I am an addict

Hello.  My name is Josh and I am an addict.

Man it feels good to say that.  Give it a try and see how you feel. After all, we are all addicts... right?

In modern day terms, ‘addiction’ is used to describe what the biblical text calls ‘sin’ and what Christians in the Middle Ages called ‘passions’ or ‘attachments’.  Alcoholics and drug users exhibit the visible form of addiction, but the reality is - we are all addicted.  We are habituated to our way of thinking and doing and how we process our reality. Essentially, we are addicted to our ego.

As a society we are addicted because we agree to be compulsive and obsessed - Alberta’s addiction to oil, America’s addiction to war, government’s addiction to empire, the church’s addiction to absolutes, the poor person’s addiction to victimhood, the rich person’s addiction to entitlement.  As my friend Nic says, “[we all have] a deeper reality which needs to be addressed and named… brokenness.”

I am not an alcoholic but I am an addict.  I am addicted to myself, my own pattern of thinking, my own reason and logic and, in a way, my insecurities and fears. I am addicted to self-indulgence, control and willpower. I am addicted to the self-image I manufacture.  As Thomas Merton would put it, I am addicted to my ‘false-self”.   There must be a way to break free of these self-made chains, but as one of my heroes, Albert Einstein, said, “No problem can be solved by the same consciousness that caused the problem in the first place.”  I need a transformed consciousness.

In Alcoholics Anonymous, Step One of the Twelve Steps is: “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.”

In this statement is more than meets the eye. Is the admission of addiction and, therefore, powerlessness, the first step to overcoming it? Our society often looks at the visibly addicted with judgement and condemnation, as if people who struggle this way are lesser than those who don't.  Jesus and other wisdom teachers say something different.  It seems that people who fail to do the ‘right’ thing are often those who break through into a new enlightened consciousness of compassion and contentment.  It seems that until your own resources fail you and you're truly powerless, only then can you begin the journey of discovering your ‘true-self.'

The path towards true transformation, healing and salvation is through powerlessness; dying to the false-self, letting go and unlearning, and reveling “in this cosmic economy of Grace.” (Richard Rohr)

What are you powerless towards?

- Josh