At meetings of the American Psychological Association in my day members asked each other, “Where are you now?” meaning “where are you teaching these days?” or, “under what aegis do you conduct your research?”
As my career went in to decline with drugs and booze, I resented the question and replied, “I’m in the convention lobby, where are you?” My questioners were offended – after all, they only wanted updating. But I also had been insulted: the question had an opprobrious subtext for me. Nobody asked famous Dr. Joyce Brothers or B. F. Skinner where they were. If I were as successful as they, everyone would know “where I was.”
You see, the question raised a sensitive personal issue: I was hiding a truth from my colleagues and myself. I couldn’t face being reminded how low I’d descended down the job ladder. I didn’t want them to know where I was!
God’s test item
Not knowing where you are is also a major symptom of being under the influence. Drug lingoes all have terms for non-compos mentis (“out of it”, “blind drunk” etc.) meaning unsure of location in reality.
So, in Genesis 3:9, when the Lord God asks Adam “Where are you?”[i], the question is a test item, a diagnostic query, “Do you know how far you are from the reality of God?” “How far out of it are you?” Obviously God knows the answer. In fact He knows exactly what Adam is about to say. Nevertheless God wants Adam to speak for himself.
Had Adam approached God in the first instance and confessed his disobedience, things would have taken a different turn. Instead Adam replied, “I heard the sound of You [walking] in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked: and I hid myself.” What a wimp!
To get Adam to speak the truth, God then must ask, “Who told you you were naked?” and finally, “Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?” Adam, now fully on the defensive, blamed Eve and the rest is history.
The first question
Thus God’s first recorded question to man got an evasive answer –, as God knew it would. Yet God asked it, among other reasons, to help bring man to his senses by hearing his own, less than adequate, reply. Thus man knew, in his heart, not only that he had sinned, but also that he had not repented.
Like the Big Question (Do you want to quit? Chapter 6), the First Question (Where are you?) can take various forms these days as long as the meaning is clear, “Where are you in relation to your addiction?” “Do you know your mistake?”
How long has it been since you’ve had any?
I have found that asking, “Do you use drugs?” is not as helpful as asking, “How long has it been since you’ve taken a mind- or mood-altering drug?” followed by a quick, “Have you used today?” Addicts may not like the question, but they understand it. And the discussion gets focused on the main issue: to use or not to use.
Personally, these days I enjoy being queried: my answer is, “Nothing since 3 March, 1976.” But when I was using, I avoided the question, not wanting to face the facts of my addiction. Not until I reached desperation and was ready for surrender, did I begin to admit to others and myself how much, how often and how recently I had used drugs.
Seldom do addicts front up for help to get clean. Mostly they want help to get their drug of choice or, perhaps, some substitute drug. Likewise addicts rarely want to strengthen their resolve to quit. Mostly they want to justify their using. The reason addict-helper dialogue leads nowhere is that helpers and addicts have opposite intents.
Still the First Question and the Big Question can serve to clarify things, to “put the cards on the table”.
Focusing on the dialogue
Recently a nurse in a nearby town phoned me to ask if I would speak to her patient. The dialogue went substantially as follows:
Patient: Hello
Charles: Hi. The nurse has asked me to speak to you because I am a drug addict. However, I am totally free of all drugs now and have been for quite a few years. How are you doing?
Patient: Not too well. I’m very confused and I can’t sleep.
Charles: I know what you mean: I’ve felt that way many times. Let me ask you, how long has it been since you’ve taken a drug of any kind?
Patient: (Pause) Well, I had a bit of mull yesterday.
Charles: How about other stuff?
Patient: (Pause) Well, oh, I’d say about two weeks!
Charles: (I’m quite sure he’s lying) So you have not used today?
Patient: (Pause) Right.
Charles: OK, so do you want to quit, I mean get off and stay off all drugs? It’s not easy but it is worth it.
Patient: (Pause) I don’t rightly know what I want. I’m confused, aren’t I?
Charles: OK so you need to give yourself a break. You need a clean brain for a few weeks, in order to know what you want.
Patient: But I can’t sleep.
Charles: So what! Nobody ever died of insomnia. I couldn’t sleep when I came off drugs. I didn’t really sleep for years because I always crashed, not slept. Learning to sleep takes time. Give yourself a break. Then you can decide if you really want to quit for good.
Patient: But I need to sleep!
Charles: No you don’t. Just stay awake: you’ll sleep eventually. If you take sleeping pills now, you will soon be back on your other drugs. Your brain will never get clean enough to make a good decision.
Patient: But I need to sleep because I’m going to court Thursday on a dangerous-driving charge.
Charles: Good! When you get to court, tell your lawyer to tell the court you are an addict and can’t sleep. Tell the judge the truth: you are agitated and need treatment. Tell them you need a good drug rehab that will detox you and keep you off all drugs. Then you will sleep good, like I do.
Patient: (No reply: he has dropped the phone!)
Charles: (now speaking to the nurse) He needs to go to a rehab. Tell the court that’s what he needs. And no sleeping pills. Let him stay awake. Sleep in the daytime. It won’t kill him.
Nurse: I think you’re right. I’ll do what I can. (CRASH!) I’ll call you later!
The nurse phoned back to say the patient was so angry he kicked a hole in her door on the way out. She had him charged with “wilful damage”. She said she thought he might go into a rehab providing the court cooperated. She agreed we’d done the best we could under the circumstances. Now we should pray for his recovery.
The effect of asking the right question
Asking the right questions never cures the addict. It does not necessarily even put the addict on the right track. However, the right questions, together with the right actions, may assist the addict to get to a place where abstinence is then possible through the grace of God.
Notice that God’s First Question did not rehabilitate Adam. Far from it! However, His dialogue together with His action of ejecting Adam from the Garden[ii] to make Adam grub for a living, eventually put mankind in a position where rehabilitation was possible through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Can any human counsellor expect better results?
The First Question for non-addicts
If you are a non-addict touched by the disease through an addicted relative or friend, your First Question takes this form: how long has it been since I have tried to cure, control, rescue or “improve” my addict? Do I harbour hidden thoughts that “there must be some way” I can get my addict off drugs or alcohol? The greatest lesson from Adam is simply that God himself did not cure Adam’s sin[iii]. To do so would mitigate Adam’s free will. God did not choose to do that – even when Adam was headed on a path to destruction. In the end God has His own plan of salvation for mankind, a far better one than Adam could possibly imagine.
According to this plan, each of us must make his or her own decision[iv]: to surrender to Jesus or go on sinning, to do it His way or “my way”, to use or not to use, to try to play God or to let God be God. To “let go and let God” is terribly difficult but such is the lesson from the oldest story in the book: God’s way is best.