CASTIMONIA

Sexual Purity Support & Recovery Group

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Castimonia Saturday Morning Meeting Topic – 04/28/2012

RESENTMENT

A friend in recovery once told me that “resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die”.  So in essence, resentment is like drinking poison.  We poison our minds with resentments we hold onto and in some way, shape, or form, hope that the person we resent “feels” our pain.

Well this simply is not the case.  The person whom we resent does not, and cannot feel our pain.  Resentment, however affects us deeply and we feel the pain from our own resentment of others.  No matter what has happened in your life, no matter what was done to you, to hold onto a resentment is your own fault, not someone else’s.

I was sexually abused as a child, and for many years I had this hidden level of resentment for my abusers.  I always kept it hidden deep inside and did not really open up and discuss the resentment I really had for these individuals but in really I was just in denial about the abuse.  I did not even see it as abuse and a resentment until a therapist helped me see my abuse for what it really was, childhood sexual abuse.  Once I opened that door to the truth, I was flooded with feelings of sadness, anger, rage, hate and found myself resenting these other people and what they took from me; my innocence.  I was under the illusion that it was not childhood sexual abuse because my abusers were my age or a little older.  Also, I actually enjoyed the sexual acting out with one girl in particular and never questioned my friends when asked to perform sexual acts with them.  I was under the illusion that sex was part of friendship and that being loved by a female was translated through her wanting to be sexual with me, initiating the sex.  I grew up with this misconception and it greatly affected numerous relationships I had as an adult.

So how do I work on my resentment?  Well the 12 Steps has a solution on working on these issues.  Step 4 states, “Made a Searching and Fearless Inventory of Ourselves.”  What does this mean?  It means we look deep into our character defects and part of this looking deep is to look at where we still hold onto our resentments.

In working a Step 4 inventory on my resentment, I was able to properly list out the resentment, give specifics about why I am resentful, and then in Column 3 describe in detail how it affects me personally (self-esteem, security, ambitions, personal relationships, sex relations).  However, Column 4 is perhaps the most important column in this Step 4 resentment inventory.  In Column 4, we describe where we are wrong in holding onto this resentment.  We list where we were being selfish, dishonest, self-seeking, and frightened and thus held onto this resentment.

For the sake of time and space, I won’t go into all the details of working a Step 4 on my particular resentment.  Please consult with your sponsor for a detailed analysis on working a proper Step 4, as he might see things in your that you cannot see for yourself.

Today’s meeting was held at Rick’s Ranch in Sealy, TX.  The address and directions to the ranch can be found below.  Two or three more meetings this year will be held at Rick’s and we have food, fun, and fellowship afterward.  Getting to know one another outside a normal meeting setting is very important for establishing trust and friendships with one another in our recovery!

April 28, 2012 – Castimonia at Rick’s Ranch
On Saturday, April 28, 2012, Castimonia will NOT be meeting at The Fellowship at Cinco Ranch.  The church will be holding a parent’s summit that Saturday.  Castimonia will meet at Rick’s Ranch near Sealy, TX.  We will have our regular meeting at 10am and have a food fellowship at 11:30am.  We should be finished by 12:30pm but you may leave earlier if needed.

Rick’s Ranch
9597 SE I-10 Frontage Road
Sealy, TX  77474

Here’s a bing map of the location: http://binged.it/JD7AIE

Click on the map below for a full-size image with driving directions.

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Christians Support of the Sex Trade

Excellent write-up on how Christians are supporting, perhaps unwittingly, the sex trade industry and human trafficking!

Christians Support of the Sex Trade

Posted by ⋅ April 17, 2012
My church recently had a campaign to provide some funds to a ministry in India called “As Our Own”.  This ministry takes young girls, with the permission of their mothers, who are highly at risk of being sexually exploited because their mothers are prostitutes and rescues them from a dark future.  They can’t rescue every girl at risk, but they do save many.  Here is the link to their website, please consider supporting them in prayer and by giving a little of your treasure:

http://asourown.org/

We all have heard of the “sex trade”, and generally we all have a good understanding of what it means.  Here is a list of its major components:

    • Strip and Gentleman’s Clubs.
    • Massage Parlors and Spas.
    • Live Sex Shows.
    • Sex Tourism.
    • Prostitution.
    • Pornography.
    • Human Trafficking.

