the end of the innocence

We didn’t have a care in the world
with mommy and daddy standing by.
- Don Henley/Bruce Hornsby

Five years old.

She isn’t old enough yet to think that boys are “icky.”

She isn’t old enough to question the motives of the people she encounters.

The people she encounters are all considered her friends within minutes if not immediately.

And yesterday, while playing on the inside play area of a fast-food chain, she was accosted.

Two nine-year-old boys were apparently bullying around the younger kids. They were up in the upper reaches of the structure, where their voices would be muffled and there was no way to see what was going on.

My daughter tried to pass by them.

They started pulling on her clothes.

They pulled down her pants.

She says they spanked her, but she seems a little confused about that. She knows what a spanking is – which makes me think they did something else.

Whether they did or not, I’m mad as hell.

Where on earth does a nine-year-old get the idea that it is acceptable to pull down a little girl’s pants?

Who taught these kids so little respect for others?

Why do I have to teach my daughter at five years old how to react if someone tries to touch her inappropriately?

Why did the dad, when my wife confronted him, insist that it must have been the other boy, his girlfriend’s son, because “that doesn’t sound like something my son would do” rather than just apologize and take both kids to the woodshed?

My daughter is a happy, friendly person. Why do I have to teach her to be wary this early?

I know, probably better than most, that it is a mean world out there. I sit in a room every week with guys who were abused as children, and some of them became child abusers. I get that this isn’t the world of Leave It To Beaver.

I just wanted another couple of years, a little more time, before this touched my kids’ lives.

let’s be honest

Honesty is critical to recovery. I know a lot of people in recovery programs don’t like absolutes. We live in a world that is not fond of absolutes.

But the power of addiction is strongest in the shadows – which leads me to the conviction that being dishonest, with myself and others, is likely to lead to a relapse (at best).

There are a few different types of discussions I believe are important for my recovery. Each has a different purpose, a different audience, and different timing; but each requires honesty or it becomes useless.

First, there is telling my story. This is usually what happens in Step 5 of the 12, confessing our faults. In the context of a 12-step program, this will often be a discussion with one’s sponsor. My sponsor and I went to a local monastery and spent a long day with me talking, crying, and walking through my full story.

When I told my story, I had to remember that the point was not to talk about what a victim I was, but to own up to where I had missed the mark. I needed to take responsibility for my own choices.

I think that confession allowed me to be honest with myself, which was at least as important as being honest with anyone else. It also gave me a chance to process some of the stuff that had happened in a more coherent view than anything I had done in private confession through prayer, and gave me a broader view. Patterns began to emerge. For the first time, I saw that there were certain events or feelings that often preceeded my acting out. I later learned these are called “triggers.”

Eventually, it was time for another conversation – a disclosure to my wife. The focus in a disclosure is different. This is not the encyclopedaic recitation of the full list of wrongs that was in my story; this was a specific disclosure of the behaviors which had impacted our relationship, whether she knew the impact or not, and regardless of whether they happened before or after the wedding. It was more general in the sense that she didn’t need (or want) to know the gory details, more pointed in terms of recognition of impact.

My wife has since said that there were two things she saw in my disclosure that were key to our continued marriage: I was broken by my errors, and I was complete in my revelation.

Wait a minute – you just wrote ‘complete in revelation’ just after writing ‘more general.’ What?

By complete, I mean that there was no general area of acting out, no range of activity, that felt incomplete. I gave her general areas or activities (“I visited adult bookstores for anonymous encounters”), and let her ask whatever details she wanted to hear. That’s not to say she liked my answers. I just decided that if there was pain involved, it would be more merciful for both of us to get it out and over with at once instead of continuing to poke and prod at it. If the marriage was going to fail, it was going to fail quickly. By her ( and God’s) grace, that was not the outcome.

I think trying to do a complete disclosure with her without the filter of the prior confession would have been disastrous. Had I gone to the level of detail my confession required, I suspect there would have been a steeper path to our climb. For example, listing specific locations and specific actions might have spurred her imagination, making our relationship that more challenging. I know a guy who bought a new mattress, then a new bed, then remodeled the bedroom, then bought a new house because he dwelt in the details of where his affairs took place.

Again, wherever my wife asked for details, I provided them. There is a world of difference between paving a path for renewal in your relationship and giving her material to question how she compares to someone else, and your words in a disclosure make all the difference.

