UNLIKELY ADDICTIONS

UNLIKELY ADDICTIONS

What are you addicted to? Many, including me, would quickly reply, “nothing.” The word usually conjures up drugs, alcohol, porn, and other obvious dependencies. But what if addiction also hides in more acceptable places? May I suggest some possibilities: negative thinking, risk aversion, approval seeking, perfectionism, judgment, fear, unhealthy relationships, food, guilt, gossip, cellphones, the internet, and social media. The list could go on. These are often easier to excuse.

One definition of addiction is the attachment of one’s desire for God to another object. Another is the inability to stop doing something, even with knowledge of its harmful consequences. Those definitions cause me to pause, because they move addiction out of the shadows and places it right in the middle of ordinary life.

Sophocles said, “Look and you will find it. What is unsought will go undetected.” People like me, who want to keep improving their lives, must be willing to look honestly. Growth often begins with the courage to name what has quietly been naming us.

When I asked myself the question, it was difficult to answer. I thought of food, but I need food to live. Coffee? It benefits my brain and mental health. Wine? The verdict is still out on risk versus benefit. So, I turned to Google and found the 4C’s, an aid used by therapists to distinguish casual use from a dependent disorder: compulsion, craving, loss of control, and consequences.

I put my cellphone under the microscope of the 4C’s. I am always connected to my cellphone or to the watch that is connected to it. The cellphone goes on the charger at night. The watch doesn’t because I track my sleep. My cellphone, in some capacity, fills all spaces. Don’t know something? Google. Beautiful bird? Take a picture. Want to read a book? Kindle. My phone tracks the hours I spend on it and weekly gives me the average daily use. I continue to use it despite knowing the negative effects on my eyes, neck, sleep, focus, and productivity. I need to do better. But how?

Robin Norwood says, “Make your own recovery the first priority in your life.” That statement feels both tender and strong. The average person spends about five hours a day with their phone. I want to recover some of my time. More than that, I want to recover my attention, my presence, and the quiet spaces where God can speak.

Google gave me a roadmap: the 5D’s—Delay, Distract, Deep Breathe, Decide, Discuss. I am willing to give this a trial. This, too, is part of my becoming unencumbered. Freedom may not come at once, but every small act of choosing differently is a step toward the life I say I want.

So, I ask again, not with shame, but with hope: What’s your addiction? What might you recover if you were willing to look?

1 Cor. 6:12

CONSIDER Henry David Thoreau’s words: “The cost of a thing is the amount of what I call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.”