A Manual for Ministering in the Addiction Recovery Mission Field
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Wise as Serpents Harmless as Doves A manual for ministering in the addiction recovery mission field. Project Rescue Addiction Recovery Program 179 Cave Spring Road, Decatur, AL 35603 256-616-1522 [email protected] Dear minister, I appreciate your taking the time to teach the Gospel to our program members! Please know, that you do not need to be knowledgeable about counseling drug addicts. The preacher who taught me the Gospel in prison never counseled me for my addiction issues. The main thing each of our members need is for a minister to help them hear and understand God’s word. Before missionaries travel to a foreign mission field like Haiti, England, Africa, or China, they learn all they can about the people, laws, culture, customs, etc. The Dos and DON’Ts are important, because they do not want to do anything to hinder the influence of the Gospel. We prepared this pamphlet to optimize your potential of having a positive impact when you visit Project Rescue. Mark 2:17 implies that sinful behavior makes us sick. We have learned that some are sicker than others. The typical man in our care, quit the church in his early teens. Tragically, he chose an evil road less travelled. It was an express route deep down into various sin addictions. Galatians 6:1 implies that we should be careful as we “restore” members of the church “overtaken” by sin. Paul also instructed Timothy about the ability, patience and humility a “servant of the Lord” needs when “…correcting those who are in opposition . that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will.” 2 Timothy 2:24-26 We primarily need your skills to help our members hear and understand God’s word! The articles that follow are based on our 13 years of experience living among, housing, feeding, managing, and ministering to recovering drug addicts. In His service, Ronnie Crocker, Program Manager Project Rescue Addiction Recovery Program is an article written by a man in an addiction recovery When Helping Hurts program. The Beltline church of Christ eldership mailed this letter to all their members. An addict is not evil, but very sick. Family, friends, ministers, and mentors must be wise as serpents! Dear kind and giving hearts who still love me, Please remember, I am in an addiction recovery program, I am not evil, but I am very sick! Please know, there are times WHEN HELPING HURTS: Please do not give me money. While I’m in rehab, money is like gasoline on a fire. When I come to your home for a visit, please hide all your medicine. I will not be able to resist taking it. Watch your jewelry and small expensive items. I will take and trade them for drugs. If I leave the program, please don’t let me move in with you. I will destroy your home life. I need a recovery program! This is WHEN HELPING HURTS! Please watch your credit cards. I will use them for purchases and cash, and return them before you know it. Or, I will take a picture of your card and use it online or sell it to my drug dealer. Please do not let me use your smart phone or computer. I will buy things on your Amazon and other App accounts and have them mailed to another address. Do not co-sign for a vehicle or sell me a vehicle with weekly payments. I will trash the car or let a drug dealer use it in exchange for drugs. Don’t invest in my business ideas. Do not partner with me in business. I will embezzle the profits for drugs. This is WHEN HELPING HURTS! If I get locked up, please do not bond me out, unless you’re taking me straight to a drug program. Do not help me with my criminal charges, unless it is to get me court ordered to a drug program. If you hire an attorney, have him/her represent you, not me. I am good at manipulating my way out of consequences, and the attorney is required to do what I want. If I call you to come get me out of this program, please don’t come. Remind me I am where I need to be. Please don’t fall for my promises of doing better with your help. I need professional help. This is WHEN HELPING HURTS! When Helping Hurts I use the pickling process as an illustration to explain how the methods of ministering to an addict are drastically different from the methods used in personal evangelism. My wife Jeanie and I have lived two drastically different lives! Figuratively speaking, I am a pickle and Jeanie is a cucumber. You saturate a cucumber long enough in vinegar, it will become a pickle. You can never turn that pickle back into a cucumber. During those years of abusing drugs, I was pickled in a jar (world) of vinegar (sin). I spent 15 years being saturated with evil thoughts, evil words, evil actions, and evil habits. Those bad thoughts, words, actions, and habits changed (pickled) me forever. This is what I mean when I say, I am a pickle. On the other hand, my wife Jeanie grew up on the mission field of Africa, the daughter of a Gospel preacher. She attended Christian schools and universities. She did not experience the extent of sin which I did. She did not experience the evil pickling process which I did. Hence, Jeanie is a cucumber and I am a pickle. Now, I stopped abusing drugs in 1984, when I was arrested for the last time. On June 1, 1986 my sins were washed away when I was baptized into Christ. I came up out of that watery grave of baptism to walk in newness of life (Romans 6:1-4). When I obeyed the Gospel, I became a new creation. Old things were passed away, and all things became new (2 Corinthians 5:17). However, my experience with the devil and sin, and my memories of those 15 years in the pickle jar were not washed away. For the rest of my life, I have to be aware of, live with and even fight against my past pickling process (Galatians 5:1; Romans 6:17,18). In this regard, my fight of faith is very different from Jeanie’s fight of faith! I have triggers (memories) that she doesn’t have. She is a cucumber, and I am a pickle. The hardest stage of ministering to a recovering addict is the beginning stage (first 3-months). The pickling process corrupts one’s character (1 Timothy 4:2; James 3:14,15). I once heard a preacher who ministers to addicts say, “An addict can talk a cat off the back of a fish truck!” The Apostle Paul wrote about the corrupted conscience: "Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron." (1 Timothy 4:1.2) The Gospel Advocate's commentary on 1 Timothy 4:1,2 explains how living in sin corrupts the conscience: {branded in their own conscience as with a hot iron;—These men have become hardened and insensible to all feelings of justice and right. To live in neglect of a known duty or violation of a principle of right is to demoralize the spiritual man, weaken his moral character, and sear his conscience. This unfits man for the higher duties of life and gradually fits him for a life of sin and wrongdoing. Habitual violation of the sense of right educates a man for doing what is wrong. An occasional outburst, a great wrong repented of is not so fatal in its tendency, not so hardening in its influence on the heart and character of men as a continual violation of the principles of right in what are regarded as small matters. Peter, under the impulse of fear, could deny his Master and repent of it, and yet have a better conscience and a truer character than Judas Iscariot, who, during the time he carried the bag for the disciples, was doubtless guilty of petty peculations and pilferings continually. The man who cherishes some private or secret sin, which he thinks is petty and unimportant, is gradually hardening his heart and fitting himself for a total breakdown of his moral character that will develop itself in permanent open sinfulness and degradation. The conscience should be kept good and tender; the heart pure. Gospel Advocate Commentary on 1 Tim. 4 Before restoration can begin, the pickling process must be stopped. Let me explain: Quitting the drugs and alcohol is a beginning, but it does not necessarily stop the pickling process. Many come into our program and continue the evil thoughts, words, actions, and habits. They continue to resist God instead of the devil (James 4:7). Many of the souls in our care are like the prodigal son (Luke 15) who went out to conquer the world and the world conquered him. Most of them come to us after having destroyed almost every good thing in their life. Some have already surrendered (Romans 12:1,2), but the typical program member has not. The prodigal son surrendered (“came to himself”) only after all the money was gone, a famine hit his life, he was living with the pigs and considered eating the pigs’ food.