Some of us who were once in bondage to one or more addiction or another made it through the past holiday without much thought. I hope that didn't happen often though, because I pray that we never lose our gratitude and sense of wonder that comes from realizing that what once would have been a struggle of epic proportions, if even possible, is now just another day of recovery and freedom. But some may have had a hard time and barely gotten through it without relapse. Some of us didn't survive the holiday with their sobriety in tact, and sadly some of them didn't survive at all.
Gee, you're awful cherry this morning aren't you? Well, actually yes. I consider it a blessing to have woken sober for the 2,611th day in a row, and yes, I had to do the math. And I am also grateful for today's inspiration. First, holidays aren't a big deal to me anymore, and haven't been for quite a while. There is no more stress about my recovery due to an upcoming holiday than there is the anniversary of a loved one's death or some other tragedy I used to drink and drug over. Secondly, July 4th and New Years Eve were not big party days for me anyway, so I would have been more likely to wake up sober on the 5th of July than the 5th of August. Perhaps, you are like me in that respect. This holiday wasn't a big deal, but some days are white knuckle rafting through emotional rapids that seem determined to drown you or force you over the falls. We've all been there. Maybe you are trying to pick up the pieces of a broken recovery raft and mourning the destruction left in the wake of yet another relapse. Perhaps you are wondering if there truly is ever freedom.
Yes. I don't mean not doing the thing I can't stop doing anymore, but where it isn't even a factor or a fight anymore freedom. Yes. And no. Yes, it stops being a struggle. It's like the cancer that has disappeared and gone into remission. It's not a factor in that respect any more. That's what freedom from the obsession is all about. That doesn't mean that from time to time the thought won't appear, like a cancer survivor waking a thinking they need chemo before they remember with great relief that they don't. The thought is quickly dismissed and discarded without a struggle or true temptation. And that doesn't mean it can't try to rise from the dead. I've had a handful of days in the last few years where part of me really wanted to get wasted, but it was more of an annoyance than a struggle or a fight.
But that is a decent lead into to the no part of the yes and no. It will always be a factor. We don't have to live in fear, but we do have to be aware of our spiritual condition less we miss the warning signs that the spiritual malady is beginning to come out of remission. As with physical cancer, repeat bouts with the illness are more and more dangerous, destructive and deadly. That's not the only reason that our recovery remains a factor though. Even if we never come out of remission, we are still never what we were before. We have become survivors and been transformed into a new being, and as such we have a responsibility to help and encourage others who are still sick and suffering, while being sure to remember that it is God who has set us free and not anything we did ourselves. But yes, there is freedom available, true freedom from the chains that bind you and hold you captive and keep you enslaved.
Maybe you're still struggling and that freedom seems a fairy tale. You've done all the things that are supposed to work. There's meetings, more meetings than you can count. You're reading your recovery literature and Bible religiously. You pray more, and if you forget to pray, you stop whatever you're doing and pray twice, once for the prayer you missed and once for forgiveness for forgetting to pray in the first place. You maintain quiet time in the mornings and a evenings, call a trusted friend and mentor often and regularly, and confess every temptation and near defeat. You check for the trigger monster living under the bed, in the closet and around ever corner.
And it's worked, at least you haven't used or drank or spent foolishly or eaten the whole thing or whatever. You haven't put the cuffs back on. Yet. But maybe the fight is getting too old and you are getting too tired. Or perhaps what seemed to work before just isn't working now, and you know you can't go on much longer on will power, determination and desire. Maybe you already let go and let the rapids carry you to relapse and the depression, shame and guilt are suffocating you and you feel hopeless. It is what it is. This is just who I am and how it's going to be. Recovery is just the illusion of freedom while fighting interspersed with relapse and recapture, then more and harder fighting to get free again and repair the damage done, until there's nothing left to repair because everything we care about is destroyed or we die.
