The Addict Gives Thanks - For Struggle!

The addict started his day today by giving some thought to Thanksgiving. For what is the addict thankful in 2006? The addict is thankful for many things, but the first answer to come to mind is a little surprising.

More than anything else this year, the addict is thankful for his ongoing struggle with addiction.





How can this be? Wouldn't one rather be thankful for having such a struggle removed from one's life? Isn't healing the goal here?

Last year if the addict had been reflecting on things to give thanks for, the struggle with addiction would probably not have been on the list. Of course this struggle might have been near the top of the addict's list of resentments, but not on the list for giving thanks.

What has changed? Why is the addict now prepared to give thanks for the struggle? Thanks for the failure to achieve sobriety? Thanks for the ongoing shame and humiliation?

The answer can be encapsulated in a single word: SURRENDER.

If you have been reading these pages recently, you know that surrender has been a recurring theme. Surrender looms on the horizon of this long and winding road traversed by the addict. Surrender is both the beginning and the end of hope.

The addict has, in the past, reflected on the 3-step dance of recovery:

(i) acknowledge powerlessness ("I need help"), (ii) acknowledge that there is one who has power to help the addict (there is a higher power); (iii) ask that higher power for help ("surrender").

The addict has also lamented the unending cycle involved in this 3-step dance. More, the addict has lamented his inability to truly surrender. Lack of complete surrender is what leads to the endless cycle.

The addict has also expressed frustration at being a Christian and yet still falling victim to the viscious cycle of addiction. If addiction leads to shame, this seems to be doubly so for one had already claimed to have turned his life over to a higher power. And if surrender seems impossible, this also seems doubly true for one who thought he had already surrendered.

So where in all this frustration does the addict find cause for thanksgiving?

Perhaps the addict is finally beginning to see the light. Although a Christian--and a very sincere Christian at that--the addict has finally come to understand that he has never truly surrendered his will to the God he claims to worship. Pride has encouraged the addict to acknowledge God as savior, but not as lord. Instead, the addict has relied on his own intellect to be the true lord of his life.

Only the ongoing struggle with something as baffling and powerful as addiction has been able to reveal to the addict that there is more to surrender than just acknowledging God with one's lips. Surrender means truly giving up the right to say what is right, to truly give up the need to make decisions and take responsibility for the world around me. Surrender is the final, all-out acknowledgment that God is bigger than I am and that He has the power to do what I can't.

Finally, the addict has reached the end of his rope. After repeating the cycle of addiction over and over and over and over the addict can no longer believe in even the remotest corners of his being that he has the power to over come this. To be healed from addiction, the addict must surrender to a higher power. And now, finally, the addict is ready.

I SURRENDER!

And you know what? There has been more peace and liberation in this process of complete surrender than the addict ever thought possible. The addict feels as if he is becoming a new creation. It is as if he is coming to believe for the very first time.

Surrender. What a gift! What a blessing!

But without the on-going struggle of addiction, the addict would not have arrived at surrender.

And so the addict gives thanks for a year of struggle!