From Brian and Della Headley

Articles by Brian and Della Headley, founders and directors of the Listening Prayer Community.

Wednesday 7 November 2012

Addictions


The 12 step movement is built around the reality that God must do the saving when it comes to addiction. The question remains as to how and when and where does that take place? I have recently attended a 12 step meeting where a friend of mine received his 5 year cake. What came into focus during that meeting was the importance of doing the steps as a way of getting to the place of maintaining your sobriety.
      Patrick Carnes, who pioneered in the area of sexual addiction, makes the point, in his book, Don’t Call It Love, that when it comes to any addiction, abstinence is an essential first step in dealing with it. Through various means of accountability we must come to the place of experiencing withdrawal from our drug of choice whether that is sex, drugs, alcohol, anger or any one of a thousand things that we can use to soothe our unmet needs.
Carnes points out that only after we have gone through the pain of withdrawal are we ready to deal with the underlying issues the drive our addiction. 
      It is at this point that the power of the Holy Spirit becomes essential in truly dealing with the healing that is needed in the deeper mind. Superficiality is what remains when we do not deal with the root cause and insist on dealing only with those fruits that are on the surface of  a person’s life such as their behavior, emotions and conscious thinking. While these expressions of the personality are important it is the perspective of the New Testament that the deeper mind or as psychology would call it the “subconscious” mind is what truly holds the secrets that control our conscious thinking, emotions and behavior.
      A returning missionary called up a Christian Counseling Service and asked if she could get prayer for her concerns. She was told that “We do not pray with people because we are a professional counseling group”. One person published his story and this is the list of counselors and support groups that he tried in his journey that did not help:
  1. Pastoral Counselors
  2. AA and five separate sponsors
  3. Christian 12 step group
  4. Christian Counselor
  5. Secular Counselor
  6. Addictions Counselor
  7. Antabuse drug
  8. Read every book about addiction
  9. Public Confession
  10. Christian Psychiatrist
  11. Secular Psychiatrist
  12. Christian Psychologist
  13. Secular Psychologist
  14. Healing-of-Memories Session
  15. Baptism of the Holy Spirit Session
  16. Deliverance Session
  17. Accountability
  18. Biblical Confrontation
  19. Called before the Church Discipline Committee
  20. Secular Treatment Center
  21. Group Therapy
  22. Christian Treatment Center
  23. Willpower
  24. Promises to God and my wife
  25. Prayer
  26. Bible study
  27. Scripture memory
  28. Fasting
  29. Evangelism
  30. Discipleship
(Neil Anderson, Freedom From Addiction, pg. 66)

      Thankfully there are churches that are determined to stay with the Biblical mandate which clearly states that the power of the Holy Spirit under the Name and authority of Jesus Christ is able to heal the various wounds of the human heart.
      However the question remains, “How are we to engage with the Living God such that the true power and life of Jesus Christ is available to those who are desperately requesting it?
     We believe listening prayer is about a gifting of “listening both to God and to the person in front of you”. There are no formulas for creating such a gift. It can however be caught and seen and worked with. It is to this end that the Listening Prayer Community was born and exists today. Please feel free to go to our website Listeningprayer.ca and check out the testimonies of those who have been set free.
More to come as our blog continues.

By Brian Headley M. Div.
 

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