One of the things we got to really be careful about is ideologies or fads or agendas that leave us feeling like, oh, I know what your problem is, right? Your problem is you have a demon or your problem is idols of the heart of your problem is your childhood pain, or your problem is an undisciplined lifestyle. Any of those things potentially could be a factor.
I'm not dismissing any of those categories, but I'm just saying let's be more curious about people's experience and not put people in boxes. All right, well, Michael, welcome back to the podcast. We had you on, I don't know, 4 or 5 years ago. So it's been a minute and I'm so glad it worked to do this again. You're a counselor, and you do different teaching and speaking in churches and things as well.
And we're to talk about kind of a bleak topic, I guess, something that may be a bit multifaceted, and I'm sure there's a lot of opinions, but I know you have some experience in this, in this world. Through your work. And, I think you'd have something to contribute for our audience. And that's the topic of addiction. So let's let's just jump right in and start with what are some of the fundamentals, what are some basics that we should keep in mind about addiction as a whole.
And then if you want to narrow it in a bit from there, and we'll just take it from there. Yeah. So you could think of addiction as a bad habit on steroids if you want sort of a rough pop culture version. Yeah. An addiction is anything that a person does habitually that overpowers them or is hard to stop. That would be one way of thinking about it. I think we should think broadly about addiction.
I think, you know, we tend to think of it as it's drugs or alcohol, but, you know, you can be addicted to work, you can be addicted to gambling, you can be addicted to video games. I think some people are addicted to anger. You can be addicted to the news cycle. Really, anything that we turn to to distract from our emotional pain, our distress, and it becomes, more powerful than we are, takes over. The human will. So really, I think we're looking at something really broad.
You're describing something that sounds almost like coping in a way, using it to cope with something very much so, yeah. Do you want to narrow this in a bit? Addiction. This is like a whole family of of things, of issues. But, yeah. Do you want to get a bit more specific? So what I work with primarily is pornography addiction. Which sadly is an epidemic in our circles as well as elsewhere. yeah. So this is, this is a, this is a challenge here for sure with within our world.
That I think that's pretty obvious. Let's start with some of the roots. What would you say are causes. What have you seen in your experience working with this. And so forth. so first of all I love the way you phrase that use the word roots. Because so often when people talk about these things really any kind of emotional struggle we often talk about the root cause. I, I've heard this often. What is the root cause. We need to find the root cause.
And I think roots plural is a much better way to think about it. So a big word that I learned in college, multi causality. I don't know if that's a word most people use or not, but I think that's really a good word for multiple causes. And I think that's much more accurate, much more helpful. So what are some of the roots. I think one of the biggest ones, if there's a taproot, it's quite possibly emotional distress that a person has not learned to deal with in a healthy way.
The absence of healthy coping skills, you know, so a very common story is a child, a young person who grows up in a dysfunctional family or has been subjected to trauma or for some reason had chronic anxiety, whatever it might be, and didn't have healthy ways to deal with that. And early on is exposed to, for example, pornography and turns to that to escape, to medicate, etc.. Now that's not the only cause. And that isn't always the story.
Everybody's story is different, but that's a very common story. and that could happen for any number of types of addiction. I'm assuming totally yeah. I mean, so one of the things we noticed is the pattern is so often the same, whether it's sexual addiction, alcohol addiction, there are obviously things about each type of addiction that are unique. But yeah, same pattern very often.
So when we think about addiction oftentimes it's really easy to, oh we hear someone struggling with that or is addicted to this. Whatever. And we can say oh why don't they just stop. I mean you know it's like come on to get it together etc., etc.. Any number of phrases that are used against people that are, yeah, whatever the case may be, what's some of the issues with that attitude and maybe what are some better ways of engaging with the situation.
Yeah. So. I think that's a great opportunity to introspect, to think about one's own relationship with God. And and just to ask the question now, am I really do I really have it so together myself? Am I really, is there nothing about myself that I wish was different? And whatever that thing is thing X in my life. So maybe thing X isn’t alcohol or pornography, but whatever my growth area is, why don't I just change, right? So I think that could be a good place to start.
