One step at a time

ADDICTION: (noun) An uncontrollable compulsion to repeat a behavior regardless of its negative consequences.
Sound familiar? The alcoholic who has to have one more drink. The compulsive gambler who has to make one more bet. The overeater who gets up in the middle of the night to check what might be in the refrigerator. Sometimes it is clearly a physical thing, a need for the drug of choice. Sometimes it is a way of escaping from other things happening all around.
If we were honest,we would acknowledge that we all have things in our lives that we do unthinkingly, even repetitively. Things that may be innocuous, even benign: getting up each morning at the same time, going to work or school by the same route, watching the same television programs. We could even include our faith group in that category: a standard ritual, a given lifestyle, a way of dressing and acting. Yes, even these things could be swept into the category with a broad enough broom.
And some would broaden the idea quite far: sex addiction, internet addiction, video game addiction. The trouble with such new forms of addiction is that they usually come from groups who frown on certain forms of behavior. If one person has a stronger sex drive than another, is such a person a sex addict? If a boy or girl spends hours playing video games rather with the rest of the family, is that young person addicted to video games?
Yes, we all can get into bad habits, and we can do certain things because we don't want to do other things. Having to be home for a favorite television show rather than going somewhere we find boring (less an valid excuse in these days of DVRs) says more about what we prefer and not so much about a compulsion. The husband who spends too much time on the computer may be avoiding his wife as much as it says about an obsession.
Granted, there can be things that take control of our lives. I remember a young man barricading himself in his room so he would not be disturbed while studying his Bible. Or the man who spent more and more time inappropriately with his daughter as he became more and more alienated from his wife. Could such things be considered "addictions?" Well, in the most generalized way, maybe. But they really have more to do with the ways we deal with the anxieties life throws at us and not so much with "spiritual addiction" or "sex addiction," whatever that might mean.
There is another aspect to all this: if we are "addicts" of whatever sort and validity, we are not really to blame. In alcoholism (which is an addiction), there is an physical component; in AA, it is called an "illness." Are we trying to absolve ourselves of the foolish compulsive things we do in our everyday lives?
Yet even in the varying 12-step programs, where addicts admit powerlessness, there is still an acceptance of responsibility to get straight again.