Sin as Addiction, Christ as Hope

A personal struggle with addiction, and a spiritual solution

It struck me the other day that addiction is at the very heart of sin. Addiction, or negative habit formation, is the root of all sin and definitive of the human condition. We are at our essence habit forming creatures and oriented towards short-term hedonistic pleasure satisfaction. It is hard to sacrifice the temptation of short-term pleasure for the more subtle reward of doing what’s best in the long term.

The flesh body has a natural tendency to get stuck in habit loops. And it is much easier to form bad habits than good habits, simply because for every good habit, there are a hundred bad habits. That is, there are many more ways to act in a harmful way, than act in a way that is not harmful. Harmful to who? To Self, which ought to be the temple of the Holy Spirit, the temple of Christ dwelling in us. 

Most of our life is defined by the behaviors which constitute our many bad habits. Is there any human whose life is made up primarily of behaviors of good habits? It seems as if most of our daily life that is of any significance derives from our bad habits, rather than our good habits. 

This is part and parcel of what it means to be human. But we are also made in the image of God, and we have eaten of Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, with the Moral Law written on our heart, such that we have an awareness of the ideal from which we derive our definitions of “bad habits” and “good habits.”

We all kind of know the difference. A smoker deep down knows it’s a bad habit and that he ought to give up the habit. A glutton deep down knows that it’s a bad habit to gorge themselves on food they know to be bad for their health. A porn addict deep down knows it’s a destructive habit. A drug addict knows they need to kick the habit.

That is the nature of bad habits: rarely do we engage if them without a subtle conscious awareness that we really ought to work on kicking the habit. And yet we can go for years, decades, our entire lives, living in this struggle where we know we ought to kick our bad habits and we know they are destroying our lives. Occasionally we attempt to kick the habit, but nevertheless find ourselves returning to it over and over, engaged in a perpetual internal struggle.

So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin. (James 4:17 )

This is exactly the nature of addiction. The drug addict knows he ought not to be doing the drug but fails to not do what he knows he ought not be doing.

Paul understands the nature of addiction quite well:

The Inner Conflict

14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold into slavery under sin. 15 I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. 17 But in fact it is no longer I who do it but sin that dwells within me. 18 For I know that the good does not dwell within me, that is, in my flesh. For the desire to do the good lies close at hand, but not the ability. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it but sin that dwells within me.21 So I find it to be a law that, when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, 23 but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched person that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with my mind I am enslaved to the law of God, but with my flesh I am enslaved to the law of sin. (Romans 7:14-25)

This “inner conflict” is exactly the nature of addiction and captures perfectly the phenomenology of sin.

Paul acknowledges he is “of the flesh,” a slave to sin living in a “body of death.” This “body of death” makes it such that he does not understand why he does the things he does. He does not do what he wants (the good habit) but does the very thing he hates (the bad habit.)

I relate to this with cannabis, a drug I have been addicted to for 20 years. I want to live a sober life. And I do not understand why I always come back around and do the thing I hate: getting high.

Paul says it is not him who does the bad habit, but the sin that dwells in him. With a bad habit, it sometimes does not feel like “us” who gives into the bad habit. It is like we are on autopilot. This is why I think Paul’s metaphor about being “enslaved” to sin is so apt because “running on autopilot” gets at the same thing the metaphor of enslavement does. It means we cannot help it. And yet we have a conscious awareness that is observing our bodies running on autopilot. So, there is a kind of split consciousness. The conscious self witnesses the body running on autopilot but cannot interfere, because the sinful body is enslaved by the power of sin, bound by chains of habit that cannot be broken.

Is there anything that can break these chains of habit that keep us enslaved to sinful behavior? Yes! Christ’s blood! Only Christ has the power to conquer the body of death and help us “die” to sin and be reborn to holiness.

Paul says we have an inner desire to cement our good habits, but we lack the ability. Without Christ, we really are enslaved to our bad habits.

This is, I think, why Alcoholics Anonymous has always emphasized the necessity of acknowledging a Higher Power when breaking the habit of alcohol: without a transcendent source of power, there is really no way to break the bondage of the body.

Have people broken bad habits without explicitly thinking about Christ? Sure, I don’t think it’s necessary to explicitly have the thought of Christ in your mind to tap into that transcendental power. You might even reject the concept and say there is no such thing as the transcendent and successfully break a habit.

