An addicted person has formed a connection with a substance, situation or pleasure that gives them a false feeling of connectedness, and the control over this connectedness. The addiction gives them something to get out of bed for, something to live for, and something to be connected to.
Disconnection is a problem. We feel disconnected from being able to control the most important factors in our lives. We feel disconnected from the things we think will make us happy. We feel disconnected from people. We feel disconnected from purpose in our work and play. We feel disconnected comfort, love, significance, and security.
When those who are addicts become addicted to substances that are illegal, we usually shame them, or they shame themselves, and go into further isolation, making the disconnection worse, and the hope for recovery more remote.
Many of us believe that addictions have physical triggers, and there have been many treatment centers developed to try to deal with the “physical” addictive properties we believe to exist. Many times these centers fail in that they tried to solve a disconnectedness problem by further isolation and shame.
Punishing addicts does not work. Loving them does work. Connecting them works. Doing life with them works.
The Bible often talks about the motive of love and the power of love to overcome all odds.
I have been in the hospital often, and been under the knife of several occasions. I have been to the emergency room with severe pain, and whether I was in for an operation, or due to some other interesting malady, I have been given Diamorphine, which in reality is a very pure form of heroine, to ease the pain.
I have never become an addict, and in fact, I have asked that I not be given those substances again, as they did not seem to ease the pain, but rather had an effect on my mind that made it so that reality was a dream world.
When you are connected and enjoy your connections, the escaping from reality is not something you desire.
I am not alone in not becoming addicted to pain killers, heroine, or other substances. There are many grandmas and grandpas who have had hip replacements who were given legal drugs to fight pain, yet who are not now hanging out in dark alleys trying to find a dealer. My generation was the generation that fought the Viet Nam War. During the war there were many soldiers who got into heroine, and the fear was that when they returned to our country, we would face a tidal wave of addictions. In reality, most of them, upon returning to the States just quit, cold turkey.
What happened to the physical triggers that caused addiction in both the hospital and Viet Nam cases?
I’m not sure what happens to a proven theory if there are many who defy what has been proven.
I was listening to a Ted Talk and was told about a man, Bruce Alexander, who conducted an experiment on an experiment.
What I mean is that for years we based the idea of addictions off of a study done on rats that put a single rat in a cage with two bottles of water. One bottle was pure the other was laced with some kind of drug. The isolated rat would go to the drug water over and over again, and eventually died early from a continual overdose, obviously proving a physical trigger to addiction.
However, Bruce did an experiment where he made a rat cage that had a tremendous amount of connectivity. There were rat neighborhoods, plenty of food, and places to play. This cage also had two bottles of water. What he found was that the rats in this cage seldom, if ever, used the drug water, and none of them became addicts.
It is obvious that man desires connectivity and that Satan has worked this lack of connectivity, or the feeling of non-connectedness, to its fullest. Our culture is saturated with the pretend lives shown on television and in movies, and, in many case, the entertainment world has become our reality. We watch others live while not living ourselves, and we begin to identify with the pretend more than the real. We see advertisements that are cleverly meant to show us how “disconnected” we really are, and we spend time with others who watch all this with us, while never experiencing real connectivity with them.
Somehow we always feel disconnected, like we are missing something.
Smartphones, internet, Facebook, Twitter, etc. were creations that seemed to help our connectedness, and they have people “addicted” to them in that they actually appear to solve our connectedness problem, when in reality, they are causing the problem to become even more complex.
Today, the most disconnected can portray themselves as being the most connected, and addictions of many sorts are more the norm than the exception.
Addicts’ problems are not the availability of drugs, alcohol, sex, money, etc., but the lack of connectivity to God and to each other.
The Bible clearly shows that man was created to be connected with God and each other, and that sin has destroyed our connectivity. Sin always separates. It always isolates, shames, and distances us from God and others.
Every human being desires significance and security, and many are searching for them. We often do not realize that this significance cannot come from power, comfort, or control, but from connectedness. While we were sinners, disconnected with God, hopeless, and alone, God sent Jesus to pay the price for reconnecting us.
Without this connection, there is no hope for significance, and no hope for the addict. With this connection, there is a new and healthy addiction, that of being addicted to the connection with God. When one is connected with God they will find that all other attractions pale in comparison and lose their grip.
We find that this connection with God allows us to position ourselves to then have proper connection with others. Our connection with others is about them, not us. Addicts make their connections with others about themselves, which proves that they have not understood how God made this connection thing to work.
When Jesus was asked what was important he said that we should love the Lord our God and each other. He told us that we should be involved in connectivity to God and to each other. In fact, we are told that it would be impossible for us to be connected with God and each other and also be connected to the world. Those who love, or are connected to, this world, cannot love, or be connected to, God.
Satan seems to play the game of disconnection by making the promise of connection by means that actually cause disconnection. He has us looking for significance in all of the wrong places, in doing things rather than being someone, and in using people and enjoying stuff, when we should be using stuff and enjoying people.
Perhaps the most dangerous addiction that comes from disconnectedness is the addiction to self. When self is on the throne, all others become subjects rather than friends. When we are on the throne, we look down upon all, use all for our pleasure, and trust no one. Being our own royalty gives us the impression of significance and security, but deep down we realize that it is only an impression. When we are addicted to self, we are most isolated, and all others, including God, do not matter. It is those who have given into this ultimate addiction that often take it upon themselves to end their lives. Since they are the only ones who matter, it makes sense to them to continue to satisfy self, alone, and the suicide they commit becomes the ultimate self-centered act in that the feelings, thoughts, and relationships with those they should be connected to, no longer matter.
Connectedness is something we are created to have, but not connectedness to just anything. Addiction is taking that need for connectedness with God, and people and satisfying it with things that can never really satisfy it.
Satan has worked the system well, and he is very good at what he does. In the United States we live in big houses and have many ways of isolating ourselves while in the midst of family and friends. We have normalized the use of people for pleasure, and lost the art of going through pain while perfecting avoidance techniques. We try to show connectedness with things rather than time, objects rather than self, and favor rather than responsibility.
One can go to church and not be connected in that it has become less about real community and more about perceived community, more about programs that give the appearance of connection, and less about real connection. Discipleship and mentoring have become meaningless buzz words in that they are systems that are trying to work at reconnecting in a format that gives the connection appearance, while not having the ability to crack the isolation factors that are ever present in our culture.
God and His truth are actually rather simple. When we make it to complicated, we give Satan a foothold in our lives, and open the door for all sorts of spiritual loopholes.
God created me so that He could love me, and be connected to me. This love connection demands choice and is thereby significant. If that connection is not right, I will try to find connection elsewhere and fail, for it cannot be done. Eventually, the very things I connected to will prove to be the fuel for the ultimate disconnection.
We were made to be relational beings, and need to live in the context of the connectivity that healthy relationships provide. Alcohol, food, sex, or drug addictions are symptoms of a greater problem.
Healthy people with healthy relationships do not have addiction problems. If someone is struggling with addictions and they want help, they must first see their need for being connected to God, family, and friends, and begin the process of real connection. Since the addict may be blind to these things, those who are connected must make an effort to re-connect. God showed us how to do this in that while we were sinners, addicts, He made the effort to send His Son, so that the real problem could be solved.
Satan is a genius at deception and has many thinking they are connected because they “fit” into the norm of society. They are fans of the same sports team, members of the same church, citizens of a country, or alumni of the same college.
God is realit,y and has made it so that all people, regardless of circumstance, can have what is necessary to be significant and secure because He provides these things to those who are connected with Him.
