Hope

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.

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My “ism”

My “ISM” existed before I took my first drink of alcohol.

My “ISM” is a complex web of core issues, repressed emotions and ineffective behavior. My “ISM” exists because of the “Fall of man;” the iniquities and transgressions of generations had come upon this flesh body.

After taking my first drink of alcohol my “ISM” became “Alcoholism” and the consequences of my “Alcoholism” affected every area of my life negatively – mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually, financially, inter-personally and in the community/the law.

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Hate: the Root of Addictions

I came into the world in 1949. My father was a radio and TV repairman.The US army had trained him to be a radar technician during world war II, and he transferred the skills to civilian life. According to my parents, Peoria was a rather dismal depressed area at the time, and my father moved the family to southern California.

My early memories are fragments, snippets here and there. I remember asking my father if there was a God when I was very small. His answer was “I believe in a Supreme being.” But that is not to say our home was a religious one. At some point in my very early years I remember attending a Calvary Baptist Church with my parents, and even going to Sunday school. But my parents stopped going to Church for reasons which are not known to me. I do remember attending Sunday school but I was so young I cannot remember much of what went on.

Despite their occasional attendance at church, my home environment was less than Godly. Like many homes there was a war going on between Mom and Dad (if you were lucky enough to even have a Dad) and I became a casualty of that war.One morning when I was about 5 years old my younger brother (3 years old at that time ) and I were playing with wooden blocks in our bedroom. Vaguely I recall Mom and Dad had been fighting.Dad left the house and my brother and I continued playing with the wooden blocks. Mom came into the bedroom screaming, “I told you kids not to play with those blocks.” My brother said, “run!” and we both ran into different parts of the house. Mom cornered him in the service porch and I heard the screams as she beat him. Then there was a sinister silence. Then she came flying into the living room in a boiling rage. “Now, its your turn!” she said. And, indeed, it was my turn.

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I Died, Stayed Dead in Many Ways Until CIR

My recovery birthday is the day I registered at CIR. It was shortly after I joined. I chose it because I began to seriously take on my recovery as a whole: Alcohol, Codependency, Sex/love addiction, Bulimia (teens-20’s), then became Compulsive overeater, Workaholic, PTSD from Childhood rape/molestation…..abuses/ bullying of every variety including self-inflicted. I experienced a date rape with an abortion in 1994 (I died / stayed dead in many ways until CIR). All are interconnected.

I have since found a measure of serenity, of freedom from sin (or enslavement to righteousness) !!!! Romans 6:15-17), healing in the areas my mental illness/health problems & I have found the blessing of relationship/fellowship.

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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.

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I was Scared Half to Death Not Knowing What to Expect

For my birthday I bought and drank a bottle of wine. I ended up in a christian chat room where there was a young lady that had drug problems someone in there had told her about CIR and I took down the site wondering if it wasn’t also a message for me to reach out for help.

I ended up coming to CIR I was scared half to death not knowing what to expect. I attended a few online meetings before I had the courage to share. I started to share and found out I wasn’t as different as I had suspected. I posted soon after for a sponsor and luckily got one. She’s been a blessing to my recovery and has supported me threw my first year.

My first six months of sobriety I was sick and spent a lot of time in the doctor’s office. It was one thing after another. In February I started to get into some bad things my thoughts were far from walking with God I was walking and praying Lord show me your will for me. I looked up and saw a man walking ahead of me with a picture of Jesus and his head in thorns and a cross on his t shirt. I said OK Lord. I knew He was saying that He wanted me to follow Him and not be going in the direction I was.

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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.

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God Chooses the Improbable

“You did not choose me, but I chose you…”John 15:16a

I know what you’re thinking: “God chooses others, but not me.”

You think it’s because of your secret, don’t you? The awful thing in your past — that abortion or that affair; your divorce; the rape; the sexual abuse; the shameful business failure; your drug usage; alcoholism; criminal past. etc. Like the clumsy, nearsighted child no one picks for playground sports, you want God’s favor, His grace, but it seems beyond your wildest dreams. It’s not.The poem “The Chosen Vessel” tells how God picks a vessel to use: “Take me,” cried the gold one. “I’m shiny and bright,”I’m of great value and I do things just right.” But God passes by the gold, silver, brass, crystal, and wooden urns, and chooses the vessel of clay. The poem explains why:

Then the Master looked down and saw a vessel of clay.
Empty and broken, it helplessly lay.

No hope had the vessel that the Master might choose,
to cleanse and make whole, to fill and to use.
“Ah! This is the vessel I’ve been hoping to find,
I will mend and use it and make it all mine.”

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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.

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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?

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