How to Defeat Harmful Habits (Counseling Through the Bible Series) (12 page)

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Stand on the truth, setting a time to begin.
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– Know: In Christ you are set free from the penalty of sin.

– Know: In Christ you are set free from the power of sin.

– Know: In Christ you are “dead to sin.”

– Know: In Christ you no longer have to be a slave to sin.

Read Romans chapters 6, 7, and 8. Write down every verse in which Paul mentions your freedom from sin.

Personalize:
“[I] know that [my] old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that [I] should no longer be [a slave] to sin”
(Romans 6:6).

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Substitute God’s thoughts for your thoughts, identifying your weak points.
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– When you are tempted by a habit, remember:

“No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it”
(1 Corinthians 10:13).

– When you think you are powerless over a habit, say,

“He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak”
(Isaiah 40:29).

– When you think you’ve had the habit too long to change, claim this promise:

“If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”
(2 Corinthians 5:17).

– When you begin to rationalize that a habit is okay, remember this:

“Since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because he who has suffered in his body is done with sin. As a result, he does not live the rest of his earthly life for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God”
(1 Peter 4:1-2).

– When you think no one will know about the habit, remind yourself of this truth:

“Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account”
(Hebrews 4:13).

– When you have given in to a habit, remember:

“The L
ORD
upholds all those who fall and lifts up all who are bowed down”
(Psalm 145:14).

Personalize:
“In view of God’s mercy, [I]…offer [my body] as [a] living [sacrifice], holy and pleasing to God—this is [my] spiritual act of worship. [I will not] conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but [will] be transformed by the renewing of [my] mind. Then [I] will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will”
(Romans 12:1-2).

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Surrender your will to God and share your decision with an accountability partner.

– Acknowledge that you belong to God.

– Acknowledge that God has authority over all your thoughts, words, desires, time, money, actions, relationships, and possessions.

– Acknowledge that the decision to change is yours. You are making a choice!

– Acknowledge that you have God’s Spirit present within you to help you make the right choice!

Personalize:
“Just as [I] used to offer the parts of [my] body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now [I] offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness”
(Romans 6:19).

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Stay on track, practicing your new habit daily for three months.
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– Avoid taking pride in gaining victory over your habit.

– Avoid thinking you have control over what caused your habit.

– Avoid thinking it will be okay to occasionally indulge the habit.

– Avoid moving out from under God’s grace into self-sufficiency.

Personalize:
“Since [I] have been justified through faith, [I] have peace with God through [my] Lord Jesus Christ, through whom [I] have gained access by faith into this grace in which [I] now stand”
(Romans 5:1-2).

Sandra: The Tale of Two Women

This is the tale of two women whom I personally have known. One was athletic and energetic, the other was an alcoholic and a compulsive eater. One became Miss Vermont and entered the Miss America pageant, the other weighed well over 200 pounds and eventually attempted suicide.

One became actively involved in Broadway and television, the other became actively involved in psychics and the occult. One was married to a doctor and had the “perfect home,” the other was twice divorced and a prescription-drug addict. One was a charity organizer who became an activist for social causes, the other was a chain smoker who became a compulsive spender. One became an artist who ended up with the American dream, the other became an anorexic who ended up in a hospital for the mentally ill.

The name of the beautiful woman in the first list is Sandra Simpson LeSourd. And the name of the bewildered woman in the second list is none other than Sandra Simpson LeSourd.

Sandy seemingly had it all. In fact, two years after the Miss America pageant, she became the coordinator of a Miss America foundation, managing the public appearance schedule of that year’s Miss America winner. Later, Sandy landed a prominent public relations position with Pepsi Cola and was swept up into the world of celebrity.

But while Sandy seemed cool and collected on the outside…inside, her emotional circuitry was becoming increasingly a mangled mass of fear, shame, guilt, and
pain
. One or two alcoholic drinks soon became three or four. And during one stop to a boutique, she bought 22 pairs of shoes and five matching handbags. An entire month’s salary—gone in an hour.

