Do You Have a Choice? When Food Takes Over Your Life

None of us has absolute freedom. I would love to be able to fly, but sadly I cannot. God has decided that the law of gravity will keep my mortal feet firmly fixed to the ground in spite of any desire I may have to soar through the heavens. I do not have the freedom to fly. Absolute freedom of choice is both logically and practically impossible because of basic laws of the universe. I get that I’m nerding out a bit in this post, but stay with me.

Where many Christians get caught up is with the word “addiction”. The idea that “addicts” have no freedom of choice flies in the face of some cherished doctrines and beliefs. This is due to a view that the concept of addiction is incompatible with the biblical ideas of sin and moral responsibility. Perhaps there is also a fear that labelling someone’s troublesome behaviour as “addiction” provides an enabling excuse that allows people to continue their destructive pattern. Gaining clarity about this topic will provide a needed tool to be victorious with our eating.

What is addiction?

Merriam-Webster defines addiction as:

“a compulsive, chronic, physiological or psychological need for a habit-forming substance, behavior, or activity having harmful physical, psychological, or social effects and typically causing well-defined symptoms upon withdrawal or abstinence”

This definition conveys a sense of “need” or compulsion to do or have something in spite of objectively harmful effects. The idea that we can struggle with substances or habitually do things we know will hurt us is certainly congruent with previously discussed notions of the flesh as they relate to food (see here, here, and here). We understand from Scripture that we have two wills- our “innermost” being that desires to please God and our “flesh” which mindlessly seeks out carnal pleasures.

The Bible doesn’t really use the term “addiction” as we understand it today but provides some similar words that convey a sense of a person’s will being captive to some substance or compulsive action. Consider the following passages:

“The iniquities of a wicked man entrap him; the cords of his sin entangle him. He dies for lack of discipline, led astray by his own great folly”

Proverbs 5:22-23

“He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand”

Psalm 40:2

So being entangled, or entrapped, or stuck in a muddy and slimy pit are decidedly bad situations akin to addiction. You may want to climb out of the pit, but your choice to climb out has been compromised by the slime and muck. You may truly desire to be free from the snare, but the snare says otherwise. You do not have absolute freedom here.

The Bible also talks about paths taken. Walking on a path is much different that walking randomly. A path directs you; it takes you somewhere. And a path is an exchange or trade of sorts. You give up some of the control of where the path is leading you in exchange for a bit easier walk because the way has already been cleared and marked. The real trick is being on the correct path.

“Give careful thought to the paths for your feet and be steadfast in all your ways. Do not turn to the right or the left; keep your foot from evil”

Proverbs 4:26-27

Paths narrow your range of choices, for better or worse. We walk many paths over the course of a day. Consider how you effortlessly work through a 67-step nighttime routine. I’m sure many of you do with little thought or willpower. Muscle memory, visual cues, and an internal heuristic make this possible with minimal conscious awareness. That’s a path. Attending Sunday service without fail? A path. Have you ever had the same disagreement with your spouse for the thousandth time? This is a well-worn verbal path. You know that when your spouses says “X” you are compelled to respond with “Y”. Over and over and over.

Any choice you make, good or bad, righteous or sinful, begins to wear a path both in your environment and in your mind and the two reinforce each other. The objects in your bathroom facilitate the 67-step bedtime prep. They cue and guide your steps. But you had also previously placed the needed objects in your bathroom to start with. Chicken and egg. You create the path and then the path creates you and then you create the path and then the path creates you, ad infinitum.

The same can be said for our food choices and environments. Research correlates levels of obesity with whether one’s breakfast cereal sits on top of the fridge, versus in the cupboard, versus not in the house at all. If I buy sugar-cereal and bring it into my home I am on a path. That cereal calls to me from the counter or the cupboard. I marked a path by buying the cereal and now the path is directing me.

So what does this have to do with addiction?

