He Gave Me a Knife

I have been going to LDS Family Services to obtain counseling lately. It has been a great help to me in understanding what I really am working with as a lust addict. I won't go into great detail about it, but I will talk about one thing. My therapist suggested that I think of a symbol to replace porn with. Every time I'm tempted to act out my addiction, I should think of the symbol. Many addicts think of a bottle of poison, a gun, or something like that to remind themselves of the danger of their addiction.

To me, none of these images were powerful or effective. It is better to die than to sin, so poison and guns aren't the solution. I spoke with my wife about an effective symbol, and together we came up with more of a story that illustrates the danger of addiction.

Because addiction is something humans develop as a method for coping with negative emotions, we are seeking a medicine for wounds.  Let's say that wound is depression.

We are alone in a room, and our wound is open and the pain is real. We want some way to get rid of the wounds. We're so focused on our pain; the room we're in becomes dark and we can't see. Someone comes to us in the darkness, but we don't see him there. We don't know he's there. He whispers in our ears so quietly that we don't realize it isn't our own minds making suggestions. He whispers, "Here, take this tool, cut out your pain with it." He puts a knife in our hands. We are feeling completely focused on our own pain, and we can't think logically anymore. We take the knife, and we start stabbing into our wounds with it. When we've had enough, we put the knife down and begin to bleed all over the place. We wonder what we've done and why we've been so stupid.

Eventually, we are desperate for help. We recognize we're killing ourselves. Then we hear footsteps outside of the room.  Someone is coming. Maybe they could help. But that voice whispers in our ears again. "Quick! Hide your wounds! Someone will see how stupid you've been to stab your wounds with that knife!" We are so embarrassed. No one will help us. They'll see how stupid we've been and think that we are intentionally killing ourselves. They will berate us, reject us, and it will be worse than if we just died on our own.

We roll over to hide the blood.

We repeat this process over and over, until there is so much blood that we can't hide it. Against our wills, our loved ones begin to see there is something horribly wrong with us. But that voice always comes in the dark, and that hand always gives us the knife, and our wounds are too big and complicated for us to know what to do with them. We need a true healer.

We need the Master Healer.

That is the story. Of course the dark room represents our blind isolation, which is a huge part of addiction. The unseen man with the voice and the knife is Satan, our greatest enemy.

Yesterday, he handed me a knife. I'm so tired of that knife. But I used it because I'm so used to using it as my attempt at healing wounds. It needs to stop. It is such a stupid thing to do.