The Last Addiction

by Sharon A Hersh

  That’s why I like this story. Moses made some mistakes. He was over 120 years old by the time he finished this journey. His people got derailed a lot along the way. They wandered for over forty years. Only a few entered the Promised Land. Moses himself did not get to go into this longed-for new country. Doesn’t sound encouraging, does it? But it is realistic. In reality, you will make mistakes and get sidetracked. For a long time, you might not see redemption in the people you love. We know the statistics. A lot of addicts don’t change. You might not make it into the land overflowing with milk and honey, easy living, and wonderful relationships. But listen to the final words describing Moses: “Moses was 120 years old when he died. His eyesight was sharp; he still walked with a spring in his step. The People of Israel wept for Moses …. No prophet has risen since in Israel like Moses, whom GOD knew face-to-face.”6

  Moses’s life offers us a stern kind of hope. Walking alongside people who have been in bondage allows us to know God intimately. Knowing God face to face—maybe that is the Promised Land.

  FROM SHAME TO FAITH

  Research indicates that most families will suffer with an addicted family member for seven years before they will begin to tell others about this reality in their lives. When our loved ones are in the midst of unspeakable behaviors, it is all too easy to believe that they are saying something about us—our inadequacy, our failings, our unlovability.

  How can you not feel ashamed when your husband drinks too much and makes a fool of himself among friends and family—again? It’s hard not to believe that it’s your fault if your son or daughter is struggling with an addiction. You wonder. Where did I go wrong in parenting? Most women who discover that their husbands are addicted to pornography live with self-reproach: “It must be something about me that makes him do this.”

  A poignant illustration of love mixed with addiction and shame is the movie Leaving Las Vegas. A woman who loves an alcoholic finds that she cannot compete with his bottle. In a moment of utter despair, she pours whiskey over herself, hoping the alcohol will allure the man she loves to a few moments of connection. He stumbles toward her, but then collapses in an alcoholic stupor. She is left in humiliating shame and loneliness.

  Again, Moses’s story offers hope. His leadership began in shame. God commanded Moses to go to Pharaoh, the ruler of Egypt, and tell him, “Let my people go.” Moses knew that he wasn’t the man for this job. Apart from wondering how in the world he would ever convince Pharaoh to do such a thing, he had a speech impediment. Some theologians believe that Moses spoke with a lisp. I picture shame enveloping Moses as he debated with God about confronting Pharaoh and leading the slaves: “They won’t trust me. They won’t listen to a word I say. They’re going to say, ‘GOD? Appear to him? Hardly!’”7 Moses didn’t trust himself, the Hebrew slaves, or God. That’s what shame does. It shuts down trust. It prevents faith.

  When you focus on what’s wrong with you and recount all your failures with the addict that you love, there’s no room for faith to grow. Our inadequacies are very real, and the people in your life often have hurtful failures and foibles. What do we do with them?

  The world breaks everyone and afterwards many are strong at the broken places.

  —ERNEST HEMINGWAY, writing to Sherwood

  Anderson, May 23,1925

  It is possible to see the addict in your life as a means to reveal the raw parts of yourself so that they can be addressed and even healed. The wounds that you are experiencing due to your addicted friend or family member can be good news, as you learn to change yourself, not your friend or loved one. I know that this is a hard lesson to take in, but it is worth considering.

  I remember the distraught mother who came to see me. She had discovered that her adult daughter was struggling with bulimia. The mother shook her head in despair, “I can’t believe that this is happening to me.” Of course, the bulimia wasn’t happening to her. Her daughter was ensnared in this addiction, but perhaps there was something that could come in dealing with her daughter’s struggle for this mother to learn about herself.

  I remember the wife who shook her head in disgust when recounting her husband’s addicted behavior, “I can’t understand why anyone would want to do that!” I knew all too well that the stories of those addicted to substance abuse can be shocking and embarrassing. But what if there was something here for this wife to learn about her own weaknesses and need of forgiveness and grace?

  When we face the painful and horrible behaviors in addiction, our first and deepest instinct is to do everything in our power to get our loved ones to change. We become desperate to make our husband be responsible, to get our son or our daughter to stop acting out; to win back our spouse from the clutches of addiction—an understandable but naive and completely dysfunctional hope. We keep hoping that our loved ones will become who they are supposed to be and stop embarrassing us and themselves. In trying to rescue our loved ones from their addictions, we become ensnared in the most insidious addiction—the last addiction, the belief that we are responsible for saving others or saving ourselves.

  The power of addiction in the lives of those we love reminds us relentlessly that we need faith in a power greater than the addiction and greater than ourselves. Faith compels us to believe that God can be trusted with the people in our lives. When Moses decided to act out of faith and not shame, he asked God how he should confront Pharaoh with this invitation to set the Hebrew slaves free.

  “Tell him you were sent by I AM,” God said.

  In the midst of our watching and waiting while our loved ones struggle with addiction, God is whispering, “I AM the One who convicts, I AM the One who changes, I AM the one who delivers.” When we try to assume these roles in the lives of others, we miss our own opportunity to be convicted, changed, and delivered.

