June 12, 2025 • 25 mins
The Misfit Preachers dive deep into the wild world of grace and how it collides with our attempts to medicate our pain through addiction and self-soothing behaviors. They kick things off by chatting about the universal struggle of wanting to escape emotional pain, whether through substances like alcohol and drugs or behaviors like excessive exercise and romance. As they weave through the conversation, they share personal stories, acknowledging their own struggles while tackling the big questions: How does grace fit into our moments of weakness? The trio emphasizes that even when we turn to unhealthy coping mechanisms, grace is always there, waiting to catch us when we fall. Their lighthearted banter and relatable anecdotes keep the mood uplifting, reminding listeners that they're not alone in their struggles and that there's always hope and healing on the horizon.
In another playful twist, the Misfit Preachers illustrate how self-medication might feel like a temporary fix but often leads to greater pain down the line. Using the metaphor of cortisone shots that numb pain but don’t truly heal, they explore the irony of how our attempts to escape our emotions can trap us in a cycle of avoidance. The guys bring in wisdom from Carl Jung, highlighting that true wholeness comes not from avoiding pain but from leaning into it with the grace of God. They encourage listeners to recognize that the path to healing often involves acknowledging our pain, rather than running from it. Their candid discussions serve as a reminder that everyone has their own “poison” and that finding peace often requires confronting the very things we wish to numb.
As they wrap up, the Misfit Preachers leave us with a powerful takeaway: grace is found in our most vulnerable moments, and it's perfectly okay to admit when we're struggling. They stress the importance of community, compassion, and a good dose of humor in the healing process. By sharing their own journeys and the ups and downs of life, they create a space where listeners can feel seen and understood. So whether you're feeling stuck in your own cycle of self-medication or just looking for a light-hearted chat about the complexities of life and addiction, this episode is packed with wisdom, laughter, and the reminder that grace is always within reach.
Takeaways:
- In the podcast, we dive deep into the concept of grace and how it interacts with our struggles, especially concerning addiction and self-medication, which is a super relatable topic.
- We all have our ways of self-medicating, be it through substances or behaviors, and recognizing this is a huge step towards healing and understanding ourselves better.
- The journey from self-medicating to embracing grace isn't easy, but it's important to acknowledge that it's okay to struggle and seek help along the way.
- Grace isn't about being perfect; it's about accepting our flaws and knowing that we are loved despite them, which is a message everyone needs to hear sometimes.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
You're listening to the Misfitpreachers, Talian Chavigian, Jean
Larue and Byron Yan fromProdigalPodcast.com we're plagiarizing
Jesus one podcast at a time.
Now here are the misfits.
Welcome to Misfit Preachers.
As always, I'm joined byTullian Chavigian and Jean Larue.
(00:25):
And as always, great privilegeto be here and have these discussions.
And we're talking about gracein this season, as in all seasons,
and particularly how doesgrace work when.
And in this one, we're talkingabout something that is ubiquitous
as well, and that is substanceuse disorder, substance use abuse,
(00:49):
addiction, that sort of things.
But how does grace work when Iwant to medicate the pain?
How does grace work when Iwant to medicate the pain?
We've already talked a littlebit about addiction, but how does,
how does grace fit here whenthere is the craving, so to speak,
(01:09):
or tease out?
I mean, what are some of themedicators that would be helpful
in the discussion for me?
Yeah, there are substanceabuses, drugs, alcohol.
There are behavioral patterns.
I've never had a conventionaladdiction, thank God.
I'm kind of an extremist.
(01:30):
I don't know, moderation.
So if I really liked alcohol,I would be an alcoholic.
There's no question about it.
Those aren't my issues, but Ihave behavioral pattern issues that
I've used to medicate the pain.
So I think it's a wide.
A wide range of things.
We could get specific and talkabout specific drugs or the.
(01:52):
Or alcohol, but I just thinkit's much.
It's much broader than that.
You're really hitting on thecraving issue.
The desire to numb the pain inour lives, whether through substances
or anything of that nature,which, whatever those things are.
(02:12):
Behaviors could be romance,could be.
That's right.
Sex, could be exercise, couldbe food, could be anything.
And what they.
Hold on a second.
That wasn't even subtle.
He goes.
Exercise points to me.
Food.
So you want to go back to theprevious season?
I mean, like, next episode isgoing to be on shame.
(02:34):
Something Byron.
No, the next episode is goingto be on defensiveness.
But this episode is onmedicating our pain.
But what we're talking aboutphysiologically are those things
that hit the pleasure centersof our brain and distract us from
the pain that is surroundingour lives.