The final conversation I think is critical is my testimony. OK, technically that’s a monologue, not a conversation. There is healing power in sharing my story. There is a renewed reminder of where I was, and why I would not want to be there again. There is the hope that someone who hears the story might see something of himself, and get some help.  There is hope, in spite of that part of me that sought fulfillment in so many wrong ways.

I share that testimony when I can. Not every setting is appropriate, but I have found very few cases where the story shared creates discomfort or disconnecton with others. Maybe I’m more cautious in sharing than some. I certainly don’t get on the train in the afternoon and say, “MAY I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION, PLEASE?”

I’m not a masochist.

I am a human, flawed, fallen, devious in many ways; but I am also being healed, and I am a child of the King. If I am honest, that’s my identity: a prince, so named by the King whom I didn’t want to serve. That’s a far cry from where I was, not that long ago.

getting defensive

Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A chord of three strands is not easily broken. Ecclesiastes 4:12

In military excursions of the Greek/Spartan era, a common maneuver was the phalanx. This arrangement  deployed soldiers in such a way that their shields were protecting not themselves, but the neighbor to their immediate left. This was refined by various groups – the Romans used it quite effectively, for example – but the principle was always the same: my job is not to protect myself; it is to protect my brother-in-arms.

This concept is often lost on addicts; we tend to be quite selfish.

If the enemy is charging, I’m covering my own rear, thank you very much.

Addiction – a war? Am I being a little dramatic?

What are the likely outcomes of substance abuse, or sexual acting out?

Death stalks the one who walks alone.

There is strength in numbers, but not ultimate strength. See, each soldier used his shield to protect the man to his left. That meant that the right end of the line was always the weak point, and any worthy adversary knew that and attacked at that point of weakness. As a result, the most experienced and strongest were put at that end. They anchored the line.

If two addicts decide it is time to get some honesty and come clean, but have no one stronger to lean on, they will likely collapse, potentially harming each other.

For me, recovery did not begin until I got myself into community with some people who had been down the same road – veterans of the war I needed to fight. And now I’m one of the veterans.

I don’t say that proudly – this is a fight I wish I was not in. And watching people fall because they give up the battle is painful.

I’m watching a family that is a mirror of my own in many ways, breaking and dying because the husband is not willing to fight. The wife is strong, and fights on…but her husband should be standing with her. She has friends, good friends, who will use their shields to defend her; but the loss of one weakens the phalanx.

Whatever your battle, don’t fight alone.

And once you’ve enlisted, don’t surrender.

i have a short attention sp…what were you saying?

Last night I met eight guys who are beginning a new part of their journey in recovery from sexual addiction. They are good guys. Oh, I’m sure that the wives of some of them might argue that point, but I see a lot of brokenness within them. That goes a long way when it comes to recovery.

I was struck by the similarities of most of our stories. I think one of the lies that held me in bondage to my addiction is the feeling that I was alone, and no one could possibly understand. Yet, every time I hear a new set of stories, the narrative is strikingly familiar.

Most of the guys are married. I think each of the married guys thought, as I did, that marriage would cure us. After all, we each thought, married guys get all the sex they want, right?

Stop that laughing.

None of us has kids with the intent of that stopping our behavior, but most thought, when they arrived, “ah, now here’s some inspiration for me to stop.”

Didn’t work.

There are certainly differences in our stories. Most of the guys I’ve met in the larger group are “specialists,” focused in one or just a couple of areas of acting out; I was always a “generalist.” Come to think of it, I tend to be a “variety is the spice of life” kind of guy. If insanity is trying the same thing time and again and expecting a different result, was I more sane because I kept experimenting with different things?

I think at my core I long for variety in every avenue. I try something different when I go back to a restaurant, I keep changing the supplements I use for my fitness regimen, I drive different ways to work because I get bored.

Maybe I’m just like my mother – she’s never satisfied…sayeth the artist known once again as Prince.

And yet, my insatiable desire for more and different can be tamed.

I have figured out what works for me in terms of diet, and I stick to that. Why? Because I see the benefits, and my life is a little more manageable with some routine.

I’ve gotten past the job-hopping of my past. Why? I recognize that this isn’t a good time to be the new guy in most industries, and I also recognize that the grass, while appearing greener over at XYZ Corp, is still just grass.

Wherever you go, there you are.

And now I am being the husband that I have always wanted to be. Or at least I’m a lot closer to that than I used to be. I’m not sure I’ll ever be that guy, not completely. But I see the benefits. I see a wife who generally doesn’t view me with doubt, or fear that she’s going to end up being cast aside by me moving to a newer model.

