Video Transcript: Addiction

As it says in Proverbs 26, "Like snow in summer or rain in harvest, honor is not fitting for a fool. Like a fluttering sparrow or darting swallow, an undeserved curse does not come to rest. A whip for the horse, a bridle for the donkey, and a rod for the backs of fools. Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you yourself will be just like him, Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes. Sending a message by the hands of a fool is like cutting off one's feet, or drinking poison. Like the useless legs of one who is lame is a proverb in the mouth of a fool. Like tying a stone in a sling, is the giving of honor to a fool; like a thorn bush in a drunkard's hand is a proverb in the mouth of a pool. Like an archer, who wounds at random, is one who hires a fool, or any passerby. As a dog returns to its vomit, so fools repeat their falling. Do you see a person wise in their own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for them." 

What are we talking about? All that proverbs 26 is illustrating is about addiction, and we are looking directly into the pattern of addictive behavior. As the Scripture says, like tying a stone in a sling is the giving of honor to a fool, like a thorn brush in the hand of a drunkard is a proverb in the mouth of a fool. However, here's where we then, biblically and theologically speaking, look at what addictive behavior is about. In this, verse 12: "Do you see a person wise in their own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for them." What's the issue? This goes back to Genesis three, as we talked about, in our biblical theological video, mankind. Adam and Eve wanted to become their own God. They want to do what's right in their own eyes, and not focus on what was right in God's eyes. Once they gave in to the lie, they fell from grace. See, addictive behavior begins with the whole God Complex. The whole thing of: I've got to be me, as my own God. And I can't. Bring you back to just recently, as I mentioned, I oversee community recovery, which is Recovery Ministry in Grand Rapids, Michigan. And today is Thursday. This past Monday night, we had our Monday Night Recovery Program and with dinner, worship, support groups, and dessert afterwards, at our community recovery Care Center in the heart of Grand Rapids, right in the city, in downtown. And one of our guys named David, he came through one of the local programs. He graduated on the local programs. He came off the bus again this past Monday night, and he was drunk. He was intoxicated to the point that, just before the worship service at seven o'clock, he passed out in our parking lot. And of course, we had the breathalyzer, we called the firemen, the EMTs. And he did the breathalyzer and guess what? He breathes three times over the legal limit. He was in deep trouble!

And David's story, he is not unique. There are many of us, for the alcohol, food, or whatever drug of choice we have, we talked about that before too with the recovery gets the best of us. We give in. We medicate. We think we can be our own god, we're in control of our own destiny, when we are not; God is in control. That's a biblical fact. But we need to understand how addiction works, how the truths of Proverbs, and this is not just the only the only chapter in Proverbs addressing foolish behavior, addressing addictive behavior, addressing behavior that gets us in trouble every time because we want, we want it, we want it now. And we want it so that we can get it for ourselves as the stinking thinking in our brains, tends to take us there. And for many of us, and many of you who are watching today, or tonight, whatever time you're watching this video, that can mean you are thinking to yourself, boy, if I didn't have the help of God, it would be jails, institutions, or death. And I'm alive right now. And so, death has not taken me yet. I have not gone home yet. I'm not in jail right now. Because if you were, you probably wouldn't be allowed to watch this video, mainly just yet. I know the Christian Leaders Institute, we are looking at helping those who are in prison or in jail. And as they come out as well to get into our program with a bachelor's degree.

So, wherever you are, you arrive, you're here. You're either in jail or not in jail, depending on what we're doing. And you're not in the institution. Or maybe you are and maybe CLI is there with you online, and you have accessibility or access to the program. That often is the case. When it comes to addiction, it gets us in trouble. How does it work? What are the cycles like? How does this pattern operate and domestic tranquility this course, we're looking at domestic violence, in terms of the things being out of order, and then how God takes us and brings us into a place of tranquility, or balance, balance and long life. But we need to be aware of our need for God and our patterns of addictive behavior and things we turn to, we do the things we don't want to do. The Book of Romans chapter seven. Paul says: The things I hate, I do; things I don't want to do, I do. What a wretched man, Paul says about himself. Of course, if you're female, what a wretched woman I am. Whoever you are, we just want to beat ourselves up sometimes. And we fall short of God's glory. Romans 3:23 We need God's help. Let's look at what addiction is.

