And good morning.

Thank you for joining us at Real Life with Mike and Jason.

I'm Pastor Jason and I'm joined as always by Pastor Mike Ostheimer.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Good to be here.

Good to be here for sure.

Welcome back to season two.

This season we're hoping to address, we've got a four part kind of plan and to talk about addiction, all things addiction.

And so that's what our four part series this season will be about.

And focusing on understanding what addiction really is.

Breaking down the definition, various forms, how it impacts individuals, families, communities, plus obviously and most importantly, explore what God has to say through his word on these topics.

Definitely a deep, deep conversation.

Something that impacts I think most.

It's safe to say that most people either have either personally themselves dealt with it or know somebody very close who struggles with an addiction.

So I guess we'll start with you, Pastor Mike.

Could you give us a definition of addiction?

It was interesting that you said there's obviously different forms of addiction and so many people struggle with it.

And it's a definitely a deep talk topic.

And it made me just think that, like an old statement, I've heard that about telling the truth, that 90, 95% of people lie and the other 5% lie about lying.

Yeah.

Addiction is probably something that all of us as human beings deal with and that can be negative or positive.

And so hopefully in this season we can deal with some of those things that we're looking at.

The majority of it being negative obviously, but there is a positive side that can come from that as well.

And as we kind of dive into this, the question is, what is addiction?

So I had to go back because obviously we're pastors, we're not psychologists, we're not here trying to give medical advice.

We want to come from the word of God and help people understand from the word of God the hope that we have with regard to addiction.

And that it, and like I said, it deals with everybody.

So I go back and I'm looking and I can't find the word addiction.

You know, in the Bible, except for in the old King James, in 1 Corinthians 16, it said they that speaking of the disciples that they had addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints.

And so there is a, a good side of, of addiction.

I guess I wanted to start with here for us to think about.

And the only person that you can become addicted to and be made free in doing so is Jesus.

In John 8:36, Jesus says, so if the Son sets you free, you're truly free.

And I think, just think it's important to kick this whole thing off with that thought.

But looking this up, Webster's dictionary defines addiction as surrendering oneself to something obsessively and habitually.

And like I said, though you can't find the word addiction or addict or addicted.

There is a word that we find a lot and maybe sums it up better for people.

It's the word captive.

That sin takes us captive and we become addicted to it.

But there's two basic meanings and just real quickly, the first definition when we think of with regard to addiction is to cause to become physiologically or psychologically dependent on some habit forming substance.

And most people think of addiction usually with regard to say drugs or alcohol.

They don't necessarily think of it in the truest sense that we should be anything.

Right?

So it could be, you know, drugs, pornography, gambling, gluttony, tobacco use.

The list just goes on and on.

It, like I said, probably touches all of our lives at some point down the road.

Those are just the ones that the, the top five, the top ten list that people most easily recognize and talk about.

Not the, as the Bible does.

There's the secret sins, those things that we can struggle with and become addicted to, but yet we just don't talk about those things.

The second definition of addiction means this.

To occupy yourself or oneself with or involve oneself in something habitually or compulsively.

And this is where I think it hits most of us if it doesn't.

In the first definition of that you find yourself addicted to some substance, sure.

But at least for most believers it.

We would probably define it as being obsessed with anything other than God.

And this is as a pastor we talk to people all the time.

And especially you being a youth pastor and you so many Christian kids that are involved in extracurricular activities.

And you watch And I grew up in a sports home and so I know that can sports become an addiction?

And you go yeah, you know, or work.

And we call them workaholic or a shopaholic.

Now with being able to just go to Amazon online, you just right there at our fingertips acquiring stuff or even family.

I mean that I hear people all the time, they go, my, my priority in life is my wife or my husband, my children.

And that they make that the first thing.

And then you go where's God?

And he becomes like second or third or fourth on the list here because they put something else in the place of God.

And yet Scripture, Deuteronomy 6 tells us that we're Called to love the Lord our God, with all of our heart, with all of our soul, with all of our strength.

And so I guess we could conclude this then.

Addiction is just basically anything other than God that we hold in our life that's so dear.

It takes us down that road of addiction.

And like I said, we'll get into this as we go along here.

But there's, like I said, there's only one thing that we really and should occupy ourselves with habitually and that's our relationship with the Lord and anything else that takes the place of God.

