CASTIMONIA

Sexual Purity Support & Recovery Group

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Castimonia Saturday Morning Meeting Topic – Step 12 Step Study

Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we try to carry this message to others and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
“Praise be to God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4)

In today’s Castimonia meeting we reviewed Step 12 from the Twelve Steps for Christians and the SAA Green Book.

saa-green-bookA friend of mine in recovery sent me the following story:

A man falls in a hole.  The sides are steep and he can’t climb out.  He looks up and sees a doctor walking by.  He asks the doctor for help.  The doctor writes out a prescription, throws it down the hole, and keeps walking.  The man in the hole thinks, “how is this supposed to help me?”  He looks up again and sees a priest walk by.  He asks the priest for help.  The priest writes down a prayer and throws it down the hole.  Again, the guy wonders how that is supposed to help.  Finally, he sees his friend from the program walking by.  He asks his friend for help and his friend climbs down in to the hole.  The man says, “hey, what did you do that for? Now we’re both in the hole!”  His friend says, “Yes, but I’ve been down here before and I know the way out.”

Only an addict can help an addict.  Having had that spiritual awakening that comes from working the preceding 11 steps, my life turned from being completely dependent on the help of others to wanting to help others, wanting them to feel the freedom I have felt, a freedom that came from being helped by others and surrendering to Jesus Christ.  Since I had been down in the hole before, I am now able to help others out through a proper recovery program.  I desire to help others out!

The scripture that goes along with this step is a very important part of the 12th Step.  I am to comfort those in trouble with the comfort I myself received from God.  My comfort came through working the 12 steps and learning a new way of life that placed God, not me, at the center of it.  Therefore, I have chosen to help others come to a spiritual awakening in Christ Jesus, just as my sponsor (and others in the program) helped me.  The comfort I received from God was a knowledgeable and caring sponsor, friends in the program, and men (and pastors) from my church that helped me along the way.  God purposely placed those men in my life!  I choose to allow God to use me, as He will, to help other men coming into the program recovery from sexual impurity or compulsive sexual behaviors.

One of the biggest benefits I experienced from working a secular 12-step program in SAA was that it allowed me the choice of who or what my higher power would be.  It allowed me to choose Jesus Christ, not just have it placed in front of me.  It then allowed me to learn more about Jesus, to read the Bible, to learn all I could, to attempt to understand all I could.  This process continues today!

With the spiritual awakening also comes an attitude of gratitude.  We are grateful for what God and others have done in our lives.  We are grateful for all the good things that have been given to us, and we are grateful for the freedom we experience one day at a time.  We stop living a “white knuckling” life and start living a life full of gratitude that revolves around our all-powerful God.  With this newfound gratitude, we begin to have a heart of giving, wanting to help others, desiring to help others out of their hole.  We learn to do this with our higher power at the helm of our own recovery and allowing those new to recovery the opportunity and adventure of discovering the “highest power,” Jesus Christ!  We take the message of recovery to others and continue to practice it in our own lives.

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Sexuality Can Kill You

I read this poem and found it fitting in the case of a sex addict and how our compulsive sexuality can kill us…

Sexuality Can Kill You
by newrussell5087

It consumes you
devours everything in it’s path
and is never satisfied
your mind is on fire
and your body screams
sexuality can kill you
if you keep fanning those flames
What brings us life can bring death as well
I am discovering this fact all too well
near death myself
I just want to stop this craving
I need to find my way out of this deep dark well
sexuality can kill you
and leave you wanting more
even in death
you seek sex
what could be worse than your greatest pleasure
leading to an even greater pain?

Sexuality can kill you.

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VIDEO – Spouse of Sex Addict Testimony

The spouse of a sex addict gives her testimony on how her own recovery helped heal her and their marriage.  Often times we mention how it is important for both the addict and the spouse to enter their own recovery program and a couples recovery program so that both addict and spouse are on the journey together.  Spouses cannot ignore the sexual addiction and say it is only the addict’s problem, not their own.  From the car crash analogy, the addict was driving the car and the spouse was in the passenger seat.  The addict chose to drive recklessly down the wrong side of the freeway head-on into an 18-wheeler.  Who is going to need medical attention?  Both the addict and the spouse.  The spouse had no idea the addict would do this, nor did they have any control over the situation.  Regardless, they were in the car and now require their own medical (mental) attention.

A wife of an addict shares her story of recovery from her husbands Pornography / Sexual addiction.  Her insights into the efforts required to find recovery, as well as the gifts that she received from God are hopeful.

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Against The Odds

I read this poem on addiction and recovery and found it a very interesting reflection on addiction and recovery.

AGAINST THE ODDS
by Pete Ak

I crawled through the desolate universe of addiction
Dug myself low to the depths of despond
Squirmed and slithered as the chemical shroud of anguish
Clothed me in its cold and messy heartless clasp
I wallowed and floundered in my uselessness
Debased myself and surrendered to the cruel stabs of paranoia and dependency.

