What Does the Bible Say About Addiction?

Oftentimes in session, I hear strugglers of addiction talk about it as a disease. In other words, they were born with this predisposition towards porn/sex and therefore it is much harder for them to navigate. I have also heard other strugglers talk about addiction not being a disease, but just a moral issue. In other words, they do not have anything wrong with them like a disease and they just lack the self-control. How does the Bible speak to these two models?

Disease Model Approach

While the Bible never uses the word addiction, it most certainly uses terms that can capture it. For example, Jesus calls tax collectors and sinners the “sick” (we are all broken in other words) (Matthew 9:11-13). In John 8:34, Jesus says that everyone who practices sin is a “slave of sin”. Finally, Paul the apostle in Romans 7:15-17 talks about “sin dwelling in him” and him “doing the very thing he hates”. So far, we have terms very relevant to addiction such as “sick”, “slave of sin”, and “doing the very thing you hate” and there are many other terms. The good thing about the disease model approach is it allows us to have compassion for strugglers. However, one of the problems with the disease model approach is addicts can take advantage of your empathy to remove their agency of choice/responsibility. For example, we wouldn’t blame someone for having the disease of cancer. Yet, God holds people accountable for all their sinful decisions even though he knows they are broken and in need of redemption (Romans 14:12). He never says, “Well you have the disease of sin so you are not responsible.” I have heard clients say they are addicts and their wives shouldn’t be so hurt or disappointed because their wives bar was too high. God never lets us excuse our sins due to having a sinful nature or having a hard past.

Moral Model Approach

The moral model approach rejects the disease model approach thus holding us responsible for our choices. This approach would say that strugglers do not have the self-will and can grow in self-control through effort. While it is right that we are to be held responsible for our choices and we can grow in our self-control in Christ (Galatians 5:23), this model doesn’t square away with bible verses about the power of the sinful nature in the paragraph above. Brain scans for struggling addicts display that it is not just a self-will problem since addiction messes with your mind.

The Middle Ground

The Bible is clear that we have a sin nature (Ro. 7) that makes it difficult to do right while also holding us responsible for our choices. The good news is that Jesus offers us forgiveness and newness of life where these desired vices can be altered (Romans 6:1-14). There is always hope for us in the person of Christ to change into a person of self-control.

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