A Sexual Bottom
At 33, I was living rent-free in my mother’s basement apartment, sharing a twin bed with my first wife.
I had a glass of stolen red wine in my left hand, balancing a massive sandwich in my right, while smoking a cigarette...and was wondering how I could masturbate into the trash can...
And it occurred to me, at that moment...that my life might be unmanageable.
Sex addiction is NOT pretty...
Natural Consequences
“In many cases, our primary problem was not our acting-out behaviors themselves, but how they ultimately affected our lives.”
Not agreeing with the moral standards of my society has cost me dearly relationally.
Help me to have mercy on myself...for the beating I have taken, as I fought for my psychological life against my alcoholic parents..
Deliver me from my own Evil
When I was 20 years old I used to have sex with ugly girls. There were a couple of reasons:
- Mainly, I had such low self-esteem that I was too afraid to approach a pretty girl
- “Not-pretty” girls knew they were not pretty and were much more malleable in reaction to my dastardly selfishness
- They were plentiful
This sounds so evil when I read it, it’s hard to believe...But, it is the truth.
Once, the most spiritually gifted man I’ve ever met said to me:
“You could be the most evil man of the 20th century”.
In typical addict, needy-for-attention style, I replied, “Really! The most evil?”
Evil and Chastity
"Wisdom is mobile beyond all motion and she penetrates and pervades all things by reason of her purity."
What does evil mean?
(Hit it, Dave!)
sinful
iniquitous
depraved
vicious
corrupt
base
vile
nefarious
pernicious
destructive
wicked
depraved
unrighteous
corrupt
disastrous
calamitous
woeful
miserable
sufferingful
sorrowful
...Chastity protects me from all these because:
"Wisdom is mobile beyond all motion and she penetrates and pervades all things by reason of her purity."
What if you do slip?
What if the craving gets a hold of you, again?
There are two ways to kick: Cold turkey and to titrate.
Cold turkey stops all at once and the best suggestion there is to live in meetings until the withdrawals wear off.
Titration is a term in chemistry where you determine the concentration of a substance...and then cut down steadily, and slowly.
Eg., If I am smoking a pack of cigarettes a day, next week, 15, the following week 10...you get the picture.
But what if you relapse in multiple addictions simultaneously?
AA says “Stop what’s killing you the fastest, first”.
They don’t want you thinking about smoking, coffee or losing weight when you are trying to get sober from alcohol. That’s the easiest way to fail.
So, in a train wreck situation I pick out what is most deadly in my arsenal of self-destruction...And then decide whether to kick or titrate.
I find sex, drugs and alcohol to be best treated, cold turkey.
I find food, caffeine and tobacco to respond best to titration.
Everyone is different...
Regardless, all I have to do is be honest with myself and God will be able to reach me.