Step 4 - The truth

Truth is a difficult concept. Addicts see “through a glass darkly” and it isn’t just in denial. That would be too easy. I for one must be schizophrenic when it comes to truth. And from what I’ve learned over the last 18 months or so, I am not alone. One part of me obliterates the truth – that Swiss cheese memory I have. Perhaps that is the equivalent of denial that most addicts experience. If I can’t remember it, I don’t have to deal with it. While it is a protection from pain and is very necessary at times, it can get in the way of recovery.

The other part of me sees myself through distorted lenses, turning myself and everything I do into the most monstrous version possible. With both these versions of seeing “through a glass darkly” I have greatly feared Step Four. How can I create my list if I can’t even remember what I did a year ago? How can I repeat if so many of my sins are obliterated by my memory? And how can I forgive myself if the ones I do remember are distorted beyond forgiveness?

Truth means not only facing the reality of our sins, not only acknowledging our weaknesses and admitting our addictions, it also means bringing the boogie-man or the monster down to size. Part of what we learn in group is that we are not so unique after all. The facilitator in our group tells us there is nothing we can tell him that he hasn’t already heard or probably done. Facing the truth means realizing that our addiction is not worse than anyone else’s – that there is no excuse, no reason, no insurmountable trial that no one else has ever faced that makes it okay for us to give in to our addictions. We face the truth and pull our addiction off the pedestal it has been living on. It is not a god that has the right to rule our lives. We simply have chosen to worship it. We gave it its power. Now we have to take its power away.

Until we strip away the lies, the mystery, and the protection that we give our addiction, we are fated to fail. I have tried to deal with my problem many times in the past. Obviously something has not worked or I wouldn’t be here today. I have sincerely mourned and repented and even talked with religious leaders. Tut this is the first time I’ve faced this as an addiction – as something I will have to face and fight for my entire life. That is an important difference and I think that truth is the key to defeating Lucifer.

The funny thing is, addicts have a problem trusting and yet we trust our addiction and therefore we are implicitly trusting Lucifer – the destroyer – the one who tells us that our addictions will make everything right. The truth is that if we would trust the Lord as much as we trusted our addictions (Lucifer), we’d be free.

Step 4 - Replacing denial with truth

I’ve spent most of my life very conscious of the fact that my father and mother gave me a name that was clean, and my job in this life was to keep it that way. That meant not doing anything to dishonor my parent’s names or the name they gave me. Most of the outside world thinks I have succeeded. Unfortunately, contrary to popular belief, what others think of us is of very little importance and has no part in truth.

As I said once, I am a good actress. That is a trait I share with many addicts. But unlike many addicts, I’m good enough and my addiction has been so well hidden, that I’ve managed to fool the world, while secretly damning myself. The only way I was fooling myself was that I didn’t recognize my problem as an addiction, only as sin.

The apostle John said “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). Perhaps that was my saving grace. I saw myself as drowning in sin. But because I saw myself as hopeless, help was beyond my reach. Had God not placed me in the room with the group a year ago, I’d be drowning still.

The denial I had to deal with was that I had an addiction. I fought that with all my heart. I clung to my sin and damnation. I at least recognized that. But an addiction would take some of my precious guilt away and I wasn’t able to give that up. It was all I had left. Giving up my guilt meant giving up my power, though it was actually pretty useless.

So I sat in the group, silent for months, waiting until I could accept that I was an addict. And I sat and wished that my addiction was alcohol or drugs or smoking – those where physical addictions that made sense. Mine was a black hole in my soul. How could I ever open up? How could I ever cleanse the festering wounds?

We are never asked to name our addiction in the group. That is left up to us. But when I finally opened my mouth, it all came pouring out: years of pain and tears and embarrassment and humiliation. John was speaking of gospel truth when he said “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8: 32) but that night I understood that scripture in a whole different way. There was a freedom that I gained that night that only truth can bring. Now, that doesn’t mean that all problems are solved. There are members of my group that have lost their families. Their children and other members still don’t trust them – are still convinced that they haven’t changed and never will. I don’t know how long it will take to prove themselves and win back that trust or if they ever will. But honesty opens the door. The lies are gone and the secrets destroyed. And even in their sorrow, they find hope.

Truth brings healing and hope. It doesn’t make everything miraculously right. Sometimes there is too much pain. Sometimes people won’t forgive you. But God will. And with that hope, we can overcome anything – with His help.

