WYC 2009: This Mind In You

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

GYC West

Eric Walsh: Rumbles in the Mind

Eric Walsh

The Addiction Culture

Father God, we thank you Lord for this opportunity to come together here in nature using Lord the canopy of this forest Lord as a as a cathedral today.

Just asking father god for your Holy Spirit.

We ask lord that Eric Walsh would not be seen or heard, but father god instead.

I ask that you would show up in this place and that you would lead our discussions is our prayer in Jesus's name.

So our talk is called Rumbles in the Mind, Rumbles in the Mind, and it really is focusing in on addiction, but I wanted to talk about a few other things that also influence the way that the mind works in a spiritual sense.

So the first text, or our key text actually for all of our talks today come from 2 Corinthians chapter 4 and verse 4, and it reads, in whom the God of this world have blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them." I actually believe that Satan has to work to actively blind, distract, distort the gospel in order for it to not have its full effect and what I mean by that is if people come in contact with the gospel, the scripture says the word of God cannot go out and come back void.

So Satan knows this so he works tirelessly to set up a system where the gospel can be can be around and people don't pay attention to it.

What a gospel is around but people don't respond to it.

And he 1 of the ways that the devil can do this is through idolatry.

That's why idolatry is so forbidden in scripture.

Once you start to make allegiance to any other God by default, it comes into juxtaposition with your allegiance to the God of the universe.

And that's what Jesus even makes very clear.

And he's so sophisticated nowadays that he doesn't do it like he did in that old days with Ashtaroth and Moloch and all these crazy gods.

Well, he does do that as well still, but he also is much more sophisticated and I believe 1 of the greatest efforts he uses has gone all the way back to ancient Egypt and that the devil actually uses people and personalities as gods.

So that you begin to worship, you become a fan of someone.

And I think there's no accident that American Idol is called American Idol.

I don't think there's an accident that a show like Dancing with the Stars is called Dancing with the Stars.

The scripture says that the dragon's tail drew a third part of the stars and cast them to earth.

I think there's a reason that they call the show Dancing with the Stars.

What they're trying to do is get you so caught up in the personality and lives of these famous people that literally they become a blinding force on your mind.

And you know that because there are people who follow TMZ, People Magazine, they are religiously attached.

Kate and somebody makes 8 or something with the couple just got a divorce.

I can't remember the guy's name for some reason.

So, John and Kate make a plus 8 or something like that and they're going through a divorce and it's like the biggest talk.

I mean, even on the Christian Radio quote unquote Christian radio station in Southern California, that's what they're talking about.

It's amazing how much we really, once somebody get elevated into the public eye, how much we as a society shift to wanting to follow that individual.

And that is 1 of the ways that I think the devil in these last days actually has resurrected idolatry.

And it really, it works like a charm in a very spiritual sense for Satan.

This is supposed to be Salome before Herod.

And it just says, The Effects of Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll.

This is 1 of the first examples where, 1 of the great biblical examples where a few things came together for disastrous consequences for the people of God.

This is 1 of the classic renditions of that Bible story and you can see her there dancing and the mother wanting to John the Baptist head.

And it says here Matthew 14 verse 6, but when Herod's birthday was kept, the daughter of Herodias danced before them and pleased Herod, whereupon he promised with an oath to give her whatsoever she would ask and she being before instructed of her mother said give me here John Baptist head in a charger and the king was sorry nevertheless for the oath sake And then which sat with him at meet, he commanded it to be given her.

And he sent and beheaded John in the prison.

And his head was brought on a charger and given to the damsel.

And his disciples came and took up the body and buried it.

And they went and told Jesus." Powerful Bible story.

We often, you know, kind of run through this 1 into the other stories in the New Testament.

But really, there's a lot being said here.

1, Herod knew that he was already doing wrong because he was with his brother's wife.

And John the Baptist was the only preacher bold enough to call sin, sin.

That's what got him in jail in the first place.

But when the wife wanted John the Baptist dead, it wasn't enough that he was contained.

As long as he was alive, he was a voice against her marriage and against her lifestyle, really.

So she determined in her mind that she was going to find a way to have this man put down.

And unfortunately, what she did was she actually took her own daughter and had her daughter to dance before Herod.

In the process of this seductive dance, and you can almost hear the ancient music playing and the wine is flowing in the, I say the dance hall, but in the King's Hall.

