Beating Your Addiction to Sin

We are all addicts. Addicts to the sins we have turned into habits that are buried so deep in our sub-conscience we do them without even thinking. There are seven roots of our addiction and they are known as the deadly sins: Pride, envy, anger, acedia, greed, gluttony and lust. Pride in the form of self-reliance, the disordered desire for perfection, or being a control freak, refusing to listen to anyone other than oneself; but Pride is also found in timidity, anxiety and fear. Envy is a sadness at someone’s good and pleasure at their misfortune. It leads us to gossip, backbiting, tearing others down in the attempt to raise ourselves up. Its why we love hearing and spreading dirty laundry. Anger and impatience – that’s probably self-explanatory. Acedia or Sloth which is not laziness but rather an aversion to the invitation from God to become a saint. So rather than heed the invitation from God we escape his call through our constant busyness and entertainment which keeps us from doing those things that will really bring us into union with God. After all, there’s nothing more difficult than becoming holy. Greed is a disordered love of getting and possessing. Although this might involve mere money, it can also take the form of an excessive desire for position, knowledge, and other goods. It is the desire for satisfaction and fulfillment in the possession of things which tries to find security in worldly realities, rather than in God. When we fail to trust that God will provide our daily bread then we seek to grab all that we can and store it up for a rainy day. Gluttony refers to eating, drinking and drug use for the sake of pleasure or to escape the reality we find too hard, too painful, or too boring. Finally, Lust, the way we use others sexually to get what we want. Men use women to get what they want and women use men to get what they want. We each want something different but we use one another just the same.

The seven deadly sins do not make us happy and our sins certainly don’t make the lives of those around us better. In fact, they destroy the good things in life we need to be happy. If we want to be set free we need to do three things:

First, make a searching, honest and fearless examination of conscience. Then, admit to God, to ourselves and to a priest the exact nature of our wrongs in the sacrament of Reconciliation. Finally, do our penance, that is, practice the virtues that conquer the vices to which you have been enslaved: practice humility, good-will, meekness, magnanimity, generosity, temperance, charity, courage, honesty, patience, etc.

One of the things that can prevent me from receiving the freedom and healing I need in the Sacrament of Reconciliation regularly is that get lazy about doing a daily examination of conscience. Then when I think about confession I seem to get this amnesia and can’t remember any of my sins so I put it off until I have some sins. I need to change this. At the beginning of each day, or the beginning of my time in meditation, or at the end of the day, I need to take a few minutes for an examination of conscience which consists of three things:

 Gratitude, acknowledgment of our wrong, and a practical game plan to go forward. 

Start with Gratitude – call to mind all the things for which you are you thankful to God? Then think back over the last 24 hours and admit where you have sinned in your thoughts, words or actions. Ask, why did I do these things? What was at the root? Was it Pride, envy, anger, sloth, greed, gluttony or lust? Then make a practical game plan to live differently today.

God forgives our sin and gives us His grace to be changed and transformed. But, its not magic - we must do our part. Don't try to change everything in your life. Pick one thing to change, one virtue to practice, and that will enable you to change everything in your life eventually.