Help

In the next few paragraphs I am going to take you to the lower moments in my life of just pure brokenness and how when I asked for help it was received.

To begin with, when people ask you, "Have you excepted Jesus as your Savior?" Do not get uncomfortable or look at them like they are a freak, and I will tell you why. People asked me that question for years and years. They asked "do you know him" and being a wise acre from time to time I said things like, "yeah I know him, he was over for breakfast this morning". Or I would say, "hey man I appreciate it but you got your beliefs and I got mine, so lets leave it at that". Little did I know till just a couple of years ago that Jesus sent those people to me because I needed it. He tried to reach me and live in my heart for a very long time. But I was to caught up in myself to hear it or heed it. However, since I have asked Jesus to be my savior there has been a very defined healing that is taking place within me. This can be done for you to, it can be done for everyone. So do not shun the people that ask that question, you don't have to answer them but at least think about it. I honestly had no idea how asking that question from the heart was going to change my life, absolutely no idea! Now before we proceed to the depths of my Hell on Earth let me share a prayer with you that I found here online, which is just one of I am sure a million different ways to ask Jesus into your heart. Again think about it, don't just read it and forget it, then it is my prayer you will actually do it, but here it is:

"Lord Jesus, I believe you are the Son of God. Thank you for dying on the cross for my sins. Please forgive my sins and give me the gift of eternal life. I ask you into my life and heart to be my Lord and Savior. I want to serve you always."

Let me take you to my moment with Christ which I shared with a man that loved me enough to take me by the hand right to the Savior Himself. That man was my counselor. I told him what was going on with me and that I was just feeling this impending sense of doom around me. Emotional pain physically manifesting itself to my inner senses of sight and touch. I could feel and see shadows of things (no I am not nuts) but I believe evil spirits were watching me for whatever reason (not for me to know why, nor do I want to know) but I had told him and my wife I can feel them outside the door waiting for me, I could see gray shadows quickly pass rooms I was in. I was just plain frightened. Cool chills in my alone time. The stuff horror movies are made from. But it happened, I truly believe as I wrote in my last blog I was warned about my souls' destination. But he asked me as I was sitting on his couch sucking on my comfort candy, "Jason, have you asked Jesus to truly be your savior?" To which I replied, "I believe in him if that's what you mean" that is not what he meant. I became filled with emotion and I started to sob as I was feeling that low and out of hope. But in that moment I knew I needed a Savior, I just talked to Him, nothing more. I told Him I was so sorry for what I have done, that I needed help. I had a heart to heart moment with Jesus Christ. As I talked past the lumps in my throat and the tears in my eyes I submitted with one big lump "Jesus will you please be Savior, I need you, help me please." My life has not been the same since, because once you ask, you do receive and now you have a helper that God places within you directly and that is the power of the Holy spirit, and to affirm that truth here is a passage I found that Jesus Himself promises to those who believe:

John 14:26; Jesus said, "But when the Father sends the Advocate as my representative-that is, the Holy Spirit- He will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you."

What an amazing truth, and countless numbers of people around the world can give a testimony to that truth Jesus promised so long ago. Think about it and then ASK HIM!

After I asked Christ into my life, I was attacked by the enemy over a two month period of time. He was angry I am sure of it. But I was truly attacked, my lusts were mounting, my thoughts became vile, I started down a path that ultimately ended this way: I became addicted to prescription pain medications such as vicadine, Valium, and other mood altering prescription drugs. My alcohol use increased. My life was spinning out of control, till one day enough was enough, I had quit my job and did not tell my wife, my insurance was good for about a month longer so I make the decision to go into a treatment center to get help with sex, drugs, and alcohol. I received some help from some guys at an AA meeting and they provided the support needed. I then went home and placed a Valium gently on the table and I told my wife I need help. We got me into a treatment center not far from my home and I started to receive treatment because God provided us a means to be able to pay for it. Now keep in mind my insurance only had 30 days on it. So at the end of one month I had to go to my counselor at the facility and tell her what was going on. After I received my chew out for poor choices and lack of communication, we had to call my wife and tell her so she could start the insurance that day on a COBRA plan or I was out. That went real well as you can imagine. My wife was stunned, and my counselor supported and encouraged her not to fix it. So I had to call my mother in law, tell her what I did and ask for the money. Who was feeling proud that day (sarcasm). She loaned us the money. My wife was hurt because we had sat discussed what I would do with the job when I got out (there was no job to be had when I got out). But God despite my lying saw fit to get me help and once again provided my help when I needed it. At the same time, because we were only living on my wife's income God once again provided, she asked Him to help stretch the gas for the car as she was making a 180 mile round trip twice a week, He Did! She asked Him to help stretch her food, she ate meagerly but He did! God took very good care of us despite my lies, weakness, and complete disregard for anybody but me. HE HELPED! You know as I read even just up to this point, it amazes me the amount of love in my wife's heart for me. She is a very good woman who got very wronged by me. She endured many more things I will share as this story unfolds now and in the future. But she is the wind beneath my wings. She loves me, supports me, and requires more of me. But the best part is she sees me. Who I try to be and who God made me to be. If you find a woman like mine, don't do what I did. She is truly amazing! This was truly a case of insanity where God had to intervene on my behalf because I was not making very sound decisions.