I mean, if we just said it and just said, man, that's that it's an addiction.

It's taken the place of God.

I love that.

I don't know if it was Spurgeon who said it or Augustine, that there's a God shaped void in, in every human heart that only God himself can fill.

Amen.

And when he's not filling it, then we're going to fill it with something else.

And so hopefully that gives us ideas, we dive into this.

Yeah.

And I think there's really no exception to that either.

The holes that we have that we're trying to fill, that they're going to get filled, but it's either going to do with God or they're going to get filled with something.

But you know, it's easy for us to take the approach of, wow, that's not really me.

Or, you know, it doesn't impact our family or our friends.

And we think of an addiction like the pornography, where it's just what I'm looking at, but still it comes at a cost.

And yeah, I'm not hurting anybody.

Yeah, I'm not hurting anyone.

It's a victimless right vice I've heard.

And so I remember watching this is probably.

I had to think back on it.

It's probably mid 2000s, like 2006 or 7, I think.

My wife was in school and so I was just.

I rented a little apartment while she was gone, when I was there in the coast guard and up north.

And I watched this show every single night.

And it was.

And I watched it faithfully probably for a year straight, almost every night because it was on video on demand.

Right.

So you could just go to episode one, see season one, episode one and watch it.

But it was a show called.

Oh, man, what was it called?

Intervention.

I don't know if you remember that show.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so I remember it was all about addiction, but it was just so interesting because you gotta see.

And I Grew up in a home where my dad was addicted not just to pornography, but to alcohol.

That was an addiction that I had had.

I definitely understood a little bit about addiction, at least its grip on me and seeing how it impacted my father.

And so I think that's probably what drew me to it.

But in every episode, without fail, you'd have.

They'd sit.

They'd do this intervention, right?

They'd sit around in a circle.

Somebody would come in, and each family member or friend would have their little letter there, and.

And they would, you know, pull it out and say, your addiction has impacted me in the following ways.

And they would walk through how, you know, whatever it was that family member or loved one was struggling with, how it impacted them just physically, emotionally, mentally.

And everybody in that circle had something to say.

And I think the point that I took away from that is that addiction is not a victimless thing.

It definitely grips and holds the person struggling with the addiction, but it impacts those around you.

We see that statistically.

You think about.

I was looking up some statistics on addiction in relationships and marital satisfaction, impact on kids, the divorce rate, and even in domestic violence situations.

There they say it's upwards of 60, sometimes 65% of cases involving addiction lead to domestic violence of some sort.

And that's not just substance abuse addictions.

It's shopping even, maybe to a lesser extent, but it's still like shopping, gambling, spending, pornography.

Or is it sex addiction or alcohol drugs?

So you definitely see a correlation.

And not just that, but also with the divorce rate too.

Obviously.

That could be.

Definitely be, I think, a precursor to a potential divorce as struggling with addiction.

But I think oftentimes we, like you said earlier, we bucket that in with addiction is just alcohol or just drugs, and we overlook all the other things in our lives that we just can't get away from that are controlling us or gripping us.

And that could be as simple as the amount of time we spend on social media.

There's so many things that vie for our time and our attention.

That's trying to fill a void or a need in our life that only God can fill.

I think about.

If you were.

Maybe this is something you can talk through.

If you were to explain maybe the physical or the psychological or the spiritual, even components to addiction, how would you address that?

Because it's not just a physical, right?

There's definitely a spiritual component.

And oftentimes we overlook the psychological kind of approach.

And again, I know we're.

Neither of us are psychologists, but it doesn't just impact the Physical.

Yeah.

I think you go back to.

If in college, take a basic psychology class.

And there's different models that we look at.

The moral model, psychological model, the social model, the disease model, the biopsychosocial model.

Then ultimately for us, the spiritual model.

And I think they all have valid points.

That's why in the biopsychosocial model, it takes all the components and tries to look at them together, which I think is healthy.

There needs to be a holistic view, because most of us were just raised with what they call the moral model.

That has probably the oldest model, because it really dealt with everything from the standpoint of the individual's moral failing or their weakness of their characters, how they ended up, you know, in some kind of addiction.

And then even our response to it.

You know, that I was reading one article where it said that was so influential.