Is just personal reflection. Ouch! The other thing is, I mean, so to reflect biblically. Romans chapter seven. I do the things that I hate. I don't do the things that I want to do. I know the law of God. Right? So often we think that mere agreement, mere notional assent, if you know what to do, there's sort of this humanistic idea that that if people were just educated better. Right. If we would just if you would just knew the facts.
And I think history shows that, you know, that's not how it works. You know, by the law is the knowledge of sin. We have that experiment we were given, you know, God amply demonstrate that that human nature is, is more flawed than that. But, yeah, anyone who struggles to understand, to appreciate how difficult this can be really should just read Romans chapter seven until they have it memorized. And then, of course, let's read Romans chapter eight. Let's not stop reading.
Let's, let's hear about the power of the spirit as well. But you know, to take it to another level. People can be overwhelmed by their desires, by habits, in their bodies, by nervous systems that have been habituated to addictive activities. And we don't have as much control over ourselves as we often think we do. And so someone who's been addicted, why don't they just change, well they're wading upstream? They have neural pathways, overwhelming desires. Withdrawal symptoms.
I remember when I used to work in prison talking to a man who he was telling me how he overcame his addiction to some kind of drug. I forget what the drug was. And he said he went to his friend and said, I need to do detox. Can you put me up? His friend had a room for him. He stayed in the room. His friend locked the door at his request and he told him, now don't let me out of this room until I'm over it. And no matter what I say, don't let me out.
It wasn't long before he was banging on the door and begging to let him out. Give me, give me some. You know, he wanted the drug and cussing at his friend, you know. But his friend was true to his word. He didn't let him out. And what? What this guy said was the hardest thing was the withdrawal symptoms, the intense physical pain that I experienced because my body was craving the drug. And so now obviously every addiction doesn't come with that.
But but in many cases, there's incredible backlash that a person has to deal with from their symptoms, from their system. Right. Another thing you often hear is once a person starts saying no to the addiction, the craving, it just it comes back, it comes back, it comes back. And and there's this feeling that I'll never be able to get over this. I'll never be able to beat this because it just keeps coming back. Now that's not true. There is a way to get over it, and there is a way to beat it.
But I just think we need to appreciate the strong headwinds that come against the person who tries to resist the addiction. you're describing things that sounds not just, oh just make a decision in your mind. You're talking biology like we are more than our minds. You know it's not like our our bodies are more than just a carrier to get our mind around it, you know, so to speak. Right. And but that's so easy to forget, I guess.
Or maybe forget is the wrong word, but just you're describing things that are saying, you know, the body gets a say in this, too, right? Totally. Yes. I think that that many Christians need to discover that they have bodies. That's, that I think you I think you're a pretty profound turf right there. Actually, I think you really are onto something that maybe we've forgotten. We've become all ethereal, and it's just about our spirits floating around in you or something. You know what I mean?
And forget that you have body and it has a say. I guess I don't. And again, you know, this is out of my wheelhouse. I maybe I'm speculating in the wrong territory, but, I yeah, I guess how do we keep that in mind? You know what I mean? Like, how do we remember this when dealing, you know, interacting with someone who is going through this process or has this addiction that maybe they want to break it and even, But it's helpful to hear their stories, hearing stories.
I mean, like, the guy was just talking about. The more we know about addiction, the more we have personal connections with people who've experienced addiction. There are memoirs out there, you know, I think that helps a lot. It helps to make it vivid. It helps to make it, to bring it closer to home.
And so right with that then how can we those watching listening to this, how can they be gracious and caring towards those people that they know that that may be struggling with addiction or, or maybe they're just someone they meet on the street. Whatever. How can we develop the natural response of being gracious and caring for those people? Yeah. I mean, I think, again, being educated on it, Finding out, you know, why addiction is so difficult and, and, the burdens that people carry, Yeah.
