Beyond Addiction: Why Words & Worship Matter

March 18th, 2014Addictions, Asian Christianity, Therapissed: Unfiltered Observations of a Psychotherapist1 comment

Despite my work in the addiction field, I have ambivalent feelings with the label “addict” or “addiction” for a myriad of reasons.  Here are a few: clients in denial may bristle at the word as it suggests they have a severe problem, be it sex, gambling, or alcohol.  Rarely does one enter treatment acknowledging weakness and a need for help.  In therapy,denial serves a need and since the word “addiction” is such a pejorative term and laden with so much negativity and confusion, those in denial are not helped by this word.

Spouses hate the term, erroneously thinking the term takes out personal responsibility and absolves the addict of choice.

On the other end are clients who embrace the term and can sometimes find too much comfort and solace in it that they’re entire world and identity is wrapped around being a “sex addict”, “gambling addict” or “alcoholic”.

While a proponent of 12 Step-Groups (as individual clients can meet others who also struggle in similar areas), I am mindful to tell clients to move beyond seeing themselves as an “addict” since a familiar 12 Step refrain is, “once an addict, always an addict” which can be misinterpreted as suggesting sobriety is not possible and relapse is inevitable.

And that’s the biggest linguistic issue I have with the word addict, it’s a dead-end word.  There’s no hope, no goal, no community beyond those of other addict groups.  Healing and intimacy rarely moves beyond these groups to extend to friends, family members, and loved ones.  In extreme cases, some individuals only share their misdeeds with those in the group, thereby short-circuiting real change with a pseudo-form of spiritual penance where their spouses remain unaware of the issues.  Also the terminology of addiction has so science-laden or biologically infused that no mention of God can exist which is strange since addictions or compulsive behaviors existed long before psychology arrived on the scene.

Before psychology, there was the shaman, the medicine man, or the priest-all of whom believed in a God or Creator.  Before psychology dethroned God and became the “new priesthood”, most of life’s emotional and relational issues could be examined and cured by looking at man’s existence and relationship with God.  God was part of the equation and behavioral issues of this nature were seen as spiritual issues not as merely behavioral issues which is the norm of the day in therapy.

God was and always should be at the center of our lives.   It should play a central role in issues of addiction.  In one client’s example struggling with sexual addiction, he would turn to it when dealing with the fear of rejection from his partner.  The rejection was fueled by anger and rage at God that he has yet to find a woman and hence he would turn to prostitutes.  The sexual acting out of going to massage parlors or prostitutes became “addictive” as it became the god of his life to give him the affirmation, validation, and relationship he wanted but If therapists only focus on the sexual act itself, they may neglect to look at the deeper issue of the heart (i.e. bitterness, fear, entitlement, etc.) and how to teach clients to find peace and security in God.  We must remember that addictive behaviors before psychology was seen as spiritual warfare, not necessarily of a demonic type but of a personal warfare with one’s soul where is replacing god with an idol.

In the Islamic faith, Muslims would explain addictions as issues that emanate deep from one’s soul where man can sink deep into the addictive abyss by living without purpose and putting God on the back-burner of life.  “And be ye not like those who forgot Allah, and He made them forget their own souls! Such are the rebellious transgressors!” [Al-Qur’an 59:19]

Those from the Jewish or Christian faith would also say addictions spring from a life where God is taken out of the center and replaced with the an “addictive” or counterfeit idol.  The first two of the Ten Commandments warn against idolatry.  In essence, we either worship God or find another god in its place to worship.  For those who are “addicted”, they have become spiritually enslaved to the idols of the day which extend beyond negative behavioral issues of sex, drugs, alcohol, and gambling but to the more mundane and subtle motivations of beauty, power, money, fame, gluttony, security, and the like.

In short, I tell new clients there’s more to addiction than how they may be viewing it.  I like to use the term “slavery” because no one wants to be stuck as a slave since slaves yearn for freedom.  Freedom is the goal and I don’t deny the need to work through issues of trauma, neglect, loss, cultural and family wounds, and a host of other therapy issues that lead up to the enslavement but I also am cognizant that addiction is ultimately a soul issue.