The Ultimate Quest for Healing

Chapter 3

Seek to Understand the Causes of Addiction

Finding the root cause of any problem increases the chances of finding a solution. The biggest hurdle in treating addiction is that there is not any clearly defined way of establishing total causation. So, how do you go about proving causation in addiction? You need to be well versed with competing theories but at the same time you need to have a reasonable causal story. I believe that a person’s feelings and desires cause addiction.

One of the most important realizations I’ve had is that addiction is closely related to slavery. Slavery is a condition in which people are deprived of freedom. Enslaved people are psychologically controlled- they are threatened with pain if they try to leave their situation, they lack the power to free themselves, they are forced to do things against their self-interests, and they become physically and emotionally dependent on whoever is enslaving them. The same applies to addition

Since addiction and slavery share similarities, it is possible that they have similar causes. First, let’s look at the causes of slavery. To do so, we’ll examine the Egyptian slavery as recorded in the Bible.

There are two forms of slavery: voluntary, in which people willfully turn themselves into slaves in hopes of gaining a benefit and involuntary, in which people are forced into slavery against their will. Take note that both forms existed in Egypt.

Voluntary enslavement

When we read about the enslavement of the Israelites in Egypt, we often assume that the Egyptians were free people. But in looking at the narrative presented in Genesis 47:13–26, you will find that the Egyptians were enslaved well before the Israelites. The Bible reports that the Egyptians spent all their money purchasing food during a severe famine. Once they ran out of money, they exchanged their livestock for food.

Once all the livestock was gone, they exchanged their land for food, and finally, when they had nothing else to purchase food with, they freely gave themselves up to become Pharaoh’s slaves. Their search for relief led them to sell themselves into slavery.

Because most of the time, people voluntarily turn to the things they are addicted to, we can conclude that addiction is a kind of voluntary slavery.

Rescuing people from voluntary slavery is difficult

Freeing people from voluntary slavery is difficult and complicated because they interpret any rescue efforts as an unwarranted interruption in their livelihood. The reasons for this attitude include;

1. They believe that there is a great benefit to being slaves. They tend to focus on the benefits while ignoring the risks and consequences associated with the lifestyle. Most of these people do not see anything wrong with their lifestyle and are unable to foresee any danger. All they demand is to be left alone to live as they please.

2. Secondly, these people tend to adapt to the consequences of slavery, no matter the degree of pain or suffering involved. At some point slavery becomes a normal way of life.

Involuntary enslavement

In some cases people are forced into enslavement. This is the kind of slavery the Israelites were subjected to. They were forced into slavery by Pharaoh and his cronies.

What led to the Israelites’ enslavement in Egypt?

In Genesis 15:13, God told Abraham that his descendants would be slaves in a foreign land. The fact that God talked about the Israelites’ enslavement well before it happened could suggest that God was behind the enslavement. Was God really behind the Israelites’ enslavement?

There is nothing in Genesis 15:13 to suggest that God caused the Israelites to be enslaved. However, there is evidence that he allowed it to happen. How do we know? God had the power to prevent the Israelites’ enslavement, but he did not prevent it. But why would God allow something like this to happen to the people he loved?

The answer rests in the fact that God gave humans free will. He has an obligation to honor that free will. For God to prevent every bad thing from happening to us would require him to impose his will on us, and in doing so, he would be violating our free will. Instead he has given us his Word and the Holy Spirit to guide us in exercising our will.

If you carefully read Genesis 15:13, you will notice that God did not say that he would lead Abraham’s descendants to a foreign land and cause them to be enslaved. He also did not mention how the Israelites were to arrive at this foreign land. There are only two possible logical explanations to what happened;

1. Either God foreknew that the Israelites’ free will would lead them into slavery, or

2. He did not prevent them from becoming enslaved because doing so would have required him to infringe upon their free will. In order to honor mankind’s freedom, God allowed the Israelites to exercise their will.

God could have prevented you from becoming addicted or from engaging in bad habits, but he did not want to violate your free will. If, in the future, you want him to protect you from self-defeating habits or self-created problems, then you must surrender your will to him.