We Support
My mind is always blown on Easter. Just the thought of a dead man being raised back to life after three days is mind boggling. Of course, that is exactly what we celebrate today. Jesus has conquered sin and death and lives forever as a testament to God that the price for our rebellion against Him has been paid.
Jesus invites us into his resurrected life. However, the way to that life is to follow his example. If we are to experience the joy of his resurrected life, we must also endure death at the cross. It is not a physical death, but surrendering to the reality that Jesus suffered on our behalf.
There are a lot of areas of my life where I want to experience Jesus’ life – my relationships are first on the list. Even my sex life makes the list. But I am reminded on Easter that in order for something to be resurrected, it first must die. Am I surrendering my life and all that it is about to Jesus so that it is his resurrected life that makes it live rather than my dead, sinful “life?”
Bottom line:
For something to be resurrected, it first has to die!
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We are really excited about this announcement! Our website for teens, Teens Against Pornography, is officially no more. It has been rebranded, retooled and relaunced as Br3aking Porn.
What is Br3aking Porn?
Br3aking Porn is designed to help teenagers who struggle with pornography and sexual purity. It is a place where teenagers can come to seek help in a safe, anonymous, Christ-centered community.
We provide 3 Distinct sets of tools to help with this journey:
- Blog – to teach about sexual purity and entertain
- Forum – to facilitate safe discussions, accountability and entertainment where teenagers learn from people who have been there, done that, and can aid them in their journal toward sexual purity
- Resources – to inspire sexual purity through recommended books, articles, programs and links
If you are a teen in need of help or know of one, go to Br3aking Porn.
Break the Silence, Break the Cycle and Break Free!
Leave a commentWe created a quick screen-cast to give an overview of The Purity Report and the 40 Day Challenge. Take a look!
Note: It’s best to watch the video in full-screen HD mode to see all of the details.
Leave a commentEver felt this way? I know it’s a parody of addiction, but it’s not too far from reality. When we are in denial, addiction can wreak havoc in our lives and the lives of those around us!
Best line at the end – “It’s the truth that sets you free, and accountability that keeps you there.”
I picked up this chip last Tuesday at Celebrate Recovery.
It was fourteen years ago this week that I surrendered my life to Jesus Christ. It was also fourteen years ago this week that I last used any illegal drugs. Needless to say, I am incredibly grateful to God for the grace he has given me to stay away from drugs.
Struggling with pornography, however, was a part of my life before I began using drugs and persisted long after. It is this struggle that God used to bring me into recovery. He chose to remove drugs from me without journeying through recovery. But, he chose to use porn addiction to humble me and teach me how to depend upon him for freedom.
What a long, strange, and wonderful trip it’s been! I look forward to what God is going to do in the future. Thanks for sharing this with me! Merry Christmas!
Don’t Let Your Lust Go Unaccounted For!
A while ago we blogged about identifying the biggest triggers for our lust. The point of that blog post was to encourage us to proactively identify what the main triggers for our lust may be and put guardrails in place to safeguard us from them.
Triggers can be very different from person to person, but generally fall into two categories:
- Physical Triggers (people, places, things)
- Emotional Triggers (feelings, thoughts, circumstances)
One of the most important aspects of recovery from porn/sex addiction is taking the time after a “slip” to process what happened. What were the specific triggers leading up to this particular episode?
Using the categories of physical and emotional triggers, we can gain valuable insight into our addiction after giving in to sin. Looking at it differently, you could say that it is discovering what the enemy used to gain access to our lives in this instance. Furthermore, over time we will see patterns emerging. This information about our addiction is absolutely necessary if we are to find real, lasting freedom from sexual sin.
Here are some questions that may be helpful when looking back and processing a fall. When answering them, don’t think just about the exact time that you acted out, but think about the last week or so leading up to it.
Physical Triggers
- What places did I go to that triggered lustful thoughts and feelings (including places online)?
- What people did I encounter that triggered lustful thoughts and feelings?
- What things did I come across that triggered lustful thoughts and feelings (including things online)?
