Have you ever been or known someone addicted to a particular activity or substance before?
It is rare to find anyone whose life has not been touched by some type of what we call “addictive illness.” We call it an illness because it involves changes in an organ of the body, the brain, affected by the presence of a particular activity or substance for which a person experiences an uncontrollable craving. Once that craving is satisfied, the individual’s brain goes back to its normal level of functioning.
I remember early on in my career sitting through a workshop on the treatment of alcoholism. The presenter asked the question, “how many of you feel abnormal after having taken three drinks of alcohol?” Nearly half of us raised our hands. Then, he asked, “how many of you feel normal after having taken three drinks of alcohol?” Then, to his audience’s astonishment, this presenter stated to that group of raised hands: “congratulations! If you feel normal after 3 drinks, you have the disease of alcoholism.” Just as astonishing, those with raised hands began nodding their heads. They were alcoholics working on their own recovery and seeking to help their fellow addicts learn the steps of recovery for themselves as well. Helping others with their treatment was a major step in their own treatment for alcoholism.
As I recall, this same presenter went on to describe “feeling normal” as “feeling like you are in better control again, or like your life is now under better control than before you had those 3 drinks.”
Feeling like you or your life is under control. That’s a good of way as any to describe what it’s like to be “normal.” On the contrary, feeling “abnormal” is like feeling you don’t have your normal amount of self-control. Lacking self control is what we feel when stress takes ahold of our brains and we feel afraid. Fear causes us to produce stress hormones throughout our body and to crave whatever control we can possibly obtain. Once back into control again, our fear ends and our body/brain returns to its “normal” state of functioning.
Addiction, or addictive illness if you prefer, is then the state of feeling abnormal levels of stress and fear, producing abnormal levels of stress hormones throughout our body (causing symptoms like rapid pulse, heavy breathing, perspiration, etc.), and craving control and the return to a “normal” state of functioning again. It amounts to being afflicted with fear and then addicted to control for the comforting of our affliction. Our return to “normal.”
To think of addiction in those terms means sobriety is addicting for some while more alcohol is addicting to others. To avoid gambling is addicting for some who fear "losing" their money while more gambling is addicting to others who fear not having or not being "enough." Whatever we do to feel “back under control” instead of abnormally afraid is our addiction. Our normal.
Making any sense?
Okay, but can addiction then happen to a group of people and not just an individual?
Yes, and in this sense it becomes a true disease. It can pass from one person to an entire group of people who find themselves afraid and then craving control in order to relieve their fear. An entire group can get sick and then as the group spreads throughout the country we have what on our hands? We have an epidemic.
That, my friends, is how I might best explain to myself what just happened in our November elections here in America. Enough Americans became sick with fear that they developed a craving for control and the return of normalcy in their own minds. Yet, not all Americans shared the same fear or even the same level of fear and the same level of craving.
Just as the workshop I earlier alluded to identified two very divided groups, those who felt normal after 3 drinks and those who felt abnormal, so our country is divided. There were those who feel more normal now but fearing feelings of abnormality if we had “more Trump.” And those who feel more afraid and abnormal now but craving a return of control if we had “more Trump.” The group with the cravings to get back under control and return to feeling normal again was greater than those who felt normal now and only afraid of losing control in the future.
That is why addiction is a disease of relapse. The craving to regain control is greater than the fear of losing control. The fear happens during one’s normal state but threatening future abnormality. The craving happens during one’s abnormal state and very frightening feeling of present abnormality.
Until a new normal could be created (perhaps 8 years without Trump in office) those who felt abnormal without his administration were like addicts in withdrawal and craving a return to feeling in control again.
So what’s my point? Surely I have one somewhere other than on top of my own head.
The point is that American voters are afraid to the point of feeling abnormal at one time or another. Just as non-alcoholics feel abnormal after 3 drinks and at least somewhat out of control by then, while alcoholics are by then able to feel back under control again, so American voters all fear loss of control. Yes, all of us have an addictive illness. We all crave a return to normalcy and control, but just at different times upon differing administrations of government. My normal may be your abnormal, as it were.
I have known, and perhaps you as well, alcoholics who cannot fathom getting addicted to opioids like heroin. And I’ve known heroin addicts who never drink alcohol, and complain about even the taste of it. Such people would feel abnormal and out of control if they had to use some foreign substance. They are like straight ballot voters in an election who would feel out of control under the opposing party in power. And I’ve known, perhaps you as well, addicts of every substance or activity who stop having cravings …….I mean real CRAVINGS……after their body’s have entered a “new normal” when sober for a suitable length of time, whether 4 years or 8 years, or more, or less.
We humans have a near-universal affliction of fear when under stress, leading us to abnormal levels of palpitation, respiration and perspiration. We crave whatever will help us feel in control and back to normal. And we risk relapse unless we can find some new normal that doesn’t require our feeling like we’re in control.
Are you following me?
If so, then let’s go one step further here.
What if God, by setting an example for us in the person of Jesus Christ, has a new normal in mind for us that is proven to relieve our fears and end our cravings? Is it possible there is an alternative to our having to feel in control all the time in order to relieve our fears? Is recovery from our human addiction maybe what God means in offering us a new and lasting “normal” ……a healing or salvation from our cravings for control (for relief of our fears and return to our old normal)?
What if Jesus meant upon using the words “born again” our entering a recovery program to create a new normal where control wasn’t necessary in order to relieve fear? A new normal where instead of "fearful control" we were born again into "loving influence?" Where in place of fear whenever starting to lose control (think Adam and Eve in the garden if you prefer) we felt love and claimed love’s power to render influence instead of control? What if influence was possible (think leading a horse to water) while control was impossible (think forcing the horse to drink that water)? What if in this new normal state of functioning we would succeed in doing the possible by lovingly influencing others instead of failing to do the impossible by fearfully controlling others?
What if instead of having a disease where we crave the return to our old normal (the previous administration) and to some old illusion of control back then we INSTEAD had a new ease? The ease of not having to fear, not having to be in control; the ease of instead loving and influencing others in this world in ways that would be empowering (for all, not just some) and create a contagious epidemic of new health instead of old disease? What if our addiction would lead forward into recovery (redemption), not backward into relapse? Forward into heaven, not backward into hell?
If that kind of God, or that kind of Jesus, actually existed in this world, would we be interested in seeking, asking, or knocking on that type of door? I decided to try believing in that God and following that Jesus. I decided to seek and I have found, to ask and I have received, and to knock on that door and have now had it answered. I’m looking forward to my own recovery.
Why? Because my name is Dan and I am an addict.
Comments