ADDICTION!

Do you ever read something that just makes light bulbs glow within you? This week it happened to me and it was from the most innocent of sources. I was reading the February 2008 Strategic Finance magazine http://www.imanet.org/index.asp while waiting for my doctor appointment. There was an article titled, Addiction by Robert W. Gunn & Betsy R. Gullickson.

Since that is some thing I have lived with and suffered the fallout from, my interest was piqued, “how or why is that related to business?” I wanted to know. So I read further. Basically, the author applied the problems facing an addict in recovery to the problems in corporations trying to grow, or retain employees, or whatever problems big companies have.

In recovery circles there is a phenomena called RID which is an acronym for RESTLESS, IRRITABLE, & DISCONTENTED. (It reminds me of our little acronym for the usual response when asked how you are.. “FINE” which means to us - FRUSTRATED, INSECURE, NEUROTIC, & EMOTIONAL!) I get that very well. But the RID acronym is a warning sign that an addict is about to relapse. When folks are feeling RESTLESS, IRRITABLE, & DISCONTENTED, they are hungering for a solution. Their thinking is clouded and chaotic and they are jumping all around looking for what will fill them. An addict deep inside hungers for the object of his addiction. The article was applying this whole idea to a business model and showing how the RID acronym can apply to problems and how solutions are identified within a business. People in the midst of a RID cycle are not going to be so effective at finding those solutions but will be reacting to things around them.

However, I, in my thinking would take this back to the individual…and the person I know best is me! I am not an addict in the sense of the word that the world uses it. I have no strong desire for drinking, drugging, or wild sex with strangers. But there are things in my life that are sinful and addicted seems to be a word very close to what it is. I try to diet and exercise and I do it one day, maybe two. And, then things get in the way and I don’t. I resolve to get up early and read my bible each morning and I do it one morning and maybe two, perhaps a third, and then my day interferes one day and then the next. And whatever I want to be doing .. the good things I want to do… I don’t keep doing.! Am I an addict?

There is an old dead monk somewhere that would say that it is exactly those days that are full and challenging that I needed to carve out the time for God first! I pray. My heavenly Father is the first on my mind in the morning. I pray before I get up. But it is so easy for my mind to be full of stuff that has little matter in an eternal sense. I struggle to keep Him first. But that is exactly what our lives are made of….that struggle. Our lives are not just a one time commitment but a daily one.

So back to the RID. I was astounded that there was such a strong connection between the addict’s behavior and the impending relapse. What about me? DO you think that I can recognize when I am feeling RESTLESS, IRRITABLE, & DISCONTENTED? Perhaps that is the time when I should hit my knees, find my accountability partners, and fill my hands and heart with things of eternal matters?

The diet and exercise should work the same way. We need to depend on each other more by being vulnerable and available and emotionally there. This is actually another facet of the compacting thing. When real addicts in recovery live in group homes together, they are learning that this life is hard and doing it alone is almost impossible. We need each other and when we are feeling RID, it is time to seek someone out and share our struggle so we can walk thru it together. I think I am gonna work it! DKU