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Making Room for Recovery

Originally posted at: https://puredesire.org/blog/making-room-for-recovery/

Anticipation is a powerful thing. Anticipation itself causes all different kinds of emotions: joy, excitement, anxiety, fear…you get the idea. 

When I dress my 18-month-old son, I’ll count as I put his arms in each sleeve: three… two… one… smile… (sharp inhale) “BOOP.” He laughs every time. He thinks it’s funny when I say “BOOP” but he actually starts laughing when I pause and inhale. He’s anticipating me saying “BOOP” and he laughs. It’s awesome. 

On the other hand, when my wife texts me, “Hey, can we talk tonight?” I’m immediately wondering what I’ve done wrong. 

The anticipation is high when people reach out to Pure Desire to address their unwanted sexual behavior. Understandably, their emotions are all over the map. The most common three-word answer to the question “Where do I start?” is:

Get in group.

And for many people, this answer is a let down. 

“You mean there’s no magic cure? No 21-day fix? No Bible verses I’ve overlooked?”

“You’re telling me I need to go to a 2-hour group every week for 10 entire months? Plus do homework during the week? With travel time, you’re talking about 3.5-4 hours a week. I don’t have this kind of time! I’m a busy mom. I’m a pastor. My kids are in sports. I have enough homework to do for school.” 

Yes. The fact is we have to make room for recovery. 

Before we can begin making room for recovery, we need to recognize that we’ve been living with addiction.

With vs. Without

When we talk about living with addiction, we have a general idea of what we mean. But it can be difficult to tangibly see it. 

Think about it. We understand what it means to be with because we have experienced what it means to be without. 

We understand what it means to live with someone because we can remember a time when we lived without someone. 

The opposite is also true. 

We understand what it means to live without pain because we can remember a time when we lived with pain. 

In this sense, we might be able to picture living with and without addiction.

Occupy Space

This idea of with-ness is still challenging because with-ness often has a physical aspect associated with it. But living with addiction isn’t only physical. 

A more complete way to define with might be “to occupy space.” 

Physically, we understand living with someone because they occupy space in our home. 

Cue the images of dirty socks on the ground next to the laundry hamper, doors left open, and lights left on in empty rooms. 

Emotionally, we understand being in a relationship with someone because they occupy space in our heart and mind, even when we’re apart. 

I was speaking with a coworker about this recently and she said, “I’m here talking with you. But I’m also with my son and daughter-in-law who are in an airplane flying home right now. Because they’re occupying space in my thoughts.”

Spiritually, we understand God being with us because the Holy Spirit occupies space in our thoughts, our actions, our desires, our choices, our finances, and our character. Galatians 5:22-23 says,

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

Galatians 5:22-23

When we find ourselves struggling with one or more of these character traits that the Spirit produces, maybe that’s an indication the Holy Spirit isn’t occupying space in some aspect of our lives.

Make Room

Living with addiction means that addiction is occupying space in our heart, mind, behaviors, and habits. This happens because we make room for our addiction. 

When my wife was pregnant with our son, we spent a lot of time preparing for him. We spoke and dreamed about who he might be and become. We made a list of dozens of names and toiled over choosing his. We packed a hospital bag and planned music for the delivery room. 

We even put together a room in our home that would be known as Harrison’s room. His space. 

Harrison was so important to us that we were making room for him in our home, our finances, our schedules, our heart and mind, and our decision-making.

Sounds a lot like living with addiction. 

Here’s the truth: we make room for what is important to us. 

If our addiction is more important than our health, we’ll make room for it. 

The opposite is also true. 

If our health or our family is more important than our addiction, we will make room for recovery. 

So, when we say that getting into a group is the first step toward recovery, you are being invited to make room in your home, your finances, your schedule, your heart and mind, and your decision-making so that recovery, healing, and freedom can occupy space in your life.

We always have the choice.

