Desperate Joy

  Addiction is fundamentally a spiritual disease and needs to be dealt with as such. We spend most of our time and energy in recovery addressing the mental, emotional, and spiritual dimensions of the addiction, but it is also helpful to remember that we are holistic beings. Human beings are not just a spirit, soul, a mind, or a body; we are a union of all that and more. If we want to learn to live a healthy life we must nurture and care for each aspect of our being, including our physical bodies. Many Christians have this idea that our body is a bad thing, and we should never do anything to nurture and care for it. The New Testament often discusses the conflict between the flesh and spirit, with the flesh being a negative force that pulls us into sin. But when the Bible speaks of the flesh it is speaking of the unclean and unhealthy desires that are part of us, not our bodies in and of themselves. Paul did write, "Bodily exercise profiteth little: but godliness is profitable u...

  Very early on, my parents and schoolteachers instilled in me a love for reading, and I am grateful for that today. As a young man, I cultivated a habit of always reading a book of some form and I have carried that into adulthood. Early on, this was largely just for pleasure, reading novels and such, but as I matured, I became interested in personal growth and would mix in nonfiction as well. In my early twenties I began to realize that I had something of a serious problem with porn and began to look for books that would help me. These were encouraging and enriching, and gave me helpful insights and tools. I think most importantly, they helped me to know that I was not alone in the addiction. There were other men, just like me, who loved the Lord, served in ministry, and had battled through porn addiction. Once I got into therapy and Twelve Step groups, books became even more important. They became handbooks and instruction guides to help me make my way through recovery. Thera...

  Even from when I was a teenager, I recognized that porn was not a healthy habit and did not line up with the values taught by Jesus Christ.  I wanted to stop.  I wanted to change, but did not really know how. When I was in college, I worked and labored to be free of porn, but was not able to find deliverance.   There was a point where I recognized that I needed to talk to someone.   I needed to ask for help.   I stood outside the door of my favorite teacher there, but lost the courage and walked away. Several years later, in my mid-twenties, I once again realized that I needed to talk to someone about my addiction.   There was a pastor at my church that I respected and did some ministry work with and I sat down at Panda Express and told him what was going on.   He was encouraging and affirming, but he told me he probably wasn't a good fit to get counseling.   He sent me to another pastor.   He was also encouraging, but felt like he...

  There are many important tools that recovering addicts have found useful in helping us find our way to a healthy life and spirituality. We have discussed the importance of meetings, making phone calls, and gratitude, this time we will go a little further into these ideas and focus on accountability. Accountability is often discussed in Christian circles, at least among men who are trying to quit porn or other destructive habits. We are encouraged to find a good friend who can hold us accountable for our commitments. When I first tried to practice this sort of accountability, I managed to build up the courage to ask a good friend to keep me accountable. My thought was that I would ask him to hold me accountable, and he would follow up and ask me at intervals how I was doing with that. My friend, likewise, was struggling, and asked me to hold him accountable as well. Then it became my job to ask how he was doing. This can create some awkwardness, as you can imagine. It can be...