The moral model, on shaping the war on drug policies, you know, that we criminalize substance use and we prioritize, you know, punishment over treatment.

And we've learned so much.

You know, it doesn't.

You know, it shouldn't.

You know, we look at the moral model.

It has to acknowledge that there is a role of personal choice in addiction, but it's not the only thing with it.

And it's definitely a delicate balance of looking at things, especially the older you get.

I look at the disease model of addiction, and.

And it emerged because of the shortcomings of the moral model.

And it unfortunately probably gained too much acceptance, especially within the medical and the scientific communities, because it looks at addiction as something that's chronic or progressive and something that is taking place in the brain that affects the individual's ability to control their substance use or engage in addictive behaviors.

And we agree with that on a spiritual level, that it definitely impacts our mind.

Paul would write to the church in Rome and say, don't be conformed to this world and the world's standards, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

And yes, the mind is.

Definitely plays a tremendous part in that.

The psychological model probably is the other big one.

And it's probably the greatest enemy of scripture in that regard.

When I say that, because the psychological model, it focuses just basically on mental health.

And we look at all the things that are taking place in our world.

The cognitive process.

We've heard that cognitive much this last year, especially in political circles.

And so it really drew people's attention to our behavior based on our mental capacity and which affects obviously our emotions.

And those are things that God created within us.

But they can be at different levels of development from infancy to immaturity, with hopefully the goal is to mature.

And so people are at different, you know, places on the spectrum there.

And so we have to address all those things.

But I always, as a pastor, I always bring it back to the spiritual.

Maybe before that, the social model, which to me and you, especially as a, as a youth pastor, we talk to kids all the time.

Bad company corrupts good morals.

Right.

So, so addiction, I remember, like cigarette smoking.

You know, as a kid, I never smoked.

I played sports.

And it just never was something that tempted me because I felt like it was something that would hinder athletic performance.

But I know a lot of my friends got addicted to cigarettes.

And if you ask them, you go, how did you get started?

And they go, peer pressure.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, one of my friends gave me a cigarette and I didn't even want to do it right.

Or even drinking, you know, the same thing I did.

I hated the taste of it.

I've never met somebody who, you know, they might say that now, but you know that they took their first drink and goes, man, I really like that.

I mean, I can count a few people, but for the most part, it's an acquired taste.

Right.

And a lot of it starts within a social model that's just we're influenced by the actions, behaviors of our friends, our companions.

Yeah.

Or our family.

And that, that was my story too.

It's, you know, my 8 years old, 9 years old, my dad's got his magazines and his videos, and I'm thinking, man, I look up to my dad.

It's a good thing.

And so it was very much.

That's how I was introduced, through somebody who, you know, supposed to love and protect me.

And yeah, like I said that there, it's so closely linked, like I said then, to the spiritual, you know, that we have to understand we were created by God.

We were created for worship.

We're spiritual beings.

And unless we're born again of the spirit of God, I mean, we're gonna, we're gonna seek anything other than God to fill, like I said, that void that God shaped, void that's in all of our hearts.

And I, I tell our church all the time, we're broken people living in a broken world amongst other broken people.

And so people are looking to fill that void.

And God wants to fill that void in our life.

And I always bring up that bumper sticker, N O God, N O peace.

But if you K N O God, you K N O peace.

Jesus is the One who makes us whole.

And the whole aspect of understanding how all these play a role in addiction has to bring us back to really studying this and sharing with our audience from a spiritual perspective.

Because if we don't, we, we just go down a rabbit hole of all these other, you know, topics and issues and stuff.

And so we always just have to draw this back to.

It all begins and I think ends with Deuteronomy 6:4 through 9.

It says, Hero, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength.

And I think when you read that, what you see there is, that's holiness, that's wholeness.

And a person is going to become whole in their life the more God becomes the centerpiece of their heart.

Well, amen.

Absolutely.

I think it's important too.

As we go on to the next point, I wanted to talk about misconceptions and stigma with, you know, how people view addictions.

So I was able to pull some of our listeners and ask a series of questions.

And this is one of the questions that they answered.

And I had about three or four different answers to it.

But it's specifically around the misconceptions that they feel like people have or maybe they had about their addictions.

And so this comes from a group of people.

Obviously the, the, it's not just one addiction.

It's could be drugs, it could be alcohol, it could be sexual related pornography, it could be shopping, a lot of those.

