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Month: July 2024

Becoming Board Certified in Addiction Medicine

. . . As the LORD commanded Moses. So he listed them in the wilderness of Sinai. Numbers 1:19 When I was in treatment ten years ago, I began plotting my comeback. My life had fallen apart, and I wanted to put it back together. I planned to get out of treatment and immediately become…
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Fake Sorry

But if they confess their iniquity . . . and they make amends for their iniquity, then I will remember my covenant with Jacob, and I will remember my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land. Leviticus 26:40-42 Every time I used drugs, I felt bad, asked God’s…
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When God Asks for Something

Then the land shall enjoy its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate, while you are in your enemies’ land; then the land shall rest, and enjoy its Sabbaths. As long as it lies desolate it shall have rest, the rest that it did not have on your Sabbaths when you were dwelling in it.…
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I, Me, My, Mine

I will break the pride of your power . . . Leviticus 16:19 I often think of pride at thinking a lot of myself. I’m a big deal. I’ve certainly been guilty of that, but pride is also simply thinking of myself a lot. This kind of pride is much more subtle. With this kind…
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Am I Being Punished?

But if you will not listen to me and will not do all these commandments, if you spurn my statutes, and if your soul abhors my rules, so that you will not do all my commandments, but break my covenant, then I will do this to you: I will visit you with panic, with wasting…
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Does God Pay Better than Being a Drug Dealer?

Therefore you shall do my statutes and keep my rules and perform them, and then you will dwell in the land securely. The land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and dwell in it securely. Leviticus 25:18-19 A couple years ago, one of the guys sitting in jail explained the math…
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Stuff Addiction

The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine. For you are strangers and sojourners with me. Leviticus 25:23 My wife and I are currently neck-deep in the process of building a house. In this process, we’ve often asked ourselves this question – How much is too much? What we’re asking…
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Doing the Right Thing, Even When It Hurts

And if you say, “What shall we eat in the seventh year, if we may not sow or gather in our crop?” I will command my blessing on you in the sixth year, so that it will produce a crop sufficient for three years. Leviticus 25:20-21 In the disaster of my addiction, when I lost…
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How Would You Feel If I Did That?

If anyone injures his neighbor, as he has done it shall be done to him, fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; whatever injury he has given a person shall be given to him. Leviticus 24:19-20 In my addiction, I made impulsive, reckless choices, not considering the cost to me and my loved…
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The F-Word

Whoever blasphemes the name of the LORD shall surely be put to death. Leviticus 24:16 When I was quite young, I heard a neighbor kid say the word fanny. I thought that was the f-word and was astonished that he said it. I learned many more colorful words from the neighbors though, and eventually, the…
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