Addiction and Grace: Love and Spirituality in the Healing of Addictions

addiction is a state of compulsion, obsession, or preoccupation that enslaves a person’s will and desire.

Spiritually, addiction is a deep-seated form of idolatry. The objects of our addictions become our false gods. These are what we worship, what we attend to, where we give our time and energy, instead of love.

all major religions deal centrally with the basic themes I have set forth here: we are created for love and freedom, addiction hinders us, and grace is necessary for salvation.

The core tenets of Buddhism are the Four Noble Truths: (1) suffering is a fact of life; (2) suffering is caused by attachment; (3) liberation from suffering and the reinstitution of human freedom can happen only through detachment; and (4) human effort toward detachment must involve all aspects of one’s life in a deeply spiritual way.

detachment to describe the opposite process, the liberation of desire.

Attachment, then, is the process that enslaves desire and creates the state of addiction.

Our threefold participation of prayer, meditation, and action responds to God’s graceful initiatives in our lives, and it leads toward a deepening trust in God.

the threefold nature of the human spiritual condition: God creates us for love and freedom, attachment hinders us, and grace is necessary for salvation.

Addiction sidetracks and eclipses the energy of our deepest, truest desire for love and goodness. We succumb because the energy of our desire becomes attached, nailed, to specific behaviors, objects, or people.