Step 4 - Acknowledging the past

Humanity has a fascination with the past. We sift through dirt to find fragments of the past that can be reconstructed into a living memory of eons ago. We spend money we can’t afford on memorabilia of personalities, living or dead, that we have never met, but who we imagine have impacted our lives. Maybe a few of them even have. We spend thousands of hours meticulously cleaning away the filth of millennia to discover the tedium of daily life of ancient Pompeii. We won’t even clean our own walls. I wonder if, a thousand years from now, someone will spend those hours carefully cleaning our walls, trying to discover our tedium.

We cannot let the dead lie in peace. I am writing a dissertation about a personality that I have come to admire greatly. But my advisors don’t want to see a great man who overcame so much. They want me to dig deeper: find the dirt, find the scandal, find what makes him interesting! We don’t need no stinkin’ heroes!

But when the person is us, it is an entirely different matter, isn’t it?

Unfortunately, an addict has two choices, deal with the past or remain an addict. Sorry, there is no third choice. Until you acknowledge the past, it WILL keep coming back to bite you. And you want to know something amazing? The way you take power away from someone else is with truth. Now that doesn’t mean you walk around and pour your life out to everyone you meet. But it does mean that you have to face the past, and take its power away.

Side-stepping may seem to work for some. Clinton still got elected even after side-stepping with his famous “I didn’t inhale.” He got re-elected with his “Define sex.” But he will always be remembered as the joke on the late night talk show for those. Regardless of what else he may have done, I doubt that many people will ever mistake him for a loving, faithful husband, no matter how hard he tried to get his wife elected.

No, truth in its raw form is needed because until we face the truth, we can’t fix it. It’s like trying to treat a disease. If you have the wrong medical records, you can do everything right and still kill the patient.

There is an interesting thing I have discovered. It is one thing to be honest with yourself in your mind. It is entirely different to be honest on paper. Somehow, your mind can say, “Yep, yep, yep. I did that…” and be on to something else before the reality sinks in enough to make a difference. But once I’ve put it on paper, it becomes REAL. Now I have to deal with it.

Honesty begins with me. If I can’t be honest with myself, there isn’t a prayer that I can be honest with anyone else, not even God. So I start here: no audience to perform for – just me. And once I’ve finally seen myself in the mirror, I can talk to God about fixing the flaws.

Step 4 - Reviewing your life

Have you ever had the experience of someone telling you to “empty your mind” and “think of nothing”? No matter how hard I try, it is impossible. The second someone tells me to relax and empty your mind (I went to a hypnotist for weight loss), the task becomes virtually impossible.

Now, I know I have a bad memory. But not that bad! Yet as soon as I sat down to try and review my life, I became an absolute blank slate. It was as if someone had wiped the hard drive. I stared at the computer wondering what my name was.

It’s strange, because Step Four has never frightened me as much as some people. Step Three scared me senseless, but Step Four – not so much. Yet here I am – at a loss for words. And those of you who have gone back to the beginning with me know that is saying quite a bit.

My entries here are separate from my list itself. This is about the process. There is a difference.

Some people choose to avoid the process. They continue in their addiction blissfully thinking that there has to be a way around it, without going through the pain. But you have to remember, it was a lot of pain that got us here. Though we are imagining wracking pain, I think it will actually be relief once we take the step. I know when I went and talked with my bishop, the pain was so intense, but it was amazing how exquisite the relief was afterward. But addicts are so averse to the pain that we self-medicate ourselves with more pain. It’s like the dentist’s office. He jabs that huge hypodermic needle in six times causing me to cry each time until it is numb. But what if I had him do that just to take x-rays? It may sound stupid but that is pretty much what we do.

Other people have the process thrust on them. It’s called intervention or outside pressure. Sometimes it works but only if the person wants it to. Otherwise, they will end up back in their addiction. That’s why addicts end up in and out of rehab clinics.

Once in a while, life-altering occurrence life others out and force them to really take stock of their lives. These end of changing the lives of others because they can’t bear to see others suffer like they did. My uncle hurt my aunt. It changed his life. He spent the rest of his life getting clean and then helping others get clean. He became a light for the lost. I think of Saul of Tarsus who was struck down by the Lord, blinded so that he could finally see. Once he had reviewed his life and humbled himself, he was healed and taught and became one of the greatest missionaries the world has ever known, eventually giving his life as a testimony. Once changed, he changed others. But then, that is Step Twelve.

And then there are the rest of us, who hopefully will gather up our strength, humble ourselves, get over ourselves, and review our lives in brutal honesty, opening up all of our wounds so that they can be cleansed and healed.

