I was talking to my wife the other day about addictions and the strength it takes daily to overcome something you may have placed in your life, but now is something you have removed from it. I guess if you know me know you would never guess I had a drinking problem, that I smoked a pack plus a day, or that at one point, I had to be high to function. All of these things were, at one point, things that defined who I was as a person.

At one point, I literally spent every day of the week at one bar or another. I loved the taste of beer and had to be drunk to get to sleep. I loved the life of a bar fly and thought that if you couldn’t hold your own in a good game of beer pong, you weren’t worth your salt as a man. I did know that I wasn’t me when I drank, though. I woke up more than once, unsure what happened the night before, and hearing stories, I couldn’t believe that I did. I woke up one time with a pocket full of gas caps. Seriously, I stole gas caps off cars that night. I woke up once to my friends, mad at me for starting a fight, then walking away from the fight, leaving them to fight the fight alone. I did see this as a bad thing for me, and when I went through a rough patch in the military, I stopped drinking for nine years because I was afraid of the me as an alcoholic. I did start back after my brother died but haven’t tasted a drop since my accident.

I started smoking at sixteen while working on a ranch to stay awake while driving a tractor. I continued on for twenty years. I knew it was bad for me and tried to stop many times until my last cigarette about fifteen minutes before my accident.

I started smoking weed after I got out of the military here and there, depending on if I could find it or not. Also, depending on my job. Once, I had a job that I controlled and was in a place where it was legal. I spent every waking moment high and got to the point where if I wasn’t high, I wanted to be high.

I now am a sober person for multiple reasons. Reason number one is that the Bible has a lot to say about the body being a temple and that a sober mind is needed. Second being my children, I do not want them to follow that path so I don’t show them that path. Third is health, I wish to live a healthier life and nothing in any of those addictions helps with health.

The sad part is I gave up all these things, but I crave them every day. It takes everything in me not to buy a pack of cigarettes and light up again. I catch myself in beer aisles once in a while, wondering what it would feel like to just have one. I always miss the feeling of melting into a couch from a good high. I am not saying I want to go and get back into any of those addictions but that even those of us 3 years sober still fight daily the demons of addiction.

I understand that many think oh your sober must be easy. Nope, it’s a struggle daily to stay away. Oh, you struggle with addiction. What a bad Christian you must be. Not really. I use my Bible and prayer as ways to keep myself sober most days. Oh, you’re past the physical addiction. You must just thrive now. Nope, I still crave the feeling of the addiction. Just don’t let myself touch it.

Addiction in itself is a scary thing and so misunderstood by so many people. I wish more people understood it, but they sit there drinking their soda they can’t function without or eating that sandwich from wherever that they were craving and had to get and don’t understand why someone would spend their last dollar on a beer or a pack. For many its past a choice, and it takes a special act to pull them from that addiction.

I know my addictions are weak compared to those doing heroine living in a tent, but an addiction is still dangerous. I’m glad I caught mine and fought it daily. I pray I never see the day any of them beat me in a fight, and I’m picking myself up off the pavement again. I hope that if you have something you’re addicted to, you can beat it or at least recognize it now and maybe later beat it. I pray you find the help you need and would start any help by reading your Bible I promise you can find more than just sage wisdom in it. You can find a God that loves you and has a place for you in his family addictions and all.