How To Pray When Someone You Love Is Addicted

Hello, this is Will Hardy with ManTalk Radio.

We are all about breaking down the walls of race and denomination. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few minutes. Enjoy it, share it. But most of all, thank you for listening to the Truth Network Podcast. Today on Encouraging Prayer, Dr. James Banks, author of the bestselling Prayers for Prodigals and many other books on prayer, provides weekly biblical insight to help you learn to love to pray. And now, here's James. So today on Encouraging Prayer is definitely one that you're going to want to share with a friend. So today we're going to talk about how to pray when someone you love is addicted.

And James, I know this is right in your wheelhouse, so why don't you give us a little background on that as we get started? Well, Robbie, as you know, our son wrestled with addiction for several years. It just started with pot and after he liked the way that made him feel that he moved into pills, specifically opioids. And then after opioids became harder to get, he went into heroin and he did the whole nine, you know, buying it, selling it, stealing to get it. And he basically became a different person.

Wow. How long was he addicted? Seven years, in and out of jail, in and out of rehab. And he buried most of his friends from that time. It was a hard, hard time. Oh, my. Unlike so many, your son's story, though, has a happy ending.

Yeah, it does, Robbie. You know, it's just unbelievable. Jesus set him free and there's no other way to put it. And today he's a pastor to students and he speaks at public schools helping kids avoid the decisions that he made. And God has been so merciful to us and we're so grateful.

Oh, he really has been. And you both wrote a book about it, right? Hope Lies Ahead. Yes.

Jeff and I wrote that book together. And it's important that we talk about this today because, you know, that according to the National Center for Drug Abuse Statistics, 50 percent, that's 50 percent of people age 12 and over have illicitly used drugs in their lifetime. And that's over 140 million people or almost 140 million people. And 20 percent have alcohol use disorder and 24.7 of those with drug disorders have an opioid disorder. I mean, this is huge. Wow. And then really, you know, there's all this about fentanyl these days. You know, it's a synthetic opioid, right? We've been hearing a lot about that in the news with numbers, you know, crazy high.

It shows how much our prayers really matter. So we need to talk about it. Yeah. Yeah. Robbie, the numbers are greater even than we think about because you have to also consider the families that are affected by this.

It's exponential. And we really need to think about it that way because this is somebody's daughter, somebody's son who's held in these chains. And we have a God who is able to break chains and set us free. And we've seen that in our own family. And that isn't just nice words.

It's very real. So the first thing that we need to do is recognize that this is a spiritual battle for people. You know, you can be so easily angered by someone who's abusing substances because family know what it's like to be taken advantage of and manipulated, stolen from, sometimes physically harmed, you know. The first place to start when you pray is to ask God for wisdom every day, sometimes several times a day.

You know, how do I deal with this? Show me, Lord, help me. And, you know, the wonderful thing about wisdom is that he promises he'll give it to us if we ask. And he can show us what decisions we need to make in the moment. He can lead us to treatment options if, you know, the person who's addicted is open to it. He can show you how to set boundaries where you need to and also how to go beyond boundaries sometimes.

Yeah. And what do you mean go beyond boundaries? Well, when someone you love is addicted to substances, let's face it, like I said about Jeff, they're not themselves. And that's where it helps to pray for wisdom because we need to learn about the effects that drugs and alcohol can have on people and the way they can affect the brain and the emotions. And this was one of the difficulties we faced with our son. He changed so much.

It was like we don't even know you anymore. But what we came to realize was that the opiates had hijacked certain centers of the brain, including the centers that affected his relationships. And that's an important part of the struggle with addiction that a lot of people don't understand. You know, it can become such a need so that it even overtakes the need for food, the need for love. And how do you then love someone who's not himself?

Who was more interested in just getting a fix? This is where, again, prayer is so important because we need to get our love from Jesus. No one loves like he does. And we need to ask him to help us to love, to love through us. But we also have to then be willing to surrender ourselves to him so that he can love through us. And that's what I mean about moving beyond boundaries because that's not easy.

So let's talk more about that. Well, often when you hear people talk about addiction, you know, you hear them talk about tough love. But I almost always, you know, when I hear that about toughness, it only moves in one direction. You know, it's love that's intended to be tough on the addict. But as we sought to love our son through his addiction, one of the things that we came to realize was that love had to be tough on us as well. It's not easy to love like Jesus loves because his love is self-sacrificial and you can't sugarcoat that. And he calls us to love the same way if we're going to follow him. So if you love someone who's addicted like that, often, you know, in time, they will see it, but not always, not at first. And that can be heartbreaking. And again, that's why you pray for wisdom first because you need wisdom as you're loving someone like that. And as you're, you know, moving beyond boundaries, if you will, it's in that place of the heart where Jesus does his best work. So this is where we need to surrender ourselves to him. Wow. So pray for wisdom, pray for love.

What else? Well, of course, pray for them. You know, pray every day, several times a day. And don't give up. You know, often when someone you love is addicted, you get prayed out. And you wonder how you can keep going and how God allows it because it just seems like you keep asking the same thing over and over again and nothing changes.

And you're in that place. I really encourage you don't go alone because our prayers together are powerful. My wife and I often noticed that we had breakthroughs with our son. They might have been just, you know, small breakthroughs, breakthroughs nonetheless, after we would pray and fast together. And I don't want to make that sound super spiritual.

You know, we'd usually just do a juice fast, you know, drinking nothing but juice on a Thursday afternoon at lunch. And then we'd pray for our kids during that time. Well, thanks, James. Well, let's conclude this time together by praying for those who love someone who is struggling and for those who are struggling as well, really. Lord, I'm so grateful for you because I know you love, oh, it's just the way that needs to be done and you love so much more than I. And so we pray for those who are struggling. We pray for the people that are struggling with them.

Lord, give them wisdom, give them love and give them hope and help them to see you in fresh and encouraging ways that would draw them closer to you and eventually their loved ones. And I ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. You can hear more from Pastor James by visiting his website, jamesbanks.org, or by visiting Peace Church in Durham, North Carolina. May God bless you and encourage you as you pray.