Time for Hope has had the privilege of having many gifted and insightful authors appear as our guests through the years. We have decided to rerun from time to time some of our past shows related to subjects that did and will again give our viewers the opportunity to be informed and inspired to accept the challenges they are currently experiencing in their lives. For meeting the challenge of dealing with addictive behavior, Dr. Frida has chosen to rerun her interview with her friend Neil T. Anderson as they discussed his book, Freedom From Addiction. Welcome to Time for Hope. Today, our guest is Dr. Neal T. Anderson, author, speaker, founder and president emeritus of Freedom in Christ Ministries. And we're discussing one of his many books, Freedom from Addiction. Addiction forges its own chains of pain and problems that grow with each day and seem impossible to overcome. But the good news is that anyone can be set free from addictive behavior. The key is to identify the root cause of your problem and instead of running away from it, run to God. Do this and your mind and spirit will be renewed. And Neil, it's great having you again on Time for Hope. NEIL LEVINSON It's always great to be here. DC You're kind of one of our regulars. We have some of those and we're always happy to have you. NEIL LEVINSON Thank you. Thank you. DC I like this word freedom that shows up just across the board almost in your books. And so, I'm going to right off the bat, I'm going to ask you, Neil, what's behind that? How did you start coming up with this whole idea of freedom from this? Freedom from that, deliverance from this, deliverance from that. Well, one of your favorite verses, you told me earlier, was it's for freedom that Christ set us free. And my burden is that I've not seen that in a lot of our Christian people. In fact, after years of trooping around this world and in this country and talking to pastors and, you know, finishing our conferences, I've asked them, I said, what percentage of your people do you think are living a free, productive life in Christ? And I would say the pretty consistent answer is about 15%. And what a tragedy. You know, to be alive and free in Christ is the birthright of every child of God. And so that's been my passion is, you know, just for years trying to figure out, okay, how do we resolve that? How do we resolve this? And keep looking towards some sense of resolution so that people can experience what Christ has really, you know, promised them, which I think is potentially true for every child of God. Now, when you, when you're speaking of freedom from this and freedom from that, freedom from the other and freedom in Christ, you're thinking of the various things that Christians themselves can become enslaved by or be bound by. Yeah. You know, if you had to, to reduce it down to, you know, the bottom line, I guess, basically they're bondage to the lie. I mean, that's why it's truth that sets us free. If you look at anybody trying to come out of addiction, what's the first step? Got to get out of denial and face the truth. And so, I mean, truth is a very encompassing thing. I mean, it has a very relative dimension. It's true that you and I are talking right now. It's true that the temperature is this, and so there's a very factual aspect of that. But God is truth. He is the way, the truth, and the life. And the truth will set us free, and He will set us free. And so this is something God wants every child of God, I think, to experience. Not all are, unfortunately. And so, you know, that's been my journey ever since I left the pastorate to teach at the seminary. I mean, when I was a pastor, I knew there were people in my church who had problems I didn't have answers for, which really bothered me. I believe Christ was the answer, and truth has set people free. But how? And so, you know, you're right. I've applied this to chemical addiction, to depression, to anxiety, to anger, to kind of you name it. And that's been my journey because I really do believe in my heart that we as children of God can live a liberated life in Christ. No Christian has to be bound, has to be bound by anything. Wouldn't you say that's a true statement? Now, let's go back to truth. When I was doing my orals for my d-men, finishing up my d-men, and I had this oral committee there and I used this very thing, you know, the truth shall set you free. And one of those interrogators, one on my committee just stopped me right there and said, Well, now that's not always true. Think of the person that has murdered someone. And if they tell the truth, it's not going to set them free. So, I thought that's kind of ironic when we speak of the truth setting you free. But you and I still believe it. No, in spite of that view. Well, that's, frankly, that's pathetic. I had to defend myself with that. Well, you can be free in a prison. I mean, you know, Solzhenitsyn, I think, wanted us to see that when he came over. He realized his own freedom in the Gulag. I mean, the freedom we're talking about is not the external world that we're dealing with, it's the internal world. Being free inside, being free to be the person God created me to be. And, you know, if you falsely accuse me and imprison me or whatever else, I said, that doesn't