Saturday, November 8, 2014

Recovery: Being Born Again

So here is something i hear alot about from other addicts and the spouses of addicts pertaining to the "no slips in recovery" argument:
-"I don't agree with the no slips in recovery because it's demoralizing."
-"The addict feels like they have to be perfect, which makes them feel hopeless."
-"They won't try because it seems impossible"
There's more, but they come to the same types of conclusions.
Now, I'm not in recovery. I'm not close to being in recovery. I've got a little over 9 months of sobriety. So i can't tell you what someone in true recovery can tell you. I've never experienced life at that level. I can say that while I've believed this, (that there are no slips in recovery) my sobriety has been the longest ever, and the people i know in the different sex addiction programs, some of them my good friends, who believe that slips are ok, maintain a few weeks of sobriety at a time.

And if it sounds like I'm bragging I'm sorry if your offended, because that's not my intention. I don't believe that I'm any better at anything than anyone in the program. In truth, i can relapse at any minute. The desire to escape reality and act out isn't ever that far away. It feels like walking a tightrope over the ocean. ( i use the ocean as an example because deep water is probably my worst fear.) I just know that if i felt like slips were okay, I'd be where i was a year ago and be "slipping" every other day (if not everyday) and I'd be telling myself i was on the road to recovery, which would be a lie.
So I've thought of reasons why God has seen fit to help me more than some of my compatriots. And i believe that the belief of if a slip is okay in recovery or not is a huge one. 
In response to the statements that no slips in recovery are disheartening, hopeless, and unobtainable, i say this:
"EXACTLY!!! ISN'T THAT WONDERFUL? THAT'S THE WAY IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE!!!"
because, by definition, I'm an addict and addicts DONT recover. It's impossible. It is impossible for an addict to recover. Doctors and scientists agree. It's impossible. We WILL NEVER RECOVERY FROM OUR ADDICTION. Acknowledge it, accept it, and if you've genuinely accepted it as fact, you've accepted that your life is unmanageable.
So then how do addicts recover? If it's impossible, then how do some of them make it?
BY ACCEPTING THAT HOPELESSNESS, IMPOSSIBILITY, UNUBTAINABILITY and giving up and turning to the Higher Power.
It's supposed to be impossible. It IS impossible, so it's exactly right that recovery is OUTSIDE OF THE ADDICT'S GRASP.
Recovery will not happen if we don't put our complete trust in God. There's no other way around it. It is totally outside of my power to recover. But it is not outside of God's power.
Some say, "but you have to do the work. Your working the steps and listening to your sponsor and doing all the good stuff like prayer and scripture study and not isolating are the work" but that implies that you take part in your recovery. That means that you can get away with saying, "yeah i got what i worked for and when i couldn't do it anymore God stepped in and helped me do the rest."  Which isn't trusting God. This is trusting in ourselves and trusting that God will help us sometimes when it gets too much.
I know. I know. I've started a riot. Yes i have said that we have to put forth effort and that God can only put as much effort into it as we do. But our putting forth effort isnt to try and do our part in the "change of heart". Because we can never do that.  We are addicts and its impossible for anything we do to change us. To say that we do all this work to help us trust and change is to declare ourselves insane. (By definition insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result)
So why do we put forth the effort? To what end? Because we realize that we are damned (adultry is so grevious that it is second only to murder. He that lusteth after a woman in his heart hath committed adultry) we are damned, and we acknowledge that we are damned, and our efforts (meetings, therapy, calls, stepwork, connecting with wife, etc) aren't to "prove" ourselves or gain any ground in recovery and exaltation, they are our efforts to do good because we know we've failed but we want sooo much to BE a godly person. We want so much to be other than what we are, and those efforts are testimony to our desire. We turn to God and say, "i know that i am damned and NOTHING I DO CAN HELP me change, but i want to be different. I want to be better than what i am, and so I'm doing the things that a godly man does because i WANT that so much. I do these things because i want to WANT to be that." And then, after acknowledging our nothingness, not expecting recompense, we ask God to do the impossible. To change us. NOT TO TAKE AWAY OUR DAMNATION, BUT TO DESTROY OUR SOUL AND MAKE US A NEW CREATURE. TO BE REBORN A NEW MAN IN CHRIST.
We take no part in our salvation.

2 comments:

  1. Great post. My husband has about 5 months of sobriety. You sound a lot like he does about this subject of no slips.

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  2. That's a miracle! I'm glad he's read Andrew's book and has decided no slips are a good thing. How's he doing with withdrawls? I know around 4 and 5 months it really starts beating the crap out of people. (At least it did me.) Hope you both are doing great!

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