Addictive Sin

For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! (Romans 7:19-25)

If you’ve ever been to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, you’ve seen that before anyone speaks he (or she) will say, “My name is ___, and I am an alcoholic.” When I was leading 12-step Bible studies, I would sometimes open up with, “My name is Tony and I am a sinner.”

Poet W.H. Auden once wrote –-

“All sins tend to be addictive, and the terminal point of addiction is damnation.”

At its root, addiction is sin. And, sin is addictive. Addicts don’t have a choice to be a non-addict any more than we can choose to not be sinners. You can either be practicing or recovering. We can be practicing sinners – running away from God toward destruction. Or, we can be recovering sinners with help from the Spirit of Christ, who leads us to eternal life.

Complete Abstinence

The LORD said to Moses, “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘If a man or woman wants to make a special vow, a vow of separation to the LORD as a Nazirite, he must abstain from wine and other fermented drink and must not drink vinegar made from wine or from other fermented drink. He must not drink grape juice or eat grapes or raisins. As long as he is a Nazirite, he must not eat anything that comes from the grapevine, not even the seeds or skins.” (Numbers 6:1-4)

Our Presbyterian tradition has generally accepted the Stoic ethic of “everything in moderation.” This is true for a variety of behaviors, including the use of alcohol. A Presbyterian can be a social drinker and still be true to his/her faith tradition.

But this doesn’t work for everybody. Some of us have such addictive personalities that we need to run from certain substances and particular behaviors like the plague. For us, the words of St. Augustine especially ring true --

“Complete abstinence is easier than perfect moderation.”











Not only is complete abstinence easier, it is sometimes it is totally necessary.




{Dedicated to a friend who just celebrated his 18th year anniversary of being clean and sober.}