But the transcendent does not need to be conceptualized as such in order to psychologically function as transcendent. Atheists can have a powerful encounter with Nature, which they conceive as the totality of all that exists, which functions as the transcendental horizon through which all possibilities of experience are made manifest to their conscious awareness. This is because the transcendental is not really a “thing” or “entity” in the way physical things like rocks, trees, bodies, etc., are “things.” The transcendental is more like a function. It is more like a process than a “thing.” When we think of processes like conversion we use physical metaphors. We think of functions like a tree chipper: it takes a “raw material” and then converts it or processes it to another configuration. But this is a physical transformation.

But with the transcendental, it is not like physical stuff being transformed into another arrangement of physical stuff. The transcendental function is the process whereby something more significant, and more mysterious happens. It is a process whereby the merely possible becomes manifest into the actuality of conscious awareness of particularity. 

It is the process whereby the many becomes manifested out of the unitary oneness of being itself and displayed upon the screen of conscious awareness.

We don’t really have a “mechanical” theory of how this process works. Applying the physical metaphor of projecting light upon a screen of conscious awareness breaks down when we examine the metaphor more concretely: for when we look inside the skull, we find no “screen,” no “projector,” no “light.” It is just wet biological goo animated by electrochemical impulses. It is complex, no doubt, but ultimately just a complex arrangement of atoms.

Among the atoms, where do we find the light of conscious awareness? Where do we find a screen of experience? Where do we find the theater of consciousness upon which our dreams, fantasies, reveries, memories, etc., play out? 

There seems to be a fundamental chasm between conscious awareness and our embodiment as physical beings.

And yet, here we are: fully embodied, nevertheless. Conscious and yet physical at the same time. Able to go inwards in our minds into the realm of imagination, but also physical beings made of meat and chemistry. 

The transcendental is a function that converts divine oneness into the particularity of contingent being. It is the principle that makes the microcosm of matter reflect the macrocosm of heaven. It is the principle by which “Thy kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven.”

This “kingdom coming” is exactly a transcendental function: it is how the material world of meat and machines becomes sacred. It is how anything becomes sacred. 

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O Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner! The flesh is weak. The other day I gave, once again, into the temptation to get high, but partly out of a desire to get closer to you, through the psychedelic dissolution of the Self, that I might become One with You.

Such is a heresy, I know, but it is my mystical impulse and desire to be close with You that drives me to it, in part. Yes, there is sin. Yes, there is addiction. Yes, there is habit. But there is also a desire to get closer to You, to feel in the “high” that I am “higher” and thus closer to Heaven. Surely there is a relationship between my bodies’ desire for pleasure and my soul’s desire for that ultimate pleasure: union in God. The carnal desire is but a pale shadow of the holy desire for unification with God.

But unfortunately, we live in the shadows. But all shadows are formed by the casting of Light, which is Christ’s Glory and Power over death. Through the material body, Christ conquers the material body, and thus offers us a pathway to the defeat of death, both in the temptation of sin but also in death itself, through life everlasting.

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O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. O how I have fallen short, Lord, in need of Your salvation. I believe in You, I know what I must do, and yet I cannot do it; the body is weak. The spiritual side of me is willing. But I am ensnared by bodily desires, which force themselves upon me, making it near impossible to break free of.

O Christ, why can I not seem to remain sanctified? Why do I make so many excuses? Why do I do these things I know are against Your Will? Is it just obstinacy? Or is it a part of my nature? Am I really saved? How can be sure? If I were saved, would I be able to not give into temptation? Would I be able to live a more holy life? I’m not sure. Do I really need to work the power of my will more effectively to ensure my salvation? Or is not my salvation guaranteed, not by works, not by boasting of my willpower, but by faith alone in Christ, who died for my sins, who alone conquered death?

Why can I not be ensured of my salvation right this second, for do I not have faith in Christ? Do I not believe that His death serves as a sacrifice to set me free from the power of sin to bring death? Why should I fear death if I believe in Him? Why should I wait until my own human ability to conquer the temptation of sin has increased to the point where I may brag of my holiness? 

