Don't Kill Bill, Kill the Condemner!
Here's my thought...
You know everyday I learn something new about myself, about God about others and about the world I live in. Today was a fresh revelation about what goes on in the life of an addict, the thought life that is. I was watching Joseph Prince this morning and if you have never listened to him please go check him out. He always uses Greek translations in his teachings which are very helpful for me to better understand the God's word. So today the thing that struck me out of his teachings was the word condemnation. He talked a lot about, it isn't really so much about what we do as much as it is what we think about what we do (condemnation). And the light bulb went off! Addicts inherently feel bad about themselves. It is this vicious cycle that they live in. Most addicts that I work with are anxious 98% of the time, they typically aren't connected enough to their body to realize that is what is going on but indeed it is typically anxiety that starts the ball rolling. So they become anxious as a cat on a hot tin roof so they begin to think, how can I calm myself. How can I get the intensity that is going on in my body to come down a notch. They begin to think I can eat a ____, I can drink ____, I can swallow ______, I can snort _____, I can smoke _____, I can buy ______, I can shoot ______, I can call ______, the fill in the blank list is ad nauseam. The point is that we begin to look for something outside of ourselves to calm us down we call this self gratification. Don't be offended by this but it is similar to giving a baby a bottle or a pacifier.
The addict already has a history of doing whatever he fills in the blank with and it is most likely causing him problems. It is causing him problems because he believes in his gut that what he is doing is wrong or worse he is wrong. So his anxiety is shooting through the roof and he is trying to get a lid on it all the while he is thinking about just how he is going to do that. He is thinking about what he did the last time and it worked, at least temporarily but he swore he wasn't going to do that again (condemnation). He doesn't like himself when he does that, he doesn't like what happens when he does that, it hurts him or others when he does that (condemnation). But then the pressure gets so great he says "f" it and is gone back to what he swore he wouldn't do anymore. Condemnation, condemnation, condemnation.
I see it all the time in my work with addicts. They want to do different but this condemning voice has them before they know what to do. The whole cycle I described above can happen in a matter of minutes or take months to manifest itself depending on where they are in their walk with God or their recovery This brings me back to Joseph Prince and his topic today. So we all know about satan/devil but let's look at the Greek word for devil, it is diabolla (dia - by means through) and (bolla - to throw, slander, accusations). Satan gets us by throwing slander and accusations at us. Romans 14:22...Blessed is the man who does not condemn himself by what he approves.
It hit me like a ton of bricks this is where it happens. You got satan whispering about our addiction or coping behavior and then we pick up the bag and begin to repeat those condemning words to ourselves. If you keep getting snared it because of this self condemnation. It goes something like...see I told you you couldn't stay clean, see you really are a piece of ______, see you really don't care about your family or see you really are like your dad, mom, etc said. Condemnation, condemnation, condemnation. I typically call this hamster cage going off in your head, the committee meeting that you are not invited to.
This whole story reminds of my smoking cigarettes adventure. I started smoking when I was 11 years old. I wanted to be included with this group of girls, they were cool and smoked so I said I did to. So the battle begins between what I know to be right and what I am doing. I have pages and pages in my diary from when I was a kid about smoking and was God going to love me. I knew what I was doing was wrong. So every time I smoked I would condemn myself and the anxiety cycle would crank up a notch. I tried multiple times in my life to quit, only to go back to them each time feeling more and more defeated. Then one day I was talking to one of the counselors at the treatment center where I worked. He told me every time I lit a cigarette to thank God he was removing the desire to smoke and I wasn't going to have to do that much longer. Wow, really that is it. So I did it, every so slowly and sheepishly. Just for the record it is hard to do what is in your mind as sinning and talk to God at the same time. Like somehow if you are doing it and not acknowledging Him he won't see you. LIE!
So with every cigarette and every drag I began to praise God and say "thank you God that you are removing the desire to smoke cigarettes. Thank you that I am not going to have smoke much longer". That was it. It took maybe six months but then one day I woke up and I knew that was that day. That was sometime in February 1990 and I haven't smoked since. It was still hard, I still had to go through all the withdrawal issues and find an identity that did not include being a smoker but I have never returned. But I knew in my heart that I was no longer and smoker.
It hit me today in listening to Joseph Prince why that worked so well. I stopped condemning myself with every cigarette. I started praising the God, the one with the true power to take away the cigarettes. As it tells us in Ephesians 6:18 "pray in all occasions".
We are going to talk a lot more about this in the blogs ahead. As I believe the reducing the anxiety is key to what is going on in every addicts life. Begin to listen to how you are condemning yourself. John 3:17 says... For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him". If you are condemning yourself you are lining up with satan's plan for your life not God's. Soak in that and we will talk about it some more soon. Until next time...