The objectives today are this: to define addiction, distinguish addictions from habits, identify the signs of addiction, discuss the addictive process, physiology of addiction, the bio-psycho-social model of addiction to describe types of addictions including gambling, & work. (Yep, workaholics), exercise, (just got to run, got to get on the bike, got to get on the bike lane below too much) sexual addiction, internet addictions and codependency, which is, by definition, an addiction as well. Also, one of our objectives is to evaluate treatment and recovery options for addicts. So the individual therapy, group therapy, family therapy, and 12 Step programs, which is formally labeled recovery but of course, as we have looked at recovery as looked at the dark side of leadership and life and how God knows us and shapes us. Recovery is for everything. As we say, command recovery. We've got a group for that. So, we're going to take a look at this, and recovery is for everybody. And unfortunately, we have so many of us in our culture who feel stigmatized and feel like we're labeled, if we would go to our recovery group that meets right here, let's say in a in a setting like this on a couch and chairs around or whatever, and we just think, Oh, I wouldn't be caught dead in a group like that.

Because the question is what do you want to be caught dead doing? Do you want caught dead beside of the road or caught dead doing something you regret? Let me tell you, if you pay any attention to movements in the media, many are starting to look at their habits & behaviors. Of course, we look at that as sin. Sin has to do with whatever behavior and addiction does not give God glory and of course, is not God's will. And of course, violates the 10 commandments and so on. So, addiction. Let's take a look. How do we define addiction? Addiction is continued involvement with a substance or an activity despite ongoing negative consequence: criteria as defined by the American Psychological Association, the APA for short.

First, physiological addiction. The body says, I liked that. I liked my coffee. I loved caffeine. I really want to be on the computer live room; that's a rush, the brain feels this euphoria, the whole body gets charged and we've got to do it, we've got to have it. As I said earlier, I want it now. You ever heard the expression God give me patience, and give it to me now? So it begins with the body: the body starts to crave that activity, starts to crave that substance, whatever it is that it feels it needs. Also, withdrawal. Boy, if you're trying to say okay, I'm not going to have my coffee anymore, boy, these headaches! Oh, I wonder why. Withdrawal detoxification. If you're so addicted to caffeine, for example, perhaps you'll experience the headache, the caffeine headache, or maybe you are coming off heroin, or you're coming off cocaine, the detoxification process, the withdrawal process is brutal. Brutal: being physically sick. The body is adjusting to living and being without that substance, withdrawal. 

Relapse: well, let's say for example you did kick caffeine, and you kicked cocaine, you kicked that work habit that always got you in trouble with your family. However, after a few years, or maybe a few months, something triggers in your brain: oh that internet site, oh, that coffee haven't had it for so long. And you're having presently an issue at work or an issue at home. And oh, I remember oh yeah got a habit, I got to look up research and what? That whatever-it-is, you relapse, you fall back into the habit, the connection. 

And then of course we look at tolerance. Some of us say well, I can tolerate alcohol, l can tolerate coffee, I can tolerate whatever. But, of course, then we get into the issues of denial, issues of not really working on our issues. So that's the whole deal with addiction being continued involvement with the substance or an activity despite ongoing negative consequences. That goes back to what we talked about in terms of medicating the problem trying to cover up what's really eating us, what's really disturbing us, what's really violent in our lives, as opposed to being tranquil in our lives. It was not tranquil. It's violent, it's chaos, it's disorder. And for many of us, we think chaos is normal. Well, says the abused wife, he loves me, even though he beats me up, even though he verbally abuses me. I think that's what love is about. Maybe that's you today. My prayers are for you.

See, the whole thing was with addiction is that we become addicted to a person or addicted to that substance, but we're not dealing with the real issue going on underneath. In our mind, heart, body, and spirit, as we understand from Scripture, how God made us. So, defining addiction, habit versus addiction. As I say, you can develop a habit, 30 days, maybe running or, of course, taking a different route to work. But a habit is repeated behavior by definition, in which repetition may be unconscious. Compulsion: here the addiction comes in, compulsion is pleasant. Considerable discomfort is experienced if the behavior is not performed. So again, I need my coffee! And my coffee is oh, so good. But if I don't have my coffee, I get irritable, I get moody, I lash out. That's the difference. If you have a habit of coffee, but it doesn't create that discomfort of you haven't had it for two days. That tends to be more of a habit; that is in moderation.