Variety is great – in its proper place.

when more isn’t enough

There is a lot of political finger-pointing going on regarding the mortgage meltdown and the financial turmoil of the last couple of years. Both political parties have made their own contributions to this mess, but I would argue that the problem is not one of politics; it is a problem of the heart.

There was a time, not so very long ago, when most of the people in the stock market were large investors, who recognized that the common good (rising values) was the personal good as well. Everyone won, or everyone lost; but there was a sense that everyone was in the same boat.

Then someone decided to turn a consistent source of equity into a game of roulette. Enter the concept of trading on margins. This is rather like betting not on the outcome of a football game, but on the point spread instead. Big jumps, big drops, doesn’t matter which, as long as the market moves big.

This took the general concept of an equity pool, generally guided by common interest, and introduced anarchy.

And what do you suppose was/is the motivation of those who play the margins?

Greed. The love of money.

Money is not the problem. Capitalism is not the problem. Politics is not the problem.

Greed is the problem.

So what has this to do with addiction? Greed is money addiction.

Think it through – addiction can, for some, be summarized as an unquenchable desire for one more. That one more will give me the feeling I’ve been looking for, will finally give me the answer to the burning question within me, will finally satisfy me.

So what is greed but the unquenchable desire for one more? Dollar, hundred, million, whatever.

I would argue that we have a moral meltdown in progress that will end up being at least as devestating as what is going on now in the world markets. But in this calamity, we aren’t looking for more dollars. We want more sex, more alcohol, more of anything.

But “anything” won’t ever be enough.

long time no write

I haven’t fallen off the wagon, or the face of the earth. I have a separate blog (to which I’ll never link here) about political and social issues, and I have been a little preoccupied over there lately.

With the U.S. political conventions over, I should be getting back to normal again. Heh, normal. Whatever that means.

One of the things I struggle with is balance. No, I don’t tend to fall over a lot; I tend to pursue things in an all-or-nothing fashion. I think that is indicative of a personality prone towards addiction. I avoid the term “addictive personality,” because that always sounds to me like someone else must have a personality I can’t ever get enough of.

My work-life balance is not bad right now, but I am finding that it is easy to let those things crowd out my walk with God. And letting that suffer will ultimately have a downward-spiraling effect on everything else.

Lord, give me 40-hour days. And a clone. That might just about cover what I need.

warning signs

I was wearing waist size 48 pants, and they were getting tight. The doctor’s scale read ‘328′ – pounds, in case you’re wondering. My doctor was threatening gastric bypass surgery.

My saving graces were hereditary low blood pressure and an amazing lack of any signs of diabetes; but even I had to admit I was on a likely collision course with those side effects of carrying so much weight.

Thankfully, when it came to my food issues, there were very clear indications that I was headed for danger. I was able to take steps before I ran into the wall. I started a year ago with watching what I eat, exercising regularly (maybe a little too regularly), and trying to remember that I am living a new lifestyle rather than dieting.

The result – not as dramatic as I would have hoped; but I’m down 40-something pounds, and I fit comfortably in size 42 pants.

Miles to go before I sleep.

Unfortunately, many other addictions do not exhibit external warnings. The nicotine addict may not know there’s a problem until the x-ray shows spots in the lungs. The functional alcoholic may be unaware until the liver tests come back with questionnable results. The porn addict is without warning through medical technology – he or she just slowly drifts away from meaningful relationships and focuses increasingly on their own gratification and less on relating. In all cases, a careful look at the bank account could provide some warning, I suppose; but the externals aren’t there.

That is part of the reason addiction happens. It is subtle, progresses slowly, and eventually consumes the subject.

I think the test you might consider, if you think there just might be a problem (or if someone else says you hve a problem, but you don’t think so) is to look at how your time and treasure are being spent. Take an honest look at how that looks today compared to a few months ago. Any changes? If you were to give up that behavior for a few days, a few weeks, a few months, would you become more and more agitated, and get the feeling that one little present to yourself (taking that drink, visiting that strip club, whatever) would make it all better? If that fits you, I would suggest you might have a problem.

For me, I was able to set aside my sexual activity for long periods. But then I started eating more. Much more.