mean I can't be free. I mean, some of the most liberated people I met are people I deal with inside prisons, for instance. And, you know, so, you know, that's a, from a theologian. That's a tragic question. I'm really disappointed in that. DC I think I handled it well. I think I was able to come out of that one. Now, let's carry that over into addiction and some things you actually bring out in one of your two books. We're also talking about and gleaning some of this from your other book, Overcoming Addictive Behavior. And that is that it's not something, it's something wrong with a person's life, addiction. You made that statement. It's more than a problem with addiction. There's a problem with life. It's a life problem. People don't have sex problems, drug problems, or gambling problems. They have a life problem. And I think that even the secular world is starting to wake up to that. Boy, if I can just get you to abstain. Well, you take the alcohol away from an alcoholic and you got a dry drunk. I mean, he's still got all kinds of problems. You haven't even dealt with the reason why he went that direction in the first place. And you haven't dealt with the fact that the moment he went into that addictive behavior, which is his flesh pattern, we all have them. I said his whole emotional development was arrested at that time. So he may be 40, but emotionally he may be 15. And so you've got to deal with this as a total life issue. You can't see this as an individual problem in an individual family, for instance. That family has a problem. And if that person's a church, the church has a problem. It affects everything we do. So I think this one-dimensional kind of thinking has really hurt our process of recovery and frankly has left people in bondage. It's time for a break. Stay with us and we'll be right back. Well, there are a lot of reasons why people start drinking, even drugging. I mean, it could be peer pressure. It could be escape. It could be to deal with pain in their lives. It could be just for social reasons to begin with. But if you're asking why they become addicted, which I assume that we're talking about here, I think the reason people become addicted is because the root problem is That people, they grow up believing lies about themselves. For example, I'll give my personal example. I grew up in a very dysfunctional home. I grew up in my parents fought violently all of the time. I was very insecure. My dad told me I couldn't do anything right, so I thought I was inadequate. They said I was inferior to my brother and sister, so I believed I was inferior. If anything was done wrong, they came looking for me, usually I was the one who had done it. So I grew up feeling guilty, so here I am. Growing up, I'm a teenager, and I feel like I'm insecure, inadequate, inferior, and guilty. And so I began to develop patterns and ways of dealing with that, learning to cope with life, learning to just get through life, defend myself, get by, try to be a success, avoid failure. And I developed these flash patterns, and one of them turns out to be alcoholism. I mean, it was something I could use. So, what I did is I developed a stronghold in that area that later becomes an addiction. To me, an addiction is nothing but spiritual bondage. So basically, what I've done is I've developed this spiritual bondage, and the root problem being that I don't know how, even as a Christian, to look to God to meet my basic needs. And so what I do is I take what I can. With me, alcoholism. Other people, it might be different things. It might be workaholism, perfectionism, codependency, sex addiction, or other things. It doesn't have to be a drug or an alcohol addiction. The hope I can offer someone who has an addiction and doesn't believe they have the power to overcome an addiction is to agree with them that they don't have the power to overcome an addiction. In fact, the problem is that most addicts think that they can. They're just like I was. Okay, I can overcome this. If I will just apply the right spiritual principles, if I'll pray a little bit longer, read my Bible a little bit longer, get into a better discipleship group, get into an accountability group, well, they were all real good things to do. But by and large, I was depending on myself, believing that what I could do would help me and enable me to find freedom in Christ. You know, I think the key to overcoming any addictive behavior is coming to the end of yourself and your resources. In other words, the best day of my life was the day of my brokenness. When I came to the end of myself and my resources, I realized there was nothing that I could do to free myself. As Christians, we know There's nothing that we can do to save ourselves, but really there's nothing that we can do to make ourselves free. I mean, that has to come from faith in Christ. And Jesus said, you know the truth, and the truth would set you free. And so I think there's a great hope for a person who's at that point because I think then they're willing to give up on themselves and really look to Christ and trust Him to give them the freedom that's already there so they can experience it. It's good to have you rejoin us on Time for Hope. We're talking with Dr. Neal Anderson about his