While most of this involves the slavery, at some level, of women over the age of 18, so much of it today does not.  Increasingly girls from about 10 years old and up are being forced in some form of sexual servitude.  What is also happening is that the sex trade business has become increasingly global and is more profitable than the drug business.

Continue reading the rest of the post…..

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Hello, My Name is Sex Addiction

This is a post I found on another blog. I did not write it.

Hello My Name is Sexual Addiction
Date: 2012-02-07, 7:47AM

I will be your new best friend. I am the jealous type. I will push away all other friends, family, wives, husbands, girlfriends, co-workers, sense of loyalty, professional goals and hobbies. I will envelop you until you exist only to feed my appetite.

I’ll have you slipping into behaviors you will hardly believe or chat about with loved ones over your morning coffees. The previous night’s activities will haunt you through the week.

I will make you do things that make you question who you really are. I will show you what being lost inside yourself really feels like.

I will reward you with pleasures beyond anything you ever imagined. Because you will mingle with others just like you. You will all become brothers, sisters and cousins in this family of perversion. In time you will become as sexually engulfed as them. Stable minded, happy, even married individuals will be no match for your attention in the bedroom. You will become the seducer. You will destroy relationships. You will bend minds around your sex.

You will smother your emotional guilt with physical pleasure. And you will never see what a painfully endless contradiction this is. You will try to silence your screams of emptiness with moans of orgasm after orgasm. Yours, hers, his, theirs, its.

Cries of ecstasy will hide your tears of loneliness. Climaxes will become uncontrollable church-like confessions. You will suffer from fits of naked post-coital honesty; but only for a few minutes after

Your masturbation of denial will be legendary.

I will make you truly understand the need for weekly support meetings.

As you slip into deeper rings of my perversion others who have known you for years will take notice of your transformation. Some will be repulsed by the change and will cower away. Others will try and pull you away from me. But some…will lust for you. Ignoring themselves, their vows, and their integrity.

You will make them stray.

You will sleep with dozens, hundreds, maybe thousands and always be hungry. There will be no bottom to your pit.

And no matter how bad I treat you there will always be an unbreakable bond between us.

You will love me endless.

“Hello My Name is Sexual Addiction,” via Craigslist, Author Unknown. Image also via Craigslist

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Toss Your Textbooks: Docs Redefine Sexual Behavior Addictions

Toss Your Textbooks: Docs Redefine Sexual Behavior Addictions

American Society of Addiction Medicine agrees to disagree with DSM
Published on September 15, 2011 by Gary Wilson in Cupid’s Poisoned Arrow
A major event has occurred in the realm of addiction science and treatment. America’s top addiction experts at The American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) have just released their sweeping new definition of addiction. This new definition ends the debate over whether sex and porn addictions are “real addictions.”  They are.

The new definition resulted from an intensive, four‐year process with more than 80 experts actively working on it, including top addiction authorities, addiction medicine clinicians and leading neuroscience researchers from across the country. … Two decades of advancements in neurosciences convinced ASAM that addiction needed to be redefined by what’s going on in the brain.

The new definition leaves no doubt that all addictions—whether to alcohol, heroin or sex, say—are fundamentally the same. Dr. Raju Haleja, former president of the Canadian Society for Addiction Medicine and the chair of the ASAM committee that crafted the new definition, told The Fix, “We are looking at addiction as one disease, as opposed to those who see them as separate diseases. Addiction is addiction. It doesn’t matter what cranks your brain in that direction, once it has changed direction, you’re vulnerable to all addiction.” …Sex or gambling or food addiction [are] every bit as medically valid as addiction to alcohol or heroin or crystal meth.

Click the link below for the full article as well as other great posts on sexual addiction issues.

