Millions of Americans have addictions. 200 people die every day from overdoses. This rate has tripled in the past 20 years. The rising overdose numbers make the drug epidemic more deadly than gun violence, car crashes or HIV/AIDS!

There is an alarming new trend among heroin users:

They’re mixing the drug with the synthetic opiate fentanyl — an anesthetic which the most potent narcotic in clinical use today. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, Fentanyl is 30 to 50 times more potent than heroin and 80 to 100 times more potent than morphine.

Opioid drugs—including heroin, fentanyl, and prescription opioids—were responsible for nearly 50,000 overdose deaths in 2017. America is awash in them, whether stolen from grandma’s medicine cabinet, smuggled over the border, or shipped in by mail.

The war on drugs is America’s longest war. It has been 40-plus years since Nixon launched our modern “war on drugs” and yet drugs are more plentiful than ever with the rise in pharmaceutical drug use and availability of synthetic marijuana and other designer drugs.

U.S. federal, state, and local governments now spend $50 billion per year trying to make America “drug free.” State prison budgets top spending on public colleges and universities.

The number of people behind the bars on a drug charge in the U.S. has ballooned from 50,000 in 1980 to more than half-a-million today. That’s more than all of Western Europe (with a bigger population) incarcerates for everything. Millions of people in the U.S. now have a father, mother, brother, sister, son or daughter behind bars on a drug charge.

Not only is substance abuse America’s number one health problem, the devastation of alcoholism and other drug addiction has impacted families and communities worldwide. Substance abuse has been directly linked to violence and sexual immorality and is a major source of income for organized crime and terrorist activities.

Why can prayer and fasting make a difference in the lives of the addicted?

Drug abuse is not just a physical addiction or a biological or chemical problem – it is a spiritual stronghold

Pharmakeia is the root word from which we get our English word pharmacy or pharmacist. Pharmakeia is translated as witchcraft or sorcery. It speaks of the occult magical arts which are often found in connection with idolatry. Psychotropic drug dependency, like witchcraft, becomes a powerful, demonic stronghold.

A Spiritual stronghold must be fought with spiritual weapons.

“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” –Ephesians 6:12

“For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” –2 Corinthians 10: 3-5

To break the bondage and tear down the strongholds of addiction, we need to pray and fast for the addicted so that they will come to the end of themselves and seek God.

If you are abusing alcohol or other drugs and want to lead a victorious life and be set free from addiction you need to have a relationship with the LORD God, Creator of the heavens and the earth. To find forgiveness and freedom, pray the following prayer or a similar prayer in your own words –

“Lord Jesus Christ,

I know that I am a sinner and there is nothing that I can do to earn my way to heaven. Although I deserve God’s wrath, by God’s mercy, I accept your free gift of eternal life by faith. I believe that You were born of a virgin and died on the cross to pay the price of my sins. I believe you were buried, rose again on the third day, have ascended into heaven, and will soon come again.

Lord, please forgive me of my sins, come into my heart and take control of my life.” AMEN

If you sincerely prayed this prayer, then you have just made a decision by faith, to accept the free gift (God’s grace) of the substitutionary sacrifice of the Messiah (the Christ), whose suffering and death paid the price of your sins. You have been born again. As a new born, you need to be nourished.

Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Acts 2:38

In order to grow and mature spiritually you need to:

• Be baptized into Messiah Yeshua (Jesus Christ)
• Speak to God each day through prayer. (Pray each day in the name of Yeshua/Jesus).
• Read your Bible every day. When you read the Bible, God speaks to you through His Word. (If you don’t own a Bible, then we will help you get one.)
• Find a Bible believing church and attend regularly – both worship services and a Bible study.
• Share with someone what God has done for you