Breaking the Downward Cycle of Addiction

Addiction becomes a habit.  It becomes the answer to fulfilling your needs in life.  You feel pain so you reach for the pills, you feel down so you take something to pick you up, or you feel stress so you do or take something to relieve the stress. 

You train yourself to depend on the chemicals to give you a good time, to stop the pain, to mask the hurt, to escape your problems. In reality, you cannot have a good time or feel good without them.  It is on.  Now you have  begun the downward cycle.  Each time you use you travel further downward in the cycle of addiction.  You seek the initial feeling you had, but it becomes impossible to find.  You continue using and the highs are less high, but the lows are lower.  You start having problems at work and at home.  Your finances are a wreck.  Your morality has led you to a place of little self worth and respect.  You wake up each morning with a desire to drink or take drugs. 

Proverbs 23:35 describes you:  They have stricken me, shalt thou say, and I was not sick; they have beaten me, and I felt it not: when shall I awake?  I will seek it yet again

The  first step to breaking this downward cycle of addiction is to admit you have a problem.  You must start believing and speaking the truth.  As long as you believe you can hide your addiction or live with your addiction, you will continue with your addiction.  This is why the majority of addicts only seek help only after they have reached the bottom. 

The second step to breaking the downward cycle of addiction is to understand you not only have a drug or alcohol problem, but also life problems and belief problems.  Simply abstaining will leave you miserable.  Your self-image is in the dumps.  You have not learned or have forgotten how to live responsibly.  With your substance withheld from you, you no longer have a way to cope with your problems. For there to be success in breaking the downward cycle of addiction, you will need to learn how to live life and how to cope with life and its problems. 

The third step to breaking the downward cycle of addiction is realizing you do not just have personal problems, but you also have problems with your family and community.  Your addictions have affected every person who has ever had a meaningful relationship with you.  Relationships need to be restored, and wrongs need to be made right.

The fourth step to breaking the downward cycle of addiction is realizing your problem is not just rooted in the physical.  Your problem is more than just physical, it is also mental, emotional, and Spiritual!  I personally believe the latter is the most important.  The goal of most programs is sobriety, but that goal is insufficient.  The goal must be to teach people how to know the truth of God's Word and how to live with the blessing of God upon their lives.  This is why I love RU and believe it has had the success it has had.  RU teaches you how to live a life filled with God's Spirit and filled with God's blessing. 

John 8:32 (KJV) ³² And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.