Turning on a Dime

My buddy has been fretting his struggle to break free of an addictive behavior. He’s frustrated by stories of others being freed immediately as if they snatched the handbrake of a 911 and turned their lives around on a dime. Meanwhile, he feels like he’s trying to turn an ocean liner around against colossal waves driven by gale-force winds.

He loves the Lord and is earnestly seeking repentance (faith inspired & empowered life-change), but his struggle is real. It’s left him questioning the depth of his faith, wondering if he’s that much shallower than those overcoming the same issue so much faster than him. It’s also left his family and friends questioning his faith.

But they’re comparing apples to oranges.

Yes, it’s the same addictive behavior. But those other guys got sucked into their habit as young adults. They engaged it every day for several years. Though they viewed it as a rebellious act. They knew better. They never accepted the behavior as part of who they were. So, they more easily left it behind.

My friend was introduced to the behavior as a boy. An adult praised him and told him that he was special for participating. He knew no different. It wasn’t rebellion. It was his normal. The dopamine rush was relabeled from a desire to a need. For several decades, he continuously fed his “need.” He couldn’t imagine life without it.

Then he was exposed. His wife was crushed. It was as if he went to a rooftop, ripped open a down pillow, shook it in the wind, and was then tasked to collect the feathers. Damage control was impossible. He never imagined the pain would be so deep or widespread.

I’m convinced that both his faith and his longing to repent & save his marriage are real. Yet, he struggles. As much as he wants to turn on a dime, he’s in the battle of his life.

Why?

Because our fear of loss is most often more motivating than our desire for gain. He wants the fulfillment of a great marriage. He longs to regain his wife’s trust. He wants to become a man of integrity, hope, and gratitude. Yet, in his mind, he’s already lost those. His brain has long viewed his habit as a need, and it’s still within reach.

The enemy can convince a man to fight for his own cancerous tumor. He’ll convince the man that the hallucinations caused by the pressure on the brain are not just pleasurable but needed. Much like a hoarder, the addict will fight to keep from losing what he thinks he has, even if it never offered value, because he’s convinced that he needs it.

Given the choice of gaining hope and fulfillment, the man who has not viewed his addiction as essential has nothing to lose. When the choice is either/or, he simply turns to what he wants. He may turn on a dime to save his marriage.

But for my friend, the battle is not simply for what he wants but also against his own fear of losing what he determined decades earlier was part of who he is.

The work before him is to dig deep and disprove the root of what he has held true most of his life while comparing the emptiness of the enemy’s hologram to the possibility of fulfillment that is within reach.

Wondering if you’ll pray for my friend and the thousands like him deceived into thinking that they need the very thing that’s destroying them.