Pride, Addiction, & Saint Benedict’s Twelve Steps of Humility: A Working Theology of Recovery (Part 1)

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“To get completely away from our aversion to the idea of being humble, to gain a vision of humility as the avenue to true freedom of the human spirit, to be willing to work for humility as something to be desired for itself, takes most of us a long, long time” (Twelve Steps & Twelve Traditions).

Addiction is a complex phenomenon affecting the entire person, equally besetting the body, the mind, and the soul. It is a truly debilitating malady of our whole being in the fullest sense of our embodiment. And given that we are inherently social creatures, addiction is never just a solitary affair. Rather, as a sickness whose effects always extend beyond the individual self, addiction invariably harms the families, communities, and relationships, most especially our vital relationship with God, in which “we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). 

The late Dr. Gerald G. May describes addiction in this way: “Addiction exists wherever persons are internally compelled to give energy to things that are not their true desires…addiction is a state of compulsion, obsession, or preoccupation that enslaves a person’s will and desire. Addiction sidetracks and eclipses the energy of our deepest, truest desire for love and goodness. We succumb because the energy of our desire becomes attached, nailed, to specific behaviors, objects, or people. Attachment, then, is the process that enslaves desire and creates the state of addiction” (Addiction & Grace: Love and Spirituality in the Healing of Addictions). 

There are many contexts that can give rise to unnatural attachments in our lives, such as familial, socioeconomic, and environmental conditions, as well as cultural, political, philosophical, and even religious influences and beliefs. Moreover, certain circumstances or events in our lives can trigger addictive patterns of thinking and behaving.

These include genetic predispositions, psychological vulnerabilities, the negative role-modeling resulting from the scandalous behavior of others (particularly those we respect or admire), the utter violation and sheer helplessness experienced as the result of abuse (especially at the hands of those we trust and depend on), the terrible grief and loneliness evinced by the loss of a loved one, the shock and often overwhelming pain caused by trauma or injury, the distress and sometimes devastating suffering associated with disease and mental illness, the very real malice and torment provoked by demonic infestation, oppression, obsession, and possession, or simple ignorance or naiveté when it comes to recognizing and navigating the perilous allurements of the world all around us. 

But as a preeminently spiritual disease with a clear moral dimension, there is one thing above all others that puts us most at risk for the scourge of addiction. It is what Catholic Tradition calls concupiscence, the disordered inclination of the human will toward sin and evil.

“Etymologically, ‘concupiscence’ can refer to any intense form of human desire. Christian theology has given it a particular meaning: the movement of the sensitive appetite contrary to the operation of human reason. The apostle St. Paul identifies it with the rebellion of the ‘flesh’ against the ‘spirit.’ Concupiscence stems from the disobedience of the first sin. It unsettles man’s moral faculties and, without being in itself an offense, inclines man to commit sins” (CCC 2515). 

Indeed, there are perhaps no words in all of Christian literature that better capture the perplexing and deeply frustrating experience of concupiscence than Saint Paul’s poignant lament: “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want; rather, I do what I hate…For I do not do the good I desire; rather, it is the evil I do not desire that I end up doing” (Romans 7:15, 19). 

Saint John the Apostle illuminates this troubling proclivity within each of us toward sin and addiction with his threefold description of concupiscence or covetousness, what he called the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life (1 John 2:16 and CCC 2514). Each of these is organically interconnected, has significant overlap with one another, and is never mutually exclusive. Nevertheless, consideration of each in its own right sheds significant light on our tendency to sin and helps us to see how compulsion and addiction can take root in our lives.

The “lust of the flesh” refers to the inordinate attachment to sensual, carnal, and bodily appetitive gratification, or any kind of obsessive or hedonistic pleasure and comfort-seeking. Arising from this form of concupiscence, we can think of lust, sex, and pornography addictions; substance abuse disorders of all kinds including drug, marijuana, and nicotine addictions; alcoholism, food addiction, and other eating disorders; and video game, social media, and other “screen” or “technology” addictions. Even self-harming behaviors like cutting or burning oneself would fall into this category because of the perceived comfort such behaviors provide usually from some deeper psychic or demonically induced pain.