27 Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. 28 For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. (Romans 3:27-28)

When it comes to salvation by following the Way of Christ, there is nothing to boast over. There is nothing I can do of my own effort to warrant boasting to ensure my salvation. Belief does not warrant boasting. You do not have to work hard to have a belief. You either have it or you don’t. But it does not require exertion to hold a belief. Either you believe something, or you don’t. So, if you believe Christ rose from the dead as a sacrifice for your sins, then your sins are forgiven, and through His power, you may have an everlasting life. 

Notice Paul does not say, “by the law of faith and also having remained perfect and never ever sinning again.” We should strive for doing what’s good, and we should ask for forgiveness when we fail to live up to the ideal, and we should try to always set our heart and mind on God, rather than on the selfish, short-term fulfillment of carnal, bodily desires, the hedonistic impulses which drive all our bad habits, addictions, and form the underlying basis for all our neuroses and corruptions of personality that make us less than perfect, flawed, human, all too human. 

And yet we are still made in the image of God! And yet God loves us even while we are destined for imperfection! For only Christ is perfect. And yet we are still lovable even in the depth of darkness of our sin. God’s love does not suddenly break off when we are in the middle of sin. His love is a constant. Always there, even in the darkness. And it is that love which continuously draws us out of the darkness, towards the light of righteousness, bathed in the cleansing water of Christ’s sacrificial blood, filled with the blessings and fruit of the Holy Spirit, which sanctifies us and draws our will toward towards God, such that we feel compelled to do what’s right in God’s name, acting as an instrument and extension of God’s heavenly Kingdom, which He rightfully wants to bring, from heaven, to Earth, culminating in the holy incarnation of Christ as Logos into this cosmos, made fully human as Jesus of Nazareth.

12 You say, “I am allowed to do anything”—but not everything is good for you. And even though “I am allowed to do anything,” I must not become a slave to anything. (1 Corinthians 6:12)

Is getting high a sin? Arguably, no. But abusing drugs is certainly a sin. One must not become a “slave” to anything. This is warning against the dangers of addiction. And O how subtle and dangerous cannabis addiction is! You tell yourself, “Oh, well at least I’m not a drunk!” For it is mostly psychologically damaging not physically damaging. This is a great excuse, but when you are getting high all the time, letting your mind be clouded and muddled, is this not an abuse of the body and the mind?

Paul writes,

5 For you are all children of the light and of the day; we don’t belong to darkness and night. 6 So be on your guard, not asleep like the others. Stay alert and be clearheaded. 7 Night is the time when people sleep and drinkers get drunk. 8 But let us who live in the light be clearheaded, protected by the armor of faith and love, and wearing as our helmet the confidence of our salvation. (1 Thess 5:5-8)

Weed is the opposite of clearheadedness! I fool myself into thinking it’s about theosis and divine unity and spirituality and psychedelic oneness and all this nonsense, but that is a lie of Satan to keep me addicted! They are lies I tell myself to justify my continued enslavement to this substance! 

Surely, I am addicted to:

• Cannabis

• Caffeine

• Masturbation

• Pornography

• Food

All of these behaviors have me locked into dopamine circuits of habit and reward, those short-term cycles of impulsive behavior. Most of all, I am addicted to cannabis.

O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, how I wish for you to free me of all addiction! O I wish your Holy Spirit would sanctify me, and purify my body, ridding me of all this enslavement! O how I wish to live a life of sober clarity, sober rationality, a life of prayer, contemplation, hard work, productivity, engagement, a life focused on God, with my desires and thoughts pure, set on higher things, and not set on the satisfaction of my bodily desires. O how I wish I had the strength for such things! O how I wish God would make me holy in such a way! I know the power is there in Christ; O almighty Father, let Christ dwell in me, let me accept His radical love such that I am transformed. Let me not be tempted by the flesh again! Let me revel in the beauty and wisdom of sobriety and clearheadedness!

18 And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t. (Romans 7:18)

I want to quit cannabis for good, but I can’t! I want to live a life of sobriety, but I can’t! I am powerless to this addiction. I cannot overcome it. No matter as hard as I can, despite my many, many attempts to quit, I simply can’t. Not under my own power. 