But the reason I am cheerful this morning is because I know that it doesn't have to be that way. I have and continue to have freedom, and I have seen it in the lives of others. And sometimes those of us who have found it inadvertently make it harder on those who are still fighting the current. We see the struggle and give advice that helped us hold on until the miracle occurred. I had a dear friend who swore by Bluebell ice cream in the early days of recovery and fighting the cravings, and we spent much time in her living room watching crime shows and eating ice cream. And I didn't go back out while we did that. Some will swear that the secret is never getting hungry, angry, lonely or tired. Some will tell you that it's changing all the people and places and avoiding triggers. The secret is that while some of that and other tips may help short term, they're not the answer. None of it is. Not even what worked for me. Not even what did or will work for you. Taking your foot off the gas will only cause you to slow down as long as you are not on a steep hill when you do it. Sooner or later the tricks and coping mechanisms you use to fight your temptations and addictions will fail to work.
But that's good news. It means you can stop the fighting that you're so tired of. You can quit forcing yourself to stay dry and live free instead, whatever dry is for you. As long as we are fighting the temptation ourselves, trying to manage and manipulate our life to keep the monster at bay we'll never be free, and we'll eventually lose. It's only when we give up the idea that we can control the beast within or keep it caged that we can begin the road to real freedom.
When we get desperate for freedom from habitual sin and addiction, we'll try anything. We'll take any tool offered and try to fix our broken minds, bodies and souls. We'll ask anyone and everyone who claims to have struggled as we have to tell us what they did so that we can do it too. We want to know what we can do that will work, the secret that if we just keep doing it and never give up, will make us stop and stay stopped, even on the steep hills of life. But none of the tricks will work every time, and since it's in our nature to longingly look back at the delights of Egypt while ignoring the scars from the slave master's lash, sooner or later, we just won't use the tools we've been given.
That is not a reason to give up hope. That's a reason to give up the fight for control. The path to freedom takes us to a different destination than changing or controlling behavior and desires. It takes us to transformation. It's not a detour around the pitfalls. It's a cocoon that means death followed by new life so that we are flying instead of crawling and holes in the road aren't a threat. But don't think that means we have to wrap ourselves in the silk and figure out what's wrong with us way down deep inside and fix it. You can't fix yourself any more than you can set yourself and keep yourself free.
There is work involved and steps we have to take. And yes, there are things that it helps to know about why were held in that particular area of slavery, because our addictions are symptoms. They are a secondary illness, not the primary. And yes, part of spiritual health involves boundaries and accountability and giving away what we've been given and being of service and prayer. As long as these are signs of spiritual health done out of love, they will be a blessing in our lives and a hedge of protection against coming out of remission. But if they become tools to make us or keep us free, they will begin to weaken and possibly break down.
That's because it's not in any of those things either. Doing religious things religiously won't work or help. Doing those same things out of love will transform out lives. It does no good to pray because we are supposed to or someone says we should. Reading to ward off evil and temptation, no matter what we're reading, is just seeing words. Boundaries will only work as long as we can keep them, and that isn't ever as long as we need to.
We don't need more control. We need to surrender control. We don't need a method or religion, we need to be changed through relationship. We have to admit that our beliefs, our rituals, our routines, our tricks and tools have all failed or are in danger of failing. And that we are children in need of Daddy to pick us up, care for us and do for us what we can not now, nor will ever be able to, do on our own. Freedom is available, and you don't have to fight for it. The battle is already won. But you do have to say yes to the One who offers it. Then, it's not your control or your power or your anything any longer. It's His power. You may be on the battlefield, but the Lord is doing the fighting. Before long the mass of enemies that never got tired of fighting you, because they knew they would always win sooner or later, because they outnumber you 10,000 to 1, because they are mightier and better armed than you, those same former foes are running for the hills for good. If you keep trying to figure out how to fight and win the battle you will lose. But when you give up control to the One who loves you and is mighty and able to save, victory is assured and freedom is more than a fairy tale. It is the new reality.
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