Step 4 - Truth

Wow. Suddenly I find myself back at the beginning. This was where I was when I first started my blog. You see, the first action step that was suggested was to write in a personal journal. Well, I’ve spent much of my life refusing to commit anything to paper. If it wasn’t on paper, it wasn’t real. It took me nearly a year just to start working the program and more time to get to Step 4. My original answers to questions were short and obscure – using something like “I don’t know.” So I wasn’t prepared for the dam breaking loose like it did when I started the blog. I guess it was the result of half a century of pent-up emotion.

But as I mentioned in one of my posts, in the process, I discovered a second addiction that I had to go back and work on, and in THAT process, I realized that I had never really resolved my trust issues. This time I’m aware that I’m still not 100% but I am trying.

And that is the beginning of truth.

KEY PRINCIPLE:
"Make a searching and fearless
written moral inventory of yourself."

Alcoholics Anonymous version:
"Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves."

Step Four is one of the most frightening for most people. We had one person in our group who adamantly swore he was going to skip Steps Four and Five. The facilitator kept telling him it wouldn’t work but he said he was going to check out every group in town until he found someone who had succeeded in beating their addiction without doing Steps Four and Five. He kept at it for a long time but finally reported back that he hadn’t been able to find a single person who had been able to overcome their addiction without these two painful steps.

The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions state that “without a searching and fearless moral inventory… the faith which really works in daily living is still out of reach.”

What frightens me the most about this step is the element of the unknown. My memory really is bad. I joke about it a lot, but the reality is that I have run into people who seem to know me and I pretend to know them, desperately trying to find something in the conversation that will cue me in to who they are and where I am supposed to know them from. I’m never been to a class reunion because when I got the invitation to my 10 year reunion, I pulled out my year book and looking at the pictures of people – who looked just like they did when I knew them, obviously – I didn’t recognize anyone. I decided not to go and be embarrassed by the fact that I had no memories of them.

So, trying to remember things worries me, although not near as much as Step 8, which terrifies me because of my memory.

At least, I can make a current moral inventory and try to work from there. Here is where my new commitment to trust has to come in I guess. I have to trust that the Lord will help me remember everything that I need to deal with.

There was a very short-lived series called New Amsterdam that ran all of eight episodes this year (2008). The main character, John Amsterdam, was immortal (at least temporarily) and had been an alcoholic that went into AA and had been sober since 1965. When he got to this step in the program, he ended up writing notebooks full of his moral inventory. But then, when you’ve lived 400 years, I guess you’ve got a lot to say.

So now it’s time to go to work, really get busy. The most important thing is to be Honest. I’ve come to the point that I know I’ll still be alive afterward. That may sound a little melodramatic but really, why is this step so frightening other than our fear that it may destroy our lives? So, if we realize that, yeah, there may be fallout, but we will survive; what is stopping us?

Write in a personal journal;
seek guidance from the Holy Ghost

This is what started everything in earnest for me, so I guess you could say, I’m convinced that this step does have an impact. My life has changed radically since I started writing. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not cured. I’m an addict. That means what? I’ll always be an addict. But my addictions are under control right now and I’ve living with less guilt than I have felt in years. And if I stumble, well, I’ll know to get up again, won’t I. But right now, my sobriety is more intact than I could have believed. I have other areas I have to work on still. Sobriety doesn’t mean life is perfect. It just gives me a little more ability to deal with the other problems.

Make an accounting of your life,
past and present

So here is where I am now. It will be interesting when I sit down with the person I’ve chosen to share my list with. He already knows it is coming. He says he’s heard it all. In fact he says he’s done it all. I don’t know. But the most important part of this, is making the accounting to myself.

Remember your sins no more

Now this may be more difficult for me, but hopefully, I can trust God enough to let this happen. I’ve always been my worst critic. I can be forgiving with everyone but myself. Now I have to learn to forgive myself as well. Otherwise, what is this all for?

Step 3 – Fasting and prayer

So, I have come back to the beginning of this particular circle and find myself asking again: “How do you eat an elephant?” As I see it, I have one of three choices.

I can decide I can’t do this and walk away from the recovery program, intent on trying to fix myself by myself. Of course, if I am walking away because I can’t trust God, then why do I even care if I fix myself? It comes back to the fact that my soul has been in such pain that I don’t want to go back. And if you have been following this blog, you know how successful I have been over the years dealing with this problem by myself.