From Scripture, an obvious example of concupiscence expressed in the lust of the flesh is King David’s act of adultery with Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11-12). Many Saints struggled in their earthly lives with the lust of the flesh—Saint Augustine and Saint Mary of Egypt with sexual lust, Saint Thomas Aquinas with overeating, the Venerable Matt Talbot with alcoholism, and Saint Mark Ji Tianxiang with opium addiction. And Satan most certainly appealed to the lust of the flesh when he conjured his first temptation of Christ in the wilderness, the enticement to turn stones into loaves of bread (Matthew 4:3). Our Lord had fasted for forty days and forty nights, and no doubt Satan was exquisitely aware that Jesus’ fleshy human nature powerfully and intensely hungered for gratification.

The “lust of the eyes” speaks to the inordinate attachment to material objects and the created goods of the world. We can think of greed, gambling or reckless spending habits, the maniacal pursuit of wealth for wealth’s sake, hoarding, cluttering, and similar avaricious behaviors, as well as any kind of possessiveness, clinginess, or rapaciousness. Instructive from Scripture is Jesus’ encounter with the rich young man (Matthew 19:16-26) who was so close to the Kingdom of Heaven and yet so far because he could not part with his many material possessions.

Saint Francis of Assisi, like many other Saints, fully appreciated the radical barrier to God and Heaven this form of concupiscence represents when he rejected the privilege and comfort offered by his family’s wealth and assumed the life of a mendicant, acknowledging that he was literally and existentially nothing but a beggar before God. And no doubt the lust of the eyes motivated the Devil to tempt Jesus with possession of all the kingdoms of the world in their wealth and splendor if He would but bow down and worship Satan (Matthew 4:8-9).

Finally is the “pride of life,” the inordinate attachment to self—self-will, self-importance, self-obsession, self-adoration, self-exaltation, self-aggrandizement, or having a god complex. This is concupiscence at its ugliest and usually typified by the pursuit of power and control, typically by unscrupulous, manipulative, and even depraved means. There are many examples of this form of concupiscence throughout the Bible. We can think of Pharaoh in the Book of Exodus with his obstinacy before God, Moses and the ancient Israelites, or King Saul’s paranoid persecution of God’s chosen and future king, David, and similar malevolent efforts to preserve the status quo at any cost as demonstrated by King Herod, the Pharisees, and the Romans in the earthly life of our Lord.

I think of two Saints who gave witness in their lives to overcoming the pride of life. Saint Paul’s extraordinary conversion from ruthless persecutor of the early Church to becoming one of our Lord’s greatest servants, and Saint Thomas More, Lord High Chancellor of England, who experienced the loss of prestige and power in defense of the Pope and the Catholic Church in response to the schism of King Henry VIII. Both Saints would receive the gift of eternal victory in bloody martyrdom as a result of their temporal victory over the pride of life!

Satan cleverly invokes the pride of life when he places Jesus on the summit of the Temple in Jerusalem and dares Him to put the Father to the test (Matthew 4:5-7), to in effect tempt Jesus to command the Father to do the Son’s will which would have represented a grotesque reversal of Jesus’ sacrificial mission to obediently carry out the Father’s will for our salvation. Notice the imagery of having Jesus stand on top of the Temple, the very dwelling of the presence of God, the holiest place on earth. This is a calculated and contemptuous gesture symbolizing self-ascendancy over God by figuratively putting God under one’s foot.

As a form of concupiscence, the pride of life intentionally seeks to subvert the natural order and covenantal relationship of mere man before the absolute Deity, of impotent man before the omnipotent God, of finite creature before the infinite Creator, always by exchanging self-surrender, obedience, and worship with self-promotion, disobedience, and sacrilege.

And without question, there is no event in all of salvation history where the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life are more quintessentially on display than the original sin of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. They disobeyed God (pride) because the fruit was delectable to the taste and thus intensely desirous for gratification of the sensual appetite, because the fruit was attractive to the eye and thus intensely desirous to be acquired and possessed, and because the fruit tantalisingly offered power to “become like God” and thus intensely desirous to replace God with self (Genesis 3:5).

This series will continue with Part 2.

Pete S. is a grateful Catholic in recovery. He lives in Augusta, GA and helped start a CIR General Recovery meeting at St. Teresa of Avila Parish in Grovetown. He actively sponsors several individuals in CIR. He is also a regular content contributor for the CIR Daily Reflections. And as a result of his recovery journey in CIR, he discerned a calling to the Benedictine spiritual way of life and on September 30, 2023 was invested as an Oblate novice of the Order of Saint Benedict affiliated with St. Vincent Archabbey in Latrobe, PA.