Addictions

But remember this—the wrong desires that come into your life aren’t anything new and different. Many others have faced exactly the same problems before you. And no temptation is irresistible. You can trust God to keep the temptation from becoming so strong that you can’t stand up against it, for he has promised this and will do what he says. He will show you how to escape temptation’s power so that you can bear up patiently against it.                                      I Corinthians 10:13

I talked with a client the other day about his eating. He confessed that he eats as an emotional response, and he has done so for years. In fact, he no longer knows when he is hungry- he just eats to be comfortable and to avoid emotional pain.

Of course, he is not really comfortable, and like any other addiction, the results of the addiction are not satisfying- they are painful, even disgusting. I talked with him about the starts of the addiction, and he stated that he had endured some early life trauma which was nearly debilitating. This client is an overcomer. He is one who has more insight that he gives himself credit for, and he is a teachable young man.

We discussed the idea of fasting so that he actually knows again what it is to be hungry. At this point, he simply eats because it gives him emotional satisfaction and distraction. He is out of touch with real feelings of hunger because he has abused eating and has turned it into an escape.

He is going to be OK- I am confident of it. He will begin a fast – moderate and controlled- in order to again calibrate his actual sense of hunger. The thing about addictions is that they lie to us. They tell us that some substance or practice will let us escape our problems. Instead, addictions capture us into a new problem- addiction to the supposed “cure”.

People become addicted to substances and practices because the object of addiction makes them feel good right away, and it allows escape from pain.  The problem is, eventually people take the substance not to feel good, but so that they simply can avoid pain.

That is the lie of addiction. We all can be captured into an addiction of some sort. None of us is immune. We do need to recognize that whatever makes us feel good immediately can also be addictive. Always remember- there is a solution for every problem. There is hope!

Prayer: Lord, you give us a way of escape to overcome addiction and redeem it into good! Amen