G4 Addiction

If the law of God can be summarized in a positive command, then we must end this study talking about how to “run to” God rather than merely how to “run from” sin. Life is not about what we avoid, but what pursue. How we run to God’s design for our life finds a unique expression in each person’s life. For this reason, you will do most of the writing in this chapter. It is your life that is being stewarded for God’s glory.  The goal is that you would find things that you could give yourself to more passionately than you once gave yourself to your food rules. But not just temporal, slightly healthier things that would quickly become the next edition of ruling desires; and not things that you give yourself to in private so that they foster selfishness and excess. Rather, eternally significant things that you give yourself to in a community of faith to maintain endurance, temper desire excess, and become an example to others.As you read through and answer these nine questions, remember God’s patience and timi

Are you enjoying where you are? Even if you are not “there yet,” can you identify aspects of this part of your journey that make it significantly better than where you’ve been? Unless you can answer “yes” to this question and take delight in that answer, perseverance will be grueling.Striving without delighting is exhausting.One of the keys to persevering, especially with a struggle as recurrent as food-related struggles (with which we have daily interaction) is the ability to enjoy an imperfect, in-process life. God does not just delight in you at the culmination of your sanctification. God delights in you right now. He invites you to agree with him; where he has you in this process is good. This provides the emotional stability and security to engage an unhealthy relationship with food.With that as our starting point, let’s ask the question, “What does it look like to continue to follow God from here?” Chances are that you’ve put so much energy into getting “here” that it is not entirely clear how to prepar

As you reach this chapter the momentum of change has probably already fluctuated several times. Getting started was hard. It felt like an uphill battle. Old patterns of life didn’t want to let go of you and you didn’t want to admit they had a hold on you. Changing your eating patterns can feel like betraying a friend; breakups are never easy even when they’re good and needed.But honesty with self, others, and God has a great way of building momentum. You began to let go of the weights of sin that clung to you so you could run free (Heb. 12:1). This second phase is almost always exciting. When there are so many ways that your relationship with food can be healthier, it can bring a great sense of hope and progress.In the third phase, the one we’re starting now, life restructuring may begin to feel more like work again. “Implementation” is not an exciting word or process. Lasting change happens in incremental units and mundane moments. Change begins to impact moments that feel “less relevant” to your battle with

This is probably the chapter you were looking for when you started this study. Thank you for your patience and perseverance in getting to this point. The foundation you’ve laid will help to ensure that your current efforts towards establishing a healthy relationship with food do not meet the same fate as previous well-intended efforts.You’ve probably known that in order to be a better steward of your body you needed more than food facts and an exercise plan. You needed to understand how you were misusing food for purposes food could never fulfill. You also needed to allow God and others to play the vital role in change that God designed them to do.Now you’ve done those things. That means that practical advisements on meal plans, approaches to exercise, and other life management changes have the opportunity to become healthy lifestyles. No longer are these plans your “savior.” No longer are you merely mustering will power. No longer are you striving to make yourself acceptable to God and others through your ap

You will only be as free as you are honest. Privacy kills change and fuels sin. Transparency kills sin and fuels change. Chances are this step may scare you as much as any step you have taken since the first one. But remember it is not nearly as scary to move forward as it is dangerous to go backward. Don’t allow fear to make you forgetful.When you are tempted to think, “This is not worth it. Too much is being asked of me. Why do I need to confess my struggle to others?” remind yourself of these things. Our tendency has been to face difficult situations with indulging in food or punishing ourselves with restriction. That can no longer be our life pattern. Now we will face hardship by being honest with others. Confession serves two functions:Acknowledging how we’ve harmed relationships and making amendsInviting people to become a more informed part of our support networkConfession is what invites other people into our lives and points out to them where they can help. Confession is how we acknowledge our weakne

Should we really say, “God I am sorry my food portions were not ideal (either too large or too small)?” After all, haven’t we established that God does not have an ideal body type? Doesn’t the idea of repenting for a bad relationship with food wreak of legalism? Aren’t we getting dangerously close to holding ourselves to the standard of some fictitious “heavenly meal plan”?These questions push us to ask, “For what are you repenting?” As we will see, the most important part of repentance is never the behavior that made repentance necessary. When we focus on behavior we will inevitably make some kooky legal code that is supposed to please God. We, then, either become a slave to the code or become repulsed by the code; either way, our focus fixates on the code more than God. We repent for the way our sin replaces or misrepresents God. When we sin, we either believe we have found something more satisfying than God (replacement) or we believe God has become unreasonable / out-dated (misrepresentation). So while re

If only we could say that we eat because we’re hungry, and we stop when our hunger is satiated. But does anyone really eat that way? We eat for comfort. We abstain because of fear. We eat to socialize. We abstain to be liked. We eat to be entertained. We abstain to punish ourselves. With the briefest of reflections, we quickly realize we have a very complex and elaborate relationship with food. This complex relationship with food starts very young; actually, from infancy. Food is used to get a child to stop crying. Food is used as a reward (extra dessert) and a punishment (no dessert). When you ate all the food on your plate, you were a “big boy” or “big girl,” but you couldn’t get up from the table until you ate at least five more bites of your vegetables.Food has always been more than fuel. We learn to use food for many reasons long before we had the ability to reason. We see in this statement the two realities we will explore in this step: (1) our disordered eating has a history and (2) our disordered eati