This particular incident created a year long spiral that ended in a divorce from my wife (who I am by the way, with the help of God, remarried too.) But my descent started after a move to Florida for a few months after I got out of treatment. I returned home to be with my wife and everything was fine for awhile, but as time went along, I became angry and disassociated some day's started drinking more heavy, stealing from my job, my pornography urges picked up in intensity and Satan was on the attack again, we separated by me moving into the other bedroom, I would come home after the bar closed, until I eventually moved out. The divorce got filed and I really struggled in my little apartment. Just a side note to that little apartment. When I first moved in, after the landlord left once the lease was signed, I found a pamphlet on top of the fridge that I did not notice when I was looking the place over, it said "Do you Know Him?" God was there right from the start. Move forward to when I got a computer to keep me company and that is when it all went bad. I spent hours downloading and surfing pornography pictures, I signed up on sites that took my money because I would forget about the three day trial and my account got hit and I started over drafting my account. I would not eat right or spend money on fast food, I was taking myself directly into financial ruin. I started loosing sleep by staying on the computer till 4 or 6 in the morning, I lost weight I looked bad. I was living on fast food, frozen pizza, and checking account advances. Pornography and masturbation had become my world. I would work, come home and look at porn, go to bed and so on. So I had hit a breaking point and I remember one night after watching hours of video streams of home made porn, I went to bed and I knew I couldn't stop on my own. I curled up in my bed and pulled my pillow close and my blankets close and just cried. I prayed to God and I told Him, "Lord I am dying a spiritual and moral death, I am slowly becoming a shell and I do not know what to do. I am scared for my soul and if this keeps up it will be horrible to live, because I will be morally dead. I need help, please Lord help me, I know I should have started that group and I didn't. I wish I had Lord" and I cried for a while longer before drifting off to sleep. The next day I got up and checked my email and a man I had talked to about beginning a sex addicts anonymous program a few months prior to all this, sent me an email and it said this, and I quote: "I am down in Dallas right now on business, but I was guided toward getting a hold of you this morning, how is the plans for the SA group coming? Do you need any help with it? Just haven't heard from you in a while. Doing alright?" That is God being in your bedroom, when you are hurting and needing help. That is God at work and that is God having a personal relationship with you. It is possible. He also led me to my Elder board at the church to have them pray over me after I told them all that had went on and what state I was in. Those men loved me enough to listen, not judge, and I heard some very heart felt prayers said for me. That is God helping. Now I have an SA group started and He continually helped in the process of getting one started. That is His Group and this is His blog.

So in conclusion, I can give me many more examples of help received from God, that would take to long because He is so active in my life. He simply wants us to know that to all who read this; He is there and does care about all of us. My prompting for this message was He wants us to seek refuge in Him and make our requests from the Heart and have faith that He will provide. Like I said from the beginning this is Gods blog and I believe in my heart of hearts that is what I heard Him say to me about this subject. Call on the Lord in your darkest times, your hopeless moments, your desperate hours. He will be there. Ask God to help you and believe you will receive through faith the help you need. Then listen, watch, and do not disregard coincidence, because that is Gods way of remaining anonymous. He has many helpers and people that He uses. Ask and you will receive, Scripture has already promised and God does not go back on His word. But you must have faith.

