You may have wondered why you feel so terrified without any active addictions in your life, and you may have noticed that you can get very defensive, aggressive, and oversensitive when you initially quit an addiction, and while some of this is physical withdrawals, a lot of what you are going though may be being caused by a deep rooted fear of life without some kind of controllable pleasure that you can administer to guard against or relieve emotional pain. Fear of life is the root cause of addiction, and although there are some other factors like chemical imbalances or genetic predispositions, fear of life because of past abuse is what causes most of the psychological agony after the security of an addiction is removed and made unavailable.

This fear of life starts in childhood because of abuse, neglect, abandonment, or death of a parent. We believe a lie as children that life is not safe anymore because those who were supposed to protect and provide for us were not there for us, and in many cases they were the very causes of our pain and fear. As children, we are fairly defenseless because we cannot physically defend ourselves, provide for ourselves, or choose where or whom we live with, so we make a vow in our little hearts that sounds something like this, "When I am older, I will never let anyone hurt me or be in control of my life again, and I will be in control of my life and protect myself in any and every way I can, so that nobody can ever hurt me like that again".

If you were abused as a child you were usually taught two things, you get punished for trying to defend yourself, and you get punished for trying to express your negative emotions about the abuse taking place. Because of this, we believe that we cannot be protected naturally in life by natural means through communication based on truth, or physically by either defending ourselves, or by calling in outside defense from family or the police. So the old lie controls us that tells us "You are naturally defenseless, and you need something more to be safe in life". So we gather addictions to feel protected and in control of our life, the only problem is, the addiction ends up doing the very things to us that we think it is protecting us from. It is a lie.

Instead of protecting us, addiction strips us of our ability to protect and control our lives and it gives us into the hands of others who control us just as if we were children again. Instead of freedom, we become a slave to the addiction that forces us to get out of bed every day and search for ways to get more of our addiction. Instead of peace, we live in fear and shame because of what we are doing and we even fear what will happen to us with God should we die in this mess. Addiction always gives you the opposite of what it promises to give. Addiction is life-cheating, and there are natural ways to meet our needs, but we must first overcome the old lie that we are naturally defenseless. When we are traumatized as a child, we stay stuck there emotionally, and it is only through healing by the truth that we can truly let go of the old lies.

What God does is He will take you back to the original trauma and speak truth to you about what happened. He will show you that what happened was wrong and that it was not your fault after all. And even if you did something wrong as a child, He will show you that all children make mistakes, and that it is OK to forgive yourself. God will also show you that whoever hurt you was a product of someone that hurt them. Hurting people, hurt people. God wants to break this chain of pain and fear by speaking the truth to you and by helping you to forgive those that hurt you, and yourself. God will protect and provide for you where your parents may have failed at it. God will never leave you or forsake you, and He will forgive you for anything that you have done, and I do mean anything. Trust Him today to set you free from the power of fear and lies.

Here is a prayer to pray if you need it;

"Dear God, you saw what happened to me as a child, and you saw how it traumatized me and made me fearful as an adult. You have seen how I have tried to relieve my old fears by practicing addiction, which is really just idolatry since you are the One who is supposed to meet my protection and provision needs, not an addiction. I ask God, that you would heal me from the pain of the past and the fear that it caused, I also ask that you would help me to forgive all those who harmed me and contributed to and helped to create my fear of life problem. I thank you for helping and healing me right now God, and I give you full permission to help me to overcome my fears. In Jesus name I pray, amen".

Some scriptures to help you;

^{RO 8:12 Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation--but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. 13 For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, 14 because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. 15 For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father."}