I remember one night I put Harrison down for bed and my wife was out at worship practice. Harrison went down easy (can I get an Amen!) but after an hour he woke up crying. I’m talking about the kind of cry that makes you feel like your child is in some sort of pain. 

I tried to comfort him in my arms. He wasn’t having it so I put him down and sat next to him on the floor. He crawled behind a chair. I couldn’t see him so I crawled to where he was within my sight. He hid again so I moved again. The whole time I was letting Harrison know “Dad’s here, bud. It’s okay. Everything’s okay. I’ll be here when you’re ready.” Eventually, he grabbed a book and crawled into my lap. 

God used this moment with Harrison to show me that I often think I know the best way to get what I want or need. God is trying to comfort me or give me what it is that I truly need but I hide from Him or reject His help. I want to figure it out on my own. Eventually, I realize my way isn’t working and I turn back to God. 

You don’t have to join a Pure Desire group. The purpose of this blog isn’t to try and convince you of the value of Pure Desire groups. This podcast and this blog are great resources for learning the benefits of Pure Desire groups. If you’ve experienced betrayal, check out this blog on why a Pure Desire group would be helpful in your healing.

Ultimately, you can choose a different path. But take it from the tens of thousands of men and women who have already walked this road and come to terms with the fact that you will have to make room for your recovery regardless of the path you choose (and it will likely include a group of people). 

Addiction and health cannot coexist. The cost of health is addiction. As you begin making room for your recovery to occupy space in your life, your addiction will suffer. 

Yes, you’re busy. Yes, it’s going to be inconvenient at times. Yes, you will want to skip some weeks. AND your recovery is absolutely worth the cost. 

Get in group.

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5 Phases of Recovery

Originally posted at: http://theresstillhope.org

Quitting your addiction is the easy part. Staying quit is the hard part.

Mark Twain said, “Quitting smoking is easy. I’ve done it dozens of times.”

Dr. John F. Kelly estimates relapse rates at 75 percent. In order to secure lasting recovery, Kelly suggests five phases to the process. 

  • Precontemplation: not yet ready for change
  • Contemplation: ready for change
  • Decision: new course is adopted
  • Action: new behaviors
  • Maintenance: behaviors sustained over time

If you are to live out a healthy recovery, void of relapse, know this – there are no shortcuts. Embrace the process. Get started today.

Recovery Step: Jesus warned us to “sin no more” (John 8:11).

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James Franco breaks silence, admits to sleeping with students from his acting school

Originally posted at: https://www.npr.org/2021/12/23/1067331934/james-franco-sexual-misconduct-allegations-sex-addiction-interview

This article is not meant to shame James Franco, but to bring to light that this problem does not discriminate!

In a rare and wide-ranging interview, James Franco acknowledged he slept with students of the acting school he co-owned, saying he believed their encounters to be consensual despite the striking imbalance of power.

The Oscar-nominated actor has faced several allegations of sexual misconduct since 2018 — which he denied at the time — and earlier this year settled a class-action lawsuit led by two former students who claimed they were sexually exploited and victims of fraud at the now-closed school.

Franco addressed those allegations and his struggles with sex addiction, among other topics, in an interview with The Jess Cagle Show, which posted several clips of the conversation to YouTube on Wednesday ahead of its full release on Thursday afternoon.

“There were people who were upset with me and I needed to listen,” Franco said when asked why he had been silent until now. “I’ve just been doing a lot of work and I guess I’m pretty confident in saying, four years? There were some issues that I had to deal with that were also related to addiction. And so I’ve really used my recovery background to kind of start examining this and changing who I was.”

The 2019 lawsuit alleged that Franco and two other men sexually exploited female students at Studio 4, a New York- and Los Angeles-based acting school Franco founded in 2014 (he taught acting there and also at the collegiate level).

The plaintiffs, Sarah Tither-Kaplan and Toni Gaal, sought to represent a class of more than 100 former female students. They alleged the school set out to “create a steady stream of young women to objectify and exploit,” as well as “circumvent California’s ‘pay for play’ regulations,” which prohibit making actors pay for auditions. They told NPR in 2019 that they were promised that as paying students, they would be offered opportunities to audition for roles in Franco’s projects.

