Recognizing our lives have become unmanageable because of our addiction is humbling. That's the point of the first step. It's to humble us, making us ready for step two. As Christians, we call on the Lord in humble faith to restore us to sanity.

In our Scripture lesson today, we see a Roman centurion call out to the Lord, Jesus, on behalf of his servant who is sick and close to death. It's in humble faith the centurion makes his plea for Jesus to heal his servant. Likewise, it is in humble faith we cry out to the Lord to help bring us to sobriety and maintain sobriety.

All too often we think we can make our unmanageable lives manageable again on our own. How wrong we are! In our Scripture reading for today from 2 Kings 5, we find Na'aman, a commander in the king's army, seeking Elisha's help to be cured of leprosy. Na'aman quickly dismissed Elisha's instructions. However, Na'aman would find out God's way is the only way for him to be healed and be brought to faith.

The same principle is true with our addiction. Our way of attempting to get sober, stay sober, and have lasting freedom and peace from our addiction fails. It's by God's grace and help that He puts people in our lives to help us medically, emotionally, and spiritually. It's through the Gospel we know we have everlasting freedom from sin and freedom from addiction.

God protects a person's name and reputation in the 8th Commandment.

Addicts have all too often sought to destroy someone else's reputation by lying about the person/people who confront the addict out of love about his/her addiction. Instead of taking the person's word's in the kindest possible way, the addict goes out of his/her way to ruin the other person's reputation as a means of self-preservation.

Listen to what Jesus has done to restore our reputation before our Heavenly Father by what He has done to take away our sins.