No More Crumbs!

Membership | Search | Feedback | Report Dead Links | Site Map

Sunday, August 13th Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, In a sense, I'm "new" to the boards, in another sense, I'm "returning." I first joined CIR when I lived in Seattle. My screen name at the time was Peregrine. I'll be celebrating my 2 year anniversary into recovery in 3 days. Wow! What a 2 years it has been. I moved to Chicagoland almost a year ago and have found the "recovery" community a rough going here. I finally decided to "return" to CIR. In short, my story....forms of sex and relationship addiction go back on both sides of my family for generations. God has been so good to me in being able to actually research and document this. I consciously started to act out when I was around nine. I come from the home of missionaries, my dad also a pastor by ordination. Nakedness took on a powerful erotic twist for me from this very young age. When I got to my 20s, I started acting out in other ways. My most powerful "addiction," though, is "relationship with women." That's what finally got me into program almost 2 years ago back in Seattle, a very sick relationship. God has done much healing since then, and continues to do so. But it is a very painful healing...as I know all of you are aware of. By God's grace, I've had no major "slips" since finally severing the relationship 12/15/98. But I'm now far enough into my own recovery where it has been time for me to begin exploring relationships again. WHAT A CHALLENGE! My most current struggle is with a woman named B. I needn't talk about the specifics of the relationship as much as to just share how quickly I leave "myself," the man God has made me to be, the man God is calling me to be, to try to "get my life" from the woman I am attracted to. An important part of my story is what I call "waiting for the crumbs." That's what I had to do as a child, and that is what I have done in many relationships. When I wasn't in them, I then moved into sexually acting out. As I have already alluded to, God has healed so much of me in terms of the sexual acting out. But now I'm faced with the ever deeper issues of " holding out" for HIS best, for HIS will. In the relationship I've been "trying out," I had to come to a place last Sunday - almost 7 days to this very moment, where I said, "I won't settle for the crumbs anymore." I keep getting attracted to women who by the very nature of where they are and where I am, leave me feeling as if I'm settling for the crumbs. I don't believe that is why God has given us our dignity as people made in His image! And so, a week ago, I found strength from God to set boundaries with this woman - no contact - for now - to stand strong in my manhood given by Christ, to say no to yet another round of my own deepest form of addiction....looking for a woman to "fill me up," staying in a less than reciprocal relationship in "hopes" that "if I love enough, surely she will finally love me." I've lived that story too many times to know that it always ends up in a raw and wounded soul. Those are the basics. I'm scared in a way to finally write the board and share a little of my own story. I'm immensely grateful for these first 2 years of recovery, of finally beginning to live "MY" life, the life I believe God intends for me, but I am also painfully aware of what a challenge and struggle it is to do so. I want to get to know some of you, to share what strength, hope and recovery God has given me, to support you in your journeys, to share my victories and struggles, to be a brother in recovery with you. In closing, my name, Rhys P'ol, is pronounced Rhys (sounds like "miss"), and P'ol (like Paul - it's the Scots' Gaelic form for Paul). It is a name I feel God has "given" me over these last months, a name I am growing into. Rhys is symbolic of "healer" for me, P'ol my birth name, though Gaelicized as I come from and feel to my marrow my Scottish/Celtic roots. As I have journeyed these 2 years in recovery, as I left Seattle at God's behest to come to Chicagoland where, like Abraham, I knew not where I was going or why, I have felt God calling me to be, with our Lord Christ, a wounded healer among other men and women who struggle from different forms of our "disease." God be with you on this holy day, the Sabbath! I hope to hear from some of you! Under His Mercy, Rhys P'ol Sunday, September 3rd Brothers and sisters, I've been asked to "edit" the above and submit it for "publication" in our CIR newsletter. I've decided instead to "add" to it where God continues to take me in my process of recovery and healing. The pain that came after setting the boundaries of "NO MORE CRUMBS" was as intense as any I have felt. The anxiety and craving that followed was just as difficult as the early days of withdrawal when I was first in program. But through it all, God was working, both in me, and in my woman friend B. We remained out of touch for a week and a half. And now, for the last week and a half, we have been in contact again. This contact has taken me to a whole other level in my recovery. It's really a deeper level of "NO MORE CRUMBS." I have experienced in my journey that tied to the "always waiting for the crumbs" syndrome, for me as a man, has been the inability to "stand aright in Christ," to honestly and with intergrity ask for what I truly desire, need and want in an intimate relationship. Instead, I went "looking" in all the wrong places. Well, in this particular situation with B, God is taking me yet deeper. I have continued standing strong in saying "no more crumbs," but I have gone yet deeper, into a realm that for me involves incredible fear and terror. It is the realm of saying and believing, "I AM worthy, in Christ, to be loved and to love." It has also involved refusing to go back to the addictive land of "extremes" I have always lived in with regard to my relationship/sex addiction. I have either "jumped right in" or "jumped way out" of relationships. I have never learned to "stay with the fears and the conflicts," to, as my counselor says, "live through to the other side of a possible relationship." That is where I am today, 3 weeks since I wrote. And trust me, I have LOTS of fear. Learning to stay in the midst of a process that is so "on the razor's edge" is requiring me to "lean into Jesus" like never before! Learning to stand my ground in a relationship, to set boundaries, to ask for what I need and want, to give the other person the space to be who God has made HER to be........all of this is the greatest challenge I have faced yet in recovery. And as my good friend Rich said, "You have to go 'through it' sometime." Never did I dream it would take this much faith! I thank God for CIR, for my recovery community here in Chicagoland, and for my recovery community back in Seattle. This healing process is quite a mystery and an adventure. Thanks for letting me share a bit of it with all of you. I hope it is helpful in some way. Your brother on the recovery journey, Rhys P'ol Click Here: to e-mail me directly (Rhys4JC@aol.com)