This step as I have said is not a one time thing but is a life time of looking at your life and the past sins and doing some thing about them. You have to peel away the layers of denial and pain and dig, dig, dig for the coal that needs to be thrown upon the fire and purged out. This is not an easy process to do and it is not going to be some thing that ends with the revelation of a few sins.
My sponsor and I have been going over what I have all ready done and he has told me that I have come up with a very good evaluation even though I did not put it in the format he is used to seeing it in. But that is OK for now. I am going to redo it and try to see if the “chart” format will give me a clearer view of what I have seen so far. What I have seen so far is not pretty. Would you like a little taste of what I have seen? Let me see if I can give you a little bit of what I have done without revealing too much.
People I have harmed: Wife, Son, and Daughters. How I harmed them: Could have brought home an STD, absentee father to my children, and uncaring attitude towards the time I was wasting. Review of our own sexual conduct: pornography, masturbation, and going to nude dancing bars. Review of Fears: Did not want wife to EVER find out, STD’S, loss of job, embarrassment and humiliation of being caught in the lies of my sin.
These are not as deep as I have gone but as I have stated before I am not going to reveal my sins here. But if you use your imagination I am sure that you can come up with some things that I have done. What you have to do is look at you and see if there are any of those same behaviors in yourself. Are there some things that you have done that you would have no one find out about? I would be willing to bet that there are more facts about your life that you would NEVER reveal than you would like to admit. If there are you are not alone.
Most of us addicts are very good liars or at least we are very good at taking advantage of the trust others have put in us. I will give one example: at three o’clock in the morning you are sitting in front of your computer screen with nothing on but your underwear or naked and your spouse comes to the door and asks what you are doing. “Oh I just couldn’t sleep so I am doing a little surfing and email clean up.”
No I wasn’t I was checking out all the free porn I could find. Why did I not just rub her back and legs and try to get her turned on enough to have some good old fashioned monkey sex at three o’clock in the morning? I will tell you why. Because porn was easy and quick and gave instant gratification. No rubbing, no coaxing, no conversation, no delays, and no rejection. Also, it was and is my greatest drug. I love porn and at the same time I loath porn.
How is that for a contradiction? I love and hate the some thing. Why? Because there is a war going on inside of me. There are two sides to every war and this is what they are: the flesh and the spirit. I am sure you can guess which side loves the porn and which side loathes the porn. But porn was not the only thing that makes up this addiction. There are other things that I will not be going into at all.
I have written enough for right now but there is more coming. I am sure that there will be parts 4-? However many it takes I hope that you will go with me on my journey. There are still some things that have to be done to clean out some of the infection and there are places that I am going to have to go that are not going to be revealed here. I will not shrink from this I cannot shirk my responsibility any longer.
Thank you and please keep praying.
A Real (digging) Man
