Overcoming Addictive Behavior Order Printed Copy

Author: Neil T. Anderson
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About the Book

"Overcoming Addictive Behavior" is a comprehensive guide that provides strategies and tools for individuals struggling with addiction. The book offers practical advice on how to identify addictive behaviors, develop healthy coping mechanisms, and create a support network to overcome substance abuse and other addictive habits. It also explores the underlying causes of addiction and offers insights into how to break the cycle of addictive behavior for long-term recovery.

Augustine of Hippo

Born in 354 CE in the North African city of Tagaste to a Christian mother and pagan father, Augustine began his career as a pagan teacher of rhetoric in, among other places, Carthage. In search of better students, Augustine traveled to Rome in 383, assuming considerable personal risk in doing so, but was disappointed to discover his newfound students lacking the virtue he thought the necessary prerequisite for a proper education. Failing to acquire satisfactory students, Augustine moved once again, this time to Milan where he accepted a position as a professor of rhetoric. It was in Milan that Augustine adopted the study of Neoplatonism in earnest, though he had shown a fondness for classical philosophy, particularly the works of Virgil and Cicero, from an early age. In Neoplatonism the still-young Augustine thought, with great confidence and enthusiasm, that he had found an academic school capable of uniting the teachings of Christianity with those of Greek and Roman philosophy. Shortly thereafter Augustine converted to Christianity and, returning to North Africa, accepted the position of bishop in Hippo in 396, one that he would retain for the remainder of his life. It was arguably his encounter with Neoplatonism that caused Augustine to recognize the teachings of the Church as a source of intellectual insight not unlike that of classical philosophy. An autobiographical account of his religious conversion is the subject of Augustine’s Confessions, which numbers among the most famous and influential of his works. Upon rising to the position of bishop, Augustine increasingly immersed himself in the daily routine of monastic life and became entangled with internal Scholastic controversies facing the Church, particularly those involving the Donatists and Pelagians. Because of his considerable intellect and rhetorical skill, Augustine grew to be a particularly skillful and persuasive defender of Christianity against critics from multiple directions. At the same time, Augustine appears to have grown increasingly skeptical of his youthful opinion that Christianity and classical philosophy might be readily reconciled by way of Neoplatonism. Though Augustine’s work De Civitate Dei (The City of God) contains considerable praise for Platonic philosophy and its intellectual inheritors, more apparent within the work are the major differences between the Platonic tradition and many of the teachings of the Church, with Augustine, not surprisingly, lending his own support to the latter. In his personal life, Augustine is described as living a life of tireless work and rigorous denial of earthly pleasures. Augustine devoted his final days to prayer and repentance as he battled illness and watched his home, Hippo, besieged by Germanic invaders. Shortly after his death in 430 the city was burnt to the ground by its attackers, who, nonetheless, left Augustine’s library unharmed. He was subsequently canonized and was named a Doctor of the Church in 1298. He continues to serve as the patron saint of printers, brewers, and theologians.

The Pursuit of True Discipleship

I learned as a very new Christian that if I was going to grow in the image of Christ I had to guard my heart. Here’s what that looked like for me. Very early on in my Christian walk, when I was almost 21 years old, I knew that I needed to be a woman of the Word. I began to guard my heart and my life by regularly engaging in the Bible. What’s important to know is that the most effective way to stay actively engaged in the Bible is not only to read the Word by yourself but also to read it with a small group. Everything you do personally is then maximized and multiplied when you’re in a group with a room full of women. The Holy Spirit is speaking to each and every one in the group as everyone is doing her daily reading throughout the week.  The Lord has created each of us completely differently, unique from each other. So in a group we read the same passages every single week together, and yet the Lord speaks to us differently through every season of life we’re in. When we get to sit around the table or sit around someone’s living room and share exactly what we have each heard from the Lord, it’s a beautiful process that the Holy Spirit uses in our individual lives but also in the lives of all of those women who are meeting together. So this is a two-fold process. Not only do we grow personally, but we’re also growing as a unit — and that's a beautiful thing. I really hope you’re excited about what this might look like in your life.  "Actively choose to put yourself in an atmosphere and environment to follow after Him, to constantly be changed into His image on this side of eternity." So, what is a disciple? I love to answer that question, because I think sometimes we make it more difficult than it actually is. Simply put, a disciple is a lifelong learner of Jesus Christ — someone who truly follows after Him all the days of her life. You actively choose to put yourself in an atmosphere and environment to follow after Him, to constantly be changed into His image on this side of eternity. Discipleship, then, means to intentionally equip believers with the Word of God, through accountable relationships and empowered by the Holy Spirit, in order to replicate faithful followers of Christ. Every single phrase in that definition is very important. One, it’s intentional. Two, we are equipping believers with the Word of God. From the beginning we must understand that the centerpiece of discipleship is God’s Word. Everything must always revolve around the centerpiece, because only God’s Word in the Spirit will change the hearts and the lives of people. We must intentionally equip believers with the Word of God. We’re doing that through accountable relationships and through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. The end goal is always to replicate that process to make more disciples. John 8:31-32 says, “Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, ‘If you continue in my word, you really are my disciples. You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’” I don't know about you, but I can always use more truth and freedom in my life — freedom from sin, freedom from bondage, and everything else that holds on to us in this world. We need to be women who say, I'm going to abide in Christ. I’m going to remain in His Word because remaining in His Word means that I am truly a disciple. Kandi Gallaty