Tag Archives: God’s love

Step Seven

July 22, 2020Awaken Blog12 Steps, addiction, awaken, brokenness, church, confession, counseling, God's love, gospel, grace, Greg Oliver, healing, infidelity, love, pornography, recovery, restoration, sex addiction, sexual addiction, sobriety, Twelve StepsGreg

Step Seven

“Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings”

Now that we have listed the defects of character that drive our acting out behavior (Step 6), it is once again time to ask God’s help in our recovery. This step is similar to Step 3 in that the Big Book outlines a specific prayer that is recommended:

“My Creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. Grant me strength, as I go out from here, to do your bidding. Amen.”

Praying this prayer from the heart has no doubt helped many addicts over the years. But my sponsor took it one step farther. We met together for about 2 hours one day and prayed this prayer for every individual character defect that was on my list – all 26 of them! Together, we talked through my list and after each defect I prayed the prayer above, replacing “every single defect of character” with the specific defect that we were discussing. It took some time, but it was worth it.

My sponsor also suggested a daily practice around Step 7 that I have found very useful. In my daily prayers and meditations (Step 11), he suggested that I examine the day before or the day ahead, and consider the top 2 or 3 character defects that happen to be near the surface. Maybe something happened the day before that put one of my defects on full display. Or maybe there is an upcoming event that I know could trigger one of my defects. When I identify my top 2 or 3 for the day, he recommended that I pray through those. As I mentioned in my post on Step 6, often God will remove a character defect, only to have me snatch it back the next day. Praying through my top 2 or 3 defects daily, makes this less likely to happen. It also gives me an awareness of things to look out for as I go through my day.

I have found that practicing Step 7 on a regular basis has been one of the most helpful parts of all of the 12 Steps when it comes to my day-to-day walk. It helps me to deal with underlying feelings and emotions in a healthy manner. It gives me something to check in with my sponsor, even when my sobriety is strong. And it helps me see the things that could lead to acting out and stop them before it becomes a problem.

May you have the willingness to ask God to remove every single defect of character in your life, today!

-A grateful member of the Awaken community

Awaken is a Birmingham, AL based ministry walking with individuals, couples, and ministry leaders who have been impacted by sexual brokenness & addiction. Our goal is to help people experience hope, connection, and healing through the gospel and the recovery process. If you want to know more about Awaken or our resources, email us at info@awakenrecovery.com!

One Day at a Time

July 19, 2020Awaken Blog12 Steps, accountability, addiction, awaken, brokenness, God's love, gospel, grace, Greg Oliver, healing, pornography, recovery, restoration, Serenity Prayer, sex addiction, sexual addiction, sobriety, sponsor, Stacey Oliver, support, Twelve StepsGreg

One Day at a Time

I have a 20-year old privacy fence around my backyard. The posts and rails are in good shape but the boards have been breaking and cracking and detaching over the years. One of my “pandemic projects” has been to replace all of the boards on the fence. I have spent many hot and sweaty hours replacing boards on this fence. It seemed like an immense amount of work and after a particularly long session this past weekend, I stepped back and took a look. Much to my dismay, I still have a long way to go!

I could have gotten discouraged thinking “I have done all of this work and there are still SO MANY boards that have to be replaced.” But then I realized that this project is very similar to my recovery process. I am rebuilding my fence one board at a time.

My recovery works the same way – I recover from addiction one day at a time. If I step back and look at how long it will take me to complete my fence (or my recovery), it’s overwhelming. But if I stay focused on the board that I’m working on, the job seems pretty easy. Pull a board out and replace it. Pull another board out and replace it. Not that hard at all.

My recovery is the same way – I just need to focus on today. Focus on the things that I can do that will allow God to work in my life today. Call someone. Go to a meeting. Read scripture. Pray. Meditate.

Today.

In Alcoholics Anonymous (and other similar fellowships), when someone takes a “one-year” sobriety chip, many times they are asked: “How’d ya do it?”. And the traditional answer is “One day at a time.” It’s always a beautiful moment. I don’t need to worry about tomorrow or next week or next year. I need to focus on today. Do the right things that will help me to recover today. Focus on the board right in front of me. And then one day, I will look up and my fence will be repaired and healthy.

* DISCLAIMER: I am not a handyman. If you read the story of my fence and laughed because you could repair the whole fence in one afternoon, more power to you! And, please give me a call, because I sure could use your help!

-A grateful member of the Awaken community

Step Six

June 22, 2020Awaken Blog12 Steps, accountability, addiction, awaken, brokenness, church, confession, connection, counseling, God's love, gospel, grace, Greg Oliver, healing, pornography, recovery, restoration, self care, Serenity Prayer, sex addiction, sexual addiction, sobriety, sponsor, Stacey Oliver, Step Six, support, Twelve StepsGreg

Step Six

“Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.”

One of my favorite phrases in the Big Book of A.A. comes after the description of Step 5. The passage says “Carefully reading the first five proposals we ask if we have omitted anything, for we are building an arch through which we shall walk a free man at last.” To me this means that the hard work we have done so far has laid the foundation for fundamental changes in our lives. We are moving from a constant battle against addiction (“white-knuckling”, if you will) to life of serenity and gratitude. We are getting to the roots of our addiction, not just the behaviors, but the underlying flaws in our character that have manifested themselves in our acting out. This milestone is where a spiritual awakening really begins to happen for many of us.

