A Monthly E-Zine For Those Recovering From Addictive Behaviors

"Why Fight Alone?" by Jim Rumczikas

The Laughing Corner: A few short jokes… Remember, laughter is the best medicine… A merry heart doeth good like a medicine! Prov. 17:22

by Elisabeth A. Freeman

With Valentines Day on the way, love is in the air. Couples are counting on Cupid to draw back his bow and put an arrow through the heart of the one they desire. However, Cupid is as mystical as a fantasy can get. He’s just another fairy tale character.

However, there is still hope for love. But you may be looking in all the wrong places. Sometimes we’re so busy trying to find love, that we forget what true love is.

People often make the statements, "I love chocolate." "I love pizza!" "I love ice cream!" "I love hearing the birds chirp in the spring time." "I love basking in the hot summer sun." "I love watching the changing colors in the fall."

Here in America, the word "love" is way overused and misinterpreted. Love isn’t about the things in the world. Although we may really like some things, it isn’t love we’re feeling. It may surprise many of you, but love isn’t a feeling at all—it’s a choice.

We can choose whom to love and we can also choose when to love.

I Corinthians chapter 13 really opened my eyes to this same principle. "Love is very patient and kind, never jealous or envious, never boastful or proud, never haughty or selfish or rude. Love does not demand its own way. It is not irritable or touchy. It does not hold grudges and will hardly even notice when others do it wrong. It is never glad about injustice, but rejoices whenever truth wins out. If you love someone, you will be loyal to him no matter what the cost. You will always believe in him, always expect the best of him, and always stand your ground in defending him." (I Cor. 13:4-7 TLB)

Using these principles, we can obtain true love. The choice is ours. In fact, God tells us that when we live by the laws, "love the Lord with all your heart" and "loving our neighbor as ourselves" we will be keeping all the commandments.

Love is giving, not giving to get. Some of us have only known selfish love. Some of us don’t give at all, let alone GIVE IT ALL! But those who truly love others will give and expect nothing in return. True Love Has Been In The Air Since The Beginning Of Time—it comes from God! God is Love.

by Elisabeth Freeman

I received a beautiful bouquet of tiny pink roses for my birthday. As I began smelling and touching the delicate flowers, I thought about how much I’d love to have my own rose bush.

But then I thought of what the florist told me when I had this idea once before. He mentioned that rose bushes don’t start out all flowery and smelling good. And that most begin with a thorny stem that is planted into the ground. And even after the bush is planted, the buds won’t even appear for at least two to three years. And each year I’d have to contend with the painful thorns, and make a habit of pruning and trimming them back.

I soon realized that a rose bush and a marriage have a lot in common. When couples first marry, they tend to look at the beautiful bouquet in the vase (their spouse). But when they discover a thorn or two (a flaw or sin), they’re not so thrilled.

Just as every rose has its thorn, so every relationship has its imperfections. However, with proper love, commitment and care, the marriage will blossom into a large, productive vine.

By Paul Cook

One of the challenges people face in recovery from sex addiction is the rediscovery of pure affection. Affection is a God-given ability we have to show others that we love them. Pornography corrupts our ability to give and receive affection. It takes the love out of sex and replaces it with lust. It reduces the other person in the relationship to a sex object and makes sex the highest aim. The result is that the porn addict’s affections almost always are tainted with the motive of getting sex. He may even forget how to express loving affection without the expectation of sex.

I experienced this corruption firsthand in my life. I didn’t realize the damage my porn addiction had caused until several years into my marriage. From adolescence forward, I had looked at porn and pursued sexual relationships with women I dated. I had bought into the lies of porn, equating sex with love. After God freed me from the addiction, I discovered that my wife’s interest in sex seemed to be declining. I thought I was doing everything possible to keep the fires going, but the romance didn’t seem to be there. I finally mustered the courage to ask her and she told me that she desired non-sexual affection. The problem was that I was showing her too much sexual affection. She wanted to feel loved and valued. She didn’t want to feel like I wanted her only for sex. She told me that women want affection that isn’t tainted with the ulterior motive of getting sex. When a husband gives sexually oriented affection only, the wife starts to feel like a prostitute. She feels devalued and cheap. As a result, her sex drive evaporates. This revelation was difficult for me, since I had been thinking as a porn addict for so long. Things like romance and non-sexual affection seemed alien to me, but I asked God to teach me.

God calls us to cease from living in our old lustful patterns and to start living for righteousness. For singles, this may be the most difficult, especially if you have been showing sexual affection to someone already. You will need God’s help in restoring your relationship to purity without losing the relationship. For married people, the challenge may be to tone down the sexually oriented affection in favor of showing more non-sexual affection to build romance. This can be a delicate but rewarding process, as it will improve the overall health of the relationship.

