“For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” (Romans 7:15)
Well-known words from the Apostle Paul, but when I hear them, Paul is not the first person who comes to mind. They sound to me like the confession of an addict.
The face I see is a man I knew as Johnny Loco. I normally change names when I tell these sorts of stories, but in this case, I don’t think I ever knew his real name. ‘Johnny Loco’ was the name he gave me, and with addicted people, you never know.
Of course, Johnny insisted he was clean when we met. He said he’d been sober for months but couldn’t get work because everyone knew he’d done prison time and didn’t trust him. He was living on the street, which he said would likely drive him back to crime. He asked for a short stay in our ‘detox room’ that we’d set up at the back of the rectory. I said ‘yes’.
I also found Johnny a part-time job at a local carwash owned by a friend, but within a week he’d been sacked. He was late every day, left early and was always sick. “One hundred per cent he’s still got an addiction,” the manager told me. I should have listened. But Johnny always had a convincing explanation, and he was so profuse in his gratitude for every kindness we showed him. Then things started going missing.
Jewellery disappeared first, and then my wife’s camera, and we noticed the bars on one of our windows seemed to have been prized open with a crowbar. I confronted Johnny about it and he broke down crying – “How could I think I would do such a thing to you after all the kindness you have shown me?”
I believed him. I embraced him. I apologised. Then the police investigator came around, went into the detox room, lifted the mattress on Johnny’s bed, and found all the pawn shop receipts.
“For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” (Romans 7:15)
Was Saint Paul an addict?
I don’t think they had crack or heroin in Paul’s day, and despite his advice that “a little wine is good for the stomach” (1 Timothy 5:23), I doubt very much that he had a drinking problem.
Jesus and His disciples were accused of drunkenness (Matthew 11:19; Acts 2:13), and Paul had plenty of enemies who questioned his piety and mocked his appearance (2 Corinthians 10:10). If Paul had been known to overindulge, we would have heard about it.
No, I don’t think Paul was an addict. Conversely though, I do suspect that the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and the developers of the 12-step programme were students of Saint Paul.
If you’re not familiar with the 12-step programme that is foundational to AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) and NA (Narcotics Anonymous) and GA (Gamblers Anonymous) and all the ‘anonymous’ groups, the first steps are:
- We admit we are powerless and that our lives have become unmanageable
- We believe that a power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity.
- We make a decision to turn our lives over to God as we understand God.
That sounds a lot like Saint Paul, so it shouldn’t surprise us that both Bill Wilson and Dr Robert Holbrook Smith, the co-founders of Alcoholics Anonymous, grew up as devout Congregationalists in Vermont (USA) and were both influenced by ‘The Oxford Group’ that emphasised personal transformation through spiritual principles.
I should add here that most of my AA and NA friends are not members of any church. Indeed, a great many addicts feel they have been judged and damaged by the established church. Even so, I think they would find a friend in Saint Paul – a man who understood the war inside the human heart.
“For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” (Romans 7:15)
Whether or not we’ve ever lived with addiction, I suspect that Paul’s testimony to his internal struggle resonates with all of us to some extent.
Saint James refers to it as ‘double-mindedness’ (James 1:8, 4:8), where our minds are going back and forth between the thing we feel like doing and the thing we know we ought to be doing.
Kierkegaard framed it slightly differently. “Purity of heart”, he said, “is to will one thing”, because the only one thing we can will is the right thing, as any other thing leaves our hearts in a state of internal conflict (willing two things at the same time).
“For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self,” says Saint Paul, “but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. (Romans 7:22-23)
It was at least five years between when we found the receipts under Johnny’s mattress till the time I saw him again. I was in my office, and he turned up at my front door looking very nervous. He told me he’d been driving around the block multiple times, trying to summon up the courage to see me.
He didn’t ask for anything from me this time apart from forgiveness. Indeed, he said that it had been after that time with me that he had changed. He’d gone back to prison, but there he had struggled to come to terms with the love that had been shown to him and the betrayal he’d committed, and he’d reached that point where he admitted his powerlessness and handed himself over to God as he understood God.
“Wretched person that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:24-25)
