When Relieving Stress Turns into an Addiction: How to Help Each Other (Part I)

For Part II - Confronting Deception and Concealment, Pride and Shame, click here.

You would probably be surprised at how many people you know who have addictions. When we think of addiction, we almost always think of alcoholics, smokers, or drug users. Those definitely qualify, but there are countless other types of addictions. They affect far more people than we realize because most people hide their addictions very well. 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 know this problem is going to show up eventually in the lives of people in your circle of friends, your small group, or the people you care for at church.

Ed Welch, probably one of the most valuable voices on addiction and idolatry in biblical counseling today, has a short post at CCEF (Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation) with extremely good advice for helping confront an addiction. I am going to expand upon his post because I haven't really addressed addiction directly on this blog, and I want this to be a solid starting point. I'll break this up into a couple of posts. I've learned in my law practice and in church counseling participation that addictions have special challenges to achieving accountability and cooperation from the person trapped in his or her behavior. Being aware of these patterns can save a lot of wasted time and discouragement.

Addictions Are Basically Idolatry - and They Enslave People

Virtually anything can become an addiction. What makes it an addiction is the role it plays in your life, and how it negatively affects other things in your life. If you turn to something to escape from stress, or anxiety, or depression, or pain, or loneliness, or fatigue, or fear, or any other problem, and it becomes your "go-to" escape (the thing you turn to again and again for relief), you're in danger of developing a habit of addiction. What makes it cross the line is when you don't have complete control of the behavior anymore: you start using the escape even when you really should be doing other things, or you use it in ways that leave you unable to meet your responsibilities afterwards. Think of the person who drinks too much and can't come into work on time the next morning, or the person watching pornography or playing online games all night and unable to stay awake at work the next day.

Other signs include taking risks in order to get the relief - doing things that a clear head would tell you are wrong or dangerous. For instance, doing things you know are sin in order to get relief, or using drugs illegally (so now you're risking criminal charges), or being under the influence of something while at work, or drinking before driving to go pick up your kids because you're going to be with them all night and won't have a chance later, etc. For people using pornography, already sinking into sin, it may be moving on to chat rooms where they seek interaction with real people, leading to meeting someone solely for sex or following an advertisement connected to prostitution.

What these all have in common is that the person trying to satisfy an addiction is now jeopardizing other things in life to fulfill their need. It is no longer something they do that seems harmless or private; it is now something they need so much that normal common sense doesn't guide their thinking anymore. The addiction must be satisfied, no matter the risk, and even things that are recklessly foolish don't stop the person because the alternative - that you don't satisfy this need - is unthinkable to them.

Welch says: "Addictions continue their upward swing. Given that we live during a time when self-control is not yet prized, our cultural strategy with hardships is to medicate them away rather than stand in the midst of them. And the possibilities for medicating hardships are always increasing. To sexual obsessions, add illegal drugs, then prescription narcotics, then computer games, and there are more to come. With this in mind, the church has a perennial project: to draw out fresh insights from Scripture on modern addictions, and move toward those who are enslaved by them.

"Many of these insights exist within biblical teaching on idolatry, which has both voluntary and involuntary aspects to it. Human beings both purposefully indulge their desires—we sin because we like it—and we are dominated by those desires. We are both in-control and out-of-control." Welch, Two Underused Biblical Resources

You can see that addiction looks just like idolatry: anything can become an idol, and an idol is something we devote ourselves to so much that it takes disproportionate weight and importance in our lives, being fed at the expense of our devotion to God, our marriage, our children, our job, etc. The idol becomes the thing we must have at all costs. Welch and other CCEF counselors like David Powlison and Paul Tripp have done a great deal of work showing the link between sin and idolatry and addiction, and identifying the patterns of behavior that cause us such trouble. Searching the CCEF site on these topics will bring up a host of useful resources.

Idols aren't just 'false gods' like the carved images described in the Old Testament. Here's Powlison on how Scripture describes idolatry:

First, the Bible internalizes the problem. “Idols of the heart” are graphically portrayed in Ezekiel 14:1-8. The worship of tangible idols is, ominously, an expression of a prior heart defection from YHWH your God. “Idols of the heart” is only one of many metaphors which move the locus of God’s concerns into the human heart, establishing an unbreakable bond between specifics of heart and specifics of behavior: hands, tongue, and all the other members. The First Great Commandment, to “love God heart, soul, mind, and might,” also demonstrates the essential “inwardness” of the law regarding idolatry. The language of love, trust, fear, hope, seeking, serving—terms describing a relationship to the true God—is continually utilized in the Bible to describe our false loves, false trusts, false fears, false hopes, false pursuits, false masters. 

If “idolatry” is the characteristic and summary Old Testament word for our drift from God, then “desires” (epithumiai) is the characteristic and summary New Testament word for the same drift. Both are shorthand for the problem of human beings. The New Testament language of problematic “desires” is a dramatic expansion of the tenth commandment, which forbids coveting (epithumia). The tenth commandment is also a command that internalizes the problem of sin, making sin “psychodynamic.” It lays bare the grasping and demanding nature of the human heart, as Paul powerfully describes it in Romans 7. Interestingly (and unsurprisingly) the New Testament merges the concept of idolatry and the concept of inordinate, life-ruling desires. Idolatry becomes a problem of the heart, a metaphor for human lust, craving, yearning, and greedy demand.

