Can I Get Free from Addiction?

If you find yourself asking yourself if you can beat addiction, my answer is anything is possible with God. How do I know? I was stuck in addiction for a long time and found freedom from it, by the grace of God.

It’s good that you are here, not because I have the only answer (I don’t). I say that I don’t have the only answer, because I have witnessed others breaking free in other ways. The other reason is that you want to break free. The most common of those is God working through a prophet to deliver the evil spirit(s) that keeping us stuck in addiction. If you’ve tried that, and you’re still stuck, I believe that what I have to say here can help, because your pain is greater than your desire for escape.

Before we get much further, what is addiction? I’ve heard lots of people use the word addiction to refer to the love and hoarding of junk food or chocolate. As harmful or unhealthy as those things sound, I’m not referring to those when I say addiction. There are many types of destructive addiction, and many of them involve self-isolation. My definition of addiction is any activity we find pleasurable and that overrides the godly priorities in our lives, causing harm to others around us and ourselves.

Yes, I know too much junk food and chocolate is harmful, and it’s up to the individual to assess and decide whether any activity is addiction. In any case, addictions are detrimental to mind and body, and the effects on our social and spiritual lives are devastating.

The first thing I can say about this journey is that it starts with the realization that on our own we are all powerless to overcome the addiction, even though we may hate it. The apostle Paul writes, “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.” (Romans 7:18 ESV)

What is keeping us in addiction is a denial that we have a problem. However, the cause usually pain that resulted from a past event. In my case that pain came from the time I was in grade one, when my teacher had each student stand in front of the class to count to 100. If the student messed up the counting, he or she had to sit down and try again the next day. After many attempts my fellow students began to bully me about it. The pain was so bad that I skipped class many afternoons after that. It hurt me and my self-esteem in ways I didn’t know about. I didn’t tell my parents or anyone else, but fights with my siblings became a huge problem in my family. I had other painful experiences, but that was the one that caused most of the pain and had a ripple effect that led to other damage. Either way, you need to know that you are not alone, because if you can name your addiction, it means many others have struggled through the same difficulties.

Addictions are pleasurable, but have no long-term benefit. They are fun but destructive. They usually start quite harmlessly and innocently. Before the addiction sets in, we are usually in mental or emotional pain over something that has happened in our past. When we try an activity that many would consider addictive, most times we get pleasure from it. That pleasure is quite similar to the adrenaline rush we get when we do something exciting like skiing in powder or performing a triple twisting double back flip. Exhilarating!

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I say that it’s almost the same, because the feeling is so similar. However, when we talk about addictions, the pleasure sensation we feel is from a release of dopamine to our brain, whereas in the pleasure from sport it is a release of adrenaline. The dopamine is released into our brain, and that’s how the brain perceives the pleasure. It’s the same whether the addiction is chemical or not. The pleasure from dopamine later becomes the escape we seek by trying it again. The trouble is that we never again experience the pleasure of the dopamine release in the same way, because our brain is primed from the first try. When we try and then try again, we can never get enough of the dopamine and we are addicted. On our own, we are completely powerless to break free, and by then, the addiction causes more pain to others and ourselves.

In our darkest times and pain—because of addiction—it is easy to think that we are comforted by the harmful activity that we unwittingly cause ourselves to suffer. In brokenness, acting out in the secrecy of self-isolation feels comforting. But it is a double-edged sword, because it is soothing for mere minutes and replaced by a wall of shame. I refer to it as a wall because it confronts us with every soothing attempt we make with the addiction.

Many addictions involve self-isolation, because we tend to hide in the behavior we know is dangerous or wrong. We think no one will ever catch us, but we get caught eventually. There are even addictions in which we isolate from those we love, but act out in the plain sight of others who participate with us in the activity. Once we isolate and remain isolated, it is impossible to get freedom from the addiction, because freedom is only possible through the fellowship of other people.

While acting out in our addictions doesn’t necessarily break our local laws, they cause us harm we deny to ourselves, but worse, we harm others in the process. And worse again, these activities do not serve to edify us either.

“All things are lawful,” but not all things are helpful.
“All things are lawful,” but not all things build up. (1 Corinthians 10:23 ESV)

So far, we have only picked at the scab at unhealed wounds. We need to heal.

But how do we do that? We need to begin to let Jesus do some work in our lives. We must trust Him with this work, because He is the only one who can do it.

⁵ Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.
⁶ In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. (Proverbs 3:5-6 ESV)

From personal experience I can say that nothing worked well in my life and my recovery from addiction until I put all my trust in God.

Recovery can be confusing without understanding two concepts about our past as we continue through the next part of the process: guilt and condemnation.