You know, I mean, so, again, coming back to the question, why don't they just change, you know, the person who tries to do right and fails because many of these people do try, right? And I think that's something that we really need to keep in mind now, there are people who just accept their addiction. For sure. In my context as a counselor, I'm working with people who want to change, right? Otherwise they wouldn't be there. Or they they don't last. If they're the ones they don't want to change.
So that's my context. These are people that it's like trying to run a marathon with 100 pounds on your back, right? These people are carrying a really heavy weight. And sometimes a person with an addiction makes far more effort to do right before they eventually fall than maybe you or I do. And how does God evaluate that? You know, who who is really living more righteously in God's eyes? I think those are helpful things to keep in mind so let's spin it around then.
So we're just talking about how people could be more gracious and caring towards those they encounter. That you know, are suffering from addiction. Let's flip it around. What if there's someone listening to this or whoever it is that's listening to this, who is struggling with an addiction of some kind? What are some steps to recovery and healing. So it depends so much on, you know, what the addiction is and what, what level of addiction we're talking about.
Groups are really helpful groups like Alcoholics Anonymous or Celebrate Recovery. There are specialized sexual addiction for any kind of addiction. There's a group out there somewhere. Now obviously you have to to weigh the merits of the individual group and and is it really Christian and all that? But support groups are really helpful. Accountability can be really helpful if it's done well. I think one of the biggest things is finding healthy ways to cope with whatever you're medicating.
talk about that a bit more. Yeah. Because I think that's a we were going back to kind of the roots thing. Yeah. And that was a piece that definitely came up and so how can we have the self-awareness to identify that. That's actually, you know, that's a part of the puzzle perhaps. Yeah. I like to hear you speak more on that. yeah. Yeah. I think that people who struggle with addiction, some part of them. So it's unconscious or, or it's not, they know what's true notionally.
But some part of the person really feels deep down that this is the only way to cope. Okay. Yeah. Now, I know, you know, that's not rational. But again, we aren't rational as human beings, right? That's why we struggle as much as we do. That's why we don't get along. That's why so many things are the way they are, because we're not rational as human beings. And we have so many irrational processes at work inside of us many times, right.
But there is some part of the person that really does feel sincerely that this is the only way to cope. So I think one of the things we're trying to do is we're trying to make the idea of healthy coping credible, and for that to happen, you need experience. So it helps to hear it. It helps to know it, but it really helps to experience it.
So when you have the experience of, for example, being able to calm your anxiety without alcohol, without smoking, without whatever it is, the trick is the difficulty is healthy ways of coping take longer. You don't get the instant gratification right. You don't have those chemicals coursing through your veins. You don't have the right. It takes longer. It takes more persistence. It takes, you know, it's you're building a habit and that's one of the barriers.
That's one of the things that makes it difficult. That that's a that's a significant one I think what you just said there. And then also you were saying how you say an addiction or not, not the proper way of coping. There's an instant chemical response. Right.
That's a, that's a real piece that I don't know that that much about it, but having read a little bit and hearing that piece is like, oh, there's actually a there's some chemical processes going on in the brain here that I, oh, I didn't know that, you know, and whoa, that, that like you said, wading upstream, you know, you're going or running with the 100 pounds on your back. Those things make it a lot harder. Right.
Because because your body is saying, oh, if I do this, I'll get this instant chemical, dump in the brain or whatever. You know, again, I don't know all the exact science, but there's lots of research on this, right? The Dopamine hit. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. Which, unfortunately, things like social media are intentionally engineered to hijack that part of the brain, which maybe we shouldn't get in a social media addiction, but that's. That's a thing, I.
I think it needs to be named. That is a thing. Yeah. And and this isn't like some wacky conspiracy anti Facebook rant. I mean, this is this is well documented, you know. Social media companies hire, you know, neuroscientists and, and engineers that study this stuff and figure out how to make the product give you the maximum dopamine hit if you use their, their app, whatever. we've really got to think about this with our children. Right.
What if we, if you just hand the iPhone to a little child, you're setting them up to potentially become a social media addict or like a dopamine hit addict. Really? I mean. Yeah. And dopamine being that nice, warm, fuzzy feeling when, you know, you post a photo to Instagram or something and the likes start coming through and you go, wow, you know, all these people like me and whatever.