From Idols of the Heart and "Vanity Fair"

Addictions Are Idolatry - But They Are Also 'Medication' for a Bigger Problem

Addiction is definitely an idolatry of the heart, a craving for something other than God to satisfy you. But there is an important layer underneath all of that. Virtually all addicts are enslaved to their addiction because they are hiding from something else. They began using the addiction to 'medicate' away something they couldn't cope with. That means that even if you strip out the drug or alcohol or pornography the person is addicted to, there is a problem underneath that is also out of control. Addictions don't just come from selfishly indulging yourself regardless of the damage it does to others (although they certainly look like that too); they come from deep wounds or fear or anxiety or pain or another affliction. The person underneath is suffering, and they have run to the addiction to make that suffering bearable.

To understand how to help a friend with an addiction, you have to be aware of these things:

1. The addict is afraid to give up his or her addiction. What drives them back to their addiction again and again is something else they feel they can't handle, and they are scared to face it without the numbing escape of their addiction.
2. This means the addict does not really believe he or she can face life without using the addiction.
3. In fact, far from thinking their addiction is ruining their life, a person with an addiction probably believes that using whatever they're addicted to is what makes them able to face life. They think it's what keeps them from falling apart.
4. That means that anyone pressuring them to give up their addiction is threatening to them. It feels like an attack on the one thing they are depending on to make life bearable.
5. Often an addicted person will never believe that their addiction is a problem until things collapse so badly that they realize it is ruining their life. That means that the crucial time to get a person with an addiction into counseling or treatment or other help is right after something disastrous has happened (a DWI, a spouse moving out, losing a job, etc.). The window of shock that allows them to see their addiction as a problem is short. Eventually they will 'medicate' away the shock with their addiction.
6. The answer is not only to convince him or her the behavior is wrong or dangerous, but to also convince the person that they can face life and can overcome whatever it is that is underneath the addiction. They need to believe they don't need it.
7. You need to help them figure out what the underlying problem is. This probably means they will need to see a counselor who has some experience helping people with addictions. Your best help to them is probably to convince them to start counseling.
8. If you don't address the underlying problem, this person will not be able to shake off their addiction. Some people may even abandon one addiction under pressure only to take up another because the same root problem is overwhelming them.
9. This is also why people with addictions can seem to be "cured" for a month or a few months, which often causes friends to stop being vigilant. But when the pressure of life gets too heavy again, or the person feels hopeless, they return to the same addictive behavior to cope. They may tough it out for a while, but unless they have learned to deal with life without the addiction, that's what they'll turn to when they can't take it anymore.

For example, this quote explains a lot about how an addict thinks: "Sharon Hersh is a therapist and an expert on addiction. ... Sharon says that addicts believe two things that fuel their destructive behavior. The addict believes she deserves relief, and that she should be able to choose when and how she gets it. In that sense, we’re all prone to addiction." (From Drunk Believers, by Erik Guzman. Guzman presents a thought-provoking picture of someone who may or may not be an alcoholic or addict.)

Therefore, a massive part of overcoming an addiction is helping the person learn to cope with suffering in a healthy and biblical way. It is also essential to remember that the person is vulnerable, and they turn to their addiction out of desperation. They need a lot of encouragement and positive support. The battle to change these patterns of thought and dependence is hard, and it is common for people to fall back into their addiction because they hit a period of hopelessness and despair where it doesn't seem like it matters anymore. Being sensitive to their moods and the life pressures that are happening to them is very important, so that you can perceive when they may be discouraged and help them fight it.

Click here for Part II - Confronting Deception and Concealment, Pride and Shame, which covers what makes addicted people habitually lie and conceal their behavior, and why it takes so much careful work to get them to be honest and open about what's going on.

Why We Crave and Crave - Yet Only One Thing Will Solve It

Thomas Manton:
'The soul is like a sponge, always thirsting, and seeking of something from without to be filled; a chaos of desires. Man was made to live in dependence. Now, of all portions in the world, there is none worth the having, but God himself; nothing else can make you completely blessed, and satisfy all the necessities, and all the capacities, of soul and body..."The Lord is my shepherd:" what then? "I shall not want" (Ps. 23:1).'
-via Banner of Truth Trust

My flesh and my heart may fail,

but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

Psalm 73:26

I cry to you, O Lord;

I say, “You are my refuge,

my portion in the land of the living.”

Psalm 142:5

"You move us to delight in praising You; for You have formed us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in You." Augustine, Confessions (Book I, Chapter 1)

Happiness Is Limited in This Life So You'll Enjoy It Forever

I want to make sure that I am clear in what I mean when I say God wants us to be happy. I do not at all mean that God promises we will be happy all of the time in this life, or that we will mostly have joy and very little pain. Joy is not a constant thing. If you have many seasons where you must struggle to find joy, you're normal. God does provide joy, and God is the only one you can rely on to provide everlasting joy. But He deliberately limits our experience of it in this life, and I think C.S. Lewis understood why.

