When I was 13 years old, I remember going to the doctor and him diagnosing me with a disease. I left the doctor’s office that day feeling like a victim. I had a painful, life-altering condition that I had done nothing to acquire, and there was nothing that I could do to escape from it. It was a hopeless situation.
I would have to frequent the doctor’s office and take my medications from now on, in order to live a decent life. I went along with the doctor, and things grew worse. The medications messed me up even more and complicated my life. The disease became a part of my identity (a part of who I was). My life was filled with physical, emotional and spiritual pain. I went through Hell on earth. I had nowhere to turn. So, in desperation, I turned to the Lord. Thankfully, the Lord Yeshua (Jesus) healed me!
Today, that chronic, incurable disease, and all the pain it caused, is a distant memory. I have taken off that identity, and it is no longer a part of who I am. Now, there are a few consequences of the disease, and the medicines, that I have to deal with daily, but these issues don’t define or discourage me. Most importantly, I do not sit around and talk of that disease and how bad my life was when I had it. Diseases have a spiritual and emotional component to them. I believe that if I were to sit around and think about those things and talk about them all the time, I would create an environment that could possibly rebirth the disease in my body. Consequently, I refuse to do that.
I have moved on with my life.
During the time I was suffering with this physical, emotional and spiritual pain, I turned to drugs. If I could use a particular drug to escape from my painful reality, I did. I quickly became an addict. I took on the identity of an addict, and my whole life revolved around drugs.
After about 20 years of drug use, my life was a train wreck spiritually, emotionally and physically. I went to rehab, and the doctors told me that I had a disease…………the disease of addiction. I left rehab feeling like a victim, who would have to struggle to keep his disease in remission for the rest of his life so that he could have a decent life. The doctors prescribed AA meetings and told me that I had to take my medicine to keep my disease in remission. Unfortunately, I believed the doctors.
I wanted to get free because it was too painful, and too complicated, to be an addict. I could not shake my identity as an addict, however. I thought of myself as an addict. I told myself that I was an addict. I surrounded myself with addicts. I talked about my life as an addict. I listened to others tell about their lives as addicts. My life now revolved around my identity as an addict and keeping my disease in remission. It was too much for me to handle so I returned to the drugs.
After about 7 years of this Hell, in desperation, I turned to the Lord. The Lord Yeshua gave me a new identity “in Him”. I was no longer an addict, I was now a saint of the Most High! I thought of myself as a saint. I told myself that I was a saint. I surrounded myself with saints. I talked about myself as a saint. I listened to others tell about their lives as saints. My life now revolved around my identity “in Christ”, and walking in it. Consequently, today, I am completely free and very blessed!
I have moved on with my life.
Here is the truth. Addiction begins as a choice. Choice grows into an obsession. Obsession grows into a compulsion. Choice, obsession and compulsion culminate in addiction. Addiction is not a disease that we have no control over. Addiction is the misappropriation of our free will, which has spiritual, neurological and biological repercussions that result in a bondage of the will.
A person gets out of addiction the same way he or she gets into it: He or she makes a choice to get free. Once a person makes the choice to get free, then they need to isolate themselves from the chemicals in order to diffuse the biological compulsion. After the biological compulsion has been diffused, then, the person has to do some spiritual and cognitive work in order to change their neurology and tear-down the strongholds in their mind (diffuse the mental obsession).
The myth that addiction is a disease sets people up for failure by giving them an identity that they have to war against for the rest of their lives. Even the strongest of warriors gets tired after a while, which is why most people will eventually relapse in AA. We must take responsibility for our choices and acknowledge that we have misused our spiritual, neurological and biological resources in a desperate bid to escape our everyday reality by chemical witchcraft. We must repent.
We must repent from our witchcraft, sorcery and idolatry. We must turn to the Lord with our whole heart and accept our identity in Him and take off our old identity as an addict. Only then will we reach the summit of Mt. Olympus and see the Oracles, who have spun this destructive myth.
The Lord healed me of a terrible physical disease, and He also reordered my spiritual, neurological and biological system so that I could live the abundant life. The Lord will do the same for you if you will believe Him and renounce what the Oracles have told you, or you can go on believing the disease myth.
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