INSECURITY

INSECURITY

Insecurity causes addictions; addictions then feed the insecurity and creates the beginning of a vicious cycle of insecurity that regenerates from one generation to the next.

    

Insecurity is the root of addictions. Insecurity creates an inability to cope with, or accept any negative reality or truth, thus leading one to drugs and alcohol to escape that reality. Then the results of using drugs and alcohol feed the insecurity by adding to it and compounding the negative reality that existed initially. Then, over time, denial takes the place of insecurity. Denial and addictions literally become the addict’s security blanket. The denial becomes a false sense of security.   

     

Some of the definitions of insecurity, including Abraham Maslow’s, who describes an insecure person as a person that "perceives the world as a threatening jungle and most human beings as dangerous and selfish; feels rejected and an isolated person, anxious and hostile; is generally pessimistic and unhappy; shows signs of tension and conflict, tends to turn inward; is troubled by guilt-feelings, has one or another disturbance of self-esteem; tends to be neurotic; and is generally selfish and egocentric." (Maslow, 1942, pp 35). He viewed that in every insecure person is a continual, never dying, longing for security.

A person who is insecure lacks confidence in their own value, and of their own ability to achieve and accomplish great things, they lack trust in themselves and others, and fear that a present positive position or situation is only temporary, and will not last. This is a common trait, which only differs in degree between people. They feel hopeless and useless.

Insecurity may contribute to, and encourage compensatory behaviors such as alcohol or drug addictions or other escape mechanisms such as the development of shyness, paranoia and social withdrawal, and depression. Many will turn to varying sexual dysfunctions, such as pornography, homosexual behavior, or promiscuity. I’ve noticed for years that every homosexual person I’ve ever met, it seems that their insecurity stands out like a flashing neon sign, many of them seem to communicate among themselves and others like 5 year old children. Insecurity results in immaturity! Escaping reality by any means is building an impenetrable wall which blocks access to all truth and maturity! An insecure person is a highly vulnerable person who can easily be mislead into believing almost anything! Our world is filled with exceedingly insecure people today, believing everything but The Truth of God!       

A much shorter definition of insecurity would be a person who has no idea of who they are, or why they’re here. An insecure Christian, is first of all, a misnomer or a contradiction, and second, a sign of possessing little Faith. Matthew 14:31 Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?” Matthew 17:20 He replied, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” A Born Again Christian is empowered by the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:8 ), and should never feel insecure. However our Churches today,  because of a complete failure to communicate The Gospel Truth, are filled with insecure people who have no idea who they are in Christ, or why they’re here. Led by so many false teachers and doctrine, they live in constant fear, with little or no Faith, and act as if they’re powerless. They live in complete disobedience to God and defend or excuse their sinful behavior by taking 1 John 1 out of context and making foolish comments like “we’re all sinners,” or Paul’s words in Romans 7:14-20, while paying no attention to his words in Romans 6:1-7, or 7:24-25. God’s Grace is NOT a license or permit to sin, but a gift of forgiveness when our repentance fails us! This fear and insecurity leads millions to addictions to drugs and alcohol, and other sinful behavior, and the consequent guilt leads them away from God.   

An obvious sign of insecurity amongst many of those in the Christian addiction recovery community is the overwhelming, paralyzing, almost frenzied need for personal prayer. Addictions have drained all life, hope, and Faith from alcoholics and addicts who become almost hysterical, frantically seeking immediate answers from God and all those in the groups and meetings, sometimes selfishly demanding all the attention and prayers. Years of insecurity and addictions stunts our growth and maturity which in turn hinders future development in sobriety. Of course prayer is vital in the lives of all Christians, and even critical in extreme trials, but with the Faith of a mustard seed we will see our prayers answered according to God’s will, and we will not need to frantically panic!

Secure Christians are mature Christians, who know who they are in Christ and in the world, and are secure in that knowledge, and in their Salvation. They’re confident and assured of their Salvation, possess and display a strong Faith, and need not to show fear and trembling in their walk with Jesus. As mature Christians, our prayers need to be focused on others needs, not on our own. In the thousands of Christian addiction recovery meetings I’ve attended, it’s always been just the opposite. A selfish pleading for self interests and gains is the norm, along with a complete lack of maturity and the holding to scripture such as, 1 Corinthians 3:1-3, “Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly—mere infants in Christ. 2, I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. 3, You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere humans? Or, Hebrews 5:11-13, We have much to say about this, but it is hard to make it clear to you because you no longer try to understand. 12, In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! 13, Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness.

