((Philippians 2:13) For it is God who works in you to will and act according to His good purpose.) We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Well this may sound like a simple step, but most of us tend to believe that if we are going to beat an addiction, we must use our own power to do it. So we try every program and self-help book that comes along (this one excluded of course), and still we can't shake off the addiction. Also, when we are practicing an addiction, we can think that it is everyone else that is insane but us. We think our addiction is a problem, but we don't understand why people keep making such a big deal about it all the time, and we think that they are just overreacting. Besides, why would God really care about helping us anyway, what we are doing is our choice, and it's really our fault anyway, right?

God wants and needs us to face and live life sober-minded so that we have an honest chance to make good choices in life and to be a productive member of the human race. We cannot make clear decisions when we have poison contaminating our brain, body, and soul all the time. When our consciousness is constantly being altered by an intoxicant or destructive behavior, we become unsafe and unreliable to be there for anyone, so we get sidelined and cannot function responsibly in our jobs, families, church, or relationships with others any longer. People watch us and also know that we are not safe or capable of being there for them. We lose everyone's trust in time, and they just wait for us to either return to sanity, or they just avoid us altogether to stay away from our drama. Remember, they are recovering from what are addiction did to them too, so try to be patient with them and just pray for them.

The only way that you can accept that God can and wants to help you is to first of all see, understand, and accept the truth that the addiction you practice will never produce good in your life, it will always produce bad. We must also realize that we absolutely cannot beat it or win against it. The deck is stacked against us before the hand is even dealt each time we use. We feel like we need to have hope though, so we keep trying in vain to fix ourselves or manage the addiction. Facing the truth that we cannot fix our problem is scary, because we wonder what in the world will happen to us if we run out of options to try to fix ourselves. We think we will be doomed. Trusting in God can be challenging because we wonder if He really will or wants to help us, or whether He will do it in a way that we disagree with. We want help, but we also want to be in control of that help, so God just waits for us to hit bottom and to surrender. It must be done His way to finally get victory, but he knows we have to exhaust our efforts first. Normally, a child while trying to get a knot out of their shoelaces will stubbornly refuse a parent’s help until they are utterly exhausted and exasperated. We do the same thing with God as adults sometimes.

God really does want to help you, He's not just standing there tapping His foot and scowling at you over this. He has helped thousands of people just like you with your problem, and some with even a worse problem than you. The key to overcoming addiction is absolute surrender from the heart to God. He loves you, and is standing by right this second for you to scoot over from the driver's seat of your life, and let Him drive. He knows exactly how to help you personally, and cares so much more about what happens to you than you might think. When Jesus walked the earth, all He did was go from town to town and from person to person, seeking how He could help them and meet their needs, just because He loved them as His creation. But some people have a hard time believing that He really is willing and wants to help us, but He does so very much.