Last Friday, I announced that I would be revealing my dirty secret today. After last Friday's post, I spend the majority of the weekend stressing out about writing this. I had that nagging little voice of doubt in the back of my head saying What did you do? You're just going to embarrass yourself. Don't do it. Write about something else.
My inner voice of doubt may be right in this case, but that doesn't matter. Whether I embarrass myself or not, the fact remains, the best way to discover more potential in your life is to learn from the mistakes of yourself and others. So, without further adieu, here's my dirty secret.
Hi, I'm Tim and I'm a co dependent sex addict. Of course, that's not really news. I've talked about that before in other posts. The secret lays within the story of how I got to where I am. It may not be exactly what you're imagining as you read this. When I say the words sex addict, for most people it conjures up images of a completely twisted sexual deviant who lurks in the night. Certainly there are people with whom that is the case. But that's not everyone. It happened differently with me, and that's what I want to share with you.
When I was in my early twenties, I was looking ahead at a very promising career as a worship leader. I was studying music ministry at a Christian college in Phoenix. And I even got a paid job leading worship at a church near my school. My ability and reputation as a worship leader were growing, which made me feel like I was headed in the right direction. But I wasn't.
While I spent much of my week attending Bible classes and planning music for church services, I had a secret life of sin on the side. Outwardly, I was busy pursuing God. But behind closed doors, I was a different person. Of course pornography played a role, but for me there was another important element to my addiction: relationships. It's wasn't that I was addicted to having lots of relationships, though I had many. It was that I looked to relationships to solve all my problems. Then there was the physical side of my relationships, which I also looked to as a solution for my problems.
In my mind, if I had a bad day, my girlfriend should try to make it better. If I got a bad grade on a test, I'd call my girlfriend to make me feel better. If I felt insecure, I was looking to my girlfriend to make me feel like a man.
So there I was, 'good' church leader by day, unhealthy love and sex addict by night. The result was that I had a large amount of my identity tied up in relationships. At one point during college, a particularly significant relationship ended. I found myself feeling hurt, lost and confused. So in the absence of a romantic relationship, I turned to sex. At first, it was mostly pornographic material. But as time went on, it turned into dating and one night stands. At one point, the one night stands were even with girls that attended the church where I led worship.
Now, let me switch topics briefly to correct another misplaced view. Many people think that sex addicts just love to have sex. This is certainly not the case. No matter how severe a person's addiction, sex becomes a painful experience. This happens because the addict tries to use sex as something it is not - a solution. As the sex addict pursues sex, and finds no relief from life's problems, the act can become physically and emotionally painful.
After a short time of leading worship and preying on women at my church, I felt like a wolf in sheep's clothing, which is good because that's what I was. One day, I woke up to a startling realization. I saw that I was becoming a monster. The type of guy gets married, has kids, and goes through ministry for 20 years before being caught. People talk about those guys and say things like Can you believe he did that? It's disgusting. And they're not wrong.
Perhaps the worst part for me was that I felt like I couldn't tell anyone. Every second of the day I carried my secret life around with me, and hid it from others. As I did, the pain grew worse and worse, until it was unbearable. Then one day I woke up, in bed next to a girl, and simply couldn't keep doing it. In that moment the pain of keeping this secret was worse than the pain of losing my job, reputation, friends, and perhaps even my education.
That same day, I drafted my resignation and told a pastor at the church everything I had done. I had pretty much resolved to simply give up, crawl into a hole and die. Fortunately for me, the church I worked at was not as ready to give up.
The pastor called me a short time later and proposed a plan for recovery. It involved some some counseling, and going to a meeting for a ministry called Celebrate Recovery. I did the counseling, which I pretty much BS'd my way through. Then I attended one of the Celebrate Recovery meetings. I had little faith that it was going to help. Nothing else had. But I went anyway.
I told the people at the recovery meeting what I had done, and why I was there. Then I pretty much tuned out for the rest of the night. Afterward, this guy came up to me and said Hey man. What you described sounds kinda like Sex & Love Addiction. I asked the guy a few questions, and was awestruck by what I heard. He told me that he was a sex addict, but that he had been married for the last three years, and had been completely faithful to his wife, no porn, no hook-ups, no masturbating.
My jaw hit the floor. I had thought about and tried to quit sexual sin lots of times, but had never been successful. Nor had I met another man who was. Nonetheless, there I stood, staring at a man who claimed to have everything that I wanted.
I asked him how he did it. He told me that he got a sponsor (recovery coach) and committed himself to the 12 simple steps that the recovery program recommends. During that conversation, I asked him if he would consider being my sponsor. He agreed, and walked me through the same 12 steps he went through.
That brings me to the most significant question that I think you might be asking - Why are you sharing this with me... and the whole internet?
The answer to that is simple. I attended recovery meetings, called people when I felt like I was in a bad place, and committed myself to doing the things that my sponsor recommended. The results have been amazing.
- After a while, I completed the church's recovery process, and the church even gave me a recommendation when I applied for my next church job.
- A year or so later, that church asked me to come back and guest lead worship for one of their services. It was at that service that I met my wife.
- Today, I am a worship leader again. And I get to do my job completely free of secrets.
- About a month ago, I celebrated my 3 year anniversary with my wife - a woman with whom I have no secrets and have never had to confess sexual sin of any kind. It is a marriage that, quite frankly, I thought wasn't possible for a guy like me.
It also occurs to me that I'm now in the same place my sponsor was when I met him. And his 3 years of 'sexual sobriety' turned out to be more than enough to help me let go of my secret life for good. my prayer, as I write this, is that God will use my story to encourage other church leaders who are like me.
If you struggle with having a secret life of sin, I want to tell you that there is totally a way out. Jesus loves you, and He's able and willing to restore you. You can tell someone, and you don't have to carry the secret on your back for another day.
This is not something that I normally do in my posts, but if you struggle to any degree with a secret life, and the weight of your secret is crushing you. You can connect with me totally confidentially through my email address timhswanson3@gmail.com. You're invited to email me even if you just need to know that it's possible to turn things around. And know that, if you're like me, I'm praying for you.
Inspired? Grossed out? I'd love to hear about it. Please leave your comments in the section below.
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