Introduction

In today's clip we meet Leo, Bartlet's chief of staff. Leo and Bartlet are life-long friends and life long activists in the Democratic party. Leo has served as a cabinet member under a previous president and was instrumental in getting Bartlet to run for office. They are best friends. Leo, however, has a secret. Whilst he was still Labour Secretary - what we would call Minister for Employment - he struggled with addiction to both alcohol and prescription pain killers. After years of struggle, he finally got himself into a treatment centre and into Alcoholics Anonymous. In the story he has kept of alcohol for many years now. His close friends and family know but now, thanks to this young intern the nation knows. As we see from the clip the intern's life has been damaged by alcohol - not her own use but her father's. I wanted to play this clip as it really goes to the heart of addiction. Leo isn't an alcoholic because he drinks, he drinks because he is an addict. Many of us struggle with addiction too.

Addiction

We talk a lot about addiction in our community and I thought I would look up and find a dictionary definition of it. Wikipedia - the on line encyclopaedia - gives a very full definition:

That last part of the definition sounds like our reading from Romans that Margaret read for us "for I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do - this I keep on doing."

Many of us can relate to this type of problem. We don't want to continue drinking but we just can't get through the day without it. We don't want to eat so much but we feel good - at least for a moment - when we do. We don't want to behave in certain ways but find that we are compelled to do so. Paul, who understood the symptoms of addiction said of this dilemma "now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it." He goes on to write about the tension between the grace of God and the demands of the body at war within him.

In doing the research for this sermon I noticed an article on the BBC website which quoted an American study on addiction. This study found that those who joined a recovery programme with a "spiritual" element were more likely to do well and recover than those who used a programme which had no spiritual component. I don't know much about the study or how rigorous its methodology was but I think they have a point.

Recovery

The truth is that addicts can recover. Of course it is not easy. In our video clip Leo is living "in recovery". That doesn't mean he isn't an alcoholic anymore, just that he recognises he has huge issues with alcohol and chooses now not to drink. In another episode he is asked how he can live without ever having another drink. His answer is revealing: "the problem is I don't want another drink, I want another bottle".

The main recovery methodology in the West is the 12 Step programme. We have all heard of Alcoholics Anonymous - the methodology they use is this 12 Step programme. We can apply it to our own struggles with compulsive behaviours or addictions because it is based on very Christian principles.

The first step, and perhaps the most difficult, is to recognise that we are powerless in the face of our addiction and this addiction has made our lives unmanageable. A few weeks ago Dwayne from MCC Bournemouth preached so well in showing how the effects of addiction can make our lives unmanageable.

All these are obvious addictions - we probably have other things which we feel are controlling us and making our lives feel unmanageable.

The second step for us as Christians should be easy, but often isn't. It's recognising that a power greater than ourselves - usually thought of in AA as God - can set us free and "restore us to sanity". This series of sermons is different to what we normally do as they are focussing on moral and practical issues. We usually speak of spiritual stuff, but this series looks at how our faith interacts with how we behave and deal with some of the great moral issues of our age. Today's issue is profoundly personal - how does our faith help us deal with our addictive and compulsive behaviour patterns. If we believe in God then we also have to believe that God can set us free from all that drags us down and restore us to sanity. Following on from this is the realisation that we have to turn our lives over to God and trust ourselves into His care. Again, this is what we do as Christians when we make a commitment to follow Christ. It is what the vows that either we took or that were taken on our behalf at baptism are all about.

Now many Christians seem to believe that this is all there is to it. We turn our lives over to God and then everything will be ok. Of course we know that this is not the full story. The next step in the recovery programme is to make a full moral inventory of our lives. If you were raised Roman Catholic you will recognise this as the spiritual discipline of going to confession - where you seek to understand your moral behaviour honestly and confessed it to another. The 12 step programme insists that this moral inventory is made and that you confess your moral shortcomings to another person. This is not because it is good for the other but, as Catholics have understood for years, the act of confession is good for us! It teaches us humility and honesty. So if we are dealing with issues of addiction part of the process of recovery is confession - to God and another.

In confessing to God we do two things - as we do each and every Sunday. We make ourselves ready for God to change us and we ask God to change us. These are subtly different. We can ask to be changed but have no real expectation that anything will happen. The key is realising that change can happen if we want it to - but realising that change will be costly. For an alcoholic the change is about seeing the world clearly not through a glass dimly. It might mean having to address the issues that lead one to seek solace in the addictive behaviour in the first place. Wanting to change and being ready to change are two quite different things. So we confess to God and another person our shortcomings, become ready to change, recognise that God can change us and we have to ask God to change and forgive us.

But it doesn't stop there. Many Protestant Christians don't really get what confession is about. They fixate on the issue of having to confess to a priest and not straight to God, but miss the fact that confession is also about the priest advising on how to make amends. o It is not good enough just to confess to God; we must also make amends, as far as possible for what we have done wrong. It I have harmed someone in some way, how can I make amends to them? If I have stolen something, how can I return it? Addictive behaviour always impacts on others. In our film clip we saw how alcoholism had effect the life of the young intern. Leo in giving her a second chance is helping to make amends - maybe for some of his own faults. Trying to make amends is part of a recovery process - it teaches us to be less self centred.

One of the reasons why Leo is such an attractive character in the West Wing is that he has learnt to live with his demons and recover from them. Like the Christian life, this isn't a one off process, but a continual one. One of the steps in the recovery process is to realise this and to continually take a moral inventory, confess shortcomings and to make amends where necessary. We know ourselves that it is easy to develop blind spots - such an exercise helps us stay spiritually attuned.

The final two stages of recovery are also grounded solidly on Christian ideas. The penultimate step is to work on one's relationship with God. Having trusted that God can set us free, we need to work on that relationship. We work on this through coming to church, receiving the sacraments, through regular prayer and praise, through reading the Bible and applying it to our daily lives. The final step is also directly Christian "having had a spiritual awakening ourselves" we take this message to other addicts.

Living in Recovery

As you can see the process of recovering from addiction and compulsive behaviour is based on Christian ideas; ideas applied to the specific problems of addiction. If any of us struggle with addiction or compulsive behaviour then we need to know that freedom is possible - but that freedom requires some work, some support and a further spiritual awakening; understanding that our faith really impacts on our lives. If any of us are in recovery then we need to make the links between the spiritual awakening we had applied to addiction, and see that the same Higher Power, the same God that freed us from our addictions yearns for us to be in relationship with Him so that the rest of our lives are blessed with the fruits of freedom.

Prayer

God of freedom,
Help us to see our addictions and compulsions,
To realise you can free us from them and to trust you,
To take stock of our lives and admit to you and others our shortcomings,
To make amends for the things we have done wrong,
To prepare for change and to allow you to change us,
To continually take stock of our lives
and to work on our relationship with you
so that we and others may continually live in the freedom you promise,
this we ask in the name of Jesus, who died to make us free.
Amen

This sermon was first preached in the Metropolitan Community Church of Manchester. Click here for further information.