Hi! I have here an excellent recording of a song by Ringo Starr about substance abuse, and I want to talk about addictions. Looking at addictions, I have been enslaved by an addiction 3 times in the past. The addiction that lasted the longest, not surprisingly, was to cigarettes. I also was addicted to marijuana, and I'm including my hangup on a no-good guy as an addiction, for a total of three. All three of these, by the mercy and grace of God, are a thing of the past.
How did I do it? The first step was admitting within my heart that it was wrong, and admitting that in best possible circumstances, I would like to quit. Actually, before I could even get that far, at times it becomes necessary to pray "God, if this is wrong, show me."
But I want to talk about what a spouse, or a family member should do when they see someone they love going down because of an addiction, whether it be chemical or emotional. I'm sure most of you by now have learned or been advised: Do not nag. The worst thing you can do is to make a victim of addiction feel that you are more stressed and upset about their problem than they are. This only expounds the weight of the burden. A person with an addiction is usually using the substance to hide behind. He or she might be unhappy with themselves or with their lives, and they distract themselves and others from their misery by engaging in an unwise habit.
I want to share how my parents dealt with me in a very magical way when I was a delinquent teenager who only wanted to quit school and hang out with her friends and get high. At first, every day, my parents would yell at me and say "What are you going to do with your life?" But the more they pressured me, the more preoccupied I became with just impressing my friends and fitting in with a bad group of kids. Finally, the differences between my parents and I became so great, that I ran away from home. They found me after a couple of days. But that was a turning point. After I returned home, they became perfectly silent about their desires for me to choose a career. Instead, they supported me as much as they could in what I seemed to like. I remember clearly that I would come home from the place I hung out with my friends at, and often it was very very late at night. When I came in, they always had the refrigerator stocked with all the things I needed to make my favorite sandwich (ham and cheese special). In a short time, my boyfriend and I broke up, and I went to spend the weekend with a close friend. I returned from the weekend with an announcement for my parents: "I want to go to college, and I want to major in Art".
This way in which my parents operated with me, I call "letting it go to keep it". It is actually based on a verse in the Bible,"He who seeks to save his life shall lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake shall find it". Happens to be the verse I first believed. Accept the thought that how you are approaching getting what you want could be wrong. Get on the other side of it. Genuinely try to understand the opposite point of view. If you do this, from my perspective, you have nothing to lose, and everything to gain.
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