Tag: Brokenness

Step Four … Finally

(Note to Readers: I wrote this post in August of 2023 but never posted it. I’m posting now, so that I can follow up with an update on my progress.)

Hi, my name is Jacob (not my real name) and I’m a grateful, recovering sex and love addict. I’ve been in recovery for about 20 months and sober a little longer than that.

As is the norm, it’s been a while since I have posted a out my step work. I could give you a million reasons, but then that’s what addicts do. They give you excuses for why they aren’t focused on important things.

I posted about finishing Step Three back in October. So that we stay on the same page, I’ll remind you that Step Three says:

Step Three: Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God.

Since that post, I’ve been working Step Four, which reads:

Step Four: Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

It took me well over six months to finish Step Four for a number of reasons:

  • Recovery fatigue. Even at a relatively easy pace, recovery takes A LOT OF TIME. One or more meetings per week, group therapy every week, individual therapy every other week, making phone calls, journaling, meeting with my sponsor, being a sponsor to others. Note that “step work” wasn’t in that list, because it is on top of all those other things. So, sometimes I just need a break, and step work is usually what gets put off.
  • The REST OF LIFE. Recovery is extremely important but it can’t be the only thing in life for me. I have a family. I have a job. I have other obligations. And I’m trying to rebuild a life with Amy. Finding the balance isn’t easy, but these other things have to get their share of me.
  • Step Four is HARD. Maybe this is the real reason it took me so long to work through Step Four. The work that is required is very, very difficult to do. A “searching and fearless” review of one’s life isn’t for the faint of heart. Deep reflection on the moral failures of life is very easy to put off. More about that in a bit.
  • I’m a perfectionist. Many addicts are. I don’t want to say I’m done with and Step until I’m certain that my sponsor, Dan, will give me a “100” on it. That’s not the way the Steps work, by the way. It’s just how I approach nearly everything in life.

In spite of the competing priorities, in spite of the excuses and all the other reasons I can come up with, I made it through Step Four several months back.

I “made a searching and fearless moral inventory” of myself. I know it’s incomplete. My sponsor and my fellows tell me that I’ll revisit Step Four many times in the future. Each time a previously unidentified “defect of character” rears its ugly head, I’ll need to do a Step Four on it.

There are many ways to work the steps, and at least as many guidebooks are there are methods. The one that I’m using is “A Gentle Path Through the Twelve Steps” by Patrick Carnes, PhD. Carnes himself is a recovering addict – one of the same stripes as me – so he knows a thing or two about the Steps. But don’t let the title fool you. Don’t think “gentle” means “easy’. The soul work required for Step Four isn’t an easy thing to do, but Carnes provides a gentle a way as possible to do it.

Some methods have the traveler (my favorite term for an addict on this journey) make a list of everything they’ve ever done wrong. The piece(s) of candy they pilfered when they were six, the time(s) they cheated on a test, the time(s) they slept with a stranger, the time(s) they drove drunk, the underreported income on income tax returns, the pills they stole form others, etc. – plus all the lies they told to cover these things up.

However, Carnes doesn’t take that approach. He goes much deeper than what specific things I did wrong. He truly goes after “defects of character”. He had me go through: anger and the misuse thereof, avoidance of responsibility, paralysis by fear, unhealthy risks and self-sabotage, shameful incidents, feelings of unworthiness and more. Carnes also makes you pause to reflect on positive expressions of anger, healthy risks taken and conquered fears. This helps the process from becoming overwhelming.

I think the “make the long list” method would have been easier. That list could have been made with only a minimal amount of shame. Digging into the drivers behind the moral failures is much more difficult and mentally exhausting work. Each time I went back to the workbook, more examples of the real issues came to light.

But Carnes’ method makes the traveler confront these defects of character and see how anger was used to manipulate others, how the taking of risks impacted more people than just me, how self-sabotage killed so many relationships and hurt the other party, and how shame is such a repetitive cycle.

I can honestly say the Step Four was more than just an exercise for me. It made me face my “defects of character” which are now much more obvious to me and are now accompanied by a willingness to face them. That means acknowledging them when they rise up and admitting that I’ve wronged someone when necessary.

It’s gonna take a whole new way of living to overcome these. The kind of living that only God can make possible.

As always, thanks for visiting.

Jacob The Addict (jacobtheaddict@gmail.com)

Brokenness

Hi, I’m Jacob, a grateful, recovering sex addict. My sobriety date is unchanged since my last post.

If you know anything about 12-Step programs and the steps themselves, then you probably know that Step One reads like this (modified for sex addiction):

“We admitted we were powerless over sex addiction— that our lives had become unmanageable.”

That may seem like a pretty simple thing to do – admit that one is powerless over one’s addiction. But it’s not.

Human nature says that I can beat this if I just try harder. Never mind the fact that I’ve tried for decades to overcome this by myself, without success.

I’ve read self-help books on overcoming pornography and I’ve implemented their recommendations. Then I’ve white-knuckled through several years of not acting out, only to relapse.

I’ve had accountability partners that I’ve promised to check in with. And I’ve forgotten about them or misled them into thinking I was OK when I wasn’t – and relapsed.

Nothing has worked for more than one or two years. Eventually, the stress or the pain or the anger or the whatever gets bad enough that I return to my drug of choice.

You can probably read what I just wrote and say: “That sounds like ‘powerless’ to me.” But for me, saying I’m “powerless” feels like a cop-out. It feels like I’m looking for (or claiming) an excuse.

Part of my problem is that I was “raised in church”. I’ve gone to church since I was born. When I responded to the “invitation” or the “altar call” when I was 12, it was out of fear, rather than surrender.

For many years, I’ve tried to work my way into God’s favor. And most days, I felt like I was carrying about 60% of the load and just needed Jesus to “top me off” with the other 40%. That attitude is a long, long way from surrender.

I hate to say it, but my church upbringing actually stands in the way of my surrender in Step One. You see, I’m a pretty good person, all in all, and God is pretty lucky to have me on His team. Again, that is a very long way from surrender.

Thankfully, the work toward Step One requires serious reflection on all the things I’ve done, all the places I’ve been, all the times I’ve tried to stop my addictive behavior and all the times I, like the dog in Proverbs, have returned to the vomit.

Looking at the many situations I’ve written about in my step work, it becomes very obvious that there’s a dysfunctional pattern. And the weight of evidence seems to indicate that I’m unable to stop my acting out.

With that said, I’m getting closer to surrender every day. It’s a scary thought to finally yield my will to God’s, approach Him with empty hands and bowed head, and say “Lord, I got nothin’.” But as one of my readings said recently, its time for me to get out of God’s way and let Him lead me where He wants me. After all, He made me and knows how I’m wired.

When I get there, it will be the first time in my life I’ve truly surrendered my will to God’s. Its high time I stopped trying to control everything. After all, its quite easy to see what a fine job I’ve done in screwing things up til now.

May God grant me the humility to yield my will to His.

Best, Jacob the Addict (jacobtheaddict@gmail.com)