According to Wikipedia, "addiction is a neuropsychological disorder characterized by a persistent and intense urge to use a drug or engage in a behavior that produces natural reward, despite substantial harm and other negative consequences." Addiction can come in many forms: hard drugs, alcohol, weed, prescription drugs, porn, sex, shopping/hoarding, gambling, eating, and on and on and on. Usually an addiction starts as a way to avoid something negative, and the substance or behavior seems to promise freedom from that very thing. What always happens though, is that when the avoiding experience is over, that thing being avoided is still there. Now there is a choice to be made, do we face that negative thing, or give in to the temptation to continue with the addictive behavior? Addiction is a series of choices made to continue in that same pattern, over and over, gradually experiencing diminishing returns as the escaping effect lessens with each passing time, but it gets harder and harder to stop as the person continues to try and reach the level of escape they experienced that first time. Addiction can often be recognized as a person who has quit and relapsed many times, as they feel powerless to deal with the issues that caused them to seek an escape in the first place. This can be maddening and depressing, and gradually the person loses hope, as they become enslaved to the very thing they thought was setting them free.
The good news is that addiction is not permanent, and despite a psychological feeling of despair that you will remain trapped in it, anyone can break free from the bondage it produces. It has to start with an acknowledgment that you are not living in freedom, and there needs to be a desire to be free. In order to break free from the addiction you have to get to the root cause, and to recognize what made you fall into this cycle in the first place. Behavior modification alone typically does not work, simply telling yourself to try harder when you have nothing left, just doesn't usually produce lasting results. The things that are driving the addiction, the thing that is underneath it and being avoided, that finally needs to be dealt with.
I think it is important to have a long-term vision rather than focusing on the short-term day by day desire to escape from something, but rather to look down the road and to decide where you want your life to be. You may not know how you're going to get there, but it is at this point when God can do amazing things with a person's heart if we cry out to him. We take each temptation and see it as a choice, we may feel strongly that we have no choice but to continue in the addiction, but there is always another choice. If we earnestly seek the Lord, he will provide a way out, but we have to be open to what it may be and that it may not look like what we thought he would provide. Sometimes it may come in the form of other people who want to help. It may come in the form of counseling or rehab. It will most likely involve getting out of your comfort zone and being willing to be vulnerable and share your heart with someone. Often when we get to this point and we are willing to break out of our isolation, we find common ground with others who have struggled as well, and they can provide encouragement and pray for us too. Never lose hope. God wants us to live a life of freedom, not of being enslaved in an addiction. When we find ourselves at the fork in the road with a choice to be made, if we ask the Lord to help us make a different choice, he can give us the strength to do so if we are willing to trust him and let him into our heart, into the places we don't want to go to ourselves. The choice is ours to make.
