Addiction: How to Help Hurting PeopleНамуна

If you want to help hurting people, you must understand that their story is your story.

In the parable of the Prodigal Son, we see a common storyline, perhaps everyone's story. The younger son pursues his passions and abandons every boundary holding him back. However, his ambitions lead to ruin, a narrative I know you can relate to. To help hurting people, you must relate your own story to theirs.

I used to be a pastor. There was a man in our church known as an alcoholic. He attended church occasionally and sat in the back row. At the time, being a young man who had never even drunk a full can of beer, I struggled to relate to him. I never knew how to help this man. But I do now. I have been through my own prodigal son experience. I now know that I was just like him, and he was just like me. His substance was alcohol; mine was food. Yet, our stories were the same. When we break down, we turn to something to numb the pain of what life has become.

To help people, we must be honest about our own story. For many years, I was not honest about my real story, and because of that, I was not able to help people with their real lives. I could pretend I was in a better place than someone else because I wasn’t drinking, having an affair, or robbing banks. But that wasn't the truth. The substance I chose was different, but the bondage was the same.

The prodigal son went into the city and wasted more than his money, time, and strength. He wasted relationships. We have all done this for the same reasons. It’s not helpful to pick apart the differences in our behaviors. What matters is that we have all been to that city. We have all let our ambitions take us to the wrong places. It doesn’t matter what our behavior in the city looks like; in that city, the prodigal ruins himself. We have all been that person.

In short, if you want to help hurting people find freedom, you must be honest about the times in your life when you lived the prodigal life.