Sex

Are You Cultivating Life Saving Fruit?

Let’s imagine that recovery grew on a vine, and like grapes in a valley, it would need proper soil cultivation, sunlight, water, fertilization, and pruning to bear fruit.

Wouldn’t it be nice if your recovery would bear enough fruit to eliminate fruit-bearing guides, books, classes and counselors? That being asked and answered, what would your mandatory concerns be to make that a reality in your struggles to grow recovery-bearing fruit?

Your concerns should be the following:

  • Make sure your potential fruit-bearing recovery plan is connected to the vines clearly with unobstructed prayer.
  • That you cultivate and prune your life by working a Twelve-Step Program.

Are You Cultivating Life Saving Fruit? Read More »

Trying to Find Your Way Back?

Every so often the familiar and even somewhat predictable “amnesia scenario” is resurrected for another made-for-TV-movie or sitcom. The actor stares blankly into once-loved faces and professes no recognition whatsoever. Places, sounds, smells, even names–nothing seems familiar. Memory has been lost; hence, a sense of identity has been lost as well.

And that is exactly what has happened to us–all of us. We have lost our memory. Like the prodigal son’s older brother who toiled endlessly and joyously in the fields, we have forgotten who we are and where we came from. But the forgetting goes beyond the pigsty from which the Father has rescued the prodigals. It extends back to the beginning–to a time when our identity was secure in our fellowship with the Father.
Before the rebellion…
Before the fall…
Before the exile.

As a result, our world is in the midst of an ongoing identity crisis. We walk around, day after day, year after year, generation after generation, trying to find our way back to….somewhere…. hoping that when we get there, someone will recognize us and tell us who we are.

The problem is, even if we figure out where that “somewhere” is, we cannot get ourselves back there, contrary to a song that was popular in the late ’60s and early ’70s that proclaimed the need to get ourselves back to the Garden.

Trying to Find Your Way Back? Read More »

Things I’ve Learned about Masturbation, Porn & Sex Addiction

I thought I’d print what I’ve learned in my many years of studying my own masturbation/porn/sex addiction. I’m no expert, but I’ve spent a lot of time studying how I feel to understand why it is that I do this. This is long. Hope that’s okay. No, I’m not cured, but I get a little closer every time I fail.

Certainly logic and science are not the whole answer, but they can help your understand yourself so you can help yourself by letting God help you. Spirituality and science can work together.

MY BACKGROUND

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What’s More Important: Today or Eternity?

It’s really easy to get trapped by the frenetic mindset of the world, to believe that the ultimate goal of life is to win or to acquire or to succeed.

It isn’t.

We lose so much when we think that what we gain now, that what we rule now, that what we control now somehow has meaning. We lose because we fail to see the horizon. We are so caught up with the temporary demands of the now we don?t remember that life continues (and continues long) after this day of life is over.

Proverbs 11:18-19 NRSV
The wicked earn no real gain,
but those who sow righteousness get a true reward.
Whoever is steadfast in righteousness will live,
but whoever pursues evil will die.

The Lord Jesus told a parable about such a man, a man who was so consumed with what he was doing in this life that he failed to plan for the next.

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Breaking Habits, Are You Ready?

Part 1 Breaking Habits | Part 2 Tapping into the Unknown | Part 3 Breaking Habits and Sin | Part 4 God’s Love | Part 5 Scary Secrets | Part 6 Are You Ready?

Procrastination Inspires Paralysis
One of the character defects that I struggle with is that of procrastination. Boy, howdy, does this give me fits. It comes from willfully pausing my life’s pursuits just before success is achieved. It is fear that success will bring more responsibility and I will have show that I’m ready to accept this change.

Breaking Habits, Are You Ready? Read More »

Why is it Important to Have a Sponsor?

Why is it important to have a sponsor? Why do I need someone to guide me along in my journey through recovery? Can’t I do this thing alone? I’m a private person. I don’t want someone else knowing my problems. It’s nobody’s business what is going on in my life.

I asked those questions and said those things when I first began on my recovery journey. It wasn’t until I read the Scripture that goes along with Step Four that I finally realized God doesn’t desire for this journey to be solo. His desire is for me to find someone I trust to help, guide, and teach me along the way.

Why is it Important to Have a Sponsor? Read More »

Playing Hide and Seek with God?

I searched hurriedly to find just the right hiding place. Breathless I hid silently behind the shower curtain in my parents shower. A giggle slipped from my mouth and I quickly cupped my hand to keep it quiet. I could barely hear my friend counting… 6… 7…8 …9… 10! Ready or not, here I come! My heart raced for fear I would be found.

I’m sure you remember the exhilaration and suspense of playing hide and seek with your friends. Now that I am older, I no longer play this childhood game with my friends or anyone else—or do I?

Playing Hide and Seek with God? Read More »

It is Just the Beginning

I have learned to trust God. I have faith my past is gone. I have let it all go and given it to God to handle. This is just the beginning for me, though.

My journey through recovery begins with Christ and it continues with Him. I could not have started nor could I continue without His help and guidance through all of the steps of recovery. I may not be an alcoholic or addicted to a drug, but I have other issues to contend with as a result of living with addiction.

  • Each day I must turn my need for control over to God’s care.
  • Each day I must turn over my past shopping compulsion to God because He is enough to fill any void I have.
  • Each day I must rid myself of co-dependency and be fully dependent upon Him to comfort me.

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FOMO: Fear of Missing Out

“Once is never enough, never is and never was, uh-huh,
Here and now is all that counts, here and now in large amounts, uh-huh”
~ Adam Ant, “Room at the Top”


In our culture today, there is a go-for-the gusto acronym, “FOMO,” “Fear of Missing Out.” I see it influencing our behavior. It declares we need to pounce on living life, taking advantage of every opportunity, going for our dreams.

But I also see its addiction message too, mainly reflected in the bender/binge concept with which some struggle. Each of us must deal with our individual vulnerabilities concerning substances, food, chaotic behaviors and relationships – and any other tempting vice under the sun.

Two events which spring to the top of my mind are Fat Tuesday and Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest.

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Self-created Hells

Let all things be done decently and in order. 1 Corinthians 14:40

Internet surfer that I am, I recently came across a meme which could be described as a drama queen’s motto:

“I don’t want to be overdramatic. But today felt like a hundred days in hell.”


Yes, within the faith community, it is often agreed eternal torment is some kind of reality, even if it is beyond our finite minds.

Nevertheless, we do ourselves a large disservice to ignore our own self-created and contained versions of this most unpleasant torture. For indeed, even those pious Christian versions of us need to admit something hardly “Christ-like” or flattering. Sometimes we like to create our own little Hells. And then we further enjoy tossing others – and ourselves – INTO them.

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