#005: Why We Stall in Recovery?

Welcome to the Courage Reclaim podcast, where our mission is to help Christian men break free from what holds them back, fall madly in love with Jesus, and become the leaders he's called and created us to be.

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Why do we fail to see progress in our recovery? Have you ever felt like that? That no matter what you try, you don't actually make any progress? You always end up back where you started? If you heard the episode or if you've taken the breaking free course, you know a little bit of my story. I felt like I tried everything without seeing any progress in recovery. I tried reading my Bible more, I tried praying more, I tried counseling, I tried confessing occasionally to my wife. I tried an accountability group. I even experienced fear of divorce, and none of that actually made meaningful progress in my recovery journey. Nothing seemed to help. Certainly, it served as short term motivation, but inevitably it wouldn't last. In fact, bi wouldn't last. Oftentimes, I'm talking about it wouldn't last more than like five minutes. I could be worshiping the Lord at church, and then five minutes after getting home acting out, I could have a difficult conversation with my wife about the impact that my sin has on her and on our marriage, and act out five minutes later. I could not understand it, and just reiterated the point that I didn't actually feel like I was making any progress in my recovery journey.

Honestly, I felt like I tried everything. Yet our marriage was on the brink. What more could I have done? From my conversations with many men through this ministry, I don't think that perspective is very different from the vast majority of men. And one of the dangerous things about it is the implication of that thought process of I've tried everything is that we're looking for a silver bullet. I tried counseling, I tried confession, I tried reading the Bible. I tried going forward at the altar call at church. I tried confessing to my pastor. We're looking for a silver bullet. Oftentimes, whether we realize it or not. And oftentimes this stems from having a unhelpful or unrealistic goal. See, in the midst of my addiction, I knew that I could not withstand temptation and so I felt like my goal really success really needs to be defined as there's no temptation. Again, I knew that if there was any little bit of temptation, I would eventually give in because I had ten years of experience of recognizing that as a fact. Now, that's frankly not a helpful goal, because not only do we know from Scripture that this side of heaven, there will always be temptation, but it's also a pass fail metric. So if there's temptation today, if I act out today, I fail.

Otherwise I pass. And it doesn't matter what level of progress, how much time has elapsed. If I fail, I'm back again. It's binary. I'm back at the beginning. It's not helpful. It's not productive. And I don't think it's accurate. As far as what a healthy goal looks like when we're talking about recovery, it has more to do with recklessly pursuing freedom from sin and its effects and allowing God to use it for good. Recovery itself is a process. It is not a pass fail thing. It's a process of healing the areas of our lives and implementing healthy alternatives to our vices. See if we're pursuing perfection. We experience constant discouragement when we fall short. But if we pursue progress through healing and not just white knuckling and not just trying harder, which we'll get into in another episode or in the breaking free course if you want to take that. If we pursue progress through healing, even when we relapse, we know that we're not starting back at square one because we have evidence of the progress that has been made. This mindset shift is the biggest hurdle for guys to break free from sexual addiction or pornography addiction. He says instead of finding just the right thing to break free, healing is actually a process of stacking things. Trying hard is important, but it's not enough.

Setting up boundaries are important, but even that is insufficient. Confession, community understanding. They're all vital to recovery, and they all need to be stacked one on top of another, over and over and over again. The good news is, healing and freedom and progress and redemption are all possible. And in order to reach it you will become a very different person. I was talking last night with a friend of mine who's part of this recovery ministry, and he equated the healing journey to when you first begin while you're in the midst of addiction, you're in the midst of a dense fog. You cannot see a way out, you cannot see anything clearly. And in relation to marriage and friendships, it's what you see is all that you know. However, every say three months that you actually pursue freedom again, not just white knuckling sobriety, but actually pursuing freedom, you begin to get a level clearer of the fog. And before too long, you can look back on where you were while you were in the midst of that dense fog, and be in utter disbelief that you ever were so enamored by the sin, you can be so dumbfounded that you put your relationship so clearly on the line with a significant other, with your children, with your spouse. You can wonder how ever you allowed yourself to not pursue counseling, not pursue things that you thought could bring about healing when you were acting out for or 14 times per week.

Each step that you take toward recovery, every time that you stack additional healing, additional progress on itself, you begin rolling back a layer of fog until you ultimately can see clearly. And that, for me, is one of the most encouraging parts about it, about recovery. And one of the things that keeps me grounded in confession, even when it's incredibly difficult, because I know how incredibly deep into the sin that I was. I know how unclearly I was seeing. I know my marriage was on the line before, and the thought of who I was, and knowing that I absolutely could go back there if I don't keep myself in check, through confession, through community, etc. like that terrifies me in the fear of going back to who I was. Is what motivates me to keep pushing forward in the difficult journey of addiction, recovery and healing. Every week, I connect with men who thought their life was lost to their addiction, and every week I connect with men who thought they were lost. But for the first time ever are experiencing more freedom and healing and redemption than they ever thought possible. This can be your reality too. No one is beyond God's ability to redeem, but we must work with His Spirit.

As Romans 813 says, for if you live according to the flesh, you will die. How's that for a sobering reminder? But it goes on to say, if by the spirit you have put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. So again, we are partnering with the Holy Spirit to bring about the radical change in our life that is needed. So what does that actually look like? My friends, we will jump into what that tangibly looks like in further episodes, but for now, I will direct you to the Breaking Free course on the Courage Reclaimed website, we unpack exactly what it can look like to work with God's Spirit to pursue freedom. That course on Courage Reclaims website is completely free. You can knock it out and say 3.5 hours. There are some application questions in there that I encourage you to take some time over. But my friends, that is a free resource for you to understand. What does actual recovery look like? What does actual healing look like? Instead of just perpetually trying harder and harder and harder until we inevitably give in? If you know what it feels like to have tried everything and are ready to make real progress. I encourage you to take that course, my friend. With Christ there is always hope. I love you brother