Understanding Addiction

Addiction is one of the most destructive forces in society. Not only because of the impact it has on the addict, but also because of the inevitable pain and fallout it causes in the lives of those who love them. How do you best help someone who seems hell bent on self destruction, and for whom our default approaches of offering advice and being kind often seem to make things worse not better?

Understanding addiction and working out how to best to help both sufferers and those seeking to support them has provided some of the greatest challenges I have faced in all the time I’ve been a pastor. I’ve so often struggled to know what to say, how to pray and what advice to give. I am therefore incredibly grateful to my friend Andy Partington who has just published Hope in Addiction, the best explanation I have found of not only the causes of addiction but also how we can best help those who are struggling with it.

Those of you who know Andy will know that he is uniquely placed to write this book. He not only led Yeldall Manor, a Christian drug and alcohol recovery centre near Reading which Kerith has worked with for a number of years, but more recently moved with his wife Mickey and family to South America to establish Novō Communities, a similar work which began in Bolivia and is now spreading into other countries both in South America and beyond. Andy has also done extensive research seeking to gain not only the best scientific understanding of addiction but also the most effective ways of helping people break free from it.

Andy writes in a style which reminds me of Malcom Gladwell. Any of you who have read one of Gladwell’s books will know that he takes a subject and unpacks it, using not only the best research but also by telling true stories which illustrate the point he is making (one of my favourite examples is The Tipping Point which explores why some things go viral and others don’t). Andy writes in a similar style - making his book both highly informative while still being very easy to read. Reading it will help you to not only understand the cause of addiction, but also how best to help people who are caught in it.

So if you are struggling with addiction, or know someone who is, then I strongly encourage you to get hold of a copy of Hope in Addiction and to read it. I have just bought a copy for a friend whose partner is struggling, and will be encouraging everyone on our pastoral teams to read it so that they can be better equipped to help others caught in addiction.

Simon