Month: March 2022

Moving Readings – Part II

Hi, I’m Jacob, a grateful, recovering sex and love addict. I’ve been sober almost eight months.

This is the second departure from telling my story to share a reading that has meant a lot to me. This one, too, is from Sexaholics Anonymous (https://sa.org), and can be found at https://www.sa.org/solution/.

The Solution

We saw that our problem was three-fold: physical, emotional, and spiritual. Healing had to come about in all three.

The crucial change in attitude began when we admitted we were powerless, that our habit had us whipped. We came to meetings and withdrew from our habit. For some, this meant no sex with themselves or others, including not getting into relationships. For others it meant “drying out” and not having sex with the spouse for a time to recover from lust.

We discovered that we could stop, that not feeding the hunger didn’t kill us, that sex was indeed optional! There was hope for freedom, and we began to feel alive. Encouraged to continue, we turned more and more away from our isolating obsession with sex and self and turned to God and others.

All this was scary. We couldn’t see the path ahead, except that others had gone that way before. Each new step of surrender felt it would be off the edge into oblivion, but we took it. And instead of killing us, surrender was killing the obsession! We had stepped into the light, into a whole new way of life.

The fellowship gave us monitoring and support to keep us from being overwhelmed, a safe haven where we could finally face ourselves. Instead of covering our feelings with compulsive sex, we began exposing the roots of our spiritual emptiness and hunger. And the healing began.

As we faced our defects, we became willing to change; surrendering them broke the power they had over us. We began to be more comfortable with ourselves and others for the first time without our “drug.”

Forgiving all who had injured us, and without injuring others, we tried to right our own wrongs. At each amends more of the dreadful load of guilt dropped from our shoulders, until we could lift our heads, look the world in the eye, and stand free.

We began practicing a positive sobriety, taking the actions of love to improve our relations with others. We were learning how to give; and the measure we gave was the measure we got back. We were finding what none of the substitutes had ever supplied. We were making the real Connection. We were home.

© 1982, 1989, 2001 SA Literature.

I hope this resonates with you as it did me.

Jacob The Addict (jacobtheaddict@gmail.com)

Moving Readings – Part I

Hi, I’m Jacob, a grateful, recovering sex and love addict. I’ve been sober for almost eight months.

I’m taking a break from my story for the next two posts to share with you the two most profound readings I’ve encountered in my recovery. Both come from Sexaholics Anonymous and can be found on their website at https://www.sa.org/solution/. If they come after me for reposting their document, I’ll leave you with the URL.

The first one is called “The Problem” and is included here exactly as it appears on the SA website.

The Problem

Many of us felt inadequate, unworthy, alone, and afraid. Our insides never matched what we saw on the outsides of others.

Early on, we came to feel disconnected—from parents, from peers, from ourselves. We tuned out with fantasy and masturbation. We plugged in by drinking in the pictures, the images, and pursuing the objects of our fantasies. We lusted and wanted to be lusted after.

We became true addicts: sex with self, promiscuity, adultery, dependency relationships, and more fantasy. We got it through the eyes; we bought it, we sold it, we traded it, we gave it away. We were addicted to the intrigue, the tease, the forbidden. The only way we knew to be free of it was to do it. “Please connect with me and make me whole!” we cried with outstretched arms. Lusting after the Big Fix, we gave away our power to others.

This produced guilt, self-hatred, remorse, emptiness, and pain, and we were driven ever inward, away from reality, away from love, lost inside ourselves.

Our habit made true intimacy impossible. We could never know real union with another because we were addicted to the unreal. We went for the “chemistry,” the connection that had the magic, because it by-passed intimacy and true union. Fantasy corrupted the real; lust killed love.

First addicts, then love cripples, we took from others to fill up what was lacking in ourselves. Conning ourselves time and again that the next one would save us, we were really losing our lives.

© 1982, 1989, 2001 SA Literature.

From https://www.sa.org/solution/

I hope this resonates with you as much as it did with me.

Jacob The Addict (jacobtheaddict@gmail.com)

Made It to Step One

Hi, I’m Jacob, a grateful, recovering sex addict. I’ve been sober for seven and a half months.

I’m behind in telling my story.

Several weeks ago, I met with my sponsor, Dan (not his real name), to go through my Step One work. It took me a while to get there. I think I’ve already covered that, but a quick summary is probably in order.

