The seeds of addiction are in every one of us.
Does that statement ring true to you or are you skeptical? I have to admit that when I first heard it, I wasn’t so much skeptical as I was humbled. Like most people, when I thought about addiction, I immediately thought about drugs, alcohol, pornography and other dependencies. The truth is, we all have things we “use” to make us feel better or to avoid having to deal with the pain in our lives.
What do you “use”?
For me, sometimes it’s immersing myself in a book or project, or maybe going shopping at a time when it’s not financially wise to do so. Maybe for you it’s the next vacation, a fitness workout or a box of chocolate. It’s funny how even though we know these things only give temporary relief, we still go back to them time and again. But that’s what addiction is. We falsely believe that what we “use” is something we can count on or control when everything else around us feels out of control.
Letting Go
I have to thank Mark Alverson, the Director of our Overcomers addiction recovery program, for enlightening me about the addiction seeds in all of us. We were interviewed on the Peggy Denny Show recently, and Mark had the opportunity to talk about how Miracle Hill helps men and women deal with their hurts instead of trying to “use” fleeting methods to cover them up temporarily. He said the men at Overcomers go through a 12-step, gospel-centered program that focuses on understanding who Jesus is, how we can have a relationship with Him, and how He sets us free from the need to control.
Ryan Duerk, a graduate of the Overcomers program, now works as a counselor there and regularly helps men come to grips with the addictions that are holding them in bondage. He takes the men to the top of a parking garage in downtown Greenville that overlooks a graveyard and asks them to visualize the choices before them. On the one side is the correctional institution; on the other is government housing. In the middle is death. You and I may not be looking at a graveyard today, but what seeds are growing in our lives?
Ryan will share his testimony at the upcoming Greenville fundraising banquet on March 18th. I encourage you to come hear his story. You can register for the banquet by clicking here. And if you’d like to see the Peggy Denny Show interview, it will be aired on Channel 16 on March 5th at 1 p.m.