And through all of that, once he gets a little bit tipsy, or maybe a lot tipsy, I don't know, and once he's seduced by his now stepdaughter basically, he is willing to make an oath to give her anything up to this large percent, half of his kingdom, a third of his kingdom.

He's willing to give away his kingdom because of how, you know, excited he is by this young girl.

The mother, of course, jumps right back in and says, look, ask for John the Baptist's head on a platter.

Now, I can't imagine this poor girl thought when she has to go and ask for someone's head on a platter.

I don't think that was her intention from the beginning, but of course, she does what her mother says, and you know the rest of the story.

His head is cut off, brought on a charger, and that's the end of John the Baptist, at least in the Bible.

Now, Jesus speaks very highly of John the Baptist afterwards, and 1 of the points of contention Jesus actually has to deal with is the fact that his disciples wonder, murmur behind him, why didn't he go and save John?

If he's the Messiah, because remember, they had a twisted view of who he was, if he's the Messiah, why didn't he go and save John if he's going to build this new kingdom?

Well, I really want to focus on the fact that in this story, you have the mix of alcohol, which is a drug, music, and visual entertainment combined with sexual seduction.

And Herod, being theoretically a Jew, knew better than what he was doing.

And the Bible says if he hadn't given that oath in front of his friends, he actually would have probably backed out.

But a public oath given by a king, he couldn't back, She set him up so he couldn't back out.

So here's another 1 of the ancient pictures from the story with his head being actually brought to Herodias.

So Herod's wife used music, visual seduction, and alcohol to destroy God's prophet.

Here's key, in the same way as we face the end time beast, the beast and the false prophet will seek to destroy the people of God with these 3 things.

The same method will be applied to destroy people in the last days.

It was an effective destructive tool to silence 1 of the greatest prophetic voices of all times, 1 of the boldest voices of all times.

1 of the most, I mean He lived a very clean, very different life than everybody else.

And yet, this is how he met his end, because Herod was deceived this way.

And we have to be careful as Christians that we don't get deceived by the same things And literally cut off the head of the prophet.

Because the devil, once you start to follow the world and its entertainment and its delicacies, 1 of the things that the devil is going to do is he's going to say, you know what, the first place he starts almost with our people is Ellen White.

I find it funny, people, I mean, and they throw Ellen White under the bus for no good reason at all.

The same reason Herod got, I mean, Herodias wanted John the Baptist dead.

And when sin is being called out, you want to silence the voice of the person calling out the sin.

The war against Ellen White is the exact same war that was fought against John the Baptist.

And I can imagine there were many in the Jewish leadership that considered John the Baptist a false prophet.

There are many of them that called him all kinds of names and did all kinds of things to him, and were very happy that he was killed this way.

And I can tell you that the same war against our modern-day prophet, the same war is being fought over the same issue.

I was on a plane next to 1 of the popular worship leaders in the country.

He works with 1 of the huge evangelical churches in Atlanta.

And he flies here twice a month to do a program in Orange County.

Mind Numbing, Soul Shocking: The Pathophysiology of Addiction

By his father god, we thank you lord for this opportunity to present again and to Delve deeper lord into the realm of the mind and addiction We just ask lord for your holy spirit so that father god we would be Wise and our approaches not only to our own health, but even as we approach others who may be facing addiction.

All right, so I'm going to start a few slides in, just giving some background numbers.

In 1962, 4% of the population over 12 had used illicit drugs.

By 1985, 33% had used and 23% were using regularly.

By 1990, 80% of teenagers and young adults have at least experimented and I'm sure these numbers are even higher now with the influx and popularity of marijuana.

An estimated 4.7 million Americans have tried methamphetamines.

2.3% of pregnant women are current drug users.

1 of the biggest problems we have in Orange County in the health department is we have a program for drug addicted moms and pregnant mothers and I'm amazed that even in pregnancy, the amount of methamphetamine, alcohol, nicotine, even cocaine is used and of course it causes major problems to the fetus and to the birthing process.

1 out of 4 US families suffer from drug or alcohol related problems.

So many of us have family members that are addicted or were addicted.

I think a fourth is a very low number, actually.

An estimated 13 million Americans are alcoholics.

1000000 addicted to cocaine, and more than 600, 000 are heroin addicts.

The average age of initiation of use of drugs, look at this, alcohol is 10 to 11 years old.

How do the 10 or 11 year olds get alcohol?

