Is Addiction a Disease?
An elderly woman takes baby steps behind a walker with wheels on the front and a couple of tennis balls on the back legs. Even though it is afternoon, she’s still wearing a housecoat and slippers, because changing clothes requires too much effort, and her lungs just cannot support it. Every few steps, she pauses to catch her breath, until she finally makes it to the chair. Her children and grandchildren love her and wish they could help her more than just shopping and cleaning, but the doctors have told them she doesn’t have long to live. She has emphysema, and inhalers and oxygen help some, but her life is doomed for a slow difficult spiral to the grave.
She obviously has a disease. No one would deny that fact. She sees several doctors, and takes a small pharmacy of medications. It affects all her family, as they put their lives on hold to try and help her struggle through the day. She is widowed because her husband chose to drink himself into the grave. His “selfish, and immoral choices” left her without a partner in her last years.
Now remove yourself from the emotions of the above scene, and ask yourself how is she any different than her husband? She smoked more than a pack of cigarettes a day for over forty years, and she still occasionally sneaks one – even in her obvious dire situation. Her oldest son, who suffers from numb feet from his diabetes, judges his dad harshly for drinking, even after it was obviously a problem. The son’s doctor has told him that his obesity is the cause of his diabetes, and his disease will shorten his life, but he continues to gain a few more pounds every year.
The moral attachments handed out to addicts through the centuries, somehow allow us to judge them differently. A disease is defined as an abnormal condition that negatively affects an organism, and isn’t caused by immediate, direct injury. So, emphysema, adult diabetes, and alcoholism all fall under that definition, and while there may be a genetic variation that makes them more likely to get this particular disease, they are all caused by poor choices on the part of the patient. So are many cancers, most heart disease and stroke, osteoarthritis, and many other “acceptable” diseases.
In a previous blog we defined sin as falling short of God’s will for us, or of “missing the mark”. We love to judge other’s sins, and try to feel better about our own areas where we fall short of our Father’s desire for us. The Bible says the we all are sinners.
“For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God” Romans 3:23
Addiction has a commonly seen, cluster of abnormal symptoms that can be measured, and even witnessed on functional MRI. They can be treated with therapy and even medications. It can be put in remission, and, like all these other diseases, can return – especially if the behaviors are allowed to re-emerge. The same can be said about cancer, heart disease, and diabetes, but we judge them differently. They are somehow less “sinful” in our minds.
Jesus said, “How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye’, when all the time there is a plank in your eye?” Matthew 7:4
Yes, addiction is a disease, and yes, it is caused by our falling short of God’s will for us. Exactly like many other diseases that we seem to have infinitely more grace for. Jesus is calling us all to take the plank out of our eye and work on the condition of our hearts, while loving those who are also missing the bull’s eye next to us. Quit judging so much, and start loving more.
The disease of addiction isn’t curable. Many diseases aren’t. It is however, treatable, and controllable. The addict emerges from the darkness of their addiction with the possibility of transformation into the man or woman God intended them to be. Allow the addict the dignity they deserve as a child of God, while setting boundaries around them. This lets her know you love her enough to want better for her, while providing an environment which promotes healing.
Peace,
Don
