FREEDOM FROM ADDICTIONS

Nobody is born with the mental aspect of addiction to alcohol or drugs, although a newborn baby can have severe physical problems due to his or her mother’s addiction to alcohol or drugs. People become addicted by a series of choices that they make in the process of growing older—although, I hesitate to call it “growing up,” because addictions severely inhibit maturation. In the same way, nobody is offered at birth a career in engineering, medicine, law or ministry. People achieve those prominent positions by a series of choices and hard work. If they are successful, it is because they assumed responsibility for their own attitudes and actions.
We should, however, be careful about rushing to judgment. If we had been subjected to the same harsh treatment that many of these people had to endure, we would have been tempted to make the same decisions they have made. If we had the same parents, family and neighbors they had, it is very likely that we would be struggling as they are.
Most addicts are products of their past and are very needy. Children growing up in single-parent families are twice as likely as their counterparts to develop serious psychiatric illnesses and addictions later in life, according to a recent study that tracked about 1 million children for a decade—into their mid-20s. Females were three times as likely to become drug addicts if they lived with only one parent; males four times as likely.
And given the decline of the nuclear family and the high percentage of broken homes, we are facing a huge problem. But the good news is that people can be set free from The past and become new creations in Christ.