I want to leave this prayer with you;  Father in Heaven, Jesus has promised us the Holy spirit to intercede on our behalf and act as our advocate for His place within us. We pray that through faith we can receive that gift. Our actions have taken an amazing toll on our lives and we need your help. We need your love, and Father for those who still suffer I ask they be covered by the blood of Jesus Christ as your covenant with man has promised. We do not want to do Satan's work and we want to heal, we want our families to heal and we desire the peace only You can give us, only You can free us from our bondage. For those who waiver in faith, Father it is my prayer that their wavering be steadied and remain steadfast from this point forward.  I pray this prayer for all of us. Father We love You. In the precious name of Jesus Christ we pray. Amen."

Stand up for yourselves and ask for help, from God and the people He sends you.
My prayers are with you. Jason.

God

The following is a personal letter to God- may He hear my heart in it.

Dear God,


I have been running through the different things to say about you in my blog today. I have since deleted what I had because it wasn't what I wanted to say. What I really wanted to tell you is that I am sorry for worshipping the little "g" gods in my past. I know you love me and you care about me, I know you know my name, whats in my heart, how many hairs I have on my head (gray and otherwise), I know you know what my room looks like and despite all my indiscretions you want to know these things. That still amazes me to this day.


This blog project you put me on has been tough, but you knew that the only way I would really see myself was if I wrote it down. That has been some of the best therapy I have received in years. Not that my counselor isn't doing the job, because he really is, thank you for putting him in my life. But this has been a very exhausting yet exhilarating experience all at the same time. Lord it is my hope that those who have happened upon this page have walked away with hope for their own recovery or have discovered strength for something else in their life, addictions or not. That they have seen there is a solution to any problem and that is you. I was reading through some of the posts yesterday and today and what an insane life I have led up to this point. It is a wonder I have come out alive as I shouldn't of been. Yet you felt it better to save me from myself and those that have tried to do me harm over the years.


Over the years that seems like a century rather than the 39 years I have been on this Earth. Father I think about the pain I put my wife and my first wife through. All the lies I have told my wives, my mistresses, the police, my bosses, my parents and brothers, girlfriends, and as stupid as it sounds I think I lied to a dog once. For what purpose? I honestly can't even justify those lies anymore, I can't rationalize the hurt I have caused, I can't even say anything to you about it. You know why, who, where, for what reason, how much, and when each one occurred. My judgement day will more than likely be me standing in front of you saying, "I have no excuse, you are 100% right, I did those things because I was selfish and you weren't even in the picture half the time or more!" But really what does somebody say in that situation? You know everything, there is nothing to hide, you know it all.

Father your child is broken but is mending through your Grace alone. Its your Grace that is allowing me to relive my past with perception. For that I am truly thankful. I have tried to bury the past but that never quite worked out because I am reminded "you have to know where you have been, to know where your at" and where I am at is where you want me to be. Home. Still blows me away I am back here and she is in there sleeping. What even gives me the right? Evidently you do and she does. I am going to take care of her this time. The work you and I did at that little apartment after our divorce still boggles my mind. Once I conceded that you are my one true God and all things good are possible through you, my soul opened the flood gates to truths, experiences, and fears unlike anything I have ever been through. Just amazing man!


I want to touch on the small "g" gods that ran my life for so long. I never worshipped you like I needed to. You represented limitations on my addictions and my other selfish attributes. So I worshipped gods that required of me money, keeping secrets, and a bunch of my time.The abuse and the alcoholic Dad and the alienation of me by my brothers took a toll in the early years. I knew the first time that I had my first liquid orgasm at the "Safeway" grocery store bathroom when I was nine that I wanted more of this and I believe that is when I started to pull away from you. The little Catholic boy with the dirty secret(s) couldn't worship you and it at the same time. I converted to the Church of the Immediate Pleasure because that god brought results in my time, my way, and in my favor. So I shunned you I believe as much as a nine year old boy can anyway. That was the beginning of the Masturbation god.


Then when Porky took me out that night and we saw all the prostitutes I just knew I was going to return. Father you know how much I regret loosing my virginity to the Hispanic hooker on the greasy couch in the back of that small engine shop. I don't even remember her name. I remember the twenty bucks and thinking that's an economical way to have sex, oh yeah I will be back! Insanity nothing but.

