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

by Gerald G. May

Many of the old understandings to which I had been addicted were stripped away, leaving a desertlike spaciousness where my customary props and securities no longer existed. Grace was able to flow into this emptiness, and something new was able to grow.

I am convinced that all human beings have an inborn desire for God. Whether we are consciously religious or not, this desire is our deepest longing and our most precious treasure. It gives us meaning. Some of us have repressed this desire, burying it beneath so many other interests that we are completely unaware of it.

Or we may experience it in different ways—as a longing for wholeness, completion, or fulfillment. Regardless of how we describe it, it is a longing for love. It is a hunger to love, to be loved, and to move closer to the Source of love. This yearning is the essence of the human spirit; it is the origin of our highest hopes and most noble dreams.

Grace is the most powerful force in the universe. It can transcend repression, addiction, and every other internal or external power that seeks to oppress the freedom of the human heart. Grace is where our hope lies.

It is addiction that creates other gods for us. Because of our addictions, we will always be storing up treasures somewhere other than heaven, and these treasures will kidnap our hearts and souls and strength.

We may go through a great deal of humbling, if not outright humiliation, before we come to this simplicity of hope. We do not like admitting defeat, and we will struggle valiantly, even foolishly, to prove that we can master our destinies. God, in whose image we are made, instills in us the capacity for relentless tenacity, an assertiveness that complements our yearning hunger for God. But most of us overdo it; our spirit of assertiveness quickly becomes a spirit of pride. We will never really turn to God in loving openness as long as we are handling things well enough by ourselves. 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. Thus, although in one sense addiction is the enemy of grace, it can also be a powerful channel for the flow of grace. Addiction can be, and often is, the thing that brings us to our knees.

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. Thus, although in one sense addiction is the enemy of grace, it can also be a powerful channel for the flow of grace. Addiction can be, and often is, the thing that brings us to our knees.

Virtually all body functions take place as a result of shifting balances among chemicals that have opposing effects.

Addiction is any compulsive, habitual behavior that limits the freedom of human desire. It is caused by the attachment, or nailing, of desire to specific objects. The word behavior is especially important in this definition, for it indicates that action is essential to addiction.

the brain never completely forgets its old attachments, so the absence of conscious desire does not necessarily mean attachment is gone. In fact, because of the tricks our minds play on us, many of our addictions are able to exist for years completely outside our awareness; it is only when our addictions are frustrated or cause us conflict that we have an opportunity to notice how attached we truly are. Another complicating factor is that behavior is not limited to external physical activity. Thinking is also a behavior, a “doing.” Thus images, memories, fantasies, ideas, concepts, and even certain feeling states can become objects of attachment, and one can become fully addicted to them.

Perhaps we have also recognized that there are certain images of ourselves or concepts about the world that we somehow feel deeply forced to hold on to. Some of us might even admit to having been addicted to certain moods—depression, shyness, cynicism, and the like.

We can take a significant step toward precision by exploring five essential characteristics that mark true addiction: (1) tolerance, (2) withdrawal symptoms, (3) self-deception, (4) loss of willpower, and (5) distortion of attention. We can use these five characteristics to determine areas of addiction within our own lives and to distinguish the slavery of addiction from the freedom of true caring.

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

Tolerance is the phenomenon of always wanting or needing more of the addictive behavior or the object of attachment in order to feel satisfied. What one has or does is never quite enough.

The essential dynamic of tolerance, then, is that one becomes used to a certain amount of something, and this accustomedness removes the desired effect and leads to the need for more.

Stress reactions may range from mild uneasiness and irritability to extreme agitation with rapid pulse, tremors, and overwhelming panic. The second type of withdrawal symptom is a rebound or backlash reaction. The person experiences symptoms that are the exact opposite of those caused by the addictive behavior itself.

One of the most significant hallmarks of addiction is the exquisite inventiveness that the mind can demonstrate in order to perpetuate addictive behaviors.

As soon as one tries to control any truly addictive behavior by making autonomous intentional resolutions, one begins to defeat oneself. For the most part, defeat is due to mixed motivations.

