Addictions Podcast Episodes

It’s not a matter of avoiding certain behaviors the rest of our life. God wants us to give him our heart. The Lord wants our hearts to be on him. Welcome back, friends, to Breaking Bread, the podcast brought to you by Apostolic Christian Counseling and Family Services. Today, I’ve got a special guest with me, Roger Gasser. 

Welcome, Roger. Thank you, Matt. Good to be here. Roger is a clinician employed by ACCFS, but your home is in Paulding, Ohio. And you have a satellite office there. We have a satellite office in Paulding, Ohio. Yes. You work a fair amount with those who have addictions and are working through addictions. That is correct. Roger, as we broach this topic of addictions, help us understand what addictions are. How can we as a church better support those people and be a part of the solution when it comes to addiction? So, let’s start with that. What is addiction? It’s kind of scary if I think about, oh, am I addicted? 

I wonder if every one of us has had that thought. Like, you know, Am I addicted? Yes. And a number of our brothers and sisters in the church and visitors to our agency have the same thought. And I start by telling them that it is not the most important thing right now to know if they are addicted or not. 

That seems to be a sticky point for some of them. Am I addicted? How important is the label of addiction? You know, it seems like a well-defined line in the sand. Either you are or not addicted, right? That just seems like if I’m up to that line, it’s one thing. If I’m over the line, that’s quite another. 

So, what is it? What does the label mean? A good diagnosis leads to better treatment planning. In other words, if we understand and label a client correctly, if there is such a correct name for the client, then we know better how to treat that person. What we find is in my clients, I tell them the very first session, I can tell you what the characteristics of an addiction are. 

I will not label you yet. But maybe you could look at your own life and see if you fit those characteristics. If the labeling is advantageous for the recovery and for the process moving forward, then it’s worth knowing whether I am or am not. Sure. A good definition of addiction is, it’s a compulsive or physical dependence upon a substance, person, or behavior that provides a temporary sense of well-being. 

There are a couple of main types of addictions. There are substance addictions or chemical addictions, and that is addiction to a chemical. It might be alcohol. It might be cocaine. And then there are process addictions. A process addiction is something that we would on the surface think is okay to do. We need to eat. We need to eat to live. But food can become an addiction in which we not only eat to live, but we live to eat. And that becomes a soothing mechanism for us to deal with the pain of our life.  

Okay. So that was helpful, I think, to separate chemical addictions from process addictions. Can you fill out a few more process addictions? What would be a few others? I think that chemical addictions are easy to understand. Yes. Process addictions could be such as gambling, shopping, sexual addiction, workaholism, those are processes that seem to be necessary and good in their place, but when we break out of the boundaries of when God intended for us to do those activities, then we get into trouble. 

And that’s the case of process addiction. We all need to have food. We need to work. We are intended by God to have sex at the right time, and in the right boundaries set by God. However, when we use any of those processes to medicate ourselves, or to feel better temporarily, satisfaction outside of what God has intended for us, then we are toying with a process addiction. 

So yes, thank you for tying that back to that definition. So, these become temporal solutions. As you engage with a person, Roger, what would be some of the indicators that might flag addictions? There are a number of key behaviors that signal that someone is being addicted and I’ll just summarize them quickly and then spend a little more time with each of them. 

They are repetitive. They are degenerative. They are unmanageable. They are meditative and they are destructive. And so there are a number of good habits that we can have. Habits tend to order our lives in such a way that we don’t have to think through all the time. Oh, let’s see, what should I do now? Should I brush my teeth, or should I not brush my teeth? 

It’s good for all of us to have certain habits that are helpful for us and lead us in a good direction. And so ultimately, as I work with clients, it’s necessary that they develop new habits. It’s not enough to just say you need to stop doing this and stop doing that. And stop doing this third thing, because then very soon the question becomes, what am I allowed to do? 

Yeah. And that makes complete sense. That replacement of, and we see that in the Scriptures too, where God says, put off these things and then put on other things. We see that in Colossians and Ephesians. There was an old minister who once said that if a dog is coming down the road with a bone in its mouth and you want to take away that dirty bone from that dog, he’ll take your fingers off if you try to do that. 

But if you throw a lamb chop down, He’s more than willing to drop that dirty bone for the lamb chop. And that’s really, I think, what you’re speaking of there with habits of the replacing. So that’s hugely important in this process of working with addictions in changing, reversing, supplementing, putting within a person a new habit structure. 

