A recorded talk from Pure Desire Ministries (speaker Harry) explaining why individuals cannot fully recover from addiction on their own. Harry argues that implicit memories stored in the limbic system (unconscious ‘heart’ influences) drive old coping behaviors—sometimes despite conscious intent—and that much of personality forms in early childhood. He connects these ideas to scripture (Romans 7:15; 1 Corinthians 13:12) and emphasizes the necessity of a healing community that asks clarifying questions and offers empathetic listening to expose blind spots and facilitate the renewing of both conscious and unconscious mind.
Harry, let's dive into kind of negating or answering this question of the myth. I can do this alone. Why can't we do recovery alone? Why aren't we capable of that kind of process? Boy, you're right, Nick. That is a huge piece that we're only going to skim over today to get to this, but we want to talk about something called implicit memories. Implicit memories come from the limbic system. You are not consciously aware of them. There is a belief system in the deep limbic system that exists separate from your conscious brain. So when Paul says in Romans 7:15, I find the members of my body doing the very thing I don't want to do is actually the limbic system in a time of difficulty or stress taking over the brain and taking you to old coping strategies that you developed when you were very young. 90% of our personalities were formed in the first seven years of our lives. And if this was a four hour session, I could give you a great background story of my life that actually goes to, to 20 years before I was born that had direct, powerful influence on my very existence when I was born and how that has influenced me in portions of my entire life. It says in First Corinthians 13:12, a portion of that scripture says we see dimly. Well, Nick and Trevor, there are times where we can be pretty full of ourselves and thinking. We're thinking pretty clearly, we're seeing pretty clearly. But what we're not seeing is the backstory influences that influence our lives. We have blind spots and we have people in our healing community who love us enough to expose those blind spots to ourselves. And so this is at the very core about the renewing of the mind. But the renewing of the mind is not merely the renewing of the conscious brain. It's renewing of the whole smorgasbord of the conscious and the unconscious parts of our life. This is. You remember that the limbic system, scientifically, from a biblical point of view, is what scripture in Old New Testament call our hearts. So our heart influences in ways that we don't always recognize. We're not able to even see at times. So we need people in our life to, to, to ask two things that create the the environment that allows a community to thrive. Being a good listener is people asking me or asking you clarifying questions. And secondly, being able to express empathy for our circumstances. It doesn't justify or minimize the sin in our life. Knuckling for the rest of your life. And it will never go away because the real issue has not been resolved.