Thank you for continuing on this journey. It takes courage to persevere in something that is difficult. You are to be commended for completing step one and beginning step two. In this step we will examine breadth and impact of our unhealthy relationship with food. In step one, we named our struggle, now we will examine it.It may be strange to realize that we all learned to start using food as both a self-soothing and punitive instrument as infants. Food is a primary tool in every parent’s motivational and disciplinary strategy. “The baby is crying. Maybe she’s hungry. Give her a bottle… If you don’t quit pitching a fit you won’t get any desert… You were so good you can have we’ll have your favorite dinner tonight.” These things are not bad. They just reveal how we’ve related to food since before we knew words. “You began life with normal eating habits: You ate when you are hungry and didn't eat when you were full. But in a weight conscious world, where food is used for comfort, you take small steps and ‘norma

What is your goal for this study? We’ll discuss several self-defeating goals a bit later in this study, but for now let’s consider what a good, sustainable goal would be for this study:To develop and sustain a satisfying lifestyleThat seeks to honor God by being a good steward of the particular body He gave youBy relating to food in a healthy wayAnd recognizing that God gave us food to be enjoyable fuel“We need a new relationship with food altogether, seeing it as an aspect of life but not the reason for life. While food ultimately is fuel for our physical vessel, it is also something we accept as a pleasurable and good gift from God. There is evidence of his care for us and that his provision of food goes beyond necessity to include aspects of his generosity and kindness (p. 53).” Gary Thomas in Every Body Matters: Strengthening Your Body to Strengthen Your SoulNotice that in this approach we do not use numbers – ideal weight, desired pant size, pounds to lose-gain per month, etc… We simply want to be a good

It would be easy to want this study, like this season of your life, to just be over. But this study, like your life, has least one more chapter (and several appendices) left. When you put a great deal of effort, as you undoubtedly have, into getting past something, it can be easy to forget that there is something next. The fact that God has brought you to this point should be evidence enough that He has more in store for you and more to do through you. In Step 9 you will be doing most of the writing, because it is your life that is being stewarded for the glory of God. No one else could write this chapter but you. What you will be given is nine questions that walk you through a life assessment to determine where God wants you to serve now and where He may want to prepare you to serve in the future.As you read through and answer the next nine questions below, remember God’s patience and timing. There will be some aspects of God’s design that you can engage in immediately. But there may also be ways you want to

At this stage in the journey it can feel like scary relief not to be actively dealing with a problem or to be constantly taming powerful emotions. After a season being perpetually “on” guard, “on” the lookout, and having to be “on” top of things, it can be unsettling to be able to be “off.” That is what you should begin to experience more and more of in this step; becoming comfortable getting to be “off” again. Until we are comfortable being “off” duty, we are living in the hyper-vigilant effects of our spouse’s sin. Hyper-vigilance is a common response to a majorly disruptive event like the betrayal of a spouse. In this step we will look at three things. Indicators of a New Normal – These items are indicators that your personal recovery and marital restoration (if possible) are nearing a healthy resolution. Remember the conclusion of marital restoration is the beginning of marital enrichment.Piecing Together Your New Story – This is the final step in the narrative portion of personal recovery. While your emo

To this point we have emphasized knowing facts, understanding impact, and processing well over “doing.” A spouse’s sexual sin creates a context of grief and trauma. These affects are often overlooked in the name of “figuring out what to do.” When this happens the offended spouse is left feeling like no one “gets it” and as if all actions are only Band-Aid fixes, moral manipulation, or shifting responsibility. Hopefully the road we have traveled has alleviated the fear of this step.But in this step, we will begin to focus upon responding. Grieving losses and processing trauma would be incomplete without direction for the future. Step 7 will primarily assume that your spouse has been cooperative with their role in the restoration process outlined here and in False Love. However, even if your spouse is uncooperative, Step 7 is still applicable, although it would be applied in your personal journey towards healthy rather than a marital journey towards restoration.It is possible that as you read through this step,

There is another step to take in your personal recovery before your focus shifts primarily towards the possibility of marital restoration (if desired and possible). By this point, the line between personal and marital restoration may feel blurred as one leads more naturally to the other. As you read this chapter, it is important to emphasize again that you are not looking for the “explanation of” or “way to make sense of” your spouse’s sin. Sin is illogical. Trying to make sense of it will keep you locked in pain and confusion. What you are seeking in this chapter is to regain a sense of meaning for life that can include both the wrong that was done while also providing hope and direction for the future. For five steps we have examined how your life has been disrupted. We have looked at pain, history, and consequences as if they were pieces to a puzzle. We have sorted the pieces to understand them better. We have looked at how you are prone to put the pieces together in destructive ways. We have mourned that

