Desperate Joy

  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...

  When the average person first makes his way into recovery, he is usually in desperate straits.  We are usually feeling defeated, crushed, and absolutely broken.  The addiction has ravaged our lives and left us feeling empty and alone.  We have tried every other solution on our own, and in desperation we turned to a Twelve Step group.  We read Step One and knew it was talking about us, "We came to believe that we were powerless over sex addiction, that our lives had become unmanageable." Learning that we were powerless and our lives were unmanageable was a bitter pill to swallow, but we quickly learned that while we were powerless, we were not hopeless or helpless.   We found that God was ready and able to help if we were willing to cry out to him in prayer.   Through prayer we find the power we need to overcome the addiction. Prayer has always been an important part of my life, I came to know God at a young age and learned to cultivate that relat...

  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...

  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...

  Romans chapter 6 in the New Testament has always been an important part of my recovery.  Early on, when I first began to realize that porn was a problem for me, a preacher mentioned that Romans 6 was a good chapter to study and memorize if we were struggling with habitual sin.  So that is what I did.  I memorized it and several other chapters from Romans.  It was helpful, but it took me many years to come to understand what it really means and how to apply it to my life. One of the most powerful ideas presented in Romans 6 is the fact that in Christ we are set free from the power of sin.   We may feel like we are in bondage to sin and addiction, but the reality is that Christ has broken those bonds.   Now we have a choice.   We get to choose who our master is now, either sin or the Savior. We have looked previously at this chapter and the truths about our identity in Christ, that we are dead to sin and alive to righteousness, and the importa...

I know very well what it feels like to be enslaved to an addiction. To feel trapped, bound, and unable to run, walk or even move. I would dig up some will power and manage to resist for a time, but the urges would always return, and I would find myself in the same old patterns time and time again. I was wrapped up in chains of sin and could not find a way to escape. It has taken years of work, but at last I have found some freedom and deliverance. I can look back now and see that while I was wrapped in chains, they were chains that I had forged myself. And while they were locked securely, I held the key, a key that had been given to me by the Lord. Those chains were in reality lies, deceptions and false beliefs about who I was. I had deep and damaging misconceptions about my identity. One of the keys I have found to unlock those chains has come through understanding my true identity in Christ. Satan's lies convinced me that I was not a true child of God, and I could not be a re...

One of the key struggles in recovery is related to our identity. In the thick of the addiction, it is all too easy to lose track of who we truly are and think only in terms of our failures and faults. "I am such a loser. I am so pathetic. If I were a real man (or woman, or Christian) I would be able to quit. If I were really a child of God, I could overcome this sin."  And on and on the voices of shame berate us. We struggle with the addiction for so long that we become convinced that is our identity now, we are addicts, that is who we are, and we cannot change. It is not that we are basically good, worthy people who struggle with an addiction, we believe that we are basically bad people, addicts, sinners, unworthy and unrighteous. As we work recovery and grow spiritually, we come to recognize these lies for what they are, and in turn, we learn the truth of our identity in Christ, which we touched on in our previous post. Instead of believing that our identity is primarily ...

  Michael John Cusick has a great book on sex addiction and spirituality called Surfing for God .  In it he has a quote he attributes to G.K. Chesterton, "Every time a man knocks on the door of a brothel, he is really looking for God."  This ties into his title as well, every time we surf the internet for porn, we are really searching for God. Reading this came as a revelation to me.   If porn was just a bad habit, I should have been able to give it up without too much difficulty.  I have plenty of self-discipline and self-control in every other area, but when it came to porn, I had none.  That was because I was looking to it to satisfy longings that were so deep and profound, I didn't even know what they were or that I had them.  These were emotional and spiritual needs that had long been buried under years of sin and shame.  It took me years to identify what they were and find healthy ways to deal with them. Over the last few posts we have ...