Addiction is all about where the path leads, as well as our willingness to stay on that path in spite of our knowledge of its destructive destination. Knowing these two data points will give us an idea about whether we can apply the word “addiction” to our situation. Consider the following verses:

“And there will be a highway called the Way of Holiness. The unclean will not travel it— only those who walk in the Way— and fools will not stray onto it. No lion will be there, and no vicious beast will go up on it. Such will not be found there, but the redeemed will walk upon it”

Isaiah 35:8-9

“Be sober-minded and alert. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour”

1 Peter 5:8

There are two paths and one of them has a lion on it waiting for you. Did you catch that? I contend that if you know that there is a roaring lion up ahead and continue walking on the path anyway, then you are either incredibly foolish or you are “addicted”. A fool might make that mistake once, but if he survives the big cat he won’t take that path again. Yet an addict will find himself facing the lion over and over. It’s not that he no longer has free will at all, but his future choices are being profoundly constrained or compromised as a result of his previous choices.

When it comes to compulsive or excessive eating, the lion at the end of the path can be a few different things. It might be a stroke or heart attack or cancer. Your life could be foreshortened by all manner of acute health consequences. A less immediate yet not inconsequential end to the path could be disability. I don’t mean only the common disabilities that we think of (eg. people losing limbs because of the diabetes) but a loss of the physical ability to do the things you want to do. No longer being able to go on that hike because of joint pain. An inability to complete or take on passion projects due to low energy.

The lion at the end of the path might be emotional or cognitive. The lion we face might be complete and utter despair; hopelessness that you will ever recover or that you can escape its mouth. This can lead to depression, disillusionment, and ultimately a loss of faith. I would argue that if you understand all this and still cannot get off that destructive path, then you are in the throes of addiction.

So how does free will fit into this then?

Some Christians don’t like the word “addiction” because it suggests that we might not have free will, and therefore cannot take responsibility for our actions. I would argue that this line of thought occurs when we haven’t yet thoroughly meditated on concept of freedom, which is actually complex and dynamic. We tend to think of the freedom in absolutes, but free will is actually nuanced and changes over time.

Do toddlers have free will? I think it is safe to say that most toddlers have a strong will! But we know that they are not categorically free. If a small child tries to run into the street, a protective arm from a parent will likely prevent her in spite of her protests. Likewise, choice of foods, bedtime, bath time, and all kinds of decisions are made by her parent. A child’s ability to choose, and therefore her free will, is limited.

As the child grows in her maturity and powers, her capacity to enforce her will increases. Eventually she learns to drive, gets a degree, climbs the ladder in her career, has children, and with each step her ability to assert her will grows (though each of those milestones also comes with responsibilities that also curtail other freedoms).

When she becomes elderly, she may eventually find herself in an assisted living facility. Perhaps there is a code on the door to prevent her escape. Meals and activities are largely dictated to her. Further, her body may no longer obey her commands due to advanced age. Such a person’s freedom is constrained simply due to old age.

Our total level of free will sits on a curve, generally peaking in the prime of life.

Further, we make choices in the present that affect future choices. I gave up some freedoms on my wedding day in exchange for a relationship with my wife. I voluntarily limited my romantic choices and various other things. Someone might say that I am still retaining my free will because the choice to marry was voluntarily and I could divorce my wife if I wanted and win some of my lost freedoms back. While this might be technically true, it is effectively untrue. That’s like saying I could exercise my freedom to cross the street before the walk signal if I wanted, like that toddler. Of course I could, but the consequences would be both unreasonable and unbearable.

There are many one-way doors in life, often owing to time. I cannot undo having become a father or a husband. I can’t unring that bell. I cannot erase choices from the past that may have a persistent impact in the present. If I chose to cut off my hand and throw it away, I cannot have my hand back.

So before we refute the idea of addiction, we need to look at the timescale of the addict’s life to consider the degree to which he has free will. If we zoom in to the present moment, while that person is trapped on the path we might say that in that moment he has lost much of his free will; he is entangled and entrapped. He is at the bottom of the slimy pit. However if we take a 30,000 ft view and observe the timeline of his life from start to finish, we see that at one time he did have a more robust sense of choice. In this way we can affirm both the biblical view (yes, he made choices that put him in this position) and also acknowledge the reality of addiction (he is now stuck in the slimy pit because of those previous choices).

For Christians who struggle with chronic food issues it can be difficult to acknowledge that we are in that slimy pit because we don’t want to give up a sense of responsibility for our choices. Perhaps we don’t want to label ourselves as food addicts because it would feel like we are giving up. Yet consider that true change is difficult to achieve before we acknowledge that we are stuck in the mud. The good news is that God can lift us from the muck and slime we are in and place us on solid rock.