Keeping Secrets

Tough isn't it? You know I was thinking about all the secrets I kept over the years either out of shame, guilt, fear, ego, and I am sure other psychological verbs that don't come to mind right now. The effort involved was just plain exhausting. Years of spending life in fear of one thing or another being discovered. The double life of lovers on the side, pornography stores, money spent on strippers, money spent on prostitutes and liquor at local bars looking for the next score. Worrying about the police picking me up and my secret life being revealed. Why did I keep those secrets? In retrospect I don't think I was used to living a different way. That is what I knew from a child covering up the abuse and my family covering for Dad's alcoholism, I grew up learning to keep secrets. So in my adult life I just naturally gravitated toward a double life because I knew I could control it, I had a handle on it. That was really not the case, all secrets get revealed at some point and God only knows whats going to happen when they do.

Lets face it, the secrets we keep as sex addicts are just down right ugly. That is what I want to focus on now. I was reading some stories in a 12 step book of recovery from sexual addiction and they told of secret lives, secret sex, family secrets, secret this, secret that, secret, secret, secret! Getting the feeling there is a pattern to your life to mine and ours to other sex addicts? Well there is.

That is the fuel for this addiction, secrets rule the lives of many. They (like in my life) dictate what we say, where we go, they force us to remember lies told, they create worry, pain, exhaustion, contempt, can build resentments, ruin others for the sake of the secret, provide exhileration and a high. They can also kill you. I have attempted suicide as a direct result of a double life and all the secrets I had within me. It was just too much to handle, I didn't know whether I was coming or going, scrambling to remember, scrambling to cover up, living in worry for years that things would get revealed or I would slip up and say something wrong that would expose me. All for absolutely nothing, my secrets did get revealed, I did confess, and I lost years of good quality life I will never get back because I spent all that time on my other life and covering the actions I took within that life. There was no greater pain than watching my wife be reduced to tears and feel betrayed by actions I took early in our relationship, and into the first few years of our marriage. That is one of those moments where you feel God should just take you out of the game, because you just screwed up big! The part I regret the most about all those secrets coming to light is not the fact they were revealed but the hurt it caused her. You can not put band aids on an internal wound of the heart. I would give my life to take back all the pain I have caused her with my choices. That is what secrets do to other people, and these secrets in sexual addiction are personal, very personal. They have the power to ruin hearts and destroy lives, and yet we keep on. Why? Because we are selfish. We want to keep doing what we are doing, or we don't want to face the consequences of our actions, we don't want to hurt others (but we also don't want to face seeing the hurt we cause). Any secret is primarily based in self, secrets have direct effects on one or more areas of lives and we protect them.

Jesus talks about secrets in a parable I used early in one of my blogs but I will share it again because God knows all we do, no matter how good we think we are. Luke 8:16-18; Jesus said, "No one lights a lamp and then covers it with a bowl or a basket, or hides it under a bed. A lamp is placed on a stand where its light can be seen by everyone who enter the house. For all that is secret will eventually be brought into the open, and everything that is concealed will be brought into the light and made known to all. So pay attention to how you hear. To those who listen to my teaching more understanding will be given. But for those who are not listening, even what they think they understand will be taken away from them." How true it is, even if we take a secret to the grave, that lets us know that it will be revealed beyond the grave. There is just no getting around it. What do we do about it? Step Five says: "we revealed to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs." This is designed for repentance, relief, and admittance aloud to see the chaos we have created and have lived in. God does not want us to live with these secrets and go through emotional turmoil. Why should we? Has it done you any good to keep things inside? It hasn't me I can tell you that much. Granted my spouse doesn't know all my secrets, nor does she want to. But God, my counselor and other group members know them, as well as my elder board and you guys. They are not weights for me anymore. They have been told, they have been revealed, like I said, the fall out wasn't as bad as the hurt it caused, but we have healed or are in the process of doing so. Am I saying "go tell your spouse everything" of course not. That can do a lot of harm to another person. But get them out somehow, confession, repentance to God in prayer, tell a sponsor or fellow group member, tell your counselor. You just can't let them eat away at you like I did for so long. I do not want that for anyone. Do not be like me and get so many secrets locked inside you that you bust at the seams one day and ruin those close to you. Don't.

Remember what Jesus said "for those who hear and understand more will be revealed" He is inviting us to come clean and live a life with Him, and He will teach us and guide us. There will be a day when the secrets will disappear and no more will be made, that day is possible through a life with Christ. I am striving to reach that day, I may fail now and again but let me share with you a truism. My worst day with Christ is better than my best day with my addiction. What do you think I am going to keep picking? What are you going to pick?

My prayers are with you. Jason.