Drugs and Drinking no more, A 40 day program: Day 15
100% of people with addictions overemphasize the pleasure their addiction brings them and they underemphasize the destruction it causes. To turn this around read 1 hour per day on quitting drinking or drugs.
Getting on the wagon advice. If you have money get a Kindle membership. For $10 a month you can get as many free books on quitting your addiction as you want about quitting drugs or drinking easily. The internet is great for quitting idea’s but you won’t get anything online like my books How Jonny Quit Drugs or How Dylan Quit Drinking. These books have stories that will stay in your mind all year. You can watch how the characters from these book overcome their habits and do exactly what they do. You can be inspired by their success and turn it into your success.
To Access How Dylan Quit Drinking click amazon.com/dp/B07YQ6RMYR/ref=
To access How Jonny Quit Drugs click amazon.com/dp/B07YBHKZ4B/ref=
A Tale of Two Princes
Two young men (twins) were torn from their homes as infants because of war. The first (Stephen) was raised by a God fearing man who taught his young prince to follow God’s ways and to always go about doing the will of Christ. The second (Donald) was raised in a religious environment and was taught about God.
In their time it was a custom for the men to go on a journey back to their home country to find their Princes. In this day it was a 6-8 day trip by horseback.
Both men made great progress in their first two day. But on day three both men entered the city of Babylon. Donald was very excited about Babylon; the parties, the woman – he had never been to a place like this. That night he found the woman of the night of the city and he partied like it was 1999. His one day party turned into a 4 day binge. Meanwhile Stephen also had a great night of sightseeing in this amazing city – but he hit the sack right on time so he could get an early start the next day.
On day 6 Stephen arrived at his country. An amazing princess was waiting for him. She excitedly accepted his proposal and he took her home. They lived happily ever after.
On day 10 Donald arrived. He also met a princess. She was quite a looker but Stephen had not even considered her. She quickly accepted Donald’s proposal and they went home. To make a long story short they had their ups and downs but they made a life of it.
Conclusion: Donald never knew that Stephen was under God’s blessing and that he lived a joy filled life. Donald never knew the consequences of his brief stop in Babylon. Both brothers had heard 1000 times that if you do things God’s way he will start to bless you. One brother focused on that fact and one did not. One brother overemphasized the pleasure of Babylon and he overindulged in it – one did not. One brother was aware of the destruction overindulging causes and one was not.
Donald did not really care about the destruction his detour in Babylon caused him. But if he ever would have known about the life he missed. He would have done the trip differently.
I will continue the session about how satan lies to us from Genesis.
16 And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”
Then in the next chapter satan says.
4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. 8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?” 10 He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.” 11 And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” 12 The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” 13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” 14 So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, “Cursed are you above all livestock
and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life.
15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring[j] and hers;
he will crush[k] your head, and you will strike his heel.”
16 To the woman he said, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”
17 To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’“Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. 18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food
until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”
Life is the same today for you and me as it was for Adam and Eve. We are free to do many fun and great things. And there are things we can not do. If we obey God and live the way He wants us to live we start to live under a new blessing. When we do things He does not want us to do bad things happen then more bad things happen. A curse is bad things happening and then multiplied bad things happening.
Tomorrow, we will talk about self control which helps us have a blessing instead of a curse.
Isaiah 54:10
Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,” says the LORD, who has compassion on you.
“He who believes is strong. Strong convictions precede great actions.”
Overcoming Addiction Quote by J.F. Clarke
Continue to read the Purpose Driven Life
Pray “Father keep me from temptation”.
For the last few days we have talked about getting the sin out of our lives. For many of us this is hard. Many have failed. Is God OK with us failing? NO. But he does understand. He knows how confused we are. He knows how hard we are trying (or not trying). When we do everything we can to get the sin out and fail we always have Gods grace.
The point is that if we keep doing everything we can to get the sin out we will start to make progress. When we start to progress we will start to be under Gods blessing.
Never give up
Jesus said “If your hand offends you, cut it off“(Matt 5:30). What He is saying is to cut off the source of your addiction or sin. The source is not the event, it is what leads to the event. Examples of sources are: daydreaming about great times you had partying in the past, continuing to watch a movie which glorifies partying, still hanging out with people who glorify partying, moping around saying that you can’t do the one thing you love the most.
Hello – you are aware of the destruction, now put in the work to think about new things. Put forth effort to do new things. Be more aware of when you start to skate down a slippery path and be proud of your-self when you turn it around. No one at AA will cheer if you get up and say: “I started to watch a movie which turned out to be all about partying and I turned it off.” But your life if going to be a great story a year from now because that is how you take the steel grip of addiction to the fire and start to melt it. When you stop looking at partying, daydreaming about partying, talking about partying: you will start to think about new things. You will start to do new things. And for a while you won’t be thrilled with the change. Then at some point you will be so excited about the change that you will tell everyone you know – I never ever want to go back to living the way I used to.
Some of us shut everybody out because they have caused us pain in the past. Now, try to reverse that behavior by praying to be filled with Jesus love. God loves to answer a pray like “Father, take away my lust, selfishness, pride _____ (you fill in the blank) and fill me with your love”. We have been at least part of the problem in the past. Now (with prayer) we can become at least part of the solution.
#1 statement to help you leave this habit easily: We need to do something good or we will do something bad.
Matthew 5 is about how we can change so that we will start to be blessed by God. www.relijournal.com noted the following:
Jesus then goes on to tell his disciples that his people are the salt of the earth. However, if we lose our saltiness we become useless. If a seasoning has no flavor it has no purpose. It would no longer be a seasoning. If we make no effort to affect the world around us, we have little value to God. Salt is a natural cleanser. We are God’s holy and clean people. If we let the world take over us we lose our cleanliness. We should not blend in with everybody else. Instead, we should affect others positively, just as seasoning brings out the best flavor in food.
You may say to me – man I am a messed up addict, I can’t shine any light. But if you are sincerely trying to be a Christian you can tell other addicts how Jesus is helping you (even if you keep dropping the ball). The messed up person you help now may be the person who helps you later.
Pray: Father help me to align with you because when I am doing things your way -we are more powerful than any substance can be.
Read 1st Corinthians 11, Matthew 11 and Proverbs 5
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Index
Day one: How to overcome cravings
Day two: Would believing in a higher power be good for you?
Day three: Quitting addiction exercises
Day four: Does God answer pray?
Day five: Starting to understand that we can’t increase our pleasure for the whole month by going back to our addiction
Day six: Planning our day to keep addiction temptation to a minimum
Day seven: We find liberty (or start to find liberty) from addiction when we find Jesus
Day eight: First fruit of the Spirit
Day nine: Benefits of worshipping God
Day ten: Getting rid of negative emotions and overcoming cravings
Day 11: How to be blessed by God and self control
Day 12: Have a list of coping statements
Day 13: How to have living water so that you will never thirst again. How to become a christian.
Day 14: Adam and Eve show us what we do that causes things to go wrong.
Thankyou for doing things that will help you to leave this habit easily.