God, so many times that I worshipped the neon of the strip clubs and adult book stores. Thank you by the way for saving me from the life that was death. I know other people are going to read this letter to you. I am sure you are ok with that though. But Father how do I even begin to give back to you? I have taken so much. How do I continue with this series of writings and express and demonstrate the pain that I have gone through? How can I illustrate the tears that have fallen at my feet by those close to me because of this sexual addiction? How do I tell them that this life leads to eternal death in a place that wants to devour us last by pleasuring us first? How can I even describe the tortures of mind some days? I know that others can relate, this story needs told for your Glory. This story is everything I have to the very fiber of my soul which is being refreshed by you, the God that I shunned to pursue my own lesser gods of Immediate Pleasure. Father all who are out there engaging in this life I pray for the salvation of Christ to bring them out of it. Hell is real.


You know I started this over a year ago, at your continuous prompting, because my pain inside couldn't stay where it was at. You know that my desire is to help others and try helping you save them from the eternal death, has been very taxing on me. I have been praised, degraded, embarrassed, made to feel less, shunned, ignored, cursed by a couple of people and treated like I have an infectious disease. But your strength brought me through and we are starting to make a difference. Help me Father honor you and please, please, continue to use me as a tool to do your work.

I know I have disappointed you, made you sad, made you glad, and Father I hope I am starting to make you proud, I don't know if that is good or bad thought to make you proud, but it brings me hope and strength. All who need to know, help me try to tell them that salvation and redemption is possible through the blood of Jesus Christ. If we believe, we shall have life everlasting in a place that is the pinnacle of Love, peace, and acceptance. The Kingdom of Heaven is our inheritance to a Godly life. Livining a non Godly life our inheritance is eternal pain and constant horror.


I read the book you gave me to read, "A Divine Revelation of Hell: by Mary K. Baxter" and the words on the page screamed at me to turn my life toward you. I got the very strong impression that the book was a warning to me that eternity in that place was possible. But Father I have to admit the things I read, the exactness of the details and the pain with no escape, literally scared the Hell out of me. Thank you for putting that red flag out to me. I will share that book with others.

In closing, I don't want to close. I want to keep talking to you but I know I have to conclude.
Thank you for Jesus, thank you for my wife, and thank you for redemption.


I love you,
Jason

Fear Factor

Fear: what do you really say about it? Fear is one of those things that addicts and non-addicts alike face everyday. They stem from childhood trauma's, self esteem, relationships, social standards, financial problems, grief, and many other things that are too numerous to mention. We as a people not just addicts have things that hold us back, keep us up at night, and hinder many aspects of our life including religion, sex, and relationships because of fear of something.

I personally am getting to the point where I have had enough. I have been doing some reading on spiritual warfare and have read some interesting points on what fear can do to a persons mind, body and soul. Satan knows his days are numbered and so do his fallen ones. I know I have mentioned life being like a game of chess and we the people are pawns in a spiritual battle that we don't see. But I have to tell you, I believe it. I have read in books and in the Bible how Satan uses our fears, our insecurities, and our self esteem against us. God has not given us a spirit of fear, fear is not a gift from God. It is a tool of Satan and he is using it to bring us down and drag us into a lifestyle that is built on decisions based in self. Now don't get me wrong I am not saying that I am perfect or that I don't make decisions based in self because I do. I do, I do and I do. I do not feel good about those decisions but I do make them because it is more comfortable to live in fear than to face what I know is going to require more of me than what I am comfortable doing. I can do some amazing things like tell people I am sex addict and stand and directly answer questions about it. But I can't tell my wife I am hurting still over our loss of miscarried children, because I have a fear of facing my pain about it. So I make the decision based in self to keep it inside and that pain comes out in anger, confusion, sexual acting out to receive comfort and feel normal. I get tired of running from my fears, I have been fearful since I was a kid about one thing or another. So having an addictive personality I seek comfort in something and it usually isn't positive. It has truly wore me down. So to find out that fear isn't a Gift from God to keep His believers safe but a tool of Satan I actually feel violated.

With that being said, I can't begin to know your fears only you know what they are. I can only say this as a sexual addict fear is our enemy, Satan is our enemy and we our falling right into his trap of seeking comfort in many things that is not God honoring. For every act of comfort from fear that isn't a prayer for help is a victory for Satan, a loss for us, and essentially it is a sadness for God I will bet. As believers in Christ we have to drag ourselves out of fear and quit seeking comfort in our addiction. I have had to face that fear head on this week and to say the least it is quite disturbing to realize my fear that keeps me in my addiction is the fear of living without my addiction. Remember I had a post that asked God about what my road block to my addiction was? He told me. "You have given me your heart but you have not given me your head, we have work to do there still" He was right. It is what I have known essentially 94% of my life and that is to be sexual, to seek comfort and hide. To use sex, alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, isolation, anger, anxiety, selfishness, resentments, lies, and other clinical terms that I more than likely have done over the years to run from fears. Notice prayer didn't make that list. I did.

