If you were to ask a child ‘what do you want to be as an adult?’ I highly doubt you’ll hear something like “When I grow up I want to be an alcoholic,” or “I want to be a slave to my job because I’m a workaholic.” It’s very unlikely you’ll ever meet someone who wants to have an addiction, so why do we all have something that’s reducing our quality of life or tempting us?
Please Note: An addiction is anything that takes control over our minds and lives; it’s something we feel we “have” to do, but it hurts us. Addictions can be one of the standards (i.e. drugs, drinking, food, gambling, work, shopping, sex, and porn), or something that we often not think about as being an addiction like being a drama queen, pleasure seeking, spending, criticizing, gossip, negative thinking, going to church or not going to church, pleasing other people, sports, being healthy, and even donating money.
I recently had a contractor looking in my basement, and while he was there he found the asbestos my home inspector had showed me (the home inspector was awesome (www.Priorityhi.com). Asbestos was once considered the miracle product because it was great for insulation, especially around furnace ducts. Unfortunately, it was later discovered that breathing in the dust particles it creates is highly cancer causing. To properly remove asbestos you’re supposed to wear a special respirator, goggles, and body suit as well as quarantine the room to prevent it from getting in the air. Many people warned me that it’s not something you should handle carelessly, yet this contractor saw it and said, “Huhn, asbestos,” while ripping it off the wall. I was in shock because I had been warned about touching it, and he was so casual about it. Afterwards I was thinking about this and what surprised me the most was when he did this nothing happened. There were no warning alarms; there weren’t police raiding the house; his hand didn’t fall off; we didn’t even cough or choke. Besides my heart momentarily stopping, there wasn’t even any panic. It just happened, and it wasn’t a big deal. In some ways it was even exciting to live “dangerously”. The next day when I was by myself I started thinking I should just grab whatever asbestos I had in the house and toss it in a garbage bag without doing the proper safety precautions. My fear was gone because I saw someone else do it. Fortunately, I fought the foolish temptation and worked on something else (tip: this is the best way to fight temptation; do something to take your mind off it). Here’s the thing with asbestos: Nothing visibly happens right away, but eventually problems begin to surface. I could take that asbestos strip and crush it up until I had breathed in every last particle and be fine… for awhile. Eventually the problems would surface and I’d realize I was in trouble. This is how addictions work. Addictions are subtle. We don’t plan on having them; they just creep into our lives, and we don’t realize there’s anything wrong until a big enough problem surfaces. Even if people tell us there’s something wrong with what we’re doing, we need something big enough to happen to make us care. For instance, my Nana smoked for sixty years and knew it was bad, but she didn’t really care until she had a heart attack. When her doctor asked, “Do you smoke?” she said “No, I quit… today,” and she did. It took something big enough to happen to get her attention.
The only other way to find what addiction(s) you have (or at least the potential for an addiction) is to take time to reflect on your current behaviors. Are you doing anything that is potentially hurting you? Do you have something unhealthy you do to relieve stress? Have people warned you that you’re doing something you shouldn’t? If so, this is a behavior you’ll want to address whether byyourself or with the help of a good therapist like me.
This week may you take the time to figure out what behaviors you have in your life that are harming you and the courage to do something about them.
Rev Chad David, www.ChadDavid.ca, learning to love dumb people