Addiction and Grace: Love and Spirituality in the Healing of Addictions

by Gerald G. May

So instead of promoting a dry, uncaring state, detachment does just the opposite. It seeks a liberation of desire, an enhancement of passion, the freedom to love with all one’s being, and the willingness to bear the pain such love can bring.

Grace is our only hope for dealing with addiction, the only power that can truly vanquish its destructiveness. Grace is the invincible advocate of freedom and the absolute expression of perfect love.

In the words of John of the Cross, “It is not the things of this world that either occupy the soul or cause it harm, since they enter it not, but rather the will and desire for them.” This will and desire, this clinging and grasping, is attachment.

And it is precisely our most powerful addictions that cause us to defeat ourselves, that bring us to the rock bottom realization that we cannot finally master everything.

five essential characteristics that mark true addiction: (1) tolerance, (2) withdrawal symptoms, (3) self-deception, (4) loss of willpower, and (5) distortion of attention.

Not only does this take considerable energy; it also means the person cannot be comfortable with himself. He must always keep his mind either occupied or dulled, so that no clear space opens within which the conscious realization might occur.

I am in the clutches of the enemy, and the enemy is clearly myself.

There is a strange sadness in this growing freedom. Our souls may have been scarred by the chains with which our addictions have bound us, but at least they were familiar chains. We were used to them. And as they loosen, we are likely to feel a vague sense of loss. The things to which we were addicted may still be with us, but we no longer give them the ultimate importance we once did. We are like caged animals beginning to experience freedom, and there is something we miss about the cage.

In a tender maternal moment before Eve and Adam leave, God makes clothing for them. This is not the action of a frightened God who clings to divinity, but of a free and loving God who knows that human life cannot be full unless it depends on its Creator for divinity.

“Then when you call to me, and come to plead with me, I will listen to you. When you seek me you shall find me, when you seek me with all your heart; I will let you find me….” “Do not be afraid, for I have redeemed you;…

The desert is where battle with attachment takes place.