Admitting I Can’t Manage My Way Out of Addiction
Some Personal Reflections on Step One:
Admitting I Can’t Manage My Way Out of Addiction
May 22, 2009 – originally shared at the HtH online meeting
I could begin by sharing on my stubborn resistance to admitting that my life is “unmanageable,” as Step One asks of me.
My insistence on having to contribute some part to the triumph over my addiction always makes me think of Korihor–the anti-Christ–who preached that men prosper by “management of the creature” (Alma 30:17). Any success I’ve ever obtained by trying to manage my addictive behavior, trying to focus on it, decide about it, etc. has always failed me sooner or later. Oh, I’ve avoided acting out for a while, but that wasn’t the same thing as having the urge to act out taken away. Or even deeper yet, the FEAR of the urge to act out has never left me.
Most recently, the Lord has led me through several years of sitting still and letting Him demonstrate for me His degree of patience and longsuffering and kindness toward me, even in my addictive behaviors. I think I am finally understanding that it isn’t just the behaviors that He was intending, all along, to heal me of, but even more eternally important–it was my feelings of lifelong terror and obsession toward my weaknesses.
In other words, He has not only required me, this time around, to turn to Him to remove my weaknesses, but He’s also required me to sit still (and forego outward change) and instead sink deep into the reasons (character deficits in me) that He had for giving me these weaknesses to begin with (Ether12:27).
Always in the past (these 20+ years of knowing the steps and falteringly applying them), I came to Him in a sense of urgency about my addiction, filled with anxiety and impatience, desperate for Him to give me the power to manage this “creature” that I am and to keep this evil disposition of mine toward my addiction in check. And He gave me what I asked for–all kinds external checks and controls–several times, and I lost lots of weight and appeared all wonderfully healed. Everyone that wanted outward “healing,” (weight loss) defined me as their latest hope.
But, still harboring deep in my character were deficits and spiritual immaturities like impatience and judgmentalness toward myself (and others–though I pretended I was patient and accepting of them). I also suffered from a huge lack of humility that manifest itself in a deep lust for others appreciation and admiration of me.
Today, the Light of His Spirit keeps growing stronger and stronger in my mind and heart—the at-one-ment keeps becoming more and more effective in my life, and I am watching myself lose all obsession towards my previous addictions. And they are losing their hold on me (Satan is losing his hold through them.) Every morning feels like Christmas—and the one gift given new every day is the gift of my delivered, liberated self. I have no idea how many years in mortality I have left to rejoice in this state of newness of life in Christ, but it doesn’t matter. Just one day lived in His Spirit–in conscious contact with His counsel and comfort is as sweet as a thousand years.
