Rebekah Thomas with her husband, Clyde, who leads Elim’s Victory Church in Cwmbran

The truth about addictions will set you FREE!

True Freedom Recovery’s unique approach is helping people break free of addiction for good. Its founder Rebekah Thomas told Chris Rolfe how

Imagine you’re confined to bed with a virus and a neighbour comes to help. They hold your hair back while you vomit, bring you chicken soup to eat and keep you topped up with water.

You never seem to feel any better, but your neighbour is always there for you.

Only then you discover your helpful neighbour has been poisoning you through that soup. The person you thought was a friend has actually been making you sick the whole time! They have Munchausen's syndrome by proxy.

The minute you understand this you bar them from your home and stop consuming their poison. Immediately, you experience the joy of knowing that you can get better.

That is the brutal reality of how addiction works, says Rebekah Thomas. The example she gives explains the powerful approach of her True Freedom addiction recovery programme – the foundations of which lie in her own struggles with addiction.

Battle with alcohol
“I knew Jesus from a young age, but because I was surrounded by a lot of dysfunction and had unresolved trauma I was quite broken and vulnerable to addiction,” says Rebekah, who with her husband Clyde also runs rehab centres in South Wales.

“It wasn’t things like heroin or crack cocaine, probably thanks to my faith plus environmental limitations, but I had a diverse relationship with alcohol, for example.

“I had phases where I’d drink all day and only get out of bed to buy more alcohol, then others where it was more like ‘a Bolognese wouldn’t be the same without red wine’. I’d have phases of total abstinence too.

“When I was in Bible college I was a secret smoker. I’d wear gloves and a hat and a hoodie pulled tight around my face so I wouldn’t smell of smoke or get stained fingers.

“I was constantly trying to quit, so I’d throw my cigarettes away then be desperate for nicotine again. One time I actually climbed over the fence of a pub to steal dog-ends out of the ashtrays then ripped the back page out of my Bible to roll them back into cigarettes!”

A major turning point came when Rebekah read Allen Carr’s book The Easy Way to Stop Smoking.

“He wasn’t a scientist, and he wasn’t a Christian, but somehow he had this pretty biblical epiphany that is now being proven scientifically.

“The book explains how nicotine tricks you. It was my first big milestone to understanding that addiction is something we can gain power over through understanding how it works.”

Rebekah gradually broke free of her addictions and wrote three ‘True Freedom Recovery’ books.

She describes them as “a revolutionary approach to addiction that exposes the reality of how it works. When you know the truth, it sets you free.”

No longer tempted
“Rather than becoming an addict in recovery, forever fighting a daily battle, you become an ex-addict, no longer tempted by that substance or activity.”

The True Freedom Recovery approach applies to a broad range of addictions – from drugs and gambling to pornography, alcohol, ultra-processed food and sugar.

It brings many elements of understanding about addiction together for the first time – many from the secular world.

“For a long time addiction has been framed as an insurmountable battle that someone can only hope not to lose.

“Christians have generally known the disease model can’t be right because Jesus makes us new creations.

“But the church has counted on miracles to circumvent the disease model thinking, and when someone doesn’t get that miracle, no other way is perceived.

“True Freedom offers a third way, a process to becoming an ex-addict, based on God’s truth and design of us – a process that enables us to grow tremendously.”

It explains theologically that addiction isn’t a disease some people get and others avoid, Rebekah adds.

“We start off with something in ourselves that isn’t quite right, like trauma or a set of circumstances. These factors come together and we can find ourselves in a place where we’re not well mentally, spiritually or physically.

“Then addictive substances or activities come along, which promise to make us feel better.

“The things we’re addicted to tell us they can help, but they actually create a different illness, then we get stuck in a cycle of addiction.

“We explain this in True Freedom Recovery. We reframe addiction in the truth of how it actually works – neurophysiologically, psychologically, sociologically and spiritually. “Suddenly people have this lightbulb moment – my neighbour is making me sick! Once they understand how addiction works, they also have scientific facts in front of them that show them they can get better.

“I’ve seen it with many types of addiction to substances and activities where the person has no temptation any more. It’s powerful!”

Beating crack cocaine
Rebekah gives the example of a former crack cocaine addict who found freedom through the programme. “She read the Rebekah Thomas with her husband, Clyde, who leads Elim’s Victory Church in Cwmbran books, understood them and felt her life had changed. She was excited for the future.

“But then she went home one weekend and went through a series of events. Those old addiction pathways were still there and before she knew it she bumped into someone who offered her crack cocaine. On autopilot she took it and woke up in hospital.

“Crack cocaine is powerful; it’s known as a drug you’ll never stop taking, until you maybe hit rock bottom and go through purging in rehab. But this lady called us from hospital, explained what had happened and told us, ‘Now I know for certain that the True Freedom truth is true!’ Two years later she’s thriving – she’s never taken it again.”

When you use examples like the bad neighbour to understand addiction, the lion becomes a cat, says Rebekah. And with this understanding can come true, lifelong freedom.

This article first appeared in Direction Magazine. For further details, please click here.

Enjoy this article? Don't forget to share