My second choice is to sit here (my here, not yours) and continue torturing myself with the “can I, can’t I” questions that are keeping me from sleeping and are putting my heart in a constant state of panic attack where I feel like an alien is going to jump out of my chest at any moment. Frankly, I am not receiving any answers, not feeling any more at peace, and not coming to any conclusions. I’m just miserable. I am still (for right now anyway) straddling the right side of the fence, but how long can I keep that up if I can’t resolve this question.

My third choice is a little harder to explain. When an infant starts to walk, I don’t think there is a long thought process worrying over each moment. “If I stand up, chances are mom and dad won’t bother to catch me when I fall because they want me to realize that falling hurts so I’d better learn to stand. And if I actually succeed in standing and begin moving my feet, my momentum will cause me to walk but when I fall, mom and dad are going to say: ‘We told you that you weren’t ready to walk yet, but would you listen to us? Of course not. And now you see what has happened?” Instead, in that perfect little mind a goal appears and the infant takes whatever move it is capable of in order to achieve that goal. And if the muscles aren’t quite ready, the babe tries again and again until the muscles are ready and the child achieves the goal. The parents patiently allow the child to fall and fall again, while hopefully protecting the child from serious harm. Why? Because they know that, in falling, the child learns to get up again. I guess what I am saying is that my third choice is to take the faltering steps forward in imperfect knowledge and imperfect faith, knowing that I am going to fall down but, that in doing so, I’ll still be a step closer to my goal. Hopefully my falling down won’t cost me my sobriety. Hopefully it will strengthen my faith.

I don’t know how many times I’ve heard the phrase, “put it to the test.” In today’s fast-moving society, we seem to be losing the significance of that concept. Computer hardware and software changes so quickly that it is obsolete by the time it hits the shelves, so quality control testing is frequently substandard. As a result, companies create bug-fixes on an on-going basis. Look at products such as the ill-conceived Windows ME or Windows VISTA that were so filled with glitches that the next version of Windows was being prepared before those versions could be fixed. VISTA users have migrated back to XP in droves. “Put it to the test” just takes too much time for us. And yet, that is the eternal principal that I find staring back at me right now. President Gordon B. Hinckley of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint spoke with a group of church members in Paris, France in 2004 and said: “I plead with you, my brothers and sisters, that if you have any doubt concerning any doctrine of this Church, that you put it to the test. Try it. Live the principle. Get on your knees and pray about it, and God will bless you with a knowledge of the truth of this work.” The concept wasn’t lost on me. Basically I translated it into: If you want to know if something is true, live it and pray about it. Then you’ll know. I guess, like most of the world, I rely too heavily on my own mental abilities, and quite frankly, they are getting me nowhere right now.

So I’m taking a tentative deep breath – breathing is always good. I choose number three. I’m going to take the steps and try to put my life in the Lord’s hands. I’m going to pray the father’s prayer from Mark: “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.”

Fasting is one of those steps. There are a lot of different thoughts about it. I used to be a lot better with it than I am now. As a person who has a weight problem (just another addiction folks – nothing to see here, although since working the program I’ve lost over 40 pounds) fasting is easy to mix up with dieting. I don’t think they are in any way related; especially when you fast and then gorge. I think that fasting has to do with submitting yourself to the will of God. Most of us don’t want to feel hungry, even for a few minutes. With fasting, we make a conscious decision to deny ourselves something that our body wants in order to show a willingness to take an action step – to humble our bodies – to focus on something other than our physical needs. So if all I’m thinking about during a fast is how hungry I am and how much I’m going to eat once the fast is over, I might as well not bother. Rather, I need to focus on using the time to communicate, to pray, to try to form the connection that is obviously lacking. Sigh. That’s a whole new world.

Yet prayer is supposed to be our greatest defense. If we can bring ourselves to pray when we are overcome with temptation, we can beat the temptation back. The problem is, and I’m speaking for myself here, when temptation hits, I don’t want to fight back. I don’t want to pray and I want my addiction. So prayer has to be solidly in place long before the temptation hits, as does fasting I guess. We have to be prepared enough so that we don’t turn on the Spirit and command Him to leave us alone with our addiction. To be willing to pray when we don’t really want to resist but before we are too far gone to listen to the Spirit is to humble ourselves and partake of the redeeming sacrifice before we become the aggressor.

What do you know? They were right all along. The best offense really is a good defense.

