I have a disease. I was born with it. I will die with it. In fact, I will die of it. An autopsy that could see everything about me would prove it to be the underlying cause of my death. While not all realize this and fewer acknowledge it, I have this malady in common with all of humanity. In my case it has been treated by divine intervention (human, too, at points), but it has not been eradicated. In fact, the most obvious manifestations of symptoms have occurred since it was treated early in my life.
This is one of the mysteries of this disease. It can be radically treated. For those who receive it, the treatment is always successful. But the disease does not go away. It is always there. At times I would swear the disease is just as powerful and destructive as it would be had it not been treated. But I am assured that this is not the case, and I try to believe that.
At times I feel pretty optimistic. Right now is one of those times. But I am not sanguine. The disease is still there. I could suffer a serious relapse at anytime. My memories of previous relapses are too vivid, and my knowledge of the way the disease works is too clear for me to think I am done with it.
I hope future relapses will not take the same form nor be as serious as some of the past ones. But mainly I hope that when relapses come, serious or not so serious, I will not despair. Despair is the worst thing that can happen with this disease. Despair can be deadly. Sometimes, when an outbreak of the disease would not be fatal, the despair is. It almost turned out that way for me.
One of the most obvious and consequential manifestations of my disease is the abuse of alcohol. But my problem isn't really alcohol. I do not object to being called an "alcoholic" in the sense of being a person who has and still could drink uncontrollably and with severe consequences. But I do object to being told that the identity of my disease is "alcoholism" and that hence I am an alcoholic in the sense that this is my disease or allergy.
One of the reasons I object is because I know that my disease predated any abuse of alcohol. If I had not known that, I surely would by now, as others have told me of the ways this disease manifested itself to them. Some of it I knew; some I did not. But whether the realities were known or unknown, hearing the specifics rehearsed was devastating.
Professionals have told me that these things, which could manifest themselves whether I was drinking or not, are in fact "character flaws" or "alcoholic thinking and behaving." It turns out that alcoholics are self-centered, selfish, self-absorbed, prone to self-pity, often resentful, wanting control of people and circumstances, and frequently manipulative. But they are this way with or without drinking. Evidently, drinking does not cause these ugly traits; it exacerbates them. (In my case, "alcoholic drinking" did not occur until I was approaching the end of the sixth decade of my life.)
That is one of the reasons I resist being told I am an alcoholic who has a physical disease just like any other. (Often, people who abuse alcohol are told that one of the tests of their progress is whether they have accepted that they have a disease.) I have known lots of people with the same character flaws who do not abuse alcohol or other substances. In fact, though there are often fewer destructive effects, it seems to me that these things are pretty much universal. Furthermore, what other physical disease is treated by a searching and brutally honest cataloging of one's character flaws? You can't imagine a diabetic being told that she suffers from diabetic thinking or a cancer patient that he engages in malignant behavior.
When I say I have a disease, I mean disease in the metaphorical sense as the Bible does. "The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick," says Jeremiah 17:10. Surely this spiritual disease has physical consequences, and since it affects the whole person, it may have physical components, such as genetic predispositions. But this is not the way the vast majority of addiction specialists use the term. They teach that it is a physical disease that medical science may someday cure, though "it hasn't done so yet."
But the most important reason I do not call myself an alcoholic is because there is a divinely revealed diagnosis of the problem. The disease I have is sin. I was born with it, I am living with it, and I will never in this age be free of it. It affects every part of my being, every relationship in my life, everything I think, say, and do.
I find myself in the company of the apostle Paul, who near the end of his life was still calling himself a sinner, even "the foremost" (1 Tim. 1:15). After a life of service and sacrifice and no doubt a lot of righteous thinking, feeling, and acting, Paul was still depending on the mercy of the God who sent his Son to save sinners.
I hate this disease. I wish to God I could be free of it. But sometimes I seem to love it and even enjoy it. As I read Paul, who to all evidence never struggled with alcohol and who said no drunkard could inherit the kingdom of heaven, he experienced what I have experienced. He said of himself as a Christian believer:
For we know the law is spiritual but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate….I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing….So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. (Rom. 7:15, 15, 18-20)
That's me. How often have I said in desperation with Paul, "Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?" (Rom. 7:24).
This inborn and incurable disease is first treated by God, not by attacking the disease's controlling power, but by addressing its condemning power. This is where the Christian gospel differs from the standard treatment of addictions. It is true that people are powerless over the disease and that they cannot change themselves. But the next word to the person in despair is not that "God could and would if he were sought."
When I was at my lowest I found a ray of light first in this: "When iniquities prevail against me, you atone for our transgressions" (Ps. 65:3). Would others forgive? Maybe, maybe not. How genuine was my desire to change? I was pretty sure I was about as sincere as I have ever been, but others, with reason, had their doubts. What I knew was that someone else (the psalmist) knew the experience of being overwhelmed by sin yet believed God would provide atonement. And by his using "my" and "our," he held out the same hope to others.
What the disease of sin requires, no matter its particular manifestations, is atonement and forgiveness. We cannot atone for our own sins, nor can we or others do the forgiving. Others may not be able to forgive us; we cannot declare or will ourselves forgiven. As the Pharisees said when Jesus pronounced a man's sins forgiven, none but God can forgive sins.
To put the gospel in grammatical terms, the indicative must precede the imperative. What is goes before what must be. You must be a Christian before you can be told to live like one. To put the gospel in theological terms, justification always goes before sanctification. Your sins must be forgiven and you must be declared righteous by faith apart from anything at all that you do or try to do before you can begin to develop a holy character or engage in holy conduct.
Furthermore, the necessary renovation of the heart and reformation of life cannot progress apart from regular massive doses of the gospel. God does radically treat sin when we come to faith. Paul, who later describes his struggle, first tells us that faith unites us to Christ and that the power of his death and resurrection means we have died to sin and that we are alive to God and righteousness. But this radical treatment does not eradicate the problem. And nothing save forgiveness can deal with daily struggle. In fact, in some way that I do not fully comprehend, I must never forget that the struggle, even the successful struggle, does not get me God's favor. Nothing but the forgiveness of sins received by faith in Jesus and his atoning death can get God to smile at me and like me. And nothing but that acceptance by God can enable the struggle. At least that's the way I see it now.
Yes, I knew and believed all this before a recent crisis. Why then did I crash and burn? Looked at in one way, these articles of my faith explain it. The problem is permanent and its symptoms recurrent. Looked at in another way, to borrow words from a secular group that offers understanding and help to those with alcohol problems, "It works if you work it." What they mean is that if you follow the program, you are much less likely to experience what they call a "relapse." In these terms I was not "working my program." I was not really believing and practicing my faith. That just about guaranteed some kind of crash and burn scenario.
I don't mind if you call me an alcoholic. But my self-identification is this: I'm a sinner saved, being saved, yet to be saved’by grace.