For those who have no idea how to show pure affection, here are some suggestions: gentle hugs and kisses, holding hands, kind words expressing adoration, love notes, encouragement and showing appreciation. These kinds of actions foster romance. Gary Smalley once described this as treating your loved one with reverence and respect, as one would treat a treasure of great value.

Learning to love is a challenging process, but we have the best teacher in the world helping us. God is the author of love and God is love! With his help, we can walk into a renewed, growing and vibrant relationship with our loved one.

No, definitely not! Especially when the enemy is surrounded by so many fanatic followers and living in an area unfamiliar to the president. The enemy has a good deal of resources and uses deceitful thoughts and terrorism. The enemy is very mobile, secretive, and can attack in an unsuspecting moment. He wants to paralyze, cripple, and destroy. He counts success by taking down innocent people. His sole purpose is to destroy us and everything we stand for.

Just as there’s a war going on in our world today, many of us are fighting the battle of sexual addiction. So, why can’t we win this sinful war? We’ve tried real hard. It seems too hard. Even when we try our best we can’t help ourselves. Well, without even knowing it, we may be trying to fight this war all by ourselves.

What would you do if you were President Bush? Would you make comments like "We can never win this war" "Our missiles will never hit their targets" "Our armed forces aren’t good enough to fight a battle of this magnitude" "We’ll have many casualties" "The bottom line—we’ll lose this war". I don’t think any leader goes into battle wanting defeat. And that’s not what are president predicts—in fact, just the opposite. President Bush states that we are going to hunt him (Osama bin Laden) down, smoke him out and bring him to justice.

The Bible tells us in 2Cor 10:5 "…and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ." President Bush got alone with God. He let God fill his thoughts. Naturally, his human side would have commanded him to retaliate immediately. However, he spent time to develop a successful strategy before striking. The Bible tells us in 2Cor 2:11, "Lest Satan should get an advantage of us; for we are not ignorant of his devices." Let’s do what President Bush did; let’s develop a war strategy for this battle with sexual addiction.

First, we must turn to Jesus in prayer and ask for guidance through this war. We need to search the scriptures and discover who we are in Christ, to turn over our entire self to Him, seek to find Christ’s purpose for our life, and find our significance in Christ alone. In Matt. 7:8, we are assured that if we ask, seek and knock; He will answer.

Second, we must begin to think and speak positive words from scripture. We need to bring every negative thought to Christ for renewal of our minds. I have fights and arguments in my mind all of the time. I asked Jesus how I could practically overcome these evil thoughts. The Holy Spirit told me to pray whenever I felt tempted. As I yielded to the Spirit in this area, my thoughts became positive and I started saying, "I am a conqueror". Of course, the conquering came over time.

Think about President Bush. He has repeatedly told us that it will take time to win this war. In a society where instant gratification is not quick enough, we may not like the idea of a "slow win against the flesh." But the good news is that we have already won. We just have to conquer and subdue the flesh. The Israelites were given the Promised Land. All they had to do was to subdue it from the giants. Are we still fighting those giants from our "Promised Land"?

Third, we must understand the enemy and his tactics. Satan tempts us with evil thoughts and then condemns us for doing them. We need to examine our enemy before the battle. There’s no time to figure out the enemy and his tactics once we’re in the midst of the war. If we note our times of temptation, level of tiredness, emotional level, our stress level, our boredom level, the type of communication level with our spouse or friends, we will have a clear idea of when we are at our best, which will create a better rate of success. This analysis will provide a profile to win battles. Keep in mind that pornographic thoughts work with other demons like addiction, control, lust, deception, rejection, need for self-fulfillment, guilt, shame, boredom, etc. We must ask the Holy Spirit to reveal all the things in the world that are fighting against us. It could be television programs, web sites, a place we sometimes go, a person we see, but no matter what it is, be assured it is the flesh, and demonic forces behind it.

James 1:5 states, "If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him." After we ask God, we must take the time to listen to the answer.

Fourth, set a strategy. We must pray for the Holy Spirit to guide us into a personalized plan of defense and offense. Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to fight along side us. Don’t fight alone. God is on our side; use His resources. Praying when temptation comes is a good first line of defense. Jesus also spoke the scripture when he was tempted by the devil. Be on the offense by planning a diversion(s) at the point of temptation. Go jogging, read the Bible, watch Christian TV, go to Christian web sites on the Internet. Don’t channel surf. We need to clean our camp (house, apartment, office) of sinful objects, etc. Determine and be aware of trigger points as they unfold in order to divert an attack. Satan not only has a plan for us; he has patience to carry it out. The Bible states that people perish for lack of vision. Let us not fall because we did not have a strategy to be an over comer.

