You Can’t Heal Without Relationships

Most of my clients understand that relationships are a contributing factor to how they started struggling with addiction. They know that they chose to cultivate a connection with their affair partner. They also know that previous negative relational encounters whether with family, friends, or others contributed to their struggle with porn/sex addiction. Sadly, there are times when they cut themselves off from all relationships, but that usually makes the struggle worse. If relationships played a role in cultivating the struggle, then why can’t they lead to your healing?

Relationships Lead to Healing

When Jesus ascended into heaven, he left behind a community. He knew that no single person could do it all on their own and therefore he left the church (the community) to walk alongside each other. This is why all the epistles were to be read out loud to the community. Every single client who is growing or who has healed from this issue always has one thing in common: Deep relationships. I can’t tell you how many guys I have heard who say they feel like they are known for the first time in their life. I can’t envision where my life would be without deep friendships that challenged, encouraged, and supported me in my journey. Whether in their marriage, friendships, or family, we all long to be fully known and fully loved. Strugglers with addiction get used to hiding parts of themselves and so they must die to themselves and share their full selves with others. Sure, you need to find trustworthy people to share yourself with, but sometimes you need to give people an opportunity to display trustworthiness. So will you seek to find deep relationships or will you try to Lone Ranger your way out of the struggle? My clients who do the latter usually make it worse.

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Schedule a call with Clifton to begin your journey in finding deeper relationships.