Addiction, Spirituality, and Recovery.

“Don't judge any man until you have walked two moons in his moccasins” Native American Proverb

Is addiction a disease or a character defect? The answer you get will often depend on whom you ask. For those who have never been touched by the plight of addiction (or simply choose to ignore those who are struggling) and seem to wonder why "addicts" just simply won't get their act together and stop, it is easy to say that addiction is simply a sign of character weakness and the inability to channel your willpower to stopping something that is destroying your life. But for those who have seen the tyranny of addiction up close, either from personal experience or the experience of a friend or loved one, they know that the answer is not quite that simple.

There are all kinds of things that a person can be addicted to. There are some addictions that are more acceptable than others, depending on the context and culture you are talking about. Shopping, working, food, video-games, and sex for instance may not be considered harmful especially if you are a functioning-addict: someone who can be addicted and still function to a reasonable degree in society. We often pay more attention to addictions to chemical substances or alcohol. But there is ample evidence to show that addiction is a pervasive problem in our society, because in a capitalistic society, addiction plays an integral part of making more money. There are support groups now for practically every addiction under the sun, from video-games, to shopping......from sex to drugs...But the addict continues to be a vital part of the economy...By this, I mean, that an addict is a repeat customer for any particular product or service. If I am addicted to food, you can be sure I will often visit my favorite fast food joint or grocery store. If I am addicted to shopping, the mall will probably be my favorite hang-out....I watched a piece on the 700 Club yesterday where they were talking about the food industry and how it has changed over the years, to the point where addictive chemicals have been added to what we eat (especially to fast foods) over the year to give them that "I want more" feeling. Of course, when you say things like this, there is always going to be that person that says "well, no one put a gun to your head to go back for another Big Mac", but we cannot ignore the fact that there is an obesity crisis in this nation that is not helped by the addictive nature of many of our favorite fast foods.

What was that famous quote by Warren Buffett is known in many business circles?''You make a product for a penny, you sell it for a dollar and you sell it to addicts.'' This is a guarantee for success on the part of the entrepreneur, if I can make a product or service at the lowest cost possible, sell it for the highest price possible and find the potential addicts for the product, I will make a fortune. It is the dirty little secret that no one likes to talk about, because it forms the basis of our capitalistic society.

I have done a lot of reading and research on the subject of addiction lately. I know the adverse effect that my struggles with addiction have had on my life, struggles that I have talked about in detail in previous essays. And for too long, I lived in fear, shame and total disgust with myself because I wondered why I could not just "STOP"! Having done so much research on the topic, I now realize that telling an addict to just stop is almost like telling a fish to not get wet. There are many aspects to addiction that have to be dealt with. For one, ample evidence suggest that when a person actually becomes addicted to something, biological changes actually take place in that person's brain, so much so that the brain is tricked into believing that it cannot function without the subject of the addiction. Hence the withdrawal symptoms once "detox" starts. These biological changes vary depending on what the person is addicted to, but cannot be ignored. For instance, I was shocked to read that there is a flood of release of neurochemicals in the brain of an addict to pornography that is similar to what occurs in the brain of drug addicts. (As documented in the groundbreaking book by Mark B. Kastleman, "The Drug of the New Millennium - The Brain Science behind Internet Pornography Use).

There will always be critics of this new field of research who insist that calling addiction a disease only gives "users" an excuse to continue their destructive habits. But I disagree. Just as some are more prone to other diseases like say heart disease or diabetes, some are also more prone to addictive behaviors which can be triggered by trauma in their lives. And just like a person who is predisposed to heart disease based in their genetics can "trigger" poor health by not eating right or not exercising, a potential addict can trigger their condition by using a substance or thing to mask pain or trauma (this is what I did in my case). But you would not tell a diabetic or person with a failing heart that they don't deserve treatment because they did not eat right or engaged in behavior that triggered the disease, so why would you tell an addict that.?

