One.

Or, we might paraphrase…

Lord, help me to so savour your mercy towards me that I too flow with mercy towards others, especially those I am likely to point the finger of superior judgement towards, whose wrongs I feel the most burned up about. The ones who threaten me and interfere with how I think the world should run. Those who make my blood boil. The ones who, like me, do not deserve mercy.
And keep me far away from letting my anger drive me into some kind of tempting and ultimately self-serving power trip. Deliver me from the fleeting and temporary soothing ego trips of violence of any kind to myself or another.

Amen.

stuck v. free

~ dwc ~ Leave a comment

The journey from being stuck to being free is perhaps one of the most basic of all trajectories for human development.

Perhaps one of the most ancient and foundational narratives that give colour to this trajectory is the Exodus. The Israelites go from being brutally enslaved in Egypt to being free in the promised land. The complex and protracted nature of their arrival in the promised land only adds further colour to the trajectory. As the preachers say, it took a single night to get Israel out of Egypt, but an entire generation to get Egypt out of Israel.

Depending on where you live and what your relationship is with various ideas or traditions, you may put different labels to what you find enslaving and what you have found freeing. Some examples could be:

  • feeling enslaved by moral failures and finding freedom in forgiveness and grace
  • feeling enslaved by guilt and shame and finding freedom in people who have felt the same as you
  • feeling enslaved by rules and finding freedom in autonomy
  • feeling enslaved by chaos and finding freedom in order
  • feeling enslaved by religion and finding freedom in secularism
  • feeling enslaved by meaninglessness and finding freedom in tradition
  • feeling enslaved by others and finding freedom in self
  • feeling enslaved by isolation and finding freedom in community

As the list shows, sometimes the very same thing that one person associates with slavery can be associated by another with freedom. As is sometimes said, freedom ‘from’ is not necessarily freedom ‘for’.

12-step spirituality is about a the trajectory away from the slavery of addiction and the freedom of recovery.

You might say that 12-step spirituality is designed to take an addict down to the deepest level of their slavery and take them to the deepest kind of freedom.

  • The physical level is the surface level
    • there is the slavery of using the drug (or engaging in the behaviour) again and again, and the freedom of not using
      • This level does not touch the real nature of addiction. Unless the deeper levels are addressed, addicts can abstain for varying lengths of time before they use again.
  • The mental level is near the surface
    • there is a kind of slavery to ‘addict thinking’ which is obsessive, disordered, and ‘insane’, and the promise of the freedom of being restored to sanity.
      • This too still falls short of the heart of addiction and recovery. There are very helpful insights (“You know, addiction thrives in isolation, I was watching this great TED talk…”), slogans (“stinking thinking”; “one day at a time” or “remember to reach out”), or acronyms (“When you want to drink, remember H.A.L.T. and ask yourself if you are Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired…”). But one of the prime features of addiction is forgetting all the good reasons or the pain that addictive behaviour brings. Relying on memory isn’t enough for a real addict.
  • The spiritual level is where the steps focus.
    • The ultimate need is to overcome a focus on (and defense of) self that is warped by resentment, fear, and the inability to clearly see when I have harmed others (even if they may have harmed me). This excessive focus on the self is the real slavery. The real freedom promised by the steps is a life of humble service to others. An addict working the steps is liberated from the resentful blindness to any harms they have done, and into the capacity to humbly see and make amends for how they have hurt others.

To put it as succinctly as possible: a) the journey from being stuck in addiction to being free in recovery is tethered via an unbreakable spiritual cord to b) the journey from being stuck in self-justifying resentment to being free in humble amends and service to others.

To finish, here is a paragraph from the AA Big Book which summarises the need for a spiritual overcoming of selfish resentment in order to find deep recovery.

It is plain that a life which includes deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness. To the precise extent that we permit these, do we squander the hours that might have been worth while. But with the alcoholic, whose hope is the maintenance and growth of a spiritual experience, this business of resentment is infinitely grave. We found that it is fatal. For when harboring such feelings we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the Spirit. The insanity of alcohol returns and we drink again.

from the bondage of self

~ dwc ~ Leave a comment

When an alcoholic is working the 12 steps using the guidance of the ‘Big Book’ of Alcoholics Anonymous, I am told that it is traditional to pray the “Third Step Prayer” found in Chapter 5 ‘How It Works’. Here is the full prayer:

“God, I offer myself to Thee—to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of life. May I do Thy will always!’’

