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II. Admitting You Have A Problem Is The Place of Beginning
Remember that anyone can develop excessive sexual desire.
Those who are affected may engage in behaviors that include masturbation, phone
sex, pornography, affairs, prostitution, exhibitionism, voyeurism, child molestation,
incest, and rape. The list could continue but the issue is recognizing the addiction
before it reaches such proportions. I know the point, "Admitting You Have A
Problem" sounds as if it is the patented opening for every recovery organization
that has ever been conceived. This statement becomes less generic in this subject
context because sexual addiction is unlike any other addiction in that it is
so private. It is harder to admit you have a problem when you are the only one
that is aware that a problem exist.
- You must admit that you are powerless over this sexual compulsion.
Because it is unknown to almost everyone else it is very easy to convince
yourself that you can somehow gain control of the problem before anyone finds
out and most certainly before it produces any major, negative repercussions
in life.
The problem with this mentality is that when you fail to acknowledge that
the problem is existent it continues to gain ground in your thought life which
in turn lessens your ability to gain victory over the addiction. It is to
your advantage to admit immediately that you are powerless over this
addiction or compulsion.
- You must make this known to someone, just one person besides yourself.
It must be someone that you know you can trust completely. Someone you would
entrust your life to. We will write a little more about accountability later
but for know you must understand if you do not make yourself accountable to
someone else, you stand very little chance of recovery. Remember it
must be someone you can trust completely. If you put this kind of confidence
in someone you cannot trust completely you will bring more damage to yourself
than you could have ever imagined.
III. Tear Down the Self Made Wall of Isolation
We are finding that most sexual addictions stem from
other "abuses" in life. Please understand that I am not blaming addiction on
someone else because we all have a free will and choice and we are accountable
for our own action.
- What ever the abuse was that we suffered we learned to survive only by
building a wall around our heart.
Although this was a successful way to prohibit the abuse from destroying our
heart, it also imprisoned us in our own walled city, cut off from outside
influence.
- In the process of building this wall of protection we also inadvertently
isolated ourselves from God and His desire to sustain us. This results in
spiritual death and that spiritual death is as real as our emotional death.
- The one thing that seemed to breath new life into our existence was sex
fueled by uncontrollable lust. That lust then became another wall around
our hearting heart.
Now we find ourselves in this magical world that leaves us with the illusion
of acceptance and success. In this magical, mystical world we can be accepted
by anyone we choose. The beautiful girl that we feel would have looked down
her nose at us in real life is now a pawn of our desire. Now we are in control,
anyone we choose will become a participant in our every sexual desire.
- The longer we live in this artificial world the further we retreat from
reality. We can’t be harmed, laughed at, or ridiculed in this walled city.
As long as we feel safe we will remain in our walled city.
So what began, as an attempt to protect us from the fear of un-acceptance
has now become our prison.
Note: Not all sexual addiction is a result of some kind of abuse or isolation.
All sexual addiction comes as a result of choice. In some cases that choice
evolved from much free time or work environments. There are also times when
friendships produce sexual addiction simply through osmosis. It is certainly
true that you become like the people you spend the most time around. If sex
is the subject that your friends and work mates speak the most about, it will
be on your mind often.
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