I love addictions.

Yes, I really do.

It’s kind of a dirty word, linked with drugs and unsavory experiences.  At least in my mind, I flash back to that old reality tv show of Intervention.  If it’s still on TV, I don’t know.

I’m not making light of it.  The only thing that’s different about people who find themselves in those situations and the rest of us, is the social stigma surrounding their drug of choice and its potency.  It’s not quite as socially acceptable to have a meth lab running in your house as it is a TV.  Or credit card debt.    Nor the physical consequences as obvious.

Don’t get me wrong, they are annoying, challenging and harmful.  I’ve been (and still am) addicted to more things that I even am aware of half the time.  The only blessing is at least I know they exist, even if I’m not entirely sure where they are all yet or their trigger cues. It’s part of my personal mission to dismantle each and every one of them.  However long it may take.  They all offer such a gift.

Any addiction, at the end of the day, is all from the same thing.  Something emotionally unhealed, in which we work overtime, to keep hidden and buried via our drug of choice/idol.  It’s something we have not have had the courage yet to allow Gods grace to shine into.  Or have been convinced of not having the power to stand in it, to allow that place of darkness to see light. Where we are holding God and life at bay.

That’s what I love about addiction.

It shows us exactly where are wounds are.  It shows us exactly where we need to heal.   It invites us to a continual deepening relationship with God.  And it shows us when the healing is done. And when there is yet more to do.

Addictions show us exactly where are wounds are.  It shows us exactly where we need to heal.   And it shows us when the healing is done.

Sometimes healing them happens in an instant. Like a moment of Grace that came in twenty years ago when I realized  I was not living in the way of who I was made to be.  I knew it in my being. And despite the several failed attempts to quit smoking before (among other behaviors), in that moment, it was over.   Months later when offered a cigarette after a wedding and many cocktails, peer pressure, and resistance down after saying Yes – I realized that it still was not who I was. And it was my last.  I was done.   Whatever fueled that addictive desire was long gone. It was weird to me that I spent so many years so attached to it.

Other addictions were more gradual.  My taste for alcohol took much longer.   There was not a pivotal moment where I saw my identity as being different  than what I was living – I just continued to work on my healing – just the inside work at this point, and, like changing of the seasons and shifting of the clouds, my desire to drink just slipped away.  I didn’t ‘need a drink’ anymore.  And my ‘drink’ wasn’t code for having an evening that I barely remembered the following day. Or my drink wasn’t my social crutch in handling awkward conversations anymore either or a prerequisite for fun.    I started to see clearly the effect it had on me and my life.  And somewhere along that line, I could leave it and I did.  Whatever was behind that addiction had at some point been healed. No drama involved. Here and there I’ll enjoy a social evening with wine or cocktails, but other than that, it is not all that interesting to me.

Those types of addictions are what we normally think of when we think of addiction.  These days what I see more of are the impact of certain  beliefs and thoughts that are more nuanced and the addictive patterns of behavior they set up.  Our body is such a sensitive radar that likes to keep its baseline of experience – its homeostasis.  That it will do what it needs to do in order to keep it active at what is supposedly known. Or at least familiar.  St Teresa of Avila has said that our body has a defect that the more it is provided care and comforts, the more need and desire it finds. 

Our body has this defect that, the more it is provided care and comforts, the more need and desires it finds.   – St Teresa of Avila

 

The body itself is primed for addiction and it also seems to also translate into the way we think about things, to what we constantly need ‘more’ of.

It can be so subtle and sometimes seemingly non-harming that if you are not looking, can go undetected.  Yet you always know an addiction, by something that you are unwilling to give up on your idea of.  Or as something you are super protective of and just not wanting to let go of. Or even something you just aren’t willing to experience.

For example,  I tend to have an investment in being right (I admit, not one of my finer qualities).  On the surface, that wouldn’t seem so bad.  I take the time to do due diligence.  I dig, analyze. I contemplate.  I don’t share right away.  I digest carefully.  I have been deliberate in my decisions and in what to share.  You can bet what I choose to share has been vetted many times over. And I know its truth.  I continue to consider it after,  whether or not I send off or share something widespread in case it isn’t (not because I care of what people think of me – although I think we all do to varying degrees, but more so that I don’t want to lead people down a false path or misdirect in any way).  I have often found my path not to be a straight one.  And what I think I know or what is revealed seems to always be changing. 