So, habit, addiction. So, signs of addiction, signs of distress are four common symptoms: obsession, got to have it; loss of control, you only realize that you're doing it, you're realize you're on the internet all the time. It doesn't even occur to you that you're interrupting family time, because you're so wrapped up in whatever else you're doing work projects or whatever. So, you're not you're not in control of you. Negative consequences. Your wife, your husband, your kids are saying, Mom, Dad, worry again. You missed it. I was really ticked off and I need to talk to someone and you weren't around. Poor, Dad, you're drinking. It just is repulsive. I don't understand. You've heard the family may lash out at you. Or Mom, you're always in your soap operas. You're addicted to television, or now, of course, maybe it's just Netflix. You're binge watching all the time. How can you miss out? So, negative consequences, wants to control denial. Well, this is you. Maybe you're saying your son or your daughter or to your spouse? I didn't know that. How? I didn't see that. How can how can that be? It's interesting

My wife and I, we were in house help for a lady who was going blind. Now this woman, she was a character. She was. Yes, she did need our help. It was during my seminary years in the mid-1990s, in the North Chicago suburbs. She lives on Lake Michigan. And that part of the suburbs, that suburban area in Chicago, is very wealthy. She was one of those people. And we noticed as she was allowing us access to her things. That in her checking account, she could buy a house with cash. She also had a lot of wealth in her possession, more than we could ever imagine. And we made dinner for her, we would, because she couldn't see, and we live in the third floor of the house and she lived on the second floor, we all shared the main floor. It was a win-win experience for two years. And we had dinner one time, where I would pray for our meal. And Lord Jesus, please forgive us of our sins. And we thank You, Lord, for how you take care of us. And, and now it to our bodies in Jesus’ name, amen. And as we said, amen, she turned to me and could see a shadow of me because she could see some shadows or outlines. As much as she could. She wasn't blind yet. She looked at me and said I don't sin. I'm a good person. You don't sin? I just can't, what? And forgive us of our sin. Mark, how is it that you sin and you need to ask God to forgive you?

I was blown away.  I fell off my chair. It was the first time within about a year we were there that she confronted me on this. Yeah, but she had to, but she was so surprised herself. I would pray for the Lord to forgive us of our sins of our shortcomings, the negative consequences we create. And she could not believe it. She said to me, Well, if I give to charity, I belong to the Presbyterian church down the street, I do all these great things. Well, Mrs. W., I am sorry, but we can't save ourselves, we need Jesus. We mean by grace, you're saying by faith, not by what I do. And she completely disagreed with me on that point. Hence to say, this is over 20 years ago, she's passed on since then, Mrs. W, I pray that she can understand that it's by grace that she knew Christ, I don't know. But we shared the good news in the Gospel with her on that point. But it goes back to our whole point about addiction. Obsession, wants to control negative consequences, denial. And I am just as we were, I was thinking about Mrs. W. She was in a, well, she had different worldview. True, although she professed to be a Christian, at the same time, it was as if she had a denial about her shortcomings. Because of addiction, par for the course, the addictive process, nurturing through avoidance, nurturing, in other words, I am functional in my life, I can go to work, I can parent my children, I can be a great husband or great wife. And yet, I'll avoid every issue in my life, avoid every negative that's going on with me.

Now, the physiology of addiction, there's a whole thing of neurotransmitters in the brain, things are going on, there's tolerance and withdrawal. In other words, if we, for example, are into alcohol, we're drinking too much. The brain, of course gets used to it, then your transmitters that to send messages to our brain of pleasure, and, and so on. And it begins to tolerate the effects of the alcohol to the point and we don't even notice what's going on. And of course, looking at withdrawal goes back to what I was saying earlier about if we stop and then we notice that our body will begin to change and the body begins to then go back to that state of not needing that substance or needing that behavior.

