Hello and welcome back. If you have been following my blog posts over the last few months, you will know I’ve been detailing the search for a clear definition of addiction; a journey I embarked upon in my inaugural year of Rescue Mission Work. You may also be getting as frustrated as I was...
Each perspective I found seemed promising at first, but then left me wanting more. Every definition left out something very important, something that I saw in my friends struggling with addiction on a daily bases. None of the new and shiny boxes I uncovered fit the people I had come to know and care for, no matter how hard I tried to make them fit.And that is when it came to me - something that probably should have been obvious from the start: people don’t fit in boxes. They just don’t. We are wired to categorize so we can anticipate and respond to different situations. This mechanism keeps us alive, but it also plays a role in addiction.Let me explain it this way: the deepest parts of our brains are wired to keep us alive. Survival is its only job. It is on the lookout for threats and is charged to respond. It learns early on that if it takes all the painful or uncomfortable experiences it has (because pain equals death to this part of the brain) and categorizes them, it will be able to respond quicker and earlier in the future. If it can anticipate behavior, it can respond quicker and keep us alive longer. That is job one. So, the deepest parts of our brains constantly strive to do that; with large trucks, with tigers in the parking lot, hot stoves and even with other people. Our brain wants to categorize to keep us alive.Addicts do things we don’t understand. They often make us uncomfortable, and at times, they hurt us deeply. All the actions they take are like giant neon signs screaming “DANGER!!!!” to our ‘survival brains’. That reaction leads us to want to categorize addicts, which in turn leads us to try and define them, which ultimately lead me to try and find that definition.The problem comes when we actually get to know the person we are trying to define. The deeper the relationship, the more complex we realize that they are. Yes, addicts are people with a medically-based disease, but they are more than that. Yes, addicts are people with mental health issues, but they are more than that. Yes, addicts struggle socially, spiritually and relationally, but that is not all. The men I meet through my work with the Mission have all been deeply wounded physically. They struggle with mental health. They feel relationally abandoned. They have a hard time coping with real stress. They are spiritually disoriented.
And that is pretty amazing, when you think about. Read through the list above again. Severe physical problems; including brain chemistry imbalance, mental health issues (often un-medicated), relational trouble which leads to no support system, spiritual crisis, inability to cope with stress... all in the same person. Any one of those problems alone is serious. Two at one time could be called an emergency. All at once? Wow.As scary as that all sounds, these are exactly the men who show up in my office. That is what they are fighting against. And so I guess that had to be my definition, not a one-sided, small box to fit someone in, but a picture and a story. A man broken, yet still alive.So what is the point? What am I supposed to do with this definition, as strange as it is? Well, let me introduce you to a Francis I consider a saint.
Father Francis Mulcahy from the popular TV show MASH. I have long been a fan of the show, and of Father Mulcahy in particular. His character shows the most gentle, graceful kindness that I have ever seen. He was willing to spend long hours serving anyone and everyone who came through his tent. He knew no sides in any fight. He was the champion of the orphaned and the poor. He was always willing to lend a hand whenever he could, and worked every hour that had a number in front of it. He was the image of graceful compassion and kind gentleness. And that is how we need to treat our addicted neighbors. When they have the strength to pull themselves off the front lines of life and find their way into our urban MASH unit, the Rescue Mission, they need to be treated the same way. They are very fragile human beings by the point they reach the Mission, and gentle care and concern will begin to revive them.Well, this is where I ended up. My search for a concise definition lead me to a confusing grey area and TV show! Not what I had planned when I started this process, but this is where it ended. And it fits, somehow. At least it helped me, and I hope it helps you understand our neighbors experiencing addiction and homelessness.
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