So it's a wide variety of, of people that are answering these questions.

But the question is, what do you believe is the biggest misunderstanding people have about addiction?

And so again, this isn't something I made up.

This came from these group of people that were answering these questions.

And the number one answer to that is a misconception is that we choose it, we want it, we're looking for it, we want this addiction.

The majority of people say that is, that's not how it started.

It wasn't like, hey, I'm looking to get high just because I think it'd be good to be addicted to this drug or, or whatever it is.

The second response to that question was that it means you're weak.

That's one of the misconceptions they had.

If I have this addiction, that means that I'm weak, or people think that I'm weak, or I'm just not good enough.

Maybe this is what I deserve.

And the third response to that question is if you really wanted to Stop bad enough, you would just stop.

If you really wanted to quit out drinking, you would just stop drinking.

If you really wanted to quit drugs, you'd just stop doing drugs.

And one of the things we're gonna talk about, I think it's episode four.

And again, remember, this is a four part series so we're going through.

This is just the first.

So it's the introduction talking about addiction.

What is it?

Just some high level stuff, but we're gonna dig down into.

For instance, episode two is about the root causes of addiction, what falls in with that.

And the last one is talking about community and why it's so important to be in fellowship, to be around people, to not try and deal with this on your own.

Because that's one of the.

If I was to pick, probably one of the biggest answers that was asked and answered most consistently is that people thought that they could do it on their own and for a variety of reasons, whether it's shame, whether it's guilt, whether it's pride.

But most everybody said the exact same thing.

I thought I could just deal with it on my own.

I didn't need to involve people, I didn't need to say anything.

I can just handle it.

And it's just not true.

God is the answer.

And oftentimes God uses people.

Obviously community is so important.

Knowing you're not alone is so important.

So if you were to be able to address then some of these misconceptions, how could you tie that in then into the idea of grace and the biblical idea of grace and judgment even.

I think it goes back to understanding that the Bible makes it clear that for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, there's none righteous, no, not one.

And bringing people back to the understanding, I think of James 2:13, that says, because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful, for mercy triumphs over judgment.

And the stigma is that people just, they feel like that there's no hope for them.

They.

How many people have we talked to in our lives that you invite to church?

And they go, when I get my act together, I'll.

I'll come to church when I clean up my act.

Because they think having it all together is what makes them capable of becoming part of a church.

Like a church is for perfect people.

A church is for people who have it all together.

And obviously probably one of the biggest misunderstandings or like I said, misconceptions with regard to the body of Christ that we probably could run into because I Always just think of Jesus, very first sermon that he opens up the book of Isaiah, it's handed to him, and he turns and he says that the spirit of the Lord is upon me.

I've come to preach freedom to the captives.

That, to think of that, that Jesus himself, the very first study that he does publicly, he says, I've come to set the captives free.

And that was the very word that caught my attention because the word addiction isn't in the Bible.

And so if there's anybody who has a heart for addicted people, it's Jesus Christ.

And unfortunately, maybe we're all guilty of this.

We, we're trying to get away from the sin.

The Bible says, as we were talking about the bad company corrupts good morals and then all this.

And I get it.

And it's so important that you are the five people that you hang around with the most, that they're the ones who shape who you are.

And so you don't want anything to do with your old way of life per se.

So what happens is when sinners show up to church, they can get shunned.

They're just like, we forget that this isn't an aquarium.

I always like, you know, Pastor Greg Laurie said that the church is not an aquarium, you know, for saints.

It's a hospital for sinners.

And I think, you know, just helping people move through that.

And so hopefully, you know, go through this, this series, and it's such an important one, you know, on addiction that we can address those things and help people find confidence that there are, you know, yes, the church is full of sinners, and some people are going to accept you, some people are going to reject you, but Jesus will.

He said, all who come to me in no wise would I cast them out.

And so hopefully we can help people understand that as we, we deal with these kind of sensitive topics here.

And I think one of the other misconceptions too, that I was just thinking about this as you were talking is, you know, that it's the guy or the lady with the neck tattoo and the.

Maybe they look like they're not doing well, or maybe they're not dressed very well.

But the reality is it's the mom sitting in the pew.

It's the dad that's working 40 or 50 hours a week.

