Addiction

Hi, for The Salvation Army, this is Lori Miller.

And I'm Bernie Dake. Thanks for joining us and welcome to Wonderful Words of Life. Well happy November to you everybody and welcome back, Lori.

Thank you, Bernie. Today probably feels a little bit better for you because, at least here in the United States, daylight savings time is over and we fall back or we've had to set our clocks back one hour. Yes. Which usually means you get an extra hour of sleep.

An extra hour unless you have very young children who don't realize that it's daylight savings time. That's right. For the next two weeks, Aliyot is going to be discussing addiction, underlying causes and how to help a loved one with addiction. But also for the next two weeks, we're going to hear from an amazing couple, beautiful friends of mine, Salvation Army officers, Rob and Heather Dolby. Oh man, the Dolbys are so cool and I can't wait for you to meet them. Their current role right here in Atlanta as the Southern Territorial Missions Specialists has them in a role near and dear to their hearts, focused on mission work here in the US and around the world. They're here to share their testimony and insight when it comes to addiction and life in recovery. And we hope you'll be blessed by their story. Well, I'm Captain Rob Dolby and everyone knows Heather.

I'm Heather Dolby. And we met at an urban missions training college, the Salvation Army hosted in Vancouver, British Columbia in Canada, called the War College. That was a two year program where young people would come together and live incarnationally. Vancouver is a very unique place. In the neighborhood, the downtown east side where we lived, that's where addiction is pretty prevalent.

So the Salvation Army has an urban church plan there. And that neighborhood, the downtown east side of Vancouver, that's the neighborhood where I was homeless, experiencing homelessness and living on the streets, where I first entered a Salvation Army treatment facility called the Vancouver Harbor Light. And so that's the place where literally I went to detox and I remember showing up at the door, you know, I remember pressing the buzzer and just saying, you know, I have nowhere to go and I'm ready to do something different.

I need help. And then a few minutes later, the door opens and there's an intake worker there that brings you in and begins that process of detox. And yeah, I didn't know at the time, but a whole experience that would change my life forever. So we met on the other side of sobriety.

So neither of us grew up in a Christian home or grew up attending church, like it wasn't a thing. So I come from a family who were supportive, who loved me, but every family has their problems. And so as I got older and my life started really falling apart as I made all my own decisions, which were terrible decisions, you know, I was an adult, like I was a young adult, I was in my 20s and I, you know, I had my own business and I had my own car and I had relationships and I had finger quote friends, but I was wrecked and I was drinking heavily just to manage my own life.

And I was just like, this can't be all there is for me. And so I remember my grandmother invited me to come to church with her on Sundays and then we'd have lunch together afterwards. And I loved that together time. So I would go to church so I could hang out afterwards. And I began to meet people that were nice. I liked them, but I really, gosh, I really believed that if they knew what I was like, like for reals, they'd be like, yeah, thanks. This is not the place for you.

Please go now. And so I would like, I had like a double life, you know, and I remember it was a Sunday afternoon. It was June 2nd, 2002. I was in my parents' basement and my life was just falling apart. And I remember I had already worked my way through a pail of margarita mix, drink the whole thing on my own. And I was making all these calls and even the guy that always would answer, even he wasn't answering for me. And that's when I was just like, wow, I'm that girl. I'm like, I'm rejected. Like I am, I am alone. And then I was like, why would I even want to live this life?

Like this stinks. And I was just like, God, if you're real, I need you right now because I don't want to live this life every day until I die. So if you're real, like I need you to come and do something.

And so, which is so funny because I feel like I watch movies where that's like in the movie and I'm like, oh, that's crazy. Like he really did. Like he really did show up. Like he really, the room, like the basement that I was sleeping in my bedroom where I was alone, began to fill with this tangible presence.

It felt like, uh, safe. I just heard the voice of God say to me, Heather, if you give your life to me, I'll make it new. And I straight up cause like, I'm keep it real kind of girl, Lord. I said, I can't quit drinking.

So like what use am I to you? Like I can't stop. And he just said, again, if you give your life to me, I will make it new. That day was the last time I ever took a drink. In fact, it was the last time that I ever wanted to take a drink. Like the Lord just did this beautiful supernatural thing where he just removed this desire to push my feelings and my hurt and my brokenness away and numb it with alcohol or other substances.

