Reflections
ON THE EDGE---ADDICTION, AFFLICTION AND THE ROAD TO RECOVERY
By Gayle Hoone
Experts say one-third of society is addicted to drugs. Each addict affects eight to fourteen people. Addiction not only ruins lives and destroys families, but costs companies billions of dollars each year in lost sick time. The following interview between Pete Hammond, director of InterVarsity’s Marketplace ministry and publisher of Marketplace Networks, and Gayle Hoone, a former alcoholic/addict of 20 years and a Christian addictions counselor in Florida, elaborates on the growing problem of addiction in the workplace and the long, toilsome road to recovery.
Pete: Is it your understanding that alcohol and drug addiction is a major problem in the American workplace?
Gayle: It is my belief that alcohol and drugs are the prime problem behind our society.
Pete: So our culture is addicted?
Gayle: I believe more than one-third of society is addicted with alcohol/drugs.
Pete: Why is this such a deep interest of yours?
Gayle: Because I come from an alcoholic family, and I too was addicted for 20 years.
Pete: How did you come to this awareness?
Gayle: God intervened. He put a friend of my husband’s in our life who had recovered from alcohol through Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and he introduced me to AA where I found Christ.
Pete: That may surprise a lot of people; that you met Christ in AA.
Gayle: AA was founded by a born-again Christian and the Steps are from Corinthians, James, and Timothy. When I had approached the eleventh step, which is a deeper spiritual understanding, I began to seek more intently that deeper knowledge, and found Christ.
Pete: So, it was a Christian in AA who took you a step further?
Gayle: No. It was a hunger within me. I met a Christian, but I didn’t know she was a Christian. It was through a weekend of having a bad emotional time I picked up the Bible and met Christ.
Pete: So you were having a tough weekend?
Gayle: It was more than a tough weekend; it was a suicidal weekend. And my husband was out of town. I spent a cloistered weekend in the bedroom reading all of my literature on addiction to find out what was wrong with me, and I didn’t get any answers. So, I picked up the Bible. It fell open to “You are a peculiar person not of this world,” and I knew I had found the answer. I have never felt like I belonged. I then read the book of Romans, and read about me.
Pete: Tell us a little bit more about your coming to Christ. Is it recent?
Gayle: It was five years ago, the Sunday before Easter. As I said, I was having a difficult weekend. You must understand, when alcoholics and addicts recover, when you take away the alcohol and drugs, they have a very difficult time functioning, learning how to live. I literally had to learn how to brush my teeth and get out of bed. I had to learn everything all over again.
Pete: So stopping drinking and drugs really isn’t the issue.
Gayle: No.
Pete: It’s the work after that…
Gayle: It actually gets worse.
Pete: How so?
Gayle: Because the alcoholic and addict is given a sense of well-being and normalcy by his drug use. Isolated in the blood is something called the X-factor, which sets up an allergy, which generates a craving for the alcohol or drug. In our brains we lack chemicals that give a sense of well being, and alcohol chemically meets that need. So, there’s a chemical appetite that the drug satisfies.
Pete: In a lot of Christian circles, the conclusion about drug addiction is, “That is sin, stop it, and God will love you.” Do you agree with that?
Gayle: No.
Pete: Where are you on the nature of the problem and its relationship to sin?
Gayle: Medically speaking, drug use is a physical addiction. I believe it is a curse of the flesh. Noah drank, got drunk, committed a sin, his family covered it up, which is a picture of the family today…We are born with sin, and so I believe alcoholics are born…
Pete: That would seem to me to open the door to another controversy in Christian circles today regarding homosexuality— “I’m programmed that way, it’s not sin.”
Gayle: I didn’t say it wasn’t sin. When working with alcoholics and addicts, we’re not debating sin. We’re all sinners, we’ve all fallen short of the glory of God. That’s not the point. The point is, they need the love of Christ to help them get better. They wouldn’t come to me if they didn’t want to get better. And so pointing a finger at them and saying you’re a sinner when they already have a broken heart, hate themselves, and are on a suicide mission, just as the homosexuals are, I think that is the wrong approach. And I don’t think Christ would handle it that way. Did he do that with the woman at the well, the Samaritan? No. He loved her at the point of her receptivity of Him.
Pete: You used the illustration of Noah and the family’s tendency to cover up the problem. Is that a Biblical illustration of the terms enablement and co-dependency?
Gayle: Yes, the Bible says we should take the sin to the sinners. We’re talking about intervention. The family confronts daddy or brother or mother the morning after the night before and in confronting him, says, “Dad, this happened,” as Noah’s sons should have done. Having a family conference, sitting down and talking about it, and considering professional help. In the beginning stages you can do that, but after a certain amount of time the family becomes co-addicted, enabling the alcoholic/addict to stay in the sickness. Family members end up buying the product, bailing him out of jail, and going to pick him up when he can’t drive. They keep trying to save him instead of leaving him in his pain. When you leave an alcoholic and addict in their pain, usually they’ll opt for life because God so desires it. But the family tends to want to be the Holy Spirit, and save him. And they can’t do that. In the work environment, co-workers may begin to cover-up for the addict’s mistakes as well.
