Addictions...who does'nt have them

Ever consider rust? How it slowly creeps up your neighbors old '84 Toyota truck. Its just a small glimmer one summer and then, a few more mortgage payments and the entire wheel wells of the truck are taken over by this monster we call rust. It seems to be that addictions are the same way in America. They have slowly crept up through the alleys of the dark forbidden inner cities from the whorehouses and slums, and taken over suburbia as parents with the perfect lives are sending their teenagers to rehab facilities more often than not. Its so common that its not even a surprise at the high school just a calculated fact for some. And so in these highly segregated bourgeoisie middle class communities the horrors they were trying to escape have found them hiding and afraid. They are under the impression that it's normal to take depression pills, its normal to become addicted to alcohol. Most of them just shrug their shoulders with their positive existential philosophy waiting for the next experience to come like the passing of the day on the prairie. And as the days pass them by leaving only their shattered lives as a reminder and remnant of the despair that they live in, they become prey to the lion of calamity as fate waits to eats them alive. So it is with our world. None shall escape suffering, none shall go without pain, all races, political standings, economic backgrounds, social classes shall be marred with the rust of suffering, slowing devouring them from the inside.. Everything from closed communities and closed republican opinions to botox and Fubu. Culture would not explicitly shout extravagance with a capital A&F in the mall venues if what I was saying is not true. Thoreau’s shot hit the bulls eye when he said, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” Did you hear that? It means that when you collapse in front of your flat screen after a tiring day, you will be dulled by images honeycombing across molten glass to produce dancing images designed to arrest the mind and life unto nothingness. Does this not sound like some sort of drug? Something that would make you not understand reality as it is presented to you? However we would all agree that when people sit down to watch TV, or buy clothes, or get plastic surgery they do it because they want to! Though they may not realize it, they are clearly not enjoying life. Within that, they think that by adding something to themselves they can somehow create and enjoy a full, complete life. It's almost to say that if we ‘feast’ on all that this life has to offer we will be full. Funny how everyone’s life ends in a grave though. Its like a ‘banquet in the grave’, we feast until we die. However we are far too often shortsighted to see our gluttony of life’s existential realities is leading to a slavery we cannot escape. Its built by the slow indulgences into life’s pleasures, which eventually become our goal and everything we live for, and we will do anything to have them, i.e. heroin addicts. Need I say more? However we can be addicted to anything, money, power, sex, immaterial things seem to be the most destructive and deceptive. We have to deal with this everywhere, and like a sniper you don’t know about they kill us when we are not looking. An answer must be sough. Solutions to life’s problems found. A map to guide us out of this swamp.

That is the subject of a book I just inhaled, “Addictions: A Banquet in the Grave” by Edward T. Welch. Addictions are something that riddle all lives like bullets in the Bonnie and Clyde car, either with direct connection to our uncontrolled affections or through the seemingly airborne vulnerability exemplified through the mass of media that is fired at our consciences constantly. and so here is the answer that I sought, the solution I was given, and map that is guiding me out.

The author very simply applies the gospel cure to this western disease or idol, or not so western disease or idol. Part of the modern fallacy of addictions that must be disassembled is the idea that addictions are a disease, this in effect takes away our accountability, which places us not as sinners in this world but as victims of a disease that we cannot control therefore its not our fault, but someone or something else is to blame. And we like patients driven mad go screaming down the white tiled walls of the insane asylums, “They did this to me!” as the white coats take us away and the needles go in. Dr. Welch does not take away from the damage that addictions can do to the addicts themselves or the people they encounter by changing the definition, but he very tenderly like an experienced surgeon shows us the root cause, and then allows Christ and him crucified to cut it out with an accuracy that no statistics can comeback to haunt. He says that yes, people can be physically addicted to substances and even emotions, but the root cause is idolatry the idolatry of self. This is a making of man as the end goal.

Idolaters do this by saying, “God you are not enough, I need something now, because you are not doing it.” The microwave generation must have it. That is an elevation of self to the highest degree, the exaltation of our personal desires over the God and his greatest gift, as opposed to the elevation of serpent in the wilderness, and exaltation a lynching in the first century. Bit of a contrast eh? Kind of black and white, just like the book cover. Edward T. Welch calls addictions a worship disorder as well as he sharpens his scalpel, “Addictions are ultimately a disorder of worship: we worship our desires over God. We desire the things of earth more than the one who rules it. This being so, worship is the true deepest need for addicts, as it is for all people. It is during worship that we are most fully human[1].” We don’t know how to worship God because, to name a few reasons, we forget God and what he has said and more importantly what he has done in Christ and for us(Romans 8:3,4). And because we don’t believe that God is suffiencient, that in him life does not dwell, that he is dead, or worth nothing then we are only left with man as the end, only mans extent of selfish reality can be gained. To which I quote Ravi Zacharias quoting Malcom Mullridge, “If God is dead then someone is going to fill his place; megalomania or erotomania, the drive for power or the desire for pleasure. The clenched fist or the phallic; Hitler or Hugh Hefner[2].” And those things that have taken our souls, the high places as the old testament puts them, these are our addictions. The only cure is a pure heart which comes from the washing of the blood of Jesus, with which we will see and worship God without constraints, see Matthew 5:8 for further antidote.

One of the great values of this book, especially for people (grunt, cough)who are as dysfunctional in communication, as an a-track player is to an ipod. Dr. Welch helps us limp along by giving a continuing conversation with his friend Jim who is a seminary graduate who is deeply addicted to alcohol. Ouch, that was a deep cut. Nic is now bleeding, deeply. But despite how deeply he cuts, the application of the healing balm of a clearly presented singular gospel of Christ and him crucified is applied with the utmost care and concern not only for the truth, but for the person, for the addict. This concern is most evident in that we must, by Gods grace take strategic, General George S. Patton like attack plans to never stop moving forward in this battle to mortify sin. This is done by realizing that every actions we watch on TV or work, every habit we sow at home, and every thought we think come under the banner of Gods ever transcendent holiness and will be scrutinized to the dotting of every I and crossing of every T, with no exceptions or excuses allowed. This watchful accountability by God the Holy Spirit should give us a new definition to the term ‘accountability partner’ for indeed we have friend who sticks closer than a brother. And so, God is faithful, “for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up” (Hosea 6:1).

At a minimum this book is giving new meaning to the word Capernaum Revolution, where you realize that the sun does not revolve around the earth, but he earth around the sun. simply stated, your not the center of the universe, but Christ is. The application of this book is wide like the diversity of the culture that we live in. Within this community of America, there exists human hearts, sinful human hearts, with which only one thing can bring the cure, the giving of life by the one who has both ability and obligation to take up our cause.

In closing Welch answers the deepest questions of your heart, and speaks to the thoughts you never dared to tell anyone because they are too evil to tell. He gives the cure to the disease you never knew you had, and smashes the idol that was so big that you never noticed it because you had organized your life around it. All in the glorification of Christ, and making the worship of God primary in your lives, “I appeal you therefore brothers, by the mercies of God offer you bodies as living sacrifices, this is your spiritual worship” (Romans 12:1).

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[1]Welch, Edward T. Addictions: A Banquet in the Grave. P&R Publishing Company, Phillipsburg, New Jersey, 251.

[2] Zacharias, Ravi. Taken from, “Let My People Think” the nationally broadcasted radio program. www.rzim.org.