If you are reading this, there is a good chance you are tired. Not just physically tired, though probably that too. Tired of the cycle. Tired of promising yourself and God that this time will be different. Tired of the shame that comes crashing in after. Tired of watching other people seem to walk in freedom while you are back in the same place again.
I want to speak directly to you, not around you.
What you are dealing with is real. The pull is real. The shame is real. The exhaustion is real. And the grace of God is also real, more real and more available than the shame has been telling you.
This is not a post about how to get free in five steps, though there are some practical things worth saying. This is first and foremost a post about what God actually thinks of the person who keeps going back. Because if you have believed the wrong thing about that, nothing else will work anyway.
What the Shame Is Telling You
Shame has a very specific script. You know it well because you have heard it more times than you can count. It goes something like this: You have done this before. You said you were done and you went back again. God is tired of this. His patience is not unlimited. At some point the grace runs out, and you have probably used yours up by now. You should be further along. A real Christian would not still be here. You are beyond help.
That is the script. And it is a lie. Every word of it.
Shame presents itself as conviction, which is why it is so convincing. But conviction and shame are not the same thing, and getting that distinction wrong will keep you trapped.
"If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness."
1 John 1:8-9Conviction versus shame
Conviction says: what you did was wrong, and you can turn from it. It points toward God and toward change. Shame says: you are what is wrong, and you cannot change. It points inward and paralyzes. Conviction is the Holy Spirit. Shame is the accuser. They feel similar but they lead to completely different places.
What Paul Actually Said About This
Romans 7 is one of the most honest passages in all of Scripture. Paul, who wrote a significant portion of the New Testament, who had been caught up to the third heaven, who planted churches across the known world, wrote this:
I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do, this I keep on doing.
Romans 7:15, 18-19Paul. Writing about the ongoing battle with sin in his own life. Using language that sounds very much like the experience of someone trapped in a cycle they cannot seem to break. What I do not want to do, I keep doing.
He is not describing a pre-conversion experience and then a post-conversion freedom. He is describing the ongoing reality of a person who loves God and still finds themselves doing the thing they hate. And he ends the chapter not with a five-step plan for moral improvement, but with a cry of relief:
What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!
Romans 7:24-25The rescue is not a program. The rescue is a person. Jesus Christ our Lord. And the next chapter, Romans 8, opens with one of the most important sentences in the New Testament:
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
Romans 8:1No condemnation. Not conditional on how many times you have failed. Not dependent on your track record. No condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. If you are in Him, that is where you stand. Not condemned. Not used up. Not out of chances.
Grace Is Not a License. It Is a Power.
I want to address something directly, because some people will read the above and hear: so it does not matter what I do. That is not what this is saying.
Paul himself asked the question in Romans 6: shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? And he answered it plainly: by no means. Grace is not a license to stay in the cycle. It is the power to begin to come out of it.
The reason grace matters so much in the context of addiction is this: shame keeps people trapped. When someone is convinced that God has given up on them, that they are beyond redemption, that they have used up their chances, the very thing that could fuel repentance and change has been removed. They stop turning back to God because they believe there is no point. And the cycle gets tighter.
Grace breaks that. Grace says: come back. Again. Every time. The door is open. Come back.
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:38-39Nor anything else in all creation. That includes the thing you keep going back to. That includes your cycle. That includes last night.
Some Honest Things Worth Saying
Grace is not the same as the absence of consequences, and love for someone trapped in addiction does not mean pretending the trap is harmless. So here are some honest things alongside the grace.
You were not designed to fight this alone
James 5:16 says confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The design is community. Addiction thrives in secrecy. It cannot survive in the light nearly as well as it can in the dark. Bringing it into the presence of a trusted person, a counselor, a pastor, a safe community, is not weakness. It is the biblical prescription for healing.
Getting professional help is wisdom, not failure
God heals through many means. Through prayer, yes. Through community. And also through trained people who understand the brain science of addiction and can offer tools that make the road out more navigable. Seeking that help is not a sign that your faith is insufficient. It is a sign that you are serious about getting free.
Every return to God counts
Every single time you turn back to Him, that turn matters. It is not wasted. It is not proof that you are hopeless. In Luke 15, the father saw his son coming from a long way off and ran toward him. He did not wait to see whether this return would stick. He ran. God runs toward every return, however many there have been before.
Freedom is real and it is available to you
I have seen it. I have lived portions of it. The chains you are carrying do not have to be permanent. Healing is not a fantasy. It is a Kingdom reality that God actively works toward in the lives of people who keep coming back to Him. Do not let shame convince you that freedom is for everyone but you. It is not true.
If you are reading this in the middle of the cycle, here is what I want you to hear above everything else.
Come back. Right now. Not when you have cleaned yourself up. Not when you have made it thirty days or sixty days or a year. Right now, in the middle of it, turn your face toward Him and come back. He is already watching the road. He is already running toward you.
The enemy wants you to believe that one more failure means the door is finally closed. It is not. Grace does not work like that. The love of God does not work like that. The father in Luke 15 did not keep a counter and cut his son off when he reached his limit. He looked up and saw him coming and ran.
But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.
Luke 15:20He ran. He is still running. Toward you. In this.
Father, I come to you in the middle of my struggle. I admit that I keep going back to things that hurt me and dishonor you. I am tired of the shame and the cycle. Meet me here, in this place of honesty. Give me the courage to turn back to you again and again, knowing that your grace is sufficient for me. Thank you that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Help me to rest in your love and grace today. In Jesus Name, Amen.
With honesty and hope for your walk with Him,
Claire