Willingness to be rid of our character defects is crucial. If we are not willing to change, we are just giving lip-service to this step. The Big Book even suggests that we ask God for willingness: “If we still cling to something we will not let go, we ask God to help us be willing.” Hopefully, the work we’ve done in the first 5 steps will open our eyes enough to see where these defects of character have gotten us, but if we want to hang on to some, ask for willingness.

The action part of this step is to make a list of our character defects. It is sometimes helpful to go back and re-read our Step 1 and Step 4 writings and think about them through the lens of character defects. We look at our moral inventory for things like selfishness, manipulation, codependency, or a poor self-image. When making this list, try not to confuse deep human needs with character defects. For example, we all have the need for connection with others. That is not a defect of character. But manipulating people as part of those connections may be a flaw in our character. A therapist or a sponsor who knows our story can be really helpful in identifying defects that we may not see in ourselves. Intensive therapy sessions, such as the Roots Retreat offered by Awaken, can be helpful in this area as well.

One thing that I have found with my character defects is that they require daily surrender. One of my most memorable recovery meetings was a discussion of Step 6 and a brother in the program said “Sometimes, God will take away one of my character defects, and the next day, I take it right back!” That really stuck with me as a reminder that these flaws in my character do come back from time-to-time and that I need to surrender them each time they come up. Like many of the steps, being willing for God to remove character defects is not a one-time event – it is something we practice every day.

Another thing that I have found is that as I work on my character defects, it is a lot like peeling back an onion. There are layers to my character defects that I didn’t see when I made my initial list. And I’m quite sure that there are layers that I don’t see now that I will need to address as I continue to peel back the layers. All of this talk about onions and layers reminds me of my favorite scene from the movie “Shrek.” I’ll leave you with these words of wisdom from an ogre and a talking donkey:

Shrek: For your information, there’s a lot more to ogres than people think.

Donkey: Example?

Shrek: Example? Okay, er… ogres… are… like onions.

Donkey: [sniffs onion] They stink?

Shrek: Yes…NO!

Donkey: Or they make you cry.

Shrek: No!

Donkey: Oh, you leave them out in the sun and they get all brown and start sproutin’ little white hairs.

Shrek: NO! LAYERS! Onions have layers. OGRES have layers. Onions have layers… you get it. We both have layers.

Donkey: Oh, you both have layers. [pause] You know, not everybody likes onions. [pause] CAKE! Everybody loves cakes! Cakes have layers!

Shrek: [restraining temper] I don’t care… what everyone likes. Ogres. Are not. Like cakes!

May you begin to peel back the layers on your character defects today!

-A grateful member of the Awaken community

Honesty

May 12, 2020Awaken Blog12 Steps, accountability, addiction, awaken, brokenness, confession, connection, counseling, forgiveness, friendship, God's love, gospel, grace, Greg Oliver, healing, honesty, pornography, recovery, restoration, self care, Serenity Prayer, sex addiction, sexual addiction, sobriety, sponsor, support, Twelve StepsGreg

Honesty

I don’t know what the reverse of a “catch-22” is officially called, but when it comes to honesty and sobriety, their relationship is a “reverse catch-22”. Being honest helps me to stay sober, and staying sober helps me to be honest.

There’s a saying, “All addicts are liars,” and while this certainly holds some truth, the fact is many addicts are generally honest people except when it comes to their addiction.

Shame and fear can turn an honest man into a liar pretty quickly.

Rigorous honesty is a critical component of recovery. Working the 12 Steps helps us put this honesty into practice. We find a sponsor and are able to check in with them when we are in our middle circle. We make a “fearless and searching moral inventory” and then we share it with another person (Steps 4 and 5). We are honest about our character defects (Step 6) and we are honest about who we have hurt (Step 8). We look for dishonesty in ourselves with a daily inventory (Step 10).

With the help of a therapist, many of us disclose our behavior to our spouse or our family. We are honest about our family of origin as we dig into our own personal trauma. By doing these things with rigorous honesty, we learn to be honest about the things that we have hidden out of fear and shame for so long. And what is the result of working this program with rigorous honesty? Sobriety!

And when we begin to become sober from our addiction, the things that we used to feel compelled to lie about are no longer a part of our life. Honesty comes easier to us and we learn to be comfortable in our own skin around others.

See? It’s a reverse Catch-22! When we are honest, we become sober, and when we are sober, we are more honest. May you find yourself in this reverse Catch-22 today!

-A grateful member of the Awaken community

Getting to the Roots

April 30, 2020Awaken Blog12 Steps, addiction, adultery, awaken, betrayal, brokenness, cheating, confession, connection, counseling, forgiveness, friendship, God's love, gospel, grace, Greg Oliver, healing, infidelity, intensive, pornography, recovery, restoration, Roots Retreat, sex addiction, sexual addiction, sobriety, support, Twelve StepsGreg

Getting to the Roots

This post is about The Roots Retreat, Awaken’s therapeutic intensive weekend for men seeking recovery from addictive or unwanted sexual behavior. Our next men’s Roots Retreat is scheduled for June 4-7, 2020.