So, the cycle of psychological addiction as well. From what's going on in the mind, to the real issue in the person, to the actual physiological connection. Here's how it goes. As we turn to the slide, the cycle of psychological addiction, emotional pain is the first part of this. Emotional pain. What's the issue? She left me, or he left me, or that teacher that always told me that I was dirt, or mom or dad, or maybe it's the trauma experienced when dad died when I was seven years old. Or at some other point in your childhood, where you can remember the day where they said he's not coming back. There's emotional pain. And there's the second part of the cycle of psychological addiction: it is craving for relief, you want to take care of this pain that you can't stand anymore. Alcohol. Like any other drug, it dulls the pain; I need that relief. And of course, the third part is preoccupation with substance or behavior. Going to it. The fourth part, substance abuse or compulsive behavior, we get so much that it begins to control me, I'm under the control of the alcohol, or I'm under the control of another person, or I'm under the control of pizza, or other foodstuffs, that comfort food that I crave at my home during the day. And now I'm gaining more and more weight. It's powerful, because it goes back to what relief do I need? What preoccupation do I have, with whatever substance or behavior and also substance abuse, use or compulsive behavior, therefore, that I get into. And then we look at the fifth part of the cycle is short term pain relief or numbness. At first, it's short-term, but it returns in the long term, and the sixth part negative consequences resulting from the behavior, for example, becoming overweight, or we disconnect from our loved ones, or our liver goes bad.

And our brain begins to change. And we researchers have said that the more alcohol that you drink, the more that you abuse your body with other drugs, the more the composition of your brain tends to change. You damage your brain. So negative consequences resulting behavior to step seven, or the southern part of this psychological addiction, depression, guilt, shame. We get to get angry at ourselves. And we project that anger on other people. Or there's guilt. And we, in that passive aggressive mode that we talked about in the dark sides, we tend to shift the blame on someone else, or guilt someone else, or guilt on them. Where we need to deal with our own guilt, our own shame, giving it to God. Where God, if we humble ourselves for the Lord, He will lift us up. James 4 or of course, as we look at the truth in Romans, chapter eight, there's no condemnation for those who are in Jesus Christ. However, we choose to live in our shame. We choose to live in the guilt that we create for ourselves. And the final stage of the cycle, more pain, low self-esteem, we begin to withdraw. We isolate, disconnect from the world, not just our loved ones, but everybody else. And we need to get help. Yes, we pray, and we're praying all and I'm shotgun prayers: Oh, Lord, help, okay, I'm going to go drink. Now, that's a problem to the point that we're on our knees in prayer, and we don't know how to get ourselves out of this predicament. We need to give it over to Jesus and then we need the help of someone else. We can't do it alone. We can never do it alone. 

Of course, as Winston Churchill said, Never give up. Never give up. And for those of you who may not remember who Churchill was, or the context, he was the prime minister of Britain. He was the one for the UK who brought them through World War Two. And World War Two, life and death. It was devastating. To the point that they didn't know if they were going to live or die as a whole society. But by God's grace, there was victory over the Nazis. There's victory for Britain. And Churchill said, Never give up, we will win, we will rebuild. Just imagine how he stood courageously before the British people. So, we need help. We do not give up the model of addiction.

So, we know the definition, we understand the cycle. We know that there is, in fact, these physiological and psychological things going on. But what how do we understand it from a model standpoint? The model is this: the biopsychosocial model proposes that addiction is caused by a variety of factors operating together, biological or disease influences, serotonins and GABA. Environmental influences, cultural expectations, attitudes, messaging, social learning theory, many things; I don't have time today to really get into all the details. But the thing about biopsychosocial is that it has to do with the body, with the mind, and with the spirit. And we're looking at the biology, how the brain works. And the environmental influences, your cultural expectations, and we talked about that with the dark side, how people expect us to be a certain way or to do certain things, and we don't meet up to their expectations. We had to go to God’s expectations, attitudes, messaging. What are we hearing from those who are giving us messages through the media, marketing and also through our family of origin? Well, Dad always drank so I guess it's okay for me to drink, or the message that alcohol, drunk socially, is not only accepted but expected. And we learned through our social relationships, we learned through audio visual and hands on with people and thanks to biopsychosocial.

Risk factors for addiction, the risk factors, their biological factors, unusual early response to the substance use or experience in the development tolerance to alcohol, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, biologically based mood disorders, addiction among biological family members, to look at family, we look at environments, we look at nature and also nurture. We look at things that are going on with the person with the body, psychological, self-esteem, external locus of control, passivity, post-traumatic stress disorders, and so on. So, the body, the mind, and also the environment, ready access to the substance or experience, abusive or neglectful home environment, peer norms, misperception of peer norms, membership and alienated, oppressed or marginalized group and life events, including chronic or acute stressors. So, the body, the mind, the environment, they all connect. They're all overlapping.

