Recently, I started going to see a counselor again, almost two years after my move and withdrawal from seminary (though I haven’t withdrawn yet but I am sure is inevitable). This time it seems different though. Maybe I’m more open, but maybe not? Certainly my life circumstances are different.
So at my first counseling session, he asked me, “Why now?”
At my second counseling session, he laid the path that I would take in my sexual addiction recovery. When I compare this over and against the 12 steps from CR, I am kicking myself as to why I didn’t start here. Instead of taking a perfectly clear path designed for sex/porn addicts like me, I took a self-paced, self-created path through my “recovery” if you can call it that still. When I compare it with Patrick Carnes’s material (Facing the Shadow, and The Recovery Kit), I was only dabbling in recovery.
In the first week of classes at seminary, we get all of our syllabi as do all other college/graduate students across the country. And just like everyone else, seminarians go through “syllabus shock.” However, I never recall getting “syllabus shock.” I am not sure why; maybe it’s because I was a porn addict and lost most, if not all, of my feelings. Or, maybe it was because of something else entirely?? Almost the same feeling I have now? For me, I saw it as a structured and clear path. It’s seeing structure and a plan forged with precision and certainty. It’s a path cut out for me to take and if I take it, then I will succeed. However, if I deviate in any way, failure will be lurking. So that is how I see my new materials from my counselor, not that my counselor will fix me. No. Rather that my counselor will walk with me, talk with me in a non-threatening manner guiding me in the shadow of the valley of death, in the darkness as I stumble somewhere.
