99Relapses Podcast Episode #5 Part II- Show Notes 

Hi, I’m James Egidio welcome to the 99Relapses podcast. The podcast that moves you from recovery to discovery through the Grace and Mercy of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. This is podcast episode number five, part two of desire and how it relates to addiction in podcast number four I discussed desire and it’s role in addiction and then I finished with Repression versus Addiction in this episode part two, I will discuss Attachment versus Detachment as well as Grace and Hope in its role in addiction.

If you listened to episode number four, I stated at that to understand addiction you cannot overlook our innate desire for God, I also mentioned in episode number four, how repression and addiction are related and how we repress our feelings of love and gravitate to those things that we become addicted to or attached to, which leads into idolatry, which I had mentioned is of course sin.

When I defined desire, I compared and contrasted the desire in the worldly definition of desire, of course, which is to express a wish or longing for a want or to be sexually attracted to another person or to express a wish for a request or to have, or feel desire, but desire goes a lot deeper than that because our worldly desires get snuffed out by our addictions and they get snuffed out by the things that we lose track of, and we turn away from God and we discount God.

In this episode, I want to talk about attachment versus detachment and I want to mention that when you’re addicted and you’re deep into an addiction that addiction becomes an addiction to a specific behavior, object, or person and that attachment then becomes the process that binds and enslaves our desire and creates that state of addiction and of course, as I mentioned in episode number four, these attachments manifest themselves and become addictions like drugs, alcohol, pornography, food, smartphones and of course the list goes on and on.

In episode number seven, I’ll explain what aversion addictions are versus attraction addictions and those are pretty interesting actually; they’re actually entertaining This attachment. which leads to addiction is mentioned the Bible and I define it as idolatry and of course the Bible talks about idolatry in Galatians 5:19-21, which is a verse that I read in episode number four but I’ll read it again and it reads by the apostle Paul.

When you follow the desires of your sinful nature the results are very clear sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarrelling jealousy, outburst of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy drunkenness, wild parties and other sins like these let me tell you again, as I have before that anyone living that sort of life. Will not inherit the kingdom of heaven.

When you read that verse and you listened to it you can see that Paul clearly defines specific addictions that we’re all challenged with. Sexual immmorality through pornography drunkenness, division, envy, dissension, self ambition, wild parties, jealousy, outburst of anger all these things sneak into our addiction. It’s a list of all of the things that we go through and how we react when we’re addicted and we’re attached to something and that’s exactly what I mean when I say attached. These attachments and these addictions go hand in hand and we get consumed and discount our innate desire, for God, we forget who God is and the joy that we receive when we have a relationship with God.

The next thing I want to talk about of course, is detachment and it’s associated with addiction and freedom of desire, not freedom from desire the attachment aims at correcting your anxious grasping in order to free yourself for a full and committed relationship to God, so when you detach yourself, from God, and attach yourself to your addictions you’re doing just that you’re detaching yourself but in this context, the word detachment is not used to define a coldness or austerity or lack of passion, but it’s defined as detachment from behaviors and attitudes that bind us up from surrendering to a loving God.

We have to detach ourselves from our addictive behavior and attach ourselves to God and that’s how that’s defined. I call it surrendering, the verse that comes to mind in the Bible comes from.

The book of James 4:7, and it reads, submit yourselves therefore to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

Another verse that talks about surrendering to God comes from 2 Corinthians 5:17 and reads, therefore, if anyone is in, Christ, he is a new creation, the old has passed away behold, the new has come.

What happens is we get attached to these addictions but if we detach ourselves for the love of God we free ourselves, in essence, we’re no longer slaves to that addiction, and there’s great joy in that. When I say great joy I like to use the acronym J.O.Y. because, when you’re free from that addiction and you’re filled with the holy spirit and you’re filled with Gods love, It provides great joy, but that joy also in turn flows in the other direction towards people and when, I use the word J.O.Y. As an acronym for Jesus first Other’s second and Yourself last and of course, this is something I’ve heard by many pastors at church services. Unfortunately As humans we get pulled into this mindset of the worldly ways and the things that are out there that the enemy throws at us and this life that we could be having, that’s filled with the holy spirit and our love for God and love for others, which of course comes from the two greatest commandments.