(02:55):
These little moments ofrelief, or what Carl Jung called
this momentary wholeness andthe fracture of our world that is
accomplished through substanceor experience.
That's perfectly said.
Yeah.
That's why we use the termnumbing out.
Like if you numb, everything's numb.
(03:16):
I feel whole.
Like there's a one piece.
Yeah.
In that.
And I, I for me when and pickyour poison.
You give me the right amountof money, the right amount of time,
the right amount of anonymity.
There's nothing.
Right.
And I mean nothing that Iwouldn't give a shot at.
Yeah.
And it may be.
It's not my ideal.
(03:37):
Yeah.
But I'm not above anything.
And I think the thing tonotice or at least to put out there
is that there isn't a personon earth that doesn't self medicate
in one way, shape or form.
The biblical word for that is idolatry.
Trusting in something orsomeone to be for us what only God
(03:59):
can be for us.
And so every single person onplanet earth who has ever lived is
living or will live is a selfmedicator in one way, shape or form.
It's it the, the, thecontinuity of what you just said.
If I bring it back to CarlJung, he said the only thing that
(04:20):
can supplant temporarywholeness in those substances is,
is the grace of God himself.
That's where true wholeness.
So here's a scenario.
Agree.
Here's a scenario.
There is a wife going througha divorce.
In the midst of that divorce,there is stress, there is confusion,
(04:42):
there is angst, there isfinancial insecurity.
There is the tearing of thefabric of the family.
There are all these things.
She sits down about a third ofthe way through the process.
The kids are with the fatheron this particular weekend and she
just is overcome with all ofthese emotions.
She goes over to the counter,opens up the bottle of red wine,
(05:06):
white wine, whatever it is,pours a drink, takes the drink in
instantaneously.
That amygdala lizard brain ofours goes, oh, there's relief.
Yeah, relief.
There's relief.
For a minute, for a minute Ican let go and be whole.
(05:28):
The more the pain increases,the more that instinct says we need
that to survive.
And it becomes a survivalinstinct in the midst of the emotional
pain, which is always thedriving force in these things.
Always the driving force.
So where does grace fit with aperson that wants to turn down the
(05:52):
distortion of emotional painin their life in these circumstances?
And I understand the need todo it.
I've been there, I'veexperienced this.
The only way that I couldcrowd out the noise, find moments
of peace walk was to overmedicate with obscene amounts of
(06:14):
alcohol.
But it has a diminishing effect.
And a diminishing return, youneed more and more.
So there's a, there's a, adanger in that trajectory.
But that's essentially whatwe're talking about.
And the reason I frame it thatway in that scenario is that it allows
me to have compassion for theperson who's just trying to find
(06:36):
a moment of peace and calm and happiness.
Yeah.
The first thing I'd say tothat person is, what we're not saying
is there's a bottle on thecounter and a Bible pick.
Well, it's not that simplistic.
No, even remotely that simplistic.
What we're talking about is,are the deeper fundamental things
(06:57):
going on in us where I don'tyet have the capacity to, to sit
in the pain deep enoughbecause this is where grace matters.
Grace has to be as deep as thepool of your pain.
It has to be.
And so if I don't yet havethat hollowed out place where grace
(07:18):
has no bottom, where theFather will catch me no matter what,
then I have to find a way tonot feel like I'm falling.
And that's what selfmedicators have done for me.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, we're talking aboutour real pains in the lives of real
people going through realthings and the temptation to latch
(07:42):
onto anything that will numbthe pain for just a minute is fierce,
fierce temptation.
And like we said, that couldbe going to a drink, that could be
going to your drink drug ofchoice that could be always needing
distraction.
I know plenty of people likethat who are self medicating by going
(08:03):
from one thing to the next,distracting themselves constantly
from one experience to thenext, from one person to the next.
You know, going fromrelationship to relationship.
I mean there are all sorts ofdrugs of choices out there and every
single one of them exposes thefact that there is a deep pain, a
(08:28):
profound brokenness inside theperson that is seeking solutions
down these particular roads.
And we've all been there.
We have a tremendous amount ofsympathy and empathy for people like
that.
It's not just that the threeof us have been there, the three
of us are there.
I can't say with honesty I wasa self medicator and I've learned
(08:53):
my lesson.
And now I'm not.
I might be medicating myselfwith something different today than
I was 10 years ago, but I'mmedicating myself still.
And I think we have to alsoacknowledge that any form of self
medication is an exercise in unbelief.
I simply don't trust the Godwho Made me, created me, designed
(09:19):
me to be enough.
I don't trust that he alonecan provide my soul the relief that
it craves.
I don't trust that he alonecan heal the hurts that I've endured.
