Desperate Joy

  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...

  From the time I was very young I knew that God loves me.  I could quote John 3:16 and sing "Jesus Loves Me" with the best of them.  As a child, I believed in God's love and felt it at many different points.  But then something happened as I journeyed into my teens and twenties, I became addicted to internet pornography.  As the acid addiction spread through my being, that sense that God loved me slowly dissolved.  The more involved I was with porn the colder my heart became.  Whatever love I had felt for God when I was younger gradually grew distant and dark.  I could still feel his love, but it was a shadow of what it once was. In spite of the deadness of my feelings, I still believed in God's love.   My faith was built on the unchanging Word of God, and when it told me that God loves me, I believed it.   But my passion for the Lord was cooling, doused by the black water of pornography.   My religion was driven by duty and self...

  Pornography addiction is an insidious and powerful enemy. It had a strangle hold on me for most of my life. When the addiction was running the show, one of the trademark problems it caused was isolation. Every time I acted out with porn I would be filled with toxic guilt and shame, this led me to hide from God and from others. "How're you doing?"   people would ask. I became the master of the inauthentic smile and the "I'm fine."   Even when I was particularly distressed and depressed and those close to me could see I was not okay, “What's going on?"   "I'm just tired, I didn't sleep well last night."   Which was usually at least partly true, but the reason I wasn't sleeping well was because I was up half the night on the internet clicking away my sanity. I was filled with pride. Pride in my image, I could not let anyone see how weak I was. I was the good Christian guy; I was a leader in the church. I had a reputation t...