People to check carefully before allowing on your support team

These people can come along for the ride, but check their boarding pass carefully. (Even if their ticket is in order, they are not meant to be the accountability partner or sponsor).

1. Friends from current circles – are the people you are spending time with 100% on board with your recovery? Usually not – they usually are enabling us or reinforcing something wrong that I’m into. I’m going to get some heat for this from people who have never been through recovery, but you have to go into the bubble for a bit on recovery and get around people where the fruits of dramatic life change and passionate life for the Lord is evident. I was very blessed in that God used the time during a move for me so the detachment from friends was easier. I’m not saying leave town – that’s between God and you, but there is no way someone can hang around the same group of friends from a former lifestyle and break free. They may be able to go back later to help their friends but that will be much later. I tried “going clean” while living in Kentucky to hang around with all my friends who still smoked, drank, and engaged in everything else that was making me ill. My willpower lasted about an hour (lol).
2. Family – Jesus’ own biological family was against him. They didn’t put him up on the cross but were not participants in God’s mission for him. They won’t say anything like “You don’t need to quit drinking,” because they’re not idiots – they know you’re a jerk when you drink Just be on guard for little verbal jabs or emails meant to ridicule, distract, or frustrate. Nearly every case of a person in recovery experiences this from at least one member of their family. Codependent or prideful mothers with control issues can insert an irresistible defense of their actions at end of the post . All I’m saying is Jesus expanded this definition of family for a reason.
3. Spouse – Eventually the spouse has to be on board because we are one with them and the body would be otherwise at war with itself. Be judicious in when this is brought along. I’ve heard guys try to explain how their spouse is their best friend, should be their accountability partner, etc. After a grasp of the shoulders and a shake, most come to their senses. Bringing in their spouse too early and sharing too much before a basis of understanding is there to receive this knowledge from us can be hazardous. Conversely, one can go my route and wait too long and be dishonest about my recovery with my wife. There is a happy middle ground – a narrow Gate that the Lord will lead us through.

Once that support team is there and regularly utilized though, recovery moves ahead like we’re drinking rocket fuel. I encourage you to start right now and even just shoot an email to someone in your recovery group to feel them out for the accountability thing. If you’re not in a group, go find one right now. God is ready for the next stage of our lives – the one he called us to before the world was even created. I’m excited for you!

I noticed there is one common thread across these 3 situations, and that is my humility before the Lord. Guys will help keep me accountable and say, “How’s your walk with the Lord,” but that is almost bordering on Christian cliche. What guys should be asking each other is, “How is your humility before the Lord,” or as Matt Chandler mentioned in a recent sermon, “What is in your hand when you approach the Lord”?

I can’t address denial or find truth without humility. Denial is nothing more than a lie to myself and others. To expose it I need the light of truth. God is the light and in him there is no darkness but God isn’t going to give me light when I’m refusing to come out of darkness. He can, but that does me no good for him to bail me out every time with a supernatural experience when I know what he’s all about.

Isn’t it a bit silly when I take a walk and really think about how big God is, that I could still try to hang on to things that I know God wants me to confess to him and let him cast out into the darkness? It’s not like these are awesome things and God is some giant kill-joy, either. I’m talking about stuff that eats my life like a cancer and I’m not talking about sex, drugs, or rock and roll. I’m talking about nothing more than pride.

1. So, the first step is being straight with God – it’s not like I’m surprising him or anything It’s going to take some time for God to really get us to the heart of the issue so be patient – I’m talking months – perhaps, years. In my case, God got me in the door for sexual addiction but I came to find something much deeper that was pulling the strings on that and other struggles in my life.
2. finding someone I trust, or someone I don’t know at all that will never know me and tell someone what’s up. It’s funny that growing up as a Catholic, I felt the whole priest/confession thing was bogus. Granted the Biblical rationale is still bogus but God does say to confess your sins to one another so that you may be healed.  It doesn’t say “might” be healed. It says, “that.” I have no idea why that matters but I haven’t seen the Bible be wrong yet.

Are you ready for those two steps? Awesome – tell us about it in the comments below. It’s all confidential. Share either your answer to the question we asked or share what happened after #1 & 2.

