Sep/Oct 2004
Addicted to Extremes
by Dan Burrell
Several years ago, someone close to me, who had observed my often frenetic lifestyle, suggested that I had become “addicted to adrenaline.” I laughed, but later read several articles that indicated there may have been some substance to his observation. Apparently, some personality types thrive on stress, pressure and deadlines, and as a result, frequently experience the rush of adrenaline that such conditions create. They develop an adrenaline dependency. A failure to experience enough chills, thrills and adrenaline surges could allegedly lead to bouts of depression, moodiness or exhaustive collapse.
I’m not going to go into my own personal struggles with a life schedule that is often out-of-control, but I do want to wonder out loud if we as a culture have not become “hooked on adrenaline.” We want our music loud, our movies violent, our shopping malls packed, our races fast, our sports action-packed. We crave extreme— from entertainment to athletics to information— anything that can make our hearts race and our heads throb.
WORLD magazine’s Gene Edward Veith muses
that “pop culture reduces everything—education, politics, even religion—to
entertainment.
Pleasure-crazed citizens—turned spectators,
conditioned by T.V. and consumerism, have to
be subjected to ever-higher doses of stimulation; otherwise, they become paralyzed
by boredom. For many Americans, sports—always before a source of excitement—have
become boring. Like education, politics and religion, they think sports need
a pop culture makeover.”
As a result, the “sportsotainment” industry has produced gladiator-styled contests, “professional wrassling” and outrageous and outlandish extreme sports as an attempt to satiate our national thirst for more athletic action. Hollywood has given us intestine-slurping cannibals, Technicolor beheadings and dinosaurs and space crafts so realistic that our seats tremble. Information programming brought to us by the big three networks, CNN and Fox also tantalize us with 24-hour news teasers that make us watch until the “top of the hour” when we’ll really find out “what famous Hollywood couple’s marriage is now on the rocks.”
Each fall and even over the summer “break” television broadcasting takes us to the edge of civility with voyeuristic and at-times barbaric “reality” programs that allow us to eavesdrop on private conversations, tempt couples to break fidelity commitments and do or eat or compete for most anything for a buck. The music industry moves the mark of raunchiness further down the scale on an annual basis in order to get another generation of young people to watch the MTV Music Awards.
Like the earnest and senseless lemmings we’ve become, the population feeds this endless and bottomless cycle of extremism by flocking to it with our fistfuls of dollars ensuring that next season, yet another wave of refuse will wash over our culture leaving in its flotsam and jetsam another year of runaway girls, Internet liaisons, twisted pop icons and tabloid headlines. The typical so-called Christian home often has the same library of music, movies and magazines as does the home that has no pretense of biblical foundation.
As our hearts grow harder and our consciences more calloused, it becomes more urgent that we stop and consider how addicted we’ve become to this insatiable appetite for the sensational. Maybe it’s time for a good 12-step program that weans us off this diet of stimulation. I’m sure such therapy would include large doses of self-control, limited visitation to the usual media centers and regular visits to a quiet time of prayer and meditation. Maybe then we’d get our surging appetites back to a reasonable level of health and sanity.
Christians aren’t immune to this syndrome. Too many church services have turned into little more than shows and preachers into performers. We hop from experience to experience looking for a church that offers programs while ignoring meatier aspects like doctrine. Often even careful listening won’t enable you to discern the difference between the lyrics of the latest Christian rock song and that which is proffered by the secular industry.
It’s time for withdrawal. Let’s break our addiction to the
superficial and insist on a life that
embraces substance over style—because being hooked on adrenaline won’t satisfy
for long.q
© EP News Service
Dan Burell is the pastor of Northside
Baptist Church in Charlotte, North Carolina.