Recovering Sex Addict

I was exposed to sex at a very early age and began to have an active fantasy life around the third grade. I reasoned from an early age that if boys didn't like me, then I would just pretend that they did. And if boys didn't want me  then I could slip into a fantasy world where they desired me. So that's what I did faithfully for twelve years and what I still fight against this very day.

I had a secret life. As soon as I was out of sight, or sometimes just out of hearing range, I would drift into my fantasy world. They ranged from imagining I had someone to cuddle with to erotic fantasies and masturbation, thought those shackles didn't come until I was around 15. First introduced to the idea by an older neighbor girl, I was chained to a world that I could control. When I hated myself, I could be someone else. When I wanted someone, they could become mine all in a world of make believe. Like an x-rated game of imaginary friends. I was addicted. I was dependent upon it. It was my life.

When I started to walk with God seriously and consistently, I just got saved in m fantasy world too. Instead of random people, I would fantasize about my future husband. It wasn't until then that I saw how erotic fantasies began to tear me away from God. I tried to stop. And often times I was too busy to fantasize once I began doing ministry, but I just couldn't shake free. It was a demonic stronghold. What finally set me free in 2010 was my confession to my two best friends. It was hard. It sucked. But I knew I was free for the first time in over a decade, which was well over half my life at the age of twenty.

Once I went back to school, I was too busy to even know if my life had really changed. I was free and managed to keep myself out of compromising situations. Time went on and I struggled mostly when I would visit home. I fell a lot. I knew I was free, but my mind had not changed. I had the power to say no, but didn't have the mind to. I didn't trust God with my life. I still wanted control. And the only place I could have control was there. So that's where I went. It became my escape. I would run there when things were bad. What I had been set free from I let back in.

As time went on I would dabble in it, but I did what I could to stay pure for the most part. I didn't have a lot of alone time anymore, so that helped. I went to another school for a semester, then back to the university I was originally at. This was the roughest season I'd had concerning my issues with sexual purity. Lust was running rapid on this campus and I was overtaken as an unsuspecting victim. I was swallowed whole by my fleshly desires like I had not been since before Christ. I was a hypocrite. While in real life I was discipling women and leading an intercessory prayer meeting every week, I was being defeated every single night in my bedroom. It was an awful and draining double life. 

I would have victorious weeks. And during one of my times of victory I attended an anonymous group for women who struggled with sexual sin. Being that it was during my high time, I was kind of a damper on the party. I was the one who kept saying, "But Jesus can free you!" Which is what these women knew and what I knew. The meeting was interesting, we studied scriptures, talked about our struggles, and confessed our wrongs. But the other women were in the midst of their sin whereas I was walking in freedom at the time. 

I took home the study guide as a gift and once I was home I began to peddle through it. I felt this identity creep up on me as I searched for the root of my issue so that it wouldn't come back. Instead of focusing on God, I began to focus on my sin. Upon taking a couple of questionnaires I discovered I was a sex addict. And this is how I began to identify myself. This became who I was. I was no longer a child of Christ, but an addict who would never be healed, only recovering. 

When I began to identify myself by my sin, I saw no light at the end of the tunnel and fighting was useless. For a couple of weeks I couldn't see past the darkness of who I thought I really was. Until God broke through and said this is not who you are. You are free, new, clean and pure. Not until I allowed God to reveal to me my true identity could I truly learn to say no to sexual sin.

All of that to say, WE MUST NO LONGER REGARD PEOPLE AS IN THE FLESH! We must begin to see people as Christ sees them. When Jesus healed the sick and lame he had vision of who they really were and could therefore restore them to that. If we continue to play along with the enemy who has made the sin of this generation the core of who they are we will never see freedom. Freedom is about what Christ set us free to, not what He set us free from. If we focus on what we need to be free from we will only sink deeper. 

ONCE WE KNOW WHO WE ARE IN CHRIST A LIFESTYLE OF SIN WILL BE UNACCEPTABLE TO US.

I have never seen anyone, including myself, get set free by focusing on not sinning. But I have seen many become free and begin to walk in freedom and victory by regarding themselves the way Christ does. When I am tempted I remember that is not who I am and I trust God with my life. No, I am not a 'recovering' sex addict. I am a child of the living God who is PURE. Yes, sex addiction is something I have to say no to everyday, but that does NOT define me NOR identify me. I am PURE. And when I stand on the truth of God's word it tells me I am free because the Son has set me free.

So whatever you are struggling with, I plead with you to focus on the cross. Know who you are in Christ and saying no will become easier and easier.

Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. Therefore if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. 2 Corinthians 5:16, 17

So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. John 8:36

In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to Him as instruments of righteousness. Romans 6:11-13