And I'm thankful for that. But interestingly enough, and that's why I said like, he's just so unexpected, Rob, because by the time I got to Vancouver, to that neighborhood, I was clean and sober. Like I wasn't using, but I wasn't living life in fullness. And so God did this fun thing where I thought I was going to go and offer something and learn something for people. But really he put me right in the middle of a group of people on a journey to sobriety because we, um, in that neighborhood, there's a strong 12 step presence. And so I know the, if I knew at the beginning that that's what's going to happen, I would have been like, yeah, no, I'm good things, but the Lord, he knows how to be tricky with me and he knows what I need. And he plopped me right down in the middle of a community of people on a journey to sobriety.

And so I began to learn not just how to not pick up anymore, but how to actually change my behaviors and allow God to transform me by the renewing of my mind. And you and I have talked about it before, but I really believe that Jesus saved me. But every day since then, the church, this body of believers, this Jesus family has held me. When I want to cut and run, when I want to, you know, just give up, they're the ones that have held me and reminded me of who God called me to be.

So I'm thankful for that. Also, think about this, your grandma had been praying for you daily for over 40 years. And I guess I think about that because people listening and stuff, you know, they might not have the experience where, you know, one day their loved one had this experience with God and everything is new and everything is perfect or easy or maybe, you know, some people can experience this touch of God that's miraculous and supernatural. But then there's other folks that maybe are on a hard journey. I mean, we have friends that love the Lord, that have struggled with addiction, that we've seen overdose, that we've seen not end up in this place of victory, just struggling and striving. We have people that maybe have kids or parents or brothers and sisters that are still out there struggling.

That's a tough one. You know, you hear these stories of hope, but you're maybe looking at your situation just saying, wow, where's the hope here? And I guess I just think of your grandma for over 40 years daily praying for you, right? So you can say, yeah, it took eight years of going to church.

It did. You can say it took this many months of gaining spiritual maturity, but it's over 40 years of daily coming to the Lord and praying for you. And that's a real gift of love that we give someone when we will choose to persevere.

Like despite what our eyes see, despite, you know, the choices somebody's making in their day to day, to believe in faith that God has something more for them, that they were created for something more, and to pray that in faith. Aliata, we're talking about addictions this week. Yes, addictions. And as it relates to mental health, what causes addiction? Are there emotional things attached or is it all of the above?

It can be all of the above. Addiction is defined as a psychological or physical inability to stop doing something. And while today we'll focus on addiction in terms of alcohol and drug abuse, but addiction can span to sex addictions, gambling, overeating, there's a lot of addictions. But going back to the definitions, it's anything that you're doing that you have the inability to stop doing, even though it causes your body harm. We're looking at what is the underlining call that might make you more addictive or someone have a more addictive personality over someone else. And so there's this pretty, probably three top reasons.

The most popular, of course, is the disease model. And that just says that there is a chemical imbalance. There's some generational language that's coming out now, some tests that say that if your father was an alcoholic, you were predisposed to be an alcoholic yourself. And then there's a psychological aspect of what could be underlined.

And that's when there is a mental health break that causes you and kind of pushes you over the brink and it becomes now an active choice to kind of numb yourself internally from the feelings that you are feeling, whether they're sadness or anything like that. Never underestimate the power of being there as a support system for someone, even if you don't like their habit at the moment. But being there when they're ready to take that step and move away from either the drug or the alcohol, you'll be the first person that they reach out to.

Yeah. At the Salvation Army, we have some drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers. What I like about being in those centers is that particularly on Sundays, they invite the families to come be with the men or the women in our facilities so that they can have their support network in a safe place. I'm aware that sometimes family can be enabling.

Absolutely. So by not allowing the folks while they're in the facility to leave or to be around people that might enable them to fail again or go back to the same habits, it's a chance to kind of assimilate back into society or whatever the word would be to transition back into society, functioning without the constant counseling available to you at one of our centers. And for the 12-step model, that is why it's so important to have a sponsor.

And work those steps. Somebody who has done this process and been in it, who understand the challenges that you'll face. And you spoke a little bit about having different family members playing different parts, and you spoke about the enabler. And that's why we have the Allen On and Allen Teens program to be able to help the family transition the perspectives that they've had, whether they supported the individual in their drug habit or alcohol habit, in a place for teens to be able to share how it's affect their lives. So it really affects the whole family because in order for that individual to be successful as they come out into a life of recovery, they really will need the support of all of their loved ones around them.

Yeah. We're going to talk about recovery in our next episode. I hope that you're enjoying what you're hearing from Aliata, with the experience and the passion that she brings. We're glad that you joined us on Wonderful Words of Life, and we hope that we get to see you next time.

God bless you. The Salvation Army's mission, Doing the Most Good, means helping people with material and spiritual needs. You become a part of this mission every time you give to the Salvation Army. Visit salvationarmyusa.org to offer your support.

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