Part 12: Addiction Series

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For the counselee who struggles with addiction, begin with the principles from chapters 4-6. The material in this chapter is designed to supplement those chapters with principles directly related to addiction.

The World’s Definition

Addiction is commonly defined as a condition involving tolerance (requiring an ever increasing dosage to achieve the same effect) and/or dependence (withdrawal symptoms when use is discontinued).[1] The psychological term that has been coined to encompass both tolerance and dependence is neuroadaptation, which, predictably, locates the entire problem in the brain.

It is no surprise, then, that many belief that addiction is caused by substances (nicotine, alcohol, etc.). It is possible for a substance to have properties that cause an intense craving for more. And it is also possible that some people are born with a predisposition to be especially weak in regard to certain kinds of sins. But neither the craving nor the predisposition is, of itself, an addiction. No substance can cause addiction, because the decision to indulge in a behavior is an act of the will. No drug can make someone decide to take it, and no activity has the power to make someone decide to engage in it. (If it did, no one would ever become free from an addiction.) For the believer, slavery to sin is voluntary.

Romans 6:16 Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey?

One becomes a slave to either sin (or righteousness) by allowing himself to be subject to it. But even then his will is still intact. His life will be dominated by whatever or whomever he allows to influence his will.

Believers have been freed from bondage to sin. For a Christian no one particular sin is impossible to resist (Php. 4:13, 1 Cor. 10:13), however it is possible for a Christian to voluntarily re-enslave himself to a defeated foe:

2 Peter 2:19 … a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him.

God’s Definition

The biblical terms for addiction is bondage, or enslavement. Titus 2:3 speaks of the problem of being addicted to much wine. The word translated “addicted” (dedoulomenos) comes from the word “slave” (doulos). A person is enslaved to a behavior when that behavior is seemingly impossible to quit. Normally when people experience severe negative consequences for some behavior, those consequences are enough to make them stop. Enslavement is when a person will continue to do in spite of such consequences. He is resolved to stop, wishes he could stop, but cannot seem to do it.

Enslavement to anything other than righteousness is sin. We are not to be mastered or controlled by anything (1 Cor. 6:12, 2 Pe. 2:19). Paul went to great lengths to make his body his slave for fear that even after having preached to others, he himself might be disqualified (1 Cor. 9:27). Part of the fruit of the Spirit is self-control, so all failure to exercise self-control is sin, whether it is a forbidden behavior, such as sexual immorality, or a neutral behavior, such as shopping or drinking coffee.

Instead of using the unhelpful and inaccurate psychological terms (neuroadaptation, tolerance, and dependence), perhaps a better definition of addiction is this:

Addiction is when a person keeps deciding to do something that he wishes he wouldn’t do (in other words, a bad habit).

Conflicting Desires

When you counsel someone with a bad habit, do not say, “If you really wanted to quit, you would.” That is not a valid assumption. It is possible to want to quit but to also have powerful impulses that seem impossible to resist.

Galatians 5:17-18 … the [flesh] desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the [flesh]. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want.

Jesus said, “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Mt.26:41 nasb). We all have conflicting desires. In most cases, the reason a person seeks counsel is that he sincerely wants to be rid of his addiction. He wants to be rid of it because of the negative consequences, yet he finds himself controlled by his craving – like the drunk in Proverbs 23:31-35 who is confused, dizzy, being beaten, and yet says, “When will I wake up so I can find another drink?”

2 Peter 2:22 Of them the proverbs are true: A dog returns to its vomit….

Not only will dogs return to their vomit—they will even eat it! It is impossible to imagine anything more repulsive—or foolish—than re-ingesting something your stomach has already rejected. Your body threw that stuff up for a reason. When your body has gone to extreme measures to expel it, what could be more foolish or disgusting than eating it again? That is what these kinds of sins are like. They bring incredible pain into a person’s life, yet he goes right back to them time after time.