FRANKLY, I was surprised when I was invited recently to give a talk in a rehab center about addiction from the spiritual point of view. As far I know, I have not made any serious paper on the topic, and my knowledge about it, I confess, is at best sophomoric.
Just the same, I accepted the request simply because I found it hard to say no to the one who invited me. Besides, the spiritual angle of the issue made me think it could and should be a concern of mine too. Anyway, whether I made a right or wrong decision, I just said yes to a friend.
I tried to make a little excursion into the materials I thought were relevant, and finding little, I just proceeded to the date begging the Holy Spirit for light. I went to the Internet and, yes, while there were some materials, I found them a bit inadequate, if not biased toward certain cultic practices. So I just followed my common sense.
Everyone is, of course, familiar with addiction. It’s a repetitive act, a kind of obsessive act that one finds hard to break even if wants to. It seems to be beyond the control of the party involved. He needs outside help.
The distinguishing mark of addiction is that it’s a vice, not a virtue, since the uncontrollable repeated acts are harmful to the person concerned. He may or may not know it, or he may deny it, but the fact remains that addiction is a vice, not a virtue. It is harmful, not helpful, even if the party says otherwise.
Sad to say, addiction is a plague we are facing in an increasingly menacing way today. Offhand, I suspect that our new “freedoms” generated by the advancement of technology, the greater availability of resources at least to some people, etc., somehow create a certain environment that may be good to some but are highly toxic to others.
Those who are more vulnerable to this affliction are those who enjoy a certain amount of advantages in life—intelligence, talents, power, wealth, fame—but who unfortunately have not been able to put them on the right foundation, order and purpose.
When the things that we have are not referred to God and to others, they easily become an instrument for our own selfish purposes. We then become weak to the seductions, allurements and concerns of this world.
That’s when we can develop addicting attitudes and practices that are objectively harmful to us. They are meant as some kind of defense mechanism, a way to escape certain realities or to find relief and rationalization over some developments.
It involves a certain kind of deceit which, when not corrected early enough, can grow so strong as to be invincible by the person himself. When he refuses to acknowledge his predicament and seek help, then the problem becomes worse.
I believe that while there may be certain organic and environmental factors that predispose one to fall into addiction, the main and ultimate factor would be how one thinks, judges and reasons about this situation.
We need to be most careful about how we exercise these spiritual operations and functions of ours that show that there is something spiritual in us, and that therefore, we should take care of our spiritual life.
Sad to say, many people are not aware of the existence, the nature and the responsibilities we owe to our spiritual life. They may have heard about the spiritual life, but they cannot relate themselves to it, not knowing exactly it is.
When I ask people randomly how would we know there is something spiritual in us, 99% would give me a blank stare. They don’t realize that the act of thinking, judging, reasoning, loving, etc., are spiritual operations that indicate we have something spiritual in us.
Much less would they know that these spiritual operations with their respective faculties (the intelligence and the will) need to be rightly engaged to their proper foundation and end, just like our bodily organism needs to be related to food and other healthy practices.
They cannot figure out why it is necessary for us to take care of our relationship with God, since he is the origin and the purpose, the life and the power of our spiritual faculties.
When one does not pray nor make any effort to deal with God, but instead enjoys just pursuing his own ideas and interests, he is actually harming himself. He is prone to fall to addiction.
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