God Wants You FreeSample

Day Five – The Pleasure Path

The slavery of addiction rewires the human brain. In his book Wired for Intimacy, William Struthers looks at the physical side of porn addiction and uses a helpful analogy.

Imagine that you went for a walk in the woods. There was no path, but at the end of your walk you greatly enjoyed what you discovered—something like a waterfall, beautiful view, fresh river, and so on.

Imagine if on frequent hikes you traced your same steps until a path formed—let’s call this your pleasure path. The more you walk that path, the wider and deeper it becomes until you can quickly make the same trip over and over with less and less conscious intent. The senses of your body—your eyes seeing the path, your feet remembering the steps—would make that trip faster and easier each time you headed down the pleasure path.

With most any pleasure, this same thing happens in our brains and bodies as a neural pathway is carved out through repeated behavior. Struthers says it this way: “This is our decision-making system. To be addicted to something is to release dopamine, which causes you to want it and to make the decision to pursue it. That’s our addiction pathway.”

The slavery of sinful addictions is both a physical and a spiritual problem. Only through Jesus can you be redeemed from the slavery that keeps you tied to the devil and his demons. Only through Jesus can you walk away from your slavery to sin.