I hear addicts talk about the shakes and panic attacks and the highs and lows of resisting their habit, and to some degree I understand them because I have had habits of my own, but no drug is so powerful as the drug of self. No rut in the mind is so deep as the one that says I am the world, the world belongs to me, all people are characters in my play. There is no addiction so powerful as self addiction.
- Donald Miller Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts On Christian Spirituality
I read this to Leah last night, but not as the stand alone quote I am sharing here. I am reading the book to her. She enjoys it when I read to her, so,,,,well, so I read to her. I like to make her happy, and Blue Like Jazz is the book we are currently reading... I am reading, and she is listening to. And we're discussing. We discussed the above quote.
When I first read the statement I totally and completely agreed with it. I could even understand and somewhat relate to the manifestation of self addiction as described in the book by Miller. My first instinct was to say that we are indeed all addicted to self by the time we become self aware. That is the main part of the curse. Satan tempted Eve with self rising to be as God. Your self can be your God, he told her, and she bought it. Then she got caught and told Adam what the snake said, and he bought it too. I believe that had Adam knocked the fruit out of her hand instead of eating it we might still be in the garden, well, except that sooner or later one of us would screw it all up. The Bible says it was through Adam's sin, not Eve's, that sin and the curse entered the world, so that must mean that until he also ate there was some chance at a reset.
Not the point. The point is we are all spiritual crack babies, born addicted to the spiritual crack we call self. I believe that. So when I read there is no addiction so powerful as self addiction, I completely and immediately agreed. Leah didn't understand it though, so I had to rethink some. I'm not saying she didn't understand the concept. My wife is a beautifully intelligent woman, and she can grasp a simple concept like addiction to self. No, she couldn't understand Miller, or at least his what it was like section of describing his self addiction.
I thought it was right on, because I could indeed relate to it. In fact, I figured everyone who got really honest with themselves would see how they were, at least some, like that too. Miller spoke of life being a story about himself and how that was the greatest lie he ever had to contend with. Other people were not people but supporting roles in his movie. Leah thought that sounded horrible (and it is), and said she not only couldn't remember ever being like that, but couldn't relate.
As soon as she said it, I knew she was right. I know her well enough to know that even before she began to grow spiritually healthy and find relationship with Daddy she truly had a heart for others. She would lay down her life, not die for but rather live for (a much harder proposition), others. She has, and has had for at least the vast majority of her life, a heart full of compassion for the broken. Miller's description didn't fit her at all really.
Last night, during my evening meditations to close the day, I thought about that. It threw me into a bit of a quandary, which is a good thing because it makes me think and question my suppositions. Like many, and most, addicts (including alcoholics, which is merely a drug specific addiction) I vacillate between believing that no one is like me, no one feels like I do, no one could possibly relate to or understand the things that go on in my head and heart and that I am terminally unique, to the flip side that everyone is like me, deep down under all the masks and the pretending and the social niceties, everyone is as messed up as me and has the same thoughts and motivations. Neither of course is true, because it's only a small percentage of us freaks that live at the extremes.
Miller's story reflected things I understood and could relate to about self addiction, so I agreed. After all, the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous also has a similar statement.
Each person is like an actor who wants to run the whole show; is forever trying to arrange the lights, the ballet, the scenery, and the rest of the players in his own way. If his arrangements would only stay put, if only people would do as he wished the show would be great. Everybody, including himself, would be pleased. Life would be wonderful. In trying to make these arrangements our actor may sometimes be quite virtuous. He may be kind, considerate, patient, generous, even modest and self sacrificing. On the other hand, he may be mean, egotistical, selfish and dishonest. But as with moth humans he is more likely to have varied traits.
“What usually happens? The show doesn’t’ come off very well.
It hit me, that perhaps this lack of being able to relate to the kind of selfishness and self centeredness that Miller described and I could relate to is precisely why Leah never developed alcoholism. She's not built to fall for the self over all others in all things lie, the lie that says life is a story about me, much less live and act like that. So was I wrong about us all being born crack babies? Did that mean that Leah was not, after all, addicted to self, and if she was not, didn't that mean that others were not? After all, Leah is no more terminally unique than I am.