We also offer a Roots Retreat for women who have been sexually betrayed by their husbands/male partners. We’ll offer a post on the women’s retreat at a later date.

In early January 2009, my years-long sexual addiction secret was exposed, and I began a life journey of recovery. If you have not read or heard my story, you can catch up on that HERE.

In those early days of recovery, I learned a lot of new terms, phrases, and concepts. Now that my secret was in the light and I was working with a therapist and a sponsor, I began to soak in everything I could that would help me move forward.

Something I heard a lot about was the concept of “branches and roots.” For all the years I’d been trying to defeat my addiction on my own, my effort was almost exclusively focused on stopping what I was doing. “Stop looking at porn.” “Stop compulsively masturbating.” “Stop hooking up.” And while, of course, it was good for me to want to stop doing all those things, I realized later that I was trying to kill a tree by sawing off its branches.

All of the unwanted behaviors I was doing weren’t my real problem. They were evidence of my deeper problem. Something in my life was broken, wounded, sick, traumatized, and instead of ignoring or hiding those things, I needed to discover what they were. If my acting out behavior was the branches of a tree, then all my hidden brokenness was its roots.

Once I was able to identify those “root” areas of brokenness, I could see the connection between them and my eventual behavior. This was super-important in learning how to acknowledge the many contributors to addiction, while still taking ownership and responsibility for my own behavior and choices.

One way to get to the roots…

There’s another thing I’ve learned in my years of recovery. When a person is really ready for change, it can be helpful to take an immersive approach. What do I mean by that? Well, while working one-on-one with a therapist over weeks and months is a critical part of recovery, there are additional ways to do this work. One way is through attending a recovery intensive.

An intensive is an uninterrupted retreat in which an attendee works with therapists, volunteers, and other people in recovery over a short, but intense period of time. Instead of doing your therapy work one hour at a time over several months, you work on it solidly for about four days. This concentrated approach really helps a lot of people connect dots more quickly. The atmosphere of quiet and retreat from everyday life (no phones, computers, etc.) helps people to connect with and stay in their emotions, getting a lot done. People who attend intensives go home feeling much more in tune with where they’ve been, where they are, and where they want to go; and if they’re working with a therapist they have a clearer idea of their continuing path forward.

Awaken offers a four-day intensive for men called The Roots Retreat. The weekend helps them better understand how their addiction formed, how to take healthy responsibility, how to begin healing from their own trauma, and how to more healthily approach their marriages & other relationships. Men who attend work with multiple therapists and staff. The work is spiritually and emotionally challenging & intense, but can also be incredibly fulfilling and healing.

Since 2016, over 110 men have attended a Roots Retreat weekend, and for many of them it was exactly the catalyst they needed to help recovery take hold in their lives.

The Roots Retreat for men is offered three times a year, typically in February, June, and October. If you have been looking for a way to get unstuck and to experience more progress in your recovery, the Roots Retreat could be a solution for you.

To find out more about the Roots Retreat, click HERE. There are assistance options available for attendees with financial difficulties.

Greg Oliver struggled for years with an addiction to sex & porn. Since 2009 he has been on a journey of recovery. He and his wife Stacey founded Awaken as a way to walk with individuals, couples, and ministry leaders, and to help them experience healing in the midst of sexual brokenness. Awaken offers weekly recovery meetings, including virtual ones. Email us for more info.

Step Four

April 20, 2020Awaken Blog12 Steps, accountability, addiction, awaken, brokenness, confession, connection, forgiveness, God's love, Greg Oliver, healing, pornography, recovery, restoration, self care, Serenity Prayer, sex addiction, sexual addiction, sobriety, sponsor, Step Four, support, Twelve StepsGreg

Step Four

Step Four: “Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves”

Steps 1 through 3 of the Twelve Steps are things that mostly happened in our heads and with our words. We “admitted we were powerless”, we “came to believe”, and we “made a decision”. These are critical tasks and it would be nearly impossible to recover from addiction without doing these on a daily basis. But there’s not a whole lot of action involved. Sure, we may have written out a first step or said the third step prayer, but to this point, we haven’t done much of anything. Step 4 is where that all changes. In fact, the beginning of this section of the Big Book says “next we launched out on a course of vigorous action…”. Now we’re talkin’!

What does a Step 4 look like?

I have seen two different forms for a Step 4. The first is a long document that follows the items outlined in the Big Book. The second is a worksheet; taking the same content and putting it in an easier-to-complete worksheet form. Either way is perfectly fine as long as it meets the criteria of “searching and fearless.” I believe this means we spend a lot of time thinking and writing. I believe it means we directly acknowledge the things that we have done and the motivations behind them. I believe it means we don’t sugarcoat our behavior. I believe it means we don’t intentionally leave anything out. Of course there will be things that are left out unintentionally, especially if we’ve been dealing with our addiction for many years. Even with a very deliberate and thorough process, very few of us can remember all of the details of our lives. The point is that we do our best, and if something comes to mind later that we missed earlier, we write it down.

What is in a Step 4?

