God Loves Addicts, This I Know: God's Word and the Road to Recovery

By John Stephen Dawson

God Loves Addicts, This I Know: God's Word and the Road to Recovery is an examination of both classic and modern recovery literature and the role that the Judeo-Christian Bible has played in their development, and particularly regarding how its teachings apply to those struggling with addiction in its many forms. There is a common misconception regarding the term addiction in modern society that it deals primarily, or even exclusively, with substances such as drugs and alcohol. While addiction certainly may include such things, it is hardly limited to them. Addiction in fact includes any person, activity, emotion, or way of thinking that someone turns to in an effort to make themselves complete, to fill some perceived void in their life. Any and all such efforts are doomed to failure, no matter how they may be disguised or how respectable they appear to polite society because they all violate the First Commandment's edict to have no other gods before the Lord. The perceived void is in fact a spiritual need, and no person, no drug, no job, no drink, no feeling, no thing and no one, is capable of meeting that need. It is only through the healing of our loving God that we can find the peaceful, joy-filled life that God intends for His children to enjoy. Through the teachings in His Word, we find guidance to know how to live the life of happiness, joy, and freedom that He has in store for us.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Nov 18, 2019
• ISBN: 9781543993424

Book preview

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It’s Not That Serious, It’s Just Your Life

Addiction is a cruel taskmaster. It strips people of dignity and self-respect; it steals time and money; it ruins careers, and it destroys families. Those of us who suffer from addiction have had to carry the tremendous burden of self-inflicted guilt and shame as well. The truth of the Apostle Paul’s words ring both true and harsh to us: For that which I am doing I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.1

Addiction has killed countless people through the ages, including millions who reached the point of wishing they were dead long before their physical lives were ended prematurely. But it is hardly just addiction to drugs and alcohol that are so dangerous to us as believers in Christ, though those things tend to get the most attention. Anger, for example, brings with it a surge of self-righteousness that can be as addictive as nicotine or cocaine. So does controlling—exercising power over—other people. Sex is widely recognized for its power to ensnare us, body and mind. Body image. Gambling. Anxiety. Pornography. Eating disorders. It’s a long, sad list of idols, the things which we are prone to place on the throne of our lives in place of God.

All of those things have this much in common: they are all sinful in God’s eyes, and dangerous—even deadly—for us, His children. There are sins to which we are addicted that we can dress up and make socially acceptable. Career ambition and the desire to build a secure lifestyle for our families are certainly not wrong in and of themselves, and work itself is a gift from God.2 But when we become prideful of our accomplishments and put our security in the things we own rather than Whose child we are, we have made an idol of success. And we bow down to that idol and worship it by working a hundred hours a week so we can have the best and newest toys. And our hearts, like our family connections and our relationship with our Lord, wither.

Our children are gifts from the hand of God, and along with the blessing of the joy they bring us comes the divine responsibility of raising them well, protecting them, preparing them for life, and instilling in them the instruction of the Lord. But when our love becomes control and we find our self-worth in the image of us that our children project to the world, we have made them, too, into idols. Highly addictive idols.

The words addiction and addict are highly charged and bring with them very negative connotations—no one, after all, wants to think of themselves as an addict. And for some things it’s hard to tell the difference between a bad habit and an addiction. There’s no magic number or line we can identify that tells us the difference between someone who drinks too much on occasion and a true alcoholic; between having poor dietary habits and gluttony or anorexia. Yes, there are psychological markers and arbitrary labels that may be applied to these things and many others, but the root of addiction lies in our hearts, and anything or anyone we have placed on the throne of our hearts that is not God is an idol, a false god. And those false gods enslave us, without discrimination based upon our age, race, education, gender, nationality, net worth, or any other demographic.

How, then, can we know if we suffer from addiction? Solomon told us long ago: Let us examine and probe our ways, and let us return to the Lord.3 It takes some prayerful reflection sometimes for us to be truly convinced—convicted by the Spirit of God—that we have an addiction problem. The people around us may be a barometer for us as well. If people have mentioned our indulgence in some activity—smoking, gambling, gossiping, shopping, whatever—using words like obsessed, too much, or all the time, those things are at least candidates for us to consider as possible addictions.

On the other hand, there are things in our lives that we try to keep from becoming common knowledge about us. Infidelity. Overspending. Drinking alone. Pornography. It’s a pretty safe bet that if we’re trying to hide some activity from friends or family that it’s a problem of some variety. Prayerful consideration can be a bright light to shine on the darkness in our hearts: Examine me, O, Lord, and try me; test my mind and my heart.4

That said, we would be foolish to ignore the power of one of the greatest gifts God has given us: each other. If we are worried we might have an addiction problem, talking it through with someone who loves us enough to tell us the truth after we have shared our concerns with them can be invaluable.

