My 2016 event schedule is starting to fill up, and many of the events are related to my new retreat on disordered affections. This teaching content has really been born out of my lifetime problems with food. (Ever since my pacifier was dipped in white sugar to sooth me as a newborn with multiple birth defects, I have always been comforted by sugar. This is not good—physically or emotionally! I was able to keep it relatively in check as a young person, but WOW! Anyone who knows me in real life knows that I struggle with this a LOT, especially when I am recovering from the shock and misery of physical and/or relational trauma.) This content has also been born out of multiple studies I have led at my church for women and out of my Master’s work at Reformed Theological Seminary.
If this is a topic that is of interest to you, I hope that you will check out my other articles on disordered affections, peace with food, and my journey to lose 100 pounds. If you, too, go up-and-down, up-and-down with your weight; if you are also (still) recovering from a lifetime of disordered eating, I do SO hope and pray that they will be an encouragement to you. As I’ve blogged about before, I can totally relate to the ongoing, annoying, exhausting strugle! If you can’t relate to this struggle, but you love someone who can, I hope and pray that they will help you to have compassion and patience and empathy as you minister wisdom and grace in their lives.
With that, I will sign off for the day by sharing my inaugural blog on this topic … from years ago, but the content still holds firm.
Thanks for stopping by!
Yours in the battle,
Tara B.
Recovering from My (Lifetime of) Disordered Eating
There are many very good things going on in my life right now related to my lifetime of disordered eating (and the last ten years of my life that I have spent as a morbidly obese woman). I am so grateful to God for His continued, gracious, winnowing work! And one day, I may be ready to blog about the details. But not today.
Today, what I am ready to talk about is our church’s summer women’s study on Disordered Affections. I came up with the title after reading a bunch of books/articles, etc. on the topic, but when Fred read the title in our church’s bulletin, he teased me a bit about how archaic it was and how vague it was (“What do that even mean?! Is it from The Valley of Vision or something?”). But I stuck with it because I like it quite a lot—it’s a better fit for me than “addiction” or even “idolatry” (although both of those terms are helpful to me in understanding aspects of my heart struggle).
And what I’d like to do now is give you a glimpse into our study last week. I won’t be sharing any personal information about the attendees (of course!), but I will be giving you the same overview that I am providing to the attendees each week because it’s summer and we have a lot of women going in-and-out due to schedule changes, travel, etc.
I hope these notes are a blessing to you!
Grateful to be with you on the journey—
Yours,
Tara B.
SUMMARY NOTES FROM SESSION 1 of the Rocky Mountain Community Church (PCA)
Summer Women’s Study – “Disordered Affections”
We began our study by discussing the question: What does the term “disordered affection” even mean?
- Any affection that is out of order or out of balance
- Sin / inappropriate
- Self-serving
- When good goods become bad gods
- Codependent / disease
- Hopelessly stuck / caught
We then spent an extended time in God’s Word studying James 4:1-10 and discussing “monster wants” and “functional idolatry”:
“What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? 2 You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. 4 You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5 Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? 6 But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” 7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.” (ESV)
Many of us deeply resonated with some of the statements I had typed in our handout from Ed Welch’s “Crossroads Addictions Curriculum”):
- You feel out of control. What began as an escape from the hassles of life has become hazardous. Something—drugs, alcohol, gambling, food, sex—is taking over. You feel like its slave.
- You still love your addiction, but it is no longer friendly. You think it is time for a change.
- You think it is time for change—you want to leave your addiction—but you aren’t sure how to change. You have already tried a few strategies and they didn’t work.
- Someone told you that you’d better change.
- You are sick and tired of the lies, broken relationships, and nagging conscience that accompany all addictions.
- You are already off and running, already leaving your addiction behind.
When then discussed what makes our affections disordered. We talked about a lot of things—being deceived, discontent, etc. But ultimately, everything we talked about came down to our “three enemies” as summarized in the catechism: Satan, the world, our flesh (“The Old Man”).
By the end of that discussion, our time was running short. But we still discussed briefly the question: Have you (or someone you love) ever tried to turn away from a disordered affection? What did you do? Where did you turn for help? How did your effort to change go?
- Some of us looked to Scripture and wise role models (and “reverse role models”–people we did NOT want to emulate)
- We sought counseling (biblical, pastoral, professional psychiatric counseling and medication)
- We went to 12-Step Groups, read books, studied, made lists
- We tried to do healthy things like listen to music, make sure we got enough fresh air and light and water (and coffee)
But then I really wanted us to dig into our use of the term “addiction” … (See Crossroads Addictions Curriculum, Addictions: A Banquet At The Grave, and Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be—A Breviary of Sin). I knew that the term “addiction” might be TOO comfortable for some people (especially if they grew up around or were greatly helped by AA/NA/OA or any 12-Step, disease-based program, like “Celebrate Recovery” for example). And that the term “addiction” might be too AWFUL for some people (who think that all we need to do to combat our sin is “believe the gospel” and POOF! We’re all fixed!).
The content I sent them home with had a number of quotations from Dr. Plantinga’s “Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be”: A Breviary of Sin (my favorite book thus far on the doctrine of sin, although my current reading and study schedule is bringing me to more and more tomes that are so excellent that they might rival it one day). If I could have assigned the entire book, I would have. But 200+ pages of reading a week is a little aggressive, even for a bunch of Presbyterian women, so this is the summary I gave them from the section that was directly applicable to our discussion:
“Addiction is a complex, progressive, injurious, and often, disabling attachment to a substance (alcohol, heroin, barbiturates) or behavior (sex, work, shopping, gambling) in which a person compulsively seeks a change of mood. Addictions eventually center in distress and in the self-defeating choice of an agent to relieve the distress. In fact, trying to cure distress with the same thing that caused it is typically the mechanism that closes the trap on an addict.”