I don't trust that I have totake matters into my own hands.
I think the.
The word trust is.
(09:41):
Is large, large here in thecapacity to move from self medicating
to resting in these realitiesis larger than most people imagine.
(10:01):
Those who are in thesecircumstances understand it because
they.
They can't get there.
But what is required to movefrom one to the other.
We could discuss the danger indoing that all day long.
But what we're reallydescribing is what's happening in
those moments to move from.
(10:22):
I don't want to feel this, Idon't want to face it, I don't want
to deal with it.
So I'm going to double down onself medication to.
I'm going to allow myself tofeel it.
I am going to allow myself toendure it.
To carry the weight for thatto do its work and trust God in that
(10:44):
space is an infinite distance apart.
Huge an infinite distance apart.
What's remarkable for peopleby God's grace who do make the journey
sort of over that chasm andget over here to this place where
they are resting and trustingand allowing real pain of real circumstances
(11:07):
to rest in their lives andjust own it is the perspective that
it provides over here and theperspective which is drowned over
here are very differentbecause you, you begin to realize
that you can survive is doinga work of self awareness and clarity
(11:34):
in you.
And there is life, albeit verydifferent on the horizon in whatever
circumstance that it is.
Whether you're dealing withsomething from the past and don't
know how to process it oryou're dealing with something in
the future and you don't knowthe outcome, such as a divorce.
It is this effort at avoidancein some ways I know it was with me
(11:59):
of reality.
Right.
I just do not want to gothrough what I know I have to go
through to be right.
Better avoid the pain.
It's.
I mean that, that's what it is.
And I would add you're.
You're really putting the painon layaway.
Right.
You know, I know layawaydoesn't exist anymore for the.
(12:22):
You can, you can.
I don't know where it does,but furniture shops, maybe President's
Day, mattress sale.
Right, Right.
But you're really, you'rereally delaying.
It's a stall.
Because the pain, the pain tolean into.
Why I feel this way is so great.
And I love what you said in aprevious season about we're talking
(12:45):
about Job and we're talkingabout his friends.
And for the first seven days,they killed it.
They just sat there with himand gathered up all of his tears
in their hands and sat withhim in it.
And I think that's the promiseof the gospel, is not that everything
gets better.
Right?
That promise is not there.
It's one day, someday it will,but not necessarily today.
(13:07):
And so to know that Jesuswould sit with it in with you.
Sobriety with alcoholics andaddicts in any form of addiction,
sobriety is ultimatelyreturning to the things, events,
(13:28):
pain, circumstance and momentthat you avoided through substances
and finally dealing with those.
Yeah, that's sobriety.
Sobriety is a full circleawareness of the things that you
avoided because they were so painful.
And finally, finallyprocessing those things after sometimes
(13:52):
decades, decades of avoidance.
The surprise in that moment,you live with all these fears, the
primary fears dealing withthose things.
Once you get there in clarityand begin to dig deep into those
things, the paradox is that itwas never a prison, it was an open
(14:16):
door to life.
It's liberating to do it andwe run from it because of the excruciating
awareness and the emotionalpain that it causes to do it.
But it is, as they say, theway out is through.
And so sobriety is this bigfull circle of life bringing you
(14:38):
right back.
To where you checked out andwhere grace is found.
For the indulger, for the selfmedicator who won't stop.
Grace announces, I don't holdthis against you.
You may be uncleanhorizontally, but vertically you
(15:01):
are clean.
Correct?
Right.
You are forgiven of your sins.
And I, I, I do not remember them.
So that's reassurance for theperson stuck in the cycle of addiction
who can't stop self medicating.
Your sobriety will not makeGod love you more and your intoxication
(15:23):
will not make God love you less.
God's love for you is notdependent on whether or not you're
sober.
Yeah, that's number one.
The second thing where it isgrace found in this.
Grace's evidence, as we'vetalked about in previous episodes,
primarily through self awareness.
And step one in AA is gettingto the point where you admit finally,
(15:48):
perhaps for the first time,that you are owned by that you are
powerless against thisparticular thing that's been enslaving
you and controlling you forhowever long.
And a lot of people think thatwe start there and we find grace
as we move through the steps,which obviously we do, but we don't
(16:12):
realize that getting to thatfirst step, getting to the point
where you're willing to admit,I am a self medicator, is a huge
evidence of God's grace atwork in your life.
That is a primary evidence ofGod's grace at work in your life.
So your life may be inshambles, you may have lost relationships
(16:35):
because you can't stop, selfmedicating, hurting people that you
love, in some cases, losing ajob, losing your livelihood, all
of that stuff.
