overcoming addictions

Anna Nicole Smith is back in the news. Well, sort of. Jerry Brown, our Attorney General, has decided to pursue charges against three people who supplied Ms. Smith with the drugs that eventually contributed to her death.

The three people include her boyfriend/attorney and two doctors. In counseling terms, they served as her enablers. They were the ones who enabled her addiction and kept it alive.

For people battling addictions, the co-conspirators are all around us. Marketing messages tell our young ladies that they must look a certain way, encouraging eating disorders and other harmful habits. These same messages encourage our men to look at women as objects rather than human beings made in God’s image. We are told to take a pill if we’re sick or want strong bones or a healthy sex life.

Credit card debt continues to mount. A Blackberry phone becomes a Crackberry. Kids watch increasing amounts of television because it’s the electronic babysitter.
Technololgy serves us, then becomes our master. As a society, we have surrounded ourselves with enablers who will feed our addictions.

Addictions are no respector of persons. Young and old battle addictions. The rich and poor, black and white, male and female. Some addictions are physical; others are emotional or relational.

But there is hope. The fundamental message of Christianity is this: you can be changed. Words are used like transformation, renewal, rebirth. Words that speak to the fact that you don’t have to stay the same person you’ve always been.

May that message become reality ... in your life.