Many addiction specialists have declared that relapse is part of the recovery process. The graves of thousands have taken their advice, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Many have been set free for good, never to return to their ex-lover. The Holiday at Sea has become their eternal home. How can this be your reality? How can you have complete freedom forever? How can you have lasting joy?

Many addiction specialists have declared that relapse is part of the recovery process. The graves of thousands have taken their advice, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Many have been set free for good, never to return to their ex-lover. The Holiday at Sea has become their eternal home. How can this be your reality? How can you have complete freedom forever? How can you have lasting joy?

In part 1, we looked at the first pitfall Jesus gives us to avoid falling away from Jesus. In this one we will look at the other the other two.

Many addiction specialists have declared that relapse is part of the recovery process. The graves of thousands have taken their advice, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Many have been set free for good, never to return to their ex-lover. The Holiday at Sea has become their eternal home. How can this be your reality? How can you have complete freedom forever? How can you have lasting joy?

One of the leading methods of recovery over the last hundred years is the twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). There are groups all over the world for different drugs of choice, including Narcotics Anonymous (NA), Cocaine Anonymous (CA), and even Heroin Anonymous (HA). Alcoholics Anonymous started in the 1930’s when the founder, Bill Wilson, had a spiritual experience that removed the desire to drink and he began living according to the principles of the Oxford Group. This was a Christian group aimed at leading people into a relationship with God and living a Godly life. These principles find their roots in the Bible. The twelve steps evolved from these Biblical principles, but have allowed room for people to come up with their own conception of God. Although the twelve steps have helped multitudes of people relieve their desire to drink, they are incomplete in many ways. In this short appendix, I will address four of those shortcomings.

...there is hope. I have seen hundreds of drug addicts meet Christ and learn to live in true freedom and real joy. My family and friends had all but given up on me after many rehabs and broken promises, but God did a miracle. Love them like Jesus does, pray for them, and make Jesus the center of your universe!

It’s not enough to get the bad out; we must also fill the empty space with something, or really Someone. True lasting freedom is not found in the absence of something, but in the presence of Someone. "Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Cor. 3:17). If we are going to experience lasting freedom, we must not only clean our spiritual house, but also we must be filled with the Spirit of God.

Once a drug addict places their faith in Jesus, they are completely forgiven and have been made into a brand new creation, but now comes the long journey of learning how to walk in the freedom they’ve been given. The reason why so many people feel the joy of the Lord on Sundays at church but then bogged down and hopeless the rest of the week is because they are carrying around what feels like thousands of pounds of garbage from their past.

What if our problem wasn’t that we are seeking our pleasure too much, but that the stuff we are seeking our pleasure in isn’t working? What if the problem isn’t that we are addicted to pleasure, but that the object of our addiction isn’t good enough? What if the drugs aren’t a strong enough pleasure to satisfy our souls? What if we were made for a Greater Pleasure.

Do you know someone who struggles with drug addiction?

Do you have a family member that just can’t get clean?

Do you have a loved one that seems hopeless?

Most of us do…