       

Children of alcoholics and addicts, and grown up adult children of alcoholics and addicts, are highly susceptible to suffer with insecurity.  

Children growing up in the homes of alcoholics and addicts are usually subjected to various degrees of abuse, including rejection, shame and guilt, abandonment and neglect, even physical and sexual abuse, which  results in various levels of insecurity. In many of these situations, children, even infants, are being raised by siblings, often mere children themselves, who have no business raising another child, and are usually incapable of doing so. In some cases however, the older children are more capable than the parents, if the parents are constantly high on drugs or drunk. There are many cases when children do remarkable jobs raising their siblings, but most of the time it ends with tragic results. The point is that a sibling should never be put in such circumstances. They’re being robbed of their own childhood.

In the worse case scenarios, this rarely is allowed to go on for very long before authorities are alerted and become involved, usually resulting in child abuse charges against the parents, and the children being placed with other family members or with child welfare agencies. The younger the child begins this life of abuse and neglect, the more vulnerable they are to growing up alone and insecure. All too often these children are also exposed to violence, and physical and sexual abuse, and all sorts of other horror that no child should ever have to endure.

We’re living in a society today populated by millions of adults who were those children, who remember vividly their broken childhood, who all too easily remember and still can feel the pain, hear the screams and yelling from the violence every time they turn on the TV or see a movie. For far too many of us, remembering our childhood, no matter how hard we’ve tried to hide and bury the pain through drug and alcohol use and abuse, the memories never completely vanish, and are just a “click” away on the TV remote. Some of us have managed to escape from the prisons of our past long enough to recognize some positive advantages that have come out of it. Some experiences that have helped us grow and mature into who we are today.

What needs to be understood is that the degree, and period of time that neglect and abandonment is present in a child’s life is in direct proportion to their chances to survive. The hard truth is that in any home where there is any use of drugs and alcohol, no matter how often, or what the circumstances, parents who use drugs and alcohol at all, whether it’s abused or not, there is always some degree of child abandonment and neglect. Any time, and for whatever reason or period of time a parent is high or wasted on drugs or alcohol, the child or children are being abandoned, neglected, and left in danger. The use of drugs and alcohol by an addicted or alcoholic parent render that user intoxicated and incapacitated and irresponsible, incapable of protecting their children! The only reason alcoholics and addicts use drugs and alcohol is to get completely wasted and escape reality and responsibility. I’m not speaking here to the casual, social drinker, the person who occasionally has a glass of wine or a beer, or even an occasional hit on a joint. This message is for hard-core alcoholics and addicts, whether in denial or not, or in recovery or not, this is a message to reveal a very hard and ugly truth that few will admit, and most will deny. The truth is always painful, and denial is always hard to accept and then to overcome, just as the denial of addiction is what keeps alcoholics and addicts away from recovery. An addict can’t begin recovery until he or she overcomes their state of denial. It is far more difficult for the addicted parent to admit that their addictions are causing them to be child abusers! The sooner they realize the damage they’re doing, or have already done to their children, the sooner they, and their children can begin to heal and rebuild their lives.

When do we need counseling, and where do we find it? I believe that some of the most successful counselors involved in addiction recovery today, are those who survived some very difficult childhoods themselves. I’d even go so far as to say that a difficult childhood, growing up in a home where drugs and alcohol replaced love and affection, should be a required prerequisite for the right to counsel others. No one can understand the pain and suffering of an alcoholic or addict, better than someone who’s been in their shoes. You can’t feel the pain and suffering, and understand the circumstances, by reading a book, or a thousand books! Degrees and licenses on walls only means that the person sitting at the desk in front of them, understands the thoughts and ideas of men like Freud, Nietzsche, Jung, Reich, or Fromm and many other  psychologists and philosophers. That doesn’t mean that they understand you, and what you’re going through, or have gone through to lead you to where you are today. You can’t earn degrees in streets and alleys or homeless shelters and prisons, or in 12-step meetings, but you can get to know the stories of the men and women whose lives have been ruined by addictions. Through compassion you can learn to feel their pain and suffering, and learn that they need hope more than anything else. Until we’ve walked in their shoes, “done some time” in the gutters and cesspools of addictions,” we have no business pretending or assuming to know and understand the heart or mind and the past of an alcoholic or an addict.