Right now, I’m a tragic case of multiple personalities. On my pain addiction, I’ve become strong – at least right now. I’m able to yield my heart to God and resist the temptation of my addiction. On my IMVU addiction, I’m gaining ground. I’m severed my ties with the rooms where I shouldn’t be but I’m still spending time in virtual reality when I should be working on other things that are far more important (and real) – procrastinating and even avoiding life. My food addiction is generally doing better but when I get frustrated, I still binge. But I would have to give myself failing marks on getting to bed on time and taking care of my health. So it’s still two steps forward, one step back.

But at least, for today, I don’t wish a mountain would land on top of me. And that is an improvement.

Step 2 - Deliverance from bondage

Remember the first infant prayer of the ancient king I mentioned before? I love his prayer and his innate understanding: "and I will give away all my sins to know thee." How incredible is that? "All my sins!!!"

Some sins we cling to so hard because they are comfortable and familiar and the pain they cause is one we are used to dealing with, whereas the pain of everyday life is something we have carefully avoided and so we don't quite know what to do with it, even though, in truth, it may be far less than the pain of our addiction. Eventually though, if the pain of our addiction becomes great enough, we seek recovery.

What we can't see in the beginning is that by giving up our familiar friends that are destroying us, we are actually giving up our chains.

So, what if you were in prison? It could be a prison in the penal system or a political prison. It doesn't really matter. You are in prison because of something you did. It wasn't a mistake, a miscarriage of justice, or anything like that. You screwed up and violated some law of society and now you are stuck in prison. Your cell is fairly small and your privacy non-existent. Your whole world knows everything you do. What would you be willing to do to get out?... to start your life over?... to be freed from bondage?

That is an issue people are dealing with every day, whether it is freedom from an addiction, from unemployment, or from financial bondage. What would you do to get out from under that bondage?

Once the pain is enough, we will finally decide to give up a lot. For the unemployed, it may be pride over taking a job beneath their educational/skill level. For financial bondage it may mean getting rid of a lot of seeming necessities. For the addict, it may mean giving up friends as well as the addiction. What am I willing to give up? And just as important, what am I willing to replace it with in order to be delivered from bondage? Am I willing to give away all my sins?

I'm willing to abandon pornography and self-torture; I'm willing to believe my body is a temple and treat it like one. I'm willing to bring my hidden addiction out of the closet to those who need to know and I'm willing to let it go. I'm willing to have morning devotional and to pray and listen, even when I'm afraid that, like King Claudius in Hamlet, "My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: Words without thoughts never to heaven go." Still, I'm willing to keep praying until my thoughts accompany my words. I'm willing to accept consequences for my actions.

I'm willing to admit that I've come farther this time because I've finally realized that I can't do it without the Lord and I've started trusting in Him again.

Most of all, I'm willing to move forward when I'm scared to death. I'm afraid that the farther forward I move, the farther down I can fall. But I'm beginning to believe that, with the Lord's help, I can do it. That sort of trust is new to me. Faith in His great power I've always had. Trust in His willingness to forgive me is what I've doubted. Right now, I'm feeling more trust and peace than I can ever remember feeling.

So I'm packing my bags and moving on, hoping that I'm leaving my bondage behind. I now understand that I'll always have the addiction. But now I know that I can be strong enough that it is not a constant part of my life.

And that is Hope.

Step 1 - When Honesty leads to Hope

Addicts don't like change. At least this one doesn't. Change is bad. Change means doing something. Change hurts. And... change means... DOING something.

A friend in group gave me an article sometime back that talked about sobriety programs (or any addiction program) being based on "doing." That's where we get lost. We can think things to death; but we aren't going to improve until we do something. I know. It took me a year just to start writing; and that was the easy thing. Well, not for me, but surely for some people.

I found out something very interesting. As I got closer to feeling that I had really worked through Step One, my brain started screaming at me. "Wait! Don't think I quite got that. Let's go back and review. You know, I don't think I'm being REALLY honest yet...." And on, and on, and on. I think I was trying to set a record for the longest time on Step One. Because as long as you are still working on Step One, you are no closer to the dreaded Step Four (moral inventory). The fact that Step Two is going to bring Peace doesn't seem to matter. It is closer to Step Four and should therefore be avoided.

*Heart pounding, breathing rapid, patient's vitals entering danger zone*

But there comes a time when you have to accept that you have done the one thing required: you have admitted you have an addiction and you are helpless to beat it by yourself. Now it is time to graduate - to move on. Don't worry. You'll have to revisit Step One many times, probably. We all need tune-ups. But right now, we need to move on.