For too long now, I have had the opinion that is common in many religious circles - that addiction is simply a matter of moral willpower. But we realize that there is an added spiritual and even scientific component to addiction that makes simply "stopping" not as easy at it sounds. In the spiritual dimension, it is humbling, because it reminds you of your humanity and makes you less likely to judge others who are going through similar plights. What we are addicted to becomes an alternate god of sorts, because it exerts a level of control over one's mind and body that is not normal. I can honestly say that I probably would not be as passionate about the message of God's grace and forgiveness had I not had this struggle with addiction. Addiction has a weird way of taking you off of the podium of self-righteousness. I can relate to the Apostle Paul when he talks about "the good I want to do, I do not do, the evil that I hate I do" (see Romans 7:19).

The healing comes not only when we realize the spiritual reality and dimension of addiction, and the fact that God's love for the struggling addict does not cease, but also when we take into account the new scientific evidence that suggests that their are biological reasons that make sheer willpower an uphill climb. For some addictions there are medications that can be taken to reduce the "cravings" (take for instance the "nicotine patch" used by those trying to quit smoking), I have found that in my case, anti-depressants do help because most of my struggles were fueled by a chronic depression.

I just hope we get to a place where we can start to have more compassion on the mentally ill, especially those whom society has had a tendency to ridicule for simply not "getting their life" in order.

Sources:
Beautiful Boy (A Father's journey through His Son's addiction) - by David Sheff
Tweak - by Nic Sheff
The Drug of the New Millennium (The Brain Science behind Internet Pornography Use) by Mark B. Kastleman

Recommended viewing:
In-Treatment : the groundbreaking HBO series starring Gabriel Byrne
The Soloist : New movie out dealing with the effects of schizophrenia on a musical prodigy starring Jamie Foxx..

Stephen Akinduro

The Million Dollar Question

It is the Million Dollar question, the question that forms the foundation for Evangelism in the Christian faith. The question is, "Are you saved?" I know you have heard the question before, it is the question that determines whether you fall into the category of nonreligious / casual Christian, or "Born again Christian". The assumption goes that if you are "saved", you are a "born-again Christian" and are more serious about your faith than those other Christians who are just content to go to church and go through the motions, if they go to church at all.

I would like to examine what it means to be "saved"; what are the inherent assumptions that come with being saved? For a very long time I could not understand why Christians seemed to be lumped into two different categories: the "born-again Christians" and the others who were not deemed to really be serious about their faith. Being born-again was like being the deluxe model of the "Christian" vehicle, fully "loaded" and "on fire" for God. But Isn't saying you are a "born-again Christian" a redundant statement? Isn't that like saying I am an American-American? But I am getting ahead of myself.

I grew up in the Anglican church. By the time I was 15 years old, I had been baptized (by sprinkling) and confirmed in the church (confirmation is a ceremony that takes place after you have taken some classes about Jesus' life and the Last Supper. Once you pass the class and are confirmed in a ceremony by the presiding Bishop of the parish, after which you can then take Holy Communion in the Anglican church. And yes, they use real wine for their communion, probably to the dismay of some Christians out there who oppose alcohol consumption completely).

At this point in my life, I understood that there were basic rules that God wanted us to live by, called Commandments, and I assumed that it was my job to do my best to be a good person to make sure that I made it to heaven, the ultimate reward for a life well lived. I did not really understand the significance of Jesus' life, death and Resurrection. But in October of 1986, two good friends of mine in High School broke it down for me. They explained salvation and why I needed to be born-again using what is commonly known as the "Roman path to salvation"; we have all sinned or fallen short of God's glory (Romans 3:23); God's law mandates that we should die and be eternally separated from him because of our sin, for the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23); but God has created a new plan,because he does not want us to die, he would rather that we be "saved" through his grace and the sacrificial lamb and sacrifice that is his son - Jesus (John 3:16-17); Jesus paid a price for us that we could not pay not because we earned it but because of his love for us (Romans 5:8); all it takes to make this gift a reality in your life and be "saved" from the eternal consequence of sin (hell) is to believe in your heart that Jesus is Lord and He died for you, and confess this with your mouth and you shall be saved (Romans 10:9-10).

