Weakened

          

          Addiction is in my genetic code. My friend sent me a silly meme that illustrated a point about personality types using doughnuts. I carried on good conversation about the meme, but kept up the doughnut metaphor. Now, real, actual doughnuts are my downfall and undoing. I was sitting outside the grocery having this conversation. I knew the doughnut rack was in there and all I could think of was the glazed, yeasty, chewy crunch. I have a family member who killed herself with doughnuts. She had horrendous diabetes, but could not say no. She lost her toe, then toes, then foot, and when the surgeon came for her leg, she died of complications in the hospital. Her demise was her inability to give up her dozen doughnuts every day. She was strong, beautiful, capable, and brilliant in every other capacity but one. Oh. I cannot eat doughnuts. I cannot have doughnuts. Unchecked doughnuts will kill me. With. Out. Doubt.

            I recently saw a wonderful video found here from Russell Brand (gorgeous, irreverant, English funny-man who exudes sexual fervor) where he sat behind his laptop shirtless in bed talking about how his mind (his wonderful mind) had been weakened, hampered, hurt, and addicted by porn. He said, “I saw a visual of a woman and I didn’t think, ‘Does she get along ok with her dad? Does she have diabetes? …What of her soul?…No, I only think she looks nice.” He goes on to wonder what harm will come from “great ice bergs of filth flowing through homes on Wifi.”  He wonders what the psychological impact will be when people who have completely turned women into a commodity grow up and try to run the world. He sites the Journal of Adolescent Health and the opinions of sociologists.

            Another great addiction is constant comparing ourselves to other people. There is a rush of chemicals that comes from seeing others as less than ourselves. When we see the lady who likes loud music and includes people regardless of race, gender, and religious preference, we can see her as inclusive and kind or wanton. We can pat ourselves on the back knowing we aren’t her. Ah the rush of chemicals that comes from being better than fills our minds. So we sit at computer screens giving nothing out but constantly taking in and making notes and judging like mad because we need to fill some deficiency in our hearts. Thank you pinterest for that.

            Addictions strip our credibility. When I am on a sugar filled high fueled with doughnuts, I am unable to focus, to hear, or to formulate the best advice. I am unfit. So, as a responsible human let alone, mother, wife, daughter, and friend, I work hard to purge out that which weakens me. See, I could sit here and quote scriptures and they would apply, but the needs of humanity at large apply too. We as a people group need to stop feeding our chemical needs and reaching out to a higher way of being; solely because it is the right thing to do.