There is clearly much to appreciate about this prayer, but in this blog I want to do two things. First, I want to zero in on the significance of one line “Relieve me of the bondage of self”; and Second, I want to use the Lord’s Prayer to demonstrate how it is a prayer that asks the same thing.

The Self

The AA Big Book has a lot to say about an addictive focus on ‘self’. “Selfishness-self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles. Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity, we step on the toes of our fellows…” (bold and italics not in original) It says “the alcoholic is an example of self-will run riot.” In one of the appendices, there is a quote from Dr. W. W. Bauer, who observes that helping other fellow alcoholics creates an atmosphere in which “the alcoholic often overcomes his excessive concentration upon himself.”

Modern psychologists may sometimes take issue with what could seem like a negative view of the self in such language. But if we are read these quotes as intended, we can see that it is not the self, as such, that is being critiqued, but the ‘excessive’ focus upon self. ‘Self’ is not the problem, but selfishness. The AA Big Book wants the alcoholic to see that even when trying to be ‘good’ their self-will is at play. Such is the description of the ‘actor’ trying to ‘run the whole show’: “Is he not really a self-seeker even when trying to be kind?”

This wisdom about a counter-productive self-focus is behind one of my favourite lines in the prayer: “Relieve me of the bondage of self.” Through the spiritual programme of action outline in the 12-steps, the alcoholic or addict is guided through a process by which their excessive focus on themselves is relieved by the aid of a Power greater than (who?) themselves.

The Lord’s Prayer

I’d now like to translate this wisdom into Christian key. Of course, it is well known that the Christian faith was the spiritual garden out of which the principles of AA were harvested. Frank Buchman, the Lutheran minister, had his transformational experience with resentment, which led to him establishing the ‘First Century Christian Fellowship’ later known as the ‘Oxford Group’, whose 6 principles were expanded into 12 steps by Bill Wilson and the early AA fellowship.

So, although, it is not needed to re-translate any of this back into Christian faith, it might at least be interesting or useful to show how the Lord’s Prayer relates to this line from the Third Step prayer (indeed the entire prayer!); particularly given that the early AA groups used to open or close their meetings with the Lord’s Prayer (and some still do).

  • Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.
    • Right from the start, my focus on self is violently interrupted by shifting and lifting my spiritual gaze off of my self and onto another. Not just any ‘other’, but the ultimate Other. Consider how the same shift can at least be somewhat attempted in the practice of someone who does not believe in any traditional Monotheistic God. Take a practitioner of yoga (which I am neither criticizing nor commending here). Through their practice of breathing, exercise, community and spiritual worldview, they also shift their focus from their individual self onto their body, the others they might be exercising with, and indeed the Universe. Stresses and difficult mental states are at least temporarily put aside as one focuses on higher and wider things than their self. Monotheism simply takes this as far as the logic can lead – to an ultimate Other, the un-caused Cause behind all causality, the One Creator of all things.
  • Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
    • In contrast to the self-will that wants to run the whole show of life, and aggressively or passive-aggressively trying to get others to do what we think they ought to do, this part of the prayer acknowledges that there are higher laws and higher wills and a higher order of things than mine. I do not need to, and indeed I cannot live well if I persist in trying to, play God. Even the agnostic can at least sense a comparable shift when they acknowledge the vast order of natural law in the Universe. We are but a small part in the whole. Monotheism simply recognises that this higher order is not the an order characterised by ‘blind, pitiless, indifference’ as Richard Dawkins famously wrote, but rather by a purposeful, creational and ‘kingly’ or royal will.
  • Give us this day our daily bread
    • One of the basic fears that a fragile self can have is around the fear of financial insecurity. We fear not being able to secure means for ourselves, and for those who may depend on us. Food security experts talk about the difference between a ‘scarcity’ or ‘abundance’ mindset. One can base their positive affirmation of abundance on factual appreciations of the wealth of resources available to us. This prayer just rests this confidence on the ground of a generous God.
  • And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.
    • One of the most profound contributions of the AA Big Book is the focus on cleaning one’s own side of the street. We have many resentments against the wrongs others have done. Sometimes these resentments are essentially justified and we have truly been harmed. However, the wisdom here, is that even an innocent victim can get stuck in justified resentment. As the saying goes, “holding onto resentment is like drinking poison and hoping the other person dies.” I cannot change the other person who hurt me (in my case, as a young child). I can only focus on changing myself, particularly the ways that I nourish my sense of victimhood and keep the fires of resentment enflamed. Forgiveness, in this context, has nothing to do with absolving or excusing or minimising the harm done to me; nor should it keep me from taking any appropriate action to protect myself or others from present or future harm. It is simply ‘giving’ them up out of my death grip of judgment. The wisdom here is very challenging, because never does the self feel more righteous than when criticizing another for legitimate harms done (think of Israel or Hamas). Whatever forgiveness may do for the one who is forgiven, it is undeniably transformative for the one doing the forgiving.
  • And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the Evil One.
    • Here the prayer follows on directly from the previous line. Unforgiving and merciless criticism of another person, and most of all the victim mentality too often leads to various forms of verbal, physical or military retaliation or vengeance. For others, it could lead to various forms of escapism as we feel entitled to a mental or moral holiday. We’ve been harmed, mis-represented, ignored, abandoned, so “Screw ‘them’; they have it coming.” Or “Screw ‘it’, I’m going to numb out…” with food, work, sex, drink or self-harm. Such escalations or self-harm are named here as temptations driven by a force that is malevolent, destructive, anti-creational, counter-productive, distorting, enslaving and thus ‘Evil’.
  • For Thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, forever and ever, Amen.
    • My life, my future, my past and present; and the history and activities in the whole world, are all subsumed within a higher order that will be ‘just fine’. This is not the well-meaning distant dualism of hoping that ‘God is watching us… from a distance.’ It is the dogged, insistent hope in the reality of a loving Father who can sort out the baddies ‘out there’, and who is constantly and compassionately available to help me with my fearful and vulnerable badness ‘in here’. God is the one who provides, rules, understands, judges and heals. I need that every day.

So then,
Father of all Creation,
today and every day,
relieve me of the bondage of self.
Make me a vessel of reconciling love
to some of your children today.
Amen.

true treatment

~ dwc ~ Leave a comment

Maybe you are, specifically, an alcoholic. Maybe, like the rest of us, you can identify (a little or a lot) with the language and experience of addiction to some-‘thing’. Here’s something of a progression of how we become aware of our patterns, and how we can find relief and recovery from them.

1 The ‘thing’ is an effective ‘treatment’ – until it isn’t

It may sound odd to speak about alcohol as an ‘effective treatment’ for alcoholism, but in a very important sense this is true. At least for a certain period, a drug (alcohol, cocaine, work, sex, food, etc.) does something for you at some level. Whatever your ‘thing’ is, it treats the addiction, or you wouldn’t do it. You wouldn’t stay late at work every day (neglecting family, your own needs, etc.) if it didn’t provide the desired effect – which I’m guessing is increased income, a jolt of feeling like you are smashing out tasks and carrying the business on your shoulders, etc. You wouldn’t do drugs if they didn’t give you a hit. You wouldn’t look at inappropriate content online if it didn’t provide an escape. You wouldn’t go on food binges unless you got a hit.

The sad reality of addiction is that it is progressive. We need more of the ‘thing’, or stronger versions of it, to provide the same surge of energy or the same numb-out escapism. The drug works – until it doesn’t. It’s an effective treatment – until it isn’t.

Sooner or later, the ‘treatment’ for the addiction is accompanied by side-effects. We notice that our life is affected and that the ‘thing’ is not only failing to provide what it used to, but that our use of the ‘thing’ is succeeding in providing negative circumstances that we don’t want. We decide that we want… or need… to stop.