Matthew 22:37-40, which reads and Jesus replied, you must love the Lord, your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. Second is equally important. Love your neighbor as yourself. The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments The mindset of the worldly ways holds us back from that joy of loving Jesus first and others second and yourself last, you always put yourself at the top, and then you put Jesus last and then you put other second and what this way of thinking does is it leads into these behaviors of pride, ego, anger, judgment, vanity, greed, self-consumption, self-centeredness that usually manifest themselves, of course, into addictions and that’s due to our sin nature, which all started at the beginning of the garden of Eden. We have to free ourselves from this mindset of self-centeredness and self-consumption and because these are all addictions. A lot of people think, and I’ll mention this in the next episode that addictions are drugs and alcohol, but that’s the furthest thing from the truth we’re continually addicted to different things.

One of the late German theologians Meister Eckhart once said detachment and Enkindles the heart awakens the spirit and stimulates our longings and shows us where God is that’s something to think about.

When I come back from this commercial break I will talk about grace and hope. 

Okay, welcome back to the 99 relapses podcast in the first half of this show, I talked about attachment versus detachment and I talked about of course J.O.Y., putting Jesus first, others second and yourself last and that we get misled and caught up in our own world with pride, ego, anger, judgment, vanity, greed, and so on and so forth through our addictions and we neglect the love of God first and others second. In this. Last half of this episode, I’m going to talk about grace and joy and how they play a role in addiction and of course, I’ll talk about grace first.

Grace, failure and hopelessness, I have to say is probably our greatest asset when it comes to grace and grace is our only hope for dealing with addiction it frees us from addiction and becomes the absolute expression of perfect love,

There was a quote from Dr. Gerald May’s book Addiction and Grace, which describes grace for Christians as the dynamic outpouring of God’s loving nature that flows into and through creation in an endless self offering of healing, love, illumination, and reconciliation.

It is a gift that we are free to ignore, reject, ask for, or simply accept and it is a gift that is often given in spite of our intentions and errors. Grace itself cannot be possessed. It is eternally free and like the spirit that give it, it blows where it will, we can seek it and try to be open to it, but we cannot control it.

St. Augustine. The great Explorer once said that God is always trying to give good things to us, but our hands are too full to receive them.

I personally say that we as humans try to control the outcome of everything instead of handing everything over to God, we work overtime to play God and for our hands are full, they’re full of things we’re addicted to most of the time, not only our hands, but our hearts, minds, attention are all consumed with addiction most of the time.

Hope, as well is defined of course by Webster’s dictionary which is the second thing I want to talk about to wish for a particular event that one considers possible or to have confidence and trust to have desire and consider possible. The worldview of hope is not confident hope as most of us know, it’s a very wishy, washy hope maybe even unsure hope or optimism.

The modern idea of hope is to wish for, to expect without certainty of the fulfillment. It’s a flimsy hope it’s a to desire very much, but with no real assurance of getting our desire. It’s not a very confident hope. But hope in faith hope in God, hope in Jesus Christ, is a different hope, that hope is deep it’s a deep hope it’s a hope that’s defined in the Bible and it’s in scripture and it’s a strong, confident expectation of a hope and hope is from a biblical standpoint, the kind of hope that we all would want and need in our lives.

One of the verses that comes to mind comes from Romans 8:24-25, which reads, we were given this hope when we were saved if we already have something we don’t need to hope for it, but if we look forward to something we don’t yet have we must wait patiently and confidently.

The late Martin Luther King said in regard to hope; I refuse to accept the idea that is-ness, this of our present nature makes us morally incapable of reaching up for the oughtness that forever confronts us and of course, one of my favorite verses about hope comes from the book of

Romans 15:12-13 and reads in another place Isaiah said, the heir to Davids throne will come and he will rule over the Gentiles they will place their hope on him. I pray that God, the source of hope will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.

