Soul Care #22: Common Addictions

Addictions, cont. : Common addictions & what is behind them

Pornography- Feels to many an efficient way to provide relief. Women are also becoming more addicted to porn. It trains you to see a person as a commodity, separating the person from their body. You can have an experience without the responsibilities of relationship. It promises you will feel more sexual and alive, but it has the opposite impact of what it promises. You feel less human, less sexual, less alive.

Workaholism- Essentially this works the same way. You think you will gain more respect and become more passionate about what you do. You actually lose respect and come to despise your work. Or you think that you can avoid areas of struggle and weakness by pouring all your time in things that make you feel competent. When you are working hard, you don't have to struggle with feeling lonely or lost because you have so much work to do. Sometimes people who are stuck in this cycle cannot see what affect this is having on key relationships. They feel like, "Don't you appreciate what I'm doing for you?" But they do not see that work is their escape, not about giving to others.

Computer addiction- People don't do a great job of drawing a line between a fantasy world of internet games and real life. Thus, people turn to computerized versions of relationships they desire. Currently, psychological journals are exploring this more recent addiction; A current lawsuit is debated for someone who reported being 'abused' during a computer game. This person really internalized this relationship and was exhibiting symptoms as if this really happened in their real life, because she had lost the sense of boundary between fantasy and reality. Most of us don't become involved to this degree, but sometimes what begins as a simple computer game turns into a way to find closure in a world where we have no answers or feel unsuccessful. Or a platform like facebook or twitter allows us to present ourselves in a way that we wish people would see us.

We all have propensities to meet our needs in other ways than dependence upon God. Pornography is predictable. The affects of caffeine, alcohol, the simple success of winning a computer game are predictable. How predictable is God?