Drug addiction is a chronic and extreme compulsion to gratify cravings in the brain by the repeated use of a substance regardless the cost or consequences. It's a condition that involves uncontrollable drug use, craving and seeking, withdrawal, as well as dysfunctional behavior. It has the ability to rob someone's joy, obliterate their purpose and testimony, as well as kill them given a long enough time table. And unlike many other diseases, it can never be entirely cured… but it can be arrested.

But Isn’t Taking Drugs a Choice…

Addiction is quite complex. Lots of people cannot comprehend how or why other folks get addicted, and could have a few misconceptions regarding this disease. When an individual originally decides to take drugs, it is at that point unquestionably a choice. Some test it out of curiosity while others are pushed into it through social and economic conditions, but modern neural scanning technology (PET and SPECT scans) has revealed how the choice to take drugs rapidly dissipates and becomes a physical and psychological dependence wherein an individual incrementally loses his capacity to "choose" to stop using due to a kind of neural damage that affects choice making.

What Addiction does to the Brain

A thorough report of the impacts of prolonged drug and alcohol abuse on the human brain is outside the scope of this summation, but briefly:

-Drugs are chemicals that tap into the brain's communication system and disrupt how that nerves collect, dispatch, and process information.

-Drugs flood the system with dopamine which creates euphoria. The injury and conditioning from dopamine flooding though causes the brain to reduce the quantity of dopamine it produces which results in major depression and cravings.

-Drugs are neurotoxins that destroy the brains serotonin distribution system. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter which regulates mood, appetite, and sensory perception.

• Drugs devastate the prefrontal cortex which is the a part of the brain responsible for whether we act on impulses or not. This part of the brain in effect controls inhibitions among other decision making functions.

Some of this damage is sadly everlasting. But the human body and brain are unbelievably resilient and effective at repairing a great deal of this harm if given the time and healthy living to do so.

What Chemical Dependence Does to the Spirit

Drug dependence facilitates the emotional and spiritual death of a person by stealing any possibility to experience joyfulness and purpose outside of drug use. And even during use, that type of joy is briefly lived and hollow. It is a lonely, sick, and gloomy place which has no regard for how good or bad someone is, how they were raised, or how strong or weak their will-power is. It attacks any individual from any social group and is extremely related to the occult and to the demonic. Its tentacles extend from the addict toward everyone who loves or cares about the addict. Most important though is that addiction produces a riff between God and the addict and opens people to evil influences that bring about crime, high risk sex and high risk behaviors, and an unyielding sense of hopelessness and despair. God doesn’t wish for any person to live and suffer like this.

There is Hope of Healing in Recovery through the Highest Power

Imagine how incredible it would feel to be freed from the pain and torment caused by addiction. Instead of tears there would be smiles and laughter. Instead of court dates there would be important family celebrations and promotions at work. Instead of being looked down at, you would encourage others by your amazing story of deliverance. Being freed from addiction of course doesn’t assure any of this, but it surely does create the fantastically genuine possibility of these kinds of things happening.

Recovery is not possible outside of God. Every secular 12 step program believes this regardless of whether they call Him a different name. Lots of addicts have been stuck in the cycle of addiction and relapse because they continue to depend on their own strength. Recovery is about counting on strength that one doesn’t inherently posses, but does posses as a part of a collective of likeminded individuals who're being led by God. God has a unique aptitude to restore people and use them to exalt Him, and He's the ultimate provider of hope and healing.

What You Must do Now

In Revelations 12:11 it says, "They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death." Our Masters Camp understands that just quitting drugs is merely the 1st step. We need to be recreated starting from the floor up, first through creating a genuine and lasting relationship with God and second, by healing the hurts, hang-ups, and behaviors that lead addicts back to relapse. This progression demands time, a safe place, plus a sympathetic and caring community. Lots of individuals don’t have this in their immediate vicinity, so Our Master Camp can provide this at possibly the most inexpensive, affordable, and value packed fee in the entire United States.

The first step is to pray about what you or the one you love must do. God is listening and waiting patiently to provide you with guidance. Next, we would love to speak to you or your loved one who’s fighting addiction about becoming a resident on our scenic countryside site in the mountains of Pikesville Tennessee.