Psychology Today Sex Addiction Article

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Men’s Sexual Purity Recovery, Is it for you? 80/20 Principle – Part 4

In Men’s Sexual Purity Recovery, Is it for you? 80/20 Principle – Part 1 I openly discussed the issue with excessive lustful thoughts and self-gratification (masturbation).  In Men’s Sexual Purity Recovery, Is it for you? 80/20 Principle – Part 2 I go one level deeper into the viewing of pornography and its effects on the brain and how an addiction can quickly form.  In Men’s Sexual Purity Recovery, Is it for you? 80/20 Principle – Part 3, I went further “down the scale” of sexual purity and looked at situations where a man has crossed the “flesh line” so to speak.  In Part 4, I address the topic question and also address the partners of men who struggle with sexual purity issues.

Question:  Men’s Sexual Purity Support & Recovery, Is it for you?

Answer: ABSOLUTELY!

Regardless of what stage of sexual impurity you might be in as a man, entering a proper support program is essential!

FOR THE WIVES/PARTNERS:

Question: Does my husband/partner struggle with sexual purity issues?

Answer: As a man, there is a strong possibility he does.

Remember the therapist joke in Part 1?  “80% of men struggle with some sort of sexual purity issue and the 20% that say they do not, are lying.” There is a lot of truth to this “joke.”

In today’s sex-charged culture, more and more men are being tempted sexually.  Next time you are at the grocery store, look at the cover or inside the magazines marketed toward men.  Watch a sporting event on TV and you can see how advertisers “know” how to grab a man’s attention! How about the increase in “Sports Bars & Grills” where waitresses wear skimpy outfits?  Who do you think is their target market group? (And men, these types of restaurants are NOT ok.  If you visit one of these restaurants, it had better be your wife’s choice and you better be facing out the window!)    The objectification of women has been normalized in our culture!

Please understand, however, that the amount of sexual purity with which your husband will struggle will vary.  It may only be a struggle with lustful thoughts and fantasies, but it could also be a lot more.  The key is, to allow your husband to seek support for any sexual purity issues he may have in his life.  If he only struggles with “minor” lustful thoughts and actions, it is imperative that he begin receiving support before he moves on to another level of sexual purity struggle!  If he struggles with more, he will find the help and support he needs to become courageous enough to step out of the shadows and into the light.

Ladies, DO NOT shame your husband because he is seeking help with his sexual purity struggles!  It takes a lot more courage to open up and say, “I might have a problem” than to keep it a secret and act as if nothing is wrong.

Ladies, ask your husband if he struggles with any type of sexual purity.  His answer, at a minimum, better be “sometimes or once in a while” even if he does not look at pornography or has had sex outside the marriage!  If he responds, “NO or Not at all” then he is not being truly honest.  And yes, having lustful thoughts is considered a sexual purity struggle.

Ladies, be open and honest about sexuality with your husband.  Don’t shame him for wanting to be sexual with you (and husbands, don’t shame your wife because she doesn’t).  Open a dialog about both of your thoughts and feelings on sex within the marriage.  If there are extreme differences, then a third party (such as a pastor or counselor) should be brought in to mediate, ascertain, and give godly advice to both of you.

Ladies, if your husband plans to attend a Castimonia meeting, DO NOT assume he is visiting sexually oriented businesses, viewing pornography, masturbating, having an affair, or is a “Sex Addict.”  Understand that Castimonia meetings are for any man that struggles with any type of sexual purity!  You, the wife, should be encouraging your husband to attend.

At Castimonia meetings we learn tools that help us combat sexual purity issues.  We learn about what real intimacy is between a husband and wife – not just physical, but, more importantly, emotional and spiritual intimacy.   We learn to be open, honest, and intimate with other men and use these men to support us in our battle against sexual temptation and sexual impurity.  We learn to be a “team” of warriors and not isolate ourselves.  This is where the enemy wants us; alone!

So next time a Castimonia meeting is being held, wives, you need ask your husband, if they have not attended, why they are NOT going to the meeting.  Encourage them to reject passivity on the subject of sexual purity and seek to be the sexually pure men that God wants them to be.  Encourage them to lead courageously and be the spiritual leaders of your household as well as have the courage to speak to your children now or in the future about healthy sexuality.   And enourage them to learn how to be truly intimate and love you in ways that are healthy!