Step 1: We admitted we were powerless over our addictions and compulsive behaviors. That our lives had become unmanageable

How unmanageable my life has become! It is beyond me, this curse, this enslavement. The flesh has total control over me. Of my own power and volition, being my own god, I cannot break this habit. I cannot rid myself of this sin. I cannot escape this prison of flesh. I am a slave to all my bad habits. I am a slave to my sin nature. Without God, I cannot escape. I cannot kill this sin nature. I cannot escape this addiction. I have quit a million times! And every time I return to it. I return to the short-term pleasures and all the rationalizations. I cannot stay sober. I cannot remain clearheaded. I cannot remain in the daylight of sober consciousness. I descend over and over into the darkness of addiction, the darkness of pleasure seeking, the darkness of heightened sensation, the darkness of brain fog and dull wittedness. 

From Book of Common Prayer, Morning Prayer Rite I:

Almighty and most merciful Father,
we have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep,
we have followed too much the devices and desires of our
    own hearts,
we have offended against thy holy laws,
we have left undone those things which we ought to
    have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to
    have done.
But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us,
spare thou those who confess their faults,
restore thou those who are penitent,
according to thy promises declared unto mankind
in Christ Jesus our Lord;
and grant, O most merciful Father, for his sake,
that we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life,
to the glory of thy holy Name. Amen.

I am especially called to the request to the Father that, for his sake, “we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life.”

It is exactly this connection between godliness and sobriety that I am interested in. O merciful Father, O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, grant me favor and give me the peace of the Spirit such that I may live a life godly, righteous, and sober. Let me remain in the daylight of consciousness in Christ, filled with the Spirit of Christ and ever satisfied, not longing after alterations in my sober consciousness to ease the boredom of nihilism and hedonistic materialism.

21 I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. 22 I love God’s law with all my heart. 23 But there is another power[e] within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. 24 Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? 25 Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin. (Romans 7: 21-25)

This “principle of life” that Paul has discovered is the law of addiction: the basic psychological fact that the tendency for bad habits and addiction is a fundamental aspect of our embodiment as human beings; we want to break our bad habits, but we inevitably give in and do what is wrong, the bad habit. This creates a “war with our minds.” This is the power of sin, or what we might call the power of the unconscious to control our behavior through addiction and bad habit, the destructive cycle of dopamine addiction that governs all behavior.

This bodily life is “dominated by sin and death,” it makes us slaves to sin, slaves to our bad habits, unable to break them, and yet there is a pathway to freedom: Jesus Christ our Lord, who has given us the Spirit, who alone has the power to free us from the consequences of our sinful nature, which is bad habit.

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O Lord! How enslaved I am! How addicted I am! How I want nothing more than to toke from my vape today. O Lord, why did I buy it? I am a slave. I am addicted. I want to throw it away. I want to smoke it. I can rationalize it: oh, I won’t ever buy any again. Just wait for this vape to be done. Then I will quit. I can justify it by saying, I have now quit “buying” anymore. But why can’t I just throw it away?

O Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner, an addicted soul! Free me from this enslavement! O Lord, I want nothing more than to be free. I want nothing more than to be free from this addiction. But why then does it have this power over me? Why am I seconds away from toking on the vape? Why does it have this much power over me? I do not understand! I want to quit. I know what I ought not to do, and yet I do it anyway. O Lord, I want to be clearheaded! O Lord, I want to be sober! O Lord, I want to be sober, and righteous, and godly. O Lord, I want to live in the daylight of sobriety, for you O Lord! Free me of these sins! Free me of this addiction! O Lord, I ask you to give me strength to do the impossible. But is it really possible until I am rid of all cannabis in my home? Do I really have this strength? I can hardly believe I have such strength in the Lord. How can I resist this impulse? How can I be strong? It is right there. Tempting me. I want to throw it away. I want to be strong.

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After much inner struggle and consternation, I successfully avoided temptation yesterday and threw the vape away, by the power of Lord Jesus Christ. It has been 20 hours since I was last high. Glory to Him! May this be the beginning of a new chapter of clearheadedness. May I set an example for my wife, to show her that Christ does indeed have the power to transform lives. I have quit a million times. I have had a million “day ones.” Let this be my last day one! Let this be the beginning of a process of continued sanctification as I put on new clothes of righteousness! O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.