How to Win, part 5 - Finding Fulfillment

Why do people give in to addictions in the first place? Now, the first use of a cigarette or the first glance at porn or the first sip of beer may be a flippant thing - but what keeps us coming back? For you, the specific answer may be different than it is for me. We're all individuals.

Nonetheless, I think the root is pretty similar for all of us. We perceive a need or a desire, and we fulfill that need or desire through the addiction. Usually, we know the addiction is wrong - but it's the place we go to satisfy that need. As long as the need remains unmet elsewhere, the temptation is always going to be strong to return to the addiction.

If you're going to beat the addiction, you usually need something else to satisfy the need you perceive, something else to slate the hunger you feel for whatever you find in drink or drugs or porn.

Where do you find that fulfillment? The short answer is, "In Jesus Christ." If you've never been saved, you don't know the peace and joy that can come from walking with Him, no matter how bad the circumstances are. If we trust and obey Him, He really can meet every need. That won't take away the chemical element of an addiction, but it certainly does take care of the spiritual element.

Yet going beyond that, there are many legitimate outlets that He uses to meet our physical and emotional needs. What need does your drinking fill? Find the legitimate place you can get that need met. What need does your smoking fill? Find where you can get that apart from the addiction.

For me, it was porn, and it was rooted in the need to perceive respect and intimacy. Yeah, porn is a lousy substitute for a real relationship - any intimacy and respect that exists there is purely imaginary. But I think that's what I kept coming back there for.

What's the legitimate place to find that? In marriage, of course. Proverbs 5:15-20 reveal that an exciting, fulfilling relationship with your spouse is a great guard against immorality. And I Corinthians 7:2-5 are perhaps even more explicit. Spouses should protect one another from the temptation of immorality by being actively, joyously intimate (physically and emotionally) with each other. In fact, marriage is the ONLY legitimate place for sex, and it should be a haven of respect, as well.

The excuse comes easily, though. He/she won't let me. I'd love to have the real thing, but I'm stuck with the imaginary, because my spouse won't give me the real.

It's the same with drinking and drugs, a lot of the time. Those are used to escape problems. But they don't make the real problem go away, do they? They just make it easier to ignore.

Fundamentally, this is laziness. Instead of drinking or doping away the problems, go solve them with the Lord's help. Instead of turning to the imaginary intimacy of porn, make your marriage work.

Don't you think you'd work a little harder on your problems if there really were no other way out? Don't you think you'd work a little harder on making your marriage work right if you really didn't have any other outlet? You have to stop letting the addiction be the back door out of the hard work of solving problems. Odds are, the addiction not only is not helping you solve the real problems - it is contributing to them. So long as you allow yourself to walk out that back door, you are preventing yourself from getting the help you need or having the courage to take the stands you need to take in order to have the need met in a legitimate way.

So instead of turning to the imaginary and artificial, go back to the legitimate places of fulfillment. Start with Jesus Christ, and then use what He gives you, rather than substituting an addiction for a morally legitimate solution. I guarantee you it's more satisfying. It's one of the keys to long-term victory over addiction - getting the need met where it should be met.