The Silent Sin

Mind Body Spirit part 2

Body
The battle for the body deals with changing behavioral habits that have led to your addiction. This is often the first area that people start fighting so it shouldn’t be a total surprise to anyone. However, there is much more to this battle then just “not touching yourself”. It’s a start for sure but only a start. Behaviors can be unlearned with time. In my groups we use a rubber band to help train our minds to change behaviors. We wear this rubber band on our wrists, and every time we look at a woman in a way we know is wrong, we snap it. It trains your body that it will not get pleasure from looking at women any more. [Some studies suggest that the pleasure our brain feels from an orgasm is equal to ten hits of cocaine] It may seem silly but many people (myself included) have seen it work. Some say that it takes 30 days to make something a habit or to break a habit. Try it for 30 days and see how much you look lustfully at women after that. (Yes… at first you’ll be snapping it a lot, but snap and look away for 30 days). There are many other tools like this that can help. I’m not going to tell you which one to use because every person is different and some may work and some may not. (I encourage you to share your tools with others in your comments). Beyond behavioral changes there are some habits of being healthy that need to change. When I was dealing with my addiction I was overweight and out of shape. I had no physical outlet for my energy except to act out. It was totally by accident, but about the same time I started to deal with my addiction, I started to get my body in shape, too. I lost about 20 pounds and found a great way to get rid of stress. I work out on weights and do cardio regularly now. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been frustrated (sexually or otherwise) and after I worked out, I felt amazingly better. Just like the tools, I’m not going to tell you which one is best. You find something that you enjoy doing and do that. I like weight training and bicycling… what do you like?

Spirit
In my opinion this is the most overlooked part of recovery from addiction. It’s the one area that we don’t recognize as even being part of the battle. I’ve seen churches pray over addicts once, and then wonder why they continue to fail. Some addiction groups suggest finding a spiritual center but don’t help you to explore and grow spiritually. Let’s face it, for many of us the only reason we feel it’s wrong to look at pornography, masturbate, and have affairs, etc… is because somewhere inside us we believe it is wrong. For me, it is my belief in God and his views on sexuality. If I fight on the other fronts but forget to strengthen my belief in God and His commandments, then I will soon lose my desire to fight my addiction at all. With TV, magazines, radio and every other form of media out there saying that it’s OK to look at a woman’s body as an object, you will need to refocus on the reason you believed it was wrong. When I took a philosophy class in college, it challenged my faith in God. That was one class, two hours a week… how much more will thousands of ads every day challenge your beliefs that it’s wrong to act out? Just like before, the way you do it is up to you, but you need to stay connected to the source of your desire to stop your behavior. I choose to read the bible nightly and spend time in prayer to strengthen and grow in my relationship with God. If you don’t believe in God, I would ask you to stay connected to the reason you desire to change. The battle of the spirit is the battle for your desire to fight. Ever see a fight when one of the fighters just didn’t want to be there? I know this… I’ve never seen a fighter who didn’t want to be there win a fight.

Mind Body Spirit part 1

My fight with sexual addiction has made me realize that this battle is not fought on one battleground, but on three separate fronts. Like many others, I have stories of countless attempts to stop acting out that resulted in little or no lasting success. I started having victories only when I realized I was battling on just one of these fronts instead of all three. I fully believe that unless you take steps to engage your addiction in EVERY part of your life, you will never gain any lasting victory over it.

Mind

I always thought that in order to stop acting out you just had to stop. I used to think, “If I just kept my hands off myself I will eventually win”. I learned later that this kind of sobriety is called “white knuckling”, where a person stops acting out physically only through sheer will-power, but never actually changes his desire to act out. However, if you can get control of your thoughts, you will not have to white knuckle it (at least as often… sometimes you will just have to will-power your way through bad days). So what does the battle of your mind look like? It wasn’t until I started looking at my thought life that I realized how messed up it really was. I spent large amounts of time thinking about sex, women or a multitude of other things that would eventually get me sexually excited to the point where I wanted to act out. I didn’t realize I was doing this; it was just a mental habit that often happened automatically. If I talked or looked at a pretty woman, my mind would wander off to fantasy land where I could have what I wanted now. And better than that, I didn’t have to do any work to get it (life takes work… my fantasies were easy). I soon realized that it wasn’t always sexual thoughts that triggered me. I could have been dreaming about a new car, a new job or anything that would make my life seem better. But when I snapped back to reality and realized I didn’t have these things, I would become unhappy with my real life to the point that I didn’t want to live in that life anymore. So I’d dive into my fantasy land and get some satisfaction there. I honestly believe that I spent more time in my fantasy life than in real life during my addiction (how I survived driving, school and jobs is a mystery). It’s this running from reality that is the mind battle. Keeping those fantasy thoughts out and dealing with the life you have is what helps keep you grounded and sober. How do you expect to stop looking at women if you’re thinking about their bodies all day long? If you have a fantasy of how your wife is supposed to be, how are you going to be happy with the reality of who she is (guess what… woman are not perfect and we all have some baggage and issues that will require work)? I remember being in love with women until I got to know them. They seemed perfect from afar but I got closer and found them to be human, with flaws and imperfections just like everyone. I challenge you to take time this week to keep track of your thought life. If it’s filled with sex, you shouldn’t be surprised if you feel sexual all the time. If it’s filled with fantasies of a perfect life, you shouldn’t be surprised if you feel disappointed with reality. [Let me take a moment to say that I’m not saying you shouldn’t have dreams or desires. But your dreams and desires should be supportive of your reality, not a substitute for it]. In 2 Corinthians 10:5, Paul tells the Corinthians to keep every thought captive. He understood how much the mind affects the body and that were your mind goes, your body will follow.