The fallout is real.
And you may look at that andgo, where is grace in all of this?
It is evidenced supremely whenyou get to the point of going, I'm
(16:58):
undone.
Right?
I am absolutely undone.
I am not in control of this thing.
This thing controls me.
I am not a free person.
I am an enslaved person.
I have nowhere to go and Ihave no one left to blame.
That is a.
That is God's grace at work inyour life supremely.
(17:19):
Supremely.
Yeah.
That reality of knowing.
If you're listening to thispodcast and you say, oh, well, I
can start dealing.
You decided to listen becauseyou saw the topic.
You said, when I finally getso, then grace will be there.
You're listening to thisbecause of the.
(17:41):
The irresistible grace of God.
Yeah.
Like this podcast found you totell you that vertically, you're
okay, you're fine.
The Father loves you.
And if you need to take thesteps towards sobriety in that place,
I'll walk with you.
I'll sit with you when you stop.
Yeah, I'll sit with you whenyou stall.
(18:02):
If you go backwards on there,if you go forwards on there.
But nothing has ever changedabout the way I feel about.
About you.
That's exactly why.
Yeah, every.
Every time we take up thissubject, I, I learn something new
or something I thought getsclarified and put to words, which
is why I spend a lot of mytime plagiarizing the two of you.
(18:24):
Not only Jesus, but this worldof grace is so upside down from the
way that we normally live,that powerlessness and weakness,
the inability to saveyourself, and quite frankly, the
inability to change yourselfin many circumstances is the baseline
(18:49):
for participation.
That's exactly.
There was a.
There was a church historianwho was interviewed six months ago
on a podcast, Soul Boom Podcast.
I can't remember the guy's name.
And he asked this churchhistorian, Harvard, in all of your
(19:11):
decades, like three decades ofstudy, what summary statement can
you give me about the churchat large in America?
And she said, what I Can tellyou, as a matter of fact, in total
net result, the church loves winners.
(19:34):
And I have not found anythingthat is more contrary to the truth
of the gospel and churchitself than that concept.
Yeah, wow.
That's the paradoxical reality here.
So the good news to the addictor the person who's abusing a substance
is you're right there withyour ear up against this because
(19:55):
you're realizing there's apowerlessness, or what is often described
as the moment of theincomprehensible demoralization in
my life.
I'm done.
I attach myself to this tonumb this pain.
Now my pain is my attachmentto this.
(20:16):
Out of avoiding one struggle,I've created another struggle and
put myself in a prison insidea prison that I thought was there.
And the way out,paradoxically, is admitting that
you've locked yourself in that space.
I herniated two discs of mineback in 2015 and I got surgery a
(20:41):
year later.
I wanted to avoid surgery, soI tried everything else.
And the first thing that wasrecommended to me was that I get
cortisone shots, which I did.
The doctor prescribed threerounds of cortisone shots and they
explained to me what it was.
But what essentially cortisoneshots do is numb whatever's wrong.
(21:06):
I had shooting pain down myright leg because I, my herniated
discs were pressing up againstmy sciatic nerve.
And as soon as I walked out ofthe office, every time I got a cortisone
shot, I felt like a new man,brand new, like, oh my gosh, this
is what a pain free back andleg feels like.
And I would go right back tothe gym and lift weights that were
(21:31):
too heavy without hurtingbecause this was numbing the pain.
And by the time I got throughthree rounds of those cortisone shots,
my back was worse, way worsethan it was when I first started
because it numbed the pain anddeluded me into thinking that the
(21:54):
problem was gone for thatshort period of time.
And in the process, theproblem had grown, had gotten bigger.
The pain became even more real.
And I look at self medicationin that way.
It's not that we're.
Self medication is not theprocess of failing to deal with the
(22:18):
pain.
It's a choice that we make onhow to deal with the pain.
Well said.
So great clarification.
You're.
In other words, you are, youare dealing with it, but you're dealing
with it in a way that's goingto make the problem worse, not better.
You are dealing with it, butyou're dealing with it in a way that
is going to enslave you, notfree you.
(22:41):
And I think when you can getto the point of realizing that, and
we've said this a handful oftimes on previous episodes, a common
refrain in recovery circles isuntil the pain of staying the same
is greater than the pain ofchanging, nothing will change.
And when you get to that placewhere the pain of staying the same
(23:02):
is.
Is greater than the pain ofchanging, that is God's grace at
work in your life.
Massively.
God's all over that stuff.
I mean, God meets us on thebathroom floor.
Grace always flows downward tothe lowest parts, to the cracks and
crevices of our lives.
