FOOD FOR THOUGHT

by Richard K., SCA-San Luis Obispo, CA

Faith and trust

Faith... Trust... What a difficult time many of us have with those words, or, more particularly, with the feelings behind them. Somewhere along the line, we lost faith in God, or in that deity we were told amounted to God. After all, He did seem to be away on vacation or out to coffee just when we needed Him most. And we tired of feeling that when things went wrong, or when we got sick or got fired from our job, that it was God punishing us for acting out our addiction or some other "sin."

And we lost faith in many of those around us. Some of them abused us in our early years... sexually, maybe... emotionally, certainly... physically, sometimes. So it wasn't difficult to just say to hell with everyone and pull into our shell and isolate. At least no one would hurt us that way... or so we thought. But it was so lonely living that way. So lonely!

Somehow, as a result of all this loss of faith in God and others, we also lost faith in ourselves. We felt shameful about who and what we were. And we did things which were harmful to us physically and emotionally and spiritually... things we seemed to have very little control over. Many of us put our entire lives and souls into showing others that we were PERFORMERS, by golly, and we wore ourselves out proving it. And, at the same time, we couldn't even trust ourselves to take care of our own needs in the smallest of ways. We came to feel that we just weren't worth it.

Then something happened. Some call it hitting bottom, and that's as good a description as any. Something happened -- maybe traumatic, like an arrest or a serious illness; or something subtle like a tiny realization that this just wasn't the way we were intended to be -- and whatever that something was, it started us on a new path. Through our Program and meetings and the new friendships we formed, we started realizing that we were worthwhile as divine creations just as we were. The feeling that we were crud on the ground gradually began leaving us, to be replaced by a realization of our perfection and goodness in the Universe.

And we started realizing that those around us were divine creations living as beings in the Universe as well, and, even though some of them might have rankled us a bit now and then, they were who and what they were, and that was just fine. If we seemed at cross purposes with some, we became able to detach and bless them with love and let them go. But, for the most part, we began to build a trust in those around us, and accepted their support without those old feelings of "what are they after from me?" or "are they going to end up hurting or abandoning me?" And -- surprise, surprise -- we began to realize that there is a Higher Power who put everything together and keeps things going. We came to know that this Higher Power -- some of us even called It God -- was an inner Presence which was always with us no matter how much we might try, now and then, to turn away from It. We began to know that this Higher Power didn't punish us for what we did; that It was loving and all-forgiving. It did set up the laws of the Universe that took care of things, and if we lived our lives according to them, we were fine. If we didn't, we created our own hell of sorts, but we always knew that we had unending chances to straighten up and do the things that were right for us. And our Higher Power was always there to guide us along the way; all we had to do was shut up and be still and listen.

There are situations and people and things which we don't understand at all. Why do these things happen to us? Well, we begin to realize that maybe we aren't meant to understand EVERYTHING, and we began to accept that whatever happened was meant to happen and to be thankful for that. We were building FAITH and TRUST in the way things work. And we realized that we needed that in order to survive and prosper and live...


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