How to Defeat Harmful Habits (Counseling Through the Bible Series) (17 page)
M
ALES
• More drink excessively
• Almost two times as likely to be intoxicated prior to a fatal vehicle accident
• 62 percent of adults drink
• 17 percent develop alcohol dependence
• More seek treatment for abuse
• Most treatment programs are male-oriented
• Less initially impacted by alcohol
• Bodies carry more water, which dilutes alcohol absorption
• Effects of alcohol metabolize faster
• Less physically affected by alcohol/drugs (2 drinks for males = 1 for females)
• Have higher levels of the ADH
34
enzyme that breaks down alcohol
• Higher rates of alcohol-related deaths and hospitalizations due to risky behavior
F
EMALES
• More get high or drunk
• Nearly half as likely to be intoxicated prior to a fatal vehicle accident
• 47 percent of adults drink
• 8 percent develop alcohol dependence
• More reluctant to receive treatment
• Most treatment programs fail to embrace women’s needs
• More immediately impacted by alcohol
• Bodies carry less water and more fatty tissue, which increases alcohol absorption
• Effects of alcohol last longer
• More physically affected by alcohol/drugs (1 drink for females = 2 for males)
• Have lower levels of the ADH enzyme, thus become addicted to alcohol faster
• Higher risk for cirrhosis of liver, brain damage, and heart damage
Over and over, the Bible offers strong warnings about alcohol:
“Woe to those who rise early in the morning to run after their
drinks, who stay up late at night till they are inflamed with wine”
(I
SAIAH
5:11).
Josh Hamilton’s newborn daughter, Sierra, was only a few days old, and her daddy was drunk and high. The day Sierra left the hospital and went to her very own home—where her crib, stuffed animals, and toys awaited her—should have been a very happy one. Her mother, Katie, whom Josh married during a brief period of sobriety in 2004, sent him on an errand to pick up some prescription medicine. But a task that should have taken only ten minutes to do seemed to stretch into an eternity.
Katie called a local bar—yes, Josh was there. “That’s when I knew we had the battle of our lives on our hands,” Katie recalls.
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Fortunately, Sierra was too young to bear the clues characteristic of children with an addicted parent. Later, Josh became sober and drug free—yet Katie knew that if he hadn’t changed, their children would have suffered. The Bible says,
“Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring
them up in the training and instruction of the Lord”
(E
PHESIANS
6:4).
Does the child struggle with…
In order to “be loyal” and “take care” of their addicted parents, many children will lie, manipulate, and do simply anything—no matter how wrong—in order to keep the peace at home. Jesus had this to say about a person who causes a child to sin:
“It would be better for him to be thrown into the
sea with a millstone tied around his neck than for
him to cause one of these little ones to sin”
(L
UKE
17:2).
AUSES OF
A
LCOHOL AND
D
RUG
A
BUSE
Josh Hamilton’s life was spinning out of control like a wildly thrown pitch. He was caught in a chaotic cycle of failed drug tests, baseball suspensions, trips to rehab, periods of sobriety, baseball reinstatement, and then…another relapse.
Following one reinstatement in May 2003, Josh hammered a home run over the center-field wall of the ballpark. Obviously he still had what it took to soar to the top. Some baseball buddies invited him to go drinking. Josh declined. Then he went out alone…and
got trashed
.
“I did it on purpose,” Josh said. “I just couldn’t come to grips with how to deal with life. I remember a couple days after that, I showed up for early hitting knowing I had failed a test. I sat in the dugout with hitting coach Steve Henderson. I looked at the pitcher’s mound and the field and I just said, ‘This might be it for me.’ I started to cry.”
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Josh’s worst fear was realized—at least for a while. He was banned from baseball for three years. Decidedly, drugs dictated his life—indeed, sin (anything outside of God’s will) had mastery over him. As the Bible clearly warns,
“A man is a slave to whatever has mastered him”
(2 P
ETER
2:19).
Josh’s ban from baseball only heightened his dependency on drugs. He likened the drug highs to the adrenaline rush he got after throwing a runner out at base or hearing the crowd roar after he hit a home run. Yet now he was in exile, and he was in great emotional pain. No longer could he hit a homer and “earn” the adrenaline highs—so instead, he made the choice to chemically induce the highs. But all too soon he found himself in life-threatening situations—like the time he wrote a $2000 check to a menacing drug dealer, a bad check he knew would bounce.
Ultimately, Josh’s father-in-law bailed him out on Josh’s twenty-fourth birthday. Josh said he will forever remember this night as the “night from hell.”
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As his heart became darker, his sin became deeper—like the sins of those trapped in a blindness of their own making.
“But the way of the wicked is like deep darkness;
they do not know what makes them stumble”
(P
ROVERBS
4:19).
T
HE
C
YCLE OF
A
DDICTION
Most people don’t start their lives being dependent on substances; rather, they
become
dependent through repetition—by repeatedly using a substance to satisfy some unmet need. Here’s how the cycle typically progresses:
•
Past pain
—provocation for using drugs
– “My heart is aching because of what happened in the past.”
“Even in laughter the heart may ache, and joy may end in grief”
(P
ROVERBS
14:13).
•
Mood-altering drugs
—seeking temporary solutions to emotional pain
– “I don’t like these feelings; I just want to feel better.”
“How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and
every day have sorrow in my heart?”
(P
SALM
13:2).
•
Addiction
—abusing mood-altering drugs on a regular basis
– “I have to have more to help medicate my pain.”
“When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of
righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the
things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death!”
(R
OMANS
6:20-21).
•
Violating values
—breaking your internal moral code by using drugs
– “I don’t care what I have to do to get it—I need it!”