And that, that's that, that's a that can get its hooks in you because again, the, the feel good, chemical or whatever you're feeling inside you, all that warm, fuzzy feeling it's in you. Like you were saying, it's an instant hit. So how, like, intellectually, we may know all this, right? But then how how do you break this cycle that we may have developed with, again, whatever this addiction may be?
Yeah. Yeah. So you know hanging in there with a healthy coping hanging in there until you start to see the benefit, until you start to experience the benefit. So for example anxiety. And just to backtrack really briefly to the roots, many, many, many of the people that I worked with who are addicted have chronic anxiety. So that's something to really be curious about. Not everyone, but many times, so untreated anxiety often is a driver of addiction. Question on that. Just a touch on that a bit.
Is this anxiety that they are aware that they have or is this unconscious like it's there but they actually haven't identified. often it's unidentified. I mean, I mean, they sort of know, they may not use that word for it. I think there's a lot of anxiety that we don't realize we carry. Yeah. on, and the reason why I wanted to ask that is I'm thinking, oh, someone listening as. Oh, well, I don't have, you know, anxiety. I'm fine. You know, like, I don't have that problem.
But you're saying that actually, sometimes they don't even realize that that the anxiety is part of the roots. Yeah. Yeah. It's not just panic attacks. It's it's not just worried. We carry a lot of tension in our bodies. Many times we don't notice as we're too busy. We're just going about our daily life and we're not stopping to, again, we don't realize that we have bodies, right? We don't realize what's going on.
The physical tension that we carry, or the mental strain is in the back, in the mind. That can also be a part of this too. Right. Just in general mental fatigue or strain or stress. If you're, if you're having that because oh you're, you're working long hours whatever. And then you may be looking for how do I cope with that. Right. Could that not be another way. Someone could get into addiction.
Yeah. Yeah. I think many times what happens is it's not like the person is consciously thinking, oh, I'm under stress, how can I medicate? Oh, I'll look at pornography. Right. It's you know, but but they're primed for that because of this unrelieved stress. And by ignoring stress, ignoring anxiety, ignoring emotional pain, ignoring anger, whatever it is. Because it isn't, noticed because it isn't named, because it isn't dealt with.
A person is much more vulnerable than, to deal with it the wrong way. Yeah. This. Wow. Yeah. This is, this is a lot to to think about I mean it's I think the piece that I'm thinking at the moment is everyone listening to this, you know, can easily find cases of addiction around them. It's not hard to see whether that be a way. We mentioned, you know, social media or, you know, alcohol or whatever. Or walk the streets of any city you're going to see drug addiction or something.
What are what are ways people can help? Which I know is kind of broad obviously because every situation is different. There's all these different types. But, but what are some, some basics that we can keep in mind. So getting the balance of confrontation and care, getting that balance right. So there is a place for confrontation I mean for example a family intervention. Right. Where, where the family where you sit down and say, look, you have a problem.
We really need to get you help. Will you please? You know, I'm making an appeal to a family member. We have to tell the truth to people. Sometimes we have to tell hard truths. So there is that side of it. I think we have to really be careful, though, about over relying on confrontation. So many people who are addicted know that they have a problem, right? And they feel very badly about themselves, whether they admit it or not.
And one of the things that we can do is unintentionally trigger or exacerbate their shame. people who deal with chronic shame don't necessarily admit it, they don't necessarily show it right. That doesn't mean tiptoeing around people, but we really need to be aware. People often feel very badly about themselves and feel very badly about the addiction. Oh yeah. Because could could not a lot of us get start getting lumped in with things like self-worth identity like very much so and so.
You might use the word cycle. And so in many ways that that is the cycle. A person feels badly about themselves, that makes their emotional distress worse. They medicate that through an addictive activity that makes them feel worse about them. And around and around it goes. And that kind of comes back to one of the earlier things that, that you had answered, where if we have this attitude of just like, well, why don't you just stop doing that?