What do we do if we decide we really do have an addiction problem? For one thing, keep reading. This book does not contain vast stores of complex intellectual solutions for our addiction problem, for the very simple reason that such problems are not matters of intellect. Addiction cannot be overcome with microbiology, economics, philosophy, or complex polynomials, because addiction is primarily a matter of the heart. That’s why the word and the Spirit of God are what sufferers of addiction need first and foremost.

To be clear: people in the early stages of stopping their abuse of chemicals, including alcohol, may need medical treatment. Failing to get such treatment can be dangerous. Also, there are psychologists, psychiatrists, medical doctors, and therapists whose help in the recovery process can be priceless. We would do well to take advantage of such resources if we are in need of them and they are suggested to us by recovery professionals. Some of us may benefit greatly from prescription medications in our recovery journeys, and ought not shy away from them if recommended to us by medical experts. There is no shame at all for needing and using any and all of these resources. Of course, if we have struggled with abusing prescription medications, full disclosure of our concerns regarding addiction with our medical professional would always be in our best interest.

There are other resources that can be powerful tools in our struggle with addiction, including recovery groups. Many of these groups take the position that they are spiritual, not religious, in nature. This idea immediately dumps us into the boiling cauldron of controversy. Some Bible-believing Christians say such groups heretically demean a relationship with Christ and to join them is akin to being unequally yoked in marriage to an unbeliever. Others would cite the virtues of Bentham’s felicific calculus, claiming in most utilitarian fashion that since many more people pursue and find recovery in these groups compared to their overtly Christian counterparts that they must be superior.

Here we recognize that while they may not give credit to Christ or the Bible, most recovery groups in the US and other countries use some version of the Twelve Steps of recovery, which are themselves rooted in older recovery programs that were openly based on biblical teachings. As such, their instruction can be highly powerful to anyone struggling with addiction, Christian or not. It is our responsibility as believers in Christ to temper what we learn from any source with biblical wisdom. The root of each of the Twelve Steps is humility, a virtue valued highly by Jesus.5 And as for whether a believer ought to attend only spiritual groups, only those bearing the name of Christ, some combination thereof, or none at all, our suggestion comes from Paul’s writings about worship:

One man regards one day above another, another regards every day alike. Let each man be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day observes it for the Lord, and he who eats does so for the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who eats not, for the Lord he does not, and gives thanks to the Lord.6

In other words, all of us must make this decision in good conscience as we have prayerfully sought God’s direction in the matter.

The intent here is to provide insight concerning what God tells us about how to find healing from and victory over addiction. When we put anything or anyone ahead of God, we are choosing to sin. The Bible’s teachings on this matter are not just about recognizing and avoiding sin, but about seeing our hearts as the battlefield where we must either fight with and for the righteousness of God every day or surrender to the desires of our flesh. Either choice has important consequences for us and for those around us; those we love most.

Aside from humility, God’s word has much more specific instruction that is powerful medicine for those of us suffering from the disease of addiction. The grace of God is both beautiful and amazing. Addiction sufferers may have a lifetime of guilt over how we harmed ourselves, our loved ones, and how we disobeyed God in the depths of our sickness. We may carry backbreaking burdens of guilt and shame for how we acted in our addiction; both that which others have assigned to us and also that of our own creation. What we must recognize is the truth that God’s word makes clear for us: His grace is more than sufficient to remove from us all the guilt and shame in the world, if only we will accept it.

Refusing to forgive ourselves is another barrier that some Christians must overcome as they begin, or even years into, recovery. We may believe that we should be better than to have acted the way we did, to have sinned our way into addiction. Our Savior, we must remember, came that we might have life and have it abundantly,7 and that we ought forgive as He has forgiven us.8 If we refuse to forgive anyone—including ourselves—then we are claiming a higher moral ground, a higher standard, than God Himself. That’s not, to put it mildly, a good place to be.

