A Theology of Addiction

It's not a moral failing.

May 08, 2025

Hey, I’m Ericka, and I’ve been sober for 4+ years. In this newsletter, I discuss a wide range of topics, including culture, politics, addiction, motherhood, and more! I’m glad you’re here and hope you’ll stick around even if the day's topic isn’t your primary focus.

A Theology of Sin & Addiction

This is the theology of addiction I wish I had heard at the beginning of my recovery journey.

It says the truth plainly: YOU CAN’T SELF-DISCIPLINE YOUR WAY OUT OF ADDICTION.

You can’t pray hard enough or be “spiritual” enough to beat alcohol dependence on your own. Not because you’re weak—but because life can be challenging and addiction or reliance on a substance is powerful.

This theology reminds us that addiction is not a moral failing. It’s more like a bondage. Even if things don’t’ feel dire, they are mentally exhausting, continually resurfacing as questions and concerns about how you drink and why.

But praise God, Jesus came to free the captives (Luke 4:18). That freedom isn’t earned by perfect behavior or religious effort—it’s received through acceptance, surrender and grace.

"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness,” reads 2 Corinthians 12:9

Perhaps you’ve failed on some level, but the Gospel assures us we don’t have to be strong. God’s grace is not for some future, better version of you—it’s for right now, in your raw, real efforts to make better choices for your life. God sees your heart for change and sits with you in the messy middle.

He also MADE US FOR ONE ANOTHER:

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What it Means to Be Human

I’ve been reading Confessions by St. Augustine. Besides the Bible, it’s the oldest book I’ve ever read. It’s a great reminder that the sins of humanity haven’t changed much over time. We’re the same silly people who eat the apple every time.

One passage I read multiple times:

“The enemy held my will in his power and from it had made a chain and shackled me. For my will was perverse and lust had grown from it, and when I gave in to lust habit was born, and when I did not resist the habit it became necessity.”

Augustine’s struggle was lust. Mine has been food and alcohol. Yours may be something else. Whatever it is, desires of the flesh, sinful choices, and the oppression of our sinful nature affect us all.

When we gave in, habit was born.

When we did not resist, HABIT became a necessity.

As James 1:5 reads: “Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.”

That’s exactly how it feels when we can’t stop. When the thing controls us, it feel a lot like a death…death of self, death of will, death of hope.

Augustine continues:

“So these two wills within me, one old and one new, one the servant of flesh, the other of the spirit were in conflict and between them, they tore my soul apart.”

Ever feel like your soul is tearing apart? Yeah, me too. When “I do not understand what I do…for what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” (Romans 7:15)

So Paul got it too. One of God’s greatest disciples and messengers? He got it.

Here’s how Augustine’s description of going from “habit to necessity” plays out:

In his book Addiction and Virtue, Kent Dunnington writes that we can capitulate to cravings when “hurry, strong appetite or an abnormal bodily state wrecks the deliberative process that is needed to arrive at a right judgment.”

Once something becomes habit and program, we lose our ability to reason or choose in the harder moments. That’s how we begin to feel it is “necessity.”

Dunnington calls these addictive desires, or cravings, “indefatiguably persistent,” something that “pits a force of seemingly inexhaustible resources against a limited power, the human will.”

Holy mackerel, that is so on point.

Has a craving or draw to drink, eat or pursue a certain behavior ever felt “indefatiguably persistent?” I’m not sure there is a better description for an alcohol trigger for me.

He Fights For You

We can never forget we’re at war. And God never stops fighting for us. We forget that and try to fight for ourselves alone…which is too hard. It’s not possible. And you feel that impossibility, what Exodus 14:14 says;

“The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.”

Yup. Be still. Ooof that’s hard for someone like me, who wants to fill every moment. That’s part of our problem, isn’t it? We’re constantly trying to FILL FILL FILL and not allowing God to be the breath we need to JUST BE.

But this is an essential part of recovery. To walk through the hardest moments of temptation, we have to just sit on our hands and BE. It feels excruciating. Impossible. Torturous.

Until we learn to walk through the fire instead around or above it, it will keep appearing back in front of us. And remember, He walks with us. He was the 4th man in the furnace way back when:

“Astonished, King Nebuchadnezzar stood up in terror, and asked his advisors, ‘Didn’t we throw three men into the fire, bound firmly with ropes?’
In reply they told the king, ‘Yes, your majesty.’
‘Look!’ he told them, ‘I see four men walking untied and unharmed in the middle of the fire, and the appearance of the fourth resembles a divine being.’

Daniel 3:25-25

He’s the second man in the furnace with us. The fire refines, strengthens, and clarifies. It makes us a better version of our former selves. Life is sweeter on the other side because we can appreciate what it was, what we went through and where we are now.

I want that for anyone who feels in bondage or oppressed by anything. You’ve got to find your people; I promise they ARE out there.

Worth Your Time

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