You know, or confronting something pretty just like, well, just don't do that. Yes. You may actually push it the wrong direction. Yeah. That's a bit scary or scary or something. We really should keep that in mind. Because, I mean, that's I would hope that's the last thing someone will want to do. Right. You don't want to make it worse. So gracious truth telling. Accountability depending on what your role is. So it's like the trauma thing that we talked about before in the other interview.
It depends on what your role is. It depends on what your lane is. I would really encourage, you know, stick with this person for the long haul. Or in other words, are you willing to hang in there and be a support to them if it takes a long time for them to overcome their addiction? You got to pace yourself. This is a marathon. It's not a sprint. And many times what we do is we want to fix people. We want them to get better all at once. We want them to make the choices we want them to make.
We become super involved. And if they don't change, then we get frustrated and we drop them. And so what you've really got to ask yourself if you're trying to help someone with an addiction, am I going to walk with this person, even if it takes months? Be honest about maybe the level of patience that you have. Is that a way of saying it? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Because I think that is. Well, this could almost be classified as another addiction, the addiction of hurry, like, you know.
And so if the solution doesn't happen right away, we can kind of like. Oh, well, okay. Just, you know, And if you think about it hurry. And the inability to tolerate distress is a driver of addiction. Right. That's another one of the drivers. So there's a certain irony about that. I have not thought of that before. we want people to tolerate their distress. That doesn't mean accept the dysfunction in their life, but to tolerate emotional pain in small doses, right?
To be able to sit with loneliness, to be able to sit with anger, to be able to sit with anxiety without having to medicate immediately. Right, without having to distract from it. And when you could have the experience of facing that thing and sitting with that thing calmly, in a grounded kind of way, that can really break the power of the addiction, because then you learn that I don't have to have this right. And it's not just a notion now. It's an experience you're having.
The experience of being able to tolerate the thing that you're that you're medicating with your addiction. You don't know it as just an intellectual thing. Well I know this. You like you said you've actually experienced it and can slowly start remapping it. I guess, you know. So helping people sit with their distress in whatever way is appropriate to your role in your, in their life. So this may take us in a different direction. That might not be applicable but I feel like I should ask it.
There's this classic Christian doctrine belief that we have called temperance. Does temperance play into this temperance, patience, etc., etc.. Or am I off off the rails a bit? Oh, totally. I mean self-control, yes. One of the fruits of the spirit. Totally. Yeah, yeah, Perhaps, perhaps we could do with more, awareness and and engagement with the concept of temperance. Perhaps. I think, especially in our society. I mean, we don't have to wait for anything, right?
I mean, Okay so, we're filming this in Lancaster. And last night, we realized there was this piece of gear we needed for doing the doing the interviews, and we really needed it. So I quick go on Amazon, and lo and behold, I can have it delivered by the next morning. And I'm just like, it's it's 930 at night or whatever it was. And it'll be here in the morning. I don't even have to wait like that. Just kind of blew my mind. And it felt like that's such a snapshot of American or Western society.
But anyways, what what does that do? Yeah. What does that do to our souls? Yeah. And I mean, look, I use Amazon, I use the internet. I mean, yeah, my point is, is not that these things are bad, obviously, but I think we really need to think about what kinds of spiritual disciplines help us not to be caught up in the spirit of the age. So things like a temporary internet fast, for example, or an Amazon fast or one or whatever it might be. Yeah. I think that there's. Here's another analogy.
What kind of soil does addiction grow in? And I think it grows quite well in the soil of the consumer lifestyle. So for example, I mean, this isn't consumerism per se, but one of the things I've noticed with men who struggle with pornography is oftentimes their weakest moment is when they're just scrolling the internet on their phone and they're not looking at anything bad. It might be very good content, but that's a slippery slope moment for them, right?
They're already in the hand of that zone of checking out, just by kind of mindless internet use. Right. feel like that's an important piece right there. And this is something that we're all dealing with this. Right. We're all dealing with we in the West the effects of prosperity, the information explosion, the consumer lifestyle. Right. We're all trying to work this out. I'm sure we all have growth areas in that.
