Then David spoke to the LORD when he saw the angel who was striking the people, and said, “Behold, I have sinned, and I have done wickedly. But these sheep, what have they done?” 2 Samuel 24:17
There are a couple of different versions of my addiction story. In one version, it was the stress of that first year of residency that led to my drug use. Long hours and overnight work at the hospital disrupted my sleep schedule, breaking down my ability to resist a drug that helped regulate my sleep. The drug itself was far too accessible, sitting in our clinic’s drug sample closet, which was regularly stocked by drug salesman. In this version of the story, the fault for my addiction rests with those around me. If only I hadn’t been made to work overnights. If only my clinic hadn’t allowed me access to those pills. I like this version of the story because in it, I’m not at fault. It was the flawed system around me that was to blame. The problem with this version of the story is that I had no control over the hospital, the clinic, or the drug salesman and so, recovery was impossible, because I couldn’t change any of those things.
The only thing I could change was me, which is a very different version of my addiction story. The truth was that I had an insatiable appetite for those pills. I craved them. I put them in my mouth. I became addicted, engaging in nefarious behavior to obtain more and more. I had a disease, and it was my responsibility to treat that disease, or it would metastasize through my entire life, destroying everything in its path. Maybe all those external details were true, but the problem didn’t lie in my environment and the key to my sobriety didn’t lie in the external. Rather, if I wanted to get sober, I had to admit this profound truth – I was the problem.
Admitting that we are the problem doesn’t immediately result in transformation, but transformation is impossible until we take that first step – to admit that we are the problem. This is illustrated in today’s passage, in which King David had to own his failure. In the story, David angered God with his faithlessness, incurring God’s wrath. In the calamity, David cried out to God, admitting his guilt. I have sinned, and I have done wickedly. If David wanted things to be different, he first had to admit that he was the problem.
We will experience difficult circumstances, but the primary problem of our addiction doesn’t lie externally to us, which is a good thing because we can’t change the external. The only thing we can change is ourselves, which is where the real problem lies. If we want to find recovery, we must take that first step, admitting that the problem lies within us.