We Are All Addicts

I read a powerful article about addiction by Mark Muldoon in the summer issue of Presence Magazine—the Journal of Spiritual Direction. The opening paragraph below anchors the article about the intersection of God, surrender and addiction:

“If you could string out addictive behaviors along a continuum, with the visible victims of addiction living homeless on the street at one extreme and the middle-class suburbanite with a gnawing but persistent bad habit on the other, we would all find a point on the arch and know that the psychiatrist, and addiction expert, Gerald G. May was right when he said that “all people are addicts, and that addictions to alcohol and drugs are simply more obvious and tragic addictions than others have. To be alive is to be addicted, and to be alive and addicted is to stand in the need of grace.” 

Read that paragraph again and the quote by Gerald May: “To be alive is to be addicted and to be alive and addicted is to stand in the need of grace.” This is the starting point of both self-acceptance and compassion and ultimately surrender.

I’ll share more of Muldoon’s ideas later this week, but for today perhaps May gives us this mantra and powerful image: we are all standing in the need of grace.