Some of you remember Mercury Morris, a great running back for the Miami Dolphins back in their glory days when they were winning the Super Bowls. Mercury was one of the first professional athletes be caught involved in drugs. He was arrested, tried and sent to jail. Why should such a successful athlete do such a dumb thing? Why should he throw his life away? At his trial he said, “I wanted to get away from it, but the demons wouldn’t let me.”

That sounds dramatic when we hear it in that fashion. I’ve counseled with people – some of them drug users — more of them engaged in other equally self-destructive types of behavior – actions and attitudes and relationships that ruin their lives. These people are intelligent; they have comfortable lives – in fact, many of them have everything they ha…