Prayers for temptation and addiction

In the ten minutes before

The decision is not made yet, though your body is already leaning. These are for saying now, quickly, before the next thing you do. Short enough to say twice.

• Hold me for ten more minutes

  God, ten minutes. That is all I am asking for. Hold the door shut for ten minutes, and then I will ask you again for ten more. I am not promising you tonight. I am asking for now.

• The whole prayer, said quickly

  Help me. Right now. That is the whole prayer.

• Give me something else to do

  My hands need something to do. Give me the next small thing instead, God. The kettle. My shoes. The front door. Walk me to it. I am not asking to be a different person by morning. I am asking to get to the end of the hour.

• I have already half decided

  Honestly, part of me hopes you do not answer this. Part of me has already decided and is only going through the motions of asking. I am telling you that anyway, because I would rather say it to you than pretend. Do what you will with a prayer like that.

When the house goes quiet

Everyone is asleep, or nobody is coming home. Nothing is scheduled until morning. This is the hour when the thing you refused all day starts to sound reasonable.

• There is nothing until morning

  It is quiet, God, and there are seven hours until anyone needs me. I know what I do with hours like this. Sit up with me. I am not good company tonight and I am not going to say much. Stay anyway.

• Too tired to fight it

  Lord, I am too tired to fight this properly, and I think that is exactly why it is here now. My defences went at about six o'clock. Be the part of me that is still awake. Get me to bed, or get me to morning, whichever comes first.

• Take the phone out of my hand

  The screen is right here and my thumb already knows the way. I have deleted it before and put it back. Give me the small unheroic courage to set it down, God, plug it in across the room, and lie in the dark being bored instead.

• One sentence before sleep

  Keep me tonight. That is all I have got.

After you gave in again

It has already happened. You are sitting in the wreckage of a promise you meant, and you are fairly sure you have used up whatever patience was left.

• Saying it without the excuses

  God, I did it again. I am not going to dress it up or explain the week I have had. I did it, I knew what I was doing while I was doing it, and I am telling you before I tell anyone else. Here it is.

• When shame arrives first

  The shame got here before you did and it is very loud. It is telling me not to bother you with this. I am bothering you anyway. If there is really no condemnation for someone like me, say it somehow, because I cannot hear it in my own voice tonight.

• Starting the count again

  The count is back to one, God. Ninety days gone, and tomorrow I have to say so out loud to people who will be kind about it, which is worse. Give me the nerve to say it accurately and not to disappear instead.

• Make me want to be clean

  Create in me a clean heart. I am borrowing those words because I have none of my own tonight, and because I am not certain I want a clean heart yet. Make me want it. Start there, if you will start anywhere.

When it has been years

The crisis is long over. This is the ordinary middle, where you are mostly fine and it still turns up on a Tuesday afternoon for no reason at all.

• A day that is nothing special

  Today there is no crisis and no story. There is work, and the shopping, and an evening to get through. Keep me boring, God. Let this be one more day when nothing happens, and do not let me despise how ordinary that is.

• When it comes back unannounced

  Lord, it was quiet for months and today it is standing in the room as though it never left. I thought I was further on than this. Apparently not. Meet me here again, at the same place, without the sigh.

• For the ones who keep me honest

  God, bless whoever answers the phone at eleven at night. Bless the room full of people who let me say the true thing on a Thursday. I would not still be here without them. Keep them well, and keep me going back.

For someone you love

You are not the one drinking or using, and you cannot make the decision for them. You are watching, and you are tired, and you are running out of things to try.

• Wherever he is tonight

  I do not know where he is tonight, God, or what he has taken. I have run out of ways to help and I hate it. Keep him alive until morning. Everything else can wait.

• When I have to stop rescuing

  Lord, give me the hard wisdom to stop doing the thing that has never once worked. Show me where love ends and rescuing begins, because I have blurred that line for years. Hold me steady when I say no and it sounds to both of us like abandonment.