And in a place where discernment seems to be my ultimate lesson,  It’s hard to lay any claim of right certainty on a path that is ever-changing and moving. This approach of holding back seems wise. And yet, what is life, but an ever changing and moving river that we ,hopefully, continue to learn and grow in how we love, in what we know and ever increasing in the love we bring forth.  There is a logic in holding back a bit – Of course there is – why else would I (or anyone, for that matter) consciously continue to do the same things (over and over)….And yet man times, the things we logically protect, even if theres a good reason, at some point, ultimately harms.  Everything is meant to be in in its right place, in its right balance and can be misused if not carefully vigilant.

So on the surface this may not even seem like an addiction.  Yet, if I can’t give it up in the name of Faith for what will ultimately unfold – it reveals itself for what it is.  An attachment to something that is giving me a false sense of emotional safety and security.  For what I think is ‘right’.  What is right for me, in each moment, may be entirely different depending on how I’m being led, if I’m listening.  The reality is, that it is in those places where we create the vacuum – the empty pause –  the places in which we break free and say NO (or YES) for the first time in Faith, that we start to see God sweep us up and carry us through and reveal something new.

It’s those places in which we question what we think we know and follow Gods river as it flows through us, will we be carried.  Not in trying to hold up the river for what ‘WE’ think we know about life.   It’s that fear about what we think we know about life that keeps us from allowing God to move through us, rather than just let Him do what’s best for us.

And for all I’ve experienced most everything that I’ve thought I’ve known has been opposite of what actually IS true. Experience matters. Experience especially matters in you discovering truth.

(And yes, I am using God as a Him.  Masculine pronouns describe masculine nature as literal injector, the giver and provider of the seed of life where we are the receiver, the nurturer, and caretaker of the life we are given.  This whole masculine and feminine confusion we have on spirituality and in this world deserves a post all on its own)

Going back to the beginning – even in those days when I first said no to the cigarette, my body complained.  The anxiety climbed.  The first NO betrayed all the hidden feelings I was trying so hard to keep buried- outside of the physical complaints my body protested in being in something new and unfamiliar.

There are some things we already know we are doing that are not good for us – its the first place to start. When you feel the anxiety in the body climb, if you stand in faith in the anxiety, you begin to watch the emotional wave until it recedes from your body.  You begin to realize the grace you are given and how you are empowered in it, to move through it and beyond it to a whole new place. You really are given all the strength you need, you just have to be willing to stand in the storm.

You are given all the strength you need, you just have to be willing to stand in the storm.

As you remove the crutches and stand in the sensation of the pain, the inspiration starts to come in for the next direction to go in.  Instead of just letting go, you are prompted to show up in a different way.

And in the challenge of the addiction to ‘needing  being right’, it’s for me to share in a new way of Faith, in which I may not be right.  My ‘Right’ cannot be vetted.  Being ‘Right’ and being in Faith are mutually exclusive.  If you know without any kind of doubt, it removes the need for Faith and Trust in God.  Where even if you don’t know – you KNOW in Faith.

Thinking you are right (based on unhealed wounds) and being in faith are mutually exclusive – choosing the former is the glue that sticks every addiction

So here goes my next direction:  For awhile now, I’ve had conversations with Jesus.  I’ve been hesitant to share.   I’ll share my disclaimer.  I’m aware that in the spiritual world people are very easily fooled for what they want to believe, in using their own mind and imagination and desires against them to keep them bound. This is part of my hesitation in sharing.

And yet, the next step of my healing is recognition that this generational need ‘to be right’, to ‘do the right thing’ has had so much to do with the prevention of a physical beating and abuse.  And yet, I know, God does not allow anything that is not for good, provided you, in your heart sincerely desire the Truth and desire God.  Sometimes addictions require a conscious action to deliberately say YES even in the place of heightened anxiety when your body wants to say NO in preparation for protection from a painful past.

In that spirit, below, my next post will be an excerpt of a message from Jesus that I received a few weeks ago.  So be sure to check it. I will share some of these periodically as they are given. I’m trusting in Faith. And I pray that whose hearts need to hear them will hear them in the way God wishes their hearts to be moved.

And just to be clear, we all have our own access to God. All of us. Each moment. Nothing special or unusual here. This is just my latest invitation to break through my own patterns of protection that have been keeping me from fully experiencing the light of God.  What are yours?

That’s why I love addictions.  They tell you exactly what you need to work on.  Where you are attached.  Where you are not seeing the truth.  Where you have not allowed the truth.  Or maybe just believed somebody else’s truth without testing it with your own experience.

Look at your own addictions.  A dead giveaway is a place in which you hold so firm to, are so protective of, that you are hard pressed to give up. Check those out.  There’s healing needed there.  Calling for you. They are hiding something you longingly seek on the other side.