Tuesday, October 14th, 2014
“The disease got him.”
Probably one of the ugliest and most self-serving statements I have heard to date. And I hear it a lot. Usually from friends and lovers of those who have relapsed and died from a drug related incident. To me, this statement sounds as plausible as telling me that someone died from thirst while standing next to a waterfall.
Have you heard it? I’m sure you have. You may have even said it yourself. Somehow in the twisted vortex that most recovery circles have become, the answer to why someone died from their 15th relapse in a lifelong battle to stay clean is somehow dressed up as “God needed an angel in heaven” and that’s why they’re gone. So let me get this straight. God – the one who we daily chant in meetings as being the “one who could and would relieve us of our addiction” doesn’t need these guys down here on earth to raise their children, enjoy a long life and serve in the trenches. God instead needs them up in heaven to look down and watch over other addicts who actually participated in their demise?
The absurdity would simply be something I could just roll my eyes at as one of the many stupid things I hear from people who get their life meaning from shallow hallmark sayings. But the offense against the lives snuffed out burns a little deeper in my gut. These are people that could have been saved. Maybe not – but did we fight hard for them? Did we fight at all? Did we stand our ground and tell them the hard truth or did we simply make it ok for them to be sick and broken like it is some kind of lifestyle choice?
Do you have blood on your hands? These people that you claim to love and “accept just the way they are”, do you show them that they can’t stay the way they are or they will die an ugly death? Or do you selfishly prefer to date them, be-friend them, add them to your Facebook list of buddies while looking the other way as they never change, never recover and never truly heal. Or maybe you simply can’t see the difference between sick and well. Maybe you are still sick yourself.
Out of the dozens of people that I have known who have died horrible, tragic deaths, one remains crystal clear in my mind. About a year ago a man came to a gathering that I attend. To apologize to me for attacking me on Facebook and trying to start a fight with me about the Bible. His usual demeanor was tough, crude and flippant. I had my guard up – as our last interaction consisted of him trying to goad me into some crazy debate – while insulting me and trying to school me on matters he had no clue about. But the moment we were alone together, he started crying. His apology was sincere and he revealed to me that in fact he was afraid of me, afraid because he knew in his heart that everything I said about God and the Bible was in fact truth. He mouthed scripture to me, he told me how tired he was of using women, of chronically relapsing, of being a tool for the devil. His words to me. He told me that someone had once said to him that he could in fact work for Christ…he told me he wanted to believe that.
I fought for him. I did. I didn’t hold back. I didn’t give him some politically correct bullshit to try and ease him into joining my “team”. I told him that if he didn’t act soon on this incredible divine intervention he was experiencing, he would probably fall back asleep into his sickness and eventually die a tragic death. And that’s exactly what happened. Except somehow those who have his blood on their hands – the ones who did NOT fight for him, who did not make a stand for him – who instead dated him, and fed off of him like vampires, they now seem to have painted themselves the grieving victims “left behind”. Bullshit. I call bullshit.
Whether or not this man or the thousands like him would have ever survived our “disease” can never be known, no matter how many people stood in the truth for him. But that does not excuse those who never did.
The knee jerk reaction to this is to turn on and attack those of us who do make a stand in the truth for others. It’s not that we’re crazy. Or judgmental. Or harsh. Or any of those things. No.
There’s no truth in any of the trumped up charges against us.
It’s that we insist that you do the work. It’s that we don’t accept your emotionalism, fantasy and demonic deception as genuine spiritual experience. It’s that being with real people is a shock to your system when you have become accustomed to the carnival atmosphere of the charlatan groups you’ve belonged to.
You’re angry that we refuse to go down the rabbit hole of spirituality with you. You cleverly insert about 50 charismatic buzz words or 65 veiled digs…all in an attempt to distract us from the fact that you lack real solid training in the scriptures and in discipleship. And that’s why you’re mad. You refuse to be honest with us or with yourself. You have traded the glorious Gospel for a Joel Osteen meme. Your experiences and feelings inform your theology and there isn’t a single person in your life who has drawn the line in the sand for you. Until now. And it stings.
The people that you are assisting in their subtle suicide are not dying because “the disease got ’em”, they are dying because your love for sin has blinded you from doing what is right, for yourself and for others. The carnage keeps piling up around you and your darkened mind simply uses that to further your victim fantasy. But no amount of fantasy can wipe your hands clean from the part you play in keeping people in bondage.
You can kick and scream and slander and mock and call us “crazy…fanatical…judgmental” and carry on your attempts but they in no way have any effect on the truth. I believe some part of you knows this. The humble, honest part of you, buried and suffocating under the foundation of garbage you have built up.
I understand. Keep coming back. We love you. But our position is rock solid and immovable. We won’t budge from telling you the truth. And we’re not going anywhere.
Recovered In Christ 