Step One is all about admitting that you are powerless over your addiction. My self-righteous inner self pushed back at that concept, as I spoke to a few posts back. Admitting powerlessness sounded like a cop out to me. I would just try harder.

But as I went through the worksheets associated with Step One in one of my workbooks, my rational self became the Prosecuting Attorney in the case of the People v. Jacob The Addict (detailed in OK, I’m Finally There). As Prosecutor, I amassed an enormous amount of evidence that proved beyond doubt that the Defendant (my addict self) was indeed powerless over his addiction. Powerless to stop, powerless to change and powerless to heal. Once presented with that evidence the Addict capitulated.

I’ve also spoken about the deconstruction of my faith that took place on a parallel track (Deconstructing My Faith – Part I and Deconstructing My Faith – Part II). This was also necessary, since the faith that I had was of little to no help in dealing with my addictive behavior and the shame that accompanied it.

When I met with Dan to go through my Step One work, I shared with him the discoveries that I’ve made in myself: the case I’d built against the addict, the deconstruction of my faith and stark assessment of what I believe and why. And the realization that I am powerless over SIN. And SIN just happens to be most pronounced in my life as sex addition.

So, I told Dan that I was, indeed, powerless over my addiction and that my life had certainly become unmanageable. And only two things matter at this point:

  • God loves me because of WHO HE IS, not because of who I am or am not, or what I do or don’t do, and
  • Jesus came to earth to do for me what I could never do for myself

With that, Dan told me I had completed Step One. But then he went further. He asked if I remember the parable of the Ninety-Nine and the One. The story of the Shepherd who left the 99 sheep that were safe to go in search of the one that was lost. I told him that I did remember it.

Then he said: “You are the ONE.”

Chills ran down my spine as I gradually understood the gravity of what Dan said. You see, every time I had read that story in the past, it was always about the Loving Shepherd who went after that wayward sheep, while I hung back with the other 98, lazing around eating green grass. The story was never about me.

But as I reflected on what Dan said, it hit me that I was the wayward sheep and that Jesus came looking for ME. And HE FOUND ME. I genuinely felt FOUND for the first time in my life.

Isn’t it funny how in order to be FOUND, I had to get to the point where I realized that I was LOST. That’s how God works.

As long as I was driving the bus, God was not going to intervene. When I thought I was in control, He stayed back. When I crashed and burned, He stepped in to rescue me. And He did it via Step One of the Twelve Steps.

He does move in mysterious ways. And He’s waiting for you.

Jacob The Addict (jacobtheaddict@gmail.com)

Deconstructing My Faith – Part II

Hi, I’m Jacob, a grateful, recovering sex addict. I’ve been sober a little over seven months.

Picking up where I left off last time …

My old faith stood in the way of my getting to powerless. That’s because it was a self-righteous faith. The kind the Pharisees had. You know the Pharisees, right? The only humans on the face of the earth Jesus took to task. The religious folks. That ought to tell us something about how God views self-righteousness.

Deconstructing my faith worked like this. I imagined that everything I believed was hung on my “Pegboard of Faith”, each on its own hook. I took each tenant of faith off the pegboard and placed it on a table in my mind. Every one of them. Now, I’m picking up those pieces, one at a time, and looking closely at them.

I’ll pick one up and roll it around with my fingers so I can see all sides of it. Then I’ll put it down and pick up another. I haven’t thrown any of them away yet. I need more time to reflect on them.

So far, only two things have gone back up on the Pegboard of Faith. And I’m not sure either one of them was up there to start with. I think both of them have come to me since I started recovery. And here they are.

First, God loves me because of Who He is, not because of who I am or am not – or what I do or don’t do. He loves me because that’s Who He Is. I can’t change a single thing about God’s love for me. It simply is. That doesn’t give me a free pass to do anything I want, but it does mean that I can’t escape His love.

Second, Jesus came to earth to do for me what I could never do for myself. He died to set me free. My death will simply be justice for the sins I’ve committed against God, myself and others. Jesus’ death, however, paid the price of my rebellion and restored me to life.

That’s it. Just those two things on my Pegboard of Faith. Plenty of things on the table to be looked at over time. But for now I rest assured that God’s love for me cannot be extinguished and that the blood of Jesus restored me to life.