Many Twelve-Step groups, biblically-oriented and otherwise, emphasize the need for us to act in certain ways and do certain things in recovery. The biblical term is sanctification, in which we work out our salvation with fear and trembling respect for our Lord.9 Of course, we can neither gain eternal salvation nor earthly recovery solely by our good deeds. It works the other way around—we act rightly because we have found love, grace, and forgiveness, not in order that we might earn it.10 We must act rightly in recovery because it is a vital part of staying sober day-to-day, but it is God Whom we must trust to save us from addiction as well as from the consequences of all our sins. Psalm 25 lays out the path for us: Make me know Thy ways, O Lord; teach me Thy paths. Lead me in Thy truth and teach me, for Thou art the God of my salvation; for Thee I wait all the day.11

Once we accept the truth of our addiction, there are three key components to our beginning and persisting in our recovery that we see in these verses:

Faith. We don’t stop trying to manage our own lives if we don’t believe God cares for us and is capable of helping us.

Trust. We must stop putting our trust in our own weak, fragile, addicted, sinful selves and start putting it in our mighty, loving, miracle-working God.

Instruction. Part of our inability to recover from addiction in our own strength is our lack of wisdom. On our own we don’t know how or have the power to stop doing wrong and start doing right. God’s word is a lamp for our feet and a light for our path, if only we will follow it.12

The next two verses show us why we can have faith and trust in the Lord and His instruction:

Remember, O Lord, Thy compassion and Thy lovingkindness, for they have been from of old. Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to Thy lovingkindness remember Thou me, for Thy goodness’ sake, O Lord.13

So, why can we rest assured that God can and will help us recover from addiction?

He loves us dearly. Twice here we see the term lovingkindness, which is a very special kind of love—like that of a parent for a very young child. Children instinctively, intuitively trust their parents because they know their parents love them and care for them.

He is forgiving. If we confess our sins—the things we have done wrong in our lives—to God, he will always forgive us.14 It’s hard to trust someone who holds grudges against us, which our gracious Heavenly Father doesn’t do.

He is good. God defines good. Nothing any of us does will ever match God’s smallest act of goodness. Part of His goodness is that He is for us, and in our struggle with addiction we can have no greater Helper than the Spirit of God.

God has given us His word, His Spirit, and the experience, strength, hope, and love of our fellow addiction sufferers as support in building a new life in recovery. Prayer, love, obedience, and godly wisdom will also be invaluable to us in this process. Humility, acts of righteousness, and embracing the new life God has for us in recovery are what we must have each day; what we must pursue.

Fundamentally, we addiction sufferers must fully recognize that there is something besides God on the throne of our hearts. Something else owns us. It fills our waking thoughts and stalks us in restless nightmares. It tells us we have to have it, that life isn’t worth living without it, that we deserve the (very short-lived) good feeling it brings us. Taking that thing off the throne means dying to self—to the selfish, worldly desires that our flesh craves. In its place we put our relationship with God, and when we seek first His kingdom and His goodness in our lives, He is faithful to answer that prayer.15 But it takes daily repentance—turning away from our old addicted lives and toward the life of obedience and grace He calls us to.

By living a life filled with the love of God and those around us—not our own emotional love, but the selfless and boundless love that God shares with us through His Spirit—we find ourselves being too concerned about others to worry about our own selfish desires. However, this new way of life is not an event, but a process—choosing each day, each hour, and each moment to pursue the righteousness of God. We must ask for God’s help, His power, each day in order to live this new way; as sufferers of addiction—or simply as garden-variety sinners—we cannot live rightly, or even flee temptation, on our own.

It is by God’s grace that we don’t have to overcome addiction on our own. It is often said in the rooms of recovery that it was our best thinking that got us wherever our addictions led—depression, anxiety, guilt, shame, ruined friendships, tarnished reputations, broken homes. If that’s what our best thinking got us, we’re in dire need of help. And our gracious Heavenly Father is readier to help us than we are to even ask for it. But that’s okay; His love is patient, and while we can still draw a breath, we have hope. In Him.

As a word of caution to anyone who wants to put off recovery out of not being ready yet: life is both too precious and too short to waste it chasing the addictions that are making us miserable and sick. None of us is promised tomorrow.16 And in addiction, we are prone to make choices that are unwise, unhealthy, and risky. Whether we realize it or not, other people not only need us, but are in fact incomplete without us. Somewhere out there may be a church, recovery group, family, business, and more that is incomplete right now, just waiting for us to fill the void; to receive the grace and love they have to offer…and in turn to receive ours.

Jesus told us about the choice we face when we realize that addiction is a problem but aren’t sure we want to do what it takes to recover:

Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter by it. For the gate is small, and the way is narrow, that leads to life, and few are those who find it.17

Jesus was, of course, referring to Himself as the only way we can be forgiven of our sins and receive eternal life. However, His words apply to recovery as well. It is a broad highway—an interstate, an autobahn—that takes us deeper into addiction and closer to death. Recovery takes our fullest efforts and a lot of help. Unless we choose recovery, addiction will continue to enslave us and destroy our lives.

