Hi, my name is Jacob (not my real name) and I’m a grateful, recovering sex and love addict. My sobriety date is unchanged since my last post. I’m past one year of sobriety.
It’s been a long time since I’ve blogged here. Things have been busy, crazy, enlightening, sad, joyful, stressful … all in all, remarkable. The past year has been the best worst year of my life. There is so much to share, but today I’m going to focus on Step Two.
If you recall, it took me a long time to get to Step One, powerlessness. Admitting that I’m powerless over this addiction took accepting that admitting powerlessness wasn’t a cop-out or a “hall pass”, i.e. “I’m powerless over this, so why even try to stop?” It’s far more than that.
It’s about admitting that my attempts to control the things in my life and deal with this addiction have resulted in disaster. Powerlessness is about surrender. Giving up control. Admitting that my attempts have been unable to control anything.
If I’m powerless to fix this or deal with my addiction, now what? Where’s the hope? Is there any? Or am I just doomed to live a self-destructive life?
Step Two of the Twelve Steps speaks directly to this:
Step Two: Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity
I’ve read that the definition of insanity is “doing the same things over and over, expecting a different result”. That also defines addiction. Doing over and over things you don’t want to do, each time expecting that thing to “fix it”.
With powerlessness comes an understanding that I can’t fix it. It’s going to take a Power greater than me to affect any real change in my life. It’s that simple.
I believe in God. Always have. I responded to “the invitation” when I was 12 years old and was baptized for the remission of my sins.
Actually, I was terrified of Hell and wanted to escape God’s wrath. I knew right from wrong and realized that I had sinned, violating God’s holiness. I knew I needed saving. But I knew nothing of a real relationship with God. After all, how do you have a relationship with an angry, distant Being who finds pleasure in striking sinners dead?
So, while I’ve always believed in God, I’ve never really known Him. And I’ve never really trusted Him, other than to destroy me if I stepped out of line. I’ve been afraid of Him all my life.
Step Two says that I will come to believe that God can restore me to sanity. I firmly believe that God can do ANYTHING. I have always believed that. The problem for me, however, has always been “why would He do something for ME?”
That makes Step Two all about TRUST. Trust that a Higher Power will do something for just for me, something that I can’t do for myself. It means trusting God, when I’ve been unable to really trust anyone in my life.
The step workbook I’m using asked me to list all the people in my life that was able to trust in my formative years. The prompts suggested the following categories: parents, aunts, uncles, siblings, teachers, coaches, ministers, etc. I pondered that question for hours and the list I came up with consisted, in its entirety, of only three people: my two sisters and my high school English teacher.
Just those three. Mom was unpredictable. Dad was absent. My aunts and uncles were dysfunctional. My minister was judgmental. My Boy Scout Leader was an escaped Nazi war criminal. There was no one else I could go to.
So I stuffed my fears, frustrations and anxieties and started looking for love – in all the wrong places, it seems. Looking for someone to soothe my inner pain and make me a whole person. And when a woman was not available, porn and masturbation filled the void.
As I’ve mentioned, that approach didn’t solve any problems and made things much worse. My life had truly become unmanageable.
So, now I’m faced with the reality that I need God more than ever ( actually, I’ve always needed Him this much; I just wouldn’t see it). How do I trust Him enough now to let him help me?
As I’ve written previously, I’ve come to understand that God loves me because of Who He Is and not because of who I am or am not, or what I do or don’t do. With an understanding of His unconditional and unrelenting love, I think I can do it. I now find myself wanting a relationship with Him, rather than trying to run away and hide.
It’s been a long road, but I now firmly believe that God can and will restore me to sanity. It’s not something I can do for myself. I now see Him working in every facet of my life. From the insight He has given me into what makes me tick, the many fellow travelers that He has placed in my life and the daily help of His Spirit to stay away from addictive behaviors, He is changing me.
And I haven’t even gotten to Step Three! That will be the subject of my next post.
As always, thanks for visiting.
Jacob The Addict (jacobtheaddict@gmail.com)
Jacob The Addict 