(23:23):
So the person who's at thetop, who perhaps doesn't think they
have any kind of addiction, isactually further from the grace of
God than the person at thebottom curled up on the bathroom
floor, realizing they've madea mess of their lives and they're
powerless to fix themselves.
That's.
It's a paradoxical butprofound truth.
(23:46):
It just is.
Everything is upside down andgrace, everything.
When I go to recovery places to.
Speak.
I look at these people who arein the program and I say, you know,
there are a lot of peoplewalking the streets today, driving
cars, going to work, and theyactually think they're the healthy
ones because they're not in aplace like this.
(24:07):
They have avoided the demon ofaddiction and they're not in a place
like this.
And they, as a result, believethat they're the healthy ones.
In reality, you guys are thehealthy ones because you guys have
finally come to a point inyour lives where you've run out of
people to blame.
You recognize yourpowerlessness and you realize you
(24:30):
need help.
That is the most self aware,mentally, emotionally and healthy
and spiritually healthiestplace to be.
And I think that's thefundamental message to the listener.
Thanks, guys.
Thank you.
You've been listening to themisfit preachers like subscribe and
(24:51):
share more grace centeredresources@prodigalpodcasts.com com
that's prodigal P R O D I G AL podcasts with an s dot com.
You're listening to the Misfitpreachers, Talian Chavigian, Jean
Larue and Byron Yan fromProdigalPodcast.com we're plagiarizing
Jesus one podcast at a time.
Now here are the misfits.
Welcome to Misfit Preachers.
As always, I'm joined byTullian Chavigian and Jean Larue.
(00:25):
And as always, great privilegeto be here and have these discussions.
And we're talking about gracein this season, as in all seasons,
and particularly how doesgrace work when.
And in this one, we're talkingabout something that is ubiquitous
as well, and that is substanceuse disorder, substance use abuse,
(00:49):
addiction, that sort of things.
But how does grace work when Iwant to medicate the pain?
How does grace work when Iwant to medicate the pain?
We've already talked a littlebit about addiction, but how does,
how does grace fit here whenthere is the craving, so to speak,
(01:09):
or tease out?
I mean, what are some of themedicators that would be helpful
in the discussion for me?
Yeah, there are substanceabuses, drugs, alcohol.
There are behavioral patterns.
I've never had a conventionaladdiction, thank God.
I'm kind of an extremist.
(01:30):
I don't know, moderation.
So if I really liked alcohol,I would be an alcoholic.
There's no question about it.
Those aren't my issues, but Ihave behavioral pattern issues that
I've used to medicate the pain.
So I think it's a wide.
A wide range of things.
We could get specific and talkabout specific drugs or the.
(01:52):
Or alcohol, but I just thinkit's much.
It's much broader than that.
You're really hitting on thecraving issue.
The desire to numb the pain inour lives, whether through substances
or anything of that nature,which, whatever those things are.
(02:12):
Behaviors could be romance,could be.
That's right.
Sex, could be exercise, couldbe food, could be anything.
And what they.
Hold on a second.
That wasn't even subtle.
He goes.
Exercise points to me.
Food.
So you want to go back to theprevious season?
I mean, like, next episode isgoing to be on shame.
(02:34):
Something Byron.
No, the next episode is goingto be on defensiveness.
But this episode is onmedicating our pain.
But what we're talking aboutphysiologically are those things
that hit the pleasure centersof our brain and distract us from
the pain that is surroundingour lives.
(02:55):
These little moments ofrelief, or what Carl Jung called
this momentary wholeness andthe fracture of our world that is
accomplished through substanceor experience.
That's perfectly said.
Yeah.
That's why we use the termnumbing out.
Like if you numb, everything's numb.
(03:16):
I feel whole.
Like there's a one piece.
Yeah.
In that.
And I, I for me when and pickyour poison.
You give me the right amountof money, the right amount of time,
the right amount of anonymity.
There's nothing.
Right.
And I mean nothing that Iwouldn't give a shot at.
Yeah.
And it may be.
It's not my ideal.
(03:37):
Yeah.
But I'm not above anything.
And I think the thing tonotice or at least to put out there
is that there isn't a personon earth that doesn't self medicate
in one way, shape or form.
The biblical word for that is idolatry.
Trusting in something orsomeone to be for us what only God
(03:59):
can be for us.
And so every single person onplanet earth who has ever lived is
living or will live is a selfmedicator in one way, shape or form.
It's it the, the, thecontinuity of what you just said.
If I bring it back to CarlJung, he said the only thing that
(04:20):
can supplant temporarywholeness in those substances is,
is the grace of God himself.
That's where true wholeness.
So here's a scenario.
Agree.