I decided on my rite of passage. I'm working both Steps Four (gulp) and revisiting Step One because of discovering my new addiction while writing this blog. I decided I wasn't going to let myself get stuck in Step One mode for another year. I decided to move on to Step Two by being Honest with the two friends that were still weighing so heavily on my heart.

I'm still alive; although now my lie has been laid bare, effectively destroying my protector in IMVU. I feel a little scared because I know I can't hide behind an imaginary protector anymore. I have to face reality.

They were amazingly kind and understanding. The lie has lost its power. I hope I will be able to keep their friendship. We said we would - in a place where I would be comfortable. I didn't explain what didn't need to be told; I just cleared out the lies. I want to give them a little time to think - to make sure they are okay. All I know is that I left feeling like the world hadn't come to an end.

So now I am ready to move forward. HOPE. It sounds delightful.

Step 1 - The Lord's delight

"Lying lips are abomination to the Lord: but they that deal truly are his delight" (Proverbs 12:22).

"Houston, we have a problem."

Throughout my life, I have considered myself an honest person. To be blatant (and to use an old worn out saying), I can't lie my way out of a paper bag. [Not sure where that saying came from.] Which is strange, given that addicts are considered the best liars, right behind sociopaths.

When I was in grade school, a bully (female nonetheless) at school gave me three rubber balls to hold on to. Why? I have no idea. Remember - I have very little memory of my childhood - just these few traumatic moments. Anyway, somehow I lost them. All I remember is terror and the need to call home. I went to the office and asked to use the phone. Apparently I was told "no" because, out of desperation, I lied. I also was immediately caught. As I said - I'm a terrible liar. I ended up spending what seemed like eternity in the principal's office being lectured on lying. I don't know what happened with the girl who had given me the balls, but I'm still alive.

So how does the world's worst liar end up with an addiction that no one knows about AND mess up her world (see previous posts if you are starting to sense the Twilight Zone encroaching) as badly as I have over the last few days?

Semantics.

You see, with my addiction, I just never talked about it. Avoidance. It was an invisible addiction and if someone asked how I was doing, it wasn't a lie to tell them I was fine, it was just being positive.

Semantics.

And on IMVU, I was an actress, just like on the stage. I was acting. I was in character. Everyone was acting. I was playing two roles.
Semantics.

Lies. Sigh. Isn't it wonderful how language can make everything seem okay? But in the end, when the pain wears away the disguise, it is the same thing.

Last night, I meet with another one of the people on IMVU that I have become friends with - that I became lost in my character with. I sent an invitation to meet with me on neutral ground so to speak. This time I was more prepared and as hard as it was, there were no tears, nor was there a breaking heart. This time there was truth.

No, I didn't go into everything. I'm not sure I needed to. Can you imagine life if every time you met someone new, you had to launch into your whole life story? I'm not sure whether that would send up as a tragedy or a situation comedy. Instead I started with the truth that I had been unable to tell the friends I had left: the truth that had caught me off-guard, the truth that had broken my heart. Except this time, it didn't have as much power over me somehow.

I explained that I was both characters: that I needed the male character to protect me because I don't trust well. That he gave me the freedom to relax in the room. We talked. He was confused. We talked some more and he seemed to understand. But most important, he accepted it. I won't be going back to the room. I've made my break. But we've agreed that we can be friends outside the room.

The honesty of our conversation left me more peaceful. I'm not over the trauma yet. I've surgical sliced out a part of myself. It's bound to hurt. I've still got to heal. And I've still got to figure out how to talk two those two precious friends that I haven't been able to be fully honest with. Because my heart is still broken there. And there are more consequences to fear there; because it cuts too close to the heart of my addiction. And I don't think I can ever heal until that wound is cared for.

And now I'm back - staring at the scripture, wondering where I stand with the Lord. What about when dealing truly brings pain? Well, let's be honest, the pain comes because of the lie. It will come eventually, whether we deal with the lie or avoid it. I should have figured that out by now. I've lived it long enough. It's the natural consequence of things.

In our society, we don't want to suffer the consequences for our actions. Hey, we're free - right? Yes, we are free. Free to choose. But with choice comes consequences. Right now, I wish someone could just make it better. But I have this feeling that Heavenly Father wants me to make it better.

I just have to figure out how. How to go from the lie to the truth; from the abomination to the delight?

Step 1 - Humility

I don't own an analog clock. That's the type of clock with real hands that ticks away the minutes. You can hear each click as the hands slowly move around the face. Now the whole world has gone digital and we don't hear the passage of time like we used to. Right now I need the old style; I need to hear the tick, tick, tick. I need it to sound with my heartbeat to remind me that I've survived another day.

