The Upside of Addiction

We are all addicted to something that is probably not too good for us. It could be success, fame, food, money or the more often discussed addictions of drugs, alcohol, pornography and tobacco. Many of these addictions go unnoticed because they are so common.

If we surround ourselves with people who suffer from similar addictions, we can pretty happily continue with ours and not feel bad at all. We are especially good at finding people who are just a little worse off than we are. Those people make us feel great. I know I’ve got issues, but old Joe over there, he really has it bad. Thank goodness I’m not him…

Then it strikes me. That piece of scripture where the one man is at the altar thanking God that he was not as bad as the sinner kneeling next to him. And the man next to him beating his chest and crying out to God for mercy because of how great a sinner he is. We are all sinners. We are all addicted. We are all in need of a savior, but that is not the topic I want to write on today.

My topic is the upside of addiction. Below are my top three.  

Compassion

If I was not confronted with my own addictions and my struggles to overcome them, I would continue to agree with people making silly statements like I don’t know why they don’t give up “X” (fill in their addiction here). That is the gift of addiction. If you have not been confronted with your own, you cannot understand that just giving up “X” feels impossible to the addicted. It is their Mount Everest. It is the thing in their life that disgusts them, that allows the devil to trash them and that they want to hide in shame from.

Trust

“Never trust a man without scars.”

I grew up in the church. As a child, I always found it a very formal place where everyone dressed in their best and it appeared that no one there had ever sinned. We seemed to feel that admitting our failings would somehow show others that we were failing as Christians. Oh, how I missed it! We must revel in our shortcomings and struggles because only at the end of us, is God able to take over and shine.

Love

“The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves.” – Thomas Merton

Until we have been loved through the transparency of our worst, we have not been loved. Until then we still feel that love is conditional upon our performance. Until those that love us have seen our absolute worst, they have not been given the opportunity to truly love and we will always feel the need to perform, to keep up the act that we have it all together. 

Let’s do each other a favor and come clean. We are all addicted. Some of our addictions are easier to hide or more socially acceptable than others, but we are all broken. Let’s admit that so we can receive true love. Then, maybe, we will get better at giving true love. 

In the classic book on leadership, “The Leadership Challenge”, the authors end the book with this – “The best-kept secret of successful leaders is love: staying in love with leading, with the people who do the work, with what their organizations produce, with those who honor the organization by using its products and services.

Great leaders have scars. Don’t be afraid to show yours.

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