• Angry and still wanting her home

  I am furious with her, God, and I am not allowed to say that anywhere else. She has taken years off my life. I still want her home, and I would still open the door. Hold both of those, because I cannot.

Bible verses about temptation and self-control

What each passage meant where it was written, and what it does and does not offer you now.

• No temptation has taken you except what is common to man. God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted above what you are able, but will with the temptation also make the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.

  1 Corinthians 10:12–13

  Paul is writing to a confident congregation about presumption, and the promise is narrower than it looks. It says a way out exists and that you are not the first to stand here. It has been stretched into the saying that God never gives you more than you can handle, which is not in the text and is cruel to anyone who relapsed last night. A way out existing is not the same as your having found it.

• For I don’t understand what I am doing. For I don’t practise what I desire to do; but what I hate, that I do.

  Romans 7:15–25

  Written by the most confident letter writer in the New Testament, describing himself as split down the middle. Readers argue about whom he is speaking for and when. That argument changes nothing for you at midnight. The gap between wanting to stop and not stopping is set down in Scripture, in the first person, with no apology attached and no tidy fix offered until the next chapter.

• For we don’t have a high priest who can’t be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but one who has been in all points tempted like we are, yet without sin.

  Hebrews 4:14–16

  The letter was for people under pressure to give up and go back to what they knew. Its claim is specific: the one you are praying to knows the pull from the inside, so you can come without a prepared speech or a good week behind you. Notice what it does not say. It does not say he understands it and therefore you should have managed it.

• If you don’t do well, sin crouches at the door. Its desire is for you, but you are to rule over it.

Where these verses get misused

Verses about temptation get handed to people as a reprimand more often than as help. The line about not being tempted beyond what you are able becomes proof that a relapse was weak will, when the passage says only that a way out exists. The words about willing spirit and weak flesh were said to friends who fell asleep, not to someone in withdrawal. None of this replaces a doctor, a treatment programme or a group, and coming off some substances without medical help is dangerous. If you are at risk of overdose or of harming yourself, or you cannot wake someone and think they have taken too much, get emergency help before you pray. If you are frightened for someone else and have nobody to say it to, a doctor, a local drug and alcohol service or a family support group will talk to you about them, even when they will not talk to anyone about themselves.

Questions people ask

Is it a sin to be tempted, or only to give in?

Most Christian traditions separate the two. Hebrews says the one you are praying to was tempted in every way a person can be, and did not sin, so the pull itself cannot be the offence. The line is usually drawn at consent, the moment you turn towards it. That is clean on paper and much less clean at two in the morning, when you cannot say where noticing ended and deciding began. If you cannot locate the line, you are in ordinary company.

I have prayed about this for years and nothing has changed. Has God stopped listening?

Nobody can tell you why some people are freed quickly, some slowly, and some carry it for life. Anyone claiming to know is guessing. What we would say is that unanswered so far is not the same as refused, and that long prayer is not evidence of thin faith. Many people who did eventually stop describe years of praying first, and would not call those years wasted. That is an observation, not a promise about you.

Does praying about it mean I do not need rehab, a doctor or a group?

No. Coming off alcohol, benzodiazepines and some other drugs without medical supervision can be dangerous and occasionally fatal, so that decision belongs with a doctor rather than with a prayer. Prayer sits alongside treatment, a counsellor, a sponsor, a group, medication and the blocking software on your phone. If you are in immediate danger, from an overdose or from yourself, contact emergency services or a crisis line first and pray afterwards.

Can I ask forgiveness if I know I will probably do it again?

Yes, and that honesty is worth more than a promise you cannot keep. We would say confession is not a contract about the future. It is telling the truth about now. If your tradition takes this to a priest, take it there. You can say plainly that you intend to stop, that you do not trust yourself, and that you are asking anyway. Swearing you will never do it again, when you do not believe it, tends to make the next relapse much harder to bring back to God.