For the last digital half-hour, I've sat at my computer, trying to pull together my thoughts. It has been difficult because they are avoiding contact. My heart and my head are still mad at each other and I've having problems getting them to make peace. They will eventually. That is the way of the world. And in this case, it was necessary. Tough love.

But my heart is screaming out "humiliation" and my soul is trying to convince it that this was "humility." And my heart isn't buying the difference.

In Addiction Recovery we say that "individuals finally become willing to abstain when the pain of the problem becomes worse than the pain of the solution." That pain is where the humiliation lies. Doing something about it is humility. The problem is getting stuck in the humiliation - where the pain isn't quite exquisite enough to bring us down to humility.

Before I admitted that I had an addiction, I had a very warped view of the world. Everyone around me was in perfect control - for good or bad - they had control. I was the exception. And that made me weak and evil. It didn't matter what other people thought of me. Since discovering reality (although I obviously try to abandon it on a regular basis), I've learned one important truth: I'm not alone in my struggle.

I've meet good people who have lost their jobs, their spouses, their children, their self-respect: everything they valued. The humiliation - the pain - has finally forced them to face their "demons". And they usually hate themselves. Humiliation does that to you.

In my case, my humiliation was secret - my addiction being so hidden that only my religious leader and my counselor knew and they knew only because I told them.

Group has a fascinating effect. As I sat for months, listening but not talking, hearing others describing my feelings, finally opening up myself, I figured it out. Group helped me take the humiliation I felt and realize it had changed into humility, because of their unqualified acceptance of me.

So maybe that's the key. Humiliation is what we do to ourselves. Humility is what God/our higher power can change it into once we are ready.

Humiliation brings self-hatred, depression, misery, and desperation. Humility brings change.

What I think I've just discovered is that it is a cycle. Right now, I'm back in the humiliation cycle - not completely. Just in one area; just where my heart is still aching; just where Step 9 is going to bite me coming back around. I didn't want to take the step I took the other night. I guess the pain of the problem wasn't great enough. But maybe the fear for my sanity was. Whatever the reason, I took it. And the pain was more than I could imagine. But there is more to the story - the humiliation that I haven't overcome - that I don't know what to do with - that I'm going to have to deal with - that has to lead to humility: somehow.

As I was leaving, I lied to them. (If you are lost - please refer to my last post. If you don't, then no compass is going to help.) Because I had two characters, I had to use two computers. This meant I could only have one character leave the room at a time. After I had left, I went to take my escort out when they stopped him/me to ask a few questions. I wasn't prepared for that. I had said my goodbyes and my heart was dead. Their questions had to do with reality and my answers were absolutely truthful and absolutely lies at the exact same time because I couldn't get the real truth out. I couldn't say that it was still me talking to them; that I loved them but had gotten so lost that I had deceived them. In real life, I'm known for being truthful. I can't tell a lie to save my soul. And suddenly I couldn't tell the truth. When did I disappear? When did I die? Somehow I missed it.

Step 9 deals with making restitution - making things right. How am I ever going to be able to do that? Oh, there are many other layers to my onion. Layers that are trying to protect people I love who could be hurt. Suddenly, things that have been my joys are the very things that are making me feel empty - hollowed out.

I wish this were a television show. It would all work out. I know, because I saw it. His name was Barclay and he served aboard the Starship Enterprise during the Next Generation series. He was addicted to the holodeck. He survived and made something of his life. *run credits*

Step 1 - Honesty

Last night when I went to bed - pretty close to on time, by the way, my eyes were swollen and red from crying. This morning they had cleared a lot - on the outside.

I guess I need to back up; starting at the ending doesn't explain things very well. If you've read my prior posts, you are aware that I've discovered I'm fighting a new addiction, one that is conveniently sneaking into the hole left by ripping out my old addiction.

Last night, I stuck my hand into my chest and ripped my heart out. At least that is what it felt like. Hopefully I can fill that hole with positive things. Right now it just hurts. I don't even feel like writing but maybe that is when I need to the most. Besides, I am not sure anyone is really reading this, so why worry.

Because my addiction is tied up with emotional injuries, I have seen a therapist on and off for many years.

