Justin Lakemacher, Program Director
A young man sits down for counseling. He admits to a recent methamphetamine binge, clearing out his bank account and abandoning his family for weeks. He proceeds to inform you he can’t share everything because the FBI is listening to the conversation. He looks like he hasn’t slept in days and regularly looks at the door as if at any moment the authorities will burst through and take him to prison.
You are his pastor. What do you say to him?
As a bi-vocational pastor working in a biblical counseling addiction program, I’ve had the privilege of counseling hundreds of such cases. And while I am often prayerfully considering what I might say in each situation, I am more convinced than ever that as pastors, physicians of the soul, we not only have something to say that is hopeful and helpful in a generic way but we can offer words that speak to the particular details of the addict’s life. We are competent to counsel addiction.
What I intend to offer here is not an exposition of key texts related to the sufficiency of Scripture, but rather 3 simple principles to guide the counseling process, with addiction primarily in my mind. I want to show pastors what it might look like to counsel an addict utilizing the following principles.
Don’t be intimidated by addiction
This is often the first hurdle to get over. Unfortunately, many pastors hear addiction and their impulse is to send them to treatment or Alcoholics Anonymous.¹ To be clear, I run a residential program where we encourage pastors to send men battling addiction and in a separate post I will address when it is appropriate to do so in the counseling process. But I also want to say very loudly here, do not be intimidated by addiction. Enter in with confidence because the problem driving addiction is one that the pastor is not only competent to address but must provide counsel from God’s Word.
Underneath addictive behavior is a heart that is driven by two dominating desires: The addict wants to minimize pain and maximize pleasure. That’s what drugs do for them. They help them escape their present reality and give them a euphoria that is addictively pleasurable. In this, we have found common ground already. For what human being living in a world under the curse of sin cannot relate to those desires? Press the addict a bit further and you will find that instead of turning to God who is a “refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” (Psalm 46:1) they turn to their drug of choice. The addict lives according to this belief, “[Drug of choice] is my refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” The addict has replaced God as the object of their affection with another ‘god,’ a god that cannot provide true refuge for their soul and instead brings slavery and death. As we begin to counsel those battling addiction, we find the addict is guilty of idolatry and being enslaved to their own passions. This is the problem all sinful human beings face living after the Fall and there is nothing to be intimidated about counseling idolatrous lusts. Sure, idol worship comes with a lot of pain and darkness. Sometimes the stories we hear are so dark it seems as if the devil himself is in the counseling room. But we cannot let the ugliness of a particular sin intimidate us and hinder us from our task of entering in with gospel hope.
2. Listen, reframe, and proclaim
Counseling begins by listening. When we sit down with a struggling person, the first thing we do is listen and understand their problem accurately so that we can provide the right type of care. 1 Thessalonians 5:14 makes it clear that different types of people need different counsel, “And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all.” Patience is required for every counselee but there are clearly different types of counsel.
When we have listened to a person’s story and asked a significant amount of questions, we can begin to reframe what we hear according to the Word which is ultimate reality. I often find when counseling addiction, that my counselees have adopted the language and definitions of our psychologized culture. So one of my goals after listening is to try to help them define their struggle biblically. If they don’t learn biblical language and categories, the Bible will seem irrelevant to them.
One passage I refer to often in addiction counseling is Exodus 32. Narratives in Scripture can be incredibly helpful in illustrating deep truths about the human heart and hope-filled truths about the way God relates to his people. Exodus 32 can also be extremely helpful in helping those battling addictions to redefine their experience with biblical language.
In Exodus 32, the Israelites have been delivered from slavery in the land of Egypt and find themselves in the testing period of the wilderness filled with many difficult trials along the way. When Moses delays coming down the mountain (Exodus 32:1), the people become “irritable, restless, and discontent.”² Instead of turning to God in this moment of testing, they turn to an idol which brings temporary relief and security. No longer are they concerned that Moses is gone and instead are dancing and rejoicing at the base of the mountain (Exodus 32:6; 18-19). The idol has given them a temporary sense of security and relief. But of course it’s a false security, just like addictions. Meanwhile at the top of the mountain, the all seeing God is aware of this blatant idolatry. He identifies them as a “stiff-necked people” signifying that the people have become spiritually like the object they worshiped.³ Moses, standing as a mediator between the people and God, intercedes for them, not asking for another chance, but pleading God’s own covenantal love and faithfulness. God’s mercy is seen by not destroying the entire nation and staying faithful to his promise, even though many are killed for their sin that day.
