SHOCK WAVES

When life's storms leave everlasting destruction

Have you ever been so thrown so far off your game that your best intentions stand idle amid defeat and lost momentum?

“Next time, things will be different!” you say while dusting yourself off with new mindset and opportunity to begin yet again.

As I’ve adopted two business roles as entrepreneur and author, I’ve vividly experienced how Satan garnishes slingshots of distraction to bully us off course toward our goals. He celebrates in our occasional defeats but glorifies our overall failures, presenting nuggets of challenges to steadily erode mindsets and the power of planned intention. These past months have presented repeated shock waves that have rippled destruction toward my goals and threatened God’s purpose for me in these two vital roles. But who will wear defeat’s outcome?

Each month, I am intentional to accomplish “all the things” required for effective business growth including blogs and newsletters, email campaigns, website tweaks, and networking events to highlight just a few. But Thursdays, I’ve set aside as an exclusive day to flourish my skills with content for new books. In fact, this past summer as one of my design projects concluded, I intentionally planned to double down on my first audiobook recording while completing a fresh writing project I lovingly refer to as “Book Two.”  

Despite my planned efforts, curve-balls continually diverted my focus and shuffled my calendar throughout the summer. By fall, I was unfruitful and bewildered how an entire season lapsed void of any real progress. Suddenly, that final shot of self-defeat fired toward its target (me,) and “BULLSEYE!” The phone rang with the news, presenting familiar shock waves of memories that wrestled me to my knees as they replayed.

“I can’t do this anymore. After nine years of counseling and regurgitating unkept promises, I’m done. I’ve filed for divorce.”

I fell silent and speechless as our conversation drew longer. Recent social media posts of a happy family vacation drifted away from reality as I listened to her account of the past few months. Familiar recollections of an addiction’s surprise unveiling overcame me with sadness, shock, and disbelief. In the days to follow, revelations of a hidden addiction rippled the slow, steady, silent destruction of the joy and dreams this couple once anticipated together. And this time, history repeated itself within my personal extended family: the fatal BULLSEYE.

I remain heartbroken by this last blow, the deepest of all the summer’s distractions to set my goals off course and rob my emotional energies. Life happened, and marital defeat now belonged to this precious couple and their young children.

But after a lot of tears and prayers, the sadness of my personal memories and repeated witness to marriages destroyed by the combined devastations of sexual, drug, and alcohol addiction instead returns a revitalized purpose despite my temporary setbacks. I feel newly empowered to shout from the rooftops an increasing threat to marriages and families, and responsible to reveal how honesty and commitment toward change coupled with grit, faith, and specialized support can save victims when proper treatment is sought upfront.

Satan’s brew of isolation, depression, and temptation won another battle within my immediate ecosphere called family. But the war against individuals, teens, and the marriage and family unit is not over yet. God can use the sword of awareness to defeat the destructive spirals of personal addictions, and enable us to recognize an ever-present phenomenon of sexual addiction growth, courtesy of an exploding global sex industry. Again, the secret ingredients against addiction’s power are acceptance and accountability followed by:

1.    honesty,

2.    commitment toward change,

3.    grit,

4.    faith,

5.    and specialized support.

Temporary self-soothing escalates into addiction patterns that coerce and tempt repeated recreations in isolation. But sexual addiction is the most silent of addiction cancers as individuals and teens are secretly lured on their personal phones and computer devices to peak just once, one more time, then routinely.

In this month’s blog, I caution couples of the threat to individuals and families when they fail to recognize the destructive power of experimentation which will, over time, draw one in until helpless becomes hopeless. Letters from Love’s Battlefield details my personal story from sexual addiction’s birth to death, the ultimate defeat.

Personal and marriage counseling are initial actions toward change from the gripping strongholds that gift temporary weakness with non-judgmental relief and unconditional acceptance. Become aware that humans are wired to seek love, approval, and fulfilment. When those emotional needs go unrewarded, a camouflage surfaces to conceal behaviors that, in fact, rewire an individual toward degenerative destruction. The victims multiply to include marriages, children, careers, financial livelihoods, reputations, and extended families and friends who care.

If you or someone you love shows behavioral patterns that indicate abnormalities that continually set themselves or families off course, please seek treatment to diagnose the source of their struggle before it becomes irreversible. Specific to sexual addiction, following are just a few sources of help available to get them started on a life redeemed by God’s grace.

➡️ Support groups for addicts including Celebrate Recovery, Sex Addicts Anonymous, Sexaholics Anonymous, Sexual Compulsives Anonymous, and Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous.

➡️Support groups for addiction partners including S-Anon, Betrayal Trauma Recovery, Daring Ventures, and COSA-Recovery.

➡️ Recovery plans including Fortify, The Journey Course, and The Ranch Tennessee, an in-house treatment center for those seeking to overcome more serious pornography.

➡️ SAMHSA’s National Helpline—A free 24/7 hotline that provides immediate verbal support about any mental health crises—including the mental and emotional struggle to overcome pornography use.

➡️ 📞 Phone: 1-800-662-HELP (4357)

➡️ TTY: 1-800-487-4889 (for individuals with hearing impairments)

➡️ Text: Send your ZIP code to 435748 (HELP4U) to receive information about treatment services in your area.

➡️ Individual 1:1 therapy by a specialist in sexual addiction recovery in your area (referrals available by most health insurance plans)

➡️ Knowledge & understanding by acclaimed researchers and authors including Dr. Doug Weiss and Dr. Patrick Carnes to name a few.

Verse of Reflection

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

― 2 Corinthians 12:6-10 -