Craving devoured and deprived me, its victim, of humanity’s greatest gift
For my reason scuttled away like a frightened rabbit.
Then toxic, filthy night black resentment
Crept effortlessly through my veins;
It’s malignant curses poisoned my spirit
And found a home for loathsome introspection.

I dwelt there; trapped
I stooped there, fooled by life itself.
Helpless, beaten as if slain by a ruthless assassin,
Inflicting upon myself the transcendent humiliation of self pity.

Our visit here, a mere finger-click in time
Reasons for staying, prosaic and sublime,
Co-mingle to a multi-coloured alloy
Of confusion and hurt; exhilaration and joy.
A pregnant mosaic that can create and destroy,
Red-hot and blinding; eschewing adventure
Laying us to waste unless we quench
The thirst of the spirit; drink from humanity’s magic.
Consume the capacity to dream wonders
And the urge to realize them.
Swallow the determination to overwhelm
Against the odds.
Recognise the miracle of change,
The strength to endure,
The joy of cherishing,
And the ability to grow
Bigger than the hole you’re in.

Flowers of discovery reveal;
Tearful testimonies heal.
Dwell in natural enchantment,
And eventually – die of having lived.

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Happily Remarried……

They mocked me on tv. For weeks, I couldn’t escape the news. One man made all of us look ridiculous. Every single one of us in this unfortunate group. One golfer made his sex life news and suddenly every talk-show host, every radio personality, even newspaper columnists became “experts” on what it meant to be married to a sex addict. Questions like, “How did she NOT know?” and accusations like, “She knew the whole time.” were common. And then, even worse, were the jokes that being married to a sex addict should be fun. Well, it’s not fun. And no, we don’t always know. There is a factor of manipulation that is involved with sex addicts. They control. They limit contact. I should know. I was married to one for 6 years.

I thought I was marrying a future pastor, but I couldn’t have been farther from the truth. Within a few months, my first clues about his behavior surfaced. He assured me it was only on the internet and they’d never met in person. I was still bothered greatly, but he promised he’d cut off communication with her. And there’s more. This was the first time he condemned me… attacked me for looking at his things. He made me feel so terrible that *I* apologized to *him*. That’s when the cycle started. Every few months, I’d find more women he was contacting on Craigslist or dating sites. Every time I’d find something, he’d get angry with me until I apologized. You’d think my friends would clue me in to the irrationality of this cycle, but that’s just it. Whenever I’d start getting close to a new friend, he’d come up with a reason why I shouldn’t be friends with them and he’d end the friendship. By this point in our relationship, I was completely manipulated. I believed what he told me because I needed to believe what he told me.

Eventually, I started realizing that I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I’d stumble across women he was contacting while he was asking me to fix his computer. He’d get angry at me for stumbling across things, but I wouldn’t apologize. So, he wouldn’t talk to me until I pretended that nothing had happened. This went on for a few more years until I couldn’t pretend and kept insisting that he change. I couldn’t continue to share him with his internet temptations. That’s when he’d threaten to kill himself if I didn’t drop it. So, that worked for him for a bit longer. About five and a half years into our marriage, I discovered that it wasn’t just internet behavior. It had never “just” been internet behavior. My husband had been cheating on me the whole time we’d been together… even before we got married. What followed this discovery was about a month of him admitting to what I found, denying that there was more, me finding more, him admitting to what I found and denying there was more. It was a long cycle and it finally ended when I accepted the fact that I’d never know his “number” because HE couldn’t even keep track of all the women he’d been with while we were married.

So, we moved into the next phase… where to go from there. I found an online recovery program for sex addicts. It had a sister program for spouses/partners of sex addicts. It became my saving grace. God used that program to make me stronger and allow me to rebuild myself. I dropped from 130 to 98 pounds during this time. I didn’t feel a freedom to leave him, but he disgusted me. I wanted out, but I knew that if God could change him, it would be better for my kids, so I told him that I’d stay for now as long as he got help. I couldn’t guarantee that I’d stay forever, but I wanted him to get help. This is the point where people called me weak. They said I was just scared to leave. They said I had no self-respect. But they were wrong. I wasn’t weak. I was strong. If I hadn’t been strong, I’d have run away from him long before. About three months into this new discovery, things became very clear. I was on the phone with him, when he made this statement: “Okay, here’s the deal. I’ll stay with you IF you stop checking behind me to see if I’m cheating.”

And that’s when I knew. He WASN’T going to change. He had no desire to change. And I laughed. I actually laughed. On the phone. With my sex addict husband. I was finally free to leave. There were no regrets. I walked away free and clear with no doubts and no self-blame. And I walked away knowing I did everything I could. So the next time you hear about one of us… the wife of a sex addict, think twice before you joke, belittle and ridicule. Before you call us ignorant or stupid or weak. Think about the strength we have to find just to survive. Think about how hard it must have been for that wife to put on a happy face every day. And give her the respect she deserves.

Spouses of Sex Addicts are the strongest women I know.  There are many that TRY to make the marriage work, taking the hard way trying to stay in the marriage, rather than the easy way of running away.  In this story, this was not the case; the addict did not want to change.  At least the spouse tried to make things work…..