Broken Cisterns

Broken Cisterns

"My people have committed two sins: they have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water."  Jeremiah 2:13
While I was taking my religion class this was quoted to us during one lecture and subsequent discussion.  It stayed with me and gave me a lot to think about in terms of addiction and recovery.  In fact many things in the religion class had direct parallels to recovery for me.
In any case,  Jeremiah is saying basically that God came to him and says that His people have turned from Him, something perfect and pure, and tried to take their will back and not listen to the word of God.  God is saying that He is the "spring of living water" but yet His people stopped drinking of the water and instead tried to take their will back by digging cisterns to collect rainwater, stagnant and unhealthy, from broken cisterns that will not sustain them.
Well, for me the parallel to addiction is clear.  By drinking, I was digging my own cistern.  I was drinking stagnant rainwater that could not sustain me.  I think that at first it made sense and tasted good as it filled up.  Over time, however, this stagnant water was a breeding ground for bacteria and parasites but I had long forgotten how to find the spring of living water.  In fact I am not entirely sure if I had ever truly known where it was.
Thankfully there were people who had gone before me on the road to recovery, trudging the road to happy destiny, who led me to the spring.  I began to drink living water and recovered.  The key is to not be tempted to dig a cistern again because it is easier and closer to home than the trudging.
I think when I relapsed I wasn't convinced that the stagnant water was truly full of parasites and bacteria because I could not see them.  Now of course I know the water was infested and I have no need to see the dangers.  I know they are there just as surely as I know there is a higher power looking over me, which I also cannot see.
Ego, self-centeredness, willfulness... They are strange parts of human-nature.  You can argue that like anything, they are good in moderation.  You need your ego for self-protection and preservation, but when it runs riot, it can destroy you.  These aspects of human nature can cause us to turn from the things that are good for us, that sustain us, that keep addicts sober.
There are are no shortcuts on the journey to the spring of living water, but it tastes so much better for the effort.