LK 10:27 He answered: " `Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind' ; and, `Love your neighbor as yourself.' "

The above scripture commands us to love other people as we love ourselves, but the problem is that most of us have learned to hate ourselves either because of what someone else said or did, or because of things we have said and done to ourselves. Most of us have had some very critical people in our lives that have told us just how unvaluable, unwanted, and evil we were as kids, so we grew up believing that lie and venting that self-hatred and self-rejection upon ourselves through various addictions.

The truth of it is that God loves you tremendously just as you are even with all your problems and He will always accept you and forgive you. There is nothing you can ever do either good or bad to ever change God's love for you. God sees you as a holy finished product, not as a worthless failure. Accept and receive Gods love for you today and allow Him to help you to love and forgive yourself. In order to get away from the pain relievers you need to heal the pain, so let healing begin by loving yourself.