Pete: What does intervention mean?
Gayle: Intervention is taking the sin to the sinner. The counselor gathers all of the friends and family together. They each write a letter which paints a picture of the behavior as a result of the drug use. They prepare, rehears, and then meet with the alcoholic or addict to read the letters. It is 98 percent successful.
Pete: It sounds like a severe act of love.
Gayle: It is an extreme act of love—an ultimate act of love. It is an attempt to alert a person where they are headed, what alcohol is doing to their life, and how drugs are destroying them, their family, their job, their health, and their relationship with Christ.
Pete: What are some ways people in the workplace can recognize addicted people?
Gayle: Some symptoms may include arriving early or late to work; dilated or constricted pupils; the whites of the eyes may be yellow indicating liver problems; redness in the eyes may indicate stress in the kidneys; they may begin to look somewhat unkempt; experience forgetfulness; and take long lunches because they have to use. Their body calls for it. It is a chemical drive by the brain.
Pete: If an employer or co-worker senses addiction, what should they do?
Gayle: They should not confront the employee until you have taken some steps, such as talking to a counselor. Some large corporations have EAPs (Employment Assistant Programs) which usually have the expertise to help or can refer you to an expert who can provide information. Once the employer has been educated and has observed the employee and gathered information, the employee needs to be confronted. The employer may say, “This, this and this are happening. I believe you have an addiction problem and I want to help you.” Let the employee know there is an ultimate love there, but also that if he wants to keep his job he must opt for help.
Pete: But, the threatening environment, “You stop drinking or you will lose your job,” is not the right response?
Gayle: No, because if you threaten, the broken heart will just put up a wall of defenses and will go out and drink to cover the pain, and possibly, eventually seek another job.
Pete: You have suggested that out churches are full of addicted people and co-dependents and enablers. What would you like the church to start doing?
Gayle: I would like the church to be equipped. I have a burden for the church. I have a burden for Christians; that the pastor come to an understanding and an acceptance that addiction is not a debate about sin. If the pastor will have that kind of acceptance then I think the rest of the sheep will fall in and desire to help. The church may even begin to set-up small groups where the alcoholic and addict can go and talk about what is going on inside; a safe place to meet and grow in Christ.
Pete: But, to tell an addict to stop drinking and start reading the Bible isn’t necessarily the solution?
Gayle: No, it’s not. It is terribly cruel because the alcoholic and addict then thinks, “What’s wrong with me? God must not love me, I’m not good enough. Maybe I’m not the predestined one. I’m like Judas, I’ll be thrown away.” And so they start to throw themselves away. They’ve been on a suicide mission ever since they started using.
Pete: You described yourself as suicidal.
Gayle: I was, yes. Very suicidal. I tried to take my life multiple times—even in recovery. I think the Holy Spirit did things slowly for me, on step at a time. You see, the alcoholic is so overwhelmed in recovery—physically, emotionally, and spiritually—that it is a very slow process. It takes two years for alcoholics to recover. They have physiological changes every three months for two years. For other drugs it can be five to nine years experiencing those physiological changes. Each drug has a different affect.
Pete: So, when a person is coming off of whatever their addiction is, there is a long period of adjustment when a lot of help is needed, a lot of compassion, and professional help?
Gayle: Yes. Number one is rest—physical, mental, and emotional. Addicts are terribly exhausted. Alcohol goes through the blood and washes every single cell. The cells stop producing. The cells, when they begin to produce again, produce distortedly; almost in a cancerous type of configuration. Alcohol and drug addiction causes over 360 diseases. There is kidney shutdown, liver damage, brain dysfunction. Now, the Lord can bring all that back, and I’ve seen that in my own case. But it takes so much time, and they need a safe place, a safe environment, where they have a lot of therapy and a lot of counseling, and a lot of people to help. This is a work from inside the heart out. And the work has to repair the broken heart.
Pete: Thanks you, Gayle Hoone, we hope to hear from you again in a few years with a full blown ministry.
Gayle: Lord willing.
Pete: If the creek don’t rise.
Gayle Hoone is currently involved with Love is for Eternity, a clinic which provides pastoral counseling for those involved with people who are addicted to alcohol and other drugs. A joint venture with Safe House International, Love is for Eternity trains pastors and others to spot symptoms of addiction, to help addicts deal with withdrawal, and to see them through the difficult months of healing.
Networks, Volume Four, Number One, Summer 1991
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