2 Merely ‘abstaining’ leaves me with un-treated addiction

The difference between addiction and non-addiction is that the non-addict can succeed in staying stopped, or moderating their use such that the side-effects are managed or eliminated. You are not an alcoholic if you can stop drinking entirely, or if you can keep yourself to 1-2 beers every time you drink.

The addict, however, has a tragic problem of not being able to stop or moderate. They may be able to stop for a time, but eventually give back in. They may moderate a time or two, but regularly lose control over the amount.

There’s another difference however that is crucial.

When a non-addict stops using, they feel better. When an addict stops using the thing they crave, they feel horrible. This is called withdrawal, or being in a state called ‘dry drunk’. You may not be using, but you are just gritting your teeth waiting to. Here is the territory of slips, relapses and falling over again.

Addiction demands to be treated – one way or another. The question is: what do you do when the using that used to treat it no longer does, and the abstinence from using doesn’t seem to work either?

Here is the sweet spot that brings people to their knees. They feel they have no direction to go. The drug threatens to kill them via drowning, and abstinence threatens to kill them via dehydration.

3 Knowledge is an ineffective treatment for the addiction

A very attractive pursuit for many who are struggling with addiction is the pursuit of more and more knowledge. Books on addiction. YouTube videos. TED talks. Articles. The idea here is that knowledge is power, and ignorance is weakness. If I’m struggling with addiction, it must be because I don’t know enough about my addiction. Perhaps I need to learn how my childhood trauma has made me a workaholic. Maybe I drink because of this or that. Or maybe I can learn more about how addiction is managed through avoiding triggers, or keeping myself safe.

Here again the distinction between addict and non-addict is key. A non-addict can indeed stop with good reason and good knowledge. They get the tools and use them if needed. And the tools work.

But for the addict, they may have all the tools in the world, all the good reasons to stop, all the life-hacks and strategies, but they just go back to it again and again.

4 Spirit Power is the true sustainable treatment for addiction

12-step spirituality insists that what we truly need is a Higher Power.

The idea here is that instead of fighting the addiction directly via will power or mind power, I surrender to complete defeat and instead commit myself to a course of action (the Steps) that put me in touch with Spirit power.

I set myself on a course of action that involves desperation, surrender, trust, introspection, confession, willingness, restitution, discipline, prayer and service.

And as I progress on this course of action, I suddenly notice that the addictive obsession and compulsion have been sidelined. I am so concentrated on trusting God, cleaning house, and helping others, that my problems are dying of neglect.

This is not ‘curing’ me of addiction as though I could never go back to using.

This is what it means to recover, and be recovered, from the addiction.

one day at a time

~ dwc ~ Leave a comment

The phrase “one day at a time” is simple and profound. It is a phrase from the world of 12-step recovery, but has a biblical background. Think new manna or new mercies every morning. Or Jesus’ teaching against worrying about tomorrow.

One way to think about what it does mean, is to think about what it doesn’t mean.

The opposite of living one day at a time is to live life under the psychological weight of many or all days. It may indeed be wise to recall the mistakes of the past one wants to avoid repeating. And it is generally accepted wisdom to have aims in life, and to plan for the future. There is a huge difference, however, between the firm wisdom of recalling past errors and making future plans, and the sure insanity of trying to psychologically manage one’s entire life span – or indeed all history – with the limited resources of one’s present daily experience.

It is too much.

And so, as with the alcoholic, we don’t trouble ourselves with fixing every problem that we have at once, and we don’t worry about what may happen tomorrow. We focus. We channel our energies onto the present day.

The alcoholic cannot, meaning they are powerless to, psychologically bear the weight of stopping drinking forever. It is too much to hold in mind their entire journey of recovery. It is enough to focus ‘just for today’. The alcoholic does not concern themselves with ensuring today that they will not drink tomorrow, next week and so on. They concern themselves with the required actions to further their recovery today. They will pray today. They will help another alcoholic today. They will go to a meeting or make a phone call today. They will seek to be kind and loving towards all today.

Like the alcoholic, we are not God that we can look down upon this little cosmic timeline and work out a timeless eternal solution for how to rectify all the problems therein. No, we are at best partners of God, given just enough time, strength and capacity to affect what we can affect today.

