[1] In 1973 I began a year of Clinical Pastoral Education at
Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, Illinois. The director of
the program, Rev. Ronald Leslie, told our group of CPE residents
that if we spent a quarter of the year at the Alcoholism
Rehabilitation Center (as it was called at the time), it would
probably be the best quarter of the year. He emphasized that we
would probably learn more from the recovering alcoholics than what
we could teach them.
[2] We also might learn some things about spirituality that
weren't taught at the seminary. I liked Ron but I wondered what on
earth he was talking about. I thought at the time alcoholics were
the inhabitants of skid row and couldn't image how spending three
months with them could be characterized as "good," let alone "the
best"!
[3] Now, almost thirty years later, having worked in the field
of addiction treatment as a chaplain/counselor/manager type person,
I look back at Ron's statement as truly prophetic. It was the best
quarter of the year and I did gain some new insights about
spirituality that were very helpful. I began to sense a calling
into specialized ministry with addicts although I had no idea how
and where I might be hired as a chaplain. One month before my CPE
residency was to end, the Alcoholism Rehabilitation Center posted a
notice for a new position, "chaplain counselor." Several residents
and I applied for the position, along with a number of pastors
outside of Lutheran General Hospital. I was offered the position
and now, after almost 30 year working with addicts I look back and
firmly believe I was Spirit-led into this journey. And I am ever so
grateful for the journey.
[4] You may be asking yourself by now, how can anyone enjoy
working with alcoholics and drug addicts? Isn't that a little
abnormal? I had similar feelings in one of the first open AA
meetings I attended when one of the speakers claimed that he was
happier now, in his recovery from alcoholism that he was before he
became alcoholic. He further stated that he is grateful to have the
illness because, "in recovery my life is better, my relationships
are better, and I have a relationship with God that I never
believed I could have." At the time I did not understand what he
was saying or how, what he was saying, could be true: having a
better life because of a major illness! Come on! Get real!
[5] If you are an alcoholic or addict or close to an alcoholic
or addict, you know from experience how painful it is to be
addicted or to love someone who is. When you can no longer control
the alcohol or drugs (remember not all drugs are "street drugs"
like cocaine and heroin; diet pill, pain pills, and sedatives can
be addicting also) you are taking, your values change. Whatever
values you may have cherished- like honesty and kindness - become
secondary to the value of obtaining and using the drug to which you
have become addicted. If you have to lie, you lie; if you have to
steal, you steal. Family, home, friends, work, school, health,
church - everything is secondary to the drug. And one day, when
your illness has progressed long enough, you find yourself alone,
without your family, home, friends, work, school, health, church.
The only "friend" you have is that which caused you to lose
everything, the drug.
[6] But, you say, wouldn't people realize that the alcohol or
drugs are hurting them, and stop? Wouldn't that be the sensible
thing to do? Of course it would be. However, there is a dynamic
operating in all of us, which was operating in Adam and Eve in the
garden a long, long time ago. However we approach the story, we
find that like Adam and Eve, given the chance to be all-wise, and
thus all-powerful, most of us would jump at the opportunity. We
like to think we can control or handle anything we set our mind to.
If others are telling us we are drinking too much, we know better.
We are really in control: the DUI arrest, the lost job, the failed
marriage had nothing to do with our drinking. The police were just
making sure they got their quota of arrests, the boss never liked
me, my spouse was the problem, not my drinking. We believe that we
can control what others are telling us we can't, and the spiral
downward continues.
[7] Addictions are not limited to chemicals. We can become
addicted to gambling, food, sex, spending - all in an attempt to
feel good, to be in control, to take charge. Initially, for most
people, addictive behaviors often begin as pleasurable and safe.
Eventually, if the progression ends in addiction, the experience is
no longer pleasurable nor safe, but we continue because we are
addicted. We cannot do otherwise without intervention and help. We
become sick physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.
What we once valued takes a distant second place to our addiction,
and we are miserable and longing for relief. The irony is that once
the addiction sets in - whether it is addiction to alcohol, drugs,
sex, spending, or eating - we still hope and sometimes truly
believe that what once gave us relief and pleasure will eventually
give us pleasure and relief once again. We continue the behavior
and we experience more pain and grief.
[8] Years ago I attended a graduation ceremony for a group a
young drug addicts who had successfully completed an extended
treatment program. One of the young men gave a brief speech about
what his life was like before recovery and what it was like now. He
began treatment after one night, when he was stoned on several
drugs, he hid in the bushes outside of his house with a gun waiting
to shoot his father. Fortunately he passed out and neighbors saw
him and called the police. This young man thanked his counselors
and fellow patients in treatment and the people who helped him in
his AA and NA meetings. But he also thanked his family - his
siblings and his parents - for the love they showed him that he
couldn't experience because of his addiction. There was not a dry
eye in the house when he finished talking.
[9] I will never forget one line that he used to bring his talk
to an end: "I was lost and now I am new."
[10] I'm sure everyone in the audience, including me, thought he
was going to say he was lost and now he is "found". As I look back,
I am now convinced that the word "new" is profoundly correct, and
the young man was prophetic in his declaration. It is only when we
give up our old self (focused on self and self gain) that we can
become a new creation.
If anyone is in Christ, he is a new
creation; the old has gone, the new has come.
2
Corinthians 5:17
[11] One of the pastors who mentored me in my early development
as a student and young pastor, once told me that his decision to
enter the ministry resulted from a near death experience in which
he came close to drowning. He prayed to God to save him and when he
was rescued he believed it was by the hand of God and eventually
went to seminary and was ordained. He later became a much respected
and beloved bishop. Luther himself, living in a time when plagues
and death were always ever so close, got caught in a terrible storm
and made a similar prayer to God to save him. You know the rest of
the story! Not everyone who comes close to the abyss, either
through a single traumatic experience or through a lifelong
struggle with addiction or other illness, becomes a new person. But
some do because they are caught by the Spirit of God and are
changed. They turn from a focus on worldly wealth and power and
self-preoccupation, to give rather than to always get, to care and
not to conquer, to love and not to hate. Jesus said "Who ever finds
his life (in the values of the world) loses it and whoever loses
his life for my sake (gives up the values of the world to focus on
God's values as seen in Christ) will find it. We become the person
God created us to be when we follow God's way, not our own.
[12] Resurrection is the experience of dying to the old life and
finding new life, a better life. Recovering addicts know this
perhaps better than anyone. I have been blessed in working with
addicts who teach me as much as I teach them. As a follower of
Christ, I do have something to give to them, however, and you do
to. The best gift you can give to addicts is a sense of God's love
through your own genuine love and concern for them. An addict will
sense moralism and condescension and dismiss you as a source of
help. Likewise, however, an addict will sense genuine love, when
given, and be open to letting you into his or her life. With
patience and perseverance, you may have an opportunity to guide the
addict to the help needed. One of the best messages you can give to
addicts is that they are loved and loveable, but they have an
illness. The illness is controlling them, not vice versa. The
beginning of recovery, of arresting the illness, is to admit defeat
- something we all hate to do. That is the irony: victory comes
only through defeat! Victory comes as we admit to our own
powerlessness over an illness that is greater than we are. We stop
our useless attempts to control, and ask for help from those who
know more about it than we do. The beginning of victory is in
admitting defeat. Giving up our old way of trying to control
everything - as if we were God - opens the door to new avenues of
help, beyond what we could hope for by using our own limited
resources. Having admitted defeat, we are now in a position of
asking for help from God and some of His friends. Out of defeat,
victory; from death (of self-centeredness), life, hope,
Resurrection.
© May 2003
Journal of Lutheran Ethics (JLE)
Volume 3, Issue 5