Addiction

The voices of addiction are many, powerful and disturbing. Probably 10% or more of the population of the United States has a serious drug or alcohol problem, and likely half or more are affected by addiction, as friends, co-workers or relatives of an addict, or through another form of addiction. There are bound to be many people in this congregation affected by addiction.

Sometimes it is hard to draw the line between addiction and simple bad habits or indulgent behavior (the addicted play games with that line all the time), but there is little doubt that addiction is real, and for those in its grip, it can be a deadly disease. Addiction is more than just a habit or dependency. You could say I’m dependent on food and water, and I need a fix of oxygen at least once a minute. But these dependencies are life-giving and necessary. Addiction takes substances or behaviors that go beyond what we need and treats them as if they were necessary, turning them into destructive compulsions. The result can be wasted life energy, broken relationships, lost jobs, financial and emotional distress, ruined health, and even death. There are many focal points of addiction, from drug and alcohol abuse to compulsive gambling, eating disorders, compulsive sexual behaviors, and even addictive behaviors around shopping, work, computers, thrill seeking, and religion. Some would question whether all of these categories should be called addiction, but whatever name you use, these patterns of behavior have caused untold suffering for countless people. Probably nothing illustrates the Buddhist idea that desire leads to suffering more than addiction.

Why do we do this to ourselves? That is something most people with addictions would very much like to know. One of the most baffling characteristics of addiction, perhaps a defining characteristic, is that when addicted we find ourselves acting against our own will, often doing the very things we have promised ourselves or others we will not do. In addiction we have a double mind, which often leads to a double life. Sometimes we can appear to be functioning just fine, even as addiction eats away large portions of our lives. Eventually, if it progresses, our lives become unmanageable and the consequences can be dire.

It is easy to write off addiction as a matter of bad choices, weak will, or immorality. But it isn’t that simple. First of all, many activities that can become an addiction are not inherently bad. Food and sex are normal, desirable parts of our lives, but they can become the subject of debilitating obsessions or addictions. Many pleasurable indulgences are harmless in moderation, but moderation is exactly what people with addictions have trouble managing. Even useful parts of our lives such as work or exercise can develop into compulsions that crowd out other parts of our lives and damage relationships.

As Unitarian Universalists, we don’t believe you will be punished in hell for anything you do, although addiction can turn life into a hell on earth. Some behaviors are always wrong because they are abusive to others, but we don’t generally label specific behaviors as sinful. In fact, religious moralizing often just makes addiction worse. There is usually so much shame already present in addiction that the threat of more shaming and judgment or of a demand for religious conversion in order to be accepted just makes the process of coming clean that much harder. The reason to take addiction seriously is because of the misery it brings to people who are addicted, their families, and others in their lives. Compassion and caring are the reasons to confront addiction, not judgment or disgust.

I believe all of us have some capacity for addictive behavior; none of us is immune. But there are also differences, and some people may be genetically or psychologically predisposed to addiction. There are theories that certain forms of brain chemistry relating to pleasure and instinct cause the primitive parts of our brains to search for a stimulus to raise low dopamine levels and then demand that stimulus again and again. Under some of these theories addiction is not so much the disease itself as it is a symptom of an underlying brain condition.

In some cases different forms of mental illness may interact with addictive behavior. Depression is common in people with addictions, and many of the ritualistic behaviors of obsessive compulsive disorders resemble addiction, even if the underlying cause is different. There are prescription drugs that can help with some of these conditions, and drugs that block the pleasure effect of alcohol do exist, but so far drug treatments have been of limited value in treating most addictions. I’m not qualified to judge the science, but it seems clear that there is plenty of room for more study and learning about our brains and the process of addiction.

In any case, it appears that once exposed to an addictive stimulus, our brains and thought patterns are affected. Often it takes more and more of the stimulus to have the same effect. Some drugs or chemicals are more potent than others in forming an addiction, but even behaviors with no substances involved at all can follow a similar pattern. The brain of an addict will light up differently than the brain of someone not addicted when exposed to the same stimulus, whether a drug, a sexual image, or an opportunity to gamble. This may explain why moderation is so difficult for people who are addicted, and why total abstinence is often the only way out.
From my own experience, I know there is a difference. I drink very little alcohol, but when I do, I have no trouble stopping. I don’t even like the feel of an alcohol buzz. When I’m not drinking, I don’t think about it, and I certainly don’t make plans around when and where there will be alcohol. But if I experienced the kind of craving that alcoholics report, or the kind of compulsion that seems to well up from below conscious thought, I would probably be a raging drunk. There’s no room for self-righteousness around addiction.

