Rabbi Shais Taub, a renowned expert in addiction recovery, emphasizes that addiction is less about substances like drugs and alcohol and more about underlying spiritual and emotional issues. He suggests that the core of addiction involves a spiritual void or disconnection, leading individuals to seek fulfillment through addictive behaviors. Addressing this void through spiritual growth and self-awareness is crucial for recovery.
For a deeper understanding, you can watch his discussion on this topic. It’s an eye-opener:
God of our Understanding
Our friend Tara, who led our addiction recovery support group for many years before she moved from our state, recently shared this with us. Carol and I both thought it profound. I bought his book, God of our Understanding, and have been reading it. The chapter that contains this teaching in greatest detail can be found on Chabad.org at this link. And here is the most intriguing part if you prefer to read it directly:
Sick for God
So now we have our answer. The addict is sick with a yearning for God, and can become well only by having some contact with God.
It sounds grandiose, I know. What are we saying? That all addicts are really supersensitive, spiritually passionate seekers?
Not exactly.
More aptly stated: All human beings have a deep-seated need for spiritual contact. But most people can also live their lives without it. Addicts are people who, for whatever reason, are unsettled to the core, and cannot handle the business of life without maintaining a continual and acute awareness of the divine. Absent such higher consciousness, they are miserable and sick. What makes their dilemma fatal is that their drug of choice will actually produce in them short-term effects that simulate the release and relief that can really be had only through spiritual consciousness. Consequently, the only real treatment for their condition is to make sure that they get the “real thing” instead of self-medicating with the fake stuff, for if they do not get the real thing, they have no choice but to take the fake stuff.
In other words, for most people, spirituality is a luxury, something to be sought after more “basic” needs are met. Addicts are somehow different in this respect, in that for them there can be nothing resembling a normal life if their spiritual needs are not met first.
Of course, we don’t mean to say that only addicts are capable of truly yearning for God. In Song of Songs (2:5), King Solomon describes the feeling of being “lovesick” for God. That is not the point, anyway. It is not the longing for spiritual wholeness that causes addiction. What makes an addict an addict is the combination of two factors: (1) they are profoundly disturbed and unsettled with their own existence as an entity apart from God; and (2) for reasons unknown, they can somehow briefly simulate relief from this condition by taking their drug of choice.
This is the trap of addiction, and it is the real problem we have been trying to define. The real problem that lies at the core of addiction is that addicts are people who are in dire need of a relationship with God but are able to substitute fulfilling this need with a behavior that is essentially self-destructive.
Really, the drug of choice becomes the addict’s god. This is not meant as mere rhetoric. Addiction is idol worship in the most fundamental sense of the term—turning to something other than God to do for you what only God can do.
I am still reading the book. We continue to meet with our Addiction Recovery Support Group each Sunday evening. Sharing our journey away from co-addiction in our small group (usually less than ten) each week has been a life-changing experience for me. I believe Carol feels the same way. I highly recommend the program and the Family Support Group: Healing Through Christ.
