Addictions

I have had many addictions in my life. The most wonderful thing I learned in attending AA meetings and reading the book Alcoholics Anonymous is that alcohol is but a symptom. In the book it describes the life of Bill W. the founder and how he came to meet the Great Shepherd of his soul and was set free from alcohol. Some of the newer versions of the book omit some of Bills conversion. He outlines certain steps that he was led to do which included a moral inventory, bringing his character defects to God and asking that He would remove them. When he wrote the book he wrote it in such a way that any alcoholic anywhere could be delivered from alcoholism by following the steps, even if they chose not to serve his God. This is a proven method of recovery and has worked for millions of people. The thing I found for me though is that if I don’t have Jesus as my higher power I find sobriety but still have an empty place in my heart and continue life striving to attain righteousness and peace. All the other religions of the world preach our striving to attain heaven, men trying to make it into heaven, trying to reach out to God. The gospel of Jesus Christ is God reaching down to us.

There is a story in the bible about a blind man named Bartimaeus that Jesus encountered. What struck me about this encounter is that everyone knew that Bartimaeus was blind, but Jesus said to him, ” What wilt thou that I should do unto thee?”

And they came to Jericho: and as he went out of Jericho with his disciples and a great number of people, blind Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, sat by the highway side begging.  And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out, and say, Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy on me.  And many charged him that he should hold his peace: but he cried the more a great deal, Thou Son of David, have mercy on me.  And Jesus stood still, and commanded him to be called. And they call the blind man, saying unto him, Be of good comfort, rise; he calleth thee.  And he, casting away his garment, rose, and came to Jesus.  And Jesus answered and said unto him, What wilt thou that I should do unto thee? The blind man said unto him, Lord, that I might receive my sight.  And Jesus said unto him, Go thy way; thy faith hath made thee whole. And immediately he received his sight, and followed Jesus in the way.    Mark 10:46-52

Bartimaeus asked for his sight, but I was wondering if maybe Jesus asked him that because he could have asked for that and so much more. I was thinking about that when I was thinking about addictions.

I went to AA groups for quite some time and did quit drinking, for a time. I always relapsed though, because I never dealt with the reason I was drinking. I had too many triggers and flashbacks to really do a thorough inventory of my life, to bring all my defects up to the Lord for Him to remove them. Also part of my problem was that sober I could feel my guilt and condemnation and I couldn’t bear all of that, it was overwhelming. A lot of that guilt was related to my promiscuity, that is why I included the chapters on that in this book. A lot of christians don’t feel comfortable talking about stuff like that and neither did I for a while, but I heard that we are only as sick as our secrets.

When I was finally able to discuss my sin honestly with Jesus, He cast out my condemnation and forgave me. Feeling forgiven by Jesus makes you wake up and see the whole world anew, it is like “wow! the clouds and the sky are really cool. I didn’t notice that before”, “wow some people are actually kind!” Its kinda like getting out of an indoor only inpatient unit after 28 days. 28 days locked up is kinda fun if the right people are locked up with you, but even then getting out that first day you are blinded by the sunlight. Everything is bright and clear. You have such joy that you forget about alcohol and your other problems. You kinda get a skip in your step. Its like that when Jesus forgives us. And if Jesus fills you with the Holy Spirit, when the cravings come back you can say things like, Hey Jesus, the devil is knocking on the door again, will You get it this time? And He does.

Jesus said if we give our lives to Him He would work a work, that we are His workmanship. He will take care of the work, it is His not mine. I cannot save myself or make myself righteous. People in church kept telling me I was the temple of the Holy Spirit and I should clean my temple. I am not a temple cleaner. When I first got saved I was appalled at my unrighteousness, as I am sure a lot of other people were also. I began to clean my temple and thought I was doing a wonderful job of it.

The Lord showed me that now my temple was filled with rags. 

But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousness’s are as filthy rags... Isaiah 64:6 8

But now, O Lord, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand.  Isaiah 64:8

Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith… Heb 12:2

He said “I am the vine you are the branch”. The fruit comes from the vine not the branch. He said that He lives in my heart and He cannot deny Himself, that I should let Him sanctify me. I tried for years to grow fruit on my own but only got stinky fruit that no one wanted. He showed me the scriptures that i shared in my post “Why Did Jesus Send the Holy Spirit”, and said, ‘I know you can’t quit on your own but if you ask Me to put the Holy Spirit in you, then I can do it in you.’