  When you sense shame in the shadows—after your loved one behaves badly, or you demean yourself by trying to pacify or please someone else into changing—consider this one simple question: what does the addict’s behavior show you about yourself and your own journey of change? When I feel discouraged or desperate about someone else’s behavior, I think back to Moses. At first he thought God’s instructions were all about the pitiable Hebrew slaves, the unreasonable Pharaoh, and his own inadequacies. He didn’t know yet that God is the I AM who does many things at once. God was in the process of transforming a stammering foster child into a faith-filled prophet whose name is now synonymous with liberation: “Never since has there been anything like the signs and miracle-wonders that GOD sent [Moses] to do.”8

  When you determine to do your own work in the face of your loved one’s struggle, you will need the support of others and their eyes to help you see the signs in your own life. I recommend Al-Anon, the Twelve Step group for family members of addicts. Author Frederick Buechner wrote about his experience with Twelve Step groups after struggling with his daughter’s eating addiction (anorexia). These groups set him free from shame and moved him to faith:

  They also have slogans, which you can either dismiss as hopelessly simplistic or cling on to like driftwood in a stormy sea. One of them is “Let go and let God”—which is so easy to say and for people like me so far from easy to follow. Let go of the dark, which you wrap yourself in like a straitjacket, and let in the light. Stop trying to protect, to rescue, to judge, to manage the lives … of your husband, your wife, your friends—because that is just what you are powerless to do. Remember that the lives of other people are not your business. They are their business. They are God’s business because they all have God whether they use the word God or not …. It also is God’s business. Leave it to God. It is an astonishing thought. It can become a life-transforming thought.9

  FROM CONTROL TO HOPE

  Our desire to control the addict can take many forms. It can be patronizing. When you find yourself lecturing or pontificating about your loved ones behavior, you are hoping to control. But judgment an
d lecturing never bring anyone to change. We really do become like the grownups in the Peanuts cartoons, with disembodied voices, transmitting sounds that register no meaning to the listener.

  Control can also take the form of anger. And who can blame the loved ones of addicts for being angry? They give us plenty of cause. At the movies, we stand up and applaud when the downtrodden character finally explodes, “I’m madder than hell. And I ain’t gonna take it no more!” The problem with this self-righteous expression of control is that it can actually become intoxicating. Exploding in anger or subtly maintaining an edge of contempt can feel good at the time, just like alcohol or drugs, but the consequences are harmful to your own soul and to your relationships. You never get a resolution from anger. And even though the addict’s behavior is often objectionable, to scold or humiliate him is to behave violently yourself You can certainly tell your loved one that you are angry or hurt, but when you do it in an outraged, offended energy, you just fuel the toxicity of the relationship.

  Another form of control is manipulation. If you decide to hide the bills, ignore the needs of your children, or tell a “little white lie” in the hopes that you can prevent your loved ones addicted behavior, you are manipulating. And whether the manipulation is benevolent or ill intended, it is always a losing strategy. No one thrives when she is being manipulated. It may lead to a form of compliance, but it will never engender health or love. And what we truly long for in our loved ones is an attainment of the heart.

  As the leader of the wandering Hebrews, Moses had to put up with a lot of grumbling and “relapsing.” After God’s miraculous parting of the Red Sea, the Hebrew children became afraid and wondered if it would be better to go back and be slaves again. Sounds like the addicts I have known and been! At length, Moses and his stumbling followers came to Mount Sinai. Moses climbed to the top and met God face to face. When God gave Moses the Law, Moses came back down the mountain to promise the Israelites that things would go well for them if they followed Gods laws. They promised they would. Moses then went back up on the mountain for forty days and forty nights to hear further instructions.

  But the Israelite people got restless, irritable, and discontented. They relapsed. They went back to their old ways and made a golden calf to worship.

  When Moses returned with the first ten laws, he saw that his followers had broken their promise to worship only the God who described Himself as I AM. Moses got angry. Threw a fit. He exploded in rage. He flung down the tablets that contained the law God had spoken to him and smashed them to bits.

  Moses tried lecturing, patronizing, scolding, and humiliating—and then he went back to God and complained, “Look, you tell me, ‘Lead this people,’ but you don’t let me know whom you’re going to send with me. You tell me, ‘I know you well and you are special to me.’ If I am so special to you, let me in on your plans.”10

  I’m glad this episode is included in the story. Once again, Moses doesn’t show the certain and glowing faith that we might expect from one of the fathers of our faith, but his experience is realistic. The beginning of surrendering control is expressing our doubt.

  All religion begins with the cry “Help.”

