Moral Duty to Drug Addict

[Bubba_Switzler]

What is our moral duty to a drug addict or an alcoholic?

What is our moral duty to someone who burns down his own house?

What is our moral duty to an atheist?

 

[rturner76]

I think “our” (Christian) duty to an addict/alcoholic is to love the addict but not the addict behavior. Addiction no matter how you feel about it, is a disease. Science has proven it is more than just a character defect. While someone is active in their addiction, they are not the person you love. Their body has been taken their by their disease. They must seek help and there is no person that can help them unless they want the help. Having an intervention may alert someone to the fact they have a problem but they must want to fix it in order for the “treatment” to work. Addiction is a spiritual disease. When you are an addict, you have a big hole inside you soul and you try to fill it up with drugs, sex, shopping, drink, or whatever you are addicted to. The only one or thing that can fill that hole is God. Until the addict realized that, they will be lost. Even in secular programs, they stress finding a “higher power” no matter what it is. We know it is Jesus Christ.

Knowing that the addict must have this realization, we love them, from a far if need be because we can’t let them cause chaos in our lives that also makes us sick. There is a line we must draw where we will tolerate the behavior until this point…Then we must not entertain them until they come to know their higher power and want change. Then we can be there to support that change. The main thing is our RESPONSIBILITY is to love them and support them when they are trying to better themselves. You may be that support they need that day to help them get through that day sober/clean so we must do our best to pray for them at all times. Love on them, near when they want health, from a far when they are trapped in their disease, but always be ready to support them when they give it another try. As long as you are not taking too much from your self and your family, be there for them. If you spend to much time trying to save someone, they become your drug, and you become the addict. Spending all your time and money chasing them the way they chase a drug.

I could go on and on so I’ll just stop but there is so much more to say, these relationships are so complicated. I know my recovery, my real recovery didn’t start until I submitted my will to God and his plan for my life. Any other time, I was just taking a break from the madness for a bit. God won’t let us down if we follow his rules and spread love whereveer we go. It always comes back to us. Addict or sober.

God bless the reader of this message.

 

[DarkLight]

What is our moral duty to a drug addict or an alcoholic?

What is our moral duty to someone who burns down his own house?

What is our moral duty to an atheist?

I’m curious why you lumped this one in with the other two? As a former atheist, I know a lot of conservative Christians have misconceptions about atheism (not that I’m accusing you specifically). I don’t see how the moral duty in that final case would be any different than the duty to someone else that doesn’t share your faith.

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

I think “our” (Christian) duty to an addict/alcoholic is to love the addict but not the addict behavior. Addiction no matter how you feel about it, is a disease. Science has proven it is more than just a character defect. While someone is active in their addiction, they are not the person you love.

While I agree with the sentiment that you express I’d like to challenge you on the relevance of the disease metaphor.

Let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that it were, in fact, a character defect. Would that imply that we should not love the person?

How do we deal with people who have self-destructive character defects? (These can be as small as spending time in front of the television all day, playing video games, or such.)

Now your point is certainly relevant to dealing with the addiction, itself, though it’s hard to say here too without being clear on how we deal with character defects.

To draw a biblical analogy, the Iraelites were described as a “stiff-necked” people, not that other people were better but that even the chosen people had trouble keeping their covenant with God. Humankind was addicted to it’s pagan practices and it took generations to cure it of that and even then a good many (perhaps most, some say virtually all) rejected the suffering messiah in favor of an awaited conquering messiah. Even now there is something of a neo-paganism in modern culture.

The main thing is our RESPONSIBILITY is to love them and support them when they are trying to better themselves.

What if they are not trying to better themselves, at least as we think that they should? What if they are content to wallow in their addiction? One option would be to wait until they hit bottom, another is to attempt to intervene, perhaps even coercively.

This is a particularly challenging issue for parents of children who fall into drug addictions or simply choose immoral lifestyles.

I could go on and on so I’ll just stop but there is so much more to say, these relationships are so complicated. I know my recovery, my real recovery didn’t start until I submitted my will to God and his plan for my life. Any other time, I was just taking a break from the madness for a bit. God won’t let us down if we follow his rules and spread love whereveer we go. It always comes back to us. Addict or sober.

I appreciate your sharing your personal crisis in this context. I think your perspective will be invaluable.

 

[LaughingBoy1503]

I think “our” (Christian) duty to an addict/alcoholic is to love the addict but not the addict behavior. Addiction no matter how you feel about it, is a disease. Science has proven it is more than just a character defect. While someone is active in their addiction, they are not the person you love. Their body has been taken their by their disease. They must seek help and there is no person that can help them unless they want the help. Having an intervention may alert someone to the fact they have a problem but they must want to fix it in order for the “treatment” to work. Addiction is a spiritual disease. When you are an addict, you have a big hole inside you soul and you try to fill it up with drugs, sex, shopping, drink, or whatever you are addicted to. The only one or thing that can fill that hole is God. Until the addict realized that, they will be lost. Even in secular programs, they stress finding a “higher power” no matter what it is. We know it is Jesus Christ.

