Relapses, will they happen now that I know the truth? Yes and no. Let me run through what used to happen in my life when it came to relapsing. Before I knew the truth relapses meant having to find something new, some new way of dealing with my addiction. It was in a way like my addiction, with every relapse I had to step things up a notch to find healing. I think every addict knows what I’m talking about, it is like things work for a while and then they don’t. With every relapse also came another round of guilt and desperation that maybe I would never be free. Relapsing in the old days meant months worth of struggling to get back on track, with no assurance I would ever make it back on track.

So what about now? Knowing the truth does not mean you will never fail, but the relapse is different. You do not have to look else where for information, techniques or help, you already know where the problem lies, and it’s just a matter of teasing it out of your life circumstances. Secondly the guilt and shame should be manageable if you understand where this failure is coming from. And thirdly the time needed to get back on track is days, not months.

Let me take each one of these separately and expound on them a little. What is pornography about? Power, right? So if you are experiencing a relapse in your life the first thing you have to do is examine your life and find the source of your need for power. In other words we have to find the area of our life we feel powerless in and recognize this is the source or cause of our relapse. Just recognizing those areas of our lives we feel we have no control over is a powerful way of overcoming our relapse. Sometimes this is all that is necessary to get back on track. Sometimes though it may take more, it may take our becoming active in our own lives and regaining control over our circumstances.

It is easy to sit back and let life beat us up and say we can’t do anything about it and use pornography to give ourselves some kind of false sense of control. It is another thing though to have to deal with reality and take control of our circumstances. I’m experiencing this very situation in my life right now. I’ve been separated from my wife now for almost two years. There is nothing I seemingly can do to change that circumstance in my life. For a long time now I’ve felt powerless to do anything about it. Every attempt at reconciliation has left me feeling more powerless. But am I powerless? No. There are things I could do, like get a divorce and move on with my life, but I have not been willing to take such a drastic step. At some point though I am going to have to realize I can’t control other peoples lives, only my own and I need to do something about my life. Circumstances controlled me in the past, but I am free now to choose my destiny with the Lord’s guidance. I don’t believe God wants anyone to get a divorce, but I also believe His word says that we should not be separated indefinitely. So what do I do? Continue to allow the devil opportunity in my life or do something about it? As a Christian we should never feel powerless. I’ve chosen to pray about it and follow God’s leading, to stop letting the circumstances rule me and become an active participant in my life with God’s guidance. The choices may be incredibly painful, but we cannot just sit back and let our addiction fool us into believing we are in control.

Dr. Patrick Carnes says one sign of recovery is a clear awareness of personal limits. I would say it this way. When you begin to realize you are not a god and capable of controlling people and circumstances you are on your way to freedom. We can only control ourselves with God’s help. In other words in my circumstance I must realize I cannot make decisions for my wife. All I can do is follow God’s leading no matter how painful the path He is leading me down may be. It is another paradox of Christianity. We must recognize our powerlessness, in order to become powerful.

Secondly we must not only recognize the source of our relapse is our feelings of powerlessness, but our attention to the flesh. Remember what Paul said in Romans 8:7? He said a mind set on the flesh is not capable of keeping God’s law. When you experience a relapse in your life it is because something has focused your attention on the flesh, and a person focused on the flesh is not capable of controlling themselves. The fact that you relapsed is not something you could help, it is going to happen, it is a truth of God. What we have to do is recognize when our attention is being focused on the flesh and redirect that attention to the Spirit. The problem is many times we don’t recognize when this is happening. We may have disconnected from the matrix and reduced our attention to the flesh a thousand fold, but we must still be on guard for the many other circumstances in life that focus us on the flesh. In my example above just having a wife is in some ways focused on the flesh. Paul said he wished all were given the gift of celibacy as he was, so we could focus on nothing but God’s work. But not all men were given the gift of celibacy and must divert our attention to the earthly concerns of taking care of and pleasing our mates. But even when our attention must be focused on earthly matters we can still frame those circumstances in a Spiritual way. We need to keep ourselves constantly in line with God’s Spirit if we are to avoid relapsing, but if you do relapse recognize it is not your fault and don’t beat yourself up about it. Just recognize the source and cause, and go on with your walk with the Lord in the Spirit.

And finally I want to talk to you about the amount of time it takes you to get back on track. My definition of recovery has changed over the last year. I’ve had so many times in my life of great joy thinking I had finally beaten this thing, only to find myself back at square one. I began to wonder when a person could truly say they had won over their addiction. I don’t believe like some that once an addict always an addict. But I can see how that may seem true. I’ve heard of men going three or four years without a failure and then, do to some circumstance out of their control, they are confronted with pornography once again, and they end up right back where they started, addicted. When failure can seem to strike you at any moment, and your relapse can be so strong you wonder if you are ever going to get back, addiction seems like it will be a life long struggle. But here is why I think what I have learned is different, and has caused me to question the once an addict always an addict belief.

Recovery is not about how free you feel. It is not even about how spiritual you feel. It is about how you react, when through no willful act of your own, you are confronted once again with pornography. When you’ve been “sober,” will say, from pornography for a year and you go to the bathroom in a book store, and their on the floor next to the toilet is a pornographic magazine, and you can throw it in the trash without looking at it, I would say you are no longer an addict. When you go to the mail box and a “Victoria Secrets” catalog is there and you can pitch it in the trash without looking through it, you have recovered from your addiction. Only when we can see the lie and understand the truth about pornography can we do what I’ve just described. If your recovery is based on blocking pornography, whether that is with software or accountability partners, recovery will last only as long as your lack of exposure lasts. But when you know the truth, it can last a life time.

That doesn't mean relapses won’t happen, but the cause is totally different and is manageable. It may take you a day or even a week to recognize what is driving your desire, but at least you know where to start looking and how to deal with it. Blocking type cures though when relapse occurs are much more difficult and can take months, even years to get back to sobriety. You have no idea where to go or what to do; there is a sense of hopelessness that only drives you further into your addiction. And I would say most just don’t seek help a second or third time. We may think these ways of dealing with the problem are working, but I suspect it is the other-way-around. We can experience the euphoria of recovery through these other methods and programs because we have experienced, for some of us the first time in our lives, a time in life without this sin. But when we know the truth about what causes our addiction we can not only experience the euphoria for a short time, but we can sustain it for a lifetime.

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