Today I want to talk to you about the reality of spiritual warfare in this world and the tactics the devil is using through drug addiction to steal many people from God. Almost everyone knows someone whether it’s a partner a family member a friend a loved one or even people they just see as they drive down the street out in public that they know have an addiction problem. It is very easy to fall under the belief that these people make a choice to use the drugs and that there’s nothing that can be done to change them. Some people even believe that these are people who are bad people. The truth about addiction is that it is so much more than someone making bad choices. It is a real brain disease. Yes it starts out as a choice, usually by a young person looking to do something they think will be exciting and fun with their friends. It’s something to do socially on the weekends. At the time when they’re experimenting they don’t realize the Trap that they could be falling into. Prolonged drug use Alters the chemicals in the brain so much that it changes personalities, it brings symptoms that mimic many mental disorders, and it rewires the brain to almost make the drugs seem as necessary as air and food to a human. A lot of the symptoms and side effects mimic many mental illnesses such as depression anxiety bipolar disorder and even schizophrenia when severe levels of psychosis have been reached. Many times people get wrongly diagnosed with any of those illnesses because the drugs are causing the exact same side effects. So the medication for example deemed to treat schizophrenia and take away voices someone will hear in their head will not actually work on the person suffering from psychosis. While in both instances the brains chemicals are completely imbalanced the fact of the matter is it’s two totally different types of imbalances. So the drug meant to treat schizophrenia is not going to be effective because different chemicals are actually being affected. Unfortunately they’re not able to see the exact chemicals that are in balance to be able to determine that they just go by the side effects in the description of what the people say is going on in their head. Many people once they get off drugs the mental illness that the side effects were mirroring goes way because they did not actually have that mental illness. Unfortunate part is is that people don’t realize that it’s just side effects from the drugs and they can be stuck in a trap for the rest of their lives or many many years. Everything in the brain can be affected by drug use from the way you look at things the way you feel about things the way you perceive things. It literally changes people so much because the brain begins to believe that it needs the drugs to survive. And it changes people’s morals and values because they feel like they have to have the drugs and people without Financial Comfort often tend to fall into the world of committing crimes and stealing and much worse just to get the drugs because they feel that they need it. It no longer becomes a matter of Free Will and making a decision about whether or not to use drugs anymore. It truly is one of the most underhanded tactics the devil uses to steal people away from God. The number one side effect from addiction is robbing people of their potential. And they don’t even realize what they’ve become while they’re in the middle of their addiction because they don’t realize that they’re thinking is off. I speak from personal experiences I was a former user for 20 years of methamphetamines. The last year of the 20 that I was on it I heard voices in my head from the minute I woke up to the minute I went to sleep and it was exactly like something would say a schizophrenic goes through. The problem is is it was so much and so dark and so crazy that I believe that it was anything but a mental illness or schizophrenic or drug-related. To anyone I would even see in the store was thinking negative things about me and hated me and didn’t love me. And I believe that these voices were people that were against me and that they had somehow found a way through satellites and all kinds of other out of this world completely unrealistic ways to get into my head and torment me all day everyday like that. It wasn’t until I went to jail for a few months while I’m waiting for a court date for a 5-year-old drug possession charge that the voices went away because that was off drugs and I realized that it was all drug-induced and I realized all of the things that I thought my head that were so crazy just weren’t even possible to be true. When it came time to go to court I signed up for accountability Court which is a program that is intensive outpatient rehab where your drug tested several times a week and you go through a lot of different classes for a period of 18 months and at the completion of it the drug charges dropped. I can’t begin to explain how amazing life has been these last 9 months with absolutely no voices and turning my life around. I truly realize all of the ways the drugs had changed me and my mindset in the way I thought about things and the way I responded to things and just how I was operating my life. Fortunately I never had to deal with the financial discomfort to where I ever had to steal from anyone or anything like that but I did constantly lie to my family who was several states away coming up with lies as to why I needed to borrow money when it was really just so I could buy more drugs at times. The drugs robbed me of many relationships that fortunately since I’ve been in recovery have been restored. I see many people though who don’t have the same good luck as me because their families are family members are under the impression that they’re just bad people or that they’re lost causes and that’s really not the case. The people that are in this program that have been using drugs for so many years they didn’t start off making a choice to become what it became. Nobody started using because they wanted to end up in jail or they want to do eventually steal from people because they needed to have the drugs or even because they ever wanted to be addicted. They all simply started because it was a way to make friends at a younger age or because they thought they were just having fun on a Friday or Saturday night. One first starting out nobody ever expects it to go down the dark path that goes down even when they hear stories of it happening to several other people. One in four people in America have an addiction to some substance whether it’s tobacco alcohol or drugs and it’s so strong that it just pulls people sometimes for the rest of their lives and it keeps them from God and their families and love. Like I said it’s almost to the point where it’s no longer about even Free Will anymore, which is what the biggest gift God intended for humans to have was. The sad part is as many people are suffering from this addiction and the side effects that are mirroring so many mental diseases and they aren’t doing what’s necessary because the medication they’re on for these mental illnesses aren’t really helping them so they’re stuck in depression and these mood swings and just every bad thing that goes along with it not realizing the only thing that they need to do is stop the drugs. So I just asked that you join me in prayer to God to find a way to break through to many of these people struggling with addiction and fight back because Satan has crossed the line and what he is doing in his fight to steal people’s lives and souls. I also pray that we ask that people with loved ones and family members and friends that know someone struggling with addiction understand that they’re not bad people and they’re really going through something serious and that what they need most is love and for someone to reach out to them and give them something that is worth more than the high the drug provides to them. Love and having people in your life that are worth something to you that you believe you’re worth something to them is one of the biggest keys to being successful in fighting addiction.