Yes. If anyone is going to change a habit, they need to start a new one and they need to find replacements and they need to do something else instead of what is destructive. If it takes a little while to develop a habit, that’s okay. But ultimately, again, it’s going to be necessary that we all have a changed heart and that we want from our heart to do what God wants us to do. And doesn’t Jesus talk about everything that comes out of us comes out of the heart? Or he talks about all the wickedness that comes from us comes from out of the heart. And so, you’re saying that wellspring of the heart is critical in this nature of addictions. 

You had mentioned a couple of five indicators. I think repetition was one. That’s part of this addiction metric. Yes, repetition does not have to happen every day in order for it to be considered a symptom of addiction. Someone that is an alcoholic may not actually drink every day. Maybe they binge drink on the weekend, but if that happens regularly, that’s repetitive. 

Yeah, so if there’s some sort of pattern that’s been set up or something that has become routine. The next one was degenerative. Yes. Addiction intensifies over time. This is best seen with the word tolerance in terms of drug use. Drug addicts know, alcoholics know, that it takes more of the substance over time to retain the same high or get the same effect. 

More alcohol, for instance, is required to achieve the same high, and it also may mean that the same behaviors produce increasing shame and decreasing pleasure. I think this is very important for anybody dabbling, right? To realize that this is going to cost more than you’re willing to pay. 

Is that what I’m hearing? That is correct. So, pornography, for example, is going to become more and more demanding. Food or gluttony more and more demanding, alcohol more and more demanding, to the point where we become ensnared far deeper than what we had ever imagined at the outset. Is that right? 

That is correct, certainly. What I like to use often with some of my clients is something called the three-circle sobriety plan. And in the center circle are behaviors that are addictive, and the person needs to avoid them completely. So, you help that person identify those inner circle things? Absolutely, yes. 

Okay. They usually know when they walk in what they want to get rid of. Okay. And so that’s not so hard to figure out what goes on in the inner circle. Right. Okay, so then there is a middle circle, which involves slippery slope behaviors, and it’s different for different people. It might be an internal trigger, which is a state of emotion. 

We might be fearful. Or if I have different anxieties, or if I’m frustrated. Or if you’re bored. Because many people fall because they allow themselves an inner state, an internal trigger to fester. So, that trigger is different for everybody. That’s interesting. 

It might be in some of the people I was talking to, having money might serve as a trigger. For some, not having money serves as a trigger. Oh, very good. All right, so we’ve got an inner circle of must not do’s, we’ve got this next circle that basically identifies these triggers, what brings us into the center that we want to avoid. 

Is there another ring to this? The outer circle here are recovery activities. And the person, the client, our brother, sister, friend, nephew, niece, child, spouse, parent needs to have plenty of recovery activities he or she can choose from instead of doing anything in the middle or middle circle. So, recovery activities are very important. 

And this is when you are telling the client, what else could we do besides this slippery slope activity, and it might be developing a better habit reading the Bible. It might be praying it might be singing. It might be accountability. Calling somebody. Yeah, talking to somebody. Have something constructive at their disposal. When they are tempted to do something they shouldn’t. And this is wonderful to your point earlier about establishing a new and different and better habit. Right. Which is what we see a lot of times in Scripture. I think of Colossians chapter three, where God says if ye be risen with Christ, seek the things which are above. 

Right. Seek me. It’s almost first turn to me, then deal with your junk, and then put on what you need to put on. And this concept of turning towards God and allowing him to woo us in the other direction where I see this outer circle being. What are these things that we can put in our lives such that it would direct us towards God? It would point us towards God because so much remedy is found when we are God facing and not self-facing. Because we’re going to be frustrated. Those triggers are going to happen in our life. I’m going to have anxious feelings. I’m going to be fearful. I’m going to have money or I’m not going to have money. 

Right. Those things are going to happen. How are we going to navigate that? I love the promise in the Old Testament of seek me with all of your heart and I will be found of you. Yeah. And the New Testament corollary is, draw nigh to me and I will draw nigh to you. So, the goal of the outer circle activities, recovery activities, is to draw nigh to God. 

You know, it’s interesting. You mentioned when a client comes in, they pretty well know what that inner circle is. I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to do that. Right. But even at the end of the day, Roger, that’s not the superior goal. God wants us to face him and to love him and to seek him far more than he wants us not to do certain things, but when we do seek him, we won’t do those certain things. 