A fundamental mind trick of addiction is focusing attention on willpower. In very complicated ways, the mind asserts that it in fact can control the behavior. At certain points, it even encourages making resolutions to stop. It knows such resolutions are likely to fail, and when they do, the addictive behavior will have a stronger foothold than ever.

simply go ahead and stop it. Do without it. If you are successful, there is no addiction. If you cannot stop, no amount of rationalization will change the fact that addiction exists.

Addiction and its associated mind tricks inevitably kidnap and distort our attention, profoundly hindering our capacity for love. Attention and love are intimate partners; for love to be actualized, attention must be free.

In the great spiritual traditions of the world, attachments are seen as any concerns that usurp our desire for love, anything that becomes more important to us than God. Paul Tillich said that whatever we are ultimately concerned with is God for us. At any given moment, that with which we are most concerned is most likely to be something other than the true God. No matter how religious we may think we are, our addictions are always capable of usurping our concern for God.

the great spiritual traditions of the world, attachments are seen as any concerns that usurp our desire for love, anything that becomes more important to us than God. Paul Tillich said that whatever we are ultimately concerned with is God for us. At any given moment, that with which we are most concerned is most likely to be something other than the true God. No matter how religious we may think we are, our addictions are always capable of usurping our concern for God.

From a religious standpoint, then, this distortion of attention, which is the fifth characteristic of addiction, could be called “the distortion of ultimate concern.” Another word for it is idolatry. Whether we are conscious of it or not, for however long a particular addiction controls our attention, it has become a god for us. The major religious traditions of the world proclaim in unison that such false gods must fall away from us. We are called to grow toward that point at which nothing other than God will be our god. However short-lived or minor our concern for something other than God may be, when we give it more priority than we give our concern for God and God’s will, we commit idolatry. Thus we all commit idolatry countless times every day.

Some of us who call ourselves religious might wish to maintain that although we may appear to be more concerned with this or that superficial thing, at some underlying existential level we are still really most concerned with God. Our most immediate concern, we might claim, is not the same thing as our ultimate concern. But even a brief honest examination quickly reveals the lie.

Our most immediate concern, we might claim, is not the same thing as our ultimate concern. But even a brief honest examination quickly reveals the lie. All we need is to look at our actions; while claiming...

we must also accept the reality of our incompleteness. Second, we need to recognize that the incompleteness within us, our personal insufficiency, does not make us unacceptable in God’s eyes. Far from it; our incompleteness is the empty side of our longing for God and for love. It is what draws us toward God and one another. If we do not fill our minds with guilt and self-recriminations, we will recognize our incompleteness as a kind of spaciousness into which we can welcome the flow of grace. We can think of our inadequacies as terrible defects, if we want, and hate ourselves. But we can also think of them affirmatively, as doorways through which the power of grace can enter our lives. Then we may begin to appreciate our inherent, God-given lovableness.2

we need to recognize that the incompleteness within us, our personal insufficiency, does not make us unacceptable in God’s eyes. Far from it; our incompleteness is the empty side of our longing for God and for love. It is what draws us toward God and one another. If we do not fill our minds with guilt and self-recriminations, we will recognize our incompleteness as a kind of spaciousness into which we can welcome the flow of grace. We can think of our inadequacies as terrible defects, if we want, and hate ourselves. But we can also think of them affirmatively, as doorways through which the power of grace can enter our lives. Then

Jesus even went so far as to say we need not worry about possessions or practical needs for the future. Our real call, he said, is to be concerned with God; we are free to do this because we can trust God’s grace to take care of the rest of our needs.

Freedom and security have always been uneasy together; the things that secure us tend to bind us down, and those that free us often feel like risks.

really trust God, we must begin to relax our grip and ease our concern about all the lesser sources of security to which we have become attached. This can feel risky indeed. Little in our normal life supports really trusting God.

“In God We Trust” may be inscribed on American money, but the money itself usually feels more trustworthy. In this world of daily experience, Jesus’ words about the lilies of the field can sound naive, even dangerous. Few if any of us are able to follow Jesus’ call for trust completely. Instead, we assume that trust in God should be only a spiritual ideal, wistfully and distantly respected, but impossible to apply in the down-to-earth conduct of our daily lives.