Fifth, find a friend who will hold us accountable for our actions. This is a tough step. We don’t want to admit that we have a problem, especially to another Christian. Crucify pride at this point and it will be a whole lot easier. Once sin is exposed to the light, it will die faster. In isolation, the enemy will gang up on us and beat the hope out of us. The Bible tells us in Gal 6:2 that we are to carry each other’s burdens. If we act on this scripture, we will have a partner to pray for us and help us win the battle.

Satan has never had a good thought about us. However, he is defeated. He doesn’t think he is, so we need to personally carry that message to him (and possibly to ourselves). We can do this by praying, asking and seeking. Continually speak and think positive biblical affirmations. Understand the enemy and set a strategy for total annihilation. As President Bush has his cabinet members to help him, we need to recruit a support person or group to help carry out the offensive attack and defensive posture. Remember, in Christ Jesus we are more than conquerors. That makes us SC–Super Conquerors. So why fight alone?

"How are you going to deal with people at work? Do you want to improve your relationship with them, or keep it where it is?" another decision I face.

Decision I ? or Decision II ? May I please have a few minutes to wake up?

It is how a person looks at decisions, especially in recovery, that can make a difference in staying or straying from the course. This is not easy! Maybe I should capitalize NOT in those four little words. That big "not" is for myself as well as you, too.

Some people believe that a person can just clean up the dysfunctional, nasty behavior in their lives in a split second. Granted, there are some situations where this happens. And, darn it, I do not have "the answer" as to why or how it happens.

I believe being directly involved with recovery work such as: the 12-Step fellowships,
talking with my sponsor, reading healthy material (like "The Big Book" of Alcoholics Anonymous or other 12-Step related books and articles) - is a vital decision.

Vital in the sense that if we're serious about this recovery business, and really want to clean up our inner selves, it's time to get to work.

It takes me time to settle down and get focused on healthy reading. It's a grace-filled process; God's grace becomes even greater and amazing as the words of Bill W. in the first 164 pages come alive.

The Twelve Steps are not "you must" statements. These Steps are here for you and I. There is a spiritual component to this material. Even the stories throughout the latter part of "The Big Book" offer hope, grace, peace and mercy in just incredible ways.

Making decisions may start hitting us when we awaken from a wonderful or restless sleep. Until we draw our last breath and head to eternity, that's the way it is. Making healthy decisions is a different way of life. How many years have I spent making screwed-up decisions because my inner self was all messed up?

God only knows.

All I can do now is take one day at a time (a trite-but-true statement) and pray that all my decisions be filled with the grace of God. Through this, many others will start a journey of healing. A person may have to retrace his or her steps in life, deal with their miscues, make amends and let it roll.

Decisions, decisions. Mixed together, the grace of God and seeking His guidance can help make those decisions and re-prioritizing in our lives work. They will help me grow into a better person day by day and experience what healing grace is truly all about.

Several men are in the locker room of a private club after exercising. Suddenly a cell phone on one of the benches rings. A man picks it up and the following conversation ensues:

"Hello?"

"Honey, It's me."

"Sugar!"

"Are you at the club?"

"Yes."

"Great! I'm at the mall 2 blocks from where you are. I saw a beautiful mink coat. It is absolutely gorgeous! Can I buy it?"

"What's the price?"

"Only $1,500."

"Well, okay, go ahead and get it, if you like it that much."

"Ahhh, and I also stopped by the Mercedes dealership and saw the 2002 models. I saw one I really liked. I spoke with the salesman and he gave me a really good price ... and since we need to exchange the BMW that we bought last year..."

"What price did he quote you?"

"Only $60,000!"

"Okay, but for that price I want it with all the options."

"Great! Before we hang up, something else..."

"What?"

"It might seem like a lot, but I was reconciling your bank account and...well, I stopped by to see the real estate agent this morning and I saw the house we had looked at last year. It's on sale! Remember? The one with a pool, English garden, acre of park area, beach front property..."

"How much are they asking?"

"Only $450,000... a magnificent price, and I see that we have that much in the bank to cover..."

"Well, then go ahead and buy it, but just bid $420,000, OK?"

"Okay, sweetie. Thanks! I'll see you later!! I love you!!!"

"Bye."

The man hangs up, closes the phone's flap and asks aloud, "Does anyone know to whom this phone belongs?"