If you are battling addictions, it is a fight. A major war, whether the habit is drugs, smoking, food, alcohol, pornography, exercising, etc.  People who have not experienced addictions cannot understand. It is as if there is a hold on your life and you cannot become free. There is a hold on your life! It is your will.

You can pray and pray, abstain, go to support groups, but unless you decide that you don’t want this thing in your life. You will not be free.

God desires to set you free, but unless you submit your will to Him and resist the temptation, there will always be a hold. 

I had multiple addictions that I struggled with the majority of my life. They were initiated through trauma and my desire to control areas in my life that I felt I had no control over. 

As my life seemed more and more out of control, the cravings became a stronghold that controlled me. When I accepted Christ and became baptised in the Holy Spirit, I was being convicted to get rid of that which bound me. I tried and tried to purge myself of the desire. However, I was not able to do it out of my strength. I was not succumbing to the addiction. However, the desire was always present, and there was an active war every day that I was fighting. I wanted God first in my life. However, the addictions were always first, at least the thought of them. Finally, I cried out to the Lord for help. He led me to confess the sin in front of the Church and then fast. The fast was not like any fast that I had ever known. God had me eat three meals a day to purge the addiction of eating disorders. After thirty days of fasting, I prepared my last meal. I prayed, and I took a bite of the food. As the food was in my mouth, I knew that this was the temple of the Holy Spirit and the food tasted like something I had never eaten before (it was as if colours and beauty were in my mouth) I can only imagine this is what heavenly food will be like. And at that moment the addictions left. 

“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?” Isaiah 58:6

“Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble,
And He saved them out of their distresses. He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, And broke their chains in pieces. Oh, that men would give thanks to the Lord for His goodness, And for His wonderful works to the children of men! For He has broken the gates of bronze, And cut the bars of iron in two.” Psalm 107:13-16

Lay it all down at Jesus’ feet. Confess the sin, ask the Lord for help and obey what He has you do.