1. the obvious ones everyone thinks of – self-medicating with things that cause a feeling of ecstasy in the brain – drugs, booze, sex, whatever.
2. Next come the socially inappropriate things like controlling others with anger or guilt, looking to others to save me (codependency), annoying habits to others because they’re either gross or show signs of weakness like biting nails, cracking knuckles.
3. Then the socially approved ones like controlling other people (known as taking charge or being a “type a” personality, work (being productive), and legalism (elevating rules above the principle), or pride (camouflaged as positive thinking)

Nearly every person I know struggles mightily in at least one item in any of those three categories and it seeps through our body like a slow-moving cancer – none being a better or worse prognosis than the others. A little dramatic, perhaps – or is it?

The crazy part is that 99% of the time you will only see people from category #1 in recovery or you may see someone with codependent issues (#2) in recovery but that is only because they’re married to someone from group #1

You will only see someone from group #3 in recovery unless God hits them with a (proverbial) truck or lets them hook up with someone from group #1. This is the largest group of all who is suffering. This is the hemorrhaging of “Christian America” and the emperor is wearing no clothes. I went from #1 to suffering in #3 and nobody even knew I was sick. The impact on my life was actually worse, because I was in “Christian I’m okay, you’re okay land.”

If you’re here because you need help – awesome! God has you in the right place. Keep moving closer to him and we’ll do what we can here to help with the process. Let this be a lesson from you future calling back to you though so you don’t make the same mistake I did. The problem isn’t the chemicals, sex, or whatever. There is something much deeper so be aware – we’ll cover this more as we walk through the steps of recovery.

If you’re here because you came looking for Rob Bell Sermons, a PK schedule, or more about if ghosts are in the Bible, and are figuring out if you should take offense at this post or write me off likw some dude wearing a sandwich board downtown, I hope we’ll see you here again too.

Discussion question – how do you handle disappointment?

(Here’s the catch. Before anyone says “I give it to God,” remember he’s listening )

What was the family secret that everyone tried to protect?

Every family does this to some level. Nobody wants the world to know their secrets but in the closed quarters of home life, the gunk will come out. Gunk is probably too nice of a word, so “the evil will come out”. At this point, the family acts like a person does when trying to present themselves on a first date and we hope it all goes away. There was a great example of this in the movie/book “The Prince of Tides”

This is a scary question and hopefully the posts leading up to this one that we’ve done on denial have prepared you for it. Going through the Celebrate Recovery process with the Lord will bring up a great amount of pain but it has to be dealt with through repentance and forgiveness. We’ll get to the how later on, but for now, back to the question.

Write this out somewhere – preferably start keeping a recovery journal. This is actually a later step so don’t start writing in it every day because we haven’t covered the safest way to do this so the journaling is a helpful tool in your recovery. Instead, just record periodic expansions on questions where there isn’t enough room to cover it completely in the Celebrate Recovery workbook.

Message behind this is the absurdity of the way most of us try to deal with the pain of life caused by sins of our own or others. Christ is willing to take this burden if we allow him. Understanding the practical application of this is surprisingly difficult even though the action of that application is blindingly simple.

I encourage anyone reading this who is practically enslaved by a hurt, habit, or hangup to seek the Lord and seek help through a Christ-centered 12-step program. If you have any questions, we have the comments below or you can contact me directly and I’ll help as best I can.

More specifically, how did you get attention or protect yourself?

1. Anger – I grew up watching that that if things did not go my way (justified or not), that it was okay to fly completely off the handle. I have used anger to control situations and people every day since. God has been teaching me as I’ve gone through this program that the root of unrighteous anger is fear and pride. An angry person would never admit fear is the root… franky, they’d quite angry But it is – that loss of control scares people and they feel weak. If they blow up, they either get their way or feel that they’re doing something. We’re doing something, all right, but it’s nothing good.
2. Fantasy – paved the way for my sexual struggles. I was very used to the fantasy world and relationships with people in my mind was easier than in person. This also made denial so sweet and easy. When things got scary as I was young, I either “fight back” (anger), but I had no power in those situations so my alternative was to slip off into daydreams. That was just as dangerous. I’ll admit something really weird here, but sometimes my anger and fantasy mix and I actually play out arguments in my head – and I lose about as many as I win. Hopefully nobody from my small group reads that one because they treat me like I’m normal thus far.
3. Aloofness – Guys are more prone to this than women. It’s the topic of every Promise Keepers conference I’ve been to. I like my cave (or at least I’ve believed that)
4. Knowledge – Closing this one out on a couple less-serious notes. I’ve learned a little about many things and remember all kinds of trivial facts that people enjoy in the right context.
5. Physical Tricks – I am a wiry guy and always have been. I used to be able to jump off just about anything and do certain things with my body to give the illusion I was suspended in air for a moment. Also learned many physical stunts and used to be good at a variety of imitations. Pretty rusty these days, but I can still do a great “Rural Kentucky”.

