Good AdviceSample

How to Fight Addiction

Here’s how to start an addiction: justify any hang-ups you have, do whatever you want to do, keep mistakes in the shade, and depend on your own strength to overcome any odds you face. Again, that’s terrible advice we’ve all followed into a mess of empty addiction at some point in our lives. So how do we get out of the mess? There is always a way out underneath. Here are five tips to fighting your way out of addiction.

1. Admit weakness. Is lust an issue for you? Tell someone. Do you work too much? Admit it. Are you feeling broken, lonely, overwhelmed, or just plain tired? Don’t tough it out. Ask for help. When we try to cover weakness with strength, our strength is not enough, and we end up self-medicating with the wrong things. So invite God and people into your weakness. That’s where real strength comes from.
2. Check yo’self before you wreck yo’self. We all have our own, personal Holy Helper: the Holy Spirit. Before you do something that feels potentially sketchy, check your spirit with the Spirit. The Holy Spirit literally enters our being to help us in our weakness and empower us to push back darkness. You are never alone when you face temptation. The Holy Spirit is not only with you—He is in you.
3. Go public. You know what grows in the dark? Nothing good. You know what light brings? Life. Just by going public with your heaviest, darkest secrets, they become lighter. In the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.”
4. Depend on God’s power. Apart from God, you don’t have what it takes. That kind of thinking is what got you into this mess. But in your weakness, He is made strong. So put on God’s armor, and fight with His weapons because you’re fighting a spiritual battle.
5. Start the A Way Out Bible Plan. If you’re fighting addiction, you need to dig your heels into God’s truth. The A Way Out Bible Plan will take you through two weeks of God’s power to set you free. Start it today.