Life can be challenging, stressful, and exhausting even when there’s not a pandemic. Many Americans utilize “their drug of choice” in the forms of coffee, soda, chocolate, or even social media. You and I may be among those Americans. We all have things in our lives that spark the pleasure centers in our brains that make our daily existence a little more pleasure and a little less stressful. We may even jokingly say to others that we are addicted.

But are we really addicts? No, probably not.

What is an addict? Merriam-Webster defines an addict as one “to give over, surrender, apply or devote (oneself) habitually.”

When we think of an addict, we tend to think of someone who abuses alcohol or drugs. This is substance dependence. When a person experiences addiction, they cannot control how they use a substance or partake in an activity, and they become dependent on it to cope with daily life. 

Then there are behavioral addictions like gambling and eating that people use to numb out from a life filled with pain, loneliness, or despair. Both substance and behavioral addictions can be debilitating. 

At first, addicts cannot let go of addictions but, as time passes, their addictions will not let go of them and they cannot function without them. They overtake and overwhelm addicts’ lives.

Addictions become their lives and everything else is a distant second.

Do you know the addict next door? 

Addicts should be easy to spot, right? 

We see addicts portrayed in television and movies, so they are easily recognizable as such. But, in real life, are they so easy to spot if we don’t know them personally? Not always, no.

The addict next door could literally be our next-door neighbor, someone who may look much like us, but doesn’t bear a resemblance to his or her stereotypical, cinematic counterpart. 

Our ministering to them doesn’t involve us solving their addiction problem. However, we have two things we are qualified to give them – Jesus and hope. And that’s where we come in: to share the Gospel, introducing them to the one thing that will fill the void within them. God.

Blaise Pascal said, “There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of each man which cannot be satisfied by any created thing but only by God the Creator, made known through Jesus Christ.”

Every one of us has that God-sized hole within us and we can try to fill it with any number of things but we never truly fill the hole until we fill that God-sized hole with God himself. We don’t know the struggles of the people we come alongside but we do know that – no matter the struggle – others just need to know someone cares and will listen.

Today I’m introducing you to a woman who has become one of my dearest friends, Cheryl. You may have read her story in The Southeast Outlook, The Addict Next Door. Meeting Cheryl today, you would never know she used cocaine off and on for 40 years.

In May of 2019, Cheryl joined the Women’s 3Thirds Discipleship Group Study that I facilitate at Southeast. She was looking to get connected and plug in to other believers in the church. Southeast Christian Church’s Connections Pastor, Josh Brown (you can read this once non-believer’s powerful testimony here), referred her to our 3Thirds Discipleship Group for Women on Encounter night – The Support and Recovery Ministry at Southeast, which is held every Thursday night.

Encounter is a community of people seeking healing & hope through prayer, worship, testimonies, teaching, & Support & Recovery Groups. 

Today, Cheryl leads our Women’s 3Thirds Discipleship Group on Thursday nights alongside me, and I am blessed to call her one of my closest and dearest friends. Had I just met Cheryl for the first time, I would never have guessed she struggled with a 40-year addiction. 

Through the DMM (Disciple-Making Movement) training tools we use in the 3Thirds Training, Cheryl learned how to share her testimony in a powerful way, how to share and defend the gospel, and how to lead others into a relationship with Christ. 

Cheryl is a totally different woman today than she was the first time I met her, and she boldly proclaims the name of Jesus with everyone she meets. Cheryl gives all the glory and honor to God for her life today and for HIS GRACE, saving her from a life of addiction.

And they have defeated him by the blood of the Lamb and by their testimony. – Revelation 12:11