But no. Jesus made it clear that the only way to follow Him is to die to self, and no one wanted to do it. No one wants to do it today. We say OK, because we know it doesn't mean we stop breathing. Everyone wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die. And people want the benefits of relationship with their Creator without having to step down off the throne at the center of their universe. What if Jesus had said it differently? What if instead of saying you had to deny self and take up your cross, He said you would have to live like others, even people you don't know and don't like, are, at the very least, just as important as you are? What if He had said we would all have to kick our habit and stop using our drug of choice, the one that Adam and Eve got us all hooked on, the one that says please me, make me safe, make me comfortable, make me happy?
I am reminded that I received some good advice once on sharing my story. Stay away from details; I was told, something I don't always remember to follow, but I try. If you describe the scary details of addiction you lose some of the people you are trying to reach. Some will have been worse than you, gone deeper into the gutter, come closer to dying, and done far worse. They will discount your solution because you were not as messed up as they. On the other hand, there were and are addicts who realized that they were in trouble before blowing their lives up, who never got arrested, never overdosed, never, to the best of their knowledge, nearly died, never....you get the idea, and when they hear the war stories they think to themselves, I am so not like, or one of, these people.
But they are, and when, instead of talking about doing an entire 8-ball by myself that three of us paid for and were supposed to share because I picked it up and the other two didn't get to where I was fast enough (I guess they didn't want or need it as badly as I did), I speak about the emptiness that I was trying to fill or hide or distract myself from, when I talk about being alone in the middle of the crowd, etc., addicts on both sides of my junkie scale can identify.
We are all indeed born addicted to self. There's a reason that none of us can walk with God without grace, that none of us can love like Jesus without help. We are all addicted to self. But it looks worse on some of us than others, because it manifests differently. The quote from the Big Book was wrong in my mind. It wasn't saying that we are all actors who believe the show is about us. That's how I remember it and think of it, because that is the way it manifests in me.
But it only said we wanted to control everything. We want to run the show, and that ours and everyone else's life would be better if everyone would simply follow direction. It's still the same addiction. In me it might come to light as you only matter if you can make me feel better, good, safe comfortable or happy. If you can't do that, go away, and for that matter, go away until I want you to make me feel one or more of those things because I isolate. For others it may manifest as I only matter if I can make your life better, good, safe, comfortable or happy. In fact, I don't like myself unless I am making the world a better place for others. It's still about self. It's all about making life work in such a way as to not make us hate ourselves, make us hate our lives and forget that we are miserable in the dark when the world gets quiet and the thoughts won't follow suit.
Leah is a crack baby, just like me. It's not her fault. It's not mine either. Our parents passed the addiction on to us, as it was passed on to them, all the way back to our common parents. Which, means that yes, you too, Dear Reader, were born a crack baby. I don't know how your addiction to self manifests. Maybe you can't understand or relate to the things I express or people like Donald Miller and Nikki Sixx write, maybe you don't think everything is about you. And maybe that even makes it harder because it's not as easy to spot the addiction when you don't have one foot in the gutter and the other one in the grave. But when you think your life should be run your way, when you are afraid to give control to God, even though you being in control hasn't really worked out all that well and hasn't made you not miserable, then, however it manifests, you are addicted to self.
As scary as it is, whichever group you fall into, the only solution is to kick. It won't be easy. You're going to jones like crazy, especially at first. You're going to relapse. You're going to give up your will and control (the two things that you need to feed your addiction), and then take them back or dig up stashes you had forgotten about until things get really desperate. Every addict and alcoholic that has gone into recovery that I have ever met has had to kick the self addiction in order to stay sober. And each of them has expressed in some form or another that it was harder to stop living for self than it was to stop living for drink and drug. We are all called to deny self, to surrender ourselves completely to our Creator. And none of us can do it without grace. We can't even really want to without some help. Oh we might say we want to when we're in a jam and need help, but what we really want is the help, not the self sacrifice.
But here's the thing. I'm not good at doing this. I relapse a lot. But I don't live under the influence of self 24/7 any more. I don't have to direct or star in the show. I did do that scariest of things, surrender the throne to another, to the One who deserves to be there. I can testify that life is better when it's not self centered. Life is worth living and more fulfilling, more satisfying and joyful, more peaceful and contented when it is first placed on the altar as a living sacrifice. The relationship with Jesus really is worth the struggle of kicking the addiction, and what's better than that is He will even help us kick. He's the one that made getting clean possible in the first place.
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Before I became born again, I truly thought I was the greatest being alive, when Jesus showed himself to me, I realized i was the lowest of the low.
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