Fear is a tool of Satan, and we as a species of people are naive enough to call his work our comfort zone. Fear squashes the spirit. It is the hardest battle we fight as human beings because it requires more of us. We can fight for peace, or Independence or justice or something else. We can have opinions on others lives as to what they should do and how they need to act. What they need to stand up for blah, blah, blah! But we fail ourselves. I have a lot of fears to overcome. I still act within my "comfort zone", but I am fighting for myself to address those fears one fear at a time. I wouldn't say confront them if I wasn't trying to do that myself one day at a time. If I wasn't that would make me a hypocrite and Jesus makes his point very clear on hypocrites, He does not like it when people do that.

Lets talk about Jesus and fear for a minute though. Jesus is the son of God, He is God become man and paid the ultimate price of dying of horrible death to give us life eternal if we believe in Him and the reason He did it. But His death was horrible and He knew it was going to be. That day which He was sent to Earth to accomplish had arrived. He spent hours praying in solitude asking His Father to Take the cup from Him, He was very scared. I do not blame Him, He got beaten bloody, scorned, mocked, betrayed, spit on, nails driven through His bones and set up on a Cross to die for the whole town to see. Soldiers were auctioning His clothes and others continued to mock Him saying "why don't you save your self" while he was intense pain, then to top it all off He got stabbed in the process. I myself couldn't of walked over to soldiers to give myself up knowing that was going to happen. So in that regard I think He even took care of our fear of death by confronting His own. He gave us knowledge that we should not fear death because we will have life everlasting through His sacrifice of being innocent and dying a criminals death. Fear is a tool of Satan and Jesus once again defeated him by not letting His fear keep Him from what was the right thing to do.

Fear is such an individual subject that only we know what we need to confront and what we make be walking into by confronting it. Jesus did it. It is not easy, I still struggle with lots of fears, I am working on them. We all need to. Because if we stay caught in fear, Satan can work in our lives as he has done in mine and continues to do. But each time we confront a fear, it is no longer a fear, it becomes something that we will know how to deal with later if it comes up, if that makes sense. Or it will completely alleviate a problem that has been plaguing us for years.

So in conclusion, from a stand point of addiction, we all know what our fears have made us do, what we know we probably will do, and keeps us from what we know is right. I myself do not want to get to my last breath and have it be one of fear because of the sins I have done to avoid fear.

I searched for scripture on fear and this is the passage I have been led to share and I think it is a really good tie up to us running to everything else but God to escape fear. This passage is from the book of John. 1John 5;21: Dear children, keep away from anything that might take God's place in your hearts.

My prayers are with you all. Jason.

Escape

Step Two in the Twelve Steps of the Sex Addicts Anonymous program says; We came to believe that a power Greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. In some cases as sex addicts that power usually isn't God. We seek everything we can till we find something that works to help us escape from problems. This step is crucial to our recovery. We need God or at least the concept of a Higher Power to get better. If we believe what we do works and we are as good as it gets than we are in a world of hurt. Because if we are as good as it gets and things still aren't working what is going to restore us to sanity? Came to believe doesn't have to mean you already do but it opens the door to the possibility that there is being greater than ourselves that can provide help and comfort when we need it. That concept in step two is an open invitation to freedom. In the following paragraphs we will look at we do and what we could do.

The 1st commandment says: "I am the Lord, Thy God, Thou shall not have any other God's before Me" But we do. In my escapes I wanted to get away from reality for brief periods of time, as I am sure we all do. I was seeking comfort for something going in my life. It could have been as big as a relationship issues or as small as boredom. But I sought out everything other than God. I would drink, look at pornography for hours, I would masturbate. I became so caught up in that escape of masturbation that I would sometimes have what I called "sessions" where I would prepare an area and grow almost high at the preparation and then the act was as close to Heaven as I thought I was going to get. Why couldn't I have spent that time in prayer. Do you know what kind of praying and help I could of asked for in the amount of time I spent preparing and doing? It shatters the imagination that's how much.