Now, what’s on the table? Here are a few things to consider:

  • Should women be allowed to wear pants to church?
  • Should a church have any kind of images inside or outside the building?
  • Can a church support orphans’ homes?
  • Is it OK to worship with a piano? How about a guitar? An electric guitar? Drums? How about a fog machine?
  • Can a church have just one pastor? Or should it have a plurality?
  • Is full immersion baptism the only way to be saved?
  • Can a church have a praise team or must it be a single worship leader or songleader?
  • Does the name of the church you attend matter?
  • Is taking the Lord’s Supper required every week or only on certain days?
  • Is the multitude of denominations acceptable to God?
  • Is Wednesday night attendance required?
  • Can women preach? Or make announcements in church?
  • Should a church have a kitchen?
  • What about Sunday School? Is it OK or is it an abomination?
  • Is it OK to use anything other than the King James Bible?
  • Can communion bread have salt in it?
  • Is an “invitation” or “altar call” required at every service?
  • Must a church have pews or are chairs OK?
  • Can giving to a cause other than your local church be counted as part of your tithe?
  • If I say “$@!?%” and get hit by a truck before I can ask forgiveness, am I going to Hell?
  • Can a divorced person be saved?

There’s a very short sample of the things I’ve heard folks turn into doctrine over the years. Some of those made it into my thinking and I’m glad to have them down on the table where I can see them. I already know what I’ll do with some of those, but others will take a bit longer to come to a certain answer.

But I do know that, even if I don’t get all of them right, the blood of Jesus still makes me whole. That’s already been permanently affixed on the Pegboard of Faith.

Thanks for reading.

Jacob The Addict (jacobtheaddict@gmail.com)

Deconstructing My Faith – Part I

Hi, I’m Jacob, a grateful, recovering sex addict. I’ve been sober for 7 months.

As I’ve told you in the past, I’ve been a Christian since my teen years. And some of you have judged me for saying that. “How can you call yourself a Christian when you are a sex addict?” I’ll deal with that in a future post, but today, I want to talk about deconstructing my faith.

When I came into the recovery journey, I was very self-righteous. I may have had a “struggle” with pornography (the term I used while deluding myself) but I was certainly no addict. And I was MUCH better than those other guys in that twelve step group. In fact, I would go for a couple of weeks to prove that I didn’t need to be there and then go back to normalcy.

However, things didn’t go that way. I quickly realized that I was just like every other guy in the group and that I belonged there. Little by little, my self-righteousness began to fade. It dawned on me that all of those things I did to “earn” God’s grace did not help me one bit in dealing with my addiction.

Little by little, the Spirit began to chip away at my self-righteousness – my attitude, my sense of superiority, my arrogance and my pride. Once that was gone, I was left with nothing of merit.

I hope some of you reading are saying “Well, duh!” at this point because you’re long since realized that you have nothing of worth to bring to God. But for me, all the many delusions of addiction merely encouraged my self-righteousness to try and hide the reality of addiction.

So, I went to church, taught a Bible class, preached occasionally and was even on the leadership board of my church for a while. I did all the right things and said all the right things, I regularly checked all the right boxes and was pretty good, all things considered.

In fact, the Lord was pretty lucky to have me. I had been in church since I was born. I was sprinkled as an infant in a reformed church and baptized as a teenager in an evangelical church. Talk about nailing it! I was about 60% good. So, I just needed Jesus to “top me off” with the other 40%.

When confronted with my addiction and starting to work the steps, I balked at Step One: “We admitted we were powerless over sex and love addiction…” Whaddaya mean “powerless”? I’m pretty good. I’ve got the Lord on my side. I can’t be powerless. See how hard I’m working? I’ll just try harder.

Except that I’ve been trying to stop my addictive behavior for decades. Time and again, I’ve sworn I would stop only to go back to it – sometimes only hours later.

So, all that “working for the Lord”, ticket-punching and (self) righteousness I had did me no good in battling addiction.

Little by little, slowly but surely, I came to realize that I really didn’t have a real faith to hold onto. I believed in God, but I had a stronger belief in my ability to earn His love. So, my focus was on earning His love instead of living in His Light.

OK, I’ve written you a book but I haven’t gotten to deconstructing my faith. But maybe I’ve laid enough groundwork that you are ready to read “the rest of the story”. That will be my next post.

Blessings,

Jacob The Addict (jacobtheaddict@gmail.com)