If I want to glimpse an understanding of addiction, a better place for me to look is one of my personal demons: computer games. Don’t laugh. Twelve years ago, I lost an entire day of work to repeated games of Tetris, and that night I had dreams of slowly falling blocks of different shapes and colors. I’ve never played Tetris since, but I’ve had flings with minesweeper, computer pinball, hearts, and most of all Free Cell. I don’t obsess about computer games or make plans for when I can play them, but I have certainly spent more time on a game than I intended, and I have hastily turned off a game when someone walked into the room. For me, setting intentional boundaries or, if necessary, taking the offending game off of my computer does the trick, but there are always other computers with other games. I was amazed to find that just working on this sermon, I felt urges to play computer games I haven’t thought about in a long time, and in a week with no time to spare, I spent a full hour playing spider solitaire, a game I don’t even like very much. Time to set the boundaries again. I’m lucky if I can, because in serious cases of addiction even our best attempts to set boundaries often fail.

How do we know when addiction is a problem for us or for others in our lives? The first question is whether a habit or behavior is causing problems in our lives, hurting our relationships, our finances, our jobs, or anything else. But that question is not enough, because addicts are often in denial about the effects of their addictions on themselves and others, and some addictions can build for a long time before the outward effects become apparent. Other questions include these: Are there behaviors you hide from other people, including those closest to you? There is almost always some form of double life in addiction, and as it progresses, simple hiding is supplemented by active lies and strategies to conceal or minimize the addiction. Are there behaviors you obsess about or plan your time, friendships, travel or daily activities around? Are there behaviors you’ve tried to stop, even vowed or promised to stop, but you’ve done it again anyway? Does the thought of quitting forever trigger alarm, anxiety or despair? Do you secretly curse yourself, while outwardly blaming others for your problems? Have other people suggested you might have a problem, which you resent, because you feel you have it under control? Do you know your life is getting out of control, and you’re scared about what may happen next?

As addiction progresses, it can be harder to prevent damage or hide what is going on. There may be fewer highs and deeper lows, sometimes with depression, recklessness or suicidal thoughts. Even when trying to stop, relapses can happen for the most trivial of reasons, or seemingly for no reason at all. Even to the end, the addictive mind is a master of excuses, rationalization, and misdirection. The addicted person may feel quite bewildered at his or her own behavior.

For the family and friends of an addict, it can be even harder to figure out what is going on, since deception and confusion are part of the disease. You may notice changes in the behavior of the person in question, some obvious, some subtle. There may be increased time or money unaccounted for, anger at questions, justification or excuses, and signs of hiding. There may be inexplicable arguments and changes in sex lives, even when the addiction is not about sex. You may find yourself adapting to or covering up for the addiction. If you have had fantasies about the death of the addicted person, you would not be the first. And even when we desperately wish for the recovery of a loved one, we must also be prepared to do what is necessary for the protection and well-being of ourselves and our children.

So far I’ve talked about addiction as if it were a single phenomenon, and in some ways it is, but it also helps to be aware of the differences among various types of addiction. Drug and alcohol addiction are complicated by chemical dependency and the symptoms of withdrawal. Eating disorders are complicated by the fact that we can never totally abstain from eating. A woman recovering from bulimia wrote, “with Food you have to let that "Tiger" out of its cage three times a day and pet "It", then re-cage It.” Workaholism or compulsive exercise or shopping are also examples where total abstinence does not work, which is very challenging.

Sexual addictions, and there are several types, are complicated by the psychological depth of the sex drive and by the shame and confusion so many people have about sexuality: What is normal? What is acceptable? I am glad that we value freedom and acceptance in human sexuality more than most traditions, but addiction is anything but freedom. In the case of pedophilia or sexual abuse, there are also legal complications, since mandatory reporting requirements override confidentiality when someone is at risk, especially a child. Illegal drugs or any other illegal behaviors make the light of honesty even more fearful.

In contrast, the challenge for some addictions is the ease of access, such as with over-the-counter drugs, internet pornography, food, alcohol, and even computer games. There are many more compulsive gamblers today than there were thirty years ago because legal gambling is so much more available.