At first glance, we might think that a Step 4 is simply all of the things that we did as part of our addiction. But there is a lot more to it than that. The Big Book talks about looking at our lives from several different angles and I believe these are critical to a complete inventory. I recommend to my sponsees and others in our fellowship to include the following sections in a written Step 4:

Resentments

Early in my recovery, I found talk of resentments surprising. I didn’t think my problem had anything to do with resentments – until I started writing them down. As I worked my 4th step I started to realize that I actually did harbor a lot of resentments. More often than not, they turned out to be the driving force behind my behavior. The Big Book says that “this business of resentment is infinitely grave…when harboring such feeling, we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the Spirit…the insanity of [our addiction] returns…” After identifying these resentments in Step 4, the rest of the steps help us to learn how to watch out for resentments and to deal with them in healthier ways so that we can experience a life of serenity.

Behaviors

Just because we start our inventory with our resentments, this does not mean we blame others for our behavior. The Big Book goes on to say “putting out of our minds the wrongs others had done, we resolutely looked for our own mistakes. Where had we been selfish, dishonest, self-seeking, and frightened?” This is the part of our inventory where we list the things in our lives where we have hurt others with our selfishness and dishonesty. And this list should not be limited to just sexual acting out – most of us have hurt people in other ways as well. These items should also make the list. This is not a time to sugarcoat our actions either. We don’t need to qualify or put adjectives on the items on this list. In the words of Joe Friday, “Just the facts, ma’am!” Finally, because thinking through the ways we have hurt people can bring up many painful memories and emotions, it is important to remember that you are not the sum of your bad behavior. You have done a lot of good things in your life too. And these should go on the list as well. It is a complete inventory, after all.

Fears

I have heard it said that most of what we fear never comes to pass. Yet many of us spend a lot of time in worry and fear. While our resentments keep us tethered to the past, our fears tether us to uncertainty about the future. And serenity cannot be found in either the past or the future. Serenity is found by coming to terms with the present, in whatever form it takes. Listing our fears in Step 4 and learning to deal with them in the rest of the steps is a major component of having a successful recovery.

Final Thoughts on Step 4

It is often said that recovery is “simple, but not easy”. And while the outline above is fairly simple, there is nothing easy about it. Many people get hung up on Step 4 and never complete it because of the amount and the difficulty of the work involved. But if it is important to you to get healthy and the 12 Steps is the path you choose, it is worth the effort. Put lots of prayer and thought and effort into the lists described above. Set aside some time each day to work on this until it is finished. This is the beginning of a “vigorous course of action” that will bring us the spiritual awakening described in the Step 9 promises. We will be closer to God than ever before, we will be able to look our fellow man in the eye, and we will have peace and serenity we never knew was possible.

May you find spiritual health, emotional health, and physical health today my friends!

-A grateful member of the Awaken community

Step Three

March 23, 2020Awaken Blog12 Steps, addiction, brokenness, confession, God's love, gospel, grace, Greg Oliver, healing, love, pornography, recovery, restoration, sex addiction, sexual addiction, sobriety, sponsor, Stacey Oliver, Step Three, Twelve StepsGreg

Step Three

Last week, I wrote that steps 1 through 3 of the Twelve Steps are the “Made a Decision” steps and the rest of the steps are the “Take Action” steps. (See the entire post here.) Let’s dig a little deeper into the last of these “Made a Decision” steps and see what we find. Step 3 says that we “Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.” Let’s break it down…

Made a Decision to…

At some point early in our recovery process, we drew a line in the sand. Our lives were unmanageable and we knew we needed help from God to change. For some of us, this decision came in a time of crisis – our world was falling apart and we had reached rock bottom. We could not continue to live like we were living. For others, this decision came from an awareness of our behavior and the direction we were going and a recognition that this was not the path we wanted our lives to follow. In either case, we reached a point that we decided to do something about our behavior. So what did we decide to do?

…turn our will…

Whether we knew it or not, our behavior stemmed from a faulty thought-process – or as our brothers and sisters in AA say, “stinkin’ thinkin’”. We had beliefs about ourselves that were not true and we had cultivated patterns of thinking that led us to acting out even when the thoughts themselves were not directly related to acting out. We lived in fear, anger, resentment, or self-pity. And we were convinced that acting out would help to make us feel better. And in the moment, sometimes they did make us feel better. But they also took over our lives and eventually, the wheels fell off. So, we had to learn to turn these faulty thought-processes over to God. We had to learn to let these thoughts go when they came into our heads. We had to learn to be thankful instead of resentful, and helpful to others instead of full of fear and self-pity. This is what it means to “turn our will” over to God. And the rest of the 12 steps help us to learn how to do these things.

…and our lives…

Not only did we need to change our way of thinking, we also needed to change our behaviors. We had habitually acted on the faulty thought processes and turned those into a regular way of life. We had been dishonest with ourselves and with others. And we had hurt a lot of people in the process – including ourselves. Instead of acting on our feelings and desires in a destructive manner, we needed to learn how to “do the next right thing”. We needed to learn to stop trying to manipulate outcomes and instead to figure out the next right thing to do – and do it! We needed to turn our lives over to our Higher Power. And the rest of the 12 steps help us learn how to do this as well.

