The Reason You Can’t Stop Relapsing.
If you haven’t read my testimony yet and want background on my story before reading this post, go here. Otherwise, here’s a brief summary.
I was a heroin addict for almost a decade. During my addiction, I tried countless times to get off drugs, with no success. Years went by, and I still could not get off heroin, though I wanted to more than anything. There were times throughout my addiction when I had no choice but to be sick and experience withdrawal. The sheer pain and discomfort alone are enough to cause you to do whatever it takes to never feel that kind of awful again. And honestly, it is that very dread and trepidation that motivates addicts on a daily basis. People wrongly assume if you’re still using it must be your choice, and it was once a choice for me, until it wasn’t.
I continued in my addiction for one reason and one reason alone; I didn’t have the strength or willpower to fight the battle required to get clean and sober. After countless years of wearing myself out in addiction, I was in way over my head. You could say I had accepted that I was going to most likely die in my addiction because I couldn’t fight this demon. It was far beyond what I could handle.
Can’t Stop Relapsing
Addiction is a malicious, deep-rooted enslavement, with no intention of letting you out alive. It comes with its very own legion of demonic forces that will not rest until they have effectively built up a demonic kingdom within you that controls and influences every part of your mind, body n Spirit. Isolating you from the person you once were before drugs and from all support systems of family and friends.
If you’ve ever struggled with a drug or alcohol addiction, you’re probably familiar with the vicious cycle of relapsing. Throughout my time as an addict, I came across many people who would repeatedly relapse. I have listened to countless excuses and reasons addicts use to justify yet another relapse. It doesn’t even matter how badly they want to do right and remain off drugs, they somehow end up right back in the throes of addiction. I see it every day on my social media news feed and with people in my personal life, addicts recovering for a time, only to relapse, and on and on it goes.
Coping Skills and Addiction
For whatever reason, though there are many when a person falls into an addiction, it’s often because of a lack of coping skills. Couple that with the stressors of everyday life, and you have a perfect recipe for addiction.
Life will always have difficulties, there’s no way around it, and yes, you could learn to adopt coping skills in order to increase your chances of recovery success. However, there is a better way to get off drugs and stay off drugs. Rather than leaning on your own ability to cope with some newly adopted coping mechanisms from self-help books and NA meetings. See the truth for what it is about your addiction and yourself, all your brokenness, pain, and sorrow.
Understand, those same feet of yours that lead you down the path of addiction are still the same feet you stand upon now. So the likelihood of relapsing is always present because we can never truly escape what we are by nature. Therefore, something has to change deep within us, something that can only be done by a power far greater than ourselves.
If you’ve ever asked yourself, “Why can’t I stop relapsing?” Or if you’re currently trapped in the unrelenting relapse then get clean for a while-cycle, pay close attention to what I am about to tell you. Because I know how you lay in bed at night, wishing there was a way out that you haven’t already tried and completely failed at. Wishing you could stop the train of destruction that keeps speeding full steam ahead toward everything you accomplish while sober for a season.
Stop Leaning On Your Own Strength
This got me thinking; ‘If an addict who gets clean for a time then relapses back into addiction, what separates him from the person who gets clean and doesn’t relapse?’ What are the causes of relapsing? And why do individuals who want to get clean ultimately fail and revert to the very thing they wanted to escape?
One such reason derives from our assumption that we need to be the ones to change ourselves; our thinking, behavior, and desires. However, the truth is, we cannot sustain the fight against our sinful nature and the flesh on our own. Think about it, how can you fight the very thing you are? Evil, selfish, prideful, addicted, and weak?
In order to obtain long-term recovery, you must first realize you cannot rely on yourself, or your own willpower and might. This should be of comfort to those people fighting every single day to remain clean. It is rather exhausting to constantly be in a state of hypervigilance in order to remain clean and sober.