Emotional Triggers
- What specific feelings have I wanted to escape or numb myself to? How long have I had these feelings?
- What has my mood or attitude been like? What has contributed to my mood or attitude?
- What feelings of anger or frustration have I been feeling? What is the cause of that anger or frustration? Who is involved?
- What feelings of resentment am I feeling? Who are those feelings directed toward?
- What stressful circumstances have I been dealing with? How have these contributed to the feelings I listed above?
- What have my predominant thoughts been focused upon? How do these thoughts mesh with the feelings and circumstances I listed above?
- What thoughts have specifically led to fantasy and arousal? How long have I been entertaining these thoughts? What feelings and circumstances have been in play since I have entertained these thoughts?
The next step is to decide what you are going to do with this information. How can you use it to help protect yourself from giving into sin in the future? What do you need to pray for wisdom and strength to guard against? Where do you need to specifically shore up your accountability? What do you need to avoid altogether?
Taking the time to carefully and courageously reflect upon our physical and emotional triggers is a non-negotiable aspect of recovery from addiction. Make a pact with yourself and your accountability network that you will always take the time to complete such an inventory when you give in to your lust. Don’t wait days or weeks to process your slip. Our addictive minds quickly cover up all of this junk when we act out. Take advantage of the time fresh from a fall, when your emotions are still raw and your conscience is screaming, to reflect upon what happened. You will not regret it!
Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy. Blessed is the man who always fears the LORD, but he who hardens his heart falls into trouble.
Proverbs 28:13-14 NLT
“My false and private self is the one who wants to exist outside the reach of God’s will and God’s love – outside of reality and outside of life. And such a self cannot help but be an illusion.” -Thomas Merton
Admitting to God
Getting honest about the details of our lives is the most powerful thing we can do to strengthen our intimate connection with God. Honesty puts us on the same page with Him. Knowing that He knows everything about us, there is no reason to hide what is inside of us anymore. When we get honest with God, we “cash the check” so to speak; we open ourselves up and receive the grace that He has already provided for us, through Christ.
Step Five is not a religious exercise so it’s important that we don’t over -spiritualize this aspect of our recovery. We are just admitting, with as much detail as we can, what God already knows. We acknowledge that we have never benefited from minimizing our weaknesses and shortcomings. We admit our pride and our stubbornness, with as much clarity as possible, most notably all of our silly attempts to solve our spiritual and emotional problems. We confess that we have been self righteousness in covert and creative ways. We admit that we have never fooled God and that we rarely fooled anyone else, only ourselves. We tell the details about how we have judged other people and, with as much humility as possible, we admit how our religiosity has kept God, and the goodness that He intends for us, at arm’s length.
God has known us in a deep way. Now we will begin to know ourselves in a deep way, too. As we are willing to admit the exact nature of our wrongs to God, we will be able to accept the acceptance that He gives. As we accept the acceptance that He gives, we will begin to accept ourselves in the same way; even the worst about us. The more we admit our shortcomings to God, the more we slice away at the fears that have ruled us from the inside. We will learn to be at peace with the mysterious ways of God. Accepting His deep acceptance, we will no longer be obsessed with trying to figure out the hidden streams and currents of God. We will lose our inhibitions. We will want to strip down, reveal ourselves completely and swim in the power of goodness that God offers to us. We will never sink or get lost when we are honest with God. He’ll do the navigating for us. Knowing that we are known by God in this intimate way, we can live at rest. We will be buoyed in His grace forever, floating and moving with the currents of His guidance and care. There is no need to fear the oceanic mystery of God anymore. No matter where His currents lead our lives, the ultimate destination for us is more than very, very good.
