i tend to only bear my heart on matters of addiction when i'm feeling on top of things. when i think i've finally claimed this thing called freedom. i don't like to talk about it when i've spiraled down to a point of depression, of almost giving up on ever being on the other side of these bars, when it seems Satan has swallowed the key to my cage.
but the ugly side of addiction and the aspiring recovery process should be exposed too. because as it is, i am in the grieving period again, and to pretend everything is okay is to deny the brutal truths of sin.
it's like this:
trying to rewrite the devil's language into a tongue that includes the vocabulary sin and clear conscience.
it's seeking protection from the very thing that breaks me.
tracing the lines in my mind of the thing i want so bad, all the while blinking my eyes so quickly in hopes of wiping that desire from memory.
it's knowing that my very thoughts are evil, my motives putrid, but they can do no hiding from the Holy of Holies.
it deprives me of sleep.
it haunts my brain.
it plagues my body.
it lays bricks to the wall i've made up between me and God.
it's jumping into the shower, knowing i'm not going to come out clean, no matter how hard i scrub my body.
it's waking up and knowing the remorse carries over from night to day; i can't sleep it off.
it's the doubt that hounds me when i am all the more uncertain that God wants anything to do with me right now.
everything inside of me wants it, and once that is determined, i have become a rabid, hollow-eyed creature that will do anything to get it.
what is this freedom you speak of?
for eleven long years freedom has always been that dream i swear i've finally grasped only for it to slip through my fingers again. i honestly don't know what freedom looks like. all i know is it can't look like this -- where it takes three months to climb out of a hole and breathe clean air, but only three hours to fall right back down to the bottom.
even a Taylor Swift song can describe it:
"i knew you were trouble when you walked in. so shame on me now. you flew me to places i'd never been until you put me down. i knew you were trouble when you walked in, so shame on me now - flew me to places i'd never been. now i'm lying on the cold hard ground."
an exact description of addiction. relapses occur because it means returning to something familiar yet with the potential to experience something new and exciting each time. but at the end of it, you're let down, and emptier than ever. it's binding.
for a more literary reference, it's also like Frodo:
"i am naked in the dark, and there is no veil between me and the wheel of fire. i begin to see it even with my waking eyes, and all else fades."
the feeling of the Accuser setting his eyes on me, what's left of his hold on me pulling down on my neck, such a heavy burden.
but i so badly want to get up and be restored! could i keep my head above the water long enough this time to see that His hand is still there, outstretched to me? and if i cannot, let it be that He would come in and save me.
She will chase after her lovers but not catch them; she will look for them but not find them. Then she will say, "I will go back to my husband as at first, for then I was better off than now."
(Hosea 2:7)
I know this language of yours; I used to speak it so well. A fire meant to be pure is not the fire of Hell. Your time's up now. That's enough now. Shut up, get out! Truth called you out.
(Flyleaf)
"If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it."
--God (Genesis 4:7)
Romans 7:15-25.
