Sex Addiction - Christians in Recovery

Breaking Habits, Scary Secrets

Scary Secrets are Hard to Give Up
There are some of us that are completely unaware of our inner craving. We try to hide and place a weak cover over the whole mess because it is to scary to make known to our self or to others. We have laps of memory, sometimes finding personal items in a different place to where we recall leaving them. This can be disturbing until they learn that the lapses are simply times when we try controlling behavior.

Sometimes people who e-mail me suddenly send an e-mail that seems out of character and might have poor spelling. When I send a copy of the e-mail back to the person they are often shocked as they have no recollection of ever writing it. This is part of our tendency to deny wrong doing.

I Prayed that God Would Get Out of My Life!

My name is Kelly. Here is something that happened to me that I hope blesses you….

In 1984 after struggling for years with pornography and masturbation, I was a youth pastor in the Midwest. Working for my brother the pastor. I fought and fought with my thoughts and finally went out in my car and purchased porn. Felt horrible and tired. I was so frustrated. I tried and tried to live a clean life and just failed over and over again.

“Damn, what is the point?” I asked myself. I then sat there alone in my room and calmly prayed a new prayer to God. This was a prayer that I’ve never prayed. I prayed that He would get out of my life. I prayed that I would not be a Christian any more. I prayed and boldly asked the Holy Spirit to leave.

Then I sat there alone in my room feeling even more alone. The desire for porn was gone and it felt that God was gone too. I didn’t feel guilty but I did feel very alone.

Day after day I walked in an Oak grove talking with God. I didn’t feel like a Christian anymore and it was a weird experience talking to him outside of the “family”.

John: “Sin is My Sickness”

I am powerless over sin. That’s my problem. I used to feel damned because my life seemed to be falling apart. By the grace of God I learned that although I was just as much at fault for the problems in my life as the people in my life, God was not so cruel as to torment me for my sinfulness. In fact only he could restore me to sanity. My higher power volunteered.

Luke 4:18
He hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised.

I Was Addicted to Sex and Could Never Get Enough

My name is Jeff and I am a recovering sex addict. It all started when I lived at home with my parents. My father was and still is a sex addict and alcoholic to this day. I can remember when my mother would go to bed, my father would turn on the cable adult channels and allow me to watch them with him. He also had pin up posters and other adult stuff in the household. My father was verbally abusive to us and my mother. After 23 years, my father walked out on all of us. I moved out shortly after, when I turned 18. I lived from place to place and I would hang out with my friends during the week and watch porno movies and drink beer. On the weekends we would go to clubs and try to pick up on girls to have sex with. All I wanted was sex. Little did I know that the craving and the snares of Satan began there.

I slept with a lot of women and could never get enough. I was married at 26, only to last 9 months. I could not be loyal to one woman. A year later I married again but the problems did not stop. I became addicted to pornography on the internet. I was spending at least 18-24 hours a week on the net. I met women, had sex with them and I got deeper and deeper into it. My wife became saved, and I did shortly after but it did not even stop there. I was so bound to my addiction. I had an affair on my wife again and this time I confessed to her. Things were better for a while but I found myself back on the net again.

Sadomasochism: Christians Don’t Struggle with This?

I have struggled with various addictions for most of my life. The first & probably strongest of all was a sexual addiction. I developed an addiction to sadomasochism in my teens. I was a Christian at the time & experienced a great deal of shame due to believing the lie that Christians don’t struggle with such things. This lead to a life of secrecy and lies, which I absolutely hated.

Later I turned to alcohol, I think partially in an attempt to numb the shame of the sexual addiction. Through a long serious of circumstances, my alcohol addiction was exposed and I began seeking help in that area.

The H.A.L.T. Stop Sign

I practice an effective recovery tool: “H.A.L.T.”

Its simple wisdom deals our response toward addiction, compulsion and disorder:

“Don’t let yourself become too Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired.”

There are positive results there, just in the physical realm alone. But, if we go deeper, we also see the spiritual relevance behind that acronym. It addresses our tricky heart condition.

“For what I am doing, I do not understand…”Romans 7:15

Practicing Patience and Addiction

What a mysterious thing is this enemy of ours – as mysterious as life itself.

Addiction is sometimes without explanation. However, we are aware of its presence and how miserable it makes us feel. How little we like to speak of it, discuss it, or consider its importance! When cornered, we discuss the thought as quickly as possible. That being said, doesn’t it seem strange that we spend so much time feeding our addictions? Furthermore, when we have finally had enough, why do we not spend an equal amount of time and energy trying to recover from those same addictions.

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.

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.

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