And so that that's another thing that I think can help us to have compassion for addiction, for people with addiction. Right. Is that we all struggle with medicating or distracting in the wrong way.
Again I feels like that that was an important piece there as well because it's pretty easy to look at someone who's addicted to whatever suffering from some type of addiction and say oh why don't they just stop that without realizing the hypocrisy of that when you know you yourself may be dealing with a form of addiction in your own life that you hadn't even thought of, but it's, you know, you actually have a slight addiction to mindlessly scrolling social media, you know, endlessly
or so, like, I mean, the data on that, by the way, for America is is insane. Like how much time is spent mindlessly scrolling social media, for example? And yet you may have that, but then point your finger at someone else, you know, and say, oh, they're addicted. I guess that kind of comes back to one of the things we had been saying previously is like, how do we be gracious? Like, and, well, I guess humility would go right along with that. You know, Another thing is curiosity.
So okay how did this person get to where they are. They didn't wake up one day and say I'm going to be addicted. I'm going to look at pornography I want to drink. What's the story behind. And you know, not to use that to make excuses for sinful behavior. But what's the story behind this person's struggle? Can we ask more questions? And this would apply to any struggle, right. Trauma, mental health, addiction. I think that's a really good point.
Yeah. one of the things we got to really be careful about is ideologies or fads or agendas that leave us feeling like, oh, I know what your problem is, right? Your problem is you have a demon or your problem is idols of the heart of your problem is your childhood pain, or your problem is an undisciplined lifestyle. Any of those things potentially could be a factor.
I'm not dismissing any of those categories, but I'm just saying let's be more curious about people's experience and not put people in boxes. it's so easy to put people in boxes. I guess that's I guess that's just a human thing that we do to each other. I don't know when I kind of know where where we want to peg somebody or something. Yeah. Yeah, well, it makes it easier for us. That's that's a good point. Yeah. Yeah. yeah. And, I mean, you have to have ways of thinking about things.
You have to have hooks to hang things on. We need to simplify our thoughts. And so certainly it's understandable. that that does make sense. Yeah. So to back it up a little bit. Addiction is kind of a bleak topic. And and you know. Yeah. And yeah we hear some things on, on the recovery process and, and so forth. There's a lot more to this. There's obviously, an enormous amount of work has been done in this sector. Which is which is good.
But as we kind of pull back and look at the whole package that we've went through in this, in this podcast, what is something you'd like to leave our audience with? What's maybe a piece of advice or something you think would be helpful? Yeah. Some principles to keep in mind as we go from here. Two things. One, people can change. People can change. They can change because God has put incredible tools and resources into his creation. And two, because of the power of his spirit.
And that's what the gospel is all about. One of the questions I hear a lot is, or is it possible to change, for example, pornography. Can you break a pornography habit? Yes, the answer is yes. So that's the first thing. The second thing is receive God's love, receive God's compassion, receive God's acceptance. And sometimes it's a severe mercy. And sometimes there's God's chastisement and all that. But people need to know deep down that they're loved by God.
And people who hate themselves because of their addiction find it so much harder to move forward. And the turning point that I have seen again and again for people is when they can receive God's love, even while they are still struggling. Those are the ones who so often begin to move forward. Don't wait till you've conquered your addiction to let God love on you. I think that is. That is a powerful piece to end this episode with that.
Wow, you've shared a lot of really interesting and helpful pieces today. And yeah, just thank you for the work that you've done in this area and reminding us that it is possible to change. And, there are ways that we can help and yeah, you're giving us a lot to think about. So I appreciate you taking the time today, Michael, to come and share with us. It's good to be here. Thanks for listening to this episode.
If you found this interesting, you should check out the other interview we did with Michael a few years back. And you can find that linked in the description down below. We also regularly publish essays by Anabaptist thinkers, which you can find on our website or has its own podcast. Consider leaving a like and a review as it helps more people find what we're doing here at Anabaptist Perspectives. Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you in the next episode.