Blessings ~ Tammy
Tammy Hardin ~ Relapse Prevention Specialist
Life Change Coach I Author I Speaker
http://www.emotionalandaddictionrecovery.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Tammy_Hardin
You know everyday I learn something new about myself, about God about others and about the world I live in. Today was a fresh revelation about what goes on in the life of an addict, the thought life that is. I was watching Joseph Prince this morning and if you have never listened to him please go check him out. He always uses Greek translations in his teachings which are very helpful for me to better understand the God's word. So today the thing that struck me out of his teachings was the word condemnation. He talked a lot about, it isn't really so much about what we do as much as it is what we think about what we do (condemnation). And the light bulb went off! Addicts inherently feel bad about themselves. It is this vicious cycle that they live in. Most addicts that I work with are anxious 98% of the time, they typically aren't connected enough to their body to realize that is what is going on but indeed it is typically anxiety that starts the ball rolling. So they become anxious as a cat on a hot tin roof so they begin to think, how can I calm myself. How can I get the intensity that is going on in my body to come down a notch. They begin to think I can eat a ____, I can drink ____, I can swallow ______, I can snort _____, I can smoke _____, I can buy ______, I can shoot ______, I can call ______, the fill in the blank list is ad nauseam. The point is that we begin to look for something outside of ourselves to calm us down we call this self gratification. Don't be offended by this but it is similar to giving a baby a bottle or a pacifier.
The addict already has a history of doing whatever he fills in the blank with and it is most likely causing him problems. It is causing him problems because he believes in his gut that what he is doing is wrong or worse he is wrong. So his anxiety is shooting through the roof and he is trying to get a lid on it all the while he is thinking about just how he is going to do that. He is thinking about what he did the last time and it worked, at least temporarily but he swore he wasn't going to do that again (condemnation). He doesn't like himself when he does that, he doesn't like what happens when he does that, it hurts him or others when he does that (condemnation). But then the pressure gets so great he says "f" it and is gone back to what he swore he wouldn't do anymore. Condemnation, condemnation, condemnation.
I see it all the time in my work with addicts. They want to do different but this condemning voice has them before they know what to do. The whole cycle I described above can happen in a matter of minutes or take months to manifest itself depending on where they are in their walk with God or their recovery This brings me back to Joseph Prince and his topic today. So we all know about satan/devil but let's look at the Greek word for devil, it is diabolla (dia - by means through) and (bolla - to throw, slander, accusations). Satan gets us by throwing slander and accusations at us. Romans 14:22...Blessed is the man who does not condemn himself by what he approves.
It hit me like a ton of bricks this is where it happens. You got satan whispering about our addiction or coping behavior and then we pick up the bag and begin to repeat those condemning words to ourselves. If you keep getting snared it because of this self condemnation. It goes something like...see I told you you couldn't stay clean, see you really are a piece of ______, see you really don't care about your family or see you really are like your dad, mom, etc said. Condemnation, condemnation, condemnation. I typically call this hamster cage going off in your head, the committee meeting that you are not invited to.
This whole story reminds of my smoking cigarettes adventure. I started smoking when I was 11 years old. I wanted to be included with this group of girls, they were cool and smoked so I said I did to. So the battle begins between what I know to be right and what I am doing. I have pages and pages in my diary from when I was a kid about smoking and was God going to love me. I knew what I was doing was wrong. So every time I smoked I would condemn myself and the anxiety cycle would crank up a notch. I tried multiple times in my life to quit, only to go back to them each time feeling more and more defeated. Then one day I was talking to one of the counselors at the treatment center where I worked. He told me every time I lit a cigarette to thank God he was removing the desire to smoke and I wasn't going to have to do that much longer. Wow, really that is it. So I did it, every so slowly and sheepishly. Just for the record it is hard to do what is in your mind as sinning and talk to God at the same time. Like somehow if you are doing it and not acknowledging Him he won't see you. LIE!
So with every cigarette and every drag I began to praise God and say "thank you God that you are removing the desire to smoke cigarettes. Thank you that I am not going to have smoke much longer". That was it. It took maybe six months but then one day I woke up and I knew that was that day. That was sometime in February 1990 and I haven't smoked since. It was still hard, I still had to go through all the withdrawal issues and find an identity that did not include being a smoker but I have never returned. But I knew in my heart that I was no longer and smoker.
It hit me today in listening to Joseph Prince why that worked so well. I stopped condemning myself with every cigarette. I started praising the God, the one with the true power to take away the cigarettes. As it tells us in Ephesians 6:18 "pray in all occasions".
We are going to talk a lot more about this in the blogs ahead. As I believe the reducing the anxiety is key to what is going on in every addicts life. Begin to listen to how you are condemning yourself. John 3:17 says... For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him". If you are condemning yourself you are lining up with satan's plan for your life not God's. Soak in that and we will talk about it some more soon. Until next time...
Blessings ~ Tammy
Tammy Hardin ~ Relapse Prevention Specialist
Life Change Coach I Author I Speaker
http://www.emotionalandaddictionrecovery.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Tammy_Hardin
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