I guess sugar is the closest I’ve ever come to being addicted to something. I got pretty darn grouchy the third day of my induction into the Adkins Diet several years ago. That has been, thus far, the limit of my withdrawal experience.

I’ve never tried any of the “recreational” drugs and never had a sufficient need for painkillers to run the risk of getting hooked on one of them. But I have had enough experience with the darkness to see its draw and understand that pain can reach a point where almost any risk seems worth taking.

I’ve seen that long-fanged snake wrap itself around others, seen that deep, deafening darkness draw them down deeper and deeper. I’ve been around when they found that everything that was precious to them had been damaged, destroyed or defiled. I’ve had sin carry me to the edge of that precipice and I’ve lost enough to know sorrow and agony. And I have often seen pain greater than my own. I give thanks from time to time for the times when I’ve been delivered from sin and allowed to taste life again.

Every escape that temptation offers is nothing more than a deeper hole than the one you’re trying to climb out of, a greater darkness than the shark-toothed edge you feel eating into your soul. It seems like the first thing it destroys is you caring about the other things you care about, including the people who care about you.

The tortures of Satan begin long before Hell.

H. Arnett
9/3/10