Drugs and Drinking no more, A 40 day program: Day 12
If you have a strong enough reason to quit your addiction you will succeed in quitting. Tips: To aid you through your high temptation periods you need a list of activities that you can do as a substitute for a drinking/drugs addiction. Idea’s include exercise, play a game, spend time with friends and read something spiritual. Remember that growing spiritually is often helpful in fighting addiction.
Write out your own list of substitute activities.
During intense temptation have a list of coping statements. Something like – my addiction has caused me destruction, it has in the past and it will in the future if I don’t quit. Or, This temptation will go away if I don’t act on it. If I give in, it will return and it may be even stronger next time. If I don’t give in it will go away and someday it will go away for good. I have the self control to change.
Use temptation situations as a way to work on problems. First of all identify what sequence of events lead up to you craving drinking/drugs? Your problem sequence may be that you get mad at your partner or family member. You are bored with life anyways and off you go.
You need to know the normal sequence of events that lead you to drinking/drugs.
More Tips to Quit Drinking or Drugs: In advance you need to have written idea’s of what you will do instead. Now when the severe temptation comes you can use it as an opportunity to work on these other problems.
For example; if anger is a trigger pray about that. What is your trigger? Pray and plan on how you can defuse it.
“It is not only for what we do that we are held responsible, but also for what we do not do.”
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (Moliere) Overcoming Addiction Quote
Ephesians 2:10 New Testament for Everyone (NTE) This is the explanation: God has made us what we are. God has created us in King Jesus for the good works that he prepared, ahead of time, as the road we must travel.
2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”
Pray to be filled with the Spirit. Pray as you go to sleep, pray when you wake up. Pray Father fill me with your love, fill me with your Spirit, help me to avoid sin, show me my purpose. Make helping poor people as one of your ministries. Pray for every person who visits this website. Pray that no one who ever visits this site will ever commit suicide. Pray that people will understand that it is sometimes a long process from them doing their own thing to opening up to God’s love and doing His thing. Pray that people will be saved.
Fear can sometimes lead to addiction. The Bible says in 2nd Timothy 1:7 For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. When we start to be filled with the Spirit this verse starts to come true overcoming this emotion as well as other harmful emotions.
Matthew 5 is about how we can change so that we will start to be blessed by God. www.relijournal.com noted the following
The Fifth Beatitude v7
God blesses those who are merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
Mercy is love toward those that need some sort of support, especially in the area of forgiveness. God shows us mercy. We need His mercy every day because were are not perfect and we sin daily. If God is willing to give us mercy then we should be happy to extend mercy to others. In the Lord’s Prayer we say, “forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us”. We must forgive and show mercy if we expect God to do the same for us.
Pride prevents God showing us mercy and us showing mercy to others. Self righteousness brings about pride and prevents us from learning from God because it puts a barrier up straight away. Ephesians 5:1-2 talks about following Jesus’ example in showing mercy by living a life of love. The Old Testament speaks on it too (Psalm 41:1 and more!)
Pray: “Father give me the wisdom to write a prayer that will help me to start overcoming my addiction.” For example – you feel like your drinking/drugs addiction has hurt your ability to be a great parent. You might pray “Father help me to care more about my kid’s future than I care about partying.” Once you have that prayer that really speaks to what will motivate you – start praying it in earnest. You can pray it as many times each day as you want as long as you are sincere in increasing your desire to change with each prayer. God is not counting how many times I pray my prayer. He is looking at how my heart changes as I sincerely pray it each time and how I allow him to lead me to better choices because now (because of prayer and extra effort) I am starting to see reality clearer.
We are at our greatest temptation point when we feel like we are justified to slip up. Our world fell apart again – we now have every right to slip up. But what we often forget is that when our world falls apart that is “precisely when” the Holy Spirit is waiting to come in. And “waiting” is also a key word. When we fight addiction and start to pray we often first feel nothing. Why? Because the Holy Spirit is “waiting” to see if you are a 10 second Christian, a 10 minute Christian, or a Christian who will fight to the end and then fight to help others in need.
Identify when you are justified to slip up. Now be aware that this is your opportunity to make a ton of progress in one day!
Read 1st Corinthians 9, Matthew 9 and Proverbs 2.
Continue to read the Purpose Driven Life.
If you are on track great; if not read the red letters from day 5
What The Bible Says About Addiction is my new 340 page e-book which is filled with new information about quitting addiction. This book is Based 95% on the Bible (New Testament) with a few of my quitting addiction theories added. Reading it allows the Holy Spirit to renew your mind. Click here to access it. Please leave a good review if you like it.
Thankyou for reading day 12: Tips to quit drinking and doing drugs.