Introduction
by Jackie Pullinger, author of Chasing the Dragon

Are you sure you’re not a slave?

I don’t mean a slave to the clock, or a slave to your mortgage or rent payments.

I mean, is something controlling you?

You have probably heard before that Christians are called to set the captives free.  Yet you may not have thought that you are actually numbered among the captives rather than the liberators.

Addiction is one of the most important issues of our time.  Why?   Because global enterprise is stoking the fires of our appetites, in order to create a demand within each of us for more happiness, through the acquisition of more products.

Meanwhile the drugs problem on Britain’s streets now blights even the most affluent suburban and rural neighbourhoods.

It is time the church got to grips with the underlying causes of this problem, what its victims go through, and, importantly, what the theological implications are.

Yet this requires that Christians be able to stand before the addict and say, “You are not alone, for here are the things I am addicted to as well.”

The addiction to pride is a very dangerous addiction.

Christian life is about dying to oneself and putting all hope of salvation in Jesus Christ.  Each day presents at least one moment when a choice between dying to your earthly self and following the sacrificial way of Christ, or clutching at this world, is presented.

The recovering addict knows this all too well.   Virtually every moment is spent in locked combat with those choices.  Do I rely on my addiction, or do I sacrifice the short-term need and give myself over instead to faith that if I give it up, I will survive?

Better then for believers to search their own souls for what may be lurking there, hungry and unknown.

Addiction is not a problem ‘out there’; it is very much a problem ‘in here’ — in our own towns, in our own churches, in our own households and in our own minds and bodies.

Only when we appreciate the nature of addiction and the principles for dealing with it as described in the Bible, will we be able to set its many, many captives free.

This echoes my heart for all Christians and the Church to understand our own addictions and, having done that, to partner others in being set free through Jesus.

Read more » CMS: Setting Captives Free from Addiction