1. Guilt

Whether we are new Christians or mature in the faith, we can hear voices giving advice. Identifying those voices can be difficult as God sometimes speaks to us through people around us who may not fellow Christians. Listening can lead us down a wrong path, but equally so, not listening, but I’m not advocating blame on other people for our maladies. Listening to the right voice can convict us of our wrong doing and set us on the right path.

Guilt is God’s way of showing us where we have gone the wrong way, through His law as given by Moses and to draw us closer to Him. This potential confusion, is one of the reasons Jesus commands us to enter by the narrow gate, and that the wide gate leads to destruction.

¹³ Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. ¹⁴ For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. (Matthew 7:13-14 ESV)

If we listen to the wrong voices, we will miss God’s direction and head down the wrong path. Which is worse? Both are not good.

The choice offered between the wide gate and the narrow gate is not like choosing between two doors in a house. It is more like choosing a small door—with a lock—set within a large gate. Unlocking the small door is not intuitive, but it is still easy to do. It is the sinner’s prayer from the heart. After opening the small door, we find ourselves on a path that is well guarded and a guide awaits us there, whereas the wide gate has no lock and takes no effort to open, and there is no guide. The enemy uses the proximity of the two paths to deceive us into thinking that we are on the right one when we choose the wide gate, and he will use any way he can to lead us to the easier path—even dressing the tempters to appear righteous or even pious.

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. (1 John 2:16 ESV)

The desires of the flesh will lead us down that wrong path too easily.

2. Condemnation

It is the enemy who tries to condemn us by reminding us of our past, telling us we are no good or useless, even trying to make it appear that he is the voice of God. However, the apostle Paul reminds us otherwise.

¹ There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. ² For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. (Romans 8:1-2 ESV)

Realizing that condemnation does not come from God is a step in the right direction. We can rely more on our identity in Christ rather than on any false identity in addiction. If we are stuck in addiction, we are not the addiction.

The identity in addiction is false because we are on the path of recovery. Sobriety is our destination and our identity is secure in Christ, because He completed the work He came to accomplish on the cross once and for all.

When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. (John 19:30 ESV)

When we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, Jesus gives us the power and strength through Himself to tell the enemy that he has no authority over us. This power comes from the covering of Jesus blood over us just as the blood of sacrificed lambs saved the Israelites at the first Passover in Egypt.

The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt. (Exodus 12:13 ESV)

Just as in the days of Moses, God did the work of freeing the Israelites from the bondage of slavery, so God will do the work in freeing us from the bondage of addiction. The blood of the sacrifice was the sign that told God where not to strike.

It can be hard to understand how we can allow God to do the work, so I have an analogy. When we use a saw to cut a piece of wood, the best result comes from allowing the blade to do the work while we move it over the cut line, whereas the crudest looking cuts come from attempting to push the blade through the wood. If you’re not familiar with woodworking, try this one. When we paint a picture, the best result comes from allowing the bristles on the brush do the work of transferring paint onto the canvas, whereas the crudest brushstrokes come from pressing the brush onto the canvas. So God does His best work when we step out of the way and let Him do His work.

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. (Romans 3:23 ESV)

The first time I read the above verse, I thought “Really? There’s not a single person who ever lived who can say, ‘I’ve never sinned’?” This statement makes it easy for us to realize that we just need to surrender to God. For myself, I said, “Let go and let God.” I needed to trust God and let Him do the work.

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:2 ESV)

If after reading to this point, you figure that you have an addiction, you have gotten through the denial. It is extremely important not to attempt recovery alone or in isolation. We need trustworthy accountability partners and a sponsor, and to work through a program. However, I cannot guarantee that the process I describe will work for everyone. If the process I outline here does not work for you, I recommend working the twelve steps as a part of a Christ-centered group near you. Find one that meets once a week to work the steps.

Continuing from here—outside of a twelve-step program, once we have accountability partners and a sponsor, we have two more legs of this journey to travel to arrive at freedom. Essentially, we need to transform: to change the way we think; to change our heart; to change our soul.

The more methodically we can do this the better. The process is to take our pain and the burden of our past to the cross of Jesus. The second part of the journey is to forgive and to make amends. For this to work, we need to trust God in the process.

During my recovery process, it took longer because I didn’t trust God with it. But I see that you have read this far in this chapter so you are either searching for freedom from addiction or you find yourself needing to help someone gain freedom from addiction. Once I trusted in God with everything I am, my addiction ceased, my relationships improved and many were restored. If you find yourself at the point where you cannot trust God, pray. Pray for God to help you. I pray for those who feel they cannot trust God.

We need to make a list of the times when others have hurt us and how as well as when we have harmed others and how. We also need to include the times when the circumstances out of anyone’s control have caused us harm. We need to evaluate to the best of our knowledge who is responsible for those events, whether us, others or even God. We also need to document how these events affected our lives socially and sexually and our sense of security.