Make out your list and try to keep it balanced with both good and bad. It gives us more insight into the “why” of our addictions and compulsive behaviors.

If you haven’t hooked up with a Celebrate Recovery group in your area – do it! God will change your life if you truly work those steps and in the process learn how to give your life over to him.

1. Relieves the burden off myself – trying to hide the truth either about our past, present, or future challenges takes a monstrous amount of energy and time. We were meant to give those things over to God (1) (2)
2. identifies the problem so it can be fixed – I tell this to my customers all the time. “If you’re not measuring something, you can’t improve it.” This goes one giant leap further because if I don’t even acknowledge what I should be measuring, I have a much longer row to hoe.
3. Humbles myself before God – We talked about this in more depth the other day, but God requires a humble spirit. Below are 46 verses I pulled from e-sword (best free bible software on the planet) about humility. Also check out Jeremiah 2:35 and 3:13

(Exo 10:3) So Moses and Aaron went in to Pharaoh and said to him, “Thus says the LORD, the God of the Hebrews, ‘How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me? Let my people go, that they may serve me.

(Deu 8:2) And you shall remember the whole way that the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not.

(Deu 8:16) who fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers did not know, that he might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end.

(Jdg 16:5) And the lords of the Philistines came up to her and said to her, “Seduce him, and see where his great strength lies, and by what means we may overpower him, that we may bind him to humble him. And we will each give you 1,100 pieces of silver.”

(2Sa 22:28) You save a humble people, but your eyes are on the haughty to bring them down.

(2Ch 7:14) if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

(2Ch 33:23) And he did not humble himself before the LORD, as Manasseh his father had humbled himself, but this Amon incurred guilt more and more.

(2Ch 36:12) He did what was evil in the sight of the LORD his God. He did not humble himself before Jeremiah the prophet, who spoke from the mouth of the LORD.

(Ezr 8:21) Then I proclaimed a fast there, at the river Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before our God, to seek from him a safe journey for ourselves, our children, and all our goods.

(Psa 18:27) For you save a humble people, but the haughty eyes you bring down.

(Psa 25:9) He leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble his way.

(Psa 34:2) My soul makes its boast in the LORD; let the humble hear and be glad.

(Psa 55:19) God will give ear and humble them, he who is enthroned from of old, Selah, because they do not change and do not fear God.

(Psa 69:32) When the humble see it they will be glad; you who seek God, let your hearts revive.

(Psa 76:9) when God arose to establish judgment, to save all the humble of the earth. Selah.

(Psa 89:22) The enemy shall not outwit him; the wicked shall not humble him.

(Psa 147:6) The LORD lifts up the humble; he casts the wicked to the ground.

(Psa 149:4) For the LORD takes pleasure in his people; he adorns the humble with salvation.

(Pro 3:34) Toward the scorners he is scornful, but to the humble he gives favor.

(Pro 11:2) When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with the humble is wisdom.

(Pro 15:33) The fear of the LORD is instruction in wisdom, and humility comes before honor.

(Pro 18:12) Before destruction a man’s heart is haughty, but humility comes before honor.

(Pro 22:4) The reward for humility and fear of the LORD is riches and honor and life.

(Isa 58:5) Is such the fast that I choose, a day for a person to humble himself? Is it to bow down his head like a reed, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Will you call this a fast, and a day acceptable to the LORD?

(Isa 66:2) All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the LORD. But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.

(Jer 37:20) Now hear, please, O my lord the king: let my humble plea come before you and do not send me back to the house of Jonathan the secretary, lest I die there.”

(Jer 38:26) then you shall say to them, ‘I made a humble plea to the king that he would not send me back to the house of Jonathan to die there.’”

(Eze 17:14) that the kingdom might be humble and not lift itself up, and keep his covenant that it might stand.

(Dan 4:37) Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, for all his works are right and his ways are just; and those who walk in pride he is able to humble.

(Zep 2:3) Seek the LORD, all you humble of the land, who do his just commands; seek righteousness; seek humility; perhaps you may be hidden on the day of the anger of the LORD.