So addictive behaviors, process addictions or behaviors known to be addictive because they are mood altering, compulsive gambling, shopping, borrowing, work addiction, exercise, addictive exercisers, muscle dysmorphia, internet addiction, sexual addiction, multiple addictions. The list goes on, and on and on, whatever you may be into. See, it's not just about alcohol or drugs necessarily. It's about all of life, everything around you can become an object or a drug of choice. To the point that we get so into it, we don't realize that we're all in over our heads and the addictive personality sets in the pulse or pathological gambling. Looking at that, as a case study, just for the moment. they surveyed over 2 million Americans that are compulsive or pathological gamblers. Experts believe that compulsive gambling is like a drug addiction. Again, anything and took again When more men than women have gambling problems, so men are more apt to do this. And we could probably get into a lot of the differences between men and women here, but this is what we can see in the data. Also, gambling is on the rise on college campuses, because of online gambling casinos, either in person, brick and mortar, or virtual, and also increasing popularity of poker and other games like it See, as we look at how much we're willing to sacrifice, how much are we willing to give up? That's the main point. Whatever is controlling us, is that drug. Here's a poster or a public service ad back 10 years ago, the average tuition for a four-year public university was $6185. Which is a lot more now. If you gamble lose the average $120 per week for a full year, you'll have spent your entire year's tuition. Now tuitions are higher now than it was 10 years ago. But this gives us a good example. And tuition with at most universities, core CLI, as you know, is free of charge. That's even a huge difference there. But looking at what was happening with what is happening gambling. And forces is just an example. It's pandemic. Because then we go from gambling to shopping, borrowing; compulsive spenders are averaging $23,000 in debt. Because I'm sure that could be conservative in some areas. Compulsive shopping can happen in cycles. It certainly leads to compulsive borrowing. So, they shop more and more, and I don't have enough money, I will borrow more money to get what I need. As well as, I need all this stuff.

There's another addictive behavior called hoarding. What that means is that hoarding is where I need a case of these cups, I need more of these lanterns. Boy, these tables are awesome. I need a whole a whole truckload of these things to invent my house, and pretty soon, and I know of a person. And for the people who need these, or after they have eaten the pizza, they need the pizza box, because they think they need to have the pizza boxes are people who have filled their homes or apartments with these types of things: there will be tables, pizza boxes, cups, or anything else and they think they need them, or clothes, toys, got to have for the kids, you know. They hoard. The hoarding takes over, the stuff becomes the god you're going to do. What is your drug of choice, what was your god of choice. So, this turns compulsive, meaning you can't help it anymore.

So, work addiction, healthy work as this provides a sense of identity develops her strengths, not to try to fix her weaknesses. Maximize your strengths, a means of satisfaction, accomplishment, and mastery of problems because it's all about problem solving. So, we solve problems often when it comes to healthy work, but not where that is controlling us. Because work addiction is characterized by compulsive use of work and persona to fill needs of intimacy, power, success. A major source of American discord and breakup, it often affects those who come from alcoholic or dysfunctional homes. So maybe it isn't alcohol, but it's definitely work or something else. But in this case, work, and work disrupts, work disconnects. Work gets in the way. And as you watch the videos on the dark side, where the dark side, where we saw those examples of pastors as well as political leaders. Their persona got ahead of them. Their Dark Side took over and they were caught in indiscretion.

Here's another poster, signs of work connection, time urgency. And Eisenhower. President Eisenhower said urgent versus the important. What's important is not urgent, what's urgent is not important. But what is as urgent, what is important that we have to determine? But here in work addiction, time, urgency, the need to control, perfectionism and it isn't right so get it right. Got to get it right, got to get perfect. So, there's obsession. They're also difficult. There were relationships, work binges, I'm going to do 20-hour days, three days or five days in a row. Difficulty relaxing, having fun. What's fun? And thankfully, just to be honest, I noticed myself saying that just the other day well, fun. Well, what's fun? Isn't work fun? I get into that trap. Because then I'm involved in so many things. I need to learn how to balance this better. Of course, in this recording, I'm in a busy season. Of course, I always say it's always busy. I need to balance more. We do, we have difficulty relaxing, having fun. We binge with work, we get irritable. We lose and we forget things, memory loss to the mental preoccupation with work. Oh, I forgot to take out the trash. Low self-esteem. And then eventually it leads to health problems. How come? Because we don't sleep well. Or we don't eat right. Work has taken over.