I have been helped and encouraged immensely by C.S. Lewis when I have been struggling to find joy and happiness (as you can see from the link). Lewis has made more sense out of why we long so much for satisfaction that seems elusive, and why we suffer so much, than just about anyone else outside the Scriptures. The only other Christian author that has helped me this much is John Piper, and I suspect that is in no small part because Piper himself has been richly helped by Lewis. Piper titled his biographical sketch of Lewis "Lessons from an Inconsolable Soul" (a title that will be explained by the next post). It summarizes well how much Lewis thought about joy and satisfaction and the longing to find them.

Lewis's conclusion about why happiness is limited in this life was simply this: God gives us as much happiness in life as is good for us, but not so much that we miss out on everlasting joy.

"The Christian doctrine of suffering explains, I believe, a very curious fact about the world we live in. The settled happiness and security which we all desire, God withholds from us by the very nature of the world: but joy, pleasure, and merriment, He has scattered broadcast. We are never safe, but we have plenty of fun, and some ecstasy. It is not hard to see why. The security we crave would teach us to rest our hearts in this world and oppose an obstacles to our return to God: a few moments of happy love, a landscape, a symphony, a merry meeting with our friends, a bathe or a football match, have no such tendency. Our Father refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home." C.S Lewis, The Problem of Pain

Or, as the Scriptures put it: “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.” 1 John 2:15-17.

And not only that, but their joy abides forever too.

Don't Let Being Unhappy Make You Feel Guilty

I am very conscious that what I said in the last post about the importance of seeking happiness can easily come across as making it sound like it's our fault if we're not happy. Telling someone who is very unhappy that he or she needs to be happy sounds insensitive and condemning, not to mention unhelpful. That isn't what I want to convey. The conviction that God encourages happiness and wants us to seek it should give us hope. The fact that we can't make it happen takes us back again to one of the keys to spiritual life: the things we need and the things we are supposed to do are impossible for us to accomplish by our own strength.

Being told you should be happy can't give you the ability to be happy when you're not. It often simply tends to make you feel worse. The only thing that can make you happy when you aren't is for God to act in your heart to give you joy. God uses many methods and means to do that, but the main way it happens is through prayer. Believing that God wants us to be happy and satisfied should give us hope that God wants to give that to us when we ask Him for it. It should make us bold in praying to God for happiness, joy, and freedom from anxiety or depression. We have every reason to eagerly trust that He will answer us because we know we are asking for something He already wants to give us.

The mystery of why God desires that we ask Him earnestly and prayerfully for things He already wants to do isn't something we will fully understand on this side of heaven. But it should be enough that the Scriptures tell us this is how He relates to us. We don't know how or why it works that way, but the important thing for us is that it does work. Jesus tells us God knows our needs before we seek them (Matthew 6:31-33), but He also tells us to ask God for our bread daily (Matthew 6:9-13). God desires all men to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:3-4), but Jesus also tells us to pray to God that He would send laborers out to the harvest to save souls (Luke 10:2). God has blessings to give us that He is waiting for us to ask Him for.

Perhaps the most helpful explanation of this I have heard is that God's goodness and faithfulness and generosity are displayed more clearly when we desperately ask Him for something and He gladly responds by giving it to us than they would be if He simply gave us everything we needed without our ever thinking about it.

The bottom line is that God has given us a message that He wants us to be happy. We can't make it happen by ourselves. But we can choose to seek it diligently in every possible way, chiefly by praying to Him that He would make it happen. And the fact that He has told us He wants us to have it is the guarantee that if we keep asking Him for it, He will do it.

Wanting to Be Happy Is a Virtue - and a Necessity

This perspective by C.S. Lewis has really ministered to me through a painful summer. Walter Hooper describes the virtue of Lewis's positive willingness to pursue his own happiness: "Lewis had his share – some would say more than his share – of worries. But, having done all in his power to solve them, he left the matter to God and got on with his work and pleasures. … Lewis really wanted and liked the happiness which the Divine Son died to give all men. …in a letter to his brother … he says, 'I begin to suspect that the world is divided not only into the happy and the unhappy, but into those who like happiness and those who, odd as it seems, really don’t.'" (Introduction to The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses)

The world will give us plenty of reasons to be tempted by despair. We have to teach ourselves to unapologetically choose to be happy. Many people are sad, lonely, or depressed when they very much do not want to be. But it seems that not many of us feel the freedom to actively choose to cast away our anxieties and cares upon God and simply enjoy the life He has given us. (Phil. 4:6-7; 1 Peter 5:6-7.) It seems it is all too easy to succumb to sorrows and to become accustomed to being burdened by them, so much so that it almost feels unnatural and "guilty" to us to simply enjoy some free and unfettered happiness - as if we're somehow being selfish for having a carefree mind and unhindered joy. The Scriptures show that God Himself is supremely happy in being who He is and in the work He does. Then it follows that it is a quality of godliness to diligently seek to be as happy as we can in the ways God designed us to find our joy, however much we must work to get there. Happiness itself is a genuinely good thing of which God heartily approves.