“There is no peace,” says the Lord, “for the wicked.”

Isaiah‬ ‭48‬:‭22

There’s a reason we are discontent when we arrive at the doors of sobriety. It’s simply not possible to be peaceful when living in addiction.

Sure, there are good times—we wouldn’t have begun if there hadn’t been an attractive draw. But addiction is underlaid with fragments of the good that sparked it.

From one day to the next, we had developed the habit of chasing our next best obsession until we caught it and realized it had lost its luster or else simply lost interest to the next whim.

We seek our own interests rather than that of others and then are left spent when the time comes to draw help. What can we do when we cannot sap the strength to go on from someone or something?

And so, restless, we realize we haven’t been peaceful in quite a while. We’ve only experienced the smooth docility of getting our way. Like children.

We are hard pressed to label ourselves as wicked; that isn’t the language we use regularly, but we certainly may fit the bill.

And why not?

It’s tough to recover from any state of mind or body that we can’t simply own up to in the first place.

Wickedness doesn’t require murder, sociopathy or theft. What if by ostracizing the brutality of our actual soul’s condition we have allowed it to atrophy into the very state that got us off into addiction in the first place?

If we’ve all like sheep, gone astray, haven’t we by definition been living in the dark, in the wickedness that God abhors?

Instead of dwelling on semantics, take refuge in the truth of his grace, freedom and salvation that is available.

Sobriety is about life and light. Stepping out of the darkness means acknowledging we were in it and having the courage to replace the wicked past with the hope and peace we receive from God.

God, thank you for rescuing me from darkness.