What does the Bible say about addiction?

Our working definition of addiction is very different now than when the biblical texts were written. There are plenty of Bible verses that address addictive patterns, including examples of and warnings against sins such as avarice, gluttony, and lust. It's doubtful that the Bible treats addiction as having the kind of clinical definitions we're familiar with today. But it comes close, by describing bondage of the passions and bondage of the will. It also provides words of hope for release, recovery, and restoration. The Bible passages below can be used in sermons, prayers, pastoral care, or worship planning focused on addiction. 

Addiction examples

Use these prefiltered searches to find references to addiction in the Bible along with relevant resources. 

• John 2:16, addiction as idolatry (Jesus cleanses the temple)
• Romans 5:3–5, battling addiction requires endurance (spiritual formation in the midst of affliction)
• Romans 7:19–25, addiction as a battle of the will (our sinful nature vs. our new nature in Christ)
• Ephesians 5:18, command against addictive behaviors (avoid drunkenness and be filled with the Spirit)
• 2 Peter 2:19, addiction enslaves (people are slaves to whatever masters them)

Warnings and comforts

These prefiltered searches provide resources based on scripture passages that offer warnings and comfort about addiction.

• John 16:33, comfort for those facing addiction (take heart: though you will face trials, Jesus has overcome the world)
• Romans 6:6, freedom from addiction (Jesus frees us from slavery to sin)
• Romans 13:14, warning against addiction (turn to Jesus and don't gratify the desires of the flesh)
• 1 Corinthians 10:12–13, addiction is nothing new (God will provide a way out)
• Galatians 5:1, warning against submitting to addiction (Jesus has set us free, so don't submit again to a yoke of slavery)
• Titus 2:11–12, grace trains us to put off addiction (grace brings salvation and trains us to live godly, self-controlled lives)

Recovery from addiction

There is hope. These pre-filtered searches give examples from scripture.

• Psalm 18:2–6, God can deliver us from our addiction (the Lord is our deliverer, our refuge, our help in times of trouble)
• 1 Corinthians 6:12, do not be dominated by addiction (not all things are beneficial)
• James 5:15–16, all sins can be forgiven (confess your sins and pray for one another so that you may be healed)

Sermon ideas about addiction

The addictive spiral 

Sermons about addiction could discuss the escalating nature of addiction. People who struggle with addiction long for wholeness or fulfillment, but they choose substances or behaviors that fail to deliver and can ultimately be disabling. Whether people with addictions long for God or for self-transcendence, for joy or for pleasure, they eventually long for mere escape from pain. Addiction taps into longing in a way that often escalates from mild to serious forms. To those with serious addictions, the addiction feels wily and perverse. It can feel demonically alive, as if someone first tempts them and then mocks them for succumbing, thus flooding them with guilt and shame. In the classic addictive spiral, people feel increasingly distressed over a divided will—they keep doing what they don't want to do—and over how to combat this distress. They try to relieve their distress by indulging in the same behavior that caused it, thereby starting a new round of the spiral. 

Sin or sickness? 

Sermons about addiction can also address the complex sources of addictive behavior. Addiction may be triggered by sin—by drunkenness, for instance, or consumption of pornography. But it can also be the result of factors outside the addicted person's control, as in the case of a child in utero hooked on its mother's abused substance. And there are physical, social, and psychological factors that make some of us much more vulnerable to addiction than others. God alone knows whether or to what degree people are culpable for their compulsions and addictive behaviors. In any case, those who are serious about recovery will at some point take responsibility for the wreckage that surrounds their addiction and for the salvage work that needs to start. Alcoholics Anonymous insists that alcoholism is an illness and that those who experience it have lost the power of choice over alcohol, but also that alcoholics need to take full responsibility for their disease and face it head on.