Unpacking your suffering story was painful and exhausting. The temptation is now to want to whatever is “next” just to get you away from the pain. God is more gracious than to drive you that hard and that fast. God wants to care for you as a person and that involves knowing when you need rest and comfort more than “progress.” This is one of those times. Mourning is how we find rest in the midst of something painful and sad without living in denial or surrendering to cynicism. Having identified the destructive themes of your suffering story, you can now mourn the various losses associated with your spouse’s sin without reinforcing those lies. Until we articulate our suffering story as false or distorted, we would be prone to meditate upon our suffering story instead of mourning our true losses in a healthy, God-honoring way. Mourning does not mean hope has died. Confusion on this point is often why couples resist this step in their personal and marital recovery process. Mourning is a time of emotional transiti

Medical professionals who work in the area of chronic pain often differentiate between pain and suffering. Pain is the physical experience (i.e., a pinched nerve) that travels from nerve to nerve and registers in the brain. Pain can be treated medically. Suffering, however, is the sense of hopelessness or despair that attaches to pain. It does not travel via nerve endings, but is part of our immaterial mind (not our physical brain). Hence there is no medical treatment for suffering. That is a work done in the soul not the body.As we look at the suffering story which you use to make sense of your experience, we are examining suffering (i.e., the meaning you have given to your experience) rather than pain (i.e., the act of betrayal or how you learned of it). As in chronic pain, both pain and the suffering are real and should be treated. In Steps 4-6 we will treat the suffering. As your spouse works through False Love and in chapters Steps 7-8 of True Betrayal we will treat the pain of your experience.You might

It is one thing to experience the impact of your suffering; it is another thing to understand the impact of your suffering. You have been experiencing the impact full force since the revelation of your spouse’s sexual sin and (likely) even before discovery you were wrestling to make sense of its impact without the central piece to the puzzle. In this chapter, we will begin to understand the connection between what happened and the changes in your life, emotions, and relationships.In this chapter we will look at three subjects. Factors that Increase ImpactThe Impact on YouThe Impact on the MarriageAs you go through this chapter you need to have realistic expectations for yourself. Gaining a better understanding of chaos does not make it orderly. At first what you read may simultaneously make sense – providing a degree of relief – and make no sense at all – leaving you feeling more overwhelmed. That might tempt you to think that you failed or that the effort is pointless. This simply means that within a storm n

Chances are your imagination has been running wild. When we don’t know the facts about a bad situation, we have a tendency to fill in the blank with the worst possible details. More painful still, our imaginations have the capacity to create more possibilities than could have really happened, but because we don’t know the truth we emotionally react as if every hypothetical were the reality.During this time of “acknowledging the specific history and realness of your suffering,” you will likely begin making sense of things that have seemed out of place for a long time. As this happens, remain humble towards your interpretations. Each interpretation will be influenced by the limited information you have and the intense personalizations that come with sexual betrayal.“The one cheated on often knows something is not quite right but can’t put a finger on it. The one in the affair is often oblivious to the changes taking place: the different behavior patterns, the irritability or indifference towards the mate and th

You were not ready for this… and you should not have to be. Being ready would have meant living in fear, resentment, or numbed denial. Being caught off guard and overwhelmed is the best possible and healthiest response to sexual sin by your spouse. That doesn’t lessen your pain but it should help alleviate some of the sense of shame and failure you may feel.In these early stages, you do not know if you know the whole truth and you don’t know how to discern when you will have learned everything you need to learn (or even how to discern what you do and don’t need/want to know). That is an incredibly disorienting position to be in. It’s like being spun around 20 times, given a broken compass, and told to run North as if your life depended on it. At this stage in the process, sexual sin is being used as a broad term, encompassing pornography, emotional affairs, and adultery. Some distinctions between these will begin to be made in Step 2. Right now you do not yet confidently know that your spouse has been complet

If the law of God can be summarized in a positive command, then we must end this study talking about how to “run to” God rather than merely how to “run from” sin. Life is not about what we avoid, but what we pursue. How we run to God’s design for our life finds a unique expression in each person’s life. For this reason, you will do most of the writing in this chapter. It is your life that is being stewarded for God’s glory. The goal is that you would find things that you could give yourself to more passionately than you once gave yourself to your lust. But not just temporal, slightly healthier things that would quickly become the next edition of ruling desires; and not things that you give yourself to in private so that they foster selfishness and excess. Rather, eternally significant things that you give yourself to in a community of faith to maintain endurance, temper desire excess, and become an example to others.As you read through and answer these nine questions, remember God’s patience and timing. There

Take a deep breath. You’re probably thinking, “I’m ready to be done with this study.” If you’re at Step 8, you have come a long way. You have made many sacrifices and opened your life to many more people than you ever thought you would. Hopefully, you are experiencing the restorative forgiveness of God in ways that are incredibly refreshing. Let me ask you this question, “What does it look like to continue to follow God from here?” Chances are that you’ve put so much energy into getting “here” that it is not entirely clear how to prepare yourself for life after focusing on change. What do you do when your life is not focused on overcoming a life-dominating struggle? That is the topic of this step and the next.In this chapter we will look at post-temptation temptations—those temptations that arise when we’re doing “better.” Finish the journey you’ve started in a way that honors what God has done in your life to this point. In order to help you finish strong, we will look at three subjects for this stage in you