As a Christian addiction counseling, I oftentimes hear strugglers of porn and sex addiction talk about it as a disease. In other words, they were born with this predisposition towards porn/sex and therefore it is much harder for them to navigate it in their daily lives. I have also heard other strugglers talk about addiction not being a disease, but just a moral issue. In other words, they do not have anything wrong with them like a disease and they just lack the self-control. Anyway, there are many beliefs about the topic of addiction. How does the Bible speak to these two models? How does God view addiction in other words? Knowing how the Bible speaks to the models of addiction is important when it comes to having a Christian approach to addiction recovery. This hopefully will help by speaking to opioid addiction, substance addiction, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, or behavioral addictions.

How does God View Addiction: Disease Model

Secular individuals or secular therapy are familiar with the disease model approach when it comes to describing aspects of addiction. While there are no verses about addiction in the Bible as the word addiction is never used, it most certainly uses terms that can capture addictive behavior. For example, Jesus calls tax collectors and sinners the “sick” (we are all broken in other words) (Matthew 9:11-13). In John 8:34, Jesus says that everyone who practices sin is a “slave of sin”. Finally, Paul the apostle in Romans 7:15-17 talks about “sin dwelling in him” and him “doing the very thing he hates”. So far, we have terms very relevant to addiction such as “sick”, “slave of sin”, and “doing the very thing you hate” and there are many other terms. The good thing about the disease model approach is it allows us to have compassion for strugglers of substance abuse or behavioral addictions instead of a negative attitude towards them. However, one of the problems with the disease model approach is addicts can take advantage of your empathy to remove their agency of choice/responsibility. For example, we wouldn’t blame someone for having the disease of cancer. Yet, God holds people accountable for all their sinful decisions even though he knows they are broken and in need of redemption (Romans 14:12). God never says, "you have the disease of sin and therefore can't be held responsible for your destructive behavior." I have heard clients say they are addicts and their wives shouldn’t be so hurt or disappointed because their wives bar was too high. God never lets us excuse our sins due to having a sinful nature or having a hard past.

How does God View Addiction: Moral Model

Christian individuals, church leaders, or biblical counselors are more familiar with the moral model to addiction. The moral model approach rejects the disease model approach thus holding us responsible for our choices. This approach would say that addicted individuals do not have the self-will and can grow in self-control through effort in their response to addiction. While it is right that we are to be held responsible for our choices and we can grow in our self-control in Christ (Galatians 5:23), this model doesn’t square away with bible verses about the power of the sinful nature which give us a better understanding of addiction. Brain scans for struggling addicts display that it is not just a self-will problem since the nature of addiction messes with your mind.

Biblical Worldview: Disease Model vs Moral Model

As a biblical counselor, the biblical response to these models is that we have a sin nature (Ro. 7) that makes it difficult to do right while also holding us responsible for our choices. The good news is that Jesus offers us forgiveness and newness of life where these desired vices can be altered as we enter into the recovery process (Romans 6:1-14). There is always hope for us in the person of Christ to change into a person of self-control even if we have compulsive behaviors. Persons with addiction can find freedom in Christ to change into the person they desire to be!

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