Addiction: How to Help Each Other (Part II) - Confronting Deception and Concealment, Pride and Shame

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For Part I, click here.
For Part III, click here.

Addictions affect far more people than we realize. In the last 10 years, I have discovered so many types of addictive behavior affecting fellow Christians and others I come in contact with through criminal law that I wanted to make what I’ve learned available to help others care for people with addictions. We often miss the signs of addiction because many addictions don’t look like what we stereotypically think of as the behavior of “an addict.” Many people hide their addictions very well, and seem to function normally most of the time.

If you’re trying to help someone break out of a ‘bad habit’ or sinful pattern in life that is really an addiction, you can end up spinning your wheels and going nowhere if you aren’t prepared with an understanding of the mental maze that addicts live in. Addiction is a complex interplay of selfishness, shame, pride, denial, guilt, and fear. Most addicts actively work to conceal their addictive behavior. I have learned the hard way how easy it is to miss what's going on under the surface, and what it takes to get an addiction out in the open.

I posted Part I of this discussion last week, where I summarized what makes something an addiction, the risk-taking behavior that reveals someone has an addiction, and how addictions compare to idolatry. I also gave a breakdown of why people turn to addictive behavior, with a list of critical things to be aware of when trying to help someone with an addiction. Part II covers below why addicted people lie and conceal their behavior, why it takes so much careful work to get them to cooperate with their own healing, and the combination of pride and shame that trap people in addiction. Finally, in Part III I will give a detailed list of ways to recognize patterns of deception and concealment that addicts commonly use to keep their addiction secret or to resist help and accountability, and how to counter them.

There is enormously helpful biblical teaching on this subject from groups like CCEF. Although I am trying to give you the main insights and tips from 10 years of law practice dealing with addicted clients and addicted people in the church, I don’t have a counseling degree and I’m not a professional counselor. In many cases, your primary goal should be to get the help of a certified counselor, while using the type of information I have put together to support your friend and keep him or her accountable. Several quotes below are from Ed Welch, a CCEF counselor, and I encourage you to chase down more of his resources at CCEF.

Addiction Makes Liars Out of People: Deception and Concealment Come Naturally

I am not trying to be insulting or accusatory here. It simply has to be faced that one of the sad byproducts of addiction is that it nearly always turns the addicted person toward lying and deceiving the people around him, especially when people begin to confront the person about having an addiction. This is often a total shock to family and friends because it happens even to people who would never lie about anything else. Part of the difficulty in spotting an addiction can be that the person you're trying to help has always been honest and candid with you about everything, so it is disorienting and hard to grasp when you begin to realize they are deceiving you about their addiction. It's completely out of character.

1. Other People Just Don't Understand

Part of the problem is that addicts usually think they have things under control. They think their indulgence and vice is something they just choose to do, just something they use to take the edge off and relieve stress. You've heard the classic self-deception: "I can quit any time I want to." This is usually what they really believe - they never put it to the test because they don't want to quit. They want to keep using this to dull pain or relieve tension. So the first person an addict is lying to is herself. Ed Welch says: "All addicts lie. As idolaters they forge an alliance with the anti-god and his crumbling empire, and lying is one expression of this alliance. ... For addicts, this deception is not only what they speak, it is also what they believe. They also have been lied to and believe those lies—lies from family, friends and Satan himself."

You've probably heard pastors describe temptation to sin as a lie: what you expect a sin to give you and what you actually get are usually two different things. When you are tempted by a desire, sin looks appealing and satisfying and not too dangerous. If you give in, you realize afterward that the satisfaction was brief and the negative consequences are much bigger. (Just what James 1:14-15 describes.) Addiction functions this way too. A person's desire for the relief and comfort their addiction provides will blind them to how big the consequences are. In the last post I described how people take greater risks in order to satisfy an addiction than they ever normally would take. Their need has become so dominating that they rationalize away the consequences or sinfulness of their actions.

But while the addicted person is lying to herself about things being out of control, she usually has a perception of what other people will expect and accept. Addicted people often realize that others would question their choices or be concerned by their risks, and even though they won't admit to themselves that there's good reason for concern, they learn to conceal what they are doing in order to avoid the unpleasant confrontations. So they begin lying to others as well. There are plenty of excuses they can use for this: "I know it bothers him, so I just don't want him to worry needlessly," or "It's none of their business," or "We just have different beliefs about how to unwind, so there's no point in talking about it."

However, the deeper the addiction goes, the more lying becomes a means of self-preservation and a regular habit. Pride causes the addicted person to resist all efforts to question or intervene in the addictive behavior, and shame makes the person unwilling to confide in others or allow anyone to see how ugly the situation really has become.

2. Pride and Shame Gain Control

"cultivating and encouraging humility is crucial for helping someone overcome an addiction."

You can see the evidence of pride in what I just described: the addicted person thinks they have things very well in hand, thank you, and anyone who thinks differently just doesn't understand. It is likely that the addicted person has thoughts like: "Who are they to tell me what I can do?" Self-justification and defensiveness are common side-effects of addiction (and sometimes causes of it). I quoted a therapist in Part I who said addicts believe two lies: that they deserve relief, and that they should get to decide how and when they get it.

For many addicts, even when they know the problem is out of control, the hardest thing to get past is the pride of being able to do what they want to do. That is one reason many fail in treatment: I have seen a number of people over the years walk out on treatment not because they believed they were cured or that they didn't have a problem, but simply because they were tired of having to abide by someone else's rules. When life is spiraling out of control, desperation may drive them to treatment. But when things stabilize, they start to think it's unfair that they no longer get to decide for themselves when and how they find pleasure or comfort. As time goes on, they are tempted to find compromises to make their addiction "manageable" instead of cutting it off entirely. Sometimes the hardest part to accept is never again.