“Our fathers were unfaithful; they did evil in the eyes of the L
ORD
our God and forsook him. They turned their faces away from
the L
ORD
’s dwelling place and turned their backs on him”
(2 C
HRONICLES
29:6).
•
Guilt
—being convicted about your wrong attitudes and actions
– “I know what I did wasn’t good—it was bad.”
“My guilt has overwhelmed me like a burden too heavy to bear”
(P
SALM
38:4).
•
Shame
—feeling you’re no good, worthless, hopeless
– “I know I’m no good—I’m just bad.”
“My disgrace is before me all day long
,
and my face is covered with shame”
(P
SALM
44:15).
The alcoholic then thinks,
I hate feeling this shame, so I need some drug to help me feel better
—and that only repeats the cycle. Once drug use is established, the user ends up in a vicious cycle that entraps and enslaves. But it’s a cycle that
can
be broken!
Escaping Emotional PainQ
UESTION
: “
H
ow can I stop using drugs in an attempt to escape the pain from my childhood?”
A
NSWER
: Face the facts of your past pain. Take the necessary steps to stop making decisions based on your emotional pain, including your desire to escape and feel differently. The drugs you turned to for help are now controlling you. Drugs, however, are not lasting solutions. They only mask your pain—they don’t remove it. To break free of both drugs and the pain from your childhood, you need to take these action steps:
• Evaluate your painful thoughts (write each one down).
• Redirect them toward God (tell Him what was so painful, and release each pain to Him).
• Get help. Talk to a friend, counselor, pastor, coach, or other trusted person in your life.
• Get support. Meet with others who have similar issues or addictions and are seeking sobriety.
• Choose to forgive each person who has hurt you (release each one to God).
• Forgive even if you feel that the person who caused your pain doesn’t deserve it. Remember, a refusal to forgive ends up hurting you, not the unforgiven one.
The more you release your past pain to God, the more He will bring about healing. Remember these words from the psalmist:
“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds”
(P
SALM
147:3).
A Case Against Drinking AlcoholQ
UESTION
: “
I
s there any objective data apart from the Bible or cultural morality that supports a case against drinking alcohol?”
A
NSWER
: Yes. While the numbers can change from year to year, the following statistics from recent research within the United States prove to be quite sobering.
• Up to 57 percent of domestic violence incidents involved alcohol use.
38
• The third-leading preventable cause of death is alcohol abuse.
39
• Nearly 40 percent of all traffic fatalities are alcohol-related.
40
• Up to 37 percent of convicted murderers abused alcohol at the time of their crime.
41
If you are trying to quit drinking, consider reading the following passage every day to help strengthen your stand and to reinforce your resolve:
“Wine is a mocker and beer a brawler;
whoever is led astray by them is not wise”
(P
ROVERBS
20:1).
Personal ConvictionQ
UESTION
:
“Why do some people have a personal conviction that leads them to abstain from alcohol?”
A
NSWER
:
There are varying reasons for why some people choose not to drink. Some choose to avoid alcohol and drugs because they have seen the havoc these substances can cause; others make such a choice based on a biblical perspective.
• While the Bible does not completely prohibit the consumption of alcohol, it does give us strong warnings, such as the one in Proverbs 20:1: “Wine is a mocker and beer a brawler; whoever is led astray by them is not wise.”
• Second, the Bible warns that someone might stumble because of our example. Since people tend to be followers, if we drink alcohol or do drugs, those who follow our example could stumble, and their lives could be harmed on account of following in our footsteps. Even if some are able to control their own usage, what if others around them cannot? According to the apostle Paul,
“It is good not to…drink wine or do anything
that causes your brother to stumble”
(R
OMANS
14:21
ESV
).
For the first time, Josh was hit by pain unlike any he had ever experienced—pain that proved almost lethal.
The absence of his moral parents, the presence of his immoral friends, the absence of baseball’s adrenaline rush, and the presence of narcotics’ chemical rush all factored together to create a toxic combination that almost destroyed Josh Hamilton’s life. Then came the lowest point of his dark journey, which took place in the summer of 2005.
Josh was absolutely clueless. He was coming off a crack binge and had no idea where he was. He woke up in a stiflingly hot mobile home, surrounded by half a dozen stoned strangers. His first thought wasn’t
Run for your life
, but
Run to the crack dealer
! Josh desperately wanted
more
crack, so he loaned his truck to a dealer. The dealer never returned. Soon Josh took off on foot and, although they were estranged at the time, he called his wife, Katie, and asked her to pick him up.
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According to Josh, that was the darkest season of his life. His sole focus at the time was to get more crack. He couldn’t see past the darkness of his addiction.
“If your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness
.
If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!”
(M
ATTHEW
6:23).
No two people have exactly the same story about what contributed to the development of their drug dependency. But no matter how many different factors are involved in a person’s journey to chemical dependency, ultimately, those factors fall into one of two categories: external or internal influences.
External Influences—Family and Social
Check all that apply to you:
F
AMILY
E
NVIRONMENT
Were you raised in a family that was fine with social drinking?
Did any of your family members use drugs?
D
YSFUNCTIONAL
F
AMILY
While growing up, did you feel as if you did not “belong” or that one or both of your parents were physically or emotionally unavailable?
Was there any abuse in the family?
P
HYSICAL
P
ROBLEMS
Are you dependent on medication for pain relief, headaches, sleeplessness, or dieting?
Do you suffer from a chronic condition or a physical disability?
S
OCIAL
A
CCEPTANCE
Are you offered alcohol or drugs at the social functions you attend?
Do you feel out of place or uncomfortable in groups?
P
EER
P
RESSURE
Are you seeking social acceptance from those who drink or use drugs?
Do you feel desperate for approval?