One third of Americans were prescribed pain killers last year. One in seven struggled with an alcohol problem. An opioid addiction epidemic is killing thousands. As The Week says, "The United States is filled with people pursuing various forms of relief from various forms of profound unhappiness..."

Maybe you're one of them. How do you even pray if you are? Have you ever felt so broken and separated from God that you wondered if he had given up on you? Maybe you or someone you know has been lost in addiction. If so, maybe this prayer that a friend wrote can be your prayer. Or maybe you have a prayer for those who have lost themselves:

Dear God,

Are you mad at me? Do you know how messed up my life is?

Where are the keys? I've even forgotten where all the locks are so it wouldn't matter if I had them anyway.

Now I know what a Zombie must feel like. Where life and death just hang out together in some putrid smelling bar where drinks are mixed with unbelievable regret but parched lips long for anything wet-- whatever the substance.

I pick at crunchy scabs made bloody by my obsessions and rabid pit bulls tear away at the frontal lobes of what's reasonable while a cracked mirror mocks sunken eyes and scars show new shades of purple.

Soon a judge will look at reams of paper and hear people give *expert* thoughts on my life.

Dread is my dungeon. Fear follows me even to this stainless steel toilet seat and a sad sink that longs for something normal-- like a stack of dishes from a family meal.

I don't recall the last time I was happy. Someone has hit the delete button on my memory banks and downloaded the most horrific killing hardware imaginable.

Firewalls have failed. Viruses are invited in to search and destroy all things good. My spiritual system crashes and reboots in endless cycles even as letters on life's crazy keyboard keep changing so that every sentence is jumbled.

I can't understand what I'm saying. How can anyone else know? Hope is locked in a closet without doorknobs.

I'm lonely, lost and lingering in slow death spirals of despair. Are you hearing any of this? If not....I understand.

My dreams have been left in a meth house somewhere and nothing works anymore.

Lost and lonely,