Then there's exercise. Oh, boy, exercise. Got a habit. Now is exercise good? Yes, it is. Again, if that becomes your God, and that takes over you, that's a problem. Because then we use exercise compulsively, to meet needs of intimacy, nurture self-esteem, self-competency. When we don't exercise enough, I won't be thin enough and it won't look good enough. Also with exercising, traditionally, it's about women. But men too, are developing more unhealthy patterns of exercise. More men are abusing steroids and over-exercising. Maybe they're working on those muscles so they can look perfect like those bodybuilders that are there for display. That's the perfect ideal, perhaps in the guy's head. Negative consequences, alienation, injuries from overdoing it, craving it more. 

Internet addiction. Again, the same pattern. But here we're looking at cybersex. Cyber relationship addiction. We're always on Facebook. Got to have it. Got to like it. Got to love it. Got to be that video call, that person at three in the morning. Can't sleep; I got to be there. My notifications? Where are my notifications? Oh, look, I see that. CLI is liking my page. This is great. I got 400 more friends. Cyber relationships, or perceived relationships. Net compulsions inform information overload. on MSN, I'm always looking at the news feed. What's happening with Donald Trump? What's happening with our world around us? I got to know the current events. What are the issues? Keep looking! Or what's happened in the Kardashians, I got to know.

Addiction to interactive games as well. As many as 15% of college students report that internet news and computer games interfere with their academic performance. And I would argue that it's higher. That's conservative, in my opinion. This constantly gets outdated when we look at statistics, but it gives you an idea of how this is pervasive. And we need God's help. Sexual addiction is, and of course, with the internet example cybersex, we're looking at just sex addiction in general, when it comes to people face to face, and also with hardcopy porn and these kinds of things. Is this sexual addiction a confusion? Of course! Internet porn in general, that's probably the main thing, but virtual as well as hardcopy and reality. Sexual addiction is a confusion of the intensity of physical arousal with intimacy. Again, it's a confusion of intensity of physical arousal with intimacy. Sex addicts are incapable of nurturing another, because sex is the object of their affection. Be frequently having episodes of depression and anxiety: I feel angry inside and I'm hurt and in pain, I turn to sex, or I feel so anxious, I don't want what is going to happen tomorrow. I turned to this behavior! They have so high suicide rates because of the whole thing is shame. Sex is created by God for marriage, not for outside of marriage. So, what often the addict will experience is that they are getting into place really ought to be. And God addresses this to Paul in First Corinthians 6 that he says, whereas he is addressing the men run course men and women both, but one from the sexual temptations, as he is addressing the Corinthians because many of them were totally into sex addiction. Oh, really, it was it was an epidemic, a pandemic. So there's high suicide, often there are there are dysfunctional families, or dysfunctional family of origin, that as we look at childhood and so on, as I said before, with other dark sides and addictions, a few discussion questions that come with the slideshow, but rather than really get into it, just to put these questions here minutes was the difference between a bad habit and addiction, get just get thinking about this way or do soft addictions affect friends and family is better or worse for family, friends and family than it then if the addict had a hard addiction? Because there's some addictions that are so subtle. And how do you recognize the bad habit? How do you go about changing it? 

Now pay attention to these questions, they'll be on the quiz for this unit. And we tended to look at what addictions are about. So how addiction affects family and friends. Codependence. As we look at this with the dark sides, a person is addicted to the addict. A person assumes responsibility for meeting the addict’s need and neglects his or her own needs. As we said in the codependency video, if you're not happy, I'm not happy. I'm trying to fix you all the time. Because if I fix you, I feel good. You are my drug, you're my choice. Therefore, the other person becomes the god. Enablers are people who knowingly or unknowingly protect addicts from the natural consequences of their actions. Recently, I was helping a lady who came across a woman who was on the street and this lady came to this other woman on the street and this woman shared, poured her heart out to the lady who was talking to me about the situation and called the lady who was coming to the lady who was talking to me, Howard Jane. And then the woman who she approached call, her Sue. And so Jane notices Sue on the streets, and Jane comes up and says, Hey, how's it going? You're crying because you're in pain? And she says, Yes, I'm homeless, and I'm hooked on whatever drug it was, and then I can't stop and I got kicked out of my house and so on & so forth. And then Jane says to Sue well, okay, I feel a lot of compassion, but didn't know how to help. So, she put Sue up in a hotel for a week. And after she did that, she gives me a call and says, Dr. Mark, should I have done this? I said, just to kind of let her down easy, I said, That was very kind of you. I'm glad you did that. But you know what? It doesn't really help Sue. It doesn't help her whatsoever. And guess what? I got a call the next day by Jane said Yeah, I was with Sue at the hotel last night. Made sure she had some food. Made sure she had some other needs met. And boy, she didn't like what I gave her. Boy, does she have attitude. Man, was she a pain in the neck! I said, Okay. Seems to me that you kind of crossed the line here and enabled her behavior.

