"Letter To My Addiction" - JR Everhart

You entered my life as a 3-year-old child when I was helpless to understand the weight of your actions in me.  You stole my innocence, like a thief in the night.  And then brain washed me into thinking love could only be had through the act of sexual connection.  Throughout my childhood you taught me your evil ways.  The language of sexual manipulation.  You polluted my mind with every form of sexual desire and perversion.  Even in the face of honest change you refused to let go and led me around like a lost little puppy dog always promising satisfaction but never satisfying.  You distorted my phycological development before I even knew what that was.  I WAS JUST A LITTLE KID!  I didn’t deserve the sexual abuse and manipulation I had to live through.  I was an innocent little child just trying to fit into a highly dysfunctional family.  I just wanted to feel special and loved!  I needed that more than anything, and you knew that and used it to manipulate me into doing horrible sex acts for just a flake of attention and validation.  So much so I started pursuing the sexual abuse to feel loved or to feel anything at all.  You had me so blind that I thought I was doing something cool and special.  You told me that pleasing my abusers would make me worthy of love. When all I was doing was giving my abusers exactly what they wanted, and you stood there laughing at me the whole time.  I had no idea that this was laying a foundation of addiction in my life.  I didn’t even realize how wrong all this abuse was until I was in high school.  I thought everyone’s family was like this.  That sex was just a normal way for teenagers to show love and attention to the younger children around them.  I never had a chance to be a kid and develop normal boundaries taught to me by supportive parents.  My parents were lost themselves; how could they ever help me be something them themselves didn’t understand. 

Then I grew up to just turn into my abusers.  Except my victims were adult broken women with daddy issues.  I understood their brokenness well and became very good at manipulating them to pursue me for the abuse, the same way my abusers manipulated me to pursue them night after night.  I was addicted to the power I wielded over them.  I made some of them get on their knees and worship me like I was their god.  That was you in me, I felt it all the time while having sex with these women.  I was a control junkie and loved to make them do things they would never do otherwise.  I became a master manipulator just like you taught me.  I had no idea how to even talk to a woman without laying some foundation of seduction.  I was completely out of control, and you were steering the truck right over the cliff!  I hate you for all that!  I suffered for decades under enormous guilt, shame, and depression because of the things I did while under your control.  I didn’t even identify as a sex addict till I was almost 40 years old. All those years you stole from me…  The best years of my physical life! 

I even preached your gospel of sexual freedom and open mindedness to my daughters which caused unmeasurable pain in their lives.  You promised me validation and acceptance, but only brought me death and decay.  Through your lies, scales grew over my eyes so that I was blind to see the effects of my living on those around me.  You tainted every female I touched with your poisonous doctrine of pleasure.  I controlled them with promises of intimacy and connection when I myself was paralyzed to feel any emotion other than pleasure.  And when I was done with them, I threw them away like the weekly trash.  You ruined my reputation for years and I was blind to it all.  You stole my ability to see right and wrong correctly. 

I gave up so much at the alter of your religion of pleasure.  It cost me 3 marriages, and relationship after relationship.  It made me a horrible boyfriend, husband, father, and friend.  You force fed me shame by the truck loads, and you robbed me of any peace or harmony in my life.  I can’t begin to count the holidays I spent alone because of the destruction you caused in my family.  Yet I chased your empty promises of contentment over and over.  You told me, “all you need is more intensity, more connections with loose women, weighed down by various lusts…”  Every one of those toxic women took a bite out of me until there was nothing left but an empty shell of a man, limping through life like a heroin addict looking for his next fix.  Nothing satisfied, and nothing made your voice of accusations go away.  After decades of torment, you finally broke me down to nothing.  I had a complete mental breakdown and hit rock bottom. 

Even after starting down the road to my recovery, the biggest struggle for years was to not feel like a complete loser with no track record of good.  It’s hard to feel like I have any self-worth looking back at all I’ve done to the ones I loved.  I’ve lived my worst nightmare over and over alone and without anyone to love me.  All I ever wanted was to be with someone that would love me in spite of my junk and not abandon me.  I’ve never had that in my life.  And anytime someone would want to even try and love me, I wouldn’t let them, and would push them away.  As a result of that, I'd end up feeling like I don’t know why people won’t love me back???  It’s insanity in its purest form, based out of your hellish confusion and chaotic tactics to control me.

I HATE YOU FOR EVERYTHING YOU DID TO ME!  For the person you made me into.  For the pain and sorrow, you’ve caused me for decades!!!  For making me into someone that would hurt those I loved most.  For all the anger you gave birth to in my life.  For the countless nights I laid wishing for death without the courage to kill myself.  It took half my life to even be able to see clearly enough that I could finally choose to be something different than who you told me I was.  You are a liar and a thief!  A heartless demon from the lowest pits of hell.  I have to live with the shame of my decisions and choices I made while under your control.

Well, NO MORE!!  I have spent the last ten years trying to make amends for all the harm I’ve done to my family, friends, and myself.  The deeper I dig, the more I find, but I am now learning to love myself for the first time in my life and refuse to give you one more ounce of who I am.  From this point forward, I will know my self worth and respect myself for the goodness of God that now shines through me.  You will no longer make decisions for me or dictate my life.  I will seek God's holiness, and when I fall, refuse to believe your accusations and lies of defeat.  NO MORE SATAN!!  Your grip over me is canceled and broken by the blood of Jesus Christ!  I AM FREE!  I am free to choose love over lust, and to choose emotional intimacy over sex.  I choose to believe that I am enough!  That I am a good person with a lot to give this dark world of death and decay.  I will proclaim my freedom to anyone and everyone around me.  I will wage war against sex addiction on every front.  There will be no corner you can hide in that I won’t find you and send you back to hell where you came from. You have no power over me anymore, and you will be defeated by the power of the Holy Spirit!!! 

God, I pray you strengthen me and break me free of this spirit of addiction in every form and fashion.  I pray you continue to open my eyes to truth and establish me as your devout and faithful servant.  Thank you, Lord for never giving up on me.  For calling out to me while I was lost in the dark carnival of my addiction.  For reaching for me even when I was trying to walk away from you. For loving me when I couldn’t even love myself.  Your grace and mercy have saved me a million times over.  Thank you, Lord, thank you so very much!!!  I look forward to the day I enter heaven and can look you in the eye, free of shame, and tell you all about the victory’s I had on earth because of your great love for me.  I am the righteousness of God through Christ Jesus.  To God, and God alone, be all the glory forever and ever, amen. 

Lagniappe