We Are All Addicts
How Our Idols Keep Us From Flourishing
Samson and Delilah (1887) by Jose Etxenagusia
This article is part of the blog’s Lent series where Claritas writers are reflecting on the season of Lent in the weeks leading up to Easter.
BY JACK KUBINEC
After getting home from a not-particularly-notable day of school last month, I slung my backpack down onto the floor, hopped up onto my roommate’s bed (he has a very nice comforter, plus what he doesn’t know can’t hurt him), and opened up YouTube. I ended up clicking on an interview with a “functional heroin addict” named Matthew [1].
The video was interesting in a sad sort of way—Matthew talks about how he holds down a job and a romantic relationship while also spending thousands of dollars a month on heroin. I found one line in the video particularly chilling. Matthew’s eyes light up as he describes his heroin use: “[heroin] became what I wanted it to be, and it became what I needed it to be … it’s like it took my brain over and said this is what you needed, and this is the way it should be.” I don’t use heroin, but as I watched Matthew speak, I realized that our brains are uncomfortably similar—not because I can claim to understand the neurochemistry of opioid addiction but because I can see something in myself that resonates with Matthew’s experience.
In this Lenten season of prayer and fasting, I’ve started to see the ways that I, too, am a sort of functional addict, placing vain hope in job prospects, popularity, and comfort to take away my problems. In practice, I treat these things as gods in their own right—what scripture refers to as idols. Like an addict, I lose sight of everything else when my idols are taken away and, like an addict, my idols will destroy me if I don’t find a way to let go of them. During my recent reflections on addiction, I came across the familiar Biblical story of Samson and Delilah, but I suddenly understood the passage in an entirely new light.
Samson was a powerful warrior and an influential political figure, a “judge” for the ancient Israelites. If you were to sit in a room with young Samson, the first thing you would likely notice would be his hair—it had never been cut in his entire life, a sign of his devotion to God. In response, God gave Samson superhuman strength: he ripped a lion to shreds with his bare hands [2] and massacred an army of Philistines (Israel’s enemies) using the jawbone of a donkey [3].
But, Samson had an idol—sex. Samson spent his young adult years in promiscuity, and the Philistines convinced an attractive Philistine woman named Delilah to seduce Samson and get him to reveal how his strength could be stymied. Samson lies to Delilah several times, causing multiple false alarms where Philistines barge into Samson’s bedroom only to be crushed by the mighty warrior. But in a confusing turn of events, Samson eventually gives in to Delilah, saying, “Yeah, if you cut off my hair, I’ll lose my power,” before going to sleep. The Philistines then capture and enslave Samson.
I’ve always found this passage confusing: If Samson knew Delilah’s intentions, then why would Samson tell her how to destroy him? Within the context of idolatry and addiction, though, the puzzle is resolved. The crushing moment for Samson comes when Delilah asks him: “How can you say ‘I love you’ when your heart is not with me?” [4] Idols demand our hearts, and they refuse to share them. Just as Delilah forced Samson to choose between her favor and God’s favor, our idols want to take God’s place in our lives. The problem is that the weight of a human soul is too much to be carried by anything other than God. Samson allowed his idol to destroy him because that’s what idols do.
Matthew knows that his addiction may well kill him someday—he gives himself to heroin anyway. If you asked the average Cornell student, they’d probably tell you that their worth is not based on their schoolwork—they study themselves into oblivion anyway. I know my own ego isn’t good for me—I place stock in what others think of me anyway. Samson was an addict; we are all addicts. And addicts behave irrationally.
For this reason, fasting during Lent has transformed the way I think about freedom. This Lent season, I’ve been abstaining from eating food before dinner on Saturdays. It has been eye-opening for me to see how hard it is to focus when I’m hungry—I can’t think of anything but food when hunger pangs kick in. Fasting from food is symbolic of how I interact with the other idols in my life. When one of my idols is threatened, I respond with disproportionate anger or sadness or fear until the idol is restored. In those moments, I lose my ability to be fully human and am momentarily enslaved by my idol addiction.
In the 1950s, two psychologists hooked up electrodes to the pleasure centers in rats’ brains and stimulated the brains’ pleasure centers whenever the rats pushed a lever. After discovering how the levers worked, the rats pushed the levers over and over for days on end, preferring the levers even before food or water. The rats pressed their levers until they died of starvation. [5] I think the rat study shows a sped-up version of how many of us live our lives—standing atop our idols, living for the promise of another dopamine hit, ignoring the food and water that could nourish us.
Lent, and the fasting that accompanies it, is a time to take control of our addictions and to discover that there are greater depths of joy to be found in communion with God. Let’s do what the rats cannot—step off of our levers, eat a hearty meal, and curl up for a nap, for “in his presence there is fullness of joy.” [6]