Chasing Fulfillment: Gambling, Shopping, and Workaholism
Addressing the emptiness within
What if the things you normalize, celebrate, or even depend on can quietly take over your life just as powerfully as any substance?
In this thought-provoking episode of our ongoing series, Dealing with Your Addictions, John and Shay tackle behaviors like gambling, shopping, and workaholism and how they can evolve into powerful addictions that mirror the neurological patterns of substance abuse.
You’ll hear about:
How everyday habits can become life-altering compulsions
Why dopamine is at the center of every addiction story
What Scripture says about being mastered by anything other than Jesus
Examining root causes to find true freedom and healing
After listening to this episode, you’ll understand that freedom from process addiction is possible no matter where you find yourself on the recovery journey.
Understanding Process Addictions Through a Biblical Lens
We’ll start this episode with a question: Are gambling, shopping, and workaholism truly addictions in the same way that drugs and alcohol are? Yes and no. When you compare the brains of people who struggle with substance addictions to the brains of people who struggle with process addictions, you find similarities and differences.
The similarity that all of them share is the brain’s desire for dopamine, a chemical in the brain that releases in response to rewarding experiences, which reinforces certain behaviors and helps form habits.
Here is a definition of process addiction:
A process addiction is a persistent, compulsive engagement in rewarding, non-substance behaviors.
To get even more specific, it’s a behavioral pattern that you’re completely engaged in—and that you persist in spite of severe negative consequences. You lose control; for example, you keep gambling even after you’ve run out of money. If you do stop for a period of time, you go through withdrawals. You get anxious, nervous, and jittery and can even move into depression.
We may have some listeners who haven’t bought into the Christian mindset yet. If that’s you, there’s a ‘common grace’ aspect to our discussion. That means that the information we share applies to Christians and non-Christians; process addictions affect a person’s overall well-being regardless of their religious beliefs, and they affect society as a whole.
All addictions, whether substances or behaviors, lead to a downward spiral where you begin to lose your sense of identity and control; you lose relationships and the ability to contribute positively to other people’s lives. You turn inward. All of your energies are directed towards whatever you’re pursuing to get that dopamine hit.
Process addictions can create the same kind of consequences that substance addictions do, but they’re more subtle, and they take longer to cause damage. There’s a distinction between someone with a shopping addiction and someone who is addicted to alcohol. Alcoholism will manifest physical dependence more quickly. With a shopping addiction, you can hide the symptoms by shuffling your credit card debt around, but you may feel a lot of anxiety as you hide your behavior.
If you’re a Christian, it’s important to look at these behaviors in the light of Scripture. In Ephesians 5, Paul cautions believers to pay careful attention to how they walk; not as unwise people, but as wise; and make the most of their time because the days are evil.
So for Christians, it’s about wisdom in decision-making, and being a good steward of where you put your time and your energy. You’re called to love God with all of your heart, mind, soul, and strength. If you’re mired in addiction, you’re not always available to receive his love and to love him wholly. Both substance and process addictions have this negative effect.
You’re called to love God with all of your heart, mind, soul, strength. If you’re mired in addiction, you’re not always available to receive his love and to love him wholly. Both substance and process addictions have this negative effect.
You don’t want to be controlled by anything other than the Lord. Nothing is to be your master except Jesus and your goal of pleasing him. If you’re controlled by something else in life, you’re not really free. When you become a slave to something else, that will always be your downfall.
In contrast, following, obeying, and loving Jesus leads to freedom. Sometimes people think that following Jesus will be the death of them. He’s going to take all the fun out of their lives. But it’s actually the reverse. Instead, it’s the constant seeking of a dopamine hit that enslaves you.
Why Gambling Isn’t as Harmless as It Seems
There aren’t any specific Bible verses that directly prohibit gambling. It wouldn’t be classified in the same way as theft or stealing or cheating on your taxes. However, gambling is not a wise use of money.
When you place your hope of becoming wealthy on winning the lottery rather than developing job skills or working hard and saving and investing wisely, then you aren’t being a good steward of your money and will experience financial loss as a result.
In addition, there is the danger of becoming addicted to gambling. One researcher put it this way, “Losing is something that you can get addicted to.” Gambling addicts tell him, “It’s the losing that keeps me going.” It turns out that the thrill of the hunt, just anticipating a win, increases the dopamine level in your brain.