In our culture, the three gods we do trust for security are possessions, power, and human relationships. To a greater or lesser extent, all of us worship this false trinity.

most often the acquisition of money and possessions leads to less freedom and more worry. When we can see our freedom impaired, we should consider the presence of addiction.

In the arena of power, we seek status, influence, and control over our lives. In part this relates to financial security, but it also includes claiming and holding self-determination and autonomy

although self-determining autonomy can indeed free us from being oppressed by other people, it is often overdone. It easily becomes egotistical and selfish. Then, instead of serving freedom, autonomy forces us to bow down before the idol of our own will.

relationships can also tyrannize us. We may become too dependent or too possessive. We may manipulate or be manipulated. Our sense of personal worth, goodness, or lovability may become contingent on the approval of others. It is likely that addiction is present when such things happen, because freedom is compromised. Our personal worth and value, our capacity to love and be loved, and our ultimate care and protection are all things that have been given to us by God as our birthrights. When we feel bound to extract these qualities from other people, something is wrong.5

my incompleteness can be a space for grace. I also appreciate God’s words to Paul: “My grace is all you need; my power finds its full strength in weakness.”

Desire has two sides; its dark side is repulsion. Just as we may be compulsively drawn toward some things, we are compulsively pushed away from others. There are things we can’t stand, things we are afraid of, people we can’t abide. Often, our repulsions too take on the characteristics of addiction. Thus, in addition to the attraction addictions we have been discussing, we must also consider aversion addictions. We often call repulsions by other names: phobias, prejudices, bigotries, resistances, or allergies.6

the dynamics of aversion addictions are essentially mirror images of those of attraction addictions. Instead of tolerance, where we can’t get enough of a thing, we experience intolerance, where no matter how little of a thing we have, it is still too much. Instead of withdrawal symptoms, the distress we experience when we lose something, there are approach symptoms, feelings of panic, fear, or disgust when we get too close to that which we abhor.

The difference is freedom. We care deeply about many things and abhor many others, but with most of these we remain free to choose the depth and extent of our investment. They do not become gods.

no addiction is good; no attachment is beneficial. To be sure, some are more destructive than others; alcoholism cannot be compared with chocolate addiction in degrees of destructiveness, and fear of spiders pales in comparison to racial bigotry. But if we accept that there are differences in the degree of tragedy imposed upon us by our addictions, we must also recognize what they have in common: they impede human freedom and diminish the human spirit.

It may also help to remember that the destructiveness of addiction does not lie in the things to which we are attached, nor even in our simple desires for them. The things themselves are simply part of creation, and God made them inherently good. The destructiveness of addiction lies in our slavery to these things, turning desire into compulsion, with ugly and loveless consequences for ourselves and our world.

Addiction splits the will in two, one part desiring freedom and the other desiring only to continue the addictive behavior. This internal inconsistency begins to erode self-esteem. How much can I respect myself if I do not even know what I really want? The greatest damage to self-esteem, however, comes from repeated failures at trying to change addictive behavior.

in modern Western society, we have come to see ourselves as objects of our own creation. When we fail at managing ourselves, we feel defective.

As evidence mounts, however, the addicted person must use increasing psychological energy to keep the truth out of his awareness. This is the beginning of repression. Somewhere deep inside, the person now recognizes that addiction exists, but he keeps the knowledge unconscious. 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.

Prayer, meditation, and simple times of quiet relaxation are either discontinued or filled with activities that will occupy attention.

I know my own daily practice of prayer and meditation is not easy. One reason is that this practice opens my awareness to things about myself that I would rather not be conscious of.

I find myself resisting settling down to pray, or I fill my meditation time with images or music or words—anything that will keep me from simply being present and awake before God.

The battle of the will has begun. Different functional systems that used to be balanced are now contradicting one another, producing mixed motivations. Some of them are trying to stop, and others are fighting desperately to keep the addiction going. All the functional systems that constitute your capacity for self-deception are brought into play. At some point the “I can handle it” systems fire up. We know the rest of the story.15