(Zep 3:12) But I will leave in your midst a people humble and lowly. They shall seek refuge in the name of the LORD,

(Zec 9:9) Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

(Mat 21:5) “Say to the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.’”

(Luk 1:48) for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;

(Luk 1:52) he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate;

(Act 20:19) serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials that happened to me through the plots of the Jews;

(2Co 10:1) I, Paul, myself entreat you, by the meekness and gentleness of Christ–I who am humble when face to face with you, but bold toward you when I am away!–

(2Co 12:21) I fear that when I come again my God may humble me before you, and I may have to mourn over many of those who sinned earlier and have not repented of the impurity, sexual immorality, and sensuality that they have practiced.

(Eph 4:2) with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love,

(Php 2:3) Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.

(Col 3:12) Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience,

(Jas 4:6) But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”

(Jas 4:10) Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

(1Pe 3:8) Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind.

(1Pe 5:5) Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

(1Pe 5:6) Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you,

We establish these elaborate systems of how to manage “X” issue in our lives that we know is hurting us and distancing us from God. We may even hit the Christian books on a topic – how many guys come into a 12 step group with sexual addictions and they tell me that I need to read “Every Man’s Battle”. Dude, if it’s such a great book, then why are you here

Just kidding, it’s a great book but you get my point. A 12-step group is for losers in many people’s eyes even if as good Christians we wouldn’t use the actual word “loser” in public conversation. I’ve heard the nice version of that assessment from people who I otherwise respect and while it’s a shame, you know what? It’s true.

Celebrate Recovery IS full of losers. We all hit the end of our journey of trying to do it ourselves and God pushed us into a 12-step group. But in our weakness God’s strength is shown and we realize it isn’t about struggling through life until it’s over. We were never meant to do it on our own in the first place. We were meant to walk closely with the Lord and with other brothers and sisters in Christ.

There isn’t anything in the 12 steps that physically couldn’t be done on one’s own and answering all the questions in the workbooks is done on our own, but there is a tremendous amount of humility required to go into a building where those meetings are taking place and admit to a small group of guys – perfect strangers – that I have a problem with “X” and need help.

God honors that humility, because it gives him room to work in our lives. Just humbling ourselves before the Lord doesn’t seem to cut it. Crazy, but it’s true. How many foxhole prayers have I made (“God if you get me out of this I’ll do…”) and then reneged on. When I started admitting my sins to people I trusted and we prayed to the Lord together about it, I was finally starting to be honest and the healing began to come (crazy how those Bible verses are actually so true).

if any of us have been trying to do it on your own and failing miserably, get out there to a 12-step group like Celebrate Recovery… Now – before we think of an excuse to put it off another week. God will honor that humility and we can shortcut years of pain and baby steps when we could be letting God take us on giant leaps toward our role in his plan for the world.

This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. (1 John 1:5-7)

I know my denial of God’s all-reaching power and even his existence kept me in the dark. I’m not sure now how I managed to push God so far into the back of my mind most of my life and even survived. It was dark. I had no hope.

I’d read all those self-help books that kept pumping me up, but I knew I was a failure. Most of the people these books called “successes” were just as bad as I was. They just had more discipline, social skills, and money. That made me even more depressed. The vision of success everyone had drummed into me was in my opinion not a place to be, but I couldn’t even reach that.

So I quit. I quit on myself and everyone else.

Fortunately God lifted me out of my denial of not just the truth, but of my denial of the mission he had given me before I was even born. I don’t know what that mission is but I trust if God can keep the whole planet rocking and rolling, then he can handle me

What is your story of how denial has isolated you from God? Where are you at now?

“You can’t heal a wound by saying it’s not there.”

When I read that step on my first day of Celebrate Recovery, I thought, “One down, 11 to go.” I knew full well that I had many addictions and compulsive behaviors which were out of control. I picked up the ability to be extremely hard on myself from a young age and had no problem identifying my problems.

However, there was one part of denial which I was not aware of.

When God said “wound” in Jeremiah, I thought that meant the wound of my addiction. Sure, the actions surrounding any addiction create(d) negative consequences for myself and loved ones, but those are the “leaves of evil”, not the “root.”

What is the Root of Your Addiction or Lingering Temptation?

When did it all start for you? There were some moments from my childhood which I can now look back on and say, “Even taking responsibility for my role, that was REALLY screwed up”!

