Being Judgmental?

Dear Victorious (or whatever you call yourself),

I think you’re being mean-spirited by correlating addiction with sin. That isn’t very compassionate. And you call yourself a Christian? You should love your neighbor as yourself! I know many people who struggle with addictions and their struggles are real. It isn’t sin or ignorance. So get off your high horse!

Compassionate in NY

Dear Compassionate,

I’m sorry to hear that you disagree with me. But I’m not going to change my story. I have first-hand experience with addiction. I’ve struggled with my own addiction issues for too many years to be naive about the problem. I’ve also worked on staff in a Christian ministry, running a recovery program. So I’ve learned a lot about the solution.

All Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work. (II Timothy 3:16-17)

Did you catch that? Scripture (i.e., God’s Word to mankind) is for teaching, reproof, correction and training in righteousness. God said it Himself. So I’ve learned four key points about addiction recovery that correlate to II Timothy 3:16-17.

1. The thinking of an addict is seriously flawed. It is tainted by a worldview shaped by ignorance, rebellion and deception. Teaching is necessary. We must take away the ignorance, laying truth upon truth so that the addict will be grounded in truth. What are they ignorant about? Who God is; who they are in Christ; God’s promises, God’s ways, God’s love, God’s forgiveness and God’s grace --- for starters.

2. Reproof can be defined as criticism for fault. In other words, the addict must know where he or she is wrong. I call it “owning one’s brokenness.” Jesus said in His Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5), “Blessed are those who know they are spiritually poor.” The problem is, most of us don’t have a clue about our spiritual poverty. We need help to get in touch with our brokenness and need help to know our spiritual poorness. This is absolutely essential when dealing with addictions. It's never enough just to say something like, "I'm Joe and I'm an alcoholic."

3. Romans 12:2 tells us to “be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” This means that our understanding, our paradigms, our thinking and our perspectives have all got to change. Simply put, we must change our mind about things, all things. We do that by pursuing God’s perspective on everything. So we must correct our thinking. It has been flawed. That is how we became an addict. Now it must be corrected. That means we become of a new mind about everything.

4. Finally, we must be trained in righteousness. We can’t just take away what is evil and bad in our lives. We must replace the voids with righteousness. If an alcoholic stops drinking, he or she inevitably becomes addicted to cigarettes. If a smoker stops smoking, he or she will usually gain weight from overeating. Oprah Winfrey did a show on this phenomenon once. She called it “addiction transfer,” and described it as moving from one addiction to another. (Poor Oprah. She is so deceived!) There is no such thing as addiction transfer. But if we don’t learn to pursue righteousness, then our sinful natures will prevail – and we’ll either relapse into the same addiction, or acquire a new addiction.

Like I said, I speak from personal experience as well as training and learning from work with people who are addicted. Make no mistake – I have deep love for the addict. But we are called to love him or her into a better place. So if we have to lovingly confront the heart and sin issues that manifest themselves as addictions, then so be it.