Enabling it's too easy to do. We've all done it. Me included. We all need God's help to look at how we can help someone. We're not enabling someone, because enabling does not help poor; how we see this in the definition treatment for recovery and for recovering from addiction. How can we go from here to there? How does it work? Well, intervention plan, which intervention this strategy is a plan process and computation by people who were important to the addict. Its purpose is to allow the addict to see the destructive nature of the. Abstinence is refraining from the addictive behavior, and detoxification is adjustment physically  & cognitively, it means the mind, the brain to being free from the influence of addiction. In other words, the treatment, the help, often my opinion, in the recovery community and mental health community, is that the person who is dealing with the addiction, they need the family and friends to come around them, and sit here on the couch, and their chairs all around, and you've got all the family members here, and they're saying, John, you have a problem. John, as opposed to say from over here says, you just don't understand what you're doing, and so on and so forth, to the point that are the addict, John, in this case, is saying, I didn't even realize! How to open their eyes. Now, if you're thinking about boy, my life, my loved one really could use this, this intervention thing, be careful! It has to be done by professional. I would not recommend the intervention method to be done by just anybody. It has to be guided well by a therapist, licensed person, and perhaps a pastor. But more importantly, I would recommend someone who is licensed by the state, who then is accountable to the state, and of course, to the church to begin with. But you just have that covering given our culture today. And intervention, often, it doesn't work, but it can work. It just depends on the case.

Also looking at treatment, or abstinence. Yes, abstinence is part of the process. But that's not the whole answer. Detoxification happens because of abstinence. That's what the body, as I said before, is saying: Oh, I don't have the caffeine, oh, I got the headache, or, Oh, I don't have the alcohol. Therefore, the body is adjusting back to that state where it was not dependent on the substance, or the mind, mentally, is not dependent on that relationship with that person that was abusing her or him. So, there's that attack. mentally, socially, emotionally, if you've broken off a relationship that's been toxic, we're that person that you've been, you've been the enabler or even the codependent, that addiction to that person; you need to shift and change, where you, yourself, need to get back to who you really are, the person that God has meant for you to be: that goes back to strength, your temperament, and also your calling by God and so forth. So, the detoxification in many different ways. So, intervention, treatment, recovery. And a few questions to think about, do you think treating addiction with virtual reality is a viable form of treating addiction? Or could this type of behavior modification be used to treat other chemical dependencies? And there are many different ways to go out, of course, to looking back, which we'll get here to, is the 12 step process? And what steps are necessary to overcome an addiction? What are the steps? What goes into the whole 12 Step Program approach? And eventually the person like John, who's sitting on that couch, perhaps the intervention, let's say it just doesn't work. Eventually, John or Sue or whoever, they come to the point where they are on their knees, because they can't do it. They realize they are in trouble, jail institutions or death. That's the reality.

