Found – Jacob The Addict

Trauma Narratives vs. God Narratives

Hi, my name is Jacob (not my real name) and I’m a grateful, recovering sex and love addict. I’ve been sober for three years, four months and 14 days.

It’s been over a year since I’ve posted anything here. Things have been incredibly busy, with so much going on that I just haven’t found time to share.

My wife, Amy (not her real name) has been digging deep and unpacking a lot of trauma that I’ve caused her over our many years of marriage. I’m very proud of her for her hard work, but going through the conflict that I avoided all those years really sucks. More on that in a separate post.

At worship last Sunday, one of my brothers shared a devotional thought before communion that really moved me. He is a counselor and shared from his experience working with traumatized people.

Trauma leaves people to deal with three things, he said.

The trauma itself,
One’s feelings about the trauma (if one can dig deep enough to find them), and
The trauma messages (or narratives) that get coded into one’s thinking.

He said that last one is the hardest to deal with because the narratives sre deeply embedded. They includes“I am” statements such as:

“I am worthless”
“I am ashamed”
“I am damaged”
“I am hopeless”
“I am less than”
“I am a failure”
“I am unloved”
“I am trapped”
“I am numb”
“I am alone”
“I am lost”

He went on to say that when we allow God into our trauma, He will replace the trauma narratives with His narrative – if we allow Him to.

As the Great I AM, He is able to replace any and all of my “I am” narratives with His far superior “I am” narratives. His narratives for me include statements like:

“I am loved!”
“I am forgiven!”
“I am redeemed!”
“I am clean!”
“I am found!”
“I am free!”
“I am a new creation!”
“I am His!”
“I am enough!”

I’ll confess that when started recovery just over three years ago, I thought I was stuck with my narratives because they were my narratives. Little did I know or understand that by allowing God in and surrendering control of my narratives He would replace them with His.

I’m still far from perfect here, but making significant progress. His narratives fun through my head far more often these days than my old, trauma narratives.

Just another case of “Let go and let God” in action.

If you have questions or just want to know more about how this worked for me, you can reach me at jacobtheaddict@gmail.com.

Thanks for reading.

Blessings, Jacob The Addict (jacobtheaddict@gmail.com)

Step Two

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)

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)