And as addicted individuals who believe that Jesus Christ is our Lord and savior, hope is where we get our peace. We have to also remember that God made us in his image.

Genesis 1:27, which reads, so God created human beings in his own image in the image of God, he created them male and female. He created them.

As we get through our addiction we have to realize one of the most important things is that addiction is sin and we have to repent and continue to persevere Gods unfailing love for us with confident hope and because it’s sin and because we have to repent doesn’t mean that God doesn’t forgive you , he is not pointing at us and continually being mad at us, but we’re accountable to God for our addictions and we know, and we have that confident hope and know that God loves us enough and they brought his son to the cross and he was sacrificed at that cross for our sins and we have to appreciate that and we have to recognize that in our addiction.

As I mentioned earlier, as powerful as addiction is the enemy of grace. I can also just as easily bring us to our knees in grace and the apostle Paul illustrates this best in 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 when he says, even though I have received such wonderful revelations from God so to keep me from becoming proud, I was given a thorn in my flesh a messenger from Satan to torment me and keep me from becoming proud three times I begged the Lord to take it away each time he said, my grace is all you need. My power works in weakness so now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses so that the power of Christ can work through me that’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses and in the insults hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the 99 relapses podcast.

I like to close this episode out with a prayer.

Heavenly Father I just give you so much thanks and praise, Lord we just thank you so much for each and every day that you give us. Lord, we lift you up to the highest throne Lord, we just thank you so much for each and every day that you give us that you’re a loving God you’re an omnipotent God, omnipresent God you’re a powerful God who brought you only begotten Son Jesus Christ, our Lord and savior, who went to the cross, who you brought to the cross to be sacrificed for our sins and that we’re to repent on our knees and ask for forgiveness, Lord. And as I pray Lord, as I continue to pray, I just thank you so much for all the people that come to this podcast to listen and listen through the message of hope, the only hope that you can provide Lord through your word and through your son, Jesus Christ. That you free us from our addictions, that you continue to free us from those addictions with great joy where we put Jesus first and the other second and ourselves last and that we know that only you can provide us with that strength and that courage, and that hope that confident hope that only your son can bring to us through the power and glory of your son, Jesus Christ and we thank you so much in Jesus’s name Amen.

I just want her to close with a few announcements for the 99 relapses podcast. Many of you. I’m sure it go to a lot of podcast on the internet, through different platforms and you listen to these podcast, however, I just can’t emphasize it enough that the 99Relapses podcast and what makes it unique compared to other, podcast, and I’m not here too brag about the podcast, but to let you the listener know that the 99 relapses podcast is specifically designed to be an interactive podcast, so not only do you get the listening experience, but you can actually go to the 99 relapses podcast website which of course is https://www.99Relapses.org and when you get to the website, you can, of course obviously listened to previous episodes starting with the first one and go all the way through but to keep in mind that it’s a podcast that allows you to participate in the exercises and tools that are in accord with each episode, barring the fact that it may be an episode where of course I obviously interview a guest. So it’s almost like in a one-on-one Coaching and counseling session for you, the listener, the individual.

Thank you for listening to this episode of the 99Relapses.org relapses podcast for current and past podcast episodes, show notes, episode memory versus, episode recovery exercises, as well as Bibles and books on addiction and recovery go to 99Relapses.org that’s 99Rrelapses.org. Also, if you would like prayer request for yourself, family or friends, please do not hesitate to send me your prayer request and finally, if you have an interesting story to share about how God changed your life through addiction and recovery are an expert in the field of Christian addiction and recovery. Have published a book, have a Christian addiction, recovery podcast or website, and you would like to promote it on the 99 relapses podcast please email me any time by going to 99 relapses.org and go to the contact page to message me. I will respond within 24 to 48 hours. Also. The 99 relapses podcast. Is it nonprofit? 501 C3 ministry and it donation would be much appreciated in order to get God’s word out during these perilous times when confronted with an out of control addiction. All proceeds, go towards paying expenses and maintaining the podcast website, content, and functionality of the 99 relapses ministry. Thank you and God Bless