So National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, or project and as well as project match. Look it up on Google. Three stage strategies for addiction treatment were studied. First, cognitive behavioral therapy, second motivational psychology, third twelve step programs. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. or CBT as it's called, is where you do that one on one, work with the therapist. And that therapist is guiding the person through. And then sure we've all been there with a counselor or therapist, pretty much the same. And the therapist is helping you work through your thinking, and get rid of the stinking thinking, as well as motivational psychology. Many different activities along with the therapy and different things to change your motivations, and activities to help you go through that, in addition to the 12 step programs, where we took a look at the 12 steps from step one, to surrender. Step two, where God becomes real to you, where you're not God, and that substance is not God. But God, the God of the Bible, is God. For tall steps refer to God's men understand him. And we hear it CLI says, Yes, it's the God of the Bible, period. The Lord Jesus Christ is our God. Amen. And so, the third step, of course, is look at putting everything into Jesus’ care. From Step four, through step seven, is where we deal with our issues directly, as God removes our shortcomings and then to make it right with other people, Step eight, step nine. And then, in September, to look at our image, daily inventory, how am I doing, God helping me, Lord, that daily prayer, it also had a spiritual awakening where we realized that we the alcohol is not God. And God is God, and I am in his control, and that my own and so forth, and then we give back by step 12, or step 12 kicks in, that's where we're giving back to the Lord, giving him everything, and also giving back to society. And as we look here, in this example, when we looked at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, as the project match, and of course, the other organizations that have done similar studies, patients did equally well in each approach. And that focus for treatment selection should be on choosing a program that was competently run. In other words, there are many ways of experiencing recovery, of doing recovery. It begins with God. Of course, prayer always gives a prayer and God's help through one of these strategies or all of the above, to help the person to move forward.

Relapse. What is relapse? Relapse is isolated or complete return to addictive behavior. Whereas prevention requires the addict and significant others to recognize the signs of imminent relapse, and develop a plan for responding to the signs of relapse. Is that a failure to change or lack of lack of desire to stay? Well, relapse is necessary in recovery. There, you're saying to me, to yourself, how can that be necessary? When the reality is, as we work on our recoveries, work on ourselves, as work on concrete and dark sides, and we say you Well, this is not the alcohol, it's work. That's God is my God. But then, after a couple of years of where we've abstained from this, and we've experienced freedom from that addiction, there will be times when we may fall back. But it's been said that every setback is set up for a comeback. So, as we stumble, or relapse, and for some people, it's major, but gets them back into recovery, because of the shock and awe. So that's how it can be necessary. But not always. As I just said, some relapses can be very, very traumatic, major, and so on. So, relapse is that baffling experience in our lives but it goes back to Romans 7. Paul says the things I don't want to do, I do those I hate I do. Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Nothing separates me for the love of God. Nothing. Romans 8 so go back to that promise and that hope to see that neither demons nor principalities or powers or anything created can separate us from love of God. That's truth.

So, when comes to relapse, we need a plan. We need a plan so they'll help us to not go there. Help us to not dive right back in into the gambling, or the cybersex not for our to go to the work. Binging or binge watching of Netflix. We need God's help. So, relapse can be that isolated or complete return to addictive behavior. It reminds me, too, as we reflect on our addictive behavior years ago, that 14 years ago, as we were adopting our Well, now my 14 year old to be 14 May 19, in the month of May, as we're recording now, and, and he was born 2004. And we got to know our birth mother through a relationship through a couple. And this couple introduced us to our birth mother. And the wife of this couple, named Kelly, Kelly had come through recovery, got no words are community recovery, she came on Friday nights. And also, we helped her through a lot of things and from 2003, then into 2004. As we look at addictive behavior, and so on, Krishna was alcohol. And she went through many rehabilitation processes, many, many, we have centers and so on. And finally, we thought, okay, praise God, she is now in a place of freedom. Unfortunately, what we didn't know was that things were not going too well, there were some things that she was falling back into. When we didn't realize she was falling back into the alcohol falling back into that connection, and addiction. So as our son Nathan was born on May 19, that year, and two weeks later, we got the news. Kelly had died. She was 39 years old. And due to alcohol poisoning, they found her dead.

And as I did the funeral, it was a very moving moment, a moment that I'll never forget. Just telling helped us to connect with our birth mother. Kelly was used by God in spite of her issues, her husband, to bring us to a place of redemption, and life. And now I have a son who is about to enter high school this coming fall. But that goes to underscore how relapse can be baffling. Relapse can be destructive. And we need a plan. God's plan has given us through His word. This is the Bible, which we see the principles there and the 12 step program, along with the help of counselors, and so on the steps themselves, there is a plan. However, as I look at our own addictive behavior, the challenge is this. Are you ready to take the step or you're ready to move forward? Are you ready to say, no more? And I need God's help and for God's people as God has designed it that way. I can have victory over myself. Let's move forward to the next video. Enjoy the quiz. I hope you learned a lot in this session.