Faith in Jesus Christ

“Preach unto them repentance, and faith on the Lord
Jesus Christ; teach them to humble themselves and to
be meek and lowly in heart; teach them to withstand
every temptation of the devil, with their faith on the
Lord Jesus Christ” (Alma 37:33).

I think for most of my growing up years, and the first few years of my marriage after my addiction resurfaced, I thought that it would just take will power to get over it.  I expected friends or priesthood leaders to hold me accountable, and i expected to be able to keep one foot in the addiction by viewing soft-core, or other titillating  material while telling myself that as long as I avoided hardcore pornography that I was okay.

Sometimes the addiction cycle felt like a slow ferris wheel, other times it felt like a tilt-a-whirl, but always i felt like the addiction was in control and that I was at its mercy.

It wasn't until I realized (and I'm still realizing this every day), that I needed to leave myself at Christ's mercy in order to no longer be at the mercy of my addiction.  Today I know better than ever that Christ is in control, if I let him be.  That his mercy and grace are sufficient for me if I humble myself and do his will. If i serve and sacrifice and love and pray and repent and rely on his goodness, then I have the power to overcome my weaknesses, to make them strengths, and to use my own challenges to help others.

The dangerous power of a single image

So I'm sitting at work trying to work, and in a moment of weakness I went hunting for some pornography online.  I did this in a typical, shy and round about way, telling myself that I didn't really want to look at pornography, but was just curious about what was out there.  And in that process viewed one image that wasn't even by itself pornographic, but rather suggestive (a video clip, actually, that would have turned pornographic if I hadn't turned it off).  And now I've spent the whole day wrestling with that one image--some animal part of me wanting to seek it out again, the rest of me resisting it, recognizing that following through with the desire would leave me empty, and feeling guilty.

And yet, I find myself distracted, unable to focus at times because of that one image.

Ridiculous.  Not exceptionally new though.  There are images from 25 years ago that are still ablaze in my mind, and if  I entertain them, I can render myself pretty useless pretty quick.

This is what they mean when they say, once an addict, always an addict.

So what is to be done? Well....a few deep breaths.  A thinking through the action as I am doing now, a recognition of the lie behind the emotion (no, my body does not need that image, no that image will NOT fulfill me), a prayer...and distance.

Ultimately the most significant part of getting rid of the distraction (and ulitmately, the addiction) is to give it time. It's like a weed that has taken root. It doesn't require much water to survive, and the only hope of killing it is to starve it to death.  Without a chance to detox, the addiction will flourish like a mold, and I'll be stuck in a cycle of acting out, or almost acting out, of skirting around the edges of genuinely bad behavior.  Stupid, wasteful, and all part of Satan's plan to keep from being who I need to be.

So, you seductive image that I allowed into my mind, I can't do anything to get rid of you, but I can ignore you, starve you, and smother you.

And that is what  I will do.

-AC