Addicted?

The other day, I caught a portion of Bob Ley's "Outside the Lines" on ESPN. He put the spotlight on Art Schlichter, a college football phenom who crashed and burned in the NFL. Why? Art Schlichter gambled. He bet football. He bet basketball. He amassed over a million dollars in gambling debts and served more than ten years in prison, none of which is conducive to an NFL career.

What stuck in my ear about the piece was a phrase I'd heard many times before, gambling addiction. "I was addicted to gambling." Addicted? I always thought that addiction meant that if the addicted went without that thing to which they wer addicted, they would suffer horrible withdrawal. Too much alcohol decreased the affect of the depressant and altered the physiology of the human body. So, too, narcotics. But addicted to gambling?

No doubt the heroin addict goes through agony as he becomes unaddicted to the stuff. So, too, the alcoholic. But the term gets bandied about with lots of things that don't alter our physiology. You hear about food addictions, internet addictions, thrill addictions, and pornography addictions. While the rush caused by each of these might very well be real, the body has not been changed in such a way so as to need this thing or this event.

Some go so far as to refer to addiction as a disease. Bob Ley did just that when discussing Art Schlichter's gambling problem. What can you do about a disease? If you catch it, bummer. You don't have any control, do you?

Addiction. Disease. Both terms imply the individual no longer has any moral culpability for their behavior, they have no choice. They only do what the addiction or the disease compels them to do.

That is a lie.

God holds man accountable for what he does and for what he chooses. When man chooses ways contrary to what God has delineated, God calls it sin, rebellion, treason, treachery, wickedness, iniquity, and God holds man responsible. He stirs up his passions by ogling women not his wife? God calls that adultery. Man seeks a thrill by going double-down on a pair of aces? God calls that foolishness. His heart begins to pound when he sees the spread and dives in at Ci-Ci's Pizza? God calls that gluttony.

We have a choice. No gory details, but I know of what I speak having struggled with what many call and addiction. No, I chose, each time, to engage in what I chose to engage. One more Twinkie. One more drink. One more roll of the dice. One more look. Nancy Reagan continues to be mocked for her "Just Say No" campaign against drug abuse, but she had it right. That's what God calls the Christian to do. He asks us to trust him and his ways.

This is especially true for the Christian. Note what Paul wrote to the church at Rome and note especially the words he chose (parentheses mine):

"Therefore do not let (option) sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting (choice) the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present (conscious act) yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace...

"...Do you not know that when you present yourselves (conscious, purposeful act) to someone as slaves (ooh, serious word) for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness? But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification."

Personal responsibility continues to die a slow and agonizing death in 2009 America. Using words like disease and addiction when discussing acts of the takes the reigns of moral agency away from each of us. If I don't have moral boundaries by which I must travel, then all bets are off. Civilization degenerates into chaos. Since the individual will not order himself, government will impose order upon him, and his freedom is lost.

So what's it going to be? Are we going to roll the dice or will we man-up and push ourselves away from the table? The choice is mine. The choice is yours. Only through being enslaved to righteousness at the foot of the cross of Christ will man know true freedom.