If you are in the habit of leaving your house occasionally, you have probably encountered a bumper sticker that says, “This Too Shall Pass.” Whether you know it or not, the owner of the vehicle bearing that message probably belongs to Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, or one of the dozens of other 12-step fellowships that together make up what Dr. Dale Ryan of Fuller Theological Seminary has called “the largest explicitly spiritual popular culture movement in America since the Second Great Awakening.”
I started noticing the cryptic four-word message long before I understood its significance. For years I dismissed it as nothing more than a platitude, the philosophical equivalent of “%&#@ Happens” or “Have a Nice Day.” Preoccupied with my personal ambitions, I was unaware that “This Too Shall Pass” would become a cornerstone of my own recovery from a secret and very shameful addiction.
Sex Will Not Solve Your Problems
For decades I battled urges I could neither control nor comprehend, repeatedly engaging in illicit sexual behavior through pornography and, eventually, prostitutes. Seasons of abstinence, of which there were few, always came to an abrupt end. My best intentions and most solemn promises would suddenly and unexpectedly evaporate. Even profound spiritual experiences could not end my cyclical insanity for very long.
What I did not understand at the time was that I was using sex to deal with the difficulties of daily life. When I felt insecure, sex offered a fleeting feeling of reassurance. When I was overwhelmed by a challenge at home or at work, sex was an escape. When I was angry or sad or hurt or afraid, sex served as both an anesthetic and a distraction, a way to dissociate from unpleasant feelings.
Sex never really solved any of my problems, of course — my way of misusing it actually made things worse—but it was always my favorite solution anyway. I tried other solutions, too, including manipulation, denial, and control. What I did not possess at the time was the ability to accept life on life’s terms, to face situations realistically, to wait patiently and act honorably while leaving the outcome in God’s hands.
Sex never really solved any of my problems, of course—my way of misusing it actually made things worse—but it was always my favorite solution anyway.
Moreover, the hollow comforts of false intimacy came at a very high price. Because I preferred to live in an imaginary world where I held the remote control, I was rarely fully present in my real life. My emotional absence made true intimacy impossible. Rather than curing my loneliness, illicit sex actually carried me farther and farther away from true connection, away from love. As the 12-steppers would describe it, “Lust killed love.”
Learn to live In A World Of What Is
Not until I found my way into the rooms of recovery did the simple bumper-sticker slogan start to make sense. In those rooms, men with stories, much like mine, told me that I had only been fooling myself. My fantasies had never actually improved upon reality, and my efforts to master my emotions and control events had been more than futile; they had been unnecessary because everything is always changing anyway. Feelings come and go. Good times don’t last forever, and bad times don’t either. Rather than wasting my time running from reality or trying to control the uncontrollable, I could learn to “live in the world of what is,” the only place where love is truly possible.
Rather than wasting my time running from reality or trying to control the uncontrollable, I could learn to “live in the world of what is,” the only place where love is truly possible.
I am grateful to have been taught that lesson. I’m not saying that I never slip back into old habits—I do—but the turbulence I feel whenever I start trying to manage the unmanageable reminds me again of the wisdom of cultivating acceptance. After all, whatever is happening or whatever I am feeling, this too shall pass.
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