So just like that, I sincerely placed my faith in Jesus about 23 years ago, and I became "saved". But I had no idea what that would mean for the rest of my life. Did salvation mean that I would no longer struggle with sin (I would soon learn the answer to that one. It seemed like in some areas I struggled more because I was constantly being convicted in my soul); did it mean that I was eternally secure and could not lose my status as God's child, or did I need to make sure that I maintained a clean slate of "no-sin" otherwise God would kick me out of the family in disgust? Did it mean that I had to do good deeds to make sure that I still made it to heaven, or were good deeds simply to ensure a reward I would get here and when I got to heaven? What if I sinned after being saved and forgot to confess that sin before I died, would that mean God would have to send me to hell? You can start to see the level of paranoia that I was dealing with..

In trying to make sure that I would stay "saved" and not lose any of the benefits of salvation, especially my stance as God's child, I would go through several elaborate spiritual exercises. The first one was making sure that I got re-baptized. This happened in 1997, after I joined a Baptist church and realized that in Baptist circles, being baptized by any other means other than immersion into the water does not count, because baptism is supposed to symbolize the burial of the old person (when you go in the water) and the Resurrection of the new person (when you are brought out of the water). So I got re-baptized. Then for while at the end of the last decade, I briefly attended a Charismatic church where a good friend of mine was the pastor, and there they believed in baptism of the Holy Spirit, a phrase that is often used to imply that we must go through two baptisms, one where we get dunked in the water (I had already done that), and the other one where we get the gift of the Holy Spirit. Some churches believe you get the Holy Spirit when you accept Christ, others believe you must go through a second baptism where you get the gift of the Holy Spirit (and in some cases start speaking in tongues as evidence that you got it.) So I would I go on another phase of re-dedication of my life to Jesus and asking him to fill me with the Holy Spirit.

This is just an abridged version of the many processes and phases of re-dedication, repentance, confession, and promises that I would make to God to try and stay on the straight and narrow so that I would not go to hell when I die. There is only one problem with all of this. Doing all of these things never really gave me any a firm assurance that I would not sin anymore, which is the main thing I was trying not to do, I felt that the less I sinned, the more I would be guaranteed a spot in heaven. But what do you do when you are constantly reminded of your own imperfection? You either drive yourself and those around you crazy with your incessant perfectionism, or you accept that God's grace means that we are accepted even in our imperfection. This is the main reason why I am now so passionate about the message of God's grace, because it is the heart of the Gospel, which ironically we often ignore. I am constantly reminded of the story of that thief on the cross to whom Jesus said, "today you will be with me in paradise" (Luke 23:43). In this true story we are reminded that this thief - who was being crucified next to Jesus - acknowledged that he deserved the punishment for his crime, while Jesus did not because he was innocent. The thief never had a chance to get baptized (not that we know of), he never had a chance to be on probation to show that he was truly sorry for what he did; he was being killed, and yet Jesus says that he will be with him in paradise on that very day. What was the basis for his "salvation" or going to paradise (heaven)? Was it his good deeds? His promises of never stealing again? His first, or second baptism? No, it was none of these things, he was accepted by God because of Jesus and his love & sacrifice.

I think too often we place too much emphasis on what a person "does for God" as the basis of their acceptance by him, as opposed to what he has done for us. It is a totally different paradigm and the difference between self-righteousness and humility. If I inherently believe that God accepts me because I am "trying to be good" by obeying his commands, going to church, not cussing, not drinking, no tattoos etc, then I will have a self-righteous attitude towards anyone who does not keep my set of rules. If on the other hand I acknowledge that, even at my best, I am still fallible and my acceptance by God has nothing to do with my ability (or lack thereof) to keep his laws, then I have a more humble approach towards other people, especially those who struggle like I do (and trust me when I say, there are areas of my life where I really struggle).

So maybe the real question we should be asking is not "are you saved' but what difference the love of Jesus is really having in our lives and in our communities.'

Stephen O. Akinduro

Is "Christianity in America" dying?

