Acts 29

The church is a slice of the general community in which it is located.  This slice reflects the health, or lack of, in the community at large.  Each community is infused with various subcultures, of which the addicted culture is one.

What does the church leadership do when members, attendees and their families are addicted to a substance or behaviors like sex, excessive eating or dieting? How much effort and time can or should be devoted to these folks?  What can reasonably be expected from them?  Should we expect they can respond successfully to directive teaching?  These questions are important from many perspectives as addicts, of all types, will associate with and sometimes be members of the church.

First Priorities

Addiction counseling and support group work in a young church plant is not the best use of resources. Focused attention needs to be on growing the church, finding capable, doctrinally sound leadership, vision casting and developing future leaders. In the process of finding and developing that leadership God may provide a member who is particularly gifted and self-directed to create recovery groups. If that happens, your part is to provide the vision and monitor accordingly.  His task is to build in keeping with your vision. But, without the help of someone in this area, it would be a serious detriment to your leadership and mission to involve yourself in recovery work in the early stages of your ministry. For some of you this is a hard call, since you value redeeming the lost and struggling, especially if they are seeking help. What do you do? Turn them away?

Recovery work needs to be understood and triaged

The first phase addresses those currently addicted to substances.  They must be evaluated medically.  The evaluation determines if the person is capable and sufficiently motivated to benefit from treatment.  The evaluation also determines which treatment option best suits the person (i.e. inpatient or outpatient services).
 
Inpatient services combine medical and counseling in a predictable, drug free environment for a period long enough to attain detoxification, an educational foundation and emotional stability. Outpatient services are appropriate for those who do not need detoxification with medical assistance and have enough motivation and self-control to follow instructions between counseling and recovery group encounters. This level of treatment is not appropriate without trained full-time personnel to supervise and perform the counseling and treatment required.

In conjunction with these options is the second phase necessity for a supportive recovery community.  Often this comes in the form of some sort of 12-step program.  With appropriately trained people this could be done as a community group within the church.  As I have looked into what is available on the market, I have been disappointed with what I have found.
 
Many churches have simply opened their doors to secularly-run 12-step programs which disembroil the gospel from the program content.  Defenders of this approach look at it as an opportunity for the church to have a presence in the recovery process.  While this is true, it must be noted that without Jesus and His Gospel, true and lasting [spiritual, physical and emotion] change and recovery will never occur.  We at Mars Hill Church make no apologies for declaring that Jesus is the only higher power to be anyone’s savior.  He is the only one worthy of the surrender of life, limb, place, wealth, family and future.
 
It takes a person with clear understanding and conviction to face the opposition encountered by taking this position. If you are going to adopt a 12-step method choose the leaders very carefully.  Choose leaders that know, love and rely upon the transforming nature of the gospel and are able to incorporate this truth throughout the process.  Monitor and verify what they are doing.  Additionally, build curriculum that clarifies the gospel and its role in cycle of recovery.

Many off-the-shelf programs use scripture in a fashion that takes verses out of context to serve their point, rather than the point of the text. This is not good practice.  Everything we do teaches.  Those that sloppily treat the text in this way teach recovery addicts to do the same with their Bibles.  Everything about the process of recovery must be about truth-telling, and this begins with accurately handling God’s word.  Addicts have spent a lifetime lying to themselves and others.  They are also convinced that those around them are untrustworthy liars.  Truth-telling must be consistently demonstrated.  Locating and using scripture that addresses attitude and behaviors, within the context of the narrative or epistolary instruction, has the weight of authority, while upholding the integrity of the passage through proper use.

The third phase is “aftercare”.  To understand this phase we will have to understand the recovery process from the addiction point of view. Fred Zackon describes the view of an addict who has gained sobriety as one entering a new life, similar to an immigrant arriving in a new country . These people need to assimilate to a new culture, and not simply relocate their old one. This is where the church can welcome, guide, mentor, demonstrate faith, love and give hope.

The Addict-Immigrant

So, how does this immigrant think?  First, to help we must understand our world.  Second, we must understand the addict’s view of this new world in order to help them assimilate accordingly.
 
First, even though the addict has succeeded in stopping their use of drugs, the cravings remain.  Those cravings will be intense for months; for some drugs sometimes six months.  These cravings are triggered by drug conditioning, rituals, environments, and friends which the person must eventually learn to manage and avoid on their own. This is sometimes called self-care, which the scriptures call self-control.
 
Second, the immigrant is facing a new and unfamiliar social fabric. The old community of friends, and sometimes family, is too dangerous to associate with. The person is too susceptible to suggestion, peer pressure, and habits. Entering into this new social order requires enormous risk. Shame is alive and well. The addict’s greatest fear is to be known as an addict, weak, unable to control themselves, a failure, disgusting, unable to do anything right, and the one who has done great harm to family and friends.  However, to be known, through telling their story, is exactly what needs to happen for them to discover that the anticipated response of rejection and resentment from their new community is simply imagined.
 
This is where a church community of men and women, who have gone through their own journey of recovery, becomes a safe place for the addict.  12-step programs often serve this need, as I believe the church can and should fill.  In this environment, the addict-immigrant is embraced into community.  This is where the hermeneutics of addiction are so important to understand.  The supportive community must recognize the addict will have to learn the language and customs of this new culture. This will take time, patience and modeling.
 
Work and recreational experiences of pain are of particular significance to newly sober addicts. They have to be informed and reassured that the pains and stresses they feel are normal.  They must learn to adapt to a certain level of discomfort otherwise they will return to sedating pain and relieving stress with drugs or other behaviors
The loneliness of immigration creates a longing for intimate relations.  Appropriate behavior and social skills come much slower. Years of harm and harming others have created relational styles which have to be confronted and changed. In some cases, the sexualizing of relationships is strong and must be repeatedly addressed with clarity and solid scriptural backing. They must come to a place where they view the opposite sex with empathy and value, while holding the same protective standard Jesus would.  This will take much longer than they like, so closely monitored relationships with faithful accountability partners is required.

The last vulnerability of the addict-immigrant is the scam. Drugs and alcohol are available everywhere.  Dealers have a profile and radar poised to identify and pull in the addict. The sober addict must learn to say “No”. They must choose self-control. If the addict relapses, it is critical to determine if full blown re-addiction will occur.
 
In the end, the addict-immigrant must learn to assimilate and find enjoyment as a citizen of this new community which becomes too valuable to loose.

Note: This article is an adaptation of Fred Sackon, William E. McAuliffe, James M. N. Ch’ien, Recovery Training and Self-help: Relapse Prevention and Aftercare for Drug Addicts, U.S. Department of Health and Human Service, National Institute on Drug Abuse, NIH Publication No. 93-3521, 1993,  p 10.
  Ibid p 9.