Calvary's touch Encourages You: When We Just Can't Stop-Part2.

When We Just Can't Stop-Part 2.

Continuing from last week, let us see What Can be Addictive and The Marks of An Addiction, and also what does it take to break the addictive cycle.

The vast majority are good things such as food, work, exercise, shopping, and prescription drugs. Let's look at some of the more common ones.
* Drugs and Alcohol: Mood-altering chemicals account for some of our most obvious addictions. They create physical, emotional, and social dependence on artificially induced feelings.
* Food: With food, some of us attempt to satisfy not only the natural needs of our bodies but also insatiable emotional and spiritual longings.
* Sexual Pleasure: Addiction to sexual pleasure may involve marital or extra- marital heterosexual, same, fettish, or pornographic obsessions.
* Work: workaholics are chronically absorbed in a continuous stream of tasks. Our sense of well-being is wrapped up in what we do.
* Relationships: A form of relational idolatry occurs when we view another person as the source of our identity and well-being. When threatened with separation, we fight to cling to the other person at all costs, even to the harm of the one we claim to love.
* Gambling: By playing the lottery, gambling at casinos or racetracks, or betting on point spreads of sporting events, some have become addicted to numbers games. Mounting losses and dreams of financial freedom fuel the need for "one more chance".

The Marks of Addiction: Those who work with people caught in addiction identify at least five telltale signs, which when found together indicate the presence of an enslaving, destructive dependency.

1. Absorbing Focus. All addictions consume time, thought, and energy. They are not mere pastimes. They are obsessions and preoccupations that demand more and more from us.
2. Increasing Tolerance. The pattern of diminishing returns is also common. We need increasing amounts to maintain the same effect. e.g. drug addicts need more crack to get the same high. Alcoholics need more alcohol to maintain the "buzz" that came so easily at first, etc.
3. Growing Denial. To protect the sacred moments of our pleasure, we deny that our "interest" is ruining us. We convince ourselves that we can stop whenever we want. We learn to live in two worlds at the same time.
4. Damaging Consequences. There is no such thing as a harmless addiction. All addictions are destructive to ourselves and those we love. Directly or indirectly, our obsessions can destroy our family and our friendships.
5. Painful Withdrawal. Anything we habitually use to give us an artificial sense of well-being results in pain when it's taken away. When deprived of our addiction, we are likely to feel that we have lost something essential to our survival.

What Does It Take To Break the Cycle. Sometimes it takes family intervention to get our attention. It may take court-ordered treatment. Sometimes it takes financial ruin, loss of employment, loss of health, or loss of relationships. Something must bring us to the end of ourselves. Something must cause us to be willing to reachout for whatever spiritual or medical help or daily accountability meetings we need to break the grip of our enslaving, destructive dependency. Onething is certain. Even if hospitalization and medical treatment are needed to break the stranglehold of our addiction, we will need spiritual help to recover our sanity, sobriety, and self-control.

Addiction involves our spiritual inner being. We have needs that can not be met by filling them with food, alcohol, drugs, or work. Physical obsessions cannot satisfy our deep longings for satisfaction, security, and significance.

If we are walking on the edge, it's time to face the truth. Our hearts are hurting. Our God-given desires are powerful. Our self-absorbed strategies to satisfy those desires will only increase our pain. They will hurt not only ourselves but those who are closest and dearest to us. Our addictions are gods who have no empathy for us or those we love. It's time for us to hear the loving, pleading voice of God, who says in His Word:

"Do not be decived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life" (Gal. 6:7-8).

So let us commit ourselves to the process of recovery, knowing that in spite of fall-backs, God doesn't abandon us. Nothing can compare with the process of being forgiven and gradually delivered from self-absorption to self-sacrificing love for the sake of others. Be encouraged.

***************************Letter # 18 (6.5.2001)********************