Ann Wilison Schaef, When Society Becomes An Addict:
The context of our elephant—our society—is the fact that the system in which we live is an addictive system. It has all the characteristics and exhibits all the processes of the individual alcoholic or addict. It functions in precisely the same ways. To say the society is an addictive system is not to condemn the society, just as an intervention with an alcoholic does not condemn the alcoholic.
You might hear those who identify as Christian say that in Christ we are free, but they often leave the “free from what” unsaid. These Christians will say sin, but I don’t think they really know. I would like to suggest that in this book Ann Willson Schaef describes exactly that from which the Way of Christ sets us free.
Addicts and their families live from crisis to crisis. Every event or issue is perceived as a major turning point, and one barely ends when the next one begins.
The God of the Addictive System, who is the God that religion teaches and who in truth has little in common with the God of the Old and New Testaments, is God the Controller. It follows, then, that if it is possible to be God as defined by that system, one must try to control everything, and we do!