Therefore, cultivating and encouraging humility is crucial for helping someone overcome an addiction. The person has to be willing to admit they have a problem: in other words, they have to be able to admit they can't handle this. They have to admit weakness. Along with that, they must submit themselves to someone else's accountability in order to make sure the person doesn't return to the addiction or get close to temptations that would trigger it. They no longer get to do whatever they want. It is a basic element of original sin lodged in all our hearts that we chafe and bristle at not being able to do things our own way. This is one of the biggest battles of the will in overcoming an addiction. Pray for humility in the person you're helping. Pray for the grace to listen and receive instruction.

A person who isn't growing in humility as they come to terms with an addiction is not going to fare well in overcoming it. That's why many addicts have to suffer devastating consequences before they surrender their addiction and accept help. It's only when forced into a situation where they must quit or be destroyed that they finally realize what a hold it has over them, and how helpless they are to control it.

Along with pride, addicted people are crippled by pride's evil twin: shame. Sooner or later a person with an addiction that is getting out of control will realize, in spite of their self-justification, that the state of their life really looks disgraceful. The effort to put on an image for everyone else of appearing to have it all together just makes it that much more frightening and intimidating to think about the veil getting pulled away and people seeing what's really underneath. Ed Welch sums it up: "If they were not dominated by shame before they began their addiction, they certainly will be after. When you live for something that is ultimately worthless, you feel worthless. When you live for neither God nor people, you will hurt others and degrade yourself. Then the cycle continues—addiction leads to shameful consequences, which leads to more devoted addiction." (Welch)

3. Killing Shame with Humility, Encouragement, and the Love of Christ

The solution to shame is also rooted in humility. As John Piper points out in Battling Unbelief, shame is really just pride that is wounded because it isn't getting praise. A shame problem is a pride problem: we feel shame because we want people to think about us a certain way - we want to take pride in something - and we perceive that they don't. So although shame looks vulnerable and sympathetic, it is really a problem of taking too much pride in what others see; so much pride, in fact, that you can't bear to have them see the real truth. Part of humility is learning not to worry about what other people think. As it happens, one of Ed Welch's best and most well-known books tackles shame expertly: When People Are Big and God Is Small.

To combat shame, an addicted person also needs diligent and frequent encouragement. They have to be reassured that it's okay to be you. They have to be shown that people will love them and accept them even with the veil pulled away. They also have to discover what is good and valuable in themselves and begin to feel good about it again. This is why most treatment programs and support groups for addiction heavily rely on a group therapy environment which emphasizes positive reinforcement for each other. They pour on the encouragement: every step forward is a victory that deserves praise and approval. Every day of sobriety is a celebration, which is why people get cheered when they report how many days they have been sober, whether it's two or two hundred. In fact, I cannot think of a single program that is successful - for any type of addiction - that doesn't use this approach of mutual encouragement.

I have seen firsthand in addicted people that if they don't care about themselves, they will likely relapse into addiction. People that try to beat addiction just to save their marriage, or just to keep their job, or just to please family and friends, are at serious risk. The problem is that, if they still personally feel like they are worthless, then sooner or later they are going to lose hope and believe they can't win. They will expect failure. Or, the thing they're fighting for will collapse, and nothing will seem to matter anymore. When they get that low, they are likely to just revert to numbing their shame and fear with their addiction. The marriage, job, and family are all worthy things to fight for, but at bottom the person has to care about himself or herself. The person has to care what happens to them. So the person needs constant encouragement from others that he or she is valuable and important and has gifts, personality, and other qualities that make their life special and precious.

This is not inconsistent with dismantling the person's pride. Pride is about overvaluing yourself and being too obsessed with what people think of you. Being humble does not mean you think you're of little value or think there's nothing special about you. The Book of Proverbs is filled with lessons that humility is essential and pride is lethal, yet it is also filled with exhortations to value your life, preserve your life, care about the quality of your life, and protect your life. Both pride and shame can be fought by having a correct view of who you are and what makes you precious. And what makes us precious more than anything else is being loved and accepted by God.

As Ed Welch points out, we are reassured in our identity by the fact that Jesus reaches out to people regardless of what other people think. The Lord went out of His way to touch those others considered untouchable:

"So, if we are to help, we watch the life of Jesus. He was born into shame and his people are outcasts. Watch him eat with the shamed and touch the shamed. Watch him identify with them so they can identify by faith with him. At every point, we expect Jesus to turn away and not be sullied by the shamed. Instead, he always invites, always surprises, and offers a connection to himself in which we are given cleansing, covering and belonging. As we follow the story, our roles begin to change. No longer is there an addict and a helper. Now we are two people who are seeing beautiful realities that will take the rest of our lives to understand. " (Welch)

You can't get too shameful for Jesus. His power to cover over sins cannot be exhausted. Belonging to Him cancels out all human opinions about your worth. The addicted person can be comforted and encouraged that he is precious in God's sight, fully accepted as a child of God because of what Jesus has done. And Jesus does not just accept us, but transforms us and cleanses us as well. He gives us a new life, redeemed from sin. This is the best possible news for someone struggling under the shame of addiction. Jesus can make all things new. In Christ, your life is never a lost cause.

Next: Part III - Breaking Through Deception and Creating Openness and Honesty - How to Help People Through to Recovery