Let’s define addiction as: any habit that reduces agency by trading impulses for blessings. With that definition in mind, what are some of your addictions? What highly impulsive habits do you have? And what price are they exacting in foregone blessings?
For example, few of us would equate our relationship to technology with an addict’s connection to opium. And yet, brain research shows they are precisely the same. When we open Instagram and see 30 likes on the vacation photo we just posted, our brain releases a surge of dopamine—the body’s pleasure chemical. This is precisely the same thing that happens when a drug addict takes a hit of crack. Over time our brains learn that this meaningless behavior creates a sense of well-being—so we repeat it. Over and over and over. And an addiction is born. Your brain begins to think of behaviors like checking email or responding compulsively to a text as a need not a choice. If that last sentence rings embarrassingly true, you’re an addict.
Creating consistent habits of prayer, scripture study, family home evening, and Sabbath worship leads to wholeness, internal consistency, and strong moral values—in other words, spiritual integrity. In today’s world where integrity has all but disappeared, our children deserve to understand what true integrity is and why it is so important.