Sandy momentarily panicked about how to pay the rent, but then lost herself in the exhilaration of her spontaneous purchases. “I floated back to the hotel in a euphoric trance. From then on, shopping would give me what almost amounted to a chemical high.”
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After living in her isolated, frightening world of multiple addictions, Sandy finally realized it really wasn’t alcohol or shopping or drugs that she needed to battle, but the
compulsive personality
behind it all.

People with compulsive personalities fool themselves into thinking they’ll have just one cookie or one beer, and before long, paper wrappings and bottles are strewn throughout the house. “For the compulsive personality, moderation is the hardest achievement of all,” Sandy explains.
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The compulsions and the cross-addictions led to self-hatred, self-pity, and ultimately a suicide attempt. “I had everything to live for and yet something inside me was pushing me straight into a dark pit,”
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Sandy remembers. Following a botched sixteenth birthday party for her daughter, Lisa, she fell headfirst into the pit after deeply wounding her daughter on Mother’s Day.

Lisa prepared a surprise Mother’s Day dinner, but Sandy and her husband chose to spend most of the day with friends—
drinking
. When they returned home at 11:30 p.m., Sandy, stumbling past pots of dried up broccoli and ribs, headed for Lisa’s bedroom, where her anguished daughter had been crying. “Where were you, Mom? I’ve been so worried.”
⁴⁹

Sandy responded with a hollow promise: “Please forgive me, honey. It will never happen again.”
⁵⁰
When she bent down to kiss Lisa goodnight, her worn-out daughter turned her face into the pillow.

That was it!
The taunting voices inside Sandy’s head had been urging her to take her own life, accusing her of making Lisa’s life miserable as well as everyone else’s. Sandy grabbed a stash of sleeping pills and a nearly full bottle of vodka. The deadly concoction also included two hot cups of vodka-laced coffee that Sandra reasoned would melt the capsules faster.

Waiting for death, Sandy found herself singing a song that she had sung alongside her Aunt Ethel as a child, a sweet melody about unconditional love. “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so…” Sandy became baffled as to why she would recall the song, but it was all she could think about.

Drowsiness soon swept over Sandy, so she lay down and anticipated a finality of all pain, a sudden stop of all addictions. “My eyes rested on a framed watercolor of a red barn…a Vermont barn…then inky blackness…a howling wind. Nothingness.”
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But next came the smell of ether, surgical tape, and a blinding light above her, and Sandy realized death had eluded her. Then something filled her with self-loathing: The very person she didn’t want to hurt
found her
—the daughter she so desperately wanted to protect from pain. Flailing at the bottom of the pit, finally Sandy recognized she needed help to be pulled out.

While at a hospital for mental disorders, Sandy encountered a young woman who talked often about Jesus. Every mention of the name
Jesus
was grating—Sandy hated that name. Then one morning at 3:00 a.m., this woman suddenly appeared in Sandy’s room, crying, pleading to have one question answered: “Does Jesus
really
love me?”
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In that moment of despair, Sandy awkwardly assured her, “Yes, Karen, Jesus loves you.”
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Suddenly the woman’s sobbing stopped and something extraordinary happened: The moment Sandy spoke the name
Jesus
, a breaking of her bondage occurred—and Sandy received a spirit of lightness and peace.

Later, after leaving the hospital, Sandy attended a church service where she encountered the One who broke the bondage, and she began a relationship with Him. As a result, Sandy gained new insight, recognizing the root of her lifelong compulsive behavior—
shame
. It started at age five, when she was sexually abused by an uncle. Somehow, she thought the abuse was all her fault. Years later, when her parents divorced, Sandy again believed she was to blame, resulting in even more self-loathing.

Sandy desperately needed reassurance that she was lovable. But when relationships didn’t work, she turned to food, alcohol, cigarettes…whatever she could find to dull the pain. Her occult involvement—fueled by a desperate search for self-worth—filled her, instead, with seething self-hate. “Soon all my compulsive behaviors and dependencies became woven together in a spider web trap. I’d break through one area only to be strangled in another,” she said.
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Finally Sandy saw firsthand that she could be freed forever! She experienced the overwhelming love of Jesus and began calling upon Him for help to overcome her compulsive behaviors. “I was the object of a love greater than any I had ever known. My compulsive lifestyle was reordered by a power outside myself, which I continue to experience and call Jesus Christ.”
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Addictions and the Tendency to Sin