Usually you go to a wedding, you go to parties, and the kid is around and every time they're there, people are letting them drink a little bit of beer, they let them drink a little bit of this, a little bit of that.

And at a very early age, while the brain is still developing, they actually begin to take on a liking for the substance.

You know, I mean, my family, Jamaicans use white rum.

And a lot of even at Venice Jamaicans that's the way that that's if they're gonna get alcohol that's how they get it.

Because they take the cake and they're like sitting it out and it's rum and then you know 2 days later take it out cut it up frost it whatever they do you eat it and you I mean you actually can get a buzz just from the cake.

Alcohol can get to kids a lot of different ways, and stuff like that, cake is 1 of them.

Illicit use of prescription drugs started at 11.

What drugs And what do you think is happening where kids would actually be on drugs at 11 years of age?

We see that a lot actually in emergency rooms now.

But also they're being treated for stuff like ADHD with Ritalin, which is an amphetamine.

And so a lot, or in pain medicines even, in little, in young children.

And so a lot of them, that's where they're really getting into illicit drugs.

I mean, I used to see the sniffers and stuff.

And they take household products and sniff them, glue.

I don't know if you know this, but the dextromethorphan, the DM of Robitussin DM, the DM is also a drug of abuse.

The reason you can't get Sudafed in anything, because they'll take the Sudafed and make crystal methamphetamines out of pseudo-fed.

So there's a lot in just household products, paint, paint thinner.

How do you even figure out this stuff gets you high?

But a lot of the deaths that we call suicides are often overdoses and vice versa.

When we do a look at our child death review team.

Tobacco at about age 13 is an interesting how tobacco would actually come later.

I mean, you know, and so the kids don't want to smell of it.

But marijuana 13 to 14, cocaine 15 to 16.

When I was in high school in Miami, there was a thing where in the junior high, 7 girls had overdosed.

We were bused into a very, very, very wealthy public school system.

And these young girls, 2 of them overdosed on the cocaine in the parking lot of the junior high before school.

So kids get into some of this stuff very early.

33% of female heroin addicts say men influenced their decision to use drugs.

Only 2% of men said a woman influenced them.

Girls are now 15 times more likely than their mothers to use illicit drugs, so girls are an issue.

About 40% of crack cocaine addicts are women, crack being an incredibly addictive substance, and actually 1 of the few drugs that only 1 hit is all it takes.

And you can actually become completely fully addicted.

And that has been pretty well documented.

That's not everybody, but there are people that just 1 hit and they're addicted for life.

So money spent on addictive activities or different activities, gambling, look at that, in 1992 there was $33 billion.

This is 1 of the reasons why Arnold Schwarzenegger for a while there was trying to go after Indian gaming in California.

Because really there was a huge revenue source that isn't really being fully tapped into.

But there's a lot of money there locally in the state of California, but when you take it to like Las Vegas, It just goes through the roof.

The amount of money that is gambled in a city like Las Vegas is not even, you wouldn't even believe it.

But that's how they get the money to develop, you know, the strip in Vegas.

Some of the other addictions that are important to look at, sexual addictions, we talk about briefly is a major problem now, even with pastors.

We're having these problems now where more and more pastors are coming out from all denominations claiming to have pornography addictions.

Gambling is a big addiction problem still.

We see people do crazy things for a thrill, and then they wind up literally dying.

And carbohydrate and food addiction, which has a lot to do with serotonin.

And so If life is too exciting, the orange area says, you know, it's satiety is an issue.

Life is boring down in the bottom right corner here.

Where you fall, if you're not in a normal emotional state in here, and you live in 1 of these areas, you actually begin to try and find a way to deal with it.

And this is where drugs, there's drugs for people who want to come down, drugs for people who want more excitement, drugs for people who want fantasy, and drugs for people who want to escape.

And that's how a lot of times how people get a drug of choice by their life experiences.

Behavior that supports survival, not only aids in survival, it also creates a pleasurable feeling that reinforces that behavior.

Once we go outside of a normal mood, we will behave to produce a feeling of normal mood and depression is feeling that you will not survive.

And that's what a lot of people really get into.

So We talked about serotonin, dopamine, GABA, norepinephrine, endorphins.

Serotonin, let me go back, I actually hid this slide, but serotonin is the 1 that really relaxes you.

It makes you feel satisfied and you get it.

The way that you actually get serotonin is that the precursor is an amino acid called tryptophan.

