PART ONE in series promoting an understanding of the complex factors surrounding what addiction reveals about the multifaceted person.
In this series of posts, we will discuss addiction, but also spirituality, attachment, and other issues relevant to matters of personal health. I will be drawing largely from an informative and useful book by Gerald May, MD, titled Addiction and Grace: Love and Spirituality in the Healing of Addictions (HarperOne, 1991; see more).
May’s book offers detailed information for the individual who wants to understand the medical effects of addiction upon a person, as well as insightful psychological and theological information especially helpful for orienting friends and family of addicts who desire to help loved ones see their need for help. Indeed, the addict must not only recognize their own need for help, but must cease their attempts to control the addiction.
A number of years ago, this text was my first introduction into the world of understanding not only addiction, but also how it pairs with attachment to create a feedback loop, trapping the sufferer in a repeating pattern of dysfunction, hopelessness, effort, and failure. It has been my experience that when addicts are truly ready for healing and change, May’s information rings true and can enable the addict to grow as they understand their own inner working; therefore, it is useful for both the addict and their loved ones. Beginning with a Christian spiritual foundation, May posits:
... human beings have an inborn desire for God. Whether we are consciously religious or not, this desire is our deepest longing and our most precious treasure. Some of us have repressed this desire, burying it beneath so many other interests that we are completely unaware of it (p. 1).
For our purposes, we will dwell for a time primarily on the spiritual reasons for addiction and its connection with attachment. More detailed discussion of addiction, attachment, and other related issues will follow in subsequent material.
May’s comment may sound familiar to many Christians. This inborn desire for God, “our deepest longing and our most precious treasure” as May terms it, was conveyed much earlier in history by Saint Augustine of Hippo (354 – 430 AD) in his well-known phrase, “Our hearts are restless, until they can find rest in you.” I am suggesting, as do May and Augustine, that God is the resting place, the ultimate fulfillment for our longings. Furthermore, he is not only the fulfillment, but also the Originator of our longings. He created us with certain innate needs. This is true for all humans, Christian or not. These are not only innate to each person, but their aim and resolution is modeled in part, for better or worse, in our earliest relationships beginning in childhood and continuing throughout our life, in every facet of life.
The most easily influenced among us, children, tragically do not always have modeled to them the most effective and satisfying methods to answer this deep longing. A child, for example, may see parents who behave more enthusiastically and are more “fun” when they drink alcohol with their friends (Gillham, 1993, p. 17). As similar patterns are adopted in later years, children learn more than just a method to attempt to resolve innate desires and find for themselves Augustine’s rest, they also learn about themselves from others in the process. (Gillham, 1993; Gillham & Gillham, 1995). Because they are many times directed to a potential rest other than God and because they have come to believe certain things about themselves to be true through how others have related to them, the substitute objects of their desire are ultimately and unwittingly fashioned to fit their self-image. False beliefs about oneself only lead to false methods for life satisfaction. Gaines and Gaines (2016) note “humans continue to overreach, grasping at our own images” while “we are prone to construct an image for ourselves rather than seek to be renewed in the divine image” (p. 98). Augustine’s rest remains elusive to them. The rest Augustine speaks of is ultimately also the telos of worship; it is the soul’s object of devotion that potentially brings peace and purpose.
Indeed, objects of worship fill the history of every civilization. Humanity exhibits the innate desire to worship and devote its energies in intimate connection. Given that the human person is a psycho-social-neuro-spiritual being, addiction uses up energy and resources to the neglect of one’s physical body, not to mention life-giving relationships. In the absence of a satisfying object for devotion and energy, humans lack homeostasis and thus feel out of control. May insightfully notes addiction “represents a doomed attempt to assert complete control over our lives” (1991, Back Cover). Outside the intimate connection occurring in community, isolated individuals are left to their own devices for fulfillment, alone in the repetitive cycle of search and failure.
What more can we say about this rest to which Augustine and May draw our attention? It can be known, at least in part. The Apostle Paul tells us this in the conclusion to 1 Corinthians 13, a chapter about love often cited in weddings. Unfortunately, the conclusion of the chapter is usually omitted as the officiant encourages a couple tasked with what will hopefully be a lifetime of intimate communion together:
When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully, just as I also have been fully known. But now faith, hope, and love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love (vss. 11-13, NASB).
