How?!!? – part 1
Its no secret by now, well at least it shouldn’t be, that I have done some pretty bad stuff in my life. For years I dealt with addiction to pornography. I’m not exactly silent about it. And I don’t plan on being silent about it. My past has made who I am today. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not proud of what I’ve done, but I do know that I wouldn’t be where I am today if I wasn’t where I was yesterday. Part of my journey has been struggling with the subject of repentance. I do mean struggling. One of the hardest things for me to come to terms with was the difficulty of letting go of something that, for years, had been my closest friend. Pornography wasn’t just an addiction to me, it wasn’t just a drug, it was a comfort. This is may be something that only other addicts and former addicts would understand. You see every time I had a good day, the addiction was my reward. Every time I had a bad day the addiction was my comfort. Stress, sickness, health, happiness, sadness, anger, depression, rage, loneliness, anything and everything I went through, pornography became my healer, my relief, my crutch, my leaning post, and my closest friend. As the professionals in the therapy racket would say I would “medicate” my self with pornography. It was the thing that made me feel better. It made me feel safe. It became the unchanging object in my life that never let me down. No matter what, through thick and thin, it was always there. Not just for a little while, but for years. It became a pattern, an addiction, a habit, a way of life. And that is something not easily broken. Something impossible to just put down and walk away from. It wasn’t just a friend it was a close friend. Not just any close friend. Like a close friend with an infectious disease, and every time you hang out with them you get more and more sick yourself. But its not just any disease. Its like a symbiotic relationship. Once it attaches itself to you, you can’t separate from it without endangering yourself. You become dependent upon it. And I was. I truly was. Without it I felt insecure. Without it I felt scared. Without it I felt in danger of disappearing and yet the more time I spent IN its company the more I got sick and depressed and angry. It was truly a love-hate relationship. I hated what it was doing to me, but I loved it. I loved it. When I gave in to the addiction, in those moments, I loved it. And yet after, when I would step back and see the damage I had done to myself and those I loved, I hated it. I hated me. But I could not stop. I could not let it go. Somehow, I didn’t want to. Even though it was slowly destroying me and taking me to a place where I was getting so depressed to the point of suicide.
The bible talks of repentance. It says to turn from these things that drag us away into the night far from God. It says you can’t serve two masters. It says we are supposed to put aside those things and set our minds on things above. But what if you are like I was? What if you try really hard and just can’t seem to let it go? What if every thing you try seems to work for a time but then you are right back in it again? What if there is just something about it that keeps you coming back for more and you can’t stop? What if there is a secret part of you that some how doesn’t want to let it go? How? How do you…LET GO ? How do you “overcome” like the Bible says? How? How? How?
I figured it out.
I know the secret.
I know How.
…to Be Continued…