Addiction. Ironic how the word begins with “add.” When addiction does nothing but subtract. Unless you consider it adds trouble. I sometimes define it, “If a little is good more is better.” That’s how we get started.

But the stark truth in addiction is found for me in a line from a song in “Crazy Heart”, the 2010 movie starring Jeff Bridges — for which he won an Academy Award for Best Actor. He portrays a country music star whose alcohol addiction has so enslaved him he’s lucky to get a booking in a bowling alley.

The lyric that is so powerful from the song “Flyin’ and Fallin’” goes like this, “Funny how fallin’ feels like flyin’ For a little while.” Any of us who have struggled — or are struggling — with addiction know the ravaging these words hold.

The lure. The good feeling. The high. The soaring. The falling. The crash. Repeated over and over. An endless lyric until it either destroys us — or we confront it and do whatever it takes to stop the fall. Or it’s taken out of our hands. And through others we are forced to make a change.

Addiction stalks anytime, anywhere. I admire, more than I can say, anyone who has overcome an addictive habit. An impossible thing becoming possible. In my own confrontations — and there have been several — it is a long arduous journey. One I have desperately needed God’s help with.

Years ago I wrote, “He saved me from myself, so I might rejoice in the very self, that apart from Him, I would have destroyed.” Nothing in my life is truer than this.

I remember in the throes of a particularly powerful addiction thinking I was fighting against God, and I would have to lose to Him in order to win. Instead, as is the way of grace, God showed me I was never fighting against Him. He was fighting with me, in order that I might get the win.

The illusion of addiction’s reward — if battled to victory — leads to real wings.

No more fallin’. Just flyin’.