Hey UWC, how are you doing?
You left one book out of your recommendations which is a must read. Gabor Mate “In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts” among other great books he wrote.
Dr. Gabor Maté is a retired Hungarian Canadian based Physician, highly sought after for his expertise on a range of topics including addiction, stress and childhood development. He covers trauma, ADHD and worked with hard core addicts.
For twelve years Dr. Maté worked in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside with patients challenged by hard-core drug addiction, mental illness and HIV, including at Vancouver’s Supervised Injection Site. He noticed something others didnt notice.
While he doesn't write from a Gospel point of view (he is Jewish), he has experience and empathy and links most all (hard core) addictions to childhood trauma.
Although I see where you are coming from with the study you wrote, I disagree on this point.
“This is because we are allowing substitute gods to entertain and delight us instead of being fully engaged in passionate worship of God.“
Addicts are not addicts because they want to be “entertained and delighted” although maybe some are, I have never met any fully blown addicts that want to be addicts and I have dealt with a lot in my lifetime.
They are covering up pain, broken hearts and being “delighted” or “entertained” is far from their mind. In fact, most addicts WANT to stop, but just can't stop.
I do agree with the fact that the addict has less chance of recovery, if they have a spiritual “hole” in their lives, but pretty much all of the addicts Dr Mate treated (100%) had childhood trauma.The worse the trauma, the worse the addiction but I am talking about hard core addicts, not people who drink too much to be “entertained and delighted” at weekends, although this may lead to addiction I cannot say. Most people know an addict and most people know if they are out of control or not.
AA is alright, but it doesn't address past trauma. In fact the more stories of their lives you hear, the more you wonder how it was possible for them NOT to end up an addict because it would be impossible to take such pain and live.
What is especially interesting is how the Native Americans have more addiction than before due to certain experiences they have had, displacement etc, which was not existent before. Most of them are broken hearted or cannot take the pain or the memory of trauma and don't realise it as they cant even think straight because addicts just need the next fix. They just want the pain to go away.
Gabor Mates approach has helped many I know - maybe it's because people are willing to listen to him because he is likeable. But I doubt any hard core addict would listen to anyone with a Gospel in their hand, who came at them from an angle accusing them of doing it for “entertainment and delight” to be honest. Not one.
“It is impossible to understand addiction without asking what relief the addict finds, or hopes to find, in the drug or the addictive behaviour” Gabor Mate.
I don't have any heros but if I did, Gabor would be mine as I love this guy. He has helped loads of people that he doesn't even talk about and has a meek and humble approach.
https://drgabormate.com/book/in-the-realm-of-hungry-ghosts/