Drug addiction is not a disease, nor is alcoholism, it is a choice. My Grandfather has Cancer… THAT is a disease. Not the eitire medical community buys into the disease theory either. It is only perpetuated by 12 step rehabs and alcoholics anonymous and narcotics anonymous. All twelve step treatments have a horrible success rate too. And alcoholics anonymous is more like a new age religion than Christianity with their telling people that they can pray to doorknobs or the a.a. group itself if they dont believe in God. Addiction is a behavior problem.

I use to be addicted to drugs myself. I will be the first to testify that when a drug addict says that they want to stop doing drugs but cannot, it is not true. They wont stop because they do not want to stop. Untill the desire to stop is greater than the desire to use drugs, they will continue to use drugs no matter what the consequences. When it comes to a drug addict, love them pray for them but do not enable them. It is frustrating but no amount of talking to or reasoning with will get a addict to stop if they do not want to. All you can do is let their addiction run its course.

 

[yogicat]

We open our arms and we love them. You do not need to trust them, to put your life in their hands, or to give them all your money. Just love them. That includes tough love. Do not speak ill of them, be willing to cut yourself from them, but continue nothing but love toward them. We can only help as much as they are willing to allow us to help.

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

I’m curious why you lumped this one in with the other two? As a former atheist, I know a lot of conservative Christians have misconceptions about atheism (not that I’m accusing you specifically). I don’t see how the moral duty in that final case would be any different than the duty to someone else that doesn’t share your faith.

I gave a range of quesitons that I inteded to be broader than the problem of addiction. I mean to suggest that atheism is a self-destructive choice. I could certainly include Islam or even Protestantism but atheism is more extreme in some respects. I supose an even more extreme would be Satanism but my impression is that it tends to be more sensationalistic than serious.

Atheists are usually very serious and thoughtful people, for the most part (though there are certainly plenty of atheists who are not). But the error of atheism had very grave consequences.

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

We open our arms and we love them. You do not need to trust them, to put your life in their hands, or to give them all your money. Just love them. That includes tough love. Do not speak ill of them, be willing to cut yourself from them, but continue nothing but love toward them. We can only help as much as they are willing to allow us to help.

This is a “tough love” forumla that gives a great deal of lattitude to the person in trouble.

Obviously we wouldn’t give them “all” our money. But let us suppose this person has trouble eating and paying the rent. Given cash he might spend it on drugs or whatever. Not giving any support leads to other outcomes.

If our idea of help is one thing and their idea of help is another thing how do we decide how to help?

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

Drug addiction is not a disease, nor is alcoholism, it is a choice. My Grandfather has Cancer… THAT is a disease. Not the eitire medical community buys into the disease theory either. It is only perpetuated by 12 step rehabs and alcoholics anonymous and narcotics anonymous. All twelve step treatments have a horrible success rate too. And alcoholics anonymous is more like a new age religion than Christianity with their telling people that they can pray to doorknobs or the a.a. group itself if they dont believe in God. Addiction is a behavior problem.

Let’s not get caught up in this issue without saying why. Why is it important to distinguish the ability to choose from the victimization of a disease?

I use to be addicted to drugs myself. I will be the first to testify that when a drug addict says that they want to stop doing drugs but cannot, it is not true. They wont stop because they do not want to stop. Untill the desire to stop is greater than the desire to use drugs, they will continue to use drugs no matter what the consequences. When it comes to a drug addict, love them pray for them but do not enable them. It is frustrating but no amount of talking to or reasoning with will get a addict to stop if they do not want to. All you can do is let their addiction run its course.

Obviously you avoided the worst outcome, overdose, but from your previous experience, what could others who loved you have done to help?

 

[LaughingBoy1503]

Let’s not get caught up in this issue without saying why. Why is it important to distinguish the ability to choose from the victimization of a disease?

Obviously you avoided the worst outcome, overdose, but from your previous experience, what could others who loved you have done to help?

1. Calling addiction a disease strips the person of the belief that they are personally and solely at fault for their addiction. I have heard people go as far as to say that they were drug addicts/alcoholics before they ever took a drink/drug People choose to take drugs. The problems associated with drug addiction go away simply by abstaining from drugs/alcohol. That is a behavior problem, not a disease. People choose to do drugs. Nobody chooses to get cancer or a mental problem. Though do enough drugs and you can end up with a mental problem. Then that is a disease, but not the drug use itself.
2. Obviously I avoided the worst outcome? Are you saying I am trying to hide somthing? I am kidding but sorry I do not know what you are implying. Care to be more specific? What about overdoses?
   From my experience what could others have done to help? Nothing. Pray for me. But it did help that friends made it known that they had faith that one day I can stop. I remember one friend telling me “If anybody can do it, you can.” I took that to heart.

