Diversity In Addictions

FRI., FEB. 21, 1997, 6:47 AM
FARM, STUDY

Let that 48 Hours program be the basis for some variety of comments from Me on addictions. Your initial question, of course… to Me as Creator… is “Why addictions?” No, it wasn’t a mistake… like making the avocado seed too large. Addictions are an aspect of diversity, the inordinate desire to repeat some process. Positive addictions can bring about great good. Others can cause harm to the person and to others. And so it is with much of what I have created.

The majority of young people, the age of your sons, who smoked marijuana in their teens, have not continued this on into their working lives and show no evidences of addiction to it. Your three older sons are hardworking men and servants of Mine, now fathers of children who look to them for guidance in life.

It was fair to select the boy who seemed to be the most addicted and depict him as one with no father and a dysfunctional mother during his childhood. His needs for “feeling good” were many, and the drug-laced smoke brought relief. In your culture if he had been given a psychiatric diagnosis he could well have been on legal prescription medication to accomplish similar relief. Lenore has some pain now, and she has been advised to take the pain pills whenever the pain increases. Pain comes in many forms. The pain of insufficient relationships can be as tough to deal with as muscle or joint pain.

You have encouraged your cows to become “addicted” to their morning small ration of ground corn. They wait, sometimes hours, for this, a miniscule portion of their food supply. It is valuable to you, because when they find a weak spot in your almost fence and venture forth from the pasture they will dutifully return to the sight and sound of the bucket. Yet this has many of the characteristics of an addiction.

Yes, I also see the strangeness in your culture’s insistence on keeping any marijuana use a crime when its effects on people in various “stages” of ill-health are medicinal. The pills Lenore takes are stronger than marijuana, but are perfectly legal, no matter what their eventual use. You see, there is much diversity, in people, in substances, and in interactions concerning these substances.

You realize that you have some tendencies toward addictive behavior. As you age you’re losing some of this, in relation to your work, and this is somewhat troubling. You realize that I have taken advantage of this “tendency” in selecting you for these Teachings. It now is almost impossible for you to go through a week without 3 or 4 Teachings. What I tell you and what you write are quite worthwhile, but you are just as addicted to the process. You are uncomfortable if too many days go by without putting this pen to this paper. You are also addicted to Sunday worship and fellowship and to your morning Bible Study group. Yet you are not addicted to reading My Scriptures. Oh, you do better than most Christians, but this is a true addiction most do not have.

So, yes, I encourage certain addictions, and this human tendency can also manifest itself negatively. I also have told you, in several contexts, that these “departures from health” that I allow (and even cause) can be a means by which some serve others, with love and compassion. Some who treat addicts do so as a fine service to Me, and I appreciate this more than if they were selling cars or serving hamburgers. I say it would not be a better world, spiritually, if there were no “needs”, such as addictions. That sounds harsh, but it’s true. Oh, there are spiritual realms without such “problems”, but they are not as effective as earth in encouraging spiritual growth… My supreme desire.