I was stuck on what to write with this subject and I asked God finally, "Ok I am stuck, what am I missing? What do you want me to say with this?" Then the answer came to me. "MY people are not running to me, they seek refuge in false idols" False Idols I thought, yeah that makes sense any escape can be an idol. Bars, women, masturbation, pornography, and even isolation. If we worship these things to help us feel better instead of seeking out God, then we are worshipping something other than Him. You wouldn't think Isolation would be a bad one if you were not really acting out, if you just wanted to be alone. But there is getting away from things for a while just to take a breather and there is what we do, cutting ourselves off from everyone, making a conscious effort not to deal with the world. We may or may not act out during these times but when the decision to stop dealing with life is made, our world becomes our Idol. We dictate when we will be available, what is allowed in the world and what is not, no phone calls, in short our world becomes our god but God is not allowed into our world. He wants to be. He would rather you talk to Him and seek comfort in Him than us shutting down life or acting out with our own bodies.

So we do have to believe a Power Greater Than Ourselves Can Restore Us To Sanity. Left to our own devices we will fail. Seeking comfort in external things will lead nowhere, self pleasure only last for a few minutes than the shame last for hours. I guarantee you when I have sought the comfort and the support of the Lord in a private moment where I have shut out the world to do something positive like prayer, I have never walked away shameful, irritable and feeling like garbage. It is when I have isolated and masturbated or looked at pornography, or hid from the world terrified to be seen that I walk away feeling those things.

Escape is a tough tough tough issue. There is healthy escapes like reading a book, taking a walk, watching a movie, getting a hobby, calling someone you love. All OK things I think. You might actually call those activities instead of escapes. But seeking refuge in the negative to feel positive is a bad thing.

Why do you need to escape? What is going in your life that you are escaping from? What feelings are you experiencing? Have you prayed? Why not? There is a power Greater than ourselves. That one is God and he loves you. I have experienced His open arms and believe me He has plenty of room for us all. Prayers can keep things in perspective, provide comfort, can stop us from acting out, can help you feel like you are not alone, but most importantly can tap you into a source of love that's literally out of this world.

So in conclusion, when the world gets tough and you are feeling out of control, maybe a little nuts or life just seems a bit hard that day there is choices you can make. You can rely on yourself, the pornography industry, the local tavern, the local talent, or God. So escape all boils down to one simple idea: Seek or Sin.

Let me leave you with this, for those who believe in a power greater than themselves. Pray. For those who don't but don't have anything to lose try this prayer: I may not know you but others do, help me get to know you, work in my life because I am all out of options. I have put my trust in asking for this help and they say those who seek will find. For now I call you my Higher Power, You are greater than me and I ask for help to my problem. Please my Higher power restore sanity and meaning to my life. Tell me what needs done and help me accomplish those tasks.

My Prayers are with you. Jason.
P.S. This blog is about me, these are the choices I face everyday sometimes.

Denial

I have no scripture to add to this post except this is God's blog. I pray His words reach you and provide the comfort and support you need at your darkest hours. Let me start with a prayer for us all.

Father in Heaven, we are in conflict with our bodies and minds. For what we know to be right is not easy to do for us. We admit defeat and have decided to recover. Father we ask that your will be done in our lives. We hand over our minds, our ears, our eyes, and most importantly our hearts for you to work in to help us recover from this addiction to sex. The enemies strongholds are great and our earthly will is weak. We seek and ask for your supernatural intervention on our behalf. Father we ask for this help and admit our defeat in the precious name of your Son Jesus Christ. Amen.

Denial is extremely detrimental to a person suffering from sexual addiction. I refused to see that anything was wrong with me for the longest time. I knew I had anger issues,depression,anxiety and other other emotional issues going on. I blamed everyone for everything. They were the reason things were as they were. I was in denial that I had crafted an addiction to sexual behavior because I wanted to escape pain. I wanted to be normal so desperately that I learned to deny at an early age. One of the clues should have been when I gave up a college education to pursue my sexual behaviors. Let me tell you how that came about. When I graduated High School I was granted a full tuition to a community college where I lived. All I had to do was attend. My books and tuition were completely paid for. So I started attending and I had picked up work in the process at a local company making pretty good money for kid of that age. This gave me plenty of money to pursue my activities at local adult book stores. Plus I was able to frequent some of the prostitutes in the area. My sexual cup overfilled. School started to take a back seat. It was the money I wanted. An opportunity arose at my job for me to work more and make much more money. I didn't even think about it; Sure! I could always go back to school. My frequent visits to the bookstores increased, I would spend hours at 18 plus non-alcoholic strip clubs throwing money at these girls. Prostitutes had me as a regular. I saw nothing wrong with this behavior, I was just having fun maybe I was just a little oversexed but whats wrong with that right? I had a box of pornographic magazines and video's that kept getting bigger. Denial was pretty evident as I read this last paragraph.