Social context does matter for some addictions. Some addictions are easier to act out by people living alone, or in urban settings. Alcohol is seemingly everywhere in our society (and by the way, if we serve alcohol, it is always important to have a good alternative). It doesn’t help compulsive shoppers that we live in a highly addictive consumer society. Religious conversion may seem like the ideal solution to addiction in some segments of society, and I certainly don’t want to denigrate the source of anyone’s recovery, but to some people these conversions may look more like trying to replace one addiction with another. Religious extremism may not seem like an addiction, but when it leads to alienated relationships or disasters such as Jonestown, it can have similar results.

Nicotine is one of the most addictive drugs around, but when smoking was more socially accepted and its health dangers were less known, few people thought of it as an addiction, since it does not impair mental functioning. Some people argue that marijuana would be less of a problem if it were legal, since it is not very chemically addictive. Now, if caffeine were suddenly illegal, we would have quite a situation on our hands. Caffeine doesn’t create significant problems for most people, of course, although I actually knew a person who had to go into detox after drinking forty cups of coffee a day. It’s true. Addiction can take many different forms, but whatever form it takes, legal or not, it tends to demand its way, destroying lives in its wake.

Some of us might think we have some bad habits, but they aren’t as bad as these awful scenarios, so it can’t be addiction. There is certainly a continuum from minor habits to full-blown addiction. Not everything we keep private, not everything we enjoy, not everything that takes a lot of our time is an addiction, and not every addiction includes all the features that addiction can have. But if we have any of these problems, does it really matter what we call them? Why wait until our problems get totally out of control and “hit bottom” before we do anything about them? And whether truly addicted or not, what can we do?

The good news is, there is help and hope. Addiction is a cunning disease that takes many people to their graves, but millions of people do recover from addiction. The most widespread approach is twelve-step programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous. We now have an AA group and an Al-Anon group, for families of alcoholics, here at JUC, led by Terry and Fran Thorpe. There is an eating disorders group that rents space here, too. There is information on the web and in bookstores, there are many treatment centers, and any minister or therapist should be able to help you find resources on anything from gambling to sexual addiction.

Twelve-step programs are primarily spiritual programs of ongoing recovery. I think much of what they do would be spiritually powerful even for people without an addiction: taking a fearless moral inventory of our lives, being truly and fully honest with ourselves and someone else, and making amends when possible to anyone we may have harmed. Unitarian Universalism calls us to this kind of discipline of honesty and caring for others as well as ourselves.

Some people, especially some UUs, struggle with the twelve-steps concept of turning our lives over to a higher power, often understood as a loving God who has a will for our lives. It is a profound experience for some people. But that conception of God is not required or necessary; the higher power could simply be truth or reality, or even the recovery group itself.

The key is that recovery can only begin with admission that we have a problem, and with an intentional choice to end the addictive behavior. Addiction may overwhelm will power as we normally understand it, but a choice is still necessary. The one requirement to be in an AA group is to have a desire to stop drinking, and the people there have to choose to go, or at least choose whether to take it seriously, if sent by an intervention, court mandate or recovery clinic. For most addictions, recovery works best when we don’t go it alone, when we have support and the benefit of caring accountability to others. These groups help provide that support.

It is true that there are other approaches, and a good number of people do escape addiction outside of twelve-step programs. I care less about defending any method than I do about real recovery, however it happens. There are methods that aim for moderation, even though it is what most truly addicted people find impossible. There is a method called Rational Recovery that claims to be incompatible with twelve-step programs, but I have heard some of its concepts used by people within those programs. It undergirds a personal commitment to permanent abstinence with recognition and objectification of the Addictive Voice, the cunning Beast that will say anything to open the door to future indulgence. Addiction always creates a double mind, and we have to decide which mind we will claim as our own.

No matter what your situation, you are not alone. Others have trod the same path. If you are truly free of addiction, count your blessings, although you almost certainly know someone touched by addiction. If you or someone you love may be addicted, seek help—and that includes family members. There are people who care about you! If we can be freed from our addictions and obsessions, we can be freed to turn more of our energy outward, to help one another. This is one of the lessons of the twelfth step, that in helping others we also help ourselves.

This healing energy is badly needed in a society that fosters addiction, where as a whole society we are addicted to consumption, to oil in particular, to exploitation and to violence. Even with a leader who named part of that addiction, we are currently acting it all out with the ferocity of a raging junkie or alcoholic.

Addiction destroys our wholeness and integrity, as a society and individually. It cuts us off from healthy relationship and community, from better opportunities, from spiritual growth, and from our own best selves. But we can get all of that back! Addiction is best overcome with humble, unflinching honesty, with compassionate relationship, and with a desire for serenity, courage and wisdom. The voices of addiction are many, but some of them speak of hope. May it be so.