{"id":677,"date":"2013-02-25T19:22:30","date_gmt":"2013-02-26T02:22:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/zekepipher\/?p=677"},"modified":"2013-02-25T19:45:11","modified_gmt":"2013-02-26T02:45:11","slug":"watching-people-drown-themselves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/zekepipher\/2013\/02\/watching-people-drown-themselves\/","title":{"rendered":"Watching People Drown Themselves?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u201cI know it\u2019s wrong, but I can\u2019t stop,\u201d said a husband who had just admitted to me that he was having an affair. His wife was sitting next to him, holding a picture of their three children. When I asked the husband if he realized that he was flushing his life down the toilet, he paused for a moment, struck a pose akin to the thinking man, and replied, \u201cIt\u2019s hard to explain\u2026I just can\u2019t stay away from her (mistress).\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\" — Heart Attack Grill\u2019s Triple Bypass Burger<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Why is it that we choose to do the things that destroy us? Take John Alleman for an example \u2013 John was<\/em> an unofficial, yet passionate spokesman for the Las Vegas restaurant, the Heart Attack Grill. He frequented the diner, worked the crowd, and ate the burgers that have \u201ca taste worth dying for.\u201d<\/p>\n
*John just died of a heart attack. He was 52 years young.\u00a0*Alleman knew what he was eating<\/a>. The owner of the restaurant, Jon Basso, continually boasts about how his hamburger was awarded the Guinness Book of World Records\u2019 \u201cmost caloric hamburger in the world,\u201d weighing in at just under 10,000 calories. Alleman knew he was eating quadruple decker slabs of death, but couldn\u2019t back away.<\/p>\n
*Alleman and his burgers \u201cworth dying for\u201d seem like a metaphor for life these days, and they help to illustrate the questions I\u2019m asking:<\/p>\n*
*How do we help the people we care about when they\u2019re doing things to hurt themselves?<\/em><\/p>\n*
<\/em>When the people you love won\u2019t respond to common sense\u2026when they don\u2019t see the writing on the wall\u2026when they won\u2019t listen to the people who love them the most\u2026what can you do to help them?<\/em><\/p>\n
*What motivates us to love our sins or vices even when we know (theoretically) they are ruining our lives?<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n*
I realize this post is raising questions and not providing many answers. But that\u2019s the nature of the issue \u2013 there isn\u2019t a formula or plan to work that will change the hearts of the people we love. We can pray. We can show them that we love them. And we can tell them the truth. But, beyond that\u2026well, that\u2019s my question.\u00a0Any thoughts?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cI know it\u2019s wrong, but I can\u2019t stop,\u201d said a husband who had just admitted to me that he was having an affair. His wife was sitting next to him, holding a picture of their three children. When I asked the husband if he realized that he was flushing his life down the toilet, he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1106,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[672,1010,1006,1002,1004,66,19,1011,996,849,997,998,1005,120,1000,999,1001,122,1003,1007,1008,1009],"class_list":["post-677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-affair","tag-caloric-hamburger","tag-cheater","tag-drowning","tag-fall-apart","tag-family","tag-friendship","tag-guinness-book-of-world-records","tag-heart-attack-grill","tag-help","tag-john-alleman","tag-jon-basso","tag-las-vegas","tag-loss","tag-npr","tag-quadruple-decker-burger","tag-rescue","tag-sadness","tag-self-destruction","tag-shoot-yourself-in-the-head","tag-undermine","tag-worth-dying-for"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/zekepipher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/zekepipher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/zekepipher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/zekepipher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/zekepipher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/zekepipher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/zekepipher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/zekepipher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/zekepipher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}