I'm an Addict, Now What?

"I was once a cucumber, now I'm a pickle, and I'll never be a cucumber again."

When we were very young we could do x normally, but now we’re addicts and I'll never be able to do x normally again. We addicts are different than other "regular" people. We will never be able to act like them. We can't even act out a little bit, because once we get started we don't know how to stop. We can't control our feelings of acting out.

We tried many methods, but they didn't work long term...in the end, we always fell again.

Dangerously, after having some "clean" days, we often felt as if we were in control over the addiction, and that we were becoming immune to it and could beat this thing ourselves, but that's not true. We would eventually act out again. We have to face the facts; we can't control our addiction!

We can't use our willpower to beat the addiction. Our "minds" got us into this addiction, so how can we expect our "minds" to get us out of it?

We shouldn't get depressed over the fact that we are powerless on our own. This just leads in to steps 2 and 3, which are; that we believe in God and His ability to help us. We have to turn to God for help and "surrender" ourselves to Him. We can start doing this by building a relationship with Him, by talking to Him, opening up our eyes and seeing Him around us, and feeling His Divine Providence.

We are playing tug-of-war with our addiction. He's always pulling. When we fight it, he pulls back. When we have clean days, that means we've pulled stronger than the addiction. However, in a game of tug-of-war, what happens when you start to win a little bit? Usually, the other guy starts to pull back very hard. If he pulls very hard, you will slip. Once he sees that he's got you slipping, he'll pull even harder, and then you might even fall.

Playing tug-of-war gets tiring after a while. Imagine how tiring it can be after "playing" it for weeks, or even months!

It's time to stop fighting the addiction. Let's "surrender" ourselves to God by letting go of the rope! When you let go of your end of the rope, the addiction on the other side GOES FLYING!

Instead of fighting the addiction, let's focus today on opening our eyes to see God everywhere, in every physical object we see. Let's try to feel God. Let's talk to Him. Let's serve Him today, just for today, instead of serving ourselves.

And instead of preparing for huge battles, let's ask ourselves each day when we wake up in the morning:

1. Today, will I walk with God, or will I walk alone?
2. Today, will I see God who hides behind every physical object, or will I only see the physical objects?
3. Today will I serve God, or will I serve myself?