…over to the care of God…

Turning our lives and wills over to the care of God means that we cannot do this all by ourselves. Our own thinking and decision making has led us to do things that have caused a lot of harm. We needed to learn to trust God by letting go of our old thought-patterns and choosing to do the next right thing. Finding the help to do this involves prayer, meditation, meetings, phone calls, and reading. It involves taking life one day at a time by not dwelling on the past or living in fear of the future. And it involves finding a sponsor to help us walk this path – another person who has turned their life and will over to the care of God.

…as we understood Him.

The 12 Steps are designed to show a lot of grace to the different religious backgrounds that each of us bring to recovery. And I have seen that they work very well regardless of what we believe (or don’t believe) when we start this journey. The 12 Steps represent a spiritual journey of action and it is very likely that our belief and understanding of God will change to some degree throughout the process. This does not suggest we will reject everything we’ve ever believed. Many of us come to understand that the God we’ve believed in/about isn’t really God, but rather an image we’ve created about God, connected to someone else’s influence. If we open our heart to the idea that change is possible, and if we take action to allow that change to take place in our lives, we will find a new life of serenity and awareness that we never knew was possible. And we can experience God differently, in a way that is more genuine and secure.

One last thought:

While Step 3 is described like a one-time decision that we made early on in our recovery, my sponsor once told me that steps 1, 2, and 3 should be worked every day. It might be really easy for me to turn my life and will over to God one day, but then the next day, not make that decision. But if I wake up each morning and recognize my own powerlessness, acknowledge my need for help, and try to do the next right thing, I tremendously increase my chances of being sober that day. I challenge you to start your day by praying or meditating on steps 1, 2, and 3. It just might help you to stay sober!

-A grateful member of the Awaken community

Grace and Effort (not mutually exclusive)

March 17, 2020Awaken Blog12 Steps, addiction, awaken, brokenness, God's love, gospel, grace, Greg Oliver, healing, pornography, recovery, sex addiction, sexual addiction, sobriety, sponsor, support, Twelve StepsGreg

Grace and Effort (not mutually exclusive)

Question: There were once three frogs sitting on a log. One of them made a decision to jump in the water. How many frogs were left on the log?

Answer: Three – the frog made a decision, but he took no action!

Working a program of recovery is a lot like the story of the frogs. We can make all the decisions we want, but until we take some action to get healthy, nothing will change. Steps 1 through 3 of the 12 Steps are the “made a decision” steps. We realized we were powerless, came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could help, and made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to God as we understood him. If all we do is work these three steps, we are the frog who made a decision to jump in the water, but ended up staying on the log. Steps 4 through 12 is where action really comes into play. We write down a moral inventory and share it with another person. We identify defects of character and ask God to remove them. We list people we have harmed and we make amends. And we work to maintain sobriety through prayer and meditation and working with others. We also attend meetings and make phone calls and work with therapists to dig into the causes of our behavior. This is the effort that we put forth when we work a program of recovery, and I don’t believe that we can recover without these actions.

But there is also a big part of recovery where we let go and let God, the “Power greater than ourselves,” give us gifts that we cannot get on our own. Christians call this grace. When we let go of our need to control an outcome and just do the next right thing, we are trusting in the grace of God. When we “accept the things we cannot change” and find the “wisdom to know the difference” between things we can change and things we can’t, we are trusting in the grace of God. When we experience the 9th Step Promises, we are experiencing grace. When our sponsor reminds us that working recovery is about progress rather than perfection, we are receiving grace. There are many gifts of recovery that are given to us as we work the program – things that we cannot get on our own. All of these fall into the category of grace and I don’t believe that we can recover without this grace.

I’ll leave you with the words of James: “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.” – James 2: 14-17

May your effort work hand-in-hand with faith in God and His grace, as you work your program today!

– A grateful member of the Awaken community

Self-Care is NOT Selfish, part 2

March 12, 2020Awaken Blogaddiction, awaken, boundaries, brokenness, confession, forgiveness, friendship, God's love, gospel, grace, Greg Oliver, healing, pornography, recovery, restoration, self care, sex addiction, sexual addiction, sobriety, Stacey Oliver, supportGreg

Self-Care is NOT Selfish, part 2

I mentioned in my last post that early in my recovery from sexual addiction I realized I needed to consider a shift in my thinking about self-care. Every message I’d been taught or had held reinforced a consistent message. Self-care is selfish. Don’t think about yourself. Think about others. Teaching from trusted authority figures doubled down on a message of “dying to self.”

Then I began to realize this was not actually a biblical model. If I am in Christ, then my “self” is not who it used to be. My current self is someone whom God has “raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus…” (Ephesians 2:6). This self is someone with value, someone worth caring for.

With this in mind, what are some important concepts to consider regarding self-care? There are many more, but for this pose I’m going to focus on three:

FIND OUT WHAT FILLS YOUR TANK (AKA “What kind of eggs do I like?”).

Remember the movie “Runaway Bride?” Julia Roberts moved from fiancée to fiancée, never actually following through with a wedding. She’d get right to that point and would bail every time. The movie eventually revealed that one of her problems was that she was adapting her personality to fit the man she was with, because she didn’t really know who she was, what she liked, or what she needed. She was not a secure individual, and would never be able to be a healthy partner in a secure relationship.