“Addiction is driven by longing—not just of brain, belly, or loins but finally of the heart. Addiction longs long for wholeness, fulfillment, the final good that believers call God. Like all idolatries, addiction taps this vital spiritual force and draws off its energies to objects and processes that drain the addict instead of filling him.”
“An addict longs not for God but for transcendence; not for joy but only for pleasure; mere escape from pain. Addicts go to saloons to buy for a few hours the illusion of comfort, hope, love—whatever one most longs for.”
“Alcohol and other drug abuse: chronic intoxications are marked by increasing depression, anxiety, and belligerence. An addict repeatedly makes and then breaks contracts with himself. An addict finds his longing narrowing and hardening into an obsession with things he knows will devastate his work, self-respect, relationships, and bank account and who yet seeks compulsively to satisfy those longings.”
“An addict finds his will split between wanting to banish an addictive substance from the earth and wanting to protect his private cache of it. Addicts reproach themselves, confess their sins to God, make and break resolutions, set even new dates for one last fling. Addicts struggle to deal with the depressing accompaniments of their secret life—lies, deceptions, scapegoating, alternating rage and self-pity, isolation, fear of discovery, the loss of real intimacy with loved ones.”
“When her attempts at self-management fail, as they usually do, and when her self-esteem plummets, as it always does, the addict feels compelled to seek solace in her obsessive behavior and thus cycles down one more level. Addictions flourish by feeding on human attempts to master them.”
“Addiction is misplaced longing. Healthy people keep a rein on their longings; enjoy the freedom that is born of contentment (a “freedom from want”) which is in turn owed to a sturdy and persistent discipline of desire; eat and drink only enough to relieve hunger and thirst, not to sate themselves.”
“Addictions include patterns of self-seeking, childish impatience with delayed gratification, and refusal to accept reasonable limits on behavior. Addiction is disordered appetite.”
“People often commit sins in order to relieve distress caused by other sins.”
We ran out of time before we could discuss the notes I had provided about Dr. Welch’s Crossroads Addictions Curriculum (I have even more information on this curriculum available on my liveblogs from his teaching the material when it was first released):
“The inner world of addiction is: foreign, hidden, complicated, insane, shame-filled, hopeless, immature, and God-suppressing. The fog of addiction is so messy and unclear that it is hard to find words to express it.”
“The words, “STOP IT” are not enough.”
“The experience of addiction is complicated. Coexisting in one heart: hatred for the addictive object; love for the addictive object. You find death and you find life. Warring themes; kingdoms in conflict. Chaos and insanity. Hopelessness. Immaturity.”
“So how do you start? ‘Lord, have mercy!’ The Fear of the Lord is the beginning of change.”
“We sin because we love it. That’s why saying, “No” is not effective. We say “no” when the thing is far away. But when it gets close? We love it. That’s why when talking to the addict, we quickly begin saying, “we” instead of “you.” Remember the Pharisee and the tax collector? This is a wonderful beginning every day treatment for the addictive heart. We come to the temple and don’t feel worthy to lift our heads. “Lord have mercy toward me a sinner.”
“We have a God Who delights in showering an abundance of mercy on those who ask for mercy. Those who ask for mercy receive an abundance of mercy.”
“Your struggle is a common one. Don’t begin with the idea that your experience is out of the ordinary. It is, of course, unique—no one completely understands your struggle (not even you). Still, we are all cut from the same cloth. All of us, if we are truly honest would have to acknowledge a familiarity with that tug of addictions. A lot of wanting is in the human heart. The desire for drugs, alcohol, sex, and food are the more dramatic ones, but they aren’t fundamentally different from our cravings for comfort, significance, relationship, money, love, and so on. Try to find one person who has successfully and consistently said no to any of those wants. You won’t succeed.”
“The path you will be traveling has much to do with God. That should come as no surprise. Books about addictions always say something about God. But much more is happening between you and God than you may think. You will be surprised: To learn how you avoid him; To learn how he pursues you; That you know him more than you think; That you know him less than you think.”
“If at all possible, do this work with someone else. Addictions are private, so doing this in public is a way to take a stand against your addiction. God has always planned for people to live and grow in a community, where we give and receive, pray for others and get prayed for, and learn wisdom and offer it.”
And then we closed with an extended time of prayer. I shared my favorite quote from Paul Miller’s excellent book, A Praying Life:
“Jesus does not say, “Come to me all you who have learned how to concentrate in prayer, whose minds no longer wander, and I will give you rest.” No. Jesus opens his arms to his needy children and says, “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). The criteria for coming to Jesus is weariness. Come overwhelmed with life. Come with your wandering mind. Come messy … Don’t try to get the prayer right; just tell God where you are and what’s on your mind … Private, personal prayer is one of the last great bastions of legalism. In order to pray like a child, you might need to unlearn the non-personal, non-real praying that you’ve been taught. The real you has to meet the real God.”
ASSIGNMENT FOR THIS WEEK
- Read the handout: “Sin, Sickness, or Both?” (from pgs 17-43 of Addictions: A Banquet at the Grave) and come prepared next week to discuss its contents. Also complete the questions on pages 41-42 (“As You Face Your Own Addiction”) and consider sharing some of your responses if you feel comfortable doing so. (No pressure!)
- Read the (brief!) handout: “Streams in the Desert” (from pgs 212-214 of How People Change) and come prepared next week to discuss its contents.
(If you would like to read the summaries from all of our church’s summer women’s study sessions on “Disordered Affections,” you can read week 1 here, week 2 here, week 3 here, week 4 here, and week 5 here.)