Does that make sense? Right. It’s not a matter of avoiding certain behaviors the rest of our life. God wants us to give him our heart, and there was the story of the rich young ruler who came to Jesus and said, I’m keeping all these commandments that you’ve told me, but he could still feel like he left something out. 

What lack I yet? So, Jesus nailed him and got right to the heart of the matter and said, young man, you need to sell all you have and come and follow me. And he was sad at that moment because for him, evidently his heart was on things and the Lord wants our hearts to be on him. He wants our hearts. 

Roger, you even brought up sin and addiction and I want to work that out a little bit. Sometimes, I think, we talk about addictions, we understand that people are predisposed to certain conditions, we have common ailments such as disease and disorder and those types of things when it comes to the space of addictions, and sometimes that’s hard to sort out spiritually, right? 

Sure. So, could you help us a little bit in understanding how addictions sort of come about sin intertwined? Okay. Sure. An addicted brain is totally different than a healthy brain. And it’s easier for me to explain this using the analogy of drug addiction because repetitive use of drugs leads to an addicted brain. 

And what happens with drug use is that over time, again and again and again, using a certain drug, we will prompt the release of dopamine in our brain. It’s a neurotransmitter. And if we get a rush of dopamine, the brain says, just remember that. That was really important. How you did that. And so, then the tendency is to want to go back again and again. 

Now, dopamine is released in our brain in healthy activities, too. It’s just a matter that with the use of a drug, for instance, there is such a higher rush of dopamine that it’s unnatural. And the body and the mind, remember. And so, we might have the internal trigger of fear, or anxiety, or loneliness, and we might remember oh, the last time I felt this, I was really helped if I took some cocaine. 

And so, I’m going to do that again. And what happens is the brain is changing. There are new neural pathways being cut into the brain by repetitive use and the brain is remembering how we solved that problem previously. And so, the fact that we might call addiction a brain disease, this is not giving anybody the excuse to sin because the brain will remember what has been done in solving the problem before. 

And the good news is that we now know brains are quite plastic. And brains can change, and they can change for the better. And so, it takes new habits, new behaviors to cut new neural pathways into the brain. And so, whereas before we solved our problem, we medicated our problem with an addictive behavior, yet we can now change behaviors and it’s possible. 

It’s not easy. It is very hard. Well, what I hear you saying, Roger, is basically God has made us wonderfully. We read that in the Scriptures, that he has knit us together and designed our brains so wonderfully with natural uses of dopamine for natural purposes. And we see Satan coming in, as he always does, in all areas of our lives to thwart and to pervert, to twist, and to destroy. 

And what he does is hijacks God’s good creation. That’s exactly right. And then he uses it for his own directional purposes away from God and for himself. That is correct. But what you’re saying here as well is there is some wherewithal to realize that yes, sin of all kinds, directs us away from God and can become addictive, but it is also important to realize that there is some inertia to addiction. 

They need to know that it is very, very difficult to overcome an addiction. One book that I have on my shelf is The Fight of Your Life. And it’s talking about sexual addiction. And that would be one of the process addictions. And process addictions are different in that, for instance, like food. Overeating could be a process addiction. We need to eat to live though. We do not need to have cocaine or alcohol in our system. We do not need that at all. However, we do need to work. We do need to eat. God intended married people to engage in sex for his purposes. And so, it’s not like we can just stop all of the processes that can be addictive. 

Right. So that provides an extra challenge for the process of that is correct, because you’re really trying to find that right and healthy balance rather than eradication. And again, you’re the authority here. But if I understand it right, with alcoholism, for example, you go through careful purging of that. 

It might be intensive where that substance, that chemical, is taken away from a person, but with the process, there is not necessarily always complete eradication. That’s correct. With some substances and some processes, there are withdrawal periods. There are detox periods. And so, someone that’s an alcoholic, before they can enter treatment for that addiction, they need to be totally withdrawn and detoxed from the chemical in their body. 

Is that one of the indicators of an addiction that withdrawal is present? Yes, that would be similar to tolerance. Okay. If it takes withdrawal, there is likelihood that there’s an addiction. Sure. Addictions are repetitive and degenerative. But, oh, for the grace of God, they are not outside of the reach of Christ’s repair. 

Thanks for being along today. When we return, Roger will provide more clarity on this topic, and most importantly, the hope that is present for the addicted. Thanks all for being along. Goodbye. 

