Recovery – Page 2 – More Freedom Blog

Addiction – A Chronic Condition

I’ve heard some people who have said, “I’m cured of my addiction to….” When I hear that, I just smile and nod. I congratulate them and keep my opinions to myself. My experience and my opinion though is that addiction to anything (porn, alcohol, drugs, etc.) is a chronic condition. This means it doesn’t go away but only goes into remission.

I am in remission from my addiction to porn, lying, etc. and have to continue to work at staying there. I feel it is very, very dangerous to think you are “healed” of the addiction and go on your merry way. This is a denial of the situation. You can change your habits, you can change your environment, and you can change your heart (with help) but you can’t change that you are and will always be an addict. To refuse to admit this is, in my opinion, akin to lying to yourself in a horrible way. It can lead to denial or justifications about other things and ultimately lead to acting out in a deeper or worse way than you did before.

Self-Confidence

I found over time that I started to have more self-confidence, not just with being able to choose what’s right regarding the addiction, but in standing up for myself. It’s strange but it seems that since I was so riddled with guilt and shame all these years, I felt like I deserved anything that anyone did to me that was mean or abusive. I felt I had earned it. I was beating myself up so much that I welcomed it when others did the same – hey I deserved it, right. It was like it was my punishment for doing so much wrong.

Once I stopped beating myself up so much, I started being offended when others would beat me up and I would stand up for myself. It was scary at first and I had feelings of hypocrisy and unworthiness, but each time I did it, it got easier. Another thing I realized was that there was a wrong way to stand up for myself (which was to be mean back to the person) and a right way (simply stating how I felt when the person did what they did and if needed, distance myself from them without resentment or hatred).

I also found out that this inability to stand up for myself also extended into the realm of having and expressing opinions. Where do I want to eat? Anywhere is fine. What is my favorite X? I am not sure. It’s as though my opinions and desires were invalid. Perhaps because some of my desires had hurt me so badly that I didn’t want to have any desires any more. I’m starting to have opinions and desires and am starting to be able to express them too.

Pride

I have found that pride is like codependency in its sneakiness. One good way for me to detect pride in myself is to look at how good of a follower I am. In the context of being a facilitator, for example, I can ask myself if I am following the guidelines (and my leaders) or not. If I am following them, am I following them with all my heart, wanting their ideas to work, and thereby I am being a good follower? If I do my own things that I think are better, then I am seeking praise for doing those things because my idea was better than theirs. This is the same thing Satan did with God’s plan. If Satan is anything like me when I’m doing this, he didn’t want to follow the plan because he could get glory for coming up with a better way of doing things.

I was locked into a deadly pride cycle as a facilitator for several years. I had a few years of physical sobriety and was the facilitator of an LDS 12-step meeting. I knew it all and “helped” and “saved” everyone I spoke to. The pride I had in my length of sobriety and in my facilitating position started to blind me to the lust that I was quietly allowing to creep back into my life. I had to start telling myself and others lies to maintain my status as facilitator and to keep my long sobriety that I was so proud of. That pride and the lust that crept in over those years cost me my family for a few months during separation once I came clean about the lies I had told myself and others. I had to drop the pride – I had to surrender everything. Anything I held onto slowly became a millstone around my neck dragging me down. God and Christ were the only things I could safely hold onto.

In the context of my main addictions, pride can blind me to my weakness, and like the addiction itself, can numb me to the point that I don’t think I need God’s help. The only way I have found to keep from falling to pride is through contact with group members through phone calls or at meetings. I am, through that contact, constantly reminded of the truth about my weaknesses and strengths and am kept on track.

Pray for Each Other

Praying for other members of my recovery group individually by name gets me out of my selfishness and adds strength to the other members and builds unity. I can pray for them to have a good day, to have more faith, to get to the meetings, to work the program, etc.

If the things I do to my brothers are the things I am doing to God (Matt 25:40), then perhaps praying for others is even better than just praying to God about things I need or want.