The first time I gave my life to Jesus I was instantly delivered from drugs and alcohol. Then a series of tragedies occurred in my life and I relapsed years later with drugs again, when i quickly got to the end of my rope with drugs I let Jesus help and again i was instantly delivered. I was instantly delivered from the drugs, but I chose to keep drinking. Perhaps He instantly delivered me the first few times because I was too far gone to learn to battle it or listen or anything. I know it wasn’t because I was more spiritual or mighty or disciplined though. That reminds me of the kid that always got to sit closest to the teachers desk and the other kids thought the teacher liked him more. It was really because the teacher had to keep a closer eye on him to keep him out of trouble! Jesus loves me in spite of me, I have no idea why!

When I finally gave Jesus my drinking again, it was not an instant deliverance as i expected, it was a walk with Jesus in learning and understanding things, like why I was drinking, and fighting my will and the compulsions that came at me. It was repenting of things like stubbornness, selfishness and other things to make room for Him to fill me with more of the Holy Spirit again.

I heard a sermon corrie ten boom gave once on you-tube the other day. She said we are like a flashlight that takes two batteries. The first battery is salvation, when we get saved we get that one battery. She said the second battery was the Holy Spirit, and when she went to put the second battery in it wouldn’t fit. Whats this? she said, oh it’s rags. As she pulled them out she said, hmmm selfishness, hmmm unforgiveness, hmmm impurity. When she got them all out she said, now there is room for the Holy Spirit!

So when I heard this I brought it to the Lord and I said, Lord take away my meanness. Not very long after that I got really mean cause people were pushing my buttons (sometimes I really like people, sometimes not at all). I felt horrible, like Jesus hadn’t done anything. But He said “no, its that I put you in that situation to bring it to the surface, confess it and ask Me to remove it when it comes up”.

In the beginning of my walk with Him before I was filled with the Holy Spirit, it seemed like I was always drudging up a hill with a cross at the top and with dread I knew what awaited me, or it felt like I was a living sacrifice burning slowly as my will wrestled with His. Oh it hurt to stand there and try to decide whether to choose His ways, or mine- I really wanted to do mine. He lets us try our ways and then when we find our ways stink, we finally say there has to be a better way. Then we return to Him and say, ok, I will try it Your way. After you go through that fighting way awhile, and finally surrender to Him, you realize you survived it and your life is so much better. It becomes easier and easier.

When I was new in sobriety after my relapse I couldn’t sleep at night with tortured thoughts and worries, so I put in a cd of the bible. Some of those guys that read the bible are kinda boring so I knew I could fall asleep, (sorry God!) and I was able to sleep like a baby. I discovered that Darkness doesn’t like the Word of God so those tormenting demons stayed away all night. After a couple nights I wasn’t bothered anymore at all.

That reminds me of a thing in the old testament that says you should stone people that sin. In the new testament Jesus is clear that He doesn’t want us to stone anyone with stones, (For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.    Eph 6:12)

He is the Rock of our salvation though. When I am confronted with darkness in my thoughts, or people with spirits that irritate me, I can throw Jesus in love at them and, funny thing, there is either instant deliverance for them or they go away cause they don’t like to hear about Jesus. It works for me, especially when I am feeling cruddy. When I feel like that inside I usually don’t want to read the bible or listen to it, I want to feel cruddy. But If I do read it anyway or put christian music on, after awhile I feel much better, much Lighter. Corrie ten Boom once said that if you go into a dark room and you want the darkness to leave, you don’t have to chase it out, or sweep it out, you don’t have to do anything but turn on the Light. Darkness flees. The greatest darkness in the world cannot block out the tiniest light. God made it that way. He is awesome.

There is the Holy Spirit and the unclean spirits, a Spirit from God Himself or a spirit of disobedience and darkness. When king Saul couldn’t hear from God as he had before through the prophet Samuel, he consulted a medium. If you have tried to seek God through the occult or through divination or any other spirit other than the Holy Spirit through Jesus, then you can renounce that sin and ask Jesus to forgive you, He will translate you from the kingdom of darkness to the Kingdom of Light, ” Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light:  Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son:”    Col 1:12-13

When we walk in the Spirit, Jesus’ Light flows from heaven into us and out through us. Satan knows this so he tries to block us from the Light, he uses things like our guilt and condemnation, self righteousness, and fears to make us separate from God, away from the Light. The wonderful thing about what Jesus did is that He died for our sins past and future, When He died on the cross I hadn’t committed any sins yet, I wasn’t born yet, so He forgave my sins that I hadnt even committed yet. He forgives us all our sins. He said:

Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.  Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Romans 8:33-35

For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,  Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.    Romans 8:38-39

If you relapse you just keep taking it to Jesus, standing there saying “I know I keep messing up, but you died for me, please help me”. If you don’t feel near to Him, you can just wrap that prayer up and send it to heaven anyway. Once i felt so discouraged and far from the Lord that i pretended i put my prayers in a football and punted it into heaven. I said something like, i cant even talk to you right now i am so upset, but i need you, please hear my prayers anyway. And also you don’t have to quit doing things the Lord puts on your heart, Let Jesus use you in the midst of your imperfection.