They need to see that we’re going to stay with them, that the Lord is not going to run from them one day at a time. And I would like to talk to those who struggle with addiction as well as family members. We as parents might think that I must have done a lousy job parenting. None of us have been perfect. 

It is just as true, though, that we need to regard every soul that we come in contact with as an image bearer of the Lord Jesus. Welcome back to Breaking Bread. Today you will hear a second portion of a conversation Roger Gasser and I had on the topic of addictions. Roger Gasser is a clinician here at ACCFS and he specializes in addictions. 

Roger, you mentioned that addictions are exampled as repetitive. They’re degenerative. And then I think the third one was Unmanageable. What do you mean by this? Unmanageability is the sense that I have lost control of my life, and I am powerless to fix this. So, is there an awareness that a person needs to have to say this is unmanageable, even though maybe other people in their life know that it’s unmanageable. It’s most easily seen by other people in their life because in an addiction, the addict uses flawed thinking often. And uses what we call addictive thinking and addictive thinking is self-deception. There are a number of ways that somebody would try to convince themselves that they are not addicted. 

Denial is a huge factor in an addict’s thinking. And it’s possible for everyone else to see the problem, but the person themself does not realize they have a problem. And so, the lie they tell themselves is really that I am in control of this. If I wanted to stop, I could. That is the thinking. 

And I have heard, I can stop this whenever I want to. There’s a distorted use of time with addictive thinking. They might be able to stop for three days. And so, in their mind, that’s proof. I can control this. I can stop whenever I want to. However, the time period may be three days. And I would say, no, you really aren’t in control. 

If all you can stop for is three days, I think that you’re probably pretty well hooked into this. Well, Roger, what I think is really important that I want to capture from what you’re saying here is just that basic axiom that addicted people think erroneously. That’s correct. Okay. And to have that awareness for ourselves to realize that, okay, if I’m dealing with an addiction then I need to listen to other people. 

I need to go somewhere else for the truth because it’s not going to be in my head. See what I’m saying? There is a very strong case for the need to hit bottom. However, for different people, the bottom is a different place. When you say hit bottom, it’s like a total brokenness or a collapse in a sense where things fall apart, and things become dismembered. 

That is correct. And I realize that this is unmanageable, and I need help. That’s right. Okay. And it’s a need for them to perceive that continuing my temporary pleasure is going to result in long term disappointment. And they need to get to that point. Whether it’s quick or if it takes years, there’s good news mingled with bad news in that statement, Roger, that people need to hit rock bottom. 

The good news is that once a person hits rock bottom, then there are great gains that can be made. So, there’s always hope in a sense. The bad news is, what does rock bottom look like? And does there have to be a great deal of destruction before my addiction gets turned around? It does not have to get to that point. 

What needs to happen for the addict to realize, I got to change something here, is that they understand that what they are presently doing is going to lead to long term despair. And it’s better to fix this problem now. And that’s a lesser problem than addiction. And that rock bottom could happen when they’re sitting in church. 

That is correct. Yeah. In a sermon, and they feel the Spirit of God move in their life. That is absolutely right. They do not have to lose their wife and their children and job in order to hit rock bottom. They just need to get the perception that this is going to happen unless I do something about it. 

Right. And as a counselor, I’m sure you deal with people who haven’t hit rock bottom. Is that true? That is absolutely true because mostly when someone starts counseling, they want to do it on their terms, and they would like to recover preferably as easily as possible and without anyone else knowing about it. 

And that’s going to be very hard, I tell them. Because you need other people. Because isolation is what you want but isolation is not where the solution is. Correct. That’s right. So, addiction and isolation run together. They are very close partners, yes. Many addicts are loners, and on the surface, they’re not. 

They may seem to enjoy solitude, but that isn’t necessarily true. Humans by nature crave companionship. You need the wisdom of other people, and you need their perception. That is why group counseling or support groups are very beneficial because it sometimes happens in a group that someone who has the same problem as mine points out to me, hey, I’ve been where you are, and you’re not talking sense there. You need to change something. Right. Or you’re going to be where I’ve gotten. Yes. And they could probably hear it sometimes better from a person who’s been in that road and in their shoes, right? Yeah, absolutely. So, some of what you do to Roger then is to try to perhaps bring this awareness that this is unmanageable. 

