Whether or not you believe in God, you must be aware of what you treat like God. Everyone worships something because it is our human nature to do so. What is it that you worship? People who struggle with addiction have their answer already. Addiction replaces the role that God is meant to fill in a person’s life. People serve, focus on, crave and become emotional over their addiction. Consider what God is meant to be to us. We are meant to serve Him, focus on Him, crave His presence and be emotionally invested into Him. Addiction stands in they way of this all too important relationship.
When you are addicted, you serve your addiction with your entire life. Everything about the way you live is a testament to how much you love your addiction. You arrange your time around it, you budget your money for it, you bring it into conversations with your friends and family and you dream away about it when you do not have access to it. Your life is meant to revolve around your Creator in order to be healthy, but instead, it revolves around addiction, which makes you unhealthy.
When you are addicted, the object of your addiction is your focus. God is meant to be your ultimate focus, and in order to serve him well, you are meant to lend your focus where it is required, for instance, to your life’s purpose, your health, your relationships and your spirituality. When addiction is your life’s focus, all of our priorities are skewed. The way you look at your life and the world are toxic. You are in the habit of devaluing things that matter deeply to your life, and overvaluing things that are unimportant in their place.
When you are addicted, your cravings are uncontrollable and are constantly sucking up all your energy. When you crave God, you are seeking him, which is the most natural spiritual state to be in. Heavily craving anything but God is dangerous to your soul. So is becoming emotional about your addiction. Your emotional faculties are unhealthy if your addiction is what moves you to emotion. Making God the center of your emotional life will ensure that your emotion is always focused where it should be.