I didn’t know how to face and deal with those feelings as a child, but I sure tried. I started off burying my fear and anger by comfort eating when I was a youth. I didn’t know about chemical or sexual release at that age but something about scavenging the cupboards and fridge for something to eat made me forget for a bit. Fortunately I was blessed with the metabolism of a jackrabbit so nobody called me on it. As I got older, I buried how angry I was about those situations with lies, massive amounts of alcohol, cigarettes, some drugs, sex, nervous habits, deception, and more.

My wife even called me out this denial when I shared a story or two of my past with her. She said, “Wow, you must be furious.” Back then I said, “No, that was a long time ago. I’m over it.” That was completely wrong, though I didn’t realize it at the time. I had successfully detached myself from my emotions and forced that pain way down inside where I couldn’t see or feel it.

“You can’t heal a wound by saying it’s not there”. Jeremiah 6:14 (NLT)

That’s how most of us deal with it though, right? Fight or flight. Sometimes I fought but that never worked out in the end because I had no position of strength. So I did what many do – flee through denial, detachment of feelings. Some call those people “stuffers.”

Denial Always Bubbles to the Surface

“Stuffing” doesn’t work, though. There is no way to stop the effects of sin from happening unless God is involved.

Isaiah 53:4-5
Surely He has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken,Smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed.

My life was like one of those little stress balls. I would find an area of my life that needed fixing, and I would

sqqqqquuuuueeeeeeezzzzzeeeeeee

it until I felt it was taken care of. Only problem is I didn’t deal with the root so I just found another way to act out.

A Great example is when I decided to quit drinking. I did this “white knuckle” and without God. Want to know how that one worked out for me and my wife? I’ll give you a guess.

If you answered, “Not that well,” you would be up for the understatement of the year award. I’m not big on cussing, but I turned into a real (see image-right). That phrase probably doesn’t even describe it.

When you squeeze a stress ball, the filling of the stress ball oozes away from it’s previous location, but it is contained by a stretchy rubber coating – it’s not going anywhere. That is a perfect analogy for what happened to me.

“You can’t heal a wound by saying it’s not there”. Jeremiah 6:14 (NLT)

All that unforgiveness I had turned into bitterness because I had no idea what to do with those feelings. I tried to fill that emptiness with a new career and a few other addictions which had been there, but on the backburner while I previously self-medicated with alcohol.

In the end, I did have the drinking relatively under control. That had been the issue which caused me and others the greatest pain (or so I thought), so I went on with life trying to squish the rest of my personality flaws.

God got a hold of me though about sexual addiction and told me in no uncertain terms that this would have to stop and I would need to get help. 2 Years later and I’m here sharing this story with you.

What Is Your Next Step Regarding Denial?

My guess is you’re on this website because you are struggling with something. It doesn’t have to be drugs or alcohol either. You could be struggling with food, your self-image, biting your nails, maybe you just can’t say “no” to people – whatever. The path to freedom is the same for you as for the heroin addict in a flophouse.

“You can’t heal a wound by saying it’s not there”. Jeremiah 6:14 (NLT)

Are you going to start dealing with it or let this pain pwn you the rest of your life? (yes, that’s right teenagers. A 30-something just used “pwn” in-context, so it is no longer cool. Move along, move along)

1. Get in a Christ-centered 12 step group like Celebrate Recovery – even if you don’t believe in Jesus Christ, go anyway. Nobody is trying to pitch you on Christianity, but when you get a few steps in, you’ll understand why this one is different from the other addiction programs.
2. Start being real with yourself about everything that has happened to you – Do not do this step without doing #1 first! You will screw yourself up and also the people you may be seeking recovery to protect, I guarantee. This is really heavy stuff and once you start pulling that string, the whole ball of yarn comes out and you need to have that support network and actionable steps to clean up the mess. Even if you are a professional counselor, you can’t clean up what only God can.
3. Be patient – It could take months to really start getting through some of this – I fought angry thoughts about those perpetrators for much longer than I wanted to and that was with asking God to help me forgive them the whole way. It could be less though – I wasn’t really giving God and the program 100% of my effort.

I didn’t “get” this part of Denial until about 1/2 way through my 12-step experience with Celebrate Recovery so I say this to you to save months of wasted effort in trying to get free from whatever it is you are struggling with today.

Once you do start dealing with these emotions you will be ready for the rest of the steps and ready to start moving toward the reason God put you down here in the first place.

I’m excited for you – be blessed!