Browsing through some of my favorite magazines last Thursday evening at Books-A-Million, the cover story for "Newsweek" magazine jumped right out at me. It declared: "The Decline and Fall of Christian America". At first, I thought I may have been seeing things, so I dropped the sports magazine I was reading to pick up the Newsweek and read further. And I find out that the article - written by John Meacham - did in fact suggest that we are entering some sort of post-Christian era because for the first time in our history, the percentage of people in this nation that identify themselves as non-religious has entered the double digits (going from 8% in 1990 to 15% today); the article basically focuses on results from a 2009 American Religious Identification Survey (you can read the entire article by going to this link http://www.newsweek.com/id/192583)

I believe that John Meacham - a writer whom I admire because he tends to be objective - used some hyperbole in this article because I don't really think we are now a post-Christian nation. Some would even suggest with the increase in spiritual yearning during these tough economic times, that church attendance is booming more than ever in many circles, especially in "non-denominational" circles. More people in America still identify themselves as Christians compared to any other religious affiliation, even though the number has dropped from 86% in 1990 to 76% now. The survey also found out that the majority of those who identify themselves as non-religious live in the NorthEast, to which I know many conservatives would suggest is because of their liberal political views (lol). I do think, however, that the situation is a little more complex than the article really suggests.

I don't think it is so much that we are entering a post-Christian era in America, but I do believe that there is a spiritual revolution going on, even in Christian circles. For too long now, there has been this not-too-subtle suggestion that to be an Evangelical Christian in America means that you are supposed to have a specific political view and ideological outlook (so much so that some even wondered how you could really call yourself a Christian and vote for anyone not a Republican). But this narrow outlook on the complexities and subtleties of our lives negates to acknowledge the fact that certain demographics, while staunchly conservative on most moral/cultural issues, are more liberal on social/civil rights issues. For instance, some analysts said that the reason why proposition 8 passed in last year's elections in California was because even though most African-Americans voted for Obama, they voted for proposition 8 because most people in the "black church' are firmly opposed to gay marriage. This just goes to show that the labels that we often use to describe people and their political views are not always completely appropriate or clear cut, because we are not all on one extreme or the other as the media would love to suggest.

We are often led to believe that we are either in complete agreement with the likes of Bill Maher, Keith Olbermann and their co-horts in the "liberal media" or we completely agree with the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Fox News and the talk show hosts on conservative radio. But neither side is a complete arbiter of the truth, and it is so unfortunate that the nature of politics suggests that you can NEVER admit that your side is sometimes wrong and the other side sometimes right, because politics at its very core is about winning and demonizing the "other" side. That is why the term "bi-partisanship" will always be an oxymoron. To even remotely agree with the opposition in any arena is political suicide.

This is why we are having this subtle shift in the spiritual lives of many people in this nation. More and more voices that refuse to box Jesus' message into a political corner are emerging. I think of authors like Brian McLaren (Everything must change), Frank Viola (Pagan Christianity), David Kinnaman (UnChristian), Wayne Jacobsen (So you don't want to go to church anymore), Dan Kimball (They like Jesus but not the church), Cornel West (Democracy Matters), Micheal Eric Dyson (Can you hear me now), Jim Palmer (Divine Nobodies), William P. Young (The Shack); these are just a few names that are transforming the way we see Jesus' message played out in our society. I once read that if your "god" hates the same people that you hate, then you can be sure that you have created God in your own image. And for too long now, we have used our faith as a demarcating tool to determine who the "enemy" is, and that enemy has one word marking his identity - liberal. But as I study the teachings of Jesus, I am struck by two things - one, he said "my kingdom is not of this world", in other words, I don't operate the way the world operates, you see "love" as a reward to be earned, I love even the most "despicable amongst you" (hence his affinity for attracting the most notorious sinners of his day); secondly, without fail, it seems that the more religious a person was during Jesus' day, the more that person despised him. Could it be that religion at its very core, being rooted in self-righteousness, tends to hate the message of Jesus because it takes us off our illusionary pedestals that say "I am better than John Doe or Jane Doe" because I believe "x" or do "y" and they don't?

There is a lot of hyperpole in suggesting that Christianity is dying in America. I just don't believe this is true. And while there is no doubt that this nation was founded and highly influenced by Judeo-Christian principles, it is not completely accurate to say that we are a "Christian nation" because the Bible is not our Constitution. We are neither completely secular nor are we completely religious, and we should be glad that our Constitution protects the rights of a person to worship God or not to worship him. Seeing the way that religion incorporated as Sharia law in some Muslim countries, trust me, we don't want to live in a nation that adopts a certain religious belief as law, because then the question becomes, which "brand" of Christianity do we adopt: Lutheran? Catholic? Methodist? Baptist? "Non-denominational', Anglican, Presbyterian etc? Which theology? Calvinist, Arminian etc? Besides, do we really want to strictly enforce some of the Laws mandated in the Old Testament, like stoning women to death for adultery, a practice that, believe it or not, still takes place in some devoutly religious nations of the world? Even if we found a way to somehow make every command in the Bible a legal mandate in this country, it would not necessarily make us more moral, it would only heighten fear and increase the level of hypocrisy.