You are in a desperate place, and you are in need. And I mean, if they’re not at that point, your whole plan is to try to help that person realize their need, because you can’t move forward without it. That is correct. Change is not just a yes, no process, but we’re in different stages in that continuum, and it doesn’t make any sense if someone we are working with doesn’t think they have a problem at all explaining what they need to do tomorrow to change it. 

Because they don’t see it that way. And sometimes they might be brought to your office because somebody else has said, hey, you need to go here. That’s right. Or somewhat of a referral. Right. And so, I would imagine there’s a difference between them willingly coming. Yes. So, if they come and they don’t think there’s a problem, what we might do is the pros and cons. 

Yeah. So, I understand that you don’t want to give up alcohol. There must be some good things about that. So, give me the pros of using alcohol. And let’s list some of the cons. And so, what you need to do is hear them out and rather than just say, now you listen to me, you need to stop this right away. Yeah. 

Rather go into a discussion about, so what are the pros and cons? Yeah. What happens if we continue as is? Is there any value to change? And as you said before, the way addictions work, this is where you are today, but we can imagine in 15 years it’s going to be even more, and so you paint that picture. 

You know, Jesus with the lame man by the pool of Bethsaida, he comes up to him who was not able for years to get into the moving of the waters and be healed. Jesus comes up to him and so wisely asked him, would you like to be made whole? Isn’t that a fascinating question to a lame man who’s been laying there? 

It seems like a silly question, but he was really speaking to your point, Roger. Jesus understood that to be healed, this man needed to get a job, have a new support group, had to find a house. There was a lot that this person would have to do in that recovery. That’s correct. And the lame man, interestingly enough, never really answered Jesus’ question. 

He just started saying why he couldn’t be healed. Sir, I have no man. And I am wondering if Jesus could have pursued that further. But he leaves it to us to fill in the blanks. And why is it that he’s been there for 38 years? It seems like you would think there must be another way to deal with this problem, rather than continuing for another 38 years. 

Okay, so repetitive, degenerative, unmanageable, and now meditative. Addictions are meditative. I have a feeling there’s something huge behind this. Okay, so we use addictive substances or behaviors to change our feelings. And it might be, these are the internal states, and it might be that we are bored, that we are fearful, that we are anxious, we are sad and depressed. 

Okay, let me stop you right there, because that’s such a powerful statement. We use addiction to change our feelings. Is that what you said? That is correct. Okay. And I just want to put my finger on how difficult it is to change feelings. That’s some of the promise that addictions offer is, you don’t like the way you feel. Try this. Yes. And it’s a false promise. Yeah. Because what happens is, in a process addiction, we are getting a rush of dopamine, we are feeling better, but it’s very temporary, and it’s changing our feelings for a little bit, but over the long term, it depresses us.  

So, this seems to be hugely important in terms of using an addiction to medicate something, and the basic axiom here today is that addiction is not a good medication for the problem. There is a better medication, right? That’s correct. And I’m sure that’s what you’re offering. Sure. This is a really critical point in the addiction story to uncover what it is that needs to be medicated. Sure. With a process addiction, such as sexual addiction, and somebody might be using porn to feel better. 

Well, that’s seeking false intimacy. Absolutely. We have this desire, and it is a correct desire, to be connected to people, and some individuals find it difficult to be connected with a real person. So, I will connect with that image on the screen, which is not a real person, and it gives them no promise of intimacy. 

It’s seeking false intimacy. And so, they can get a temporary high because of a feeling that their brain gives them, but it does not lead to a lasting permanent relationship. Which is what they need. I’ve heard it said, and I think this really speaks to what you’re talking about, that addiction then is a secondary problem. 

It is the manifestation of a poor choice in fixing the first problem. That’s a good analogy. In my office, you would see a big picture of an iceberg. And if you know the physics of the situation, an iceberg is only 10 percent visible above the water. 90 percent of that iceberg is underneath. And so, what we can see, whether it’s anger, whether it’s an addiction, that’s what can be seen, but what is under the water, what is fueling that behavior might be invisible to the human eye, and it’s a matter of searching out, what is it? 

Is that part of what you do then, too, as you counsel people? Is that what you’re pressing for? Are you trying to get a sense of what it is they’re medicating? Sure. Absolutely. And then once you find that, what do you do? What we do is help them deal with where their development stopped in the process, and it might be long ago. 