book, Freedom from Addiction. But first, I want to share something from a viewer. I am a recovering drug and alcohol addict and suffering from physical and mental illness. I am also having financial difficulties. I do not have any family and have no friends to give me emotional support. I feel very lonely and scared. I desperately need hope. Please pray for me." And of course, as we do with each and every prayer request that comes into Time for Hope, we have joined this person in prayer. It's easy to read as we read this and understand that indeed they are scared, they're lonely, and those are the kinds of people that can reach out to God. And we know with God there is hope in the thing that this person is missing. If you will share your prayer request with us, we'll do the same thing with it. We will turn to God. Also, we direct you to the Time for Hope website. Many great resources there to help people that are struggling and people that are hopeless. We'll be putting Dr. Anderson's book on that resource list. As you take and go to the website and get resources from the Time for Hope resource list, you're helping this ministry financially and we would appreciate that. Neil, let's talk about this person. When we get this kind of letter in our note, we try to give it immediate attention because it says, I desperately need hope. What do you have to say to this viewer? Well, I get a lot of emails like that. And my first concept, to be honest with you, where's the church? I mean, she has no family, but where's the church? Where's the body of Christ? Wasn't mentioned, was it? How do we get out of loneliness? We get into fellowship with God first, of course, and with His people. And a lot of times, this has always been my frustration. You know, I taught at a seminary for 10 years. was to try to somehow or another equip the church to be a resource for these kind of people, to have a ministry there that would legitimately help somebody like that. And we got an answer, folks. I mean, we have an answer in Christ, and truth will set this person free. But she needs somebody to come alongside her. She needs to be connected in some kind of a group that's going to give her some answers and pick her up and help her during that time. And so I think this is what the body of Christ was intended to be. She needs a group praying for her. She needs a group supporting her. If she needs someone to help her find professional help, if that's needed, medical help is needed. There's all, teamwork is needed here, isn't it? BD- Very much so. And if you listen to what she said, you know, kind of all alone. I said the national average right now of somebody who is addicted to some kind of a chemical, to go into treatment, all they receive is treatment, the failure rate is 97%. If that's all they do, they just go into treatment, go through a program, 97% will fail. If they go out of that group and get into some kind of a support network, maybe with a sponsor even, still about 80% will fail. If they go out of that group and into a church, a good church, about 70%. upon first effort will still fail. If they have a support group, a sponsor, and a good church, only about 10% will fail. But what that really suggests to you is that you need that kind of support and encouragement to walk through this kind of a battle. You probably won't do it alone. And yet some people just look for that. I'm going to go out to Betty Ford, for instance, which their national failure rate is 97%. But I'm going to go out there. I'm going to be isolated. Nobody's going to know about it. I'm going to get treatment. I'm going to recover this thing." And how many have tried that and have failed? And a lot of it is just to avoid the shame, I suppose. But I said, that's not going to be a long-term answer. I mean, somewhere you're just going to have to learn to walk in the light. So, it's run to God, as we said earlier. Run to God and go to His people. And go to His people, even though He can use other, like professionals and sometimes hospitals and medical help. The core, the core is what you're talking about. We were never intended to live this life by ourselves. No. I mean, so if you're trying to solve all your problems in isolation, it probably won't happen. Now, let's look at the problem we're talking about, addiction, and mainly in your books. You had some co-authors here, Mike and Julia Quarles, and again, a story within the book of Mike, I believe, and his problem with alcohol. When we think of alcohol, There are 22 million Americans addicted. And I believe it is to alcohol that we're talking about. And 75 percent of these are men. And then we look at, we can go right on down the line. But there have, there has to be a reason why we have such a great number of people struggling with addiction, Neil. What's, you know, the question is why? Why do they get into it? I think you could put it in three categories. Number one is, for young kids, it's party time. Get rid of the inhibitions. Go out. It's the peer pressure kind of an issue. And that traps an awful lot of our young people. And that starts the addictive path for many, many people. The other one is, I think most people don't realize, this is not just a blue-collar problem. This is primarily a white-collar