(Note to world: I recommend you get a therapist who is wise enough and honest enough to tell you what you need to hear and not what you want to hear. It's really easy to palm off the "You're okay, whatever you want to do is okay" pap - no change, no pain. Accept yourself as you are. Love yourself as you are. Well that's just great. And while you are lying in the gutter, drunk out of your mind or strung out on drugs watching the last shreds of your life fade away - keep telling yourself that. Oh, your addiction isn't chemical? Neither is mine. Doesn't make a difference. It's the same thing. An addiction is an addiction - it destroys and don't believe anyone who tells you it's just a choice. The whole point of an addiction is that you have given away the choice. So find someone who cares enough to go through the trauma with you.)

We discussed my recent "replacement-addiction" to IMVU. I was surprised by some of the discussion. Her concern wasn't just how much time I was spending in the virtual reality world. It was much deeper. In Monday's post, I used the onion metaphor to try and get at the problem. I've kept peeling away this week and it has gotten... painful.

If you haven't read Monday's post, you are about to enter the Twilight Zone. I suggest you go back and read it. Really. Of course to understand Monday's post, I suggest you read "In the Beginning" which is... long - five parts. Oh well. Welcome to the Twilight Zone.

There are two vampire rooms I felt comfortable - no make that welcome and loved in. My character would show up and people would cheer. Wow! What an incredible high. I was never popular. Not in grammar school, not in high school, not in college. Yet there, for some bizarre reason, on IMVU I'm popular. Especially my vampire character. And she is gentle. Never bites without it being offered. You know the type.

The one room made me uncomfortable because of an anti-religious feel - two crosses that people could crucify themselves on - that really disturbed me. But I would try to ignore them and I met two people that I really liked. Fun people who, knowing my age, accepted me and liked me. They also liked my alter ego - my boyfriend that allowed me to be flirty without worrying about anyone making crude comments. Too bad he was just another aspect of me - but he worked beautifully. (He was also mortal. Strange that...) Again, I was so into character, that I was no longer myself. And I enjoyed myself - all except those crosses. We danced and chatted and laughed.

The other room was originally a vampire room with a dom/sub aspect. First time there I told them I didn't believe in masters or slaves. That was fine with them. The strange thing is, that for all my screwed up desire for pain, that part of it is irrelevant - even bothersome. I don't even understand it. But again, I met the owners of the room and we became very good friends. She was sweet and full of life (other than being a vampire of course) and he was intelligent and fascinated with learning new things. That one got me, because I am fascinated with everything. I love to learn about science, art, culture, people... the list goes on. So while I danced in the room - with my consort avatar - we chatted about wonderful things.

But still there was the dark side of the room - the side that pulled on my addiction. There were the slaves that would occasionally get into sexual play and I would feel so out of place and guilty and....

We talked, my counselor and I. We talked about the things I didn't want to talk about. Not about my fun dancing and talking and discussing the universe and quantum mechanics and art and nature and people. We talked about S/M rooms and getting lost in role playing.

At the very beginning of my blog - waaaayyy back, I said I was a good actress. I started my two characters on IMVU as characters from a book I've written. For most of my friends - real life ones, ones through my church group, designer friends - it was not a problem. For my friends in my vampire room - I got lost in my character. I wanted to get lost in my character. It is as if I wanted to convince them that she was the real vampire - her story the real truth of vampires - and when the book came out - they would know the real thing. It wasn't a game. I was just lost inside her, inside him.

Last night, I went back to that room, with a very specific purpose in mind. I accompanied myself - in other words, both my characters went together as we usually do. Only the master of the room was there - not the mistress. We danced for awhile. He played slow music just for us so we could slow dance in the spots that I love so much. I cried knowing what I was there to do.

Finally, as it got late and my newly recommitted bedtime got closer, I said I wished the mistress of the room was there was well. (I am purposely avoiding names because I have grown to truly love these two young people.) I told him I had come to say goodbye. He asked me to wait and the mistress came quickly.

It was a very sad and sweet goodbye. I tried to explain but how can you explain insanity and addiction. I explained that I am different - an asexual person (which is true - my addiction is to pain which brings a sexual release of sorts - but not to sex which scares me to death) and that as much as they had made me welcome, as much as I loved coming to the room and dancing, as much as I LOVED their company - the room was not good for me. I tried to explain what I could not explain. And I said goodbye.

I cried for a long time. I was surprised at how bad it hurt. All I could think of was the scripture in Mark 9:43 that says "And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched."

I wish I could have been more honest. I'm afraid when I finally get to Step 9, I will have to face them. Until then, I have to find a more secure footing in reality and realize it has something of value to offer.