Kaylee

The Addictive Love

Have you ever been so paralyzed by the power of some kind of addiction where you were willing to do anything—in your mind—but could not go through with it in your actions?  The power of addiction is not what other people think.  It’s not mind over matter.  It has very little to do with will-power.  It is a stronghold, a bondage and prison that can’t easily be set free from.

Kaylee started telling us about her story last week, click to read.  She was going to come face to face with the chains of addiction.  Could she come out of it?

One week before college, I decided to surrender my addictions to God.  I sat alone in a gazebo while I was hiking, and realized all I have wanted this entire time is to not have control.  In my attempt to release control, I let other things control me that were killing me.  I began attending a Christian leadership college, and knew I needed to be clean.  Within the first few days, I met a guy.  We hit it off immediately, and I was certain he was “the one”.  He was a good, Christian man (so I thought) who also wanted to pursue ministry.  I thought it must be fate.  A month after we started dating, he introduced me to many firsts.

Suddenly I found myself moving from sobriety to addiction, yet again.  I tried drugs for the first time.  I gave myself to him for the first time.  For the first time, I couldn’t feel my pain.  Being high, made me feel numb.  It made me feel carefree.  The thought of pain was non-existent.  All I wanted to do was run and play and enjoy life outside.  There was nothing more important than experiencing that freedom.

If you read the beginning of Kaylee’s story you will see that she was the victim of rape.  This rape, along with emotional abuse, robbed her of her childhood.  The absence of pain, consequence, fear or restrictions was her way of experiencing her childhood again.  Is there an addiction you have that is fulfilling emptiness inside of you?

There is More to Addiction Than Just Substance

Don’t belittle addiction to substance abuse.  Addiction can be your need to get acceptance from others as well.  You can want and even feel the need to be accepted because rejection left emptiness in you.  Or maybe you are addicted to work because poverty has left an empty desire in you.  Maybe you are addicted to food because it’s the only thing that makes you feel comfort.  Still some are addicted to success because someone’s words left you believing that you would be a nothing.

Let me also say, addiction starts off with a payoff that gives you some form of relief to your inner hurt.  The addiction may help in forgetting some things, but when the payoff wears off the desire, hole, emptiness and need still remains.  Then worse, the person liked feeling the “high” but in order to achieve it again and for a longer time they need to consume the addiction in larger quantities—again this doesn’t have to be a substance.

If you have ever fallen prey to this kind of bondage, what are you using your addiction to fill?  What are you trying to get back?  What are you trying to forget?  Well while you think about it, let’s see what happened with Kaylee.

I finally felt loved when we had sex.  I felt important.  I felt sexy.  I felt worthy.  We were together for three years.  During those three years, I was still attending the Christian college.  My boyfriend dropped out.  I still attended chapels, and was in church seven days a week.  Without trying, I was investing in my relationship with God, and he was slowly changing my heart through each message, through each class, and through each discussion with my peers.  At the same time, I was smoking up to four times a day.  I was always high.  I had sex with my boyfriend without conviction.  I always justified my double standards with the idea that no one understood my life.  People didn’t understand the love I had for my boyfriend.  They didn’t understand the passion that we couldn’t fight.  They didn’t understand how good it felt to be high.  So, I discredited everything they said with the assumption that they did not understand.

Kaylee did what many have done when they are deep in their mess.  We are convinced that we are doing what we need and others don’t understand.  We discredit their views so that it gives us an excuse to keep going.  We feel they have never been where we are.  We think that they don’t love us because they are trying to remove what seems to be giving us life.  What we don’t realize is that our excuses just add bruises.  We hurt ourselves more when we rationalize placing our hope in something other than God.  Is there someone in your life that is trying to help you but you make excuses as to why their words are not ideal for your situation?  Kaylee’s dependence on her boyfriend was going to fail her.  What was she going to do next?

But then something in him changed.  He became angry.  He became cold.  He became aggressive.  I blamed myself.  I thought something must be wrong with me- and then I caught him.  My boyfriend was deeply addicted to pornography.  Every device I owned, every device he owned, he even used an old woman’s cable television to watch porn.  There were many times I walked in on him looking at it.  He would lie and say he had to use the restroom- just to go indulge in porn.  It was one of the most difficult seasons of my life.  I felt worthless, I felt cheap and I felt like no one could be satisfied with JUST me.  There was something that I didn’t offer, but porn did.  So I stayed with him.

When Love is Not Enough

Wounded souls seem to always be attracted to wounded souls.  Kaylee’s boyfriend was addicted to pornography while Kaylee was addicted to him and drugs.  She was not fulfilling his need as he was not fulfilling hers.  They were both wounded and they were trying to use each other to heal.  Kaylee felt hurt because she was not enough for her boyfriend, but years before she walked away from God because he was not enough for her.

Every time she walked in and discovered her boyfriend looking at porn, she felt hurt and cheated on—that’s exactly how God feels when we turn to our addictions for satisfaction.  God feels cheated when we don’t go to him to be satisfied, healed or comforted.  We would rather get out needs met artificially then allowing God to truly bring us healing that has no negative consequence.  This painful moment wounded Kaylee’s self-image even more.

Why would anyone else want me? This is the best I could have. I was damaged goods. I wasn’t pure. I was needy. I was addicted to drugs. I only knew how to be his girlfriend and had lost myself in the process.

I know there are many who are addicted to the idea of love.  You want love so bad that you are willing to sacrifice the most precious things in your life for it.  We sacrifice relationships with family members, friends, at times we even sacrifice a relationship with ourselves for the idea of love with no thought to the consequences.  How can true love be built on a cracked, addictive, unstable foundation?  One of the ways to build a real foundation for love is with your love for yourself and God.  If you can’t love the God called “Love” if you can’t love yourself, how can you expect anyone else to love you?  You place that person in a place they were never meant to be.  Building on a cracked foundation is like placing your loved one in the basement of your life and asking them to hold you up as everything starts to fall around them.  They will either try and hold you up and fail—maybe even get wounded trying in the process—or abandon you while your world comes crumbling down.

Take a Minute

Is there a part of you that is not whole?   Are you using something to fulfill you?  God wants to make you whole but if you won’t give him a chance then you are reduced to looking at others and other things for a false high and false satisfaction.  Today I want to encourage you to allow God to give you the true addictive love, a love that you can’t live without, a love that makes you complete and that gives you true freedom.

Weekly Challenge:

I would like to encourage you to read Jon 8:31-36.  In this verse it says that the truth will set you free.  Is there an area of your life that you are lying to yourself about?  Is there an area that you refuse to embrace the truth cause it would mean you would have get ride of those behaviors that you love.  What truth must you accept for freedom?

Also if you are struggling with deep issues and need professional help, we have a connection to Bedrock Counseling ministries.  Go to our “Contact Us” and at the bottom of the page is a number to call.  They have professional counselors who will help you through these painful times.  Follow us on Facebook and Instagram @throughthewinters.com.  We love you and appreciate you.