issue. And that's the happy hour issue, the pressure, the stress of life. And so here's some temporary relief from that. So I'll stop off after work. And then there's a third category, those who are addicted because of pain, prescription-type medication. They got one dominant thing in their mind. It's not world evangelization. It's how do I stop the pain? How do I stop the pain? Relief. Relief. Escape is what they're looking for. Isn't it time for another break? And we'll be right back. When the word addiction is referred to, we tend to think of alcohol and drugs. But there are many faces of addiction, including internet, porn, food, work, sports, religion, gambling, ministry, relationship, and others. So, what is an addiction? Since its tentacles reach in so many directions, it's difficult to come up with a fitting definition to cover them all, but I'm going to attempt it. Addiction is any psychological, emotional, or physiological dependence on a substance, behavior, pleasure, or person to relieve anxiety, depression, or guilt, Provide escape from reality to generate excitement and or boost a person's self-esteem. Addictions control through obsessive thinking and compulsive behavior. One word that will wrap all of this up is bondage. When we become addicted to something or someone, we become a slave. We are no longer free, but the addiction becomes our master. It beckons and we follow. If it is a substance, we must have it. If it is an activity, we must engage in it. If it's a person, we have to be with that person. And this is true even when it's painful to be in relationship with the person to whom we are addicted. Those addicted to porn will risk losing their families for the thrill of engaging in their forbidden fantasies. Addictive cravings are never satisfied. They continue to cry out for more, and more is never enough. I've heard the true story of a man who stole the shoes off his dead infant's feet as she lay in the coffin, went out and sold them to buy another drink. Even the lesser addictions, such as food and recreation, exert amazing control over their victims. I don't want to leave you with this dark picture, but instead assure you that there is hope of deliverance, but you must want to be free. And to be free, you must be willing to admit that you have a problem and accept the reality that it's too big for you to tackle alone. You will need the help of family, friends, and professionals. And above all, repentance towards God and a new or restored relationship with Jesus Christ. When He lives and reigns within you, you have a resource bigger and more powerful than any addiction. Welcome back to Time for Hope as we close out our discussion with Dr. Neal Anderson about his book, Freedom from Addiction. We're also gleaning from his companion book, Overcoming Addictive Behavior, a smaller book, more condensed, but says basically, Neal, what you've said in the big book, plus the story of Julia and Mike is in the big book, isn't it? Mike was the number one stockbroker in Birmingham, Alabama, drove himself into the stops, and as a result of it, came to Christ. And when he announced that he was going to go off to seminary, his wife left him. So, I mean, he just suffered a lot of loss at that time. And he met Julia, who'd lost her first husband to death, and they went off to seminary, and he became a five-point Calvinist Presbyterian pastor, and drove himself into the same stops, and realized one day what he was saying to people wasn't working for himself, went back and became a stockbroker and a hopeless alcoholic. And as a result of it, he finally one day, I mean it's just a remarkable story that they went through, that he suddenly discovered what it really was and meant to be a child of God and never drink again. They're just a wonderful couple and have been a real asset to our ministry. So, that, let's go back on that. Discovered what it meant to really be a child of God. One can be a child of God and not discover that. Exactly. So, many just received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God. But poor old Mike was desperately trying to become somebody he already is. And now that's a problem that's prevalent all over the church. And that ties directly into what we are concerned about. I just spoke in Minneapolis to a big recovery conference that they had there. And I want to call ahead to find out where they at. Are they just buying all the stuff that we're hearing from the world? Or are they really into a kind of a Christ-centered type of a program? And I was so thrilled to hear the progress that's being made in the industry, in the Christian industry, in this area right now. Because I have never bought into the disease model. I don't buy it. Secondly, I don't believe you should sit there in a circle and reinforce a failure identity. I'm not an alcoholic. I'm a child of God who's struggling with this right now. But the answer out of that is to really realize what it really means to be in Christ, to be alive and free in Christ, to be a child of God. And they were already there. So I was thrilled to hear that. And it's still a debate around the country, but I know why they say it. I want to get out of denial, and I totally agree with that. If you can't say that you've got a