 

[DarkLight]

I gave a range of quesitons that I inteded to be broader than the problem of addiction. I mean to suggest that atheism is a self-destructive choice. I could certainly include Islam or even Protestantism but atheism is more extreme in some respects. I supose an even more extreme would be Satanism but my impression is that it tends to be more sensationalistic than serious.

Atheists are usually very serious and thoughtful people, for the most part (though there are certainly plenty of atheists who are not). But the error of atheism had very grave consequences.

Just checking…I was hoping not to run up against another case of “atheists have no morals” or some such. I’m not sure if it’s necessarily a worse choice than other errors - I may be wrong, but I always thought that dispositional traits were more important? That is, an atheist with a sincere desire for truth and reason might be in some sense closer to God than a theist who believes primarily because it is familiar and comfortable. Even Satanism, in the more mature forms, is about a rejection of what is seen as moral harm from Christianity.

Either way, I doubt using a different approach than with Protestants is going to be of much help. I can tell you who the people were that helped me - and the one trait they had was that, while we both knew each other’s beliefs, none of them ever tried to push or force beliefs on me. Particularly for atheism in this country, some areas can be rough, and especially many of us with Christian families have already experienced quite enough of people trying to force religion! It’s a good thing to be aware of, especially since there are plenty of people willing to hurt others in the name of Christ. Often times a loving, supportive friend is a far more powerful evangelist than the person who tries to argue, especially if the arguments are not invited or wanted.

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

1. Calling addiction a disease strips the person of the belief that they are personally and solely at fault for their addiction. I have heard people go as far as to say that they were drug addicts/alcoholics before they ever took a drink/drug People choose to take drugs. The problems associated with drug addiction go away simply by abstaining from drugs/alcohol. That is a behavior problem, not a disease. People choose to do drugs. Nobody chooses to get cancer or a mental problem. Though do enough drugs and you can end up with a mental problem. Then that is a disease, but not the drug use itself.

Let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that you are right. What does it imply that we should do? I am more interested in this aspect anyway since there are many more behavior problems that are clearly choices than are (supposedly) diseases.

We might say, in general, what is the moral duty to a person who makes bad choices?

1. Obviously I avoided the worst outcome? Are you saying I am trying to hide somthing? I am kidding but sorry I do not know what you are implying. Care to be more specific? What about overdoses?

I meant only that you didn’t end up dead in a morgue, which is a real risk, either by an overdose on drugs or by getting into criminial situations. It is this risk which drives parents to seek to rescue their chidlren. If I knew that my child would hit bottom and recover, eventually, I might be more inclined to just let things progress toward that outcome. But more is at stake.

From my experience what could others have done to help? Nothing. Pray for me. But it did help that friends made it known that they had faith that one day I can stop. I remember one friend telling me “If anybody can do it, you can.” I took that to heart.

Well, that is something, but pretty close to nothing.

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

Just checking…I was hoping not to run up against another case of “atheists have no morals” or some such. I’m not sure if it’s necessarily a worse choice than other errors - I may be wrong, but I always thought that dispositional traits were more important? That is, an atheist with a sincere desire for truth and reason might be in some sense closer to God than a theist who believes primarily because it is familiar and comfortable.

I agree 100%.

Even Satanism, in the more mature forms, is about a rejection of what is seen as moral harm from Christianity.

Either way, I doubt using a different approach than with Protestants is going to be of much help. I can tell you who the people were that helped me - and the one trait they had was that, while we both knew each other’s beliefs, none of them ever tried to push or force beliefs on me. Particularly for atheism in this country, some areas can be rough, and especially many of us with Christian families have already experienced quite enough of people trying to force religion! It’s a good thing to be aware of, especially since there are plenty of people willing to hurt others in the name of Christ. Often times a loving, supportive friend is a far more powerful evangelist than the person who tries to argue, especially if the arguments are not invited or wanted.

This seems particularly apt advice for atheism. Assuming that the atheist is a clear thinker in pursuit of the truth, “forcing” is likely to be counterproductive.

So what if the atheist is not really very serious about pursuing truth? What if he’s just atheist because it’s cool or because going to church is lame?

 

[DarkLight]

I agree 100%.

This seems particularly apt advice for atheism. Assuming that the atheist is a clear thinker in pursuit of the truth, “forcing” is likely to be counterproductive.

So what if the atheist is not really very serious about pursuing truth? What if he’s just atheist because it’s cool or because going to church is lame?

