Desperate Joy

  Photo by James Wheeler at https://www.pexels.com/ In the summer before my freshman year of high school my family moved to a new town, and I started in a new school. To this day, I feel awkward coming into a new location, or a new job. It takes me a while to feel comfortable and confident in a new situation. When I was a gangly, weird teenager, it was much worse. I had difficulty fitting in and finding new friends and was subject to some bullying. I felt isolated and lonely at times. After that freshman year, my sister went off to college, and I had to ride my bike to school because she had a driver's license and would drive us. For some reason, my mom did not want to drive me. I made a few friends during that year and had some connections at school, but then I would ride my bike home, and the house would basically be empty. Eventually my mom would come downstairs to cook dinner for when my dad would come home from work. I know now my mom had struggled with depression for...

  Image by  Rain  from  Pixabay For a big chunk of my twenties, I believed that if my willpower were strong enough, I could break free from my addiction to porn. I thought if I were focused and determined enough then I could stop acting out. If I could summon the strength of will then I could wrestle that bear of addiction into submission. I believed that overcoming those mental and spiritual strongholds was a matter of power. The conflict was a simple matter of two forces meeting and the greater won. It was like sumo wrestlers colliding in the middle of the ring, if I were strong enough, I could force the addiction out of my life. This is not the reality that God has revealed in his Word. The apostle Paul reveals a far different perspective in Ephesians, "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world against spiritual wickedness in high places." Our battle with sin and a...

  Image by  Mircea Iancu  from  Pixabay "Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." (James 5:16) I remember hearing this verse preached about when I was a kid and the pastor saying something like, "I don't need to hear about your sins, don't come confessing them to me! I can't forgive your sins! Only God can do that, just confess your sins to him!" I believe it is true that we only need to confess our sins to God in order to be justified. Jesus is the only priest we need to make mediation and absolution for us, no other human priests are required. But the context of the verse is not about salvation, but about praying for healing from a sickness or affliction. The Apostle James tells us that if we want healing, we should go to the church, confess our faults and sins and have them anoint us with oil, lay hands on us and pray for us.(See James 5:1...

  PRAYER IN THE GARDEN Matthew 26:36-56 ,  Mark 14:32-52 ,  Luke 22:39-53 ,  John 18:1-10 Jesus prays in Gethsemane and is arrested. (Image courtesy of Free Bible Images ) One of the more important and powerful verses in the Bible says this, "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear." (1 John 4:18) Though I might modify it a little, "There is no shame in love, but perfect love casts out shame." (And just to qualify, I am not talking about healthy shame, but the toxic kind. Healthy shame serves to protect love.) If we want to break free from toxic shame and the multitude of unhealthy behaviors that it causes, we need love. We crave nothing more than love. It is our greatest need. In order to be truly loved, we must be truly known. It is that deep, powerful love that will overcome the shame that binds us. But with toxic shame driving the bus, we will never find it. Toxic shame forces us to hide what is really going on inside of us. It convinces ...

Image by  Vilius Kukanauskas from Pixabay . There has been a dark, secret force that has been oppressing me for much of my life. It was the hidden power that fueled my addiction to porn and compulsive masturbation. It eventually led me into captivity, literally, in a federal prison where I now reside. It festers and grows in the darkest parts of my soul and feeds on lies and deception. Its fruit is despair and destruction. It kept me hiding, creating facades and masks to hide who I really was. People would ask what was going on and I would say, "Fine." "Just really busy."  "Didn't sleep well."  Always hiding the truth of chaos in my soul. This dark force was toxic shame. The first time I found some relief from that shame was in my late twenties. I had just finished a master's degree in education at a small Christian college and was attending the large church that sponsored the school. I wasn't in full-time ministry or enrolled in a Chr...

  Photo by cottonbro studio When I was a teenager, around fifteen or sixteen, my sister went off to college, taking her driver's license with her. After that, my mom said I was on my own to ride my bike to school each day. At first, I was angry about my mom's unwillingness to drive me, but I came to enjoy riding my bike. I would get home, and my mom would be upstairs in her room doing her thing, my dad would be off at work, and I would be on my own with an unfiltered internet connection. This was how my addiction to pornography got started. The feeling of the empty house reflected an emptiness in my own heart, a feeling of lostness, of being abandoned. I needed something to fill that void, and there was porn. In the last few posts, we have been discussing shame in both its toxic and healthy form. Healthy shame encourages us to turn from our bad behavior and connect with God and others. Toxic shame drives us into isolation and unhealthy behaviors. Toxic shame is always...

