Over the years, we have had many members of our church who have become addicted to drugs.  In the gay male community, in the bar and club scene, in the young adult community, in the Hollywood/West Hollywood area drug use is rampant.  And with the use of drugs comes addiction.

I remember the story of one member of our church who was addicted to drugs.  This guy’s addiction led him to become totally out of control.  Before he “crashed and burned” he was spending $10,000 a month (yes, that’s “ten thousand dollars a month!”), and most of it was for drugs.  For those who don’t know, $10,000 a month is outrageous even for an addict.  This person wasn’t actually spending all that money on himself; he was “friending” an awful lot of people.  The more people he bought drugs for, the more “friends” he had.  This went on for quite a while.  His using and his buying for “friends” just kept getting worse and worse.  He’d try to stop by going to 12 step meetings but would regularly “slip” and begin using again.  He entered a residential medical program to try and regain control of his life but once he got out, he “slipped” again.  Finally he literally spent every cent he had and ended up destitute and on the streets.  He entered one more rehab program, and that was the last I ever heard from him.

Unfortunately, this person is not the only person in our church who has gone through such an experience.  As I’ve journeyed with so many who have become addicted to drugs, I’ve often thought about how and why people become addicted.  Even more confounding to me is how “low” so many people go before they “hit bottom.”  Unfortunately, many people are never able to overcome their addition and for them “their bottom” is death.

In the last hundred years or so, we’ve learned a lot about addiction and addictive behavior.  In the early 1900’s addiction was pretty much seen as a “moral” issue.  It was viewed as a “human weakness.”  At that time, most addiction was from abusing alcohol.  The “moral” reasoning was you were either “weak” or “sinful.”  By the mid-to late 1900’s more and more research was being done and medical discovery led us to understand addiction as an “illness.”  But most recently, especially in the last decade, through the use of brain imaging, we’re beginning to understand more fully the neurological and biological effects of drugs on both the voluntary and involuntary portions of the human brain.  The more I learn about addiction and brain chemistry the more overwhelmed I become.

In preparing for this Sunday’s sermon I met with a dear and trusted friend who is one of the leading M.D. – Psychiatrists in the state of California.  I’ll share with you more of what I learned from him on Sunday, but one of the things that I found really helpful was his definition of what addiction is.  He said,

“Addiction is depending on something for a benefit but unfortunately along with the benefit, it hurts you.  We don’t want to give up the benefit, so we keep getting hurt.”

He also said, “Addiction is like taking out a loan instead of a grant on the brain’s reserves.   A grant is something given to you.  A loan has to be paid back later.”

In the end, much of the benefit we want is available naturally within us (within our brain).  Addictive substances and stimulants are indeed a way of getting high quickly but they come with a terrible price to pay, i.e. “doing it this way is hurtful and harmful to us.”  So is there a better way?

What if most of what we wanted out of life was available to us “naturally” or “organically” maybe even within our own brains?   Is there a way to gain the benefit without “hurting” ourselves?  There are two teachings in the Scriptures which point us in that direction.  One is Moses teaching to the people of God when they are just about at “their bottom.”  After wandering in the desert for a lifetime, they have near had it and Moses offers these words from God:  “Today I have set before you life and success, or death and disaster…Choose life so that you and your descendants may live.”

And Jesus teaching about the meaning of life in God’s presence/consciousness says, “Look here friends.  I have come that you may have life and have it [life] in all its fullness.”  Through the resurrection God raises us up into this fullness of life.  I think there are healthier choices we can make that are more life affirming than the use of drugs or artificial stimulants.  I’ll share more of these thoughts with you on Sunday.

Easter Blessings,

Dan

This Sunday’s Scriptures

Deuteronomy 30: 15-30

Moses teaches about the freedom God gives us and the challenge to make responsible choices for our lives.

Today I have set before you life and success, or death and disaster.  For today I command you to love the Holy One, your God, to follow God’s ways and keep God’s commandments, laws and customs.  If you do, you will live and increase, and God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess.  But if your hearts stray and you do not listen to me, if you let yourself be drawn into the worship of other gods, and serve them, I tell you today, you will not survive.  You will not live long in the land which you are now crossing the Jordan to enter and occupy.

I call heaven and earth to witness against you today:  I set before you life or death, blessing or curse.  Choose life, then, so that you and your descendants may live, by loving your God, by obeying God’s voice and by clinging to God.  For that will mean life for you, a long life in the land which God swore to give to your descendants Sarah and Abraham, Rebecca and Isaac, and Leah and Rachel and Jacob.

John 10: 10-15

Jesus said, “I came that you might have life and have it to the full.”

Jesus said: I came that you might have life and have it to the full.

I am the good shepherd.  A good shepherd would die for the sheep.  The hired hand, who is neither the shepherd nor the owner of the sheep, catches sight of a wolf coming and runs away, leaving the sheep to be scattered or snatched by the wolf.  That’s because the hired hand works only for pay and has no concern for the sheep.

I am the good shepherd.

I know my sheep and my sheep know me, in the same way God knows me and I know God – and for these sheep I will lay down my life.

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