Hmmm…I’d say that is going to be your first problem - someone who’s not interested in truth isn’t going to be swayed by arguments. I suspect the approach is going to be similar - live out your life as a good Catholic, answer any objections that come up as best you can, pray, and let them make their choice.

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

Hmmm…I’d say that is going to be your first problem - someone who’s not interested in truth isn’t going to be swayed by arguments. I suspect the approach is going to be similar - live out your life as a good Catholic, answer any objections that come up as best you can, pray, and let them make their choice.

I don’t think that’s a bad answer, in fact it’s probably the best general answer overall for the entire topic.

It’s probably too early in the discussion to hazard a conclusion but let me offer a tentative one for further discussion:

1. Live an exemplary Christian life.
2. Love the sinner (this needs further clarification).
3. Help when perceived need and offered help coincides (i.e. don’t support an addict’s habit but help him into rehab if he asks).

Does moral instruction or argument deserve a place on the list?

 

[DarkLight]

I don’t think that’s a bad answer, in fact it’s probably the best general answer overall for the entire topic.

It’s probably too early in the discussion to hazard a conclusion but let me offer a tentative one for further discussion:

1. Live an exemplary Christian life.
2. Love the sinner (this needs further clarification).
3. Help when perceived need and offered help coincides (i.e. don’t support an addict’s habit but help him into rehab if he asks).

Does moral instruction or argument deserve a place on the list?

My impression regarding moral instruction or argument is that, in general, don’t bring it up but be ready to discuss it when it does come up. So if someone asks “why do you do x” or “why won’t you do y” have a reason. Express disagreement when you feel it necessary, but don’t keep bringing it up.

As a side note, when dealing with the more intelligent and truth-oriented people (atheists included), it’s better to admit you don’t know something than to try to make up a bad answer! That goes for moral errors too - be willing to own up to your own mistakes.

 

[rturner76]

1. Though do enough drugs and you can end up with a mental problem.
   .

Yes, it’s called addiction

 

[LaughingBoy1503]

Let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that you are right. What does it imply that we should do? I am more interested in this aspect anyway since there are many more behavior problems that are clearly choices than are (supposedly) diseases.

We might say, in general, what is the moral duty to a person who makes bad choices?

I meant only that you didn’t end up dead in a morgue, which is a real risk, either by an overdose on drugs or by getting into criminial situations. It is this risk which drives parents to seek to rescue their chidlren. If I knew that my child would hit bottom and recover, eventually, I might be more inclined to just let things progress toward that outcome. But more is at stake.

Well, that is something, but pretty close to nothing.

1. Moral duty to people who make bad choices? I dont know. Everybody makes bad choices somtimes dont they? Only for diffrent things. It depends on what kind. Bad diet choices, relationship choices, career choices, moral choices ect. I have my opinion about Drug addiction because I went through it, other than that, I dont know about a moral duty to people who make bad choices in general. That is kind of broad. For me personally I just try to remember not to cast stones because I use to be pretty bad.
2. Yeah I am lucky I did not die. I did end up in dangerous situations, and lots of criminal ones. It became a lifestyle. Bottom line is you cannot make a drug addict stop if they do not want to stop. So you can ask yourself “What would make them want to stop?” and try to formulate somthing around that. Even that does not always work though. If you offer to get a addict help and they do not want it, you do not have to give up, but there is nothing you can do about it. I guess you can turn them in for criminal activity and hope they stay clean after incarceration but that does not always help either. Some people will never stop untill they die. Some want to use untill they die. Sad but true.
3. Yeah. But I did not need anything more than to want to stop. I wanted to stop after I got in enough trouble with the law. Also I knew that I needed to repent and run to The Lord. So those things swayed me.

 

[LaughingBoy1503]

Yes, it’s called addiction

Or schitzophrenia (spelled right?) Or severe brain damage.

Stop doing drugs for long enough and you are no longer addicted. So you then no longer have a mental problem with addiction when you stop right?

 

[rturner76]

Or schitzophrenia (spelled right?) Or severe brain damage.

Stop doing drugs for long enough and you are no longer addicted. So you then no longer have a mental problem with addiction when you stop right?

Wrong- If you are addicted, and you use again, you pick up right where you left off and go down from there. Once the using of drugs stops then what? You have a big gaping hole in your life where the drugs used to sit. THat’s when you need God, positive personal relationships, hobbies, etc to fill that hole in your life you were using drugs to fill. I think if it were as easy as take away the drugs and addiction stops…people wouldn’t relapse so often when they get out of jail, the hospital, treatment, etc. Taking away the drug allows you to start the healing process. Not the end but the beginning of the process. From what I have learned over the years anyway. THis is when that family support is so helpful…But yeah, none of it can happen unless the drug taking stops, that #1 priority regardless of the other mental/emotional/spiritual stuff.