Hopefully, we will get to a point where we stop making rash judgments about one another based on our perceptions of other people's spiritual beliefs and simply realize that any spiritual journey that takes you away from loving others and seeking to put compassion into practice eventually does more harm than good. I believe this to be the central message of the Gospel of Jesus...

Stephen Oladotun Akinduro

WHY DOES GOD LOVE US?

We celebrate Easter this weekend; those of us who profess to be followers of Jesus commemorate His death, burial and Resurrection. We believe that He went to the cross to pay the steep price that we owe for our sins and fallibility. But what is the significance of this whole weekend in the grand scheme of things? Why did He subject Himself to such pain and torture after living such an altruistic life?

To answer this question, it is only appropriate that we ponder on why God really loves us. We throw the word "love" around so casually these days that the word has lost most of its luster and beauty. We talk about love when referring to everything from our favorite dish to our favorite entertainer or celebrity. When I say something like "I love German chocolate Cake", or "I love Tiger Woods" I am referring to my appreciation for the way German chocolate tastes and my appreciation for the genius of Tiger Woods on the golf course. In other words, there is something inherent in the object of my love that causes me to say that I love it / him / her. This misunderstanding when it comes to the word love is bred from a culture that places all of ones value on performance. So to even begin to imagine that real love could come without conditions or strings is not even fathomable to most of us. But this is exactly what God's grace is all about, as author Paul Zahl (of the book "Grace in Practice") says so eloquently, Grace is God's one-way-love. It is love that is given to us freely, without conditions and without reference to how well the person can perform. Of course, when you say that, there is the inherent assumption that you are giving someone the "license to sin" and do as they please. But the irony is that forced love is not really love at all, but coercion or duress. And the truth is that even at our best, we are still like a baseball batter that bats .400. That may be great, but it is still not perfect and means they miss 6 out of every 10 pitches thrown to them. Our fallibility seeps through our pores even when we think that we are impressing others.

This concept of unconditional love totally baffles the human mind, because in our estimation, we only "love" those who are "worthy" of our love, and by that we mean "perform well enough to earn it". But therein lies the reason why there are so many spiritually exhausted people out there today, we have not really appropriated that God's love for us is not based on our performance and that Jesus values us just the way we are, so we can come to him unvarnished with all our issues and not fear that we will be scorned in disgust. And when we can't fully accept the notion of God's one-way-love, it is almost impossible to truly love others....

As author Jeff VanVonderen says so eloquently in his book "Tired of Trying to Measure up":

..."Never before have there been so many "how-to" seminars and books (on everything from prayer to potty training, it seems!) in which Christians are told they will find the "key" to closeness with God. And never before have so many spiritually tired Christians been wounded and in need of counseling. Trying hard is not the solution. When someone becomes a Christian, he or she has a brand new identity as a child of God because of the cross of Christ. But the truth is, people are affirmed in our society, in families, and even in our churches for what they do, not for who they are. " (from the book "Tired of trying to measure up").

The world's formula for a person's worth is something like this:

your worth = your performance + other people's perception of you.

But is this really accurate? Not if you examine the teachings of Jesus. Jesus turned this formula on its head when He implied that even the least of those in our society are welcome at His dinner table, because God's love for us just is. If you are asked the question, "why does God love us" and you give reasons that even remotely imply that He does because of what we do, then you are missing the central point of God's grace - which is the central message of the Gospel. God's love for you is a constant, not because of anything you do or don't do, but because of who He is, it's that simple. This is truly a liberating fact which if accepted would prevent us from damning one another with the self-righteous games that are so often played today!!

HAPPY EASTER!!!
Stephen O. Akinduro