It seems to me as I look back over the years that I guess I really didn't want to think I had a problem. I felt bad for some of the things I did. I felt the shame and regret that comes along with doing things that you know not to be morally or spiritually right. Yet I couldn't admit I had a problem. Life for me was going in order I thought. I graduated High School, started college, moved away from my parents started my own life. My drinking became worse and so did my addiction to sex. I was asked to leave two homes because of my drinking. Even with that I denied I had a problem. They were just being touchy. But when two people with drinking problems ask you to leave because you drink to much, that's funny and sad at the same time.
Life has been confusing for me. I used alcohol and sex to cover up the fact that I was feeling misplaced. Since childhood I felt I never really fit anyplace, so I would use my imagination to feel like I fit in or I would use it as an escape, so I used my imagination to be a cowboy or rock star using my tennis racket as a guitar and disappear for hours on end. But when I became an adult I used my imagination to be a responsible adult. In my mind there was no difference between me and the guy next door. There was only the difference of I was just "over sexed" but that's all.

I can give so many more examples of denial that I could sit here and write for days on end. But that wouldn't help me to rehash old memories and wouldn't help you. Plain and simple Denial is the art of self misconception. It is us manipulating our own minds to create an existence we can live with. It blinds us to issues we have and creates false issue's in others that are not true and poorly misplaced on them. Step four in the 12 steps requires a fearless and moral inventory of ourselves. Written out our Denial is in black and white. If we don't see the denial clearly evident than we are still in major denial.

Consider what has gone in your life to this point, has it been peaches and cream the whole way? Have people told you that your problem is causing issues? Have you listened and try to correct the situation with taking your responsibility in it into consideration? I haven't, I try now but still suffer from some denial issues. That is where God comes in handy to ask him. Or a support person or your counselor. Is Sex a solution to the problem? Does Sex provide you self worth and importance? Does the idea that you are a sex addict disgust you and you want to distance yourself from that label? Do you hide pornography, women, and bank receipts? Are you admitting you have a problem with sex but it is not as bad as people think? Chances are if other people are telling you have a problem it is already a noticeably bigger issue than what you think. Does your mind tell you that you are just fine? Hint for your mind to tell you that, you already know you are not. You can be like me and deny the problem till you have a trail of victims, poor credit, and a bunch of failed relationships. Or stop denying that I yes I need to seek help. I convinced myself I could beat this on my own. Denial that I was too weak.

I want to share my latest denial with you and then I will shut up. I am having an issue with masturbation still and I asked God what the road block was. My ears didn't open up for days because I was in denial that something was going on that I had to take responsibility for. I thought, "ok I am working a program, talking to people, concentrating on my wife, doing the right things with my job. Life was going in order. So why was it still an issue? Why was it so tough to be alone and white knuckle not doing it? Why was I getting so irritable?" The answer finally came to me once I shut up and opened my ears. "You gave me your heart, but you didn't give me your head. We still have work to do there." That made sense because my Heart holds the love and the desire, my head holds the memories that allow me to recall, my head holds my eyes that allow me to see and get triggered, it holds my ears to hear things that trigger me. It also holds my mouth that over loads itself and causes the issues that masturbation helps alleviate. So I need to give God my head too. When your head and your heart work together, I am coming to realize that is where God's best work can be done.

So in conclusion to this, Give God your Head and your Heart. Don't deny him the chance to work in your life and help you get better. Don't feel like you can't go to God with these things. He already knows us and what we have done, how we feel, what we have been right or wrong about, and knows our hearts and heads better than we do. God loves us, if you are angry at Him talk about why, if you struggle with holding head up in front of Him then humble yourself, it is a private moment. Denying God is the worst denial. If we do that, we are not only denying Him, but ourselves and our loved ones as well.

My prayers are with you. Jason.