To the Sexual AddictBy
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by Duane Call
Used by permission
To the Sexual Addict (a Child of God who is addicted to Sex in any way)
I do not know you and I do not need to know you to write these things to you. I myself have experienced the pain, agony, frustration, guilt, anger (sometimes at God), and depression that comes from being addicted to sex and pornography. I have been blessed of the Lord in overcoming these terrible habits, ingrained into my life for more than thirty years; I am not proud of that fact; yet my addiction was taken from me by a loving God in a comparatively short time. I write because I know there is a way out of your misery. There is peace; there is forgiveness and there is calm sanity to be found to replace the insane desire to participate in your addiction.
Before we get started, I really want you to know that I have sought the Lord’s help in writing this to you. As I have explained already, what is written here comes from terrible, miserable, experience: I am not speaking from an educational basis; I am speaking from what I have been through. My God took me when I knew in my heart that I was lost; I thought that no-one including God could or would release me from the terrible hell in which I lived. I had drenched the bedclothes and my own clothing with my tearfully sincere prayers to God for release; and I had done so many times. No relief seemed forth coming. I was held captive by a terrible monster that had total control of my life. I was completely at the mercy of that monster and would do its bidding at the drop of a hat.
Sure, there were times when I was able to “white knuckle” it through on my own; and maybe abstain from my addiction for a month at a time. But, inevitably I would fall again. The pressure to yield to the temptation, the pull of my addiction, was enormous. It would always win. I was in counseling for the problem. I went through counselor after counselor because they could not find or fix the underlying problems in my past which were the cause of my NEED to use; my need to act out and find comfort in my addiction. The reason they could not fix them is because these were spiritual problems.
Some addictions are more socially acceptable than others. Nobody really looks down their noses in abject disgust at one who has an eating disorder. The same is true of one who cannot balance their checkbook, or who is ruining their family by always having to be in control. Even those addicted to alcohol and drugs are given more of a break than those of us who have such disgusting addictions as those that involve acting sexually inappropriate. I used to have the mind set that I had been cursed because my addiction was of such a type that people would reject me if they knew. Certainly, the Bishop would take my temple recommend away in a heartbeat! You cannot do such horrible things and be accepted by God: so I hid from my only source of help-God.
You see, addictions are used to cover up and to hide from the pain of something in your past that you do not want to deal with. The addiction is in your life to protect you from the blame and the shame of whatever it is that makes you want to act out. At first, maybe as far back as your childhood, whenever you got close to another experience in your life that evoked the same blame and shame, that same “run-away” response in your system, you “used.” After that response was thoroughly ingrained in your system, came the bondage of “using” just because you were trapped in this response; you were addicted. Sometimes there is absolutely no rational reason for acting out your addiction. It has that much of a hold on your life.
It is embarrassing at times. You have to answer so many questions put to you by those who love you, yet they see this bazaar behavior, on your part, and it scares them; they are concerned with you. You lie to them; and the lie gets bigger and bigger. You must hide this horrible second part of your life; people would reject you if they really knew who you are and what you do. This charade goes on and on. Keeping the false front up becomes burdensome and causes terrible guilt. It all becomes unmanageable; there is insanity in your life. You, yourself, may even feel that you are going insane. Certainly, keeping the charade in place is getting very hard to do. It is almost impossible.
At this time in my life, I was telling my loving spouse the most horrible lies. I told her, after spending my entire check on my addiction, that I had been robbed. I banged myself into a brick building and flung myself to the ground at a high rate of speed so that my clothes and skin would be torn. I was a sick person. I was way out of control. I needed help!
Now you may be saying to yourself, “I am not nearly as bad as this guy.” He needed help but I can control my addiction. I am not nearly in as much need of help as he is.” Those are the very things I said to myself, because I could see many around me who were much more deeply in bondage than I. If you are thinking these thoughts let me give to you a very sober warning: if you do not get help, and that quickly, you will get to the point of being that bad. Your addiction is feeding off your life blood. It is sucking the very will to fight back, to choose life, from you. It will continue to grow until you are totally out of control. If you rely on that little bit of control you think you still have it will eat you alive. It will continue to chew your life up until you get the message that you have NO control. That is the very message that Satan desires you to get. He will bang your head against the wall until you, in your helplessness, give up. He will then whisper in your ear that you are completely his-No-one can help you. You are lost. You have reached your end, just give up and find comfort in the fact that you are what you are. THIS IS A TERRIBLE LIE. IT HAS NO BASIS OF TRUTH. When I discovered my helplessness, I remembered what my parents had told me about God answering prayer. I prayed in a last ditch effort. I did not expect a reply. I was doing it out of PURE self-preservation.
How does one come out of the bondage of such a horrible mess? How does one gain just a little of the sanity back? How does one come to feel worthy again? How does one come to a place where they can feel good about themselves, their relationship to God, and to have a hope that they will someday be with God and Christ forever?
It is done in stages. It is a process. It is not an event in which all of your troubles are taken away. It is not as hard as you think. It does require honesty with yourself and others. It does take looking at your situation and realizing where you really are. (You do not have to move or to make yourself better. God will come to you, when invited. He will meet you right where you are!) Obtaining relief does take a WILLINGNESS to try some different things. It does take a willingness to look at where you are and to learn some truths that you have been convinced are not true, or at least, they do not apply to you. It does take a DESIRE to really become rid of your problem (if you are not really ready, the Lord will allow natural events to orchestrate your life until you are READY). It does take a willingness and desire to learn the truth in place of all the lies that have been whispered into your ears for so long that now you have come to believe them.
One of the reasons that I was unable to get the help I needed from the Lord is that I did not believe that His Atonement applied to me. I had done such horrible things that even God would not forgive me. THAT IS A LIE. There is nothing in this addiction that is not forgivable. There is nothing in this addiction that Jesus does not understand, completely. There is nothing in this addiction that the Lord will not freely forgive. However, YOU must be have a desire to be changed and be willing to be changed. THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN DELIVER YOU IS YOUR SAVIOR, JESUS CHRIST. He only is the One who holds the power.
Another reason I could not get the help I needed from the Lord is that I was defeating myself in my own prayers and the emphasis I was putting on the problem. Like is said in He Did Deliver Me From Bondage, we are asking you to stop dwelling on the problem and dwell on the solution, something that to you may seem totally non-related to your problem. Taking your mind off this terrible monster that hold you in bondage takes away from its power. It allows you to relax a little bit and to open your heart and mind to other things. It allows the Lord to come into your life and find that little crack in your heart; entering, He is able to work His miracles. I was dwelling on the wrong things. After attending Heart t’ Heart for a while and studying in the workbook, He Did Deliver Me From Bondage, I came to see the underlying problems that were the cause of my need to “use.” I faced these problems. I did not face them alone. I faced them with the help of the Lord, and was blessed by Him to be able to apply all of the twelve steps to it. I did not trust the Lord immediately either. I took a little step and then another. It seemed, sometimes, like I was taking three steps forward and then would fall back two steps. This falling back caused me some real concern, but the Lord showed me the little bit of progress that I was making. Little by little I was growing. When the problem was gone, and that by the grace of Jesus who is now my Master and my Best Friend, I found relief. I found peace.
These blessings can be yours, and so much more. To this truth I raise my voice in praise to the Christ; to this truth I raise my voice as a witness that He can deliver YOU!
Duane Call
