“Quitting is easy; I’ve done it a hundred times. I’m actually quite good at it. I have learned to do it at just the right time to get me out of the trouble I’ve gotten into by using. People get off my back when I quit.” Said by an addicted man.
The problem is staying quit!
I was reminded of this again this week when a man returned after leaving our facility four years ago on a reasonably good path. When he arrived back here, he was incoherent, emaciated and had an infected hole in his arm from using a bad needle for injecting cocaine (one of rarest but most serious methods of cocaine use). My heart broke; but, honestly, we could tell when he left that he would not do well.
I guess that probably sounds bad, that we would assess a man as he leaves for whether he might make it or not, but imagine who we would be if we didn’t. We are not just a place to stay for the homeless – we are a bio-psycho-social-spiritual hospital for the broken.
In my own journey out of the bondage to addiction, the hardest work began after I realized that quitting did not change me. I eventually discovered that my way of relating to life, learned on the way into the addiction, and reinforced by the addiction lifestyle, didn’t go away when I quit using.
It took many catastrophic relapses before I learned that my ways of relating to life were producing the problems that led to the relapses. Once I owned that, my life began to improve. Once my life began to improve, relapses stopped.
The key I discovered worked for me and has been working for many others as they come here for help. The key to relapse prevention is, ‘learning to live the way we were designed to live.’ We were designed to live out the truth that ‘others matter at least as much as I matter.’
As I began to learn and live that out in the hardest moments of my days, my life got better. As my life got better, resisting the urge to use was easier because I had more to lose.
In the LifeRecovery program of Water Street Mission, we partner with men to learn how to live according to their design, according to who the Lord says they are.
Aaron Eggers, Director of Men’s Ministries
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Previous Posts in this Series:
Fighting Addiction With the Armor of God
Fighting Addiction, and Experiencing God's Love
Dying to be FREE
She Walked In
Caught Between Egypt & the Promised Land
Stay tuned for the next post in this series on Addiction!
2 comments:
quitting...i thought i was not a quitter...in my life as an athlete and coach i prided myself on never to quit...i thought that was enough...everything else would work its self out just as in sports...but in sports the game always ends...there is a time when you can stop competing...life is not that way...life goes on til the Lord calls for it to end...at least here on earth...but i always quit when times got tough or if i just did not like the situation that was before me...especially when it concerned others...relationships...my way or the highway was my motto...i could have never been so wrong...to care for others...actually have a heart for them as God does for me...not easy but a lot less difficult then the way i was going about relationships...i praise the Lord for those who have noticed that in me and cared enough to say so...thank you AE, AO, & WS
Thanks TJP for your willingness to share! Isn't it incredible, how often when we least expect it God brings people into our lives - to love us as Christ loved us. And through their simple, selfless, encouraging love - we can begin to see the freedom God desires us to live in too.
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