Article September 17, 2018 Issue

Hope for the addicted

Deborah Huebsch

Originally published in The Christian Science Monitor’s Christian Science Perspective column, March 9, 2018.

My prayer as I was sitting in church that day was, “God, help me get there!” “There” was making it through the service without a cigarette. I had a three-pack-a-day smoking habit. Because of circumstances that morning, I’d been taken to church without being able to have even one cigarette, never mind the ten or more I would usually have had by then.

This addiction had been started by my thinking I’d be able to choose if and when I would smoke. However, before long it became obvious that I couldn’t choose. I was addicted, craving a constant supply of nicotine, even though smoking wasn’t something I wanted to hang on to. I wanted to be free.

Willing myself to stop didn’t work. I would quickly give in and then despise myself for being weak.

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