Part of the complaint involved a class called Sex Scenes, which required students to audition and pay an extra $750. Tither-Kaplan said she assumed the class would teach her how to navigate sex scenes professionally, but that she found its goal to be more for students to “get naked and do sex scenes and not complain and push the envelope.”

Franco denied the lawsuit’s allegations at the time, with his attorney also saying he would seek damages from the plaintiffs and their lawyers “for filing this scurrilous publicity seeking lawsuit.” The women dropped their claims in Feb. 2021 after the parties reached a preliminary settlement, and Franco officially agreed to settle the suit for $2.2 million in late June.

“I didn’t sleep with anybody in that particular class, but over the course of my teaching I did sleep with students, and that was wrong,” Franco said in one video clip. “But … it’s not why I started the school, and I wasn’t the person that selected the people to be in the class. So it wasn’t a master plan on my part, but yes, there were certain instances where … I was in a consensual thing with a student and I shouldn’t have been.”

Cagle pushed back, asking Franco how he could not have been aware of the power imbalance between students and their teacher, a very famous actor.

“I suppose at the time my thinking was if it’s consensual, OK,” Franco said. “Of course I knew, you know, talking to other people, other teachers or whatever, like, yeah, it’s probably not a cool thing. At the time I was not clear-headed… so I guess it just comes down to, my criteria was, like, if this is consensual I think it’s cool, we’re all adults.”

Franco also characterized the sex scenes class as provocatively titled, saying it was about dating and relationships and should have been called something more along the lines of “contemporary romance.”

In a statement, a group of former students involved in the litigation against Franco called his comments “a transparent ducking of the real issues.”

“In addition to being blind about power dynamics, Franco is completely insensitive to, and still apparently does not care about, the immense pain and suffering he put his victims through with this sham of an acting school,” the former students said. “It is unbelievable that even after agreeing to a settlement he continues to downplay the survivors’ experiences and ignore their pain, despite acknowledging he had no business starting such a school in the first place. This wasn’t a misunderstanding over a course name, it wasn’t the result of him being overworked – it was, and is, despicable conduct.”

Franco discussed his sex addiction and its impact on his personal and professional relationships

At another point, Franco acknowledged he had “let a lot of people down,” like his students, the Oscars and his coworkers on various movies. Franco talked about being overworked and approaching his breaking point while juggling a Broadway show, movie filming and teaching at four Los Angeles schools.

A year before the misconduct allegations emerged, he said, one of his agents staged an intervention about him being a workaholic.

He talked about struggles with addiction, first to alcohol and then to sex. He said after he got sober at the age of 17, he sought validation from his professional success and then with attention from women. The problem, he said, is that “there’s never enough.”

Franco acknowledged he wasn’t faithful in relationships, saying he cheated on “everyone” before his current girlfriend. He said his sponsor had suggested that infidelity and dishonesty could harm his sobriety but wasn’t concerned about “whatever happens between two consenting adults” while single. Franco said he used that as “an excuse to just hook up all over the place.”

“It was like, ‘Well, we’re being honest here, right,’ and like you said, completely blind to power dynamics or anything like that, but also completely blind to people’s feelings,” he said, adding that his behavior reached a point where he was “hurting everybody.”

He also spoke about his longtime friend and collaborator, Seth Rogen, who said earlier this year that he did not plan to work with Franco again in the wake of the sexual misconduct allegations.

“I love Seth Rogen,” Franco said. “I worked with him for 20 years, we didn’t have one fight … He was my absolute closest work friend, collaborator, we just gelled. And what he said is true, we aren’t working together right now and we don’t have any plans to work together.”

Franco said that while Rogen’s comments were hurtful, he understood that Rogen had to answer for him because he himself was silent. He added that that’s another reason he wanted to speak up — “so people don’t have to answer for me anymore.”