Here's a scenario.
There is a wife going througha divorce.
In the midst of that divorce,there is stress, there is confusion,
(04:42):
there is angst, there isfinancial insecurity.
There is the tearing of thefabric of the family.
There are all these things.
She sits down about a third ofthe way through the process.
The kids are with the fatheron this particular weekend and she
just is overcome with all ofthese emotions.
She goes over to the counter,opens up the bottle of red wine,
(05:06):
white wine, whatever it is,pours a drink, takes the drink in
instantaneously.
That amygdala lizard brain ofours goes, oh, there's relief.
Yeah, relief.
There's relief.
For a minute, for a minute Ican let go and be whole.
(05:28):
The more the pain increases,the more that instinct says we need
that to survive.
And it becomes a survivalinstinct in the midst of the emotional
pain, which is always thedriving force in these things.
Always the driving force.
So where does grace fit with aperson that wants to turn down the
(05:52):
distortion of emotional painin their life in these circumstances?
And I understand the need todo it.
I've been there, I'veexperienced this.
The only way that I couldcrowd out the noise, find moments
of peace walk was to overmedicate with obscene amounts of
(06:14):
alcohol.
But it has a diminishing effect.
And a diminishing return, youneed more and more.
So there's a, there's a, adanger in that trajectory.
But that's essentially whatwe're talking about.
And the reason I frame it thatway in that scenario is that it allows
me to have compassion for theperson who's just trying to find
(06:36):
a moment of peace and calm and happiness.
Yeah.
The first thing I'd say tothat person is, what we're not saying
is there's a bottle on thecounter and a Bible pick.
Well, it's not that simplistic.
No, even remotely that simplistic.
What we're talking about is,are the deeper fundamental things
(06:57):
going on in us where I don'tyet have the capacity to, to sit
in the pain deep enoughbecause this is where grace matters.
Grace has to be as deep as thepool of your pain.
It has to be.
And so if I don't yet havethat hollowed out place where grace
(07:18):
has no bottom, where theFather will catch me no matter what,
then I have to find a way tonot feel like I'm falling.
And that's what selfmedicators have done for me.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, we're talking aboutour real pains in the lives of real
people going through realthings and the temptation to latch
(07:42):
onto anything that will numbthe pain for just a minute is fierce,
fierce temptation.
And like we said, that couldbe going to a drink, that could be
going to your drink drug ofchoice that could be always needing
distraction.
I know plenty of people likethat who are self medicating by going
(08:03):
from one thing to the next,distracting themselves constantly
from one experience to thenext, from one person to the next.
You know, going fromrelationship to relationship.
I mean there are all sorts ofdrugs of choices out there and every
single one of them exposes thefact that there is a deep pain, a
(08:28):
profound brokenness inside theperson that is seeking solutions
down these particular roads.
And we've all been there.
We have a tremendous amount ofsympathy and empathy for people like
that.
It's not just that the threeof us have been there, the three
of us are there.
I can't say with honesty I wasa self medicator and I've learned
(08:53):
my lesson.
And now I'm not.
I might be medicating myselfwith something different today than
I was 10 years ago, but I'mmedicating myself still.
And I think we have to alsoacknowledge that any form of self
medication is an exercise in unbelief.
I simply don't trust the Godwho Made me, created me, designed
(09:19):
me to be enough.
I don't trust that he alonecan provide my soul the relief that
it craves.
I don't trust that he alonecan heal the hurts that I've endured.
I don't trust that I have totake matters into my own hands.
I think the.
The word trust is.
(09:41):
Is large, large here in thecapacity to move from self medicating
to resting in these realitiesis larger than most people imagine.
(10:01):
Those who are in thesecircumstances understand it because
they.
They can't get there.
But what is required to movefrom one to the other.
We could discuss the danger indoing that all day long.
But what we're reallydescribing is what's happening in
those moments to move from.
(10:22):
I don't want to feel this, Idon't want to face it, I don't want
to deal with it.
So I'm going to double down onself medication to.
I'm going to allow myself tofeel it.
I am going to allow myself toendure it.
To carry the weight for thatto do its work and trust God in that
(10:44):
space is an infinite distance apart.
Huge an infinite distance apart.
What's remarkable for peopleby God's grace who do make the journey
sort of over that chasm andget over here to this place where
they are resting and trustingand allowing real pain of real circumstances
(11:07):
to rest in their lives andjust own it is the perspective that
it provides over here and theperspective which is drowned over
here are very differentbecause you, you begin to realize
that you can survive is doinga work of self awareness and clarity
(11:34):
in you.
And there is life, albeit verydifferent on the horizon in whatever
circumstance that it is.
