Seeking freedom from addiction

There are freedoms many of us do not consider. Perhaps this is because our lives have not been controlled or ruined by lack of independence and freedom.

I am speaking about lack of independence and freedom from addiction. Drugs, alcohol, nicotine, gambling, food, work or even sex can be addictive if it becomes an obsession. Then the compulsive need to repeat it creates a lack of freedom and independence in an individual’s life.

I thought about this as we celebrated the Fourth of July and listened to world news of people continuing their fight for independence and the right to live their lives as free as they can be.

An addiction, according to authorities who have studied this topic, is anything that has more power over you than you do. If this “something’ runs you, then it is probably an addiction. Addiction and temptation have many parallels and are used interchangeably by some professionals in the field of mental health.

Anyone who has suffered from an addiction and is in the recovery process knows the powerful emotions accompanying the feelings of independence and freedom that come with overcoming an addiction.

The often difficult and painful process of achieving freedom and sobriety is often achieved with the assistance of perhaps the most successful self-help group in the history of helping individuals with the recovery process – Alcoholics Anonymous. The cornerstone of AA is the 12 steps for overcoming addiction, enumerated below. The steps are applicable not only to alcoholism, but to many other aspects of our daily lives. The principles are helpful to everyone.

We admitted that we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.
Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
Made a list of all people we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Copyright c 1990 Harold H. LeCrone, Jr., Ph.D.