A Perfect Day

No one wakes up one morning and says, “I think this is the perfect day to become an addict so I can lose my job,  destroy my life, disrupt my family, divorce my spouse, DUI and kill someone,  go to prison, and maybe even experience an early death!”  No one is that stupid.  Becoming addicted to anything … food, sex, drugs, alcohol, exercise, hoarding, … is a process. 

The process of addiction has 2 elements: stages and cycle

 We read Proverbs 23. 29-35 and discovered the stages of addiction:  Experimentation, Occasional Use, Regular Use or Activity, Denial, and Addiction.

 Once addicted to substance or behavior, it continues to suck you down and down deeper until you are totally consumed and controlled by your addiction.  That “sucking sound” is called the cycle of addiction.

 The cycle of addiction:  Pain (fear, trigger, circumstance, etc.), Hit Bottom (I can’t do this anymore – I need a way out!), Seek Relief, Use or Do (that substance or behavior that provides relief), Feel good (temporary relief), Crash (substance or behavior doesn’t provide continuous relief), Tolerance (the brain thinks an elevated dopamine level is normal and wants more), Pain x2 (initial “pain” plus the crash so more is “needed”), and the cycle starts over again.

Breaking the process of addiction is also a PROCESS.  

Ron ‘s “Theology of Recovery” from Ephesians 3.14- 5.20

Encountering God, the Creator of everything [Eph. 3.14]             

Experiencing the power of the Holy Spirit [3.16]

Power to change core beliefs, thoughts, emotions, and behaviors

Experiencing the love of Christ [3.19]

A love that is so great it cannot be explained only experienced.

Experiencing becoming a fully functioning human through the implantation of Christ [3.17-19] “No longer I who lives in me.”

Experiencing Being accountable to a “new” family [4.1-6] of grace, love, forgiveness, safety, and accountability. Being honest with self, others, and God.

Experiencing and Embracing becoming a “new person” through the process of refinement [4.22-5.20]

Recovery is a process.

 Remedy’s logo was designed to visually represent the process of recovery.

Remedy appreciates the value of the plethora of twelve step programs, utilizes some of the principles set forth, and embraces the insights to recovery presented in their linear approaches to recovery.  Remedy offers an alternative path to holistic recovery that is not linear.  While there is a starting point and a destination, the journey of recovery can be described as a fractal.  (A fractal: something considered simple and orderly that is actually composed of repeated patterns no matter how magnified and is almost infinitely complex.) 

Remedy views the path to recovery not as simple and orderly but as infinitely complex and a lifelong process composed of repeated patterns.  Remedy believes that spiritual transformation empowers individuals to view life as less complex and equips them to alter their repeated patterns as they “change the way they think.”  (Romans 12.2) 

The intent of the process is to empower and equip you to grow spiritually deeper and deeper toward spiritual maturity – freedom in Christ!

Remember this phrase: Information without transformation is nothing but empty repetition.

Your addiction isn’t unique, but you are.  Contact me so we can create a manageable process for you to find freedom in Christ. 

Small group discussion was based on Ephesians 3.13-21 and the weekly challenge:

 “Using tonight’s INFORMATION, what is ONE THING you will do differently (TRANSFORMATION) this coming week in your life?