The most important thing a Christian in addiction recovery needs to consider in seeking help is the source. Is God the primary source? Or secular philosophy? God tells us in Col. 2:8, “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ.” Again, the fundamental reason an alcoholic or addict becomes one, is because of insecurity, for whatever reason. A Christian needs to find security in Christ before they can defeat satan and overcome their addictions. The only way for a Christian to become secure in their relationship with God, is through God. God can, and does use spirit filled counselors to show us the way to victory over our addictions, but we must be very vigilant in who we choose, or what program we choose to follow. With so many false teachers in the world today, it is crucial for our recovery, that we be sure our counseling and or mentoring be of sound scriptural doctrine, straight from the Gospel, through the Holy Spirit. When in doubt, be assured that the Holy Spirit is probably not present. Doubt is sin, and God will not be present in sin. When in doubt, be as the Bereans in Acts 17:11, and read the scripture for yourself to see if what the counselor said is what God says!  

                        

Can we restore broken relationships? The restoration of broken relationships can be a long, difficult, painful, and all too often seemingly impossible process. I’ve counseled 100’s of people who’ve waited far too long to get sober enough to begin rebuilding broken relationships with family and friends. The longer a relationship remains broken, the more difficult it is to be repaired and healed. I’ve also listened to 100’s upon 100’s of stories where solutions and restorations were never successful. It seems everyday I talk to someone in recovery who is still suffering in a lot of pain over the relational loss of a loved one, or the entire family. Sometimes the loss is between spouses and siblings, but most often between children and parents. This is a tragedy that seems to exist in 90% of the cases of addictions, whether active, or in recovery, family relationships are almost always destroyed, or permanently damaged. And in most cases, insecurity, formed and developed in childhood is the foundational cause. This becomes a vicious cycle, where addictions are caused by insecurity, and then goes on to produce a new generation of insecurity.

  

Addictions create dysfunctional thinking which leads to insecurity, which breeds distrust, and distrust breeds more insecurity. Neglect and abandonment is a form of betrayal, and betrayal will create more distrust, leading to more insecurity. A vicious cycle of emotions feeding other emotions. Relationships will never survive distrust. Trust is the glue that holds a relationship together. Even childhood relationships, whether a friendship between 2 children, or siblings, or parents, if the trust is lost, whether because of betrayal, or neglect, or any other kind of abuse, the relationship will be broken. The heart is broken, and the pain sets in. Insecurity being the overall result of the resulting distrust.

         

Insecurity leads to hopelessness. Abusive childhoods, whether physical or emotional, that result from addictions, lead to broken family relationships, that result in insecurity and hopelessness. Every day in America, millions of innocent children are being recklessly abused by drunken or drug addicted parents, parents who have lost all sense of reality and responsibility, who are overcome with denial and guilt, and any sense of right from wrong. Parents, who when confronted by anyone, friends, family, co-workers, pastors or counselors, will deny they have a problem and tell us to mind our own business!

Insecurity breeds deceitfulness to hide an individual’s weakness. The insecure person quickly learns to deceive others to protect their weaknesses. Drugs and alcohol produce a false sense of security, leaving an insecure person vulnerable and reliant on deceiving others for protection from the evil world they’re trying to escape from! Soon strangers, as well as old friends and family members have no idea who they’re dealing with. “By the very nature of deception, a man doesn’t know when he is being deceived, or deceiving himself”. Whenever we see gross acts of violence today like mass shootings and bombings, whenever the news media catches up with the family or neighbors, we always hear exactly the same words from them. “Not my sweet little Johnny”! “He was such a good little boy”! Or, “Not my neighbor, he was such a nice quiet young man”! “By the very nature of deception, a man doesn’t know when he is being deceived, or deceiving himself”. While “sweet little Johnny” was sitting in his room planning an attack, and building a bomb, he was going to work and school and integrating with family, neighbors, friends, and co-workers, deceiving everyone in his circle. His insecurity had led him much earlier to escape from all sense of reality and believe that he didn’t fit into society.

