The Great Escape

A few weeks ago, I was having a conversation with one of my close friends about actress Maia Campbell and the unfortunate situation she has found herself in as of late. A while back a video was circulating of her in a Los Angeles neighborhood, sitting in a parked car and devouring Doritos, while clearly tweeking off the drugs that were ravaging her body and soul. A more recent photo of her, resembling a mug shot, was also posted by a fellow Facebook friend. The deterioration, spiritual despair, and obvious physical toll of her habit was so overwhelmingly evident that it could only spark feelings of sympathy and compassion. This once beautiful and talented young woman has become a mere shell of her former self. I'm sure she never imagined that her life would spiral downward the way it has. Her desire to escape reality through the doorway of drugs has cost her much more than she ever bargained for.

So my friend and I began exploring this issue of escapism and what drives people to it. She posed this pointed question, "Why are people afraid to be sober? It's tragic when people go through life using superficial things and artificial substances to self-medicate. There is an answer and a way out. Life is better lived with eyes wide open." Wow. Maia Campbell's story is just one example of how compounded grief, wounds, and other emotional scars can easily be the catalyst to a person's "Great Escape" which really isn't an escape at all, but rather a journey into bondage. It might be the death of a loved one that one never fully recovered from; the emotionally or physically absent father who left his son with a gaping hole in his heart; the shadow of anger that haunts the life of a woman who was abused as a young girl; or, the despair of someone who has no vision and doesn't know their purpose in life. Add to the equation the fact that some people have addictive personalities and a propensity toward being more vulnerable to certain behaviors and the issue gets even more complicated.

When I thought about my friend's question, "Why are people afraid to be sober?" My first answer was, because the reality of some people's lives is too much for them to bear without some sort of temporary numbing agent. Consequently, they are always in search of something to take the pressure off, even if just for a moment because it is in those moments that the pain is dulled, to a degree, and they are able to get to the next moment. Unfortunately, the moments of a life of self-medication will begin to merge together into days, weeks, months, and years. Before long, time has passed and the only result is a wasted life. Depression, whether blatantly obvious, or subtly lurking beneath the surface of the soul is almost always a factor in why people turn to any and everything outside of God for relief. Some people use drugs as their way of escape, while others use sex and/or relationships to distract them from the painful issues going on inside. Food, work, and even the exaltation of "self" are just a few of the other escape routes people use to try to control their lives when they really feel out of control on so many personal levels. The one common denominator I have seen, regardless of who it is, or what their "drug" of choice, is a real sense of pain on the inside about something that has yet to be dealt with in full. Layers of fear, insecurity, and abiding sadness are often present. Being at the mercy of a self-destructive habit, without the ability to find the brakes has to be scary.

Thankfully, the latter part of my friend's statement is the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. Recognizing 1) God is the way of escape that leads to lasting peace and joy unspeakable, and 2) the realization that life is indeed better lived with eyes wide open. Why go through life in a clouded haze of superficial, fleeting pleasure that is ever elusive, when there is the opportunity, every day in God, to live with complete clarity, satisfaction, and fulfillment? The question is, will we trust in our Creator more than we do our own way of doing things? Will we hand all our issues, pain, emotional wounds, and grief over to Him, and allow Him the opportunity to do surgery in our souls? Just like a patient who is recovering in the hospital, there will be some discomfort, but in the end, every open wound will close and the pain will go away. Instead of trying to administer our own medication, let's allow the One who knows us better than we know ourselves to deliver His special brand of medicine - He is guaranteed to deliver.