It might be something that happened in childhood. Now, I don’t consider it a healthy pursuit to spend lots of time living in the past. However, it is necessary to bring out something that is troubling that person today. It might be unforgiveness. It might be resentment. That is very necessary and scriptural to let go of that. And there are so many benefits to letting go of what happened long ago. And for some people, they’re holding on to this for ten, twenty years. Yeah. And still being hindered by something that could be just let go. Yeah. And here we have hurts and sin mingled together. Very well they could have been a victim, right? 

Right. But then we are all, in a sense, damaged goods. Ever since the fall of Adam and in our own sin nature, we’re all damaged goods. The question then comes, and I think this is the question at the heartbeat of the gospel, is where’s the repair of the damaged goods that we are? What a blessing you have in conveying Christ. 

Because the solutions for all of our ailments are going to have Christ in the center. That is certainly right. Okay. Roger, the final indicator of an addiction was destructive. What do we mean by destructive? Addiction always destroys. There is destruction littered in its path, and it might be somebody who absolutely drinks himself to death. 

He could drink until he literally dies. Sexual addiction can lead to a variety of destructive consequences. There could be divorces, family breakups, financial costs, ruined vocations, legal difficulties. They could all result from sexual sin. And it’s so different than what Jesus planned for us when he said, I am come that they might have life. 

Yeah. And that they might have it more abundantly. Yeah. Addiction is, as we mentioned, kind of anti-gospel. It’s Satan working out his anti-gospel. Sure. Where his is destructive, Christ is reparative. Yes. And one of the things that is important for any of us to understand is this may not change overnight. 

And so, if you follow the Lord’s plan, you may not suddenly wake up tomorrow morning and everything seems clear, but over time, it’s going to happen. It’s a matter of day after day after day, making a good choice here, making a good choice there, turning and running from this temptation, fleeing from that one, because the Lord promises there’s always going to be a way of escape. 

Yeah. Make the hard choice today and tomorrow and the next day and eventually you’re going to see the fruit of that. Yeah, right. And you’ll rejoice. Because God is always looking for our long end good, not our short-term fix. Yeah. As we walk alongside people with addiction, we have to have a long-term view, don’t we? 

Oh, right. Absolutely. They need to see that we’re going to stay with them, that the Lord is not going to run from them, but we can help them for the long haul make the choices day by day, week by week. And sometimes, you know, Alcoholics Anonymous has a number of slogans. One is one day at a time. 

And that is sometimes longer than we need to look at things. I have heard somebody say that they need to look at it one hour at a time. And that is fine. If we need to live one hour We don’t necessarily see tomorrow, we may not see this afternoon either, but just one hour at a time. Yeah, very good. 

Clearly, you have a love and a heart, passion for helping people in this space. And I just want you to speak a little bit to those on the other side of the mic who struggle with addictions. Sure. And I would like to talk to those who struggle with addiction as well as family members. Because it’s very possible that we as parents might look at some of our children and think that we must have done a lousy job parenting. 

And it is true that none of us have been perfect. It is just as true, though, that we need to regard every soul that we come in contact with as an image bearer of the Lord Jesus and potentially living an eternal life with us. But, living eternally somewhere. The people that we meet in the context of daily life need to understand that they do not have to remain powerless. 

That with God, all things are possible. And he has wonderful things in mind for each of us if we will only do our part. And that’s wonderful. Have you seen, out of your counseling room, success? Absolutely. Sure. And I would like to say. It is the fight of your life, and it is not going to be easily overcome and you are going to need to die to yourself. 

There’s going to need to be radical honesty, radical accountability. Matt, success is a direction. It is moving in a Godward direction and yes, there is hope and I do see success. Just this morning, I talked to an individual who has been struggling for years with an addiction. We’ve been walking together with this problem for a number of months, but just today he was excited to share a pattern of sobriety he had thought impossible three months ago. 

Yeah. Thank you for that and for being here. You know, as we conclude here and to our friends, thanks for being along here as we’ve broached this important topic of addictions. Just a thought on First John, he ends his letter there. My children, keep yourselves from idols. And I think as we had this conversation, that was just coming to mind that really addictions are idols in our life. 

And the loving hand of Christ is saying, no, don’t go to those idols. Come to me. Who’s far more fulfilling than the addictions that we take on. So be encouraged with God’s Word, be encouraged with Christ and his gospel. Amen to that. Yeah, Matt. Thanks. Thanks for being here, Roger. Thanks everyone for being along. 

Have a great day.