Is addictive thinking and behavior a matter of cognitive choice bearing responsibility, or is it a disease of the brain and body? Particularly in religious and church circles there is a debate that rages on concerning the issue of addiction as a disease. There is a philosophy in those circles that if addicts are delivered from the powerful control of sin that they will experience deliverance from their addiction. But what happens when delivered addicts behave selfishly and sin again? Is it possible that the selfish sin is a trigger for addictive thinking and behavior?
Addiction is also quite clearly a matter of individual choice, responsibility and accountability. Our society does not excuse the person who kills someone who was driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Someone harms another person under the influence of a drug (i.e., steroid rage) or themselves become afflicted by symptoms of disease as a result of the use of drugs or food addictions, they pay a price of some kind.
Is addictive behavior a disease or a matter of will and choice?
Addiction is in fact manifest in human behavior, but it also is manifest in the brain and mind, as well as being a matter of the soul, which makes it spiritual. Then there is the obvious physiological impact of addiction. Perhaps this is not a question to be answered with “either/or” but rather one to be answered with “both/and”.
This lesson examines the brain problem of addiction while exploring the spiritual reality impacted by the combination of cognitive illness cheering on obsessive thinking, the personal choices revolving around ritualistic notions and behavior, and the responsibility of addictive behavior and its consequences.