It’s up to us each day to choose to take up our cross, to deny our flesh, to submit our will to God’s, and to seek His kingdom and His righteousness. God wants us to do these things, and yes, it’s hard, and involves self-sacrifice. But God’s plan for us is not subservient, robotic compliance. His word is not a divine thou-shalt-not-because-I-sayeth-so manual. God made each one of us special; He designed and crafted us one atom, one molecule, one protein, one DNA strand, one cell, one tissue at a time, lovingly and painstakingly. He adores us as His special children and wants the very best for us—His very best, which is far better for us than anything we could ever think to ask for in our own limited minds and small, dark hearts. And He doesn’t want us to do things that bring us pain, harm, and heartache…all of which are the outcome when we indulge in our addictions.

Something that many of us struggle to understand at various stages of our lives, and especially in recovery, is that our bodies are not our own. The Spirit of God lives in His children, which makes us very much like a church. As Paul put it,

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.18

The price that was paid for us was the blood—the sacrifice, the death—of the very Son of God, of Jesus Christ. That fact means that we have value, worth beyond measure in the eyes of God. And how dare we do anything to deface something God has declared so precious to Him. Put another way, if someone were to try to harm a member of a royal family, the might of the whole kingdom would come down on his head. If that someone were to poison the child of a king, everyone would cry out how atrocious it was, and the would-be killer would be swiftly and harshly punished. In the kingdom of God, each of us is His child, and what does one call the child of a king? A princess or prince, naturally. And when we indulge in our addictions, we poison our bodies, our minds, and our hearts. When we habitually say negative things about ourselves and engage in self-loathing, we are tearing down the place where the Spirit of God lives—in us—and it’s the moral equivalent of burning a church.

We have to stop hurting ourselves; to stop poisoning our King’s child, to stop burning His church. We may not be very likeable—much less lovable—in our addictions. We may not love, or even like, ourselves. But how dare we harm our King’s child when we know better and hold in our hands a tool to help us find the best life God wants for us. We have to accept that when we engage in our addictions, we are harming ourselves. To use pornography or engage our eating disorder or become drunk or abuse medications or cling sickly to anxiety or idolize money or generally dedicate our lives to hedonistic pleasure or exploit others to get what we want…all of these things are harmful to us and to those around us, and our mental, physical, and emotional dedication to them damages what God holds so dear: His child. The beginning of healing is to quit hurting ourselves, and we can’t even do that without the grace of our loving Heavenly Father. But we can’t open our hands to receive His grace until we let go of our own efforts to control the uncontrollable, our addictions. But when we do, the storehouse of Heaven will begin to rain down on us in ways we could never imagine.

May God bless each one who wants to become free of addiction, through His word, His Spirit, and His other children. In our own strength we can do nothing, but we can do all things—even recover from addiction—through the love and strength of Jesus.19

The Lord Is My Shepherd, I Shall Not Want to Relapse

The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul. He guides me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I fear no evil, for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me. Thou dost prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; Thou hast anointed my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.20

What can be said or written about this psalm that has not already been said or written many times before? Or, as Solomon once put it, Is there anything of which one might say, ‘See, this is new?’ Already it has existed for ages.21 To someone who has struggled with addiction—chemical, relational, emotional, behavioral, etc.—what feels so touching and comforting about this psalm is the care, the love, that our Heavenly Father has for us; a perspective perhaps not unique, but special to the addiction sufferer.

The psalm begins as a metaphor of care—the Lord is my shepherd. Catch that—He is my shepherd. In the sense that a small child has a loving parent, David—and by extension, we—have an Almighty Caregiver. Shepherds care for sheep for many reasons, not the least of which is that sheep need a lot of care.

Sheep, not to be unkind, are pretty dumb. Plus, they smell bad—having thick woolen coats that are matted with mud and sheep dung doesn’t help them climb the lovability ladder very high, not to put too fine a point on it. The shepherd doesn’t care, though. The shepherd loves the sheep no matter how dumb and smelly they are; that’s the nature of the Good Shepherd.

What an apt comparison for the relationship between God and those of us suffering from addiction. We so often think we are dumb and incapable of learning. When we drink or use or indulge when we know it could hurt our loved ones or ourselves—especially when we’ve already completed the using cycle so many times before—one of the first responses many of us have is, How could I be so stupid? I should know better than to act like this!

The Good Shepherd doesn’t