Reproduced with the permission of Operation Integrity
Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for the knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
And yet the reason you don’t have what you want is that you don’t ask God for it. And even when you do ask, you don’t get it because your motive is wrong – you want only what will give you pleasure. James 4:3, NLT
“Drawing near to God is, in fact, the beginning of union!” (Madame Jeanne Guyon, Experiencing the Depths of Jesus Christ)
Prayer is the most relevant thing we do. If we are to be free from our addictions, free from our compulsions and free from self tyranny, we will have to become people who pray consistently, without stopping. Prayer must become part of us much like eating or breathing, bathing and sleeping. The kind of prayer we need is a personal, open and ongoing interaction with God – the type of interaction that brings insight and understanding, helping us to resolve the catastrophes of our past and increase our hopefulness for the future. Ongoing prayer helps us know exactly who we are and what we should do at any moment in time. It builds integrity in us, making us well-balanced and whole. Prayer keeps us alert and ready to live well during any difficulty that may come our way.
Prayer helps us to work with God to build our future. It plays a huge role in determining what kind of people we will be and what kind of impact we will have on the world. It may be helpful to pray for others to change, but it is always more important to pray that we will change. Prayer changes us and as we are changed, the influence we have on our surroundings will change too. Prayer gives us new perspectives. It changes our priorities. Instead of praying for things we want or for things we need, we should pray that we will be increasingly motivated to bring ourselves closer to God.
If we pray for anything less than God Himself, we may go away disappointed, having learned just how idolatrous we still are. But when we pray seeking a closer walk with Him we will always find our deepest longings fulfilled, often before we know what our deepest longings really are.
Insights and Inspirations for Christian Twelve Step Recovery
By David Zailer and The Men and Women of Operation Integrity
Chapter Eleven Segment Four
Copyright David Zailer, 2008
Operation Integrity
24040 Camino del Avion #A115
Monarch Beach CA 92629
1-800-762-0430
operationintegrity@cox.net
Mood swings/Brain imbalancedThe last common area, which I can relate to, is Mood-affective sexual addiction. This type is characterized by a pattern of using sex to placate or control the highs and lows of mood swings. The two most common medical diagnoses related to this pattern are depression and bipolar disorders. The fact is that sex addicts deal with mood issues at a rate of nearly 4 times the general male population 26% for the former, 7 for the latter. Thoughts that often accompany the acting-out range from “This will make me feel better” to “Well, if I just get it over with I’ll be able to go to sleep.” I have dealt with depression and anxiety and have benefited greatly from using a drug called Welbutrin (especially during the winters) to combat Seasonal affective disorder (SAD). Before recovery, I would use masturbation to comfort myself when feeling down, depressed or simply lethargic instead of finding someone to talk to, workout or experience adventure. Now, I am living the real and engaged life I always wanted: running, hiking, skiing, and pursuing new adventures regularly instead of using the escape of masturbation and fantasy as a counterfeit source of adventurous fun and exercise to help my brain get the needed endorphins naturally and in a non-habit-forming way.
You may learn more about Jayson Graves and his excellent counseling ministry, Healing for the Soul by visiting their website – www.healingforthesoul.org.
Fear of intimacy
Intimacy-aversive (sometimes called “sexual anorexic”) addicts have more trouble with “acting-in” than acting-out in the context of a relationship. This can be evidenced by behaviors that tend to sabotage or erode the intimacy in that primary romantic relationship: withdraw, withholding, blaming, shaming, avoiding, hiding, controlling, etc. Sound familiar? Nearly 40% of all sexual addicts also deal with Intimacy-aversion. There are 3 common roots of Intimacy-aversion: 1) attachment disorder with one or both parents, 2) sexual trauma and 3) reflexive/reaction to the sexually-addictive behaviors.
While I don’t think I personally deal with this type at a significant level, I can see that I was a prime candidate: my relationship with my mother growing up was volatile and with my dad it was shallow; I was sexually traumatized to a significant level as described earlier; and I experienced overwhelming shame guilt and fear towards my wife early on in our marriage because I was still walking in the addiction and acting out. Even today, I have to be on guard for ways that I can tend to subconsciously sabotage the intimacy in our relationship through blaming and controlling, behaviors common amongst those of us dealing with same-gender attractions.
You may learn more about Jayson Graves and his excellent counseling ministry, Healing for the Soul by visiting their website – www.healingforthesoul.org.
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