Each relationship she had in the movie was characterized by the former fiancée being asked how Julia’s character liked her eggs. Every man had a different answer. In the end she realized she had no idea how she liked her eggs, and she wouldn’t be fulfilled or complete until she figured it out.

Many of us don’t know “how we like our eggs” either. A lot of people, when first considering self-care, have a hard time because they don’t know what they like. They don’t know what makes them feel alive. This is particularly true when recovering from addiction. Addicts have spent so much time withdrawing from others and from really living life and going deeper into the cave of addiction, they often don’t know what they love or enjoy. Joy has not been very present in their lives for a long time. This is also true for partners of addicts. In many cases, their lives have been spent trying to make their marriage work or keep their partner happy, to the detriment of their own emotional, mental, physical, or spiritual needs.

It is important for people in recovery to figure out what gives us life, joy, and energy. Sex Addicts Anonymous (SAA), has an incredibly helpful exercise called The Three Circles (click link for info). Three concentric circles are drawn. The innermost circle contains a list of “bottom-line” behaviors, actions that are always harmful, sinful, addictive, etc. The middle of the three circles contains questionable behaviors; while not necessarily wrong, they are often connected to a ritual that ends in acting-out behavior. Whenever these middle-circle behaviors are present, it’s wise to ask oneself what’s going on, and to make an adjustment.

While a lot of people see this exercise primarily as a way to identify addictive or dangerous behavior, those are only two of the three circles addressed. The third circle is the largest and arguably the most important. The outer circle contains a list of good, healthy, life-giving, recovery-encouraging behaviors that should fill a recovering person’s life. These are things that fill, not empty, our tanks. Activities don’t have to be overtly recovery activities (therapy, support group meetings, meeting with a sponsor, etc.), although these are important and necessary. Other “outer-circle” behaviors can include getting enough sleep, exercise, healthy eating, playing or listening to music, taking a walk, spending time with friends, reading/studying the Bible, connecting with God in prayer, healthy sexual connection with spouse, reserving some “alone time…” You get the picture. When drawing the three circles, the outer circle is the largest and has the most space because it’s these behaviors we want filling our lives.

If you struggle to know what actions would represent self-care for you, it might be a good start to do the Three Circles exercise for yourself!

WHEN CARING FOR OTHERS, DON’T FORGET TO CARE FOR YOURSELF.

Ugh. This is a tough one for me. I’m a helper. Just ask my Enneagram test. I thrive on helping and caring for other people. Whenever helpers see someone hurting, we want to do absolutely anything and everything we can to help alleviate that hurt and to lead that person to safety.

Helping other people is a core part of recovery. When we work through the Twelve Steps, the last one talks about how we give back and help others. We have had a spiritual awakening through the process, and now we have the opportunity to be part of how others have their awakening. While the ability to help other people is a gift (and to a degree a responsibility) for recovering people, it’s important not to neglect our own needs while trying to be the vessel for meeting the needs of others.

Stacey and I attended a workshop training a couple of years ago, put on by People of the Second Chance (click to visit) and featuring Mike and Jennifer Foster. The workshop was focused on developing skills as a caregiver, and one of the sessions zoomed in on the importance of self-care especially while caring for others. Listen to what Mike had to say…

“Think about your heart and soul like a canteen. Inside this canteen is a week’s worth of water. As you go out to serve and help people, the rule after each activity is this: You’ve got to drink some water from your canteen. Every encounter you have requires you to take some amount of water from your water bottle.

“Some of the people you help will, honestly, be really easy. No sweat, and you’ll just have to take a small sip of water and you’re ready to go help someone else. But sometimes, helping hurting people is really hard and it gets really hot and humid, and the conversation is grueling and emotions from the situation are boiling over.

“Helping some people is a total cakewalk, while helping others feels like a 100-mile journey through Death Valley. So, when you’re walking with people through Death Valley, you need a lot more water. But here’s the problem. Your canteen only holds so much water. And if you don’t stop and fill it up every so often, you’re going to run out of water. And then you burn out, you burn up, you’re cooked, your heart is fried. And now you’re the one needing to be rescued.”

If we really love caring for other people, we have to understand that self-care is an important part of how we do that.

BOUNDARIES ARE NOT BAD.

Sometimes we have to say “no.” We all have a limited amount of time, and a limited amount of mental and emotional energy. Most of us have more people and situations fighting for a share of that energy than we have to spare. We can’t do it all, even if we’d like to. Sometimes we have to say “no” to certain things.

This is really hard for people in recovery. Many recovering people carry a level of shame over what we’ve done, and that translates into a sense of obligation to agree to anything and everything that’s asked of us. While it’s definitely important to be humble and agreeable, especially to our spouses and other people we’ve harmed the most, we don’t want duty or obligation to be the only motivation for why we say “yes” to things.

Boundaries are a very important aspect of self-care, because they reinforce that we – not just other people – have value and a good soul that needs to be nurtured. Sometimes the need to protect a night and stay home to recharge is more important than the thing another person is asking you to do, even if that thing is a good thing. But saying “no” to good things is sometimes necessary to experience even better things.