problem, there's nobody that's going to help you, and you're not even going to look for an answer. Whether it's addiction or whether it's- Anything else. Like sexual addiction ties right into this. Well, at that conference, this is the first time I've ever asked this publicly. I said, how many here that are working with chemical addiction realize that people looking for treatment are also sexually addicted? How many would say less than 50%? Nobody raised their hand. How many would say more than 90? Everybody raised their hand. Now, that's not an official poll, but that's what I've observed. And they will not even seek answers for that. So our little book, Finding Freedom in a Sex-Obsessed World, is like a companion to this, because they will go in for what is obvious. See, you can be chemically addicted, and truth of the matter, it's just going to show up in job performance, it's going to show up in your behavior, demeanor, your health, everything. You can be sexually addicted and be the President of the United States. And so you can carry on that charade for years, and it is far more prevalent than chemical addiction. Faith prevalent in the church. Oh, everywhere. Everywhere you go right now. 60 Minutes had a program. I downloaded the hard copy of it because I wanted to make sure the facts were right. I would just sat there astonished. There are 800 million rentals of DVDs or VHS on hardcore pornography. 800 million. that are available out there. It's probably the biggest money maker. Last year, more money was spent on adult education than all combined professional sports put together. If you push the word sex into a search engine like Google, you'll get 800 million hits. Okay, so we've got a little bit of time left. How do they find this freedom from all of this addiction? Well, you know, I have a one step program. It's called Christ, to be honest with you. Christ will set you free. And I believe He already has if we understood the truth. And so, it all comes back into a whole life issue, which we mentioned earlier. You've got to deal with the whole person. These people have dramatic needs. If you take that alcohol away from an alcoholic, you're just going to have a dry drunk. He's still got overwhelming needs in his life. He's never learned how to deal with his pain, how to deal with the trials and tribulations of life. He can even go back to childhood, unmet needs. It does go back to childhood in most cases. It can be need deprivation that was carried over into the marriage. It can be all kinds of needs. But the lie that you talked about, the lie that alcohol or any other addiction will meet that need, it's a lie. It still requires the truth that's found in Jesus Christ. Absolutely. And we've got an obligation. I think what Paul says in Titus, teach your people to meet pressing needs so that they may not be unfruitful. We have pressing needs in our church. How is Christ the answer? How does He meet all of my needs according to His richness and glory? If you had a definitive answer for that, truth of the matter is, people would throw it away. See, we're not even trying to take away the drug or the alcohol. If that's all you did, it's like taking an old bone away from a dog. You're going to have a dog fight. You're taking away his means of coping, all being wrong. And I said, we're going to throw him a stake. And I think like Mike find out himself, I'll spit out that bone once I have that stake. Once you give me an adequate answer for this, I won't need to go this route anymore. They don't understand. Even they've got to come to understand that Jesus says that He's made by God unto us wisdom, righteous, sanctification and redemption. that we are complete in Him and that we can be healed and restored from these needs can be met and we can be healed and experience restoration. Neil, I've got to go. It's time to go. It's great having you. And of course, we encourage our viewers to get both or three of your books. And it's been wonderful having you and been wonderful having you on Time for Hope. And we look forward to your joining us again next week. A free fact sheet that contains additional information about today's topic is available upon request from our ministry. You can also receive a copy of today's resource for $16 plus $3 shipping and handling. To receive the free fact sheet, or our guest's book, or both, you may call us at 1-800-669-9133. Write us at Post Office Box 2169, Spartanburg, South Carolina, 29304. Or visit our website at timeforhope.org. When you call or write, please prayerfully consider a donation to our ministry. Our ministry's mission is to offer hope to discouraged and hurting people. As we continue to give out messages of hope, you can become a member of our team by sending us a financial gift of any amount. When you send your gift to support Time for Hope, you are joining us in offering hope to many viewers who might believe there is no hope for their situation. And you're also enabling us to inform and inspire some viewers to expand our mission as they learn and in turn can minister more effectively to hurting people around them. To see this program again online, go to our website or find us on YouTube. Until next time, have a great week, and remember, it is time for hope.