Acceptable Addictions

Okay, let me be the first to accept it and admit it.  I have a severe addiction to food and sugary drinks.  Yes, of course you need food to survive, but when is enough?  I love getting large helpings of food, I am an American after all.

 

Some would say the American diet is unsustainable.  This is hard to argue with seeing as how we have shows called The Biggest Loser while many people in the world die for lack of food.  Even in our own society a lot of people go hungry.

 

Meanwhile, the middle and upper classes eat to their hearts' content.  Personally, I love food, and a lot of it at that.  How do I get over this food addiction?

 

A quick example to illustrate what I'm talking about here.  Lately, I've been trying, yet again, to get off of soda.  I'll go a day, maybe a day and a half before the headaches kick in.  Then I give into temptation and have a soda.  I'm trying to ween myself off but it is proving rather difficult to say the least.

 

I tried drinking coffee for a while so I'd at least get the caffeine kick.  I can't stand the taste of that stuff.  Not to mention, you're really just trading one addiction for another, right?  How many people say they can't get through the day without their coffee?  Is that not the very definition of an addiction?  Something you can't live without?

 

It's okay though we tell ourselves.  Everyone loves a good cup of joe in the morning.  As the title of this entry suggests, caffeine is an acceptable addiction.

 

Many people struggle with understanding how addicts, in the classical sense of the term, have such a hard time kicking their particular addiction whether it is to pills or coke or alcohol.  Give up your two-three cups of coffee for a month and then tell me how easy it was to do so.

 

The problem with acceptable addictions is that they necessarily become acceptable idols.  If we need something more than God Himself it is an idol.  I realize that sounds crazy to call coffee or food an idol, but I really feel that way.

 

I have a friend who went through an assessment several years ago in order to plant a church.  He was telling me a great story and one that serves as a perfect illustration here.  One of the main guys was telling these future church planters they would have to 'put down the bottle' in order to serve as pastors.  A female in my friends' group said she'd put down the bottle when he put down the fork.

 

It's perfect, isn't it?  It perfectly illustrates how some addictions are far more acceptable than others.  I've always had a heart for people who are labeled as addicts.  People act like illegal drugs or pills or alcohol are the only things to get addicted to.  You can get addicted to any number of things.  With that being said, allow me to part with these words.  What are you addicted to?  What do you need to take off the throne where God belongs?