You really think you are that important, that some divine entity will stop everything to solve your life’s insignificant problems?

Narcissism and religion do go hand in hand. Why of course God’s interested in me, I’m so damn special!

If you keep anyone busy enough, they won’t have time to do the things they abused. And of course, then end up returning to a boring banal life that caused them to abuse drugs in the first place.

Just me 2 cents, but people (including myself) abuse things because this world is dead boring at the daily macro level. How a person is supposed to enjoy 50+ years of working, coming home, working, coming home, shopping, coming home, working, coming home….without feeling like complete garbage…..that is a miracle. And if you have it (with your mystic belief or not) is a great bonus.

I rich cultural diversity of driving, shopping, spitting out replicates, and that daily anemic cycle…blah…that’s why people get drunk and stoned.

Sometimes it’s hard to know what idea or attitude will spark someone’s ability to overcome addiction. For you, after all the effort you had made, it was an idea from a bible verse. For others, it is something they hear in an AA meeting, or a comment from a friend, or a poem they read. It seems like it can be almost anything – or nothing, for those unfortunate enough not to be able to escape addiction.

It doesn’t seem to me that anything supernatural is involved. I base this on the fact that I know several atheists who struggled with addiction and overcame it without believing in god or magic. I know several Christians who are lifelong addicts who cannot seem to kick their habits despite all the prayers in the world. There just doesn’t seem to be a one-size-fits-all answer to the problem. If there were, nobody who didn’t want to be addicted would still be.

I enjoyed reading your post. As a Christian, I cannot say that I agree with most of it, but I agree that just giving people a quick spout-off of a Bible verse is hardly the correct way to handle dealing with addiction. If anything, it makes the subject feel even more inadequate and helpless than they did before, because it generally does not equip them to handle the situation.

You can’t just say “here’s the answer” with things like addiction, you’ve got to work through it.

That said, I believe there is great power in the scriptures and in the Spirit of God to deliver people from addiction. I have experienced it first-hand. You see, I was an addict. I have been an addict with many different things. I was bulimic (for me it was addiction to food, not so much desire to be thin), I was a sex addict, and addicted to pornography, and I was a smoker. I tried and tried and tried to overcome these things, and was not able to do it, no matter what I did. I prayed through them, I even went to non-christian therapy for a time.

In the end, I was reading my Bible, and I stumbled across a verse in the 8th chapter of Romans that set me free.

“Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, you have no obligation to do what your sinful nature urges you to do. For if you live by its dictates, you will die. But if through the power of the Spirit you put to death the deeds of your sinful nature, you will live.” – Romans 8:12-13

I read these verses and a light went off in my head. I realized that I did not have to smoke, I did not have to look at pornography or masturbate. I had already been set free by the blood of Christ (“For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.” Romans 8:2). I just had to accept my freedom and live in it.

That marked by freedom. Not to say that I didn’t have a couple small relapses shortly thereafter, but God set me free from my addiction. I have been without any of those addictive habits for nearly 3 years now.

Again, I think the short quick response to someone with an addiction is wrong. But from my personal experience, working through the issue with scripture and the Spirit of God as tools and guides in the journey has proven invaluable to my overcoming addiction.

Thanks for listening!

Love,
nate

A lot of us know what it’s like. I hate to disclose personal details
- but I have three family members that have had serious addiction problems, one of whom passed away at 23 years old. One has just come out of rehab (for the third time). It hasn’t stopped me from looking dispassionately at the evidence on addiction treatment.

“It is still the gold standard for recovery and no one with a little knowledge of the subject and an ounce of integrity would dispute that.”

From my research I don’t think AA is the the gold standard at all. I also have two family members who are professionals in drug and alcohol treatment, who claim that CBT is more effective than AA (and they are not atheists like me). I would suggest that they had a little knowledge and quite a lot of integrity.

Actually a very close friend of mine is an alcoholic who just passed the 20-year sobriety mark, so I do know the joy and relief that you describe (she was a totally different person when drinking).

My friend went through AA and is still active as a sponsor and strong supporter of the group. However, she is an atheist. The “higher power” for her was her family and friends who were supporting her.