Be aware, though, that not everyone understands, validates, or respects boundaries. Sometimes people who don’t “do” boundaries make you feel like a villain for having them. When your boundaries are challenged, or when people tell you your boundaries feel like punishment, that good boundaries aren’t for the purpose of punishing the people you say “no” to. Good boundaries are for self-protection, which (like I mentioned in the last point) will ultimately make service and sacrifice even better; because it will be coming from a healthier place.

So, if you – like me – have struggled to accept the validity or acceptability of self-care, I hope these posts have encouraged and invited you to look at the concept a little differently. Self-care is a good thing, a godly thing, and a necessary step to take in recovery and in life.

Greg Oliver was a worship pastor for 15 years before his secret addiction to pornography and sex was exposed in 2009. Since then he has been on a journey of recovery, discovering his true identity and experiencing God’s grace like never before. He and his wife Stacey founded Awaken as a way to walk with individuals, couples, and ministry leaders, and to help them experience healing in the midst of sexual brokenness.

Self-Care is NOT Selfish (part 1)

March 11, 2020Awaken Blogaddiction, awaken, brokenness, confession, forgiveness, friendship, God's love, gospel, grace, Greg Oliver, healing, pornography, recovery, restoration, self care, sex addiction, sexual addiction, sobriety, Stacey Oliver, supportGreg

Self-Care is NOT Selfish (part 1)

When I first entered recovery in 2009, I started to hear a lot of people talk about self-care. My therapist talked about it. The men in recovery meetings talked about it. Authors of books I read talked about it. Self-care seemed pretty important.

That created a bit of a mini-crisis for me. Because self-care went against most everything I’d ever been taught by every spiritual authority figure throughout my entire life. So, yeah, there was a bit of a hurdle to get over.

Here are some of the messages that have indoctrinated me over the course of my life. Maybe you can relate to some of them.

“Anything you do that includes the word ‘self’ is not from God.”

“Self-care is self-ISH.”

“The only thing Scripture says about self is that you’re supposed to die to it!”

“Focusing on yourself keeps you from focusing on others.”

All these points are very compelling, except for one small detail. They’re all wrong. My years in recovery have not just been about recovering from sexual addiction. They’ve also been about recovering from false beliefs that created despair and contributed to my destructive behavior.

So, what does Scripture say about “self?”

In Mark chapter 12:28-31 we read…

One of the scribes approached. When he heard them debating and saw that Jesus answered them well, he asked him, “Which command is the most important of all?” Jesus answered, “The most important is: ‘Listen, O Israel! The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other command greater than these.”

If we want to get good advice, maybe taking it straight from the Savior’s mouth is a good strategy. Jesus gave us three distinct directives on who we are to love: God, ourselves, and our neighbors. We are to love God with absolutely everything we are: our emotions (heart), our spiritual selves (soul), our intellect (mind), and through our obedience (strength). And we are to love our neighbors, yes. But not just any general way. How are we to love our neighbors? As we love ourselves. If I don’t love myself, how can I love my neighbor?

And let’s not forget to mention the numerous times in the gospels when Jesus retreated from the crowds and the busyness of Him ministry. Why did He do this? Because Jesus knew that even He needed to care for Himself. He needed times of refreshing, of quiet solitude, times to relax. He was fully God, but He was also fully human, and even Jesus needed to recharge His batteries sometimes.

OK, but what about “dying to self?”

Great question. What about that? Where in Scripture does the concept of “dying to self” show up? I have a confession: it was a lot of years into my life as a Christian and even my years of pastoral ministry before I realized “die to self” never shows up in the Bible. Don’t believe me? Check for yourself.

Well, what about Galatians 2:20, or Galatians 5:24-25, or how about Romans 6:1-5?

OK, let’s take a look at those Scriptures…

Galatians 2:20 (CSB)“I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

Galatians 5:24-25 (CSB) “Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.”

Romans 6:1-5 (CSB) “What should we say then? Should we continue in sin so that grace may multiply? Absolutely not! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Or are you unaware that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life.”

Do you know what I notice in these passages? A lot of talk about death. So, it makes sense why these are some of the many passages cited when promoting the concept of “dying to self.” It’s just that I think we’ve forgotten one very important point when we read these passages.

The flesh is NOT my “self” anymore.

Because of what Jesus has done, and through my trust in Him, I have already died to self completely. Paul tells us beautifully in 2 Corinthians 5:17 (CSB)…

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come!”

As a believer I’m not called to die to self. I’m called to stop acting like a dead man and to start living as my new self. Warming up to this concept makes ALL the difference in SO many ways!

There’s more to say about healthy self-care, as it pertains to an addiction recovery journey. But I wanted to first establish a biblical baseline that allows us to embrace self-care as not only “not wrong,” but actually something that honors Christ (and that He Himself did). In our next post, we’ll talk about some practical implications of self-care in recovery.

Active Surrender

February 18, 2020Awaken Blog12 Steps, addiction, awaken, brokenness, forgiveness, God's love, gospel, grace, Greg Oliver, healing, love, pornography, recovery, sex addiction, sexual addiction, support, surrenderGreg

Active Surrender

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said:

“You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment.”

and…

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

I believe that Jesus is describing an active way of surrendering. Instead of only focusing on stopping a particular behavior, we should pay close attention to the thoughts and motivations behind our actions. Step 3 of the 12 Steps tells us the same thing:

“Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.”

