Shackles

I've gotten back into my coffee habit.  Not really addicted to the caffeine as I frequently either mix in Decaf or use 100% decaf.  But I am mentally addicted.  I get up at insanely early hours, just to have my first cup of coffee.  I had purchased a one mug coffee maker so that I didn't waste a whole pot, but now I am drinking probably the equivalent of that whole pot.  I think....even though there is nothing wrong with enjoying a cup of coffee...that I am going to cut it out of my diet once again.  I went for 5 years without coffee and they were years of freedom. I was free to drink water or tea in the AM, I was free to fast for bloodwork or surgery without dealing with a headache or that miserable "I need a cup of coffee" feeling.

Jesus came to set us free.  Why take on shackles to anything??  There is a verse that describes this situation wonderfully. It is this:

1 Corinthians 6:12

All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. 
All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything.

I have a huge fear of addiction.  I once was addicted to a sleeping pill called Halcion.   The doctor I had at the time insisted that I take it....and I was miserably dependent on it.  It was only being completely psychotic and in a psych hospital for a month or two, when they didn't give me that med there and I was too sick to know I was withdrawing from it.  That hospital gave me my life back by taking me off of that drug.

I am now dependent on pain  meds.  Once more, it was a doctor who  convinced me of my need for this....Called it medical dependency.  That may be so....but "I will not be mastered by anything."  It is my desire, once I get hooked up with a new pain management doctor, it is my desire to get off of these meds.  I know pain will be excruciating. I will ask God for the strength to deal with that.

I was once addicted to smoking cigarettes.  Two packs a day for 13 years.  I would have killed my mother for a cigarette.  I desperately loved the baby growing in my womb....and yet I could  not stop smoking during my pregnancy.  It was only when the patch  finally came out that I was able to find my way out of that horrible addiction. 

 In case you don't know: There is a link between SZ and coffee and cigarettes.  The chemicals in those two items have an effect on the psyche of the mentally ill.  In a sense we self medicate with those two habits and they are at least 75% harder for the SZ person to give up than they are for "normal" people.  This  is  a proven fact.  And the fact that I've given up smoking and had given up coffee gave me a sense of pride.  I did what is almost impossible to do. 

And now, the coffee serpent is back and biting.  Well I'm going to bite back.

Why do I not want to be mastered by anything (aside from that Bible verse)?  I do not want there to exist anymore shackles in my life.  I do not want there to be anything that would give someone leverage to control me or make me miserable.  I want to be free.  I WILL be free.