In view of the absence of intimacy and the failure to establish a positive relationship, Hunt (2008) notes an undependable or lacking relationship pushes the addict to attach to a passion, rather than a person. The addiction is therefore rooted as an attempt to remedy a lack (perceived or real) of intimate sacrificial love, significance, and security. In the context of romantic and marital relationships, the cycle of attachment and failure reveals a cultural ethos in which successful commitment is no longer defined as “till death us do part,” but rather “until something better comes along” (Dunham & Serven, 2003). This attitude toward committed relationships is not only self-focused (consistent with addiction), but also short-term, in-the-moment focused (also a sign of addiction). The result is the breakdown of healthy, intimate relationships.
One difficulty a person must work through is their own fundamental beliefs around the nature of relational reality, the least of which is the belief they can solve their problem themselves (Thomas, 2018). Receiving help, much less asking for help, is a tremendous hurdle for the addict. Shame has restricted access to the deep areas of their humanity. People who have only experienced conditional love can find unconditional love very uncomfortable (Benner, 2003). Furthermore, for those who somehow “wake up” and begin to understand their motivation toward attachments, choosing healthy behavior can at times seem an impossible and even cognitively dissonant option. For the Christian, this sort of change involves the spiritual discipline of allowing the Holy Spirit to “renew” one’s mind, a process sometimes easier said than done. The Holy Spirit, as with any competent and empathetic professional counselor, will help an individual realize this and see their behavior as a maladaptive coping mechanism and in turn motivate seeking out healthy attachment.
Johann Hari, TED talk speaker and author of Chasing the Scream: The Search for the Truth About Addiction (2019), references the work of addiction researcher Dr. Peter Cohen when he writes:
[H]uman beings have a deep need to bond and form connections. It's how we get our satisfaction. If we can't connect with each other, we will connect with anything we can find—the whirr of a roulette wheel or the prick of a syringe. He [Cohen] says we should stop talking about 'addiction' altogether, and instead call it 'bonding.' A heroin addict has bonded with heroin because she couldn't bond as fully with anything else. So, the opposite of addiction is not sobriety. It is human connection (Hari, 2017).
At this point, it should seem to the reader that the areas of spirituality, relationships, addiction, attachment, what Cohen above alludes to as “bonding,” and even theology are intricately related.
In subsequent posts, we will discuss these areas in further detail, but I sought here to begin with a fundamental truth in the health and illness (e.g., addiction) of the individual. We cannot overlook the importance of the quality of intimacy and relationships along with the Christian belief that a solution for difficulties in life is one involving healthy spirituality. At the same time, health for the individual must also address the other needs of the person in their psycho-social-neuro makeup. This we will do as we further discuss the masterpiece that is the human person whom God has created and commissioned for great things:
For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago (Ephesians 2:10, NASB).
REFERENCES:
Benner, D. G. (2003). Strategic pastoral counseling: A short-term structured model. Baker Publishing Group.
Dunham, C. R., & Serven, D. (2003). Twentysomeone: Finding yourself in a decade of transition (1st ed.). WaterBrook Press.
Gaines, T. R. & Gaines, S. S. (2016). Uncovering Christ: Sexuality in the image of the invisible God. In B. F. Jones & J. W. Barbeau (Eds.), The image of God in an image driven age: Explorations in theological anthropology (pp. 91-106). InterVarsity Press.
Gillham, B. (1993). Lifetime guarantee. Harvest House Publishers.
Gillham, B., & Gillham, A. (1995). He said, she said. Harvest House Publishers.
Hari, J. (2017). The likely cause of addiction has been discovered, and it is not what you think. HuffPost. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-real-cause-of-addicti_b_6506936
Hari, J. (2019). Chasing the scream: The search for the truth about addiction. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Hunt, J. (2008). Counseling through your Bible handbook: Providing biblical hope and practical help for 50 everyday problems. Harvest House Publishers.
May, G. G. (1991). Addiction and grace: love and spirituality in the healing of addictions. HarperOne.
Thomas, J. C. (Ed.). (2018). Counseling techniques: A comprehensive resource for Christian counselors. Zondervan.
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