Gambling has one component that the other process addictions don’t: It promises to solve all of your problems. The heroin addict knows that they will need hit after hit to keep feeling good. But if you’re gambling for a large jackpot, or a lottery, you feel like one big win will set you up. That’s part of the hook.
Some things that we think are okay would include a charity raffle ticket, where you know that if you don’t win, the money goes to charity; or contributing to an office pool for a sporting event—as long as you haven’t had issues with gambling in the past. Similar to someone who needs to stay sober while others can drink, you’ll need wisdom and self-awareness to handle these situations gracefully.
While gambling might not technically be a sin, there’s so much more to it than meets the eye. If you’re not providing for your family because you’re gambling, if you’re lying and deceiving others, if you’re stealing in order to gamble, it has now crossed firmly into ‘sin’ territory.
Breaking Free from the Buy-More Mindset
Shopping is a huge problem in our society. Ads are everywhere, whether it’s social media, TV, print media, or even billboards. Companies frequently use manipulative tactics to encourage overconsumption.
Common marketing strategies include: creating exclusivity, where an item is seen as unique and desirable; making products that do not last or cannot be fixed, so that you have to buy more; and controlling the narrative by creating a culture of consumption that overlooks the impact it can have on finances, health, and the environment.
It’s not as if you don’t have agency in this. You’re making choices based on what you think you need or what you see that everyone else seems to have. Comparison often drives consumption. There are questions you can ask yourself about how much you need, defining a want versus a need, and living within your means.
The convenience of online shopping means you’ll need to be even more vigilant about spending habits and be able to discern if you’re making purchases to fill a void or out of necessity.
When Success Becomes an Idol
Beneath consumption is a subcategory called workaholism: making an idol of career, success, and money. This one can be valued in our society. You may look favorably upon people who are hard workers and who seem to be successful.
But workaholism has its own set of consequences. It may begin when you are are pushed into high-profile, high-paying careers by your parents. Because you often define your identity and value by success, career, status, and income, it can lead to workaholism, and neglect of your family and even your relationship with God.
The author of Hebrews says to keep your lives free from the love of money because that can destroy you. Why? Because money is not eternal. Only God will never leave you or forsake you. So examine your heart attitude towards your career and your income and keep your life free from the love of these idols.
Walking With Jesus Into Recovery
The beautiful saying from St. Augustine, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until we find our rest in you,” is even more poignant because Augustine lived a hedonistic lifestyle before he found God. So when he speaks of the restlessness of the heart, it’s against the backdrop of his own heart feeling disconnected, empty, and unfulfilled.
To start the recovery process, bring the loving and caring presence of Jesus into the darkness of your addiction. You may see Jesus as a distant figure who could help, but he’s not that interested in you. And he certainly doesn’t approve of what you’re doing.
Instead, imagine his arm around you in your addiction, even while you’re doing the thing or using the thing, and him saying, “Of course you struggle with this. Look at what you’ve been through. Look at how like hungry your heart is. I’m not going anywhere. I’m here and I’m waiting for you.”
If you’re not a Christian, you can make a lot of changes that will bring about good, but they’re going to be cosmetic. To be truly transformed, you need the love and healing power of God to be your ultimate fulfillment.
The single most underreported statistic in all of process addiction research is this: When researchers follow people with process addictions for five to 15 years without doing anything to interfere, roughly 1/3 to 1/2 will recover on their own. No rehab, no meds, no 12-step program, just moving forward in life.
For people who don’t recover on their own, almost all of them have untreated depression, anxiety, ADHD, or childhood trauma. The brain can heal. But it heals a lot faster when you look below the surface at underlying causes. Remember that your addiction is a solution that you’re trying to use to solve a much deeper problem.
The best combo for breaking a process addiction would be a group support system and personal in-depth work with a counselor or therapist. 12-step programs have proven over and over again to have a reasonable rate of success. Any approach, whether a program or therapy, is going to have the best chance of helping you when you dedicate yourself to the recovery process.
Healthy churches understand addiction and can provide a safe community and solid resources. There are many therapists who specialize in working with all sorts of addictions. And there is a lot of great recovery literature out there. Our prayer is that you do the heart work to figure out what’s driving you to be enslaved by process addictions and experience a new level of freedom in your life.
Recommended Resource:
Healing What’s Within: Coming Home to Yourself - and to God - When You’re Wounded, Weary, and Wandering by Chuck deGroat