Addiction Recovery Program Conference

I had the great privilege of attending an addiction recovery program mini-conference in my area today. It was from 9-1, and the presenters were so great- the ones I attended anyway. Also, I had the pretty great opportunity to be a presenter!

When I was asked, I thought it was a pretty crazy idea because after 4.5 years in the Addiction Recovery Program, I haven't even finished the 12 steps. I'm on step 11. Also, I thought it was pretty crazy because I'm not recovered. I mean, my last slip was just a few weeks ago (although, guess what- have I said this recently?- the last time I looked at visual pornography was in February, YEAH!). What could I possibly offer to a bunch of addicts and their families when I wasn't any better than any of them?

Not much, to be frank. All I could offer was my story. And that's what I offered. And it was enough.

As I was practicing, I realized that my story is very long and very complicated, and all of it is important, but I couldn't fit all of it in 40 minutes. I asked Heavenly Father for help to choose which elements were most important to share for today, and I trusted the Spirit as I omitted and added and evolved what I would share. I wanted to focus my remarks on The Rescue- how my Savior has invested so much in my rescue, and how He is always out to rescue me, at any given moment. Oh how deep is my gratitude! I still forget how important I am to Him, but those moments of forgetting are becoming fewer and farther between. Progress, and progress is the name of the game.

Because I feel like I should, I want to share something one of the presenters shared. His name is Jason Hunt, and he's a professor at BYU-Idaho as I understand it, and he has studied and researched addiction from a scientific standpoint, so he has a lot of knowledge about it. Anyway, his entire presentation was amazing and taught me so much, but what I wish to share is this: He talked about the difference between recovering from an addiction to pornography and an addiction to cigarettes. He said that we aren't as encouraging in the Church, culturally, to pornography addicts. He gave an example of a cigarette addict who goes from smoking four cigarettes a day down to three, and how encouraging we would be for that addict, and we'd be like "way to go! Keep it up!" and then maybe the addict might smoke only two the next day, and everyone would celebrate. AND, if that addict smoked 3 again after only smoking 2 for a few consecutive days, we might be like, "hey, that's alright, keep trying, you'll get there." On the other hand, if a pornography addict who normally looks at porn for 4 hours a day says "I only looked at porn for 3 hours today," we ask what is wrong with them, how horrible, and we are not as encouraging at the progress.

I am so blessed to have a bishop who always always always looks at my progress, and when I'm discouraged with how long it's taken me to become free (because I'm trying to free myself rather than surrendering my heart to Jesus), he reminds me, with so much love, that I've come so far, and that I'm doing great things. What a blessing it is to have an advocate like that. I have many friends who are advocates like that, and I thank you all. Let us all be advocates like that!

What a blessing it is to know recovery, to know Jesus, and to have full access to the most joy and truth that can be found in this world. What a blessing it was to have attended this wonderful workshop, and to have been a part of it.