Whether you're dealing withsomething from the past and don't
know how to process it oryou're dealing with something in
the future and you don't knowthe outcome, such as a divorce.
It is this effort at avoidancein some ways I know it was with me
(11:59):
of reality.
Right.
I just do not want to gothrough what I know I have to go
through to be right.
Better avoid the pain.
It's.
I mean that, that's what it is.
And I would add you're.
You're really putting the painon layaway.
Right.
You know, I know layawaydoesn't exist anymore for the.
(12:22):
You can, you can.
I don't know where it does,but furniture shops, maybe President's
Day, mattress sale.
Right, Right.
But you're really, you'rereally delaying.
It's a stall.
Because the pain, the pain tolean into.
Why I feel this way is so great.
And I love what you said in aprevious season about we're talking
(12:45):
about Job and we're talkingabout his friends.
And for the first seven days,they killed it.
They just sat there with himand gathered up all of his tears
in their hands and sat withhim in it.
And I think that's the promiseof the gospel, is not that everything
gets better.
Right?
That promise is not there.
It's one day, someday it will,but not necessarily today.
(13:07):
And so to know that Jesuswould sit with it in with you.
Sobriety with alcoholics andaddicts in any form of addiction,
sobriety is ultimatelyreturning to the things, events,
(13:28):
pain, circumstance and momentthat you avoided through substances
and finally dealing with those.
Yeah, that's sobriety.
Sobriety is a full circleawareness of the things that you
avoided because they were so painful.
And finally, finallyprocessing those things after sometimes
(13:52):
decades, decades of avoidance.
The surprise in that moment,you live with all these fears, the
primary fears dealing withthose things.
Once you get there in clarityand begin to dig deep into those
things, the paradox is that itwas never a prison, it was an open
(14:16):
door to life.
It's liberating to do it andwe run from it because of the excruciating
awareness and the emotionalpain that it causes to do it.
But it is, as they say, theway out is through.
And so sobriety is this bigfull circle of life bringing you
(14:38):
right back.
To where you checked out andwhere grace is found.
For the indulger, for the selfmedicator who won't stop.
Grace announces, I don't holdthis against you.
You may be uncleanhorizontally, but vertically you
(15:01):
are clean.
Correct?
Right.
You are forgiven of your sins.
And I, I, I do not remember them.
So that's reassurance for theperson stuck in the cycle of addiction
who can't stop self medicating.
Your sobriety will not makeGod love you more and your intoxication
(15:23):
will not make God love you less.
God's love for you is notdependent on whether or not you're
sober.
Yeah, that's number one.
The second thing where it isgrace found in this.
Grace's evidence, as we'vetalked about in previous episodes,
primarily through self awareness.
And step one in AA is gettingto the point where you admit finally,
(15:48):
perhaps for the first time,that you are owned by that you are
powerless against thisparticular thing that's been enslaving
you and controlling you forhowever long.
And a lot of people think thatwe start there and we find grace
as we move through the steps,which obviously we do, but we don't
(16:12):
realize that getting to thatfirst step, getting to the point
where you're willing to admit,I am a self medicator, is a huge
evidence of God's grace atwork in your life.
That is a primary evidence ofGod's grace at work in your life.
So your life may be inshambles, you may have lost relationships
(16:35):
because you can't stop, selfmedicating, hurting people that you
love, in some cases, losing ajob, losing your livelihood, all
of that stuff.
The fallout is real.
And you may look at that andgo, where is grace in all of this?
It is evidenced supremely whenyou get to the point of going, I'm
(16:58):
undone.
Right?
I am absolutely undone.
I am not in control of this thing.
This thing controls me.
I am not a free person.
I am an enslaved person.
I have nowhere to go and Ihave no one left to blame.
That is a.
That is God's grace at work inyour life supremely.
(17:19):
Supremely.
Yeah.
That reality of knowing.
If you're listening to thispodcast and you say, oh, well, I
can start dealing.
You decided to listen becauseyou saw the topic.
You said, when I finally getso, then grace will be there.
You're listening to thisbecause of the.
(17:41):
The irresistible grace of God.
Yeah.
Like this podcast found you totell you that vertically, you're
okay, you're fine.
The Father loves you.
And if you need to take thesteps towards sobriety in that place,
I'll walk with you.
I'll sit with you when you stop.
Yeah, I'll sit with you whenyou stall.
(18:02):
If you go backwards on there,if you go forwards on there.
But nothing has ever changedabout the way I feel about.
About you.
That's exactly why.
Yeah, every.
Every time we take up thissubject, I, I learn something new
or something I thought getsclarified and put to words, which
is why I spend a lot of mytime plagiarizing the two of you.
