"Just Get With The Program"...Why programs don’t work!

     I scrambled hurriedly into what seemed like an abandoned hallway or wing of the hospital where the CoDA meetings my daughter and I had been court ordered to attend were being held. I’m chronically late so I was just trying to get there before we were noticeably late. CoDA stands for co-dependents anonymous and as my daughter and I sat down next to each other, we began to listen as the people announced who they were and what they were. My heart sank as each person took turns...”I’m so and so and I’m an addict, I’m so and so and I’m an alcoholic, I’m so and so and I’m co-dependent on men, I’m so and so and I almost could not wait for this meeting tonight, I’m so and so and I just got my 13 years sober badge.“ 

   Listen, 13 years sober is absolutely something to celebrate, but I have known people to be clean and sober for 30 years and fall back into the trap of addiction and if after 13 years you are still tied, tethered or bound to some kind of meetings please let them be meetings at the House of God where they focus on teaching you how Jesus can set you free from being an addict.

      

     If my memory serves me I don’t think we ever went back to another CoDA meeting and if we did it was only once. I don’t remember exactly why but Someone or Something made it possible that what had been court ordered meetings we ended up not having to do.

     

     If we have to keep chasing a lifestyle or mantra to stop chasing our addictions then let it be the lifestyle and mantra of Jesus Christ who says “I have come to set the captive free.”, He didn’t just say it, He means it!  

    

     The addict’s anonymous meetings started out to be a great idea, but really if we can’t give credit for our sobriety to God Almighty do we really think we can find our strength in “God as we understand Him to be”? WHAT?  We need to understand God as the Sovereign God that He is, and it won’t work to surrender everything to your higher power, unless you know Him to be The Highest Power!

   The perpetuated lie at these meetings that once someone has become an addict they are always and forever an addict is just that, a lie!

Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation: old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new”.  How can we be new creations in Christ and also be lifelong addicts? Old things (addictions) can’t and won’t pass away if we forever claim them as part of who and what we are.

   Think about how foolish all of this is...”maybe today”, says the recovering addict, “is the day I am weak and WANT to drink or use drugs, maybe today I only understand God to be able to help me in the past, but not today, today I am weak and I don’t know or understand Him as a God who SET ME FREE, so I think I’ll have a drink and get back to recovering tomorrow.”  Yes, if we do this we will always be addicted, but we DON’T have to be. This is nothing more than an excuse to relapse because after all you are only a recovering addict... always and forever recovering! That means that you ultimately become addicted to meetings, sponsors, this higher power and some god as you understand him (or it ) to be! WHAT??? This is not freedom, but in fact, bondage!  Galatians 5:1 tells us to, “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.” Don’t become entangled and in bondage to meetings, mantras or programs.

    This is why Jesus said that He came to set the captive free, because, He is the only One who can set us free. He doesn’t want us to fill the void of our addictions with meetings, lies of never being free and always in a state of “recovery”—that’s not hope, that’s false hope and it won't last.  If you want freedom, you never have to entertain those things of your past again, unless you are called to help others after you have been set free, and then the thoughts and stories of the past will be to tell the story of how our Great God set you free and how He can and will do it for others as well.

   

 Too often in the actual meetings of these programs there is a lot of time spent hashing over the things of the past until it becomes a sort of glamorizing of these old behaviors and the next thing you know someone (new or weak) can’t wait to leave the meeting and go feed the craving they just spent an hour talking about.

    For anyone who is offended by what I am saying and it is because you have indeed found a way for a program other than God’s Program to work for you, then, I am sorry. I will say this, I don’t think it will last, in the sense that these meetings cannot fill you up with a fullness that comes from a living and powerful God, and eventually you will find yourself wanting more, and when that time comes please reach out to Him, the One and Only thing that can finally once and for all fill you up and set you free! It might not be for 13 years, but you will not sustain freedom from addiction by becoming addicted to meetings, programs or by chanting a “one day at a time” mantra. However, I believe if you replace those empty places inside of you with the One and Only Living God you will not spend the rest of your life claiming to be recovering from an addiction, you will be set free from any and all addictions that torment you forever. You will not be putting your faith, hope and future in the hands of some unknown entity you might know as God. Our Great God will set you free by and through the blood of His Son Jesus Christ and you will be set free indeed!

    You truly have to want to be free, as I said, some people want to become dependent on meetings and mantras, etc., but if you are serious and you ask God Almighty the One powerful enough to set you forever free, to show you that He can set you free, and you begin to seek Him and His ways He will NOT fail you!

    

    You will forever crave something more if you don’t fill yourself with God and the reason for this is that you were created by Him and for Him, your spirit and His Spirit long for each other. The bible tells us this in Romans 8:16 “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.”  A sort of homing device, if you will, that God put inside of us--that  our spirit knows we belong to Father God! The Message says it like this, “God’s Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children.”

     

    I strongly believe that we can never be completely free from addictions until and unless we fill the longing in us with God and I also believe that is why people have become bound in addiction in the first place. They have not yet filled the part of them that is longing, wanting, needing more than this world has to offer, they haven’t been filled with the fullness of God Almighty, and they have not understood the real and specific reason for the journey of their life. 

    My heart breaks for people who spend a ton of money while time and time again checking into rehab centers in hopes that this time it will finally work. Even celebrities and the very wealthy are always and forever checking into high-end facilities, getting better for a while and then relapsing. Why? They need Jesus to set them free! Their money isn’t fulfilling them, their fame isn’t fulfilling them, their lifestyle isn’t fulfilling them. 

   There are no meetings, badges, programs or rehabs this world can offer us that will fill us enough that we will never need another addiction---only God is enough.

    God has great, glorious and eternal things in store for us and spending the rest of our lives here on this earth recovering from an addiction is not one of the great things God has planned for us. He has plans to use us to further His Kingdom and to lead people to Him and show them with our lives how He can and will set them free!

    

    This is why I am always saying that God is the ultimate addiction, because, if I am forever going to be addicted to something or someone then by all means let it be GOD ALMIGHTY and may I NEVER recover from this addiction to My Savior!

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