Millions of children become the innocent victims of this nightmarish, traumatic experience that will impact their lives forever one way or another. Some will be able to suppress their feelings at least on the surface, but the pain will always be there, deep in the darkest shadows of their soul. It will stay hidden and suppressed for many, and never appear to affect their lives, but for millions of others, it will rise to the surface on occasions, when something triggers certain emotional memories from the past. Only God can restore and heal the broken heart and mind.

 

If we’re Christians, and we’ve been plagued with addictions since childhood, we need to realize the damage that drugs and alcohol can do to children. If our addictions were, or are the result of being raised by abusive parents, which is often the case, there are some very hard facts that need to be looked at, and taken very seriously and examined. We learn to barricade our emotions behind the walls that we build to hide and block out the pain and trauma of the negative reality we’ve experienced growing up as children. This inhibits our ability to mature, and as Christians, our ability to mature spiritually, and to break down those walls, we must learn to turn over and trust God with our pain… until we get past this, we might not get beyond the denial of addictions, but continue to be trapped in the bondage of sin and its consequences.

Many children growing up in the homes of addicted parents feel guilty, that somehow they’re to blame, and that it’s their fault! A lie from the devil!

Denial is a direct result of insecurity. Denial and insecurity is part of our human nature in the flesh led by satan. There is one thing every human being has in common with alcoholics and addicts, the natural instinct of denial. We see denial in most of our daily routine. “I’m fat, I’m not pretty, I’m not smart, I’m not popular or loved, my husband doesn’t love me, I can’t do this or that, my children are perfect, (even when they’re not), my boss doesn’t like me, (even when you’re his best employee), God doesn’t Love me!……When you know He does! All of these examples of denial, just as the drunkards favorite, “I don’t have a problem with alcohol”, just before passing out, that keeps alcoholics and addicts in their addictions, are the result of insecurity and self deception. Our insecurity is the inability to face reality, and ourselves in the mirror without being deceived by satan. The inability to love or trust anyone including ourselves. “By the very nature of deception, a man doesn’t know when he is being deceived, or deceiving himself”! Until we learn to fully trust our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, security and confidence will elude us.  Job 11:18 (KJV) 18 And thou shalt be secure, because there is hope; yea, thou shalt dig about thee, and thou shalt take thy rest in safety. Hebrews 10:35 (KJV) Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward.

Most Adult Children of Alcoholics and Addicts inherit their parent’s insecurity. They may not inherit their parent’s propensity to turn to drugs and alcohol to escape reality, but most likely, because of the unavoidable and immeasurable trauma in their lives while growing up in the home of dysfunctional parents, they found some way to escape and hide from that brutal reality! When a child is being abused, all they want to do is hide and escape. It is difficult, if not impossible for them to rationalize reality and especially God’s Truth!  Many will never find it! Those few who do, will be the only ones who understand this message.     

Perhaps the epitome of insecurity and denial is seen when the seemingly, perfectly normal parent first discovers their children are using drugs or alcohol! The reaction is almost always the same; “Not my sweet little Susie”, or “Not my precious little Billy”! Sometimes the addictions slip by undetected for years until Susie or Billy commits some heinous crime, but the parent’s reaction is exactly the same! Most of these parents can rest assured that there were plenty of warning signs that couldn’t be seen through the cloud of denial they had created in their own lives. Drug and alcohol addictions are not the only addictions people turn to seeking a way to escape reality. There are far too many to list here, but most likely, out of insecurity, you have found at least one to hide behind! Unfortunately we are living in an insecure world, filled with, and governed by insecure people who would rather watch it go down in flames, wasting their lives away, while munching on Doritos, watching a Super Bowl, then face reality and God’s Truth! Susie and Billy’s lives may have been saved if anyone was paying attention, and cared about their future! The world’s attitude is; “there’s nothing I can do to fix the problem, so pass me another beer”!