When Dennis is exhausted and irritable after a hard day's work, all he wants to do is go home, flip on the TV, and lose himself in a football game. Several beers later, he falls asleep on the couch. That's how Dennis handles stress. His wife, Kathy, deals with her daily frustrations by "going on and on and on" about her problems to Dennis or anyone else who will listen. By some standards, Kathy would be considered a talkaholic. The coping techniques this couple employ seem normal enough, although they are at odds with each other when Kathy wants to talk and Dennis wants to watch football!

Carl's way of relaxing is to submerge himself in restoring old cars. Mary Ellen, his wife, heads for the refrigerator when she's overwhelmed. If Carl chides her for over-eating, she laughs good-naturedly and says, "I'm not eating--I'm self-medicating."

Are these people placing themselves at risk for addiction? What is the difference between normal activities and addictive behavior?

An unhealthy relationship

Addiction is an unhealthy relationship between a person and a mind-altering substance or experience that renders that person unable to quit. Alcoholism, drug addiction, and smoking are collectively known as chemical dependencies. Process or activity addictions like gambling, overworking, eating disorders, and sexual excesses are considered clean or non-chemical dependencies.

Addiction is a disease of the extreme. If one's interest in a particular substance, activity, or person is pursued moderately and integrated into real life, it may not be a problem. The problem is in becoming preoccupied to the point that we are using the substance, relationship, or activity to avoid intolerable reality or to sidestep the challenges and responsibilities of everyday life.

One of the first indicators of addiction is the impulse to ignore the problem and hope it will go away. Another typical indicator is the creation of logical explanations--rationalizations--to explain one's behavior. We use such defensive maneuvers to avoid facing the reality of the situation.

Other key indicators of addiction are preoccupation with the activity and a drivenness to engage in it. Addicts are often secretive about their activity and deceptive when discovered. By contrast, moderation and integration into real life mark a behavior as healthy. As previously noted, the tendency to make a single substance, person, or process one's sole source of meaning, identity, and value is a sign of unhealthy dependence.

Isolation and unreality typify addiction. The narrower one's focus and the more removed from real life and real relationships one's behavior, the greater the likelihood that he or she is developing an addictive disorder. This is especially true for non-chemical dependencies like compulsive worrying, caretaking or control, workaholism, cyberspace addictions, etc.

In practical terms, addiction is any activity people make highest priority in their life when they do so to their own detriment or the detriment of the people closest to them and when they continue to do so in the face of adverse consequences, like the loss of family, job, freedom, or health.

People graduate from healthy to addictive behavior when they begin to neglect important social, occupational, or relational responsibilities. Their behavior becomes increasingly unmanageable. They make futile attempts to regain control--cutting up credit cards (which is not necessarily a bad idea) in order to curtail excessive spending or not drinking before dinner to avoid alcoholism. Such attempts to control generally fail. Eventually, everything yields to the obsession. All activities are scheduled around it. Addicts cannot predict how much they will consume or how long they will "use" once they've taken the first dose of whatever they're hooked on. They're powerless to stop even though they know they're hurting themselves. Research indicates that the inability to quit is a by-product of changes in the brain brought on by the use of the drug itself.

Why risk addiction?

Why would anyone want to risk getting addicted in the first place? The answer is simple: drinking, drugging, shoplifting, having love affairs, and other mind-altering experiences are rewarding, relaxing, stress-relieving. They make people feel good. The chemical activity in the brains of people who are in the first flush of romance or entrepreneurs who are making swift business deals is essentially the same as if they were high on cocaine or heroin.

Once people begin a mind-altering activity, they can easily become addicted. Their life becomes increasingly unmanageable. In the early stages of addiction, most users have an uncanny ability to justify what they're doing and to blame others for their actions, which greatly confuses the issue. They rationalize and minimize the negative impact of their behavior.

Jason, a young husband and father, had a series of extra-marital affairs even though he believed that infidelity was immoral. He told himself that his actions were justified because his wife had gained a lot of weight and he was no longer attracted to her.

Emily, a physician's wife, developed the habit of overspending. She justified it on the basis of her husband's workaholism. "I wouldn't go to the mall so much if he were home more," she reasoned.

Darlene, a dedicated Christian who was deeply involved in personal ministries, spent an inordinate amount of time on church and charitable activities even though she had several children in need of her attention. She frequently left her children with a church member in order to do her "good deeds." When her eldest son told her that he was lonely and bored, Darlene excused her neglect by explaining that the reason she was working so hard was that people would be lost for eternity if she didn't tell them the "good news." She exhorted her son to stop complaining and count his blessings.

The various forms of addiction affect addicts' families in the same way as if the addicts were alcoholics. It doesn't matter whether Daddy is at the bar or at the office--if he's not there for the children, he's not there for the children! It doesn't matter whether Mom "passes out" on the couch from an overdose of ValiumTM or from exhaustion. Her children are emotional orphans! The symptoms seen in the children of workaholics are indistinguishable from those seen in the children of alcoholics. And experts agree that the children of workaholics are harder to treat therapeutically than are the children of alcoholics.

So, what can you do if you become aware that you are relating addictively to a substance or activity? If your life is so unmanageable that you are at risk of losing your family, your health, your job, or perhaps even your life, then I recommend professional treatment. Counseling can help, but in severe cases, attendance at an addiction recovery treatment center is best. While these are typically quite expensive, they are cheap compared to the alternatives.