This phrase dovetails well with the Serenity Prayer.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.
Like the past and the future…
Courage to change the things I can
Like today and only today…
And the wisdom to know the difference.
Like remembering to live one day at a time…

potential & real sinners

~ dwc ~ Leave a comment

I’m not an alcoholic.
But… I’m a real fan of the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.

The forward to The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions (a.k.a. the 12×12) acknowledges that the contents of that book (and AA wisdom more generally) “might arouse interest and find application outside of A.A. itself.” Non-alcoholics who practice the 12 steps report that “they have been able to meet other difficulties of life.” The steps can be “a way to happy and effective living”, regardless of whether one is an alcoholic or not.

drinkers and ‘real alcoholics’

As I look through the AA Big Book and the 12×12 I’m fascinated by a particular distinction made between the “moderate drinker”, the “hard drinker” and the “real alcoholic”. It’s worth quoting directly from the Big Book:

Moderate drinkers have little trouble in giving up liquor entirely if they have good reason for it. They can take it or leave it alone.

Then we have a certain type of hard drinker. He may have the habit badly enough to gradually impair him physically and mentally. It may cause him to die a few years before his time. If a sufficiently strong reason—ill health, falling in love, change of environment, or the warning of a doctor—becomes operative, this man can also stop or moderate, although he may find it difficult and troublesome and may even need medical attention.

But what about the real alcoholic? He may start off as a moderate drinker; he may or may not become a continuous hard drinker; but at some stage of his drinking career he begins to lose all control of his liquor consumption, once he starts to drink.

AA Big Book, 20-21

Note the role of reason in restricting the moderate and hard drinker. Merely “good” reason can regulate the moderate drinker, while it takes “sufficiently strong reason” to stop the hard drinker. Both of them can be stopped with reason. Not so with the real alcoholic. The real alcoholic is immune to all reasons to not drink. Sooner or later, regardless of intermittent and temporary experiences of imagined control, it becomes clear even to them that they cannot stop once they start.

What does this have to do with the interest that people like me, who (as far as they know) are not alcoholics, but who find the Steps and the wisdom of AA useful for living? More specifically still, what does it have to do with a Christian focus on kingdom living?

The connection lies in properly understanding the relationship between addiction and sin.

addiction and sin

There are differences between the two. AA suggests not all people are ‘real alcoholics’ as referred to above. Meanwhile, Christianity contends that all are sinners.

But there are similarities.

The sharp distinction AA makes between alcoholics and non-alcoholics does not mean that no common patterns exist when it comes to the human consumption of alcohol. You don’t have to be a ‘real alcoholic’ to really get into real trouble with alcohol. In fact, Part II of the AA Big Book entirely contains stories of “actual or potential alcoholics” who became convinced that “compulsive alcoholism already had them”. They didn’t want alcoholism to progress like cancer to the state of being “malignant… before seeking help.” They “didn’t want to hit bottom because, thank God, we could see the bottom. Actually, the bottom came up and hit us”

Meanwhile, with sin, the fact that Christianity places all of humanity in one sinful boat does not mean that everyone experiences sinfulness in exactly the same way all the time. Some people can see their sin and then repent almost immediately. (This is certainly the recommended strategy for life!) Others struggle with it for a while, experience some mild consequences, and then turn around. Others still, like the lost son in Luke 15, waste their whole inheritance and find their entire lives ruined. In the Christian understanding, sin can grow and develop to the point where it becomes addiction. Repeated behaviour (for good or for ill) becomes habitual, ritualistic, automatic and second nature. The wisest path is to “see the bottom” before you hit it. See the destruction that sin can cause and turn around. Seek God’s love and spirit and kingdom.

So then… the parallels are clear.

I am not any kind of alcoholic (that I know of? yet!?), but I know I am not only a potential sinner, but a real one. Just like an alcoholic needs to work a program or die, so also I need to pursue a live of prayer and service or I’ll wreck my life. I need to pursue the grace and spirit and strength of God, just like a “real alcoholic” must seek escape from alcoholism “with all the desperation of drowning men.”

physical, mental & spiritual recovery

~ dwc ~ Leave a comment

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.