As a recovering drug addict I can say that “niceness” almost killed me. People didn’t want to hurt my feelings or let me experience the consequences of my actions because that seemed too harsh.
The world is full of people who think that being “nice” is being helpful. I used to think this behavior was well motivated naiveté. As I grow older I am seeing that it isn’t well motivated at all –it’s selfish. People are more interested in avoiding conflict than actually helping.
Addiction is a resolvable condition, but it will not be achieved through being “nice”. It only gets resolved through relentless accountability (tough love); and that’s not “nice”.
Practicing addicts are masters at evading what could help them. They will use everything at their disposal to maintain their self-centered lifestyle: family, children, physical conditions… “Nice” people often unwittingly assist them in their evasion. Pulling out of the steep dive of addiction requires very specific, hard work, and addicted people shrink from that hardship. And “nice” people let them.
All too often, I get phone calls from people (even from within the mission) who cannot understand how we could be so unkind to person x. “As a Christian organization you should…” they say.
What I needed, and finally got, in my addiction were people willing to walk away from me if I didn’t accept help. I called my pastor for help once when I was on the streets in Portland, Oregon. He said, “Aaron I can’t give you what you want. You need to experience the consequences of your decisions. When you improve your choices, your life will improve.”
That man knew how to help and for a long time after I hated him for it. I love him today.
- Aaron Eggers, Men’s Ministries
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment