I recently read about the purpose of the Scripture selections of Lent as an explanation of my favorite statement. The first three and a half weeks of Lent have a strong message: we need to repent and change our life. If we are honest, we learn that this call to perfection is beyond our grasp. We need help. The final part of Lent takes selections from the Gospel of John to teach us that only in Jesus can we find the full solution we are seeking. It is in the struggle and the eventual unveiling of our weakness that we find ourselves ready for the great truth of our faith, the Pascal Mystery in Christ Crucified and Christ Risen.
Though we are called to be perfect as our Father is perfect. (Mt. 5:48) we cannot get there on our own. The truly strange and beautiful mystery of our weakness is that our failure opens us to the truth. Self-assurance and control fade into oblivion. Our failure frees us to seek God more intensely. Our recognition of our helplessness creates space for God’s saving grace. A second aspect of this acknowledgement of our sinfulness, our need for salivation, is that God sees our brokenness not as an impediment but as our invitation for the saving power of Jesus. We need not cringe when we see our failures. We simply need to stand in the truth of our sinfulness. It is a call to God for mercy.
The struggle, in the end, is not the key to our control and conquest. It is the admission to our emptiness in the presence of God. God fills the emptiness with grace and love.
II
In his classic, Addiction and Grace, Gerald May presents some wonderful teachings about addictions’ relationship to our spiritual well-being. For many, his most surprising statement is that we all are afflicted with many addictions. These come in all different sizes, shapes and intensities. It may be a favorite TV show, the way our food is prepared, our need to have the final word and so many more. Then you have the ever-popular money, sex and power trio wrapped around the hunger for security. All addictions, large and small, have one fundamental outcome. They deprive us of freedom and fill the space in our heart that is meant for God.May defines addiction as any compulsive, habitual behavior that limits freedom and human desire. It is an action that flows from a strong attachment. It is either physical or in our mind.
An addiction can be as powerful as the substance abuser’s longing for the next fix or drink. It can be as simple as the impatience of one waiting in line to pay for the groceries.
These are five characteristics of addiction.
- 1) Tolerance: we always want more of the addictive behavior. In the end, we never achieve lasting satisfaction.
- 2) Withdrawal symptoms: there are two. They are stress reaction and backlash reaction. In the stress reaction, the body reacts to the loss of addictive behavior in varying degrees of intensity. In the backlash, the person feels the opposite of the desired goal of the addiction.
- 3) Self-deception: the mind is fighting against itself to avoid loss of its “fix.” It creates “mind games” to distort and deceive anything that might deprive it of it of satisfaction.
- 4) Loss of willpower: a fundamental deception or “mind trick” of addiction is focusing attention on willpower. The intention to stop it by saying, “I can handle it” is the sure path to the continuing survival of the addiction.
- 5) Distortion of attention: addiction absorbs our attention to distract our mind and heart from love. Attention and love are intimate partners. This is at the heart of the addiction’s destructive powers. It keeps us from the path of love for others and especially for God.
Addictions are powerful realties in everyone’s life. They are blockades to the basic hunger of our heart for God. They promise freedom and happiness. They produce slavery and destruction. The solution is self-knowledge that recognizes our dependence on God and our acceptance of God’s call to freedom in love and grace. It is not our naked willpower that holds the key to freedom but our action engulfed in our dependence on God’s grace that sets us free.
III
Teresa of Avila’s fundamental insight is relevant to the issue of addiction. Her long struggle to seek God led her to a self-knowledge and honesty that accepted her essential poverty. She traveled the hidden paths of a fractured heart that led her deeper into an awareness of her inability to overcome the effects of sin in her life. This journey of almost two decades led her to the simple overwhelming truth: God is God and I am the creature. God, however, is a loving and merciful God and I am a sinful but forgiven and loved creature. I live in a sea of God’s overwhelming mercy.Teresa’s door into this fundamental truth was a life of prayer and sacrifice leading to God’s will and true self-knowledge. It led her to humility as the truth of reality: God is a loving and forgiving God and we are the loved and forgiven creatures. In the context of this life-defining message of Teresa, the solution to addictive behavior is clear. We accept our reality trying to overcome all that keeps us from God’s will. We face our weakness. We surrender to God’s loving will. In this struggle, we eventually are set free not by our willpower but by our openness to God’s loving mercy.
IV
I tried to stop drinking hundreds of times. Then God spoke one day in the form of a magazine that had a test to determine if one is an alcoholic. I failed miserably. The elephant in the room, so visible to others for so long, suddenly had me backed up against the wall. I was in shock. It led to a journey of self-knowledge and prayer that included the support of my community. My intention to stop drinking never worked. I did, however, stop drinking by the grace of God.I am now free to struggle in humility with the massive number of other addictions that continue to suck away my freedom. The grace is in the struggle!
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