Stop leaning on…
- Your own strength
- Your own ability or inability to suppress addictive urges
- Your ability to stay out of certain triggering environments
- Your ability to starve out the desires for addiction
- Your ability to catch yourself before you spiral into addictive behaviors
- Your ability to keep your stress levels low enough to not agitate a craving
- Your ability to avoid all reminders of your drug usage
- Your ability to attend AA or NA meetings for the rest of your life
Start surrendering and submitting yourself completely to Christ Jesus…He will take care of the rest….
If these bullet points are any indication of what living free and sober is like for you, it’s no wonder you’re not able to stay clean. Surely, keeping up with this would eventually seem like an impossibility. Living like this looks much like bondage of a different kind.
Deliverance From Drug/Alcohol Addiction
I got clean and stayed clean, NEVER having relapsed for one reason and one reason alone; Christ. I had no choice but to stare straight in the face of my addiction and see the damage and destruction it had caused. When you come to the end of yourself finally looking at the mess you’ve made of this life, that you get one shot at, it has a way of making you analyze all the life choices that have led you to the place you’re currently at. And much of that self-reflection led to one stark truth; I was weak and couldn’t do this on my own.
I couldn’t handle life when it got too hard. It was easier to run from my problems; in and out of social circles, across state lines, whatever it took to escape what was haunting me. Even if that meant booking a two-week stay at the local psychiatric hospital. Along the way, taking whatever drugs were available to drown out the reality of my situation.
I couldn’t handle my own emotions, my past traumas, or the way in which I saw myself. The enemy knew this; he worked overtime to get me to this very point. And sure enough, when I was prime for the taking advantage he paraded a silver platter of chemicals and the people to do them with, all I had to do was show up. No matter how hard I tried to distance myself from people and places, the drugs and parties always seemed to find me.
Jesus Has Authority Over All Addictions
When I started being honest with myself and facing the truth about my addiction I had long been running from it brought forth desperation. An immense fearful dread took over anytime I thought about being strong enough to get clean and sober. In my desperation, I had just started to open the bible to read a little here and a little there, looking for some sort of guidance or help. God was drawing me to Him, but I was in no way a Christian at this point, I was still living in my sinfulness. But God led me to verses that talked about the weakness of humans and our desperate need for a Savior, a strong tower, and a redeemer.
What was once fear and dread slowly turned into hope and possibility. I couldn’t help but think about these verses all the time, meditating on them day and night. I thought about how I really needed Jesus and how He was likely the only one who could save me from this hole I dug for myself. Before I knew it, I began looking forward to reading more and more about Jesus and about the spiritual aspect of this human life we live. I recognized that this addiction was not merely physical, but there were spiritual forces behind the bondage I was suffering in. That’s when I was a hundred percent sure Jesus was the only one who could help since He has authority over all demons and principalities.
So I humbled myself, in the basement of my parent’s house where I was staying at the time; I knelt down on my knees and told God I was weak, and I admitted every single horrid thing I could ever remember doing, saying, or even thinking. I cried out for His perfect forgiveness, sincerely grieved by my rebellion and sin. At that moment, I asked God if He was really there and if He was listening, would He please just save me from this addiction and the bondage I was stuck in. I asked if He could just take this broken person I had become and transform it into a new creation, whatever He desired for me to be. I was ready and willing to no longer fight against Him or His precepts. Not only that, but I told Him I would surrender myself fully to Him if He could just do something in His power to get me to the other side, to sobriety. I was ready to make Him Lord over my life and leave it all behind if He could just teach me how. His reply was immediate, and it came with an unmistakable presence of authority, yet coupled with peace; He told me ‘If I would just lean on Him and only Him, He would bring me to the other side of all of this and use it to bring glory to His Name’. I’m not sure how, but this came with the inner understanding that it very well may get tough, but I had to trust in Him no matter what. I clearly understood it would require a fight, but He revealed to me that He would fight my battle. I only needed to have faith in who He is and His authority. Thus began the very battle for my sobriety, my salvation, and my soul.