That “cesspool of sinners” was never my term. I once heard a fundamentalist call it that. So my “mission field” schtick was meant as a rebuttal to that mentality.

That’s all.

“Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a general classification of psychotherapy, and several approaches to CBT fall within this classification, including Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, Cognitive Therapy, Rational Behavior Therapy, Rational Living Therapy, Schema Focused Therapy, and Dialectical Behavior Therapy. Each approach has its own developmental history. The following is a generally accepted accounting of the history of CBT.

The first discrete, intentionally therapeutic approach to CBT to be developed was Rational Emotive Therapy (RET), which was originated by Albert Ellis, Ph.D. in the mid-1950′s. Ellis developed his approach in reaction to his disliking of the in-efficient and in-directive nature of Psychoanalysis. The philosophic origins of RET go back to the Stoic philosophers, including Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. Epictetus wrote in The Enchiridion, “Men are disturbed not by things, but by the view which they take of them.” The modern psychotherapist most influential to the development of RET was Alfred Adler (who developed Individual Psychology). Adler, a neo-Freudian, stated, “I am convinced that a person’s behavior springs from his ideas.” Ellis was also influenced by behaviorists, such as John Dollard, Neal Miller, and Joseph Wolpe, and George Kelly (psychology of personal constructs).

Ellis developed and popularized the ABC model of emotions, and later modified the model to the A-B-C-D-E approach. In the 1990′s Ellis renamed his approach Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy.

In the 1960′s, Aaron Beck, M.D. developed his approach called Cognitive Therapy. Beck’s approach became known for its effective treatment of depression.

Also in the 1960′s Maxie C. Maultsby, Jr., M.D. (a student of Ellis’) developed Rational Behavior Therapy. Maultsby’s contributions were numerous, including his emphasis on client rational self-counseling skills and therapeutic homework. Maultsby’s contributions included his concept of “thought shorthand”, to which he refers as “attitudes”, Rational Emotive Imagery, Rational Self-Analysis, and the Five Criteria for Rational Behavior.

David Burns, M.D. popularized CBT with his 1980′s best-selling book, Feeling Good.

More recently, cognitive-behavioral therapy has been influenced by the work of Aldo Pucci, Psy.D. (Rational Living Therapy), Michael Mahoney, Ph.D., Marsha Linehan, Ph.D., Arthur Freeman, Ed.D.

Copyright, 2008, by the National Association of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapists. ”

So, the Rational Recovery is one of the branches of CBT (an umbrella term encompassing therapies based on changing the way you think about your habits.) Therapists didn’t use the term CBT until the late 80s even though they had been using the theoretical underpinnings by other names. So, strictly speaking, yes, it did come before RR. But it didn’t disappear as a therapy, you suggested. It is still a very popular treatment and considered by many studies to be more effective than AA for many people (particularly those who don’t want an imaginary friend to help them).

Sorry this is hurried. But I think we can see there is a history of helping alcoholics without god. But hell, if you want to hang around in sleazy bars picking up sinners, all power or you.

Excuse any writing – I’m late!!

At least I’m in good company – ATM rocks.

Will deal with accusations later. I just hope that NorEaster’s poor alcoholic friend never disagrees with him.

And one more thing: Why would you ever assume that everyone here would think that “sleazy bars are cesspools of sinners”? (I can just imagine saying to my friends – anyone want to go down to the local cesspool of sinners? Hey, I think they’d be all up for it). That you think it’s your “mission field” is also hilarious. Someone should put a sign up no warn people.

Up in post 9 I said that AA may have a point in allowing a person to transfer psychological problems or baggage that they really aren’t able to deal with. “Alcoholics often can’t take on the full weight of dealing with their addiction, so they transfer some of the weight to “a higher power”.

So, while I don’t believe in a “higher power” I do believe that even an “imaginary friend” can help people with addictions. And I am all for that. So when you say, “She might be Catholic, Lutheran, Wiccan, whatever. I don’t know. And as long as she’s sober, I don’t particularly care. Whatever she’s doing, it’s working.” I’m right with you.