  Recovery takes work. This is an uncomfortable reality for us to accept. Once we hit rock bottom and decide that we need to change, we often think that the process should be simple and easy. We made the decision to get sober, the rest should take care of itself, right? That would be nice, but while becoming an addict is the easiest thing in the world, getting sober is one of the most difficult. It takes a tremendous amount of time and effort. Just as the addiction was a central part of our lives, to become sober, recovery must become a major part of our lives. Recovery is not just something we do for a short while and then we are done, we don't just finish the Twelve Steps and call it quits. It becomes a lifestyle, a part of our daily routine. It is less like getting a cast for a broken leg and more like taking regular doses of insulin because we are type I diabetics. This regular practice of recovery will look different for every addict, but usually involves attending wee...

  The Thinker (French: Le Penseur) is a bronze sculpture by Auguste Rodin.  Image by Johnnie Shannon from Pixabay. Addiction is a thinking disorder.  It is a disease that attacks our minds and distorts our thought processes.  We are not able to think clearly about what is happening and why.  There is no space between stimulus and response.  Our minds become filled with obsessive thoughts and we have no idea where they are coming from.  We feel some strong emotion, we feel upset, angry, sad, lonely or even happy and excited and nearly instantaneously we feel triggered and compelled to act out. One of the important habits I have learned in recovery is to simply be aware of what I was thinking and feeling.   To pay attention to what was going on in my heart, mind and body throughout the day.   This is a good definition of mindfulness and usually works alongside meditation.   The key difference being that with meditation, we take a portion...

  Addiction is a powerful and malevolent force that corrupts our hearts and minds. It warps the way we think and makes us believe all manner of false and dangerous lies. Addiction is a mental illness, a disease of the mind that distorts the way we think. If we are to find sobriety and sanity we have to learn to change the way we think. We have to learn to think about what we are thinking about and understand how we think. We have to be vigilant and practice "casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ." (2 Corinthians 10:5) Paul wrote this as well in Romans 12:2 "And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God." One of the most effective ways we can renew our minds is through meditation. There are myriad ways to practice me...

  Addiction is a problem that is deeply rooted in our desires and cravings. We indulge in porn, alcohol, drugs, and all the rest because our hearts are dissatisfied. We believe that we are missing out. That we are deprived in some way. The longings in our hearts are not satisfied, we want more. We want something to fill the void. Filling that hole in our soul is no simple task, and we have learned through hard experience that indulging in the addiction only serves to make those longings and craving worse. But one of the ways that we can learn to be satisfied and content is by practicing gratitude. Over the last few weeks, we have been looking at different tools that we can use to help us find sobriety and serenity. While gratitude is certainly one of the more powerful tools, in some ways it is less of a tool and more of a spiritual or mindset shift. It is a different way of approaching life and the world. In the thick of the addiction, we are always looking at what we lack, f...

  On the journey to recovery there are many tools that we can use to find strength, peace, and sobriety. Last week we looked at one of the most important tools: meetings. Meetings help us to connect with others and borrow their experience and strength. Alongside meetings, making phone calls is a tremendous tool for our recovery. When I first came into Twelve Step meetings in Virginia, there was a consistent message that making phone calls was essential to a healthy program of recovery. The men who had successful programs made calls, and if I wanted the same, I should do likewise. To help with this, they passed out a list with people's names and numbers that we were free to call and encouraged us to reach out any time. I recognized the wisdom in this. Connecting with other people and asking for help is important. If I was feeling triggered to act out and was at risk of relapsing, making a phone call could make the difference between staying sober or not. I realized all this; but...

  For most recovering addicts one of the first actions we take to build recovery and sobriety is attending Twelve Step meetings. My recovery journey started with seeing a therapist, but it did not take too long before I saw the necessity of meetings. I had moved from California to Virginia to start a new job, I was short on cash, so I was not able to get back into therapy. So, while I waited for my first few paychecks to deposit, I started attending Twelve Step meetings. Most people feel some anxiety or apprehension around attending their first meeting, but I didn't. I had talked to other men about the addiction before and had read enough to know that more than likely I would find acceptance, if not affirmation. I looked online and found a meeting at a nearby Catholic church. I found my way to the side entrance and was welcomed. I was recognized as a newcomer and in this group, they did what is called a "Twelfth Step."   Because it is a closed meeting, that is, on...

My purpose for writing this blog is to provide inspiration and encouragement for those struggling with sex addiction. I want to help those who are suffering as I must find a way out. My goal is to serve as a Sherpa, to show others the path that I have taken and help them carry their load. In the thick of the addiction, we often feel desperate and alone, isolated and without hope. We feel stuck on a hamster wheel of destructive behaviors with no way out. But in recovery we discover that we have access to tools. Just as carpenters have hammers, doctors have stethoscopes, mechanics have wrenches and clowns have rubber chickens, recovering addicts have their own set of tools to help them break out of addictive patterns and build sobriety and serenity. There is a collective wisdom that has been passed down through Twelve Step groups and in therapy/psychology that we can access to find the resources we need. The tools have long since been designed and forged, we just need to pick them up...