When You Need Rescuing
The Lord Jesus Christ kept His promise. He was faithful through and through. Never once leaving me or forsaking me. People often get on me for my passion for Christ and my zealousness to tell others about Him. I am called everything from legalistic to a devil, and everything in between. I’m not sure what people expect. The only thing I can say is this; imagine if you were in the worst situation you could imagine, whatever your greatest fear is. Maybe you’re trapped inside a burning house with no way out, fire all around you, intense heat unlike anything you’ve ever felt, and smoke so thick and unbreathable. And you knew you were slipping into unconsciousness to lay there to burn. Or maybe your fear is drowning, and you ended up losing control of your vehicle, running off a bridge into frigid deep waters. Pounding and kicking on the windshield and windows to get out, but they just won’t budge. You cannot hold your breath for a second longer, and all you can think about is how no one is coming to save you.
Whatever circumstance you choose to imagine, the theme is the same. You need rescuing! Now imagine at the very last second when all hope is lost, and you know there is nothing you can do to help yourself out of the situation you’re in. Yet, to your complete shock, a person appears and puts an oxygen mask on your face, lifting you up from the floor of the burning building. Someone emerges and breaks out your car windshield, tearing you from the sinking car, and out of the frigid water. Something like that changes you and as far as the individual who delivered you out of the grips of death, you could never identify the words to explain your gratefulness. Well, that is precisely how I feel about Jesus Christ. He rescued me when I considered all hope to be lost, when I came to the end of myself, and He can absolutely do the same for you.
True Lasting Freedom In Jesus Christ
Because there are no words in any language that can express my gratitude towards Him and towards God for offering His Son as a way for me. I show it through my obedience, in sharing my testimony, and by defending the truth of God’s Word. When we truly give ourselves fully to Christ, He changes everything about who we were before Him. When a person is baptized with The Holy Spirit, the desires for things like drugs, escaping pain, and countless other things we formerly chased altogether disappear. The Holy Spirit gives us a mind like Christ. We desire what The Father desires, we detest what The Father abhors. Christ is truly the answer to killing all cravings to use drugs and alcohol. He delivers the addict from the addiction once and for all in a way that no therapy, self-help book or NA meeting could.
Lean On Christ Jesus
Does this mean that I could never relapse? Well, no, it doesn’t. If I start to turn away from God and choose to walk in my flesh or lean on my own ability to do or not do something, I will likely fall right back. However, if I do exactly what he told me from the start, which is lean on Him and only on Him, I will overcome because greater is He who is in me than he who is in the world.
When I say lean on Him, I mean truly lean on Christ. When urges pop up, you need to learn how to renounce and command them in the authority of a believer. Ask God for strength, and tell Him everything, He is sovereign, He already knows, but there is something about confessing what we are struggling with and admitting our need for His help that is really powerful. Stay in the word and pray daily. Honestly, during the first year of my walk I listened to audio bibles, biblical teachings, and sermons (not just any sermon you find, for there are many false teachers). I took online bible courses and for a season listened exclusively to praise and worship. Doing all of those things kept God in the forefront. It kept Him in the limelight at all times. Once I reached out my hand to Christ, He hoisted me out of the gutter, and I haven’t let go since.
Bible Verses For Addiction and Recovery
13 No temptation [regardless of its source] has overtaken or enticed you that is not common to human experience [nor is any temptation unusual or beyond human resistance]; but God is faithful [to His word—He is compassionate and trustworthy], and He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability [to resist], but along with the temptation He [has in the past and is now and] will [always] provide the way out as well, so that you will be able to endure it [without yielding, and will overcome temptation with joy].
14 Therefore, my beloved, run [keep far, far away] from [any sort of] idolatry [and that includes loving anything more than God, or participating in anything that leads to sin and enslaves the soul] 1 Corinthians 10:13-14
So submit to [the authority of] God. Resist the devil [stand firm against him] and he will flee from you. James 4:7
Consider it nothing but joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you fall into various trials. 3 Be assured that the testing of your faith [through experience] produces endurance [leading to spiritual maturity, and inner peace]. James 1:2-3.
Keep actively watching and praying that you may not come into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the body is weak.” Matthew 26:41.
Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