The connections to addiction are numerous. The addict, like the Israelite, lives in a wilderness of sorts and is looking for a sense of relief and security in a deeply broken and dangerous world. They struggle to trust God and turn to Him. The addictions they turn to are like the golden calf. Their idols temporarily give them pleasure and a sense of security, yet in the end, are destroying them. Talk with addicts and they will often admit that addictions they love are not only changing them but are slowly killing them. And all of this reveals that a physical deliverance from addiction, i.e. sobriety, is not enough. The addict needs to be delivered from the desires of their own heart.
Exodus 32 is a doorway into the themes of suffering, temptation, worship, slavery, repentance, and faith. And when we have reframed their story with these biblical categories, the door is wide open to proclaim Christ and his promises to their specific needs. We can proclaim Christ as the mediator between God and man who atones for sin and therefore can truly and completely take away the guilt and shame addiction brings and reconcile us to God. We can proclaim Christ in all his glory that captures hearts and woos us away from idols. We can proclaim Christ as a Sympathetic High Priest who understands temptation yet never sinned. We can proclaim Christ as the way out of every temptation (1 Cor. 10:13) so the addict can have hope to change through Him
God’s Word resonates with the addict because their problem, like all sinful problems, is a worship problem. And when we help them see their problem with biblical categories, the Bible is not merely an add on to counseling, it becomes the centerpiece of counseling and the means by which we proclaim Christ.
3. Remember biblical goals for counseling
The Bible describes the chief motive of the converted as the glory of God. 2 Corinthians 5:14-15, “For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.”
Most treatment programs define their success according to sobriety and aim primarily for sobriety. To aim only for sobriety is symptom management. As pastors, the Scriptures must shape our counseling at every level. Particularly, our goals when sitting down with an addict ought to match God’s revealed will in the Scriptures. Of course, we want sobriety for the addict. But we believe that sobriety is the fruit of properly ordered worship. Knowing that difference is crucial. We help them pursue sobriety, not as an end in itself, but by aiming at worship. A heart satisfied in Christ is a heart that doesn’t need what addiction attempts to offer. The glory of God is our goal in all things.
The question for the addict, now redeemed in Christ, is the same every Christian should be asking each day: “How can I bring glory to the One who has paid for my sin and made me His?”
Again, we aren’t aiming at merely staying sober here. We want to help the person battling addiction to evaluate every aspect of their life and bring it all under the lordship of Christ so they might bring him glory in all they do. The irony here is that when the addict stops living for himself and is set free by Christ to live for his glory, they find the true satisfaction they were looking for. Moses, in Hebrews 11:25, chose “to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.” He did this because “He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt for he was looking to the reward.” The reproach of Christ was worth more than anything in Egypt. In a nutshell, our goal when counseling addicts is to help them find Christ of greater worth than all the pleasures of addiction, not just because of what he does for us, but who He is in and of himself. We want to help addicts have the same experience as Asaph who said, “Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you” (Psalm 73:25). Help addicts know, enjoy, and glorify God in all they do and the fruit of sobriety will begin to grow.
A final word
We live in a world that is constantly trying to redefine all sinful problems, including addictions, in a way that directs people away from pastors, the church, and the Word of God. What a shame it is when pastors and counselors adopt the language and understanding of the culture. We must push back against this and defend our ground. Addictions, when seen carefully through the lens of Scripture, are on the Bible’s ground and the Scriptures are sufficient to address them.
So what might you say to that young man who comes in addicted to drugs and hearing voices? I would encourage you: Don’t be intimidated. Listen to what the voices are telling him. But then offer a much more certain Word, the Word of the living God. Then proclaim Christ and help him respond to the Lord and bring Him glory.
What did I end up saying to that man? I listened to him describe the voices he was hearing and said plainly to him, “I’m not sure all the things you are hearing are accurate. But can we open the Bible and hear a certain word.” We read Psalm 46 together and heard God’s call from uncertainty to certainty, from fear to faith, from false refuge to true refuge. And God’s Word made an impact on that man’s life and began to transform him from one degree of glory to another (2 Cor. 3:18).
Pastors are competent to counsel addiction.
1 Alcoholics Anonymous is an organization that dates back to the 1930’s utilizing a 12-step program to help alcoholics recover from their addiction. While at times offering helpful principles, at its core, the beliefs of A.A. contrast significantly with a biblical view of God, the heart, and change.
2 This is a common term in Alcoholics Anonymous. While Alcoholics Anonymous groups often shy away from using biblical language this is a good phrase that describes the effects of sin. Sin makes us irritable, restless, and discontent. As Augustine said, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in You.”
3 For an excellent treatment of this theme see G.K. Beale’s book, We Become What We Worship: A Biblical Theology of Idolatry.