A good alternative for milder addictions or for those who cannot afford professional treatment is a Twelve-Step program such as Alcoholics Anonymous. These programs have a strong spiritual component. Research suggests that addicts who attend them consistently are more likely to maintain sobriety and achieve high-quality recovery than are those who don't.

Support groups for most addictions are available, including groups for the families of addicts. The key is honesty, open-mindedness, and willingness. Meetings can be found almost everywhere, and God is present in these places! There is no better alternative for anyone seeking moderation, balance, and a better way of life.

"After the fireworks died down and the shouts grew hoarse, Dave Schultz dashed into his house, grabbed a brown paper bag, ran to his neighbor's house, and rang the doorbell.

"Happy New Year!" he exclaimed as the door opened. "I saw your light was on, so I knew you were up. I came over to give you this." He handed the bag and its contents to C. Mervyn Maxwell, late professor emeritus of church history at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary in Berrien Springs, Michigan. "I was planning to get drunk," he confided, "but I just made my New Year's resolutions, and I've decided to stop drinking."

He went on. "Tomorrow's not only a new year; it's also a new decade--the perfect time for me to quit. It'll be another 10 years before an opportunity like this rolls around again."

Dave pointed to the bag in Maxwell's hand: "That's a bottle of cheap booze. I want you to keep it because I know you're a pastor, so you won't touch it. I'd trash it, but I know myself too well. If I opened this bottle now, I'd just pour it down my throat. I want to quit now--not tomorrow. Please pray for me, Pastor."

Maxwell prayed for Dave in those first few moments of the new year, and promised to keep him on his prayer list. He took the bottle from Dave and stored it in the back of his refrigerator, where it stayed for the next six months.

On June 1 Dave stopped by to report that, with the Lord's help and with the aid of Alcoholics Anonymous, he hadn't had a drink since New Year's Eve. He announced that he was applying for a job at a nearby retirement center, and he asked to list Maxwell as one of his references. Later that evening Maxwell took the bottle out of his refrigerator, and he and Dave took it out to the backyard and poured its contents onto the lawn.

"Pastor, I can honestly say that I no longer like the taste of alcohol," Dave said as the last drop dripped from the bottle. "It's a miracle. Thanks for your prayers; God must listen to you."

Still a Struggle

Early in October Dave celebrated nine months of victory by sharing some ice cream with his boss. So impressed was his boss with Dave's recent job performance that he had made him manager of one of his two retirement facilities. But when the facility was struck by staffing shortages caused by employees going back to school or taking other positions, Dave found himself struggling.

One week, after working 53 hours in less than three days, Dave felt that old thirst return in response to the mounting pressure. He didn't crave the taste of alcohol so much as the release from stress that he imagined it would bring from his work-related problems. However, he willed himself not to succumb.

At that moment the lights went out--literally. In the darkness of his office Dave groped for the telephone and called an electrician. As he waited in the darkness he remembered the acronym HALT that he had learned at a recent meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. HALT stood for hungry, angry, lonely, tired--obstacles that stood between him and his continued sobriety. He realized that to keep away from alcohol, to keep the respect of his employer and his employees, he'd have to depend more fully on his relationship with God. Prayer seemed the only solution to the weariness, frustration, loneliness, and spiritual hunger he felt. He knew his friends were praying for him, and he pleaded with God for help in not disappointing them.

The electrician arrived while Dave was praying. As Dave showed the electrician where repairs were needed, he mumbled to himself, "Will this ever end?"

It'll pass," the electrician replied, startling Dave, who didn't realize he had spoken out loud. "Don't worry," the man smiled. "I've been through plenty of rough times. I know what you're going through. I've been there." He patted Dave on the shoulder.

Dave straightened his shoulders, confident that he didn't need alcohol to help him solve his problems. Still, he prayed.

Help Is on the Way

One afternoon while visiting Lamson Hall, the women's dormitory at Andrews University, Dave mentioned to the dean that he was looking for nurses to work at the retirement facility.

"Why don't you call Amanda?" she suggested. "She's a nurse; if she wants work, she'd be great."

Dave took the number, thanked the dean, and hurried off to join his evening support group at Alcoholics Anonymous. At the meeting he was jolted by the revelation that many of his peers at the sessions had been involved in social drinking off and on for several months.

Their confessions shocked Dave and made him wonder: If they haven't licked their problem, what hope do I have? Why should I try to resist each and every day? Don't I deserve a drink every once in a while for working so hard? He couldn't help thinking of a quiet corner in what used to be his favorite bar.

But Dave's better judgment kicked in, and he resisted the impulse to condemn his buddies. He felt disappointment, but he decided that for him, prayer meant the difference between success and failure. Their failure made his resolve stronger.

Leaving the meeting, he drove home, took Amanda's phone number from his pocket, and dialed her number. A woman's voice answered on the second ring. "Hello, Amanda?" Dave asked politely. "What were you doing before you answered the phone?"

"You won't believe this," she answered, "but I was on my knees praying that someone would call and offer me a job."

"Well, I've got a job opening," said Dave, "and I was praying that you'd fill it."

The next day Amanda met Dave in his office at the retirement center, and he interviewed her for the opening he had. They signed a contract, and she began working immediately. Two days later another nurse approached him about a job, and he hired her as well.

Victory in Christ

The next evening Dave saw the light on in the Maxwell home. He went over to share what God had been doing in his life. "I keep telling myself I can make it through this. I'm not going to crack.

"I can look my boss and my employees in the eye," he said. "They know I can handle tough times without resorting to a crutch such as alcohol.