When Jesus didn’t instantly deliver me from alcohol the second time i learned something about me, that i am prone to pride. I had been judging others that were still struggling with their addictions and didnt even realize it! Sometimes the Lord doesn’t do an instant deliverance from substance abuse every time, we should not judge someone and say, “I was instantly delivered what is wrong with you? Not praying enough?” or anything like that, I think thats how i was beginning to view others.

The Lord showed me that when He led the children of Israel into the promised land He drove out many nations before them, but not all of them, and there was a reason for that:

Now these are the nations which the Lord left, to prove Israel by them, even as many of Israel as had not known all the wars of Canaan;  Only that the generations of the children of Israel might know, to teach them war, at the least such as before knew nothing thereof;   Judges 3:1-2

Instead of instant deliverance He sometimes leads us through it, teaching us things all the way. My friend Regina said that sometimes God moves mountains one pebble at a time.

Sometimes we just have to sit and wait for Jesus to do it because we are powerless. Its really hard to sit and wait when we are so messed up and others are always rushing over to tell us what we should be doing to better ourselves. People sometimes do that because they are doing things born of the flesh, and sometimes people get upset if I tell them I am resting, and letting Jesus do all the work in me because i tried for years and cant change myself. This is not to say we embrace and stay in our sins, but we sometimes just have to wait until the Lord delivers us:

“Therefore wait ye upon me, saith the Lord, until the day that I rise up to the prey…”  Zeph 3:8

Instead of running to good works or betterment formulas I am waiting. It is like the children of Israel in the desert following that pillar of fire and cloud. They didn’t go up unless the cloud moved, sometimes for years, sometimes for days they just sat in the camp, walking in the Spirit only at His leading.

I always thought i had to break off all my sins and bad habits to be able to receive God’s anointing, but i found the opposite may be truer- it is the anointing that breaks off the yoke of sin:

And it shall come to pass in that day, that his burden shall be taken away from off thy shoulder, and his yoke from off thy neck, and the yoke shall be destroyed because of the anointing.     Isaiah 10:27

Jesus said:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,   Luke 4:18

He is the anointing. When I am weak then am I strong. Jesus strength is made perfect in weakness. Resting in Him and trusting in Him to do the work, actually works. He has already delivered me from so many things, I am content to trust Him with the rest, waiting, clothed in His righteousness. I want Jesus to do more than just deliver me from my addictions, I want a complete work in me. If I just sober up and try to keep doing everything on my own I become a miserable dry drunk. I want to trust Him to make me a totally new creation. Clay doesn’t do anything but sit there waiting on the Potter and bend when He shapes it.

Take your addictions to Jesus and ask Him to show you what to do, ask Him to set you free, and ask Him to set you free from the things that make you want to or have to drink or use. Ask others to pray for you too. Sometimes just being around others that have gone through the same thing can be really encouraging. It strengthens us to be around others that have the same problems and gives us hope and comradery. If you find people that have been through it and have come out of it with joy, take notes! The joy of the Lord is our strength.

I would like to say something to people that don’t think they have a problem with alcohol and think they can control it. Alot of people never develop an addiction but others may be able to control it for awhile, but if you are an alcoholic you loose that ability by and by. I remember when I went to my first AA meeting when I was 16. Some really nice guy that was editor of the town newspaper I knew seemed to think that I had a drinking problem, but I knew he was mistaken. I went with him anyway, I don’t know why. At the meeting was this really old lady, probably 55 (hey I was 16!). She shared about her problem with alcoholism and her struggles and how she had found sobriety in AA. I remember sitting there not listening, thinking in my head about her missing tooth and saying inside, “hey lady, I will never end up like you”. I spent years controlling my drinking and had no driving under the influence tickets and never made a public fool of myself. I spent years drinking socially with Dr.s and Lawyers and all the respectable people and in respectable places. When the traumatic events of life started happening though, i turned to alcohol more often and found that i had no ability to not drink when i didn’t want to. 

I am 51 now, I wanted to share with young people that pride and thinking we are the exception to the rule is usually just a deception, we arent stronger than anyone else if we are addicts, we just havent gotten that bad yet. We should listen to those who have gone down this road before us and respect them.  I was gonna do a YouTube video to try and explain that to young people, but I couldn’t find my dentures….