  —WILLIAM JAMES

  In Anne Lamott’s novel Joe Jones, Louise, who loves the addict Joe, sounds a bit like Moses. Louise anguishes over her addicted loved one and complains to God, “It’s just that, as long as You’re there, why don’t You act like You’re there? … You could reveal yourself It is like, say you have a small child who wakes up from a nightmare and wanders around in the dark, calling for its parents. And the parents won’t answer. They hide. The kids are having nightmares, and You hide.”11

  It is necessary to feel the pain of our confusion and our failure to control. After Moses’s lament, God promises to be with him. Then Moses makes one request of God, “Please. Let me see your Glory.”12

  I think this is how Moses went from control to hope. He didn’t ask for his own glory or for a glorious change in the people he led and loved. Instead, he begged to see God’s glory.

  And God answered, “I will make my Goodness pass right in front of you.13

  When we focus our attention on the addict we love and on ways to solve his problems, we miss the goodness of God that passes right in front of us. No, turning to God does not mean that your life will suddenly become warm and fuzzy, or that you won’t feel pain and longing for your loved one. But your focus will change. Instead of striving for control or needing die people in your life to be okay, you will surrender to wanting something (or Someone) more than you want your loved one to change.

  This might seem inconceivable to you in the midst of uncontrollable and unpleasant circumstances. However, I want to suggest that evidence of God’s goodness is right in front of you, in the heartbreak you are experiencing right now. Without the pain, you wouldn’t seek Comfort. Without the confusion, you wouldn’t need Wisdom. Without being lost, you wouldn’t need Someone to find you. Without the utter hopelessness that you feel at times in relationship with an addict, you wouldn’t need a Hope that is out of this world.

  After crying out to God, Moses came down the mountain with hope— and with all of the laws carved, again, in stone. God’s laws were set in stone; Moses’s first hope was that he could control the unruly Israelites, and then he offered God’s laws in hope that the Israelites would find God. A later rabbinic story reminds us that God continues to offer us words of hope, sometimes in the most unlikely places:

  A disciple asks the rebbe, “Why does Torah tell us to place these words upon your hearts’? Why does it not tell us to place these holy words in our hearts?”

  The rebbe answers, “It is because as we are, our hearts are closed, and we cannot place the holy words in our hearts. So we place them on top of our hearts. And there they stay until, one day, the heart breaks and the words fall in.”14

  FROM FEAR TO LOVE

  Last night I went to a yoga class. I am trying something new, and I am not very good at it. I stay tense through the whole class, which kind of negates the whole point of yoga. This time, I think my instructor recognized my anxiety and wanted to help me see how it was getting in the way of my having a good yoga experience. She began the class by telling us that she was going to take note of who was not doing the poses correctly and point them out to the entire class, so that we could learn from one another’s mistakes. Read that as “from my complete uncoordinatedness.” Anyway, that’s how I heard her, and so throughout the whole session, I was all worked up, fearful, tense, and dreading the moments when I would become the bad example for the class.

  But the instructor never interrupted us. When class ended, she said, “Some of you were spending all your time tense, anticipating embarrassment and shame, and trying to control it and deal with it before I made an example of you. You missed the whole point of the class. You can simply acknowledge that you won’t do everything the right way, and that some poses will be painful. Just wait for that to happen, and trust yourself to deal with it when it does.”

  She sounded so wise, and I thought to myself. So that’s what Zen means.

  And then I realized that her wisdom applied to loving people, especially difficult people, troubled people, addicted people. If you have been in a relationship with an addict for very long, you know that pain is inevitable. If we spend all of our time being tense, anticipating something terrible, and dreading and fearing what is to come, we miss the whole point: engaging with God in the midst of painful relationships. But waiting and trusting when chaos and confusion reign? That doesn’t sound Zen, it sounds impossible.

  It is important to note that behind every shadow of shame and every guise of control stands our fear: fear of embarrassment, betrayal, harm, disappointment, heartbreak. In fact, fear is a natural human response to the behaviors of addiction. There is a lot to be afraid of. But if you believe that you must ward off all pain, anticipate every move that yo
ur loved one makes, and prevent anything terrible from happening, fear will swallow you whole.

  The New Testament tells us the antidote for fear: “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear.”15 Perfect love? It’s hard enough to imagine loving ordinary people perfectly—but addicts? We feel the way I did in my yoga class, afraid of others, afraid of ourselves.

  Loving an addict seems like an overwhelmingly complicated task because we don’t understand God’s love. We see God as austere, unflappable, and unmoved, a view that makes us ashamed and hopeless about our own stories and our sometimes clumsy, often desperate attempts to love others.

  Moving from fear to love requires that we acknowledge and understand the truth about God and the story that we live by. Peter Van Breemen wrote, “The fact that our view of God shapes our lives to a great extent may be one of the reasons scripture ascribes such importance to seeking to know him.”16

  I want to ask, for a moment, that you set aside the idea that the story you live by is one about being an addict, an addict in recovery, or someone who loves an addict or an addict in recovery. I know that story shouts loudly and tends to drown out any other story. But I believe there is a deeper story, one of Perfect Love that will cast out all fear.

  The traditional church suggests that the story we live by is that we are created to know, love, and serve God. I believe there is a deeper story, a story that those who have struggled deeply have the best chance of knowing that God yearns to love and serve us. This deeper story, which sets us free from fear to love and be loved, will be the focus of the next chapter.