Transferrance. Substituting one medication for another. Finding comfort rather than seeking resolution.

ripple effect

A case has been in the news for the last week about a teenage girl who disappeared after her uncle dropped her off at a convenience store. She was found yesterday, in a shallow grave, found by police who had searched her uncle’s house. He was a repeat offender, a graduate of his state’s ‘exemplary’ program for reforming sex offenders. He was being supervised by the state. And he was (allegedly) molesting another of his relations for the last five years, starting when she was nine.

A lot of people are outraged right now. I feel that.

But I also feel a little of a sense of “there, but for the grace of God, go I.”

Most sex addicts are not into kids. Most respect the boundary of legal age, if for no other reason than fear. But the thing about boundaries is that they blur more and more as an addict descends. The things I said I would never do at fifteen became habitual by the time I was twenty.

I kept a strong boundary between my Friday-night and Sunday-morning lives. I thought I could always be the perfect gentleman regarding the women I met at church as long as I had my other outlets. But eventually I crossed that boundary; and once it was crossed, I never looked back. I was teaching a college-age Sunday School class one morning when I looked around and realized that most of the females in the room had good reasons, personal reasons, to think me unqualified to lead the class.

And I know of a few cases where my sickness had a lasting effect on someone else’s life.

One woman passed up an excellent professional opportunity because I was in hot pursuit, and was very convincing. Once I realized that she wasn’t going to be a conquest, I dropped her; but by then she had accepted a much lesser opportunity so that she could be near me.

I was the first in a string of affairs for the wife of a one-time friend. Given her personality, that might have happened whether I was involved or not. Don’t know, doesn’t matter. I was the first one to intrude in their marital bed, which was a line she was quite sure she would never cross.

There is a lot of wreckage in my wake.

At one point, early in my teens, I told myself, “I’m not hurting anyone else with this.” I believed it. It was a lie.

I was lowering my own standards and boundaries, and you can’t keep doing that without, eventually, having a very direct impact on someone else.

There are a few, very few, lines I never crossed. I take no pride in that. When I went to my first meeting, I remember thinking, “Some of these people are really sick. I’m nowhere as far gone as them.” Now I understand. I’m every bit as far gone. I just have a different set of haunting memories to deal with.

So what about this sensational case in Vermont?  I may be making a supposition or two, but I would be willing to bet that the story of this twisted uncle probably starts similarly to mine. His ‘ripples’ spread further than mine, hurt more people more directly; but I am no better than him.

pathway to addiction

I’ve written before that addiction is not really about the object (drugs, sex, food, alcohol, whatever); it is about something in your heart that never healed properly.

I am the youngest of several kids. My dad grew up poor, and insisted on making sure that we lived better than he had. He worked hard, for long hours, and all for a very noble purpose. When he came home, he was often on his way to church. He was a leader, a teacher, a choir member … and even preached once or twice. He was a very busy man, busy at very important and worthwhile things.

But I needed a father.

Plenty of studies have shown that the crucial years in a child’s development go through phases. For the baby and toddler stages, the mother is their primary support. The child learns love and comfort in the mother’s arms. As preschool starts turning to school, the father becomes more crucial. For a daughter, this is where she really forms her main ideas about the type of man she hopes (if she hopes) to marry someday. For a son, this is where he figures out what a man is or isn’t.

My dad wasn’t there a lot during that time, so I did what people do – I adapted. I transferred my hopes and expectations from my dad to my oldest brother.

Interesting. If I’d grown up in an inner-city environment, I might be a gang-banger today.

My brother was not mature, and didn’t deserve that kind of expectation from me, so he would do everything he could to get me to leave him alone. He locked me in a closet when he knew no one else would be home for hours. He called me his “little sister” when his friends were around. He told me we would play hide-and-seek out in the woods, then he would go back to the house to watch TV while I was counting.

Some of it is pretty funny, now. But it was fairly painful for a seven-year-old boy.

Couple all of that with my dad’s career moves, which meant I had no friendships with a duration longer than about three years, and I became one disconnected little boy. I was a time bomb waiting to be set off.

It isn’t a pretty picture, but I was a huge sore in search of a salve. Guess where I found it.

When I was twelve years old, my parents left me with my grandmothers for a couple of weeks. One of my grandmothers was great – took me around to show me off to her friends, took me to the old ice cream place where my mom used to go when she was a teen, made me feel like I mattered. The other grandma would eventually be recognized as the family crazy. I think that is a technical term psychologists use, but I think you can catch the meaning.

She exposed herself to me.