When we work this step daily, we turn two things over to our higher power. I believe that the phrase “our lives” is referring to our actions – the things that we do each day. And I believe that the phrase “our will” is referring to our thoughts and our motivations – the reason we do the things we do. It’s great to stop acting out, but until we address the reasons that we act out and the thought processes that lead up to it, long-term sexual sobriety will be very hard to come by.

So, how do we do this? How do we gain a better understanding of why we continue to do the things that keep getting us into trouble?

I believe that two of the Twelve Steps answer this question specifically. The first of these is Step 4. When we take a “searching and fearless moral inventory” of ourselves, we list several things. The first is pretty obvious – we list the bad stuff we’ve done in our lives and the people we’ve harmed. But then the Big Book suggests that we list our resentments and fears. “What on Earth,” you may ask, “do resentments and fears have to do with me acting out?” The answer is simple: Anger over the past and fears of the future are very often the driving forces behind our addictive behavior.

So, after working step 4, we have a list of resentments and fears. But we haven’t done anything to let them go yet. That’s where Step 7 comes in. We can show that we are ”completely willing for God to remove these defects of character”, by asking Him to remove specific fears and resentments that we have listed. And the process of listing these feelings and asking God to remove them helps us to become more aware when new resentments and fears creep into our life.

In addition to working the steps, many of us have found professional counselling to be very helpful to our recovery, especially when it comes to digging into our thoughts and motivations. Awaken has a list of therapists that are familiar with our fellowship and there are many others out there too. The main thing I would recommend is to find someone who specializes in recovery from addictive sexual behavior. Another option is the Roots Retreat that Awaken provides several times each year. These four days of intense work have been very helpful to many in our fellowship.

Early in my recovery journey my sponsor shared a beautiful analogy with me. We were discussing surrender and he said…

“Imagine your addiction as something you have held very tightly in your hand for a long time. You have wanted it gone and asked for help in getting rid of it. But to truly surrender it, you have to open up your hand and let it go.”

May you open up your hand today.

– A grateful member of the Awaken community

Sobriety vs. Abstinence

February 3, 2020Awaken Blogabstinence, addiction, awaken, brokenness, confession, counseling, forgiveness, friendship, God's love, gospel, grace, Greg Oliver, healing, infidelity, pornography, recovery, restoration, sex addiction, sexual addiction, sobriety, supportGreg

Sobriety vs. Abstinence

When working a program of recovery, one word that is spoken all the time is SOBRIETY. “Am I sober?” “How many days sober am I?” “I did _______…Do I need to reset my sobriety?”

What do we mean when we use that word? Is sobriety simply the absence of acting out behavior? If so, does that mean sobriety and abstinence are synonymous terms?

I believe there is a difference. While it may seem like splitting hairs, I think it’s important to draw and understand the distinction between the two. What would it look like if we thought of abstinence more as something we are trying to avoid; and of sobriety as something we try to pursue? What difference would that make in my perspective? In this way, abstinence – the avoiding of destructive or addictive behavior – becomes PART of my pursuit of sobriety.

Sobriety is not a new concept, nor one that is unique to addiction recovery. In fact, it’s quite biblical. The Bible talks several times* in the New Testament about being “sober-minded.” The way sobriety is described in the Bible shows us that sobriety means I’m alert, awake, and engaged. (*Romans 12:3; 1 Thessalonians 5:6; 1 Timothy 3:2; 2 Timothy 4:5; Titus 2:2; 1 Peter 1:13, 4:7, 5:8)

When I am living sober, I am able to anticipate and see attacks before they happen, so that they do not surprise or overwhelm me. When I am living sober, I can clearly see where I am going and I have the focus to keep moving toward that destination.

A member of Awaken’s men’s fellowship has written the following, to encourage us to meditate more on the distinctions. I hope it encourages you!

Abstinence is…giving up a behavior for a prescribed period of time.

Sobriety is…choosing a path of daily surrender for a lifetime.

Abstinence is…often enforced by external pressure.

Sobriety is…from an internal desire to do the next right thing.

Abstinence is…having something ripped away from us while we scratch and claw to get it back.

Sobriety is…gladly opening up our hand to give it up.

Abstinence is…a sprint.

Sobriety is…a marathon.

Abstinence is…something we do.

Sobriety is…something we become.

Abstinence is…a knock-down, drag-out fight in the dirt on a hot day.

Sobriety is…a walk along a beach with a light breeze blowing.

Abstinence is…something that we can’t wait to end.

Sobriety is…something that are grateful for every day.

Abstinence is…exhausting.

Sobriety is…refreshing.

Abstinence is…giving up something that we really want.

Sobriety is…changing what we want and how we want it.

Abstinence is…behavior changing.

Sobriety is…life changing.

Abstinence is…measured in weeks, months, or years.

Sobriety is…attained one day at a time.

Abstinence is…a chore.

Sobriety is…a gift.

– A grateful member of the Awaken community