Once we have a complete list, we share it with our accountability partner(s) and sponsor. We might question the benefit of doing this, but having shared my list a few times, I can say that this process is quite profound. When we do this, we experience healing that cannot be achieved any other way.

Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.
(James 5:16 ESV)

While it is my experience that this works, I hadn’t realized for a long time why it works. God showed me why recently. First, it works because it’s a true promise from God. Second, in practical terms, merely confessing in prayer to God is not good enough, because He has another purpose in confessing to another human being. The verse says, confess sins to each other and pray for each other. The reason is, as I have experienced, both persons find healing through this verse in action, because God is working through both.

Once our list is shared, we have embarked on a new life, similar to the time we got saved. There is a new freedom and a new confidence, because we will find that we are not responsible for everything that happened in our lives, whereas we will find that we skipped our responsibility on some other things. However, as we are often our own worst critics, we usually find that we carried more burdens than we should have. We are ready to for the next leg in our journey.

If we are open to more change, we are ready to take on the next challenge. This challenge is to look at the list we just shared and compile a list of people to whom we need to make amends, as well as a list of people we need to forgive for harming us. If we held God responsible for anything on the list, then God may need to be on the list for amends as well.

So far I’ve discussed how this recovery can be done. However, sometimes we need motivation and courage to get started. Just as the Israelites had fear while wandering through the wilderness before entering the Promised Land, we can also fear what life will be like after changes take place. The good news is that the changes that will take place are not to restore us to the person we might think we would be without addiction; the changes restore us to be the person way God meant us to be before we became addicted. If you’ve ever seen a restored car, you’ve seen a version of the car that is better than it was when it left the factory; the changes resulting from recovery are similar to that. God carries out the restoration, and we are His handiwork.

Ready for change without fear of who we may become, it is time to forgive, make amends and restore relationships; we need do our part in completing the transformation. Having confessed to another human being we become stronger and may gain the grace for all of this work, including the hardest of them which is to forgive.

Forgiving someone’s offenses or wrongs against us can be difficult for us, but we need to understand that in doing so, we do not condone our offenders’ behavior, which no one does. Whatever the reason is that we refuse to forgive, consider that in a way we attempt to take the place of God in the role of forgiver. God’s role is to forgive all sin in each of us, as long as we forgive. Let me point to the parable of the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18:21-35, in which a king who had a servant who owed him a vast sum of money—in the millions of dollars. The man pleaded with the king to have patience and that he would pay him the debt, but the king was gracious and forgave it all instead. The servant left and when he later encountered another servant who owed him a small amount, he demanded payment and as he had done with the king, the man pleaded with him to have patience and he would pay, but he refused and put him in prison until he could pay. The king found out about this and summoned the unforgiving servant. He convicted him because of his unforgiveness and not only put him in prison, but instructed the jailers to torment him.

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You see, it is false that not forgiving someone’s offenses against us somehow causes the offender any pain. Instead we inflict pain and suffering on ourselves, by attempting to take on God’s role in the affair.

Consider another aspect of this. If we agree that not forgiving those who have sinned against us is like acting as God, do we not also blaspheme Him, as the scribes accused Jesus in their heartswhen He forgave the lame man who was lowered through the roof?

“Why does this man speak like that? He is blaspheming!
Who can forgive sins but God alone?” (Mark 2:7 ESV)

While this is the hardest of the tasks, the other two may be harder to do without forgiving first. Keep in mind that by telling our offenders that we forgive them, we are not actually taking the place of God, but telling them that we hold no grudge against them. That action can soften their hearts or at least prompt them to listen intently to the next thing we have to say.

So we make amends for the harm we have done. This action is all about taking responsibility for the wrong-doing we’ve done to others. When we make amends with those we’ve harmed, we need to make sure we only mention and take responsibility for the things we have done in the interaction that caused harm and nothing else. That avoids any confusion over the issue.

Let’s not forget that James 5:16 is also at work here, so we need to take the opportunity to pray at these times.

Now, this is why it works best in this order: having taken a step to forgive that people who have harmed us, those people will be more open to listening to what we have to say next and may even offer forgiveness for the harm we have done to them. If so, amends are easy to make with them. Having done these things well enough, restoring the relationship will come naturally.

If we have completed our lists, shared it, offered forgiveness, made amends and restored friendships, we are likely free from addiction. Now we need one more thing, and that is to read the Bible (or Scripture) on a regular basis, preferably, daily. I read 7-10 chapters of the Bible per day. This is step 11 of most of the 12-step programs of recovery. When I began to put this step into action every day, I was still deep in depression. However, after a few weeks of reading every day, I began to read more. When I got to reading 10 or more chapters per day, I found freedom from depression as well as addiction. It works!

By Stephen D. Edwards

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