It's the teenager sitting in a youth group that's silently struggling with an addiction.

It doesn't know addiction, doesn't know any age group.

It's an E, I guess you could say it's an equal opportunity employer.

That it can impact anybody, everywhere at any time.

So that, that's one of the other kind of misconceptions people say is it.

It's.

It.

It can be anybody.

And it, it.

Especially those silent addictions, it's harder to see.

You think of like methamphetamine or something, like starts changing your appearance and you can start seeing a change.

But there's many addictions that you can't see on the outside.

Right.

But it, you know, it's like a raging wildfire inside and it's consuming you.

So being able to just highlight and talk about those.

So I think really the encouragement as we look to close this one, I mean, you've talked about the kind of the intro, the biblical perspective, obviously, that God is a solution, you know, and only he can fill that void that we're seeking to fill.

And so we'll get into more of that, obviously, as we go in the last.

In the next three episodes.

But really understanding that there's definitely the answer is Jesus.

But there's also practical things we're going to talk about too.

And you alluded to it like you.

Who's your five closest people you hang around with?

There's practical things that we're going to talk about that you have to do too.

And for instance, me, let's say if I'm a recovering alcoholic, probably not a good thing for me to continue to go to the bars and live it, walk in the same circles that I used to.

To walk into.

So we'll definitely address some of those practical things as well.

And when I was talking to that group that I was telling you about, getting those questions answered, that was another common thing they said is, you guys, you got to get.

You got to get away from the lifestyle you were living.

And that includes oftentimes the friends, the people you surround yourself with.

Because I think when you look back on it, I just know this in my own life, and I've heard it said too, that people realize that the people they thought they were their friends really weren't when they were trying to break free from an addiction.

I think you've said it before, we, we like to hang out with people that if we're miserable, we like to hang out sometimes with miserable people.

Misery loves company.

Yeah, it just reinforces where we're at.

Those are the practical things that, that we'll be talking about.

So I guess if we could close episode one where we're just talking about the overview, is there any other encouragement or resources you'd like to leave at Least just with this first.

We're going to get into more obviously episode two, three and four.

But any closing thoughts?

Again, I don't want to over spiritualize it, but the word of God is what sets us free.

We read that in John 8:36.

The sun sets you free, you're free indeed.

Freedom is in Jesus.

And yet, like I said, I know the struggle most people have is that they don't feel like God would accept them.

And, and think of.

Just as I was laying in bed last night, I had this.

I was like in a kind of a state of dreaming and I had my eyes closed and I could see it looked like waves and they were black.

And it.

I just kept watching it.

I didn't open my eyes.

I just kept my eyes closed and I.

It just looked like the ocean in a.

Like a tempest sea.

And then all of a sudden the waves started turning white.

And it was such a cool moment as I was laying there.

Cause I was just praying about this time this morning.

And the Lord just quickened really, that the message from Luke, chapter four, about him coming to set the captives free.

He shared that news.

And then immediately it was like in my mind's eye I.

I could picture Jesus there in Mark 4, where, if you remember the story where he tells the disciples to get in the boat and they're going to the other side.

And then he goes in, lays down and goes to sleep.

And then all of a sudden there's a tremendous wind and the rain and so much so that it scared the disciples.

So they woke Jesus up.

And he stands up and, and he says, oh, you have little faith.

Because he's saying, did.

Didn't I tell you?

My word, right?

My word.

I told you we're all going to the other side.

So what he was saying is, we're going to the other side.

It doesn't matter what storms come, doesn't matter how much the wind blows.

You're gonna make it.

We're gonna make it to the other side.

Yeah.

And then he did something that was so amazing.

We.

And we think about His Word.

He rebuked the, the winds and the sea.

And it says.

And they stopped.

And the amazing thing to me is that it's the power of His Word.

Amen.

And if we could just do this, my, my only hope is that we can help people look to the Word of God.

Because I can promise you this, that the Word of God is what is going to set people free.

And, and if we can accomplish that, then we.

I think we've helped our listeners of any degree of addiction.

The hope is in Jesus and the power of His Word.

Amen.

So next week we're gonna dive in more to the root causes of addiction.

Take a little time to discuss that and so make sure you tune in to episode two of this series.

We'll be recording that next Thursday.

Thank you so much for joining us and we'll see you next time.

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