Grace & Addiction: chocolate and religion.

What are you addicted to? Perhaps I should ask, what limits your human freedom? What diminishes your spirit? I am reading Gerald May’s Addiction & Grace. May says, "Addiction is any compulsive, habitual behavior that limits the freedom of human desire. It is caused by the attachment, or nailing, of desire to specific objects."

There is more to addiction than just to a substance. Some folks are addicted to being right? Have you ever met someone who is ALWAYS right and can never be wrong? They are addicted to being right because it limits their freedom of human desire. They get a "fix" from being right. The same feelings of superiority as from cocaine are triggered. Some are addicted to approval and will go to any length to obtain one’s approval. I think of the person at work who is so addicted to his/her superior’s approval he will shove you in front of a bus to make himself look good and to gain the boss’s approval. Have you ever met someone like this?

May says that no addiction is good and no attachment is beneficial. Sure alcohol may be more destructive than chocolate in degrees, but regardless they impede human freedom and diminish the human spirit.

The list is huge: anger, church, being nice, being proper, being "just Christian-enough" control, guilt, performance, competition, status, work, worthiness and numerous others. There are also those aversion addictions such as our repulsions and prejudices to airplanes or anchovies.

Some could include being repulsed by people of different beliefs, class, culture, politics, race, religion, and gender. Ever met a bigot? That is, one who is strongly partial to one's own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ.

May says that there is always at some level at which we choose freely to turn to God or turn a way from God, to seek grace or avoid it, to be willing for our attachments to be lightened or to hold onto them. We will never really turn to God in loving openness as long as we are handling things well enough by ourselves.

I need to look deep within and examine if something impedes my freedom as a human or diminishes my spirit. Addiction in any form attempts to take my life and put me in bondage. Scripture teaches that Jesus said that he came to give us life and set us free. What takes my life and destroys my freedom? May I have the courage and willingness to turn to God, seek grace, and loosen my grip.