You might be addicted instead to Pepsi.
I was asked what was the number one addiction in America in 2012. I guessed booze, gambling, pornography, or prescription medication. I was dead wrong.
The number one addiction right now in America is sugar. Most of us in America are a bunch of addicts and no one knows it because it seems harmless. 9 out of 10 dentists agree that they too are sugarholics. You likely are in denial if you think you aren’t addicted to something.
Websters dictionary defines addict as someone who devotes time and attention by customary repetitive behavior. I would add that it becomes natural and ingrained in us, we invest a lot of time and money to it, and if we give it up for any length of time there are noticeable withdrawal symptoms. Think of how many people are addicted to caffeine. Texting. Checking your blog stats. (No, I don’t know anyone like that). Fast food. Junk food. Organic Food. Comfort food. Timbits. Whenever a Tim Hortons donut and coffee shop opens in town, it is like our cars switch to auto pilot. We drive through but not until we drive-thru.
I think that the recovery place for caffeine addiction is known as the Maxwell House. At the very least think how much time and energy and money is wasted on our seemingly harmless addictions. When I was younger I loved a comic strip named Dilbert. There was this dog Dogbert, and this tech nerd, Dilbert, who worked somewhere in a cubicle. One day Dogbert asked Dilbert if he wanted any coffee.
Dilbert declined, and said, “No, I quit drinking coffee. I don’t want to be dependent on chemicals”.
To which Dogbert said, “Well, how are you doing this morning?”
Dilbert (yawning and looking like he just woke up) said, “Well, a little sluggish, but you would expect that for a Monday.”
Dogbert replied, “Um, it’s Thursday.”
Corn syrup is like crack in the body. It is absorbed immediately and gets to the blood stream, and there is a sugar high very quickly. You crash and if you don’t get more sugar you get irritable. “Snickers satisfies” is their cry. LIARS! The Bible commands us to fast, but when I am not watching my diet, I am absolutely miserable when I am fasting and off the junk cold-turkey for just 24 hours. I am supposed to be doing this spiritual endeavour yet I am about to tear everyone’s heads off I am so irritable! Hypocrite! I need a sugar patch on my arm or something. Or maybe I need a sugar stick.
My one point is this —you don’t need to smoke crack to end up addicted. Until you try to run from your addiction and tell it no, you really don’t know you have a problem. Most of us have politically correct addictions and will never realize we have a problem. Crack gets people into trouble fast. They quickly lose everything and it’s destruction is almost immediate. The rest of the addictions are like the old frog in the pot. You heat up a pot slowly with a frog in it, and it will boil to death and not realize anything was going on. Had you thrown a frog instantly in that same boiling pot at the end, it would jump out. When I was a lost heathen, I sold beer and cigarettes from an early age. Back then cigarettes were $1.99 a pack. If we suddenly raised them back then to $10 a pack, people would have had an instant fit, and say, “No more cigarettes! That is ridiculous!” Yet, 20 years later, people pay $10 a pack and don’t even flinch.
Imagine if tomorrow Tim Hortons started charging $25 for a Double Double and $5 a timbit. Then on Friday, the government read my blog and said, “Dolly Madison, we have a problem” and made a ban on sugar. And later Verizon had a change of heart and banned texting to help improve our social skills. And some terrorists launched an E Bomb and fried all our electronics. And all at once, the NHL, NFL, NBA, MLB, MLS, PGA, NASCAR, and Hollywood all went on strike. We would soon find out just how much junkies we really are and how controlled we are by our American Idols.
In America, there are junkies and junkfoodjunkees. It is just our sugar addiction is legal and helps stimulate the economy. One Super sized Soda at a time. The Bible says I won’t be mastered by anything. Our addictions do have a price to pay. The bible says the drunkard AND GLUTTON will come to ruin.
I found the answer 11 years ago when I met Jesus. He set me free instantly from many addictions, but others resurface fairly fast when I turn my eyes away from Him. Now when I look to Him, I am not craving other junk. At a camp meeting a few years back, a husband and wife named the Sutton Family sang a song that hit home. It is called HOOKED on JESUS. “I must admit it,” they sing, “I’m hooked on Jesus. HE’s nearly always on my mind. I got me a drink of that living water, and now I stay high, most all the time.”
You might not be addicted to anything that is that obvious you need help. That I think is one of the devil’s greatest tricks today. We are not in the gutter drunkards, and everyone else is doing it, and we must be ok. You can’t swim to the lifeboat where Jesus is waiting with open arms, when you are calmly treading water in the River De-Nial. But do your soul a favor– cut out sweets and the media for 24 hours and then a full 7 days and just see how addicted to this world you really are. Then cry out to the Lord for deliverance! He will be all you need once you see He’s all you have. Taste and see that the Lord is good says the Bible.