And what tryptophan does is it goes through the blood brain barrier, it goes into your brain and your brain is able to put serotonin together and make serotonin, and you feel satisfied.

But it's also very sensitive to insulin and how much carbohydrate you eat.

Mind Makeover: Faith and Addiction Recovery

So what we're going to do, mainly really talk this afternoon about how do we deal with addictions and bad habits.

And also some section on how do we actually help others who have the same issues.

So especially if you get involved with ministry work, 1 of the challenges you face is that you run into people who really have serious problems in terms of different addictions or habits.

I remember when I was a kid in Connecticut, and every summer we had 10 efforts and we had these big evangelistic crusades.

In fact, we started with the Faith Seventh-day Adventist Church, just Faith in Hartford.

And by the time I was 15 and moved to Miami, there was Faith, Hope, and Charity.

And all of the churches were big churches.

Even now there are 3 very large churches, And I think even more churches have grown out of those initial 10 efforts that we called them crusades back then that we used to do.

And I remember, even as a boy, would go with the teams that would go to pass out tracks.

And we went into 1 housing projects in a poor part of Hartford.

And a gentleman and his wife was there, or his girlfriend.

And he was standing outside smoking a cigar.

And we walk up to them with our little pamphlets and handouts and try to invite them to the tent effort.

And it was really amazing because they actually were very receptive.

And so we took pictures, actually, of them putting their cigarette and their cigar out and throwing away their alcohol.

And they started coming to the tent efforts.

And I think I may have gone back to Florida or something, but I missed the end of the meetings.

And I remember coming back and seeing them again 2 or 3 years later, and them being strong members of the church, having overcome those addictions and having now being, are now being contributing Seventh-day Adventists and strong parts of the church.

So, you know, sometimes we think, well, people have these problems.

They can't, you know, there's nothing about them that can be redeemed and they brought it and brought it to our church.

When in fact, I think in some ways, they can be some of the strongest members of our church because a lot of times addiction strips so much from you that it actually puts you in a very good place to build a relationship with Jesus Christ.

They're very easily made, often addicts are very selfless.

At the Veterans Hospital where I did a lot of the addiction training that I did in Loma Linda, there was a saying that they used to say at the end of their meetings.

And it was, they used to say, God made the human heart so big that only he can fill it.

And this is what they said at the Veterans Hospital.

And it's something I use in sermons all the time, and it's a very true statement.

The addicts become so, you lose so much, that sometimes the only thing, they realize the only thing in the world that will ever give them peace is a relationship with God.

And it's our job really to give them an opportunity to know Christ Jesus and to know his truth.

And that is an exciting opportunity once you step into that field and really start to deal with addiction.

Before we go to the second 1, I want to go back to just reiterate 1 point here, and that is talking about dopamine, which is 1 of the brain chemicals for you, those of you who were here this morning, and talk about just how addictions really form again before we go into trying to deal with them.

1 of them was the dopamine's release causes euphoria.

Now, so when someone says they got high, the feeling of being high is mediated by this chemical right here, dopamine.

So when someone says, I got high, I got blitzed, I was blasted out of my mind, I was plastered.

All of those terms are street terms for the neurochemical process of a massive rush of dopamine in the process of being inebriated.

And what happens is all of these different pathways funnel down like a big funnel, and they end in dopamine, causing this rapid, quick, massive amount of pleasure.

And that pleasure is what makes you addicted because your body is designed by God that that pleasure, the natural pleasure you get from drinking water or eating good food or going for a brisk walk, those natural releases of dopamine, you're supposed to want to do them again.

There's a pleasure attached to it so that you'd want to do it again so that the earth would be populated.

However, when you use chemicals and hijack the system, you create a, it's more pleasure than technically you were ever naturally supposed to have.

So when someone does cocaine, They get more dopamine pleasure than they were ever supposed to have.

And that is what makes it so that they cannot do every other bodily function, every other social issue and function is all sidelined so that they can go after getting that high again.

The problem they have is a term called tachyphylaxis, and that means, it's a medical term that means you begin to develop tolerance to the chemical or to the drug.

Back to Menu

Series

Eric Walsh: Rumbles in the Mind

Mind Makeover: Faith and Addiction Recovery

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Parts

The Addiction Culture

1h 23m

Mind Numbing, Soul Shocking: The Pathophysiology of Addiction

23m

Mind Makeover: Faith and Addiction Recovery

59m

Mind Ministries: How to Reach Addicted Souls

48m

Sound Doctrine