I don’t know that it was intentional. She hadn’t had anyone else in her house overnight in a long time. It doesn’t much matter. When a boy deep in puberty sees his first naked woman, it is formative. When it is a family member, that’s wrong. When said family member is past retirement age, that is just gross. That would likely mess anybody up.

Imagine my relief when I found my brother’s cache of softcore porn mags a few weeks later. It could never quite erase what I had seen, but there was some consolation that there were women who didn’t look like her. Of course, I learned about plastic surgery and airbrushing later; but it was better.

There is more, much more; but I fear I’ve been too graphic already. One of the premises of most recovery groups is that you share your story carefully, with safe people – people who won’t make excuses for you or condemn you. I am putting this out in a very unsafe place. But I am also fairly anonymous.

I give you a little more than is ’safe’ in hopes that you can see that what evolved from my pain was not the real problem. Acting out through sex was a symptom. Eating until I was nearly ill, on a regualr basis, was also a symptom. The issue was my heart, and a wound that I couldn’t quite seem to cover.

People who say they are interested in recovery, but are not willing to take a look at the roots of their actions, may be kidding themselves about wanting recovery. I went for as long as a year without any sexual activity, but the wound was still open. The right trigger was pushed, and I was right back in it.

For me, looking back at what set me up was more crucial to recovery than trying to white-knuckle my way through.

For me, opening my heart to the only One who can heal those kinds of wounds was the start to recovery.

a half-hearted man

His arm would twitch every once in a while. We never really thought that much about it; it wasn’t that noticeable, at first. But then it became a tic, a repetitive movement which he could not control. That was when he decided to go to the hospital.

It was Tax Day, April 15th, 1991. I was working at my office when my parents’ neighbor called me.

I don’t think there’s anything to worry about, but your dad is at the Emergency Room.

I left work and went to join my mom. We waited for a few hours, not hearing anything, not seeing anyone. Finally they called us back to his bedside. He told us about a battery of tests, where they seemed to be focusing their attention, what little anyone had said thus far. About then the attending physician stepped in.

I’m afraid I have some bad news. It’s a tumor…

…somewhere about an inch and a half in and behind his right ear. They would schedule surgery immediately. There could be no prognosis until they did a biopsy of the tumor, but it was not encouraging to note that a scan they had done on New Year’s Eve hadn’t shown anything, and there was now something this large, this soon.

He had seen his regular doctor somewhere between New Year’s and Tax Day about the spasms or tics. The doctor had told him to take an over-the-counter medication and let him know if the spasms got worse.

As it turns out, had his doctor pursued the cause a little more deeply, it probably wouldn’t have made a bit of difference for my father – he had a gliablastoma multiformae. The thing that killed my dad is now in the news because it is the same animal that is stalking Teddy Kennedy.

My dad would find some irony in the idea that he and Teddy Kennedy had anything in common.

My father had a tumor that is 100% fatal, thus far. He was one of the lucky ones – the tumor was relentless, and he only had a short time of suffering. He was gone before the next March came around. Others live for a couple of years as this beast eats away at their faculties, robbing them of their personality and dignity before taking away their cognitive ability and eventually their control centers. My father died, officially, of a massive organ failure. But like the tics or spasms, the organ failure was just the final symptom of a terrible disease.

I, on the other hand, have a heart disease; but not the kind that a doctor would be interested in. My symptoms have included acting out sexually and eating nearly everything in sight. It is tempting to think that I could use some over-the-counter approach to those issues. There are pills you can buy that will expand like styrofoam in your stomach, convincing your body that it is full. There are medications that warn of ’sexual side effects,’ which can mean either an effect on desire or performance. Yep, we could stop those symptoms pretty darn quickly.

But I’d still be left with my heart condition. There would still be a hole in me, something that is incomplete, something that goes a lot deeper than the symptoms.

I’d still be a half-hearted man.

The first serious attempt I made at dealing with my addictions was a behavior-based program.

Follow these steps, and keep your zipper closed, and you’ll be cured.

So it was all about my performance. As an American and a man, I liked the sound of that. I could make it happen, I was in control.

But the reality was, and is, that if I continue to focus on behavior, I’ll just develop a different set of symptoms.

If you find yourself trying to stop some behavior, and failing time after time, it isn’t because you are weak. A compulsion that overcomes your rational mind repeatedly is not going to go away that easily. The good news is, there are qualified people nearby ready to help you with your treatment. You just have to get past yourself, and be willing to admit that you can’t beat it alone.

Your sickness need not be fatal.