Being “Healed of This Addiction”

Many times, I (and others I have listened to) say that they want to be “healed of this addiction.” What I meant by that is that I wanted to never be tempted again. I’ve learned that’s not how it works. I was not “healed” from ever being tempted by these addictions again. That would be contrary to God’s plan of agency – it would be Satan’s plan. The healing I have seen in myself happens at a much deeper level than the addiction and so the need for the addiction as a painkiller becomes diminished.

At the same time, my faith in Christ increases so that I want Him and His peace more than I want the false relief of the addiction. Before, I couldn’t choose to resort to my addiction or not. Now I can choose to resort to my addiction or not. I can choose!

I don’t want my agency to be “healed” or taken away from me. I want my defects to be healed and I want to increase my faith so that I can increasingly exercise my agency to choose to walk away from these addictions in peace. This has happened to me to varying degrees in recovery. Of course, since I still have agency, I must maintain the humility and faith necessary to remain free so that I can continue to walk away from addiction and sin. I want to choose.

Self-Sabbotage

During the time between getting into the program and getting some serious sobriety, there was a time of self-sabotage. I just wanted to resort to my addiction and so I’d find ways to do it by crossing boundaries, neglecting my needs (like food, sleep, or scripture study) to make myself weaker, surfing the Internet for seemingly innocent things that I know might accidentally lead me to something bad, but at least it wouldn’t be my fault that I accidentally found something bad, right? Then I wouldn’t have to beat myself up quite as badly. Insanity.

These were attempts by me to resort to my addiction without feeling quite as guilty. As the part of me that wants to quit my addictions gets stronger than the part of me that wants to resort to my addictions, self-sabotage decreases. I just had to be patient and keep going to the meetings and working the steps and it got better.

One Day at a Time

This general concept deals with breaking things into manageable pieces as well as living in the “now” instead of the past or future. I don’t sabotage myself with thoughts of how I’m going to stay sober for the rest of my life – just for the rest of this minute, hour, or day. I don’t beat myself up because of the past. I learn from it and apply those lessons to this minute or this hour and use it to help others. Living life one day at a time, one hour at a time, or one minute at a time helps me to not become overwhelmed. This has been very important for me during recovery.

It Got Worse Before It Got Better

When I stopped acting out and lusting, things got worse! What? I thought things would get better when I stopped acting out – why are things getting worse? I learned that I had been using these addictions to escape and numb out the stress, anger, and other negative feelings I was experiencing. For example, if I were feeling depressed or unloved or worthless, I’d resort to my addiction to cover those feelings instead of facing them head on and working through them. Because I rarely faced these difficulties, I never really matured as a person. I was 32 years old on the outside but was still 12 years old emotionally.

So, when I stopped acting out my addictions, these unresolved feelings of anger, resentment, fear, depression, etc. that had built up throughout my life came bursting out. Most times, this convinced me to run back to the addiction.

This is one reason why support from a recovery group and from a sponsor is so essential. Don’t worry, it does get better after the hard times and it’s a bit of a roller-coaster over time, so don’t get discouraged, and never, never, never give up!

Good Music to Support Recovery

I have found good music to be very helpful in fulfilling some of my spiritual needs. “Good music” means music that helps me to feel the Spirit instead of music that pounds my spirit numb. I used to use music to numb myself in the same way I can use pornography or substances to numb myself. Good music has become a way to re-sensitize myself and help me to be more sensitive to the Spirit’s gentle promptings.

My addictions harden my heart and prevent me from feeling anything at all, much less the Spirit. So calm, relaxing music has become an important part of me learning how to feel anything again.

Facilitating

In LDS Addiction Recovery Groups, there’s usually a facilitator at each meeting who shares first. (In other recovery groups, they’re called co-chairs.) They’re just like any other member of the group. They are recovering from addiction and have worked all 12 steps and have sponsored others so that they can share their experience instead of their opinion. They also should have a decent length of sobriety. They make sure the sharing portion of the meeting goes smoothly and that each person gets a chance to share if they want to. Sometimes in bigger meetings, that can mean running a timer to help people remember to finish up their share in time so that all have time to share.

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