(18:24):
Not only Jesus, but this worldof grace is so upside down from the
way that we normally live,that powerlessness and weakness,
the inability to saveyourself, and quite frankly, the
inability to change yourselfin many circumstances is the baseline
(18:49):
for participation.
That's exactly.
There was a.
There was a church historianwho was interviewed six months ago
on a podcast, Soul Boom Podcast.
I can't remember the guy's name.
And he asked this churchhistorian, Harvard, in all of your
(19:11):
decades, like three decades ofstudy, what summary statement can
you give me about the churchat large in America?
And she said, what I Can tellyou, as a matter of fact, in total
net result, the church loves winners.
(19:34):
And I have not found anythingthat is more contrary to the truth
of the gospel and churchitself than that concept.
Yeah, wow.
That's the paradoxical reality here.
So the good news to the addictor the person who's abusing a substance
is you're right there withyour ear up against this because
(19:55):
you're realizing there's apowerlessness, or what is often described
as the moment of theincomprehensible demoralization in
my life.
I'm done.
I attach myself to this tonumb this pain.
Now my pain is my attachmentto this.
(20:16):
Out of avoiding one struggle,I've created another struggle and
put myself in a prison insidea prison that I thought was there.
And the way out,paradoxically, is admitting that
you've locked yourself in that space.
I herniated two discs of mineback in 2015 and I got surgery a
(20:41):
year later.
I wanted to avoid surgery, soI tried everything else.
And the first thing that wasrecommended to me was that I get
cortisone shots, which I did.
The doctor prescribed threerounds of cortisone shots and they
explained to me what it was.
But what essentially cortisoneshots do is numb whatever's wrong.
(21:06):
I had shooting pain down myright leg because I, my herniated
discs were pressing up againstmy sciatic nerve.
And as soon as I walked out ofthe office, every time I got a cortisone
shot, I felt like a new man,brand new, like, oh my gosh, this
is what a pain free back andleg feels like.
And I would go right back tothe gym and lift weights that were
(21:31):
too heavy without hurtingbecause this was numbing the pain.
And by the time I got throughthree rounds of those cortisone shots,
my back was worse, way worsethan it was when I first started
because it numbed the pain anddeluded me into thinking that the
(21:54):
problem was gone for thatshort period of time.
And in the process, theproblem had grown, had gotten bigger.
The pain became even more real.
And I look at self medicationin that way.
It's not that we're.
Self medication is not theprocess of failing to deal with the
(22:18):
pain.
It's a choice that we make onhow to deal with the pain.
Well said.
So great clarification.
You're.
In other words, you are, youare dealing with it, but you're dealing
with it in a way that's goingto make the problem worse, not better.
You are dealing with it, butyou're dealing with it in a way that
is going to enslave you, notfree you.
(22:41):
And I think when you can getto the point of realizing that, and
we've said this a handful oftimes on previous episodes, a common
refrain in recovery circles isuntil the pain of staying the same
is greater than the pain ofchanging, nothing will change.
And when you get to that placewhere the pain of staying the same
(23:02):
is.
Is greater than the pain ofchanging, that is God's grace at
work in your life.
Massively.
God's all over that stuff.
I mean, God meets us on thebathroom floor.
Grace always flows downward tothe lowest parts, to the cracks and
crevices of our lives.
(23:23):
So the person who's at thetop, who perhaps doesn't think they
have any kind of addiction, isactually further from the grace of
God than the person at thebottom curled up on the bathroom
floor, realizing they've madea mess of their lives and they're
powerless to fix themselves.
That's.
It's a paradoxical butprofound truth.
(23:46):
It just is.
Everything is upside down andgrace, everything.
When I go to recovery places to.
Speak.
I look at these people who arein the program and I say, you know,
there are a lot of peoplewalking the streets today, driving
cars, going to work, and theyactually think they're the healthy
ones because they're not in aplace like this.
(24:07):
They have avoided the demon ofaddiction and they're not in a place
like this.
And they, as a result, believethat they're the healthy ones.
In reality, you guys are thehealthy ones because you guys have
finally come to a point inyour lives where you've run out of
people to blame.
You recognize yourpowerlessness and you realize you
(24:30):
need help.
That is the most self aware,mentally, emotionally and healthy
and spiritually healthiestplace to be.
And I think that's thefundamental message to the listener.
Thanks, guys.
Thank you.
You've been listening to themisfit preachers like subscribe and
(24:51):
share more grace centeredresources@prodigalpodcasts.com com
that's prodigal P R O D I G AL podcasts with an s dot com.
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