Sobriety

There's a song I absolutely love by Kevin Devine called "It's Only Your Life." It talks about addiction and how this life is ours "to fix or ruin 'cause no one else is gonna do it."

I've "[gotten] back with [my] black hole": sex addiction. I would say that the alcoholism is secondary only to my preoccupation with sex. Many people have misconceptions about what that looks like. For me, I use it as an escape. I don't masturbate on the bus, and I would never harm a child. My addiction involves hooking up with men in an attempt to run away from real life. I am not nearly as promiscuous as I was in college. Right now, I am involved with only one man, someone who I definitely should not be involved with as we are both in recovery. I know it's wrong. People in ThirdPlace have pointed that out to me. I feel pretty lucky to have people who care about me more than I care about myself. It's really hard to be motivated to change when I don't really think that I'm worth the effort. It hurts to say that. Maybe if I come up with some goals instead of floating along with whatever comes my way, I will feel more like my life matters. When is it gonna start to matter to me? I'm waiting for some huge thing to happen in my life to wake me up and jolt me alive. This is my life right now. I had a rough go in college, and I have the opportunity to turn my life around. I am free from restrictions - I always felt like I was in a sort of prison when I was growing up, because I was bound by rules and regulations. Now, I am creating my own prison. It is not so easy to be sober from everything. I don't like exercising, and I don't want to smoke again. I suppose I could replace my addictions with performing music or painting. I haven't given myself the chance. I have been running away from myself in every way possible. More importantly, I have been running away from God. I get into this cycle of behavior that is very hard to just jump out of. My feelings become overwhelming and I look to what I know as a sort of escape. I wonder if God will ever be that escape for me, if it will ever feel comfortable to look towards Him.

For much of my childhood, I dreamed of growing up and being with someone who thought I was incredibly beautiful, smart, etc. Turns out that there are a bunch of men who think this, and I took full advantage of this in college. When I was gang raped at the age of 4, I thought that there was something wrong with me, that I was somehow bad or dirty and that's why they decided to do that to me. Not much has changed in my thinking. I still think of myself this way. I would never tempt a man of God unless I wanted to tear his ego down for some reason. There is a lot of power in sex, and I became very good at wielding it over men. I know this isn't fair. I know a large part of me hates men for what happened to me. I have this book called the Purity Myth, about how this idea that women are supposed to be pure virgins has done a lot to destroy our concepts of ourselves when we don't remain pure. I have so many books on my list to read, and this is one I would like to pick up again.

Growing up, they always told us that having sex before marriage was wrong, but I never understood why. It destroyed me when I was in college. It's destroying me now. My goal is to one day start a ministry for female survivors of sexual abuse within the church. It's not enough to tell us that sex before marriage is bad. For those of us who had our virginity stolen from us, we need to know that there's a way out, that there's forgiveness. At 23, I haven't worked through a lot of these issues, and that's largely because I didn't talk about it. It was a taboo subject. I am finding so much freedom in sharing it more and more. My sharing it doesn't change how I view myself. I used to be obsessed with guys noticing me and telling me I was beautiful. I was so focused on my external appearance (and still have trouble with this), that I couldn't accept any compliments about my inner beauty. I feel broken and worn out on the inside. I know there is a solution in Christ. I don't feel ready to accept His love at this point, but maybe soon I will be ready.