The Biggest Addiction

Illus: "So far today, God, I’ve done alright. I haven’t gossiped, I haven’t lost my temper. I haven’t been grumpy or nasty or selfish. I’m really glad of that. But in a few minutes God, I’m going to get out of bed, and from then on, I’m probably going to need a lot of help.”

We all need a lot of help, especially in the area of trusting the Lord daily and not living a life of worry! We live in a world where many are ADDICTED TO WORRY.

When we think of addictions, we generally think about drugs. There are literally millions today that are addicted to legal and illegal drugs.

• Most of those who are on illegal drugs head for the streets each day to purchase drugs from the drug peddlers because they have an addiction AND THEY KNOW THEY HAVE AN ADDICTION!

• We have millions that are on legal drugs that are constantly heading for the doctor’s office to get their drugs. They are addicted to legal drugs and they DO NOT KNOW THEY HAVE AN ADDICTION.

The only difference between many legal and illegal drug addicts is that they have different suppliers.

Illus: Psychiatry students were in their college class one day when their professor began a discussion to prove a point.

• "What we’re going to talk about today," the professor said, "are the emotional extremes that many mentally disturbed people go through."

• “What’s the opposite of joy?" he asked one student.

• "Sadness," the student answered.

• "The opposite of depression?" he asked a young lady.

• "Elation," she replied.

• Turning to a young man from Texas he asked, "the opposite of woe?"

• "Well, now," the Texan replied "I suppose the opposite of woe, would be giddy up."

It seems that when we talk about the addiction of worry, many do not know what they are talking about. Without a doubt, the biggest addiction in the world today is the addiction of WORRY!

This addiction has a chokehold on mankind and is literally squeezing the life out of many.

Illus: A story is told about a man that came face to face with the dangers of worry: Death was walking toward a city one morning and a man asked, "What are you going to do?"

• Death said, "I’m going to take 100 people out of this city today,"

• The man said, "That’s horrible!"

• Death said, “That may be true, but that is what I do."

• The man hurried to warn everyone he could about Death’s plan. As evening fell, he met Death again. He said, "You told me you were going to take 100 people, why did 1,000 die?"

• Death said, "I kept my word, I only took 100 people. Worry took the others."

The addiction of worry is one of the most costly addictions among mankind. We are told that:

• 43% of all adults suffer health effects due to worry and stress

• 75% of all visits to primary care physicians are stress-related complaints or disorders

• Worry has been linked to all the leading causes of death including heart disease, cancer, lung ailments, accidents, cirrhosis and suicide

• An estimated 1 million workers are absent on an average workday because of stress related complaints

• Stress is said to be responsible for more than half of the 550 million workdays lost annually because of absenteeism

• 43% of all employee turn-over is related to job stress. Mental distress can even lead to death.

Consider the mental fatigue of nights without sleep and days without peace, and we get a glimpse of the havoc worry plays in destroying the quality and quantity of life.

Let’s take a closer look at this business of worrying. We need to consider THREE things:

I. THE FOCUS FACTOR

Let’s focus in on worry! WHAT IS WORRYING? Worry is something that clings to us and we can not get rid of it.

Illus: The great comedian, Carl Hurley, tells the story about trying to throw a trash can away. He said it’s the one thing you can’t get the garbage man to pick up.

He said, "I set an old rusty garbage can out at the street one morning thinking the garbage man would understand that it needed to be thrown away." He said, "When I came back that afternoon the can was stacked up with the rest of my empty trash cans."

"Well the next week I put it out again and this time I turned it upside down so they could see that the bottom had several holes in it and it needed to be thrown away. When I came home, it was stacked up next to the empty cans again."

"The next week I took a sledgehammer and I beat the can in pretty good and I left it out front and when I came home, not only was it stacked up next to the other empty trash cans but the garbage man had actually tried to beat it back into shape."