How Are You Self-Medicating?

I was talking with a man the other day and he was explaining to me how many projects he had, and that were vying for his attention. They all were equally important, each with the people in charge wanting their project to be first on his list. Needless to say this man was slightly stressed out. As I usually do when I run into people that are being pulled like this, I tried to encourage him and said, "Be sure and go have a cup of coffee and just sit down for a while." His response to me was, "I'll have a cup of coffee, but I want something a little stronger in it too!"

As I left the conversation, I began to think about what he had said and the thought occurred to me that he meant that he needed a little stronger help in order to alleviate the stress in his life. How many of us do that too? I mean look for something to help us get past the grief, stress and troubles that face each and every one of us daily? Now maybe you don't reach for a bottle of alcohol to drown your sorrows, but what is it that you go to when things are tough in your life?

In the world that we live in, especially in the last ten to fifteen years, we have been inundated with commercials about the latest and greatest drugs on the market, each with about a thousand side effects. The one that makes me laugh out loud about is the drug to help with depression, which one of the side effects is that you may have suicidal thoughts. Really? A drug to make you happy, but just might cause you to kill yourself? Isn't that just a little bit ironic don't you think? Along with this, and the myriad of medical websites found on the internet is it any wonder that we as a society is a mess in this area?

Now before you say to me that you are not like this, what do you do when the daily grind begins to get to you? I know for me, it has always been to pop in a DVD or blue-ray disc and "veg out". Years ago, before being delivered as an alcoholic by Jesus, I would purchase a couple of cases of high point beer and spend the weekend in my apartment just drinking my troubles away. The thing is, that everyone does this to some degree. Some people shop, others gossip or spend endless hours on Facebook (guilty as charged) or they have endless hobbies or put their children in every sporting event known to man to keep busy. Which causes all manner of endless stress, it's a vicious circle.

I remember reading a great book by John Eldredge called "Walking with God", which can be purchased on his website at this link: and I would highly recommend it. In the book he related a story about how he would come home from a hard day of work and pour himself a stiff drink to help him unwind. This became a habit for him, and one day the Lord asked him about it. It seems that for John the drink was what he was going to for relief instead of going to the Lord. And with this realization, he sat down the drinking and begin spending time with the Father after work instead.

And this is the real crux of the matter here. What is it that we go to in order to relieve whatever stressful situations that we find ourselves going through in this life? I know that for me, going to the Father seems to be the last thing I think of, and why is that exactly? Could it be that this is opposed because it is something that our enemy, the devil knows will help us and bring the peace that we are searching for? I think so.

Jesus told us in Scripture that we would be opposed by the world, and have tribulations, trials and tests. We should not be surprised when it happens, yet we so often seem to be caught off guard by it, and then we begin trying to find things to bring relief. Instead we should run to the Father